White Christmas

Hello and Merry Christmas! White Christmas down here in Macuspana... not because of snow, because I'm the only white dude around here haha. Christmas time is definitely different here, but it's awesome!

This week we had a Christmas activity with the ward and it was great! We had about 60 people show up and a lot of inactives and a couple non members! The way they celebrate Christmas here is a little different and kinda weird. The games were all really weird, but that wasn't the fun part. The piñata. Now, whoever made the idea is a genius, but also an idiot. Those things are the most dangerous weapons on this planet. 3 kids got hit by the piñata and stick within the first 5 minutes and people just laugh and keep playing... who do they think they are haha! The next day at church I was thinking that we would have a lot of people show up, but no, we had 19. That kind of sums up the work here in our area. Maybe if we told them there would be a piñata they would've come. 

Our one "investigator" Sandy owns a little shop where they paint little statues and this week we helped her out. While we were there we met 2 of her friends and taught them a little bit about who we were and what we were doing. They were both pretty interested and I was really happy because the work here has been tough. Later on that night when we returned to the house I asked Elder Oliveira when we are gonna meet with them again and he looked at me and in his very, very broken English said "they like boys"... sooooo yeah our 2 "news" are probably not going to make much progress. 

This week was a slow one not gonna lie. Lots of Spanish and not very many opportunities to teach. This has probably been the toughest week in the mission but I have learned to rely on the Lord a lot. Lots of prayers and studying the scriptures have helped a lot. Grateful for Jesus Christ and the opportunity we have to celebrate his birth. 

Also, I found out that "Montés" means "Wild", so technically Elder Montes and I are brothers haha. 

Love you all!

Elder Wilde

Painting with Sandy

Ward Christmas Party!

Thank you for all of the messages! I loved them!

Best Day Ever!! Thanks for the Dew in my Christmas package!

Transfers

Alrighty, we had transfers this week and I now have a new companion! His name is Elder Oliveira and he is from Brazil soooo he speaks no English... yayyy! I am in the same area so that is good! Not gonna lie, I was a little nervous to have a companion who doesn't speak English but it turns out I know more than I thought. I'm excited to see what this next transfer has to offer!

Earlier this week Elder Brown and I taught a lesson to a man named Juan Carlos. He is technically in the Macuspana area so I don't know why we taught him but we did. Anyways, it was a good lesson and he seemed interested. I was able to share a short testimony at the end and the Spanish just flew out of my mouth and the spirit was super strong so it was a really cool experience. I am hoping that he will progress and eventually be baptized. 

Friday we had a service project for a hermana in our ward and we shoveled dirt... a lot of it. Basically what we did was took dirt from their front yard to the backyard and dumped it on more dirt. Not sure who it was that said "you know what would make this dirt prettier? More dirt!". Kinda felt like a pointless project but we did it anyway. 

Saturday, Elder Brown and Montes were sick so I went on divisions with Elder Lopez and went to the ward activity. While I was there everyone was talking to me and I understood most of it but there were still some doubts with my Spanish. When I got back to the house I said to Brown, "I don't think I can handle a Spanish speaking comp, it is tough". Well sure enough, I now have a comp who doesn't speak any English!

I have only had him as a companion for a couple of hours and I like it so far. I know it is going to be tough at first but I know the Lord will be there for me and will help me along the way. One thing I have learned since being out here is that I can't do anything by myself and I need to rely on the Lord all the time. It is going to be a fun transfer and I am excited to see what happens!

Love you all,

Elder Wilde

Elder Wilde, Elder Brown, and the Lopez-Melo family

Elder Wilde, Elder Brown, and the Lopez-Lopez

Meet my new companion Elder Oliveria

Buzz Me Bro!

Alrighty, this week was slow. Elder Brown was sick almost the entire week and so we didn't do as much as we hoped. We spent a lot of time in the house waiting for him to feel better and so that meant lots of study time for me. On the days that we did go out, we didn't have too much luck. Because it has been hard to find new people to teach, what we try to do is reactivate some less active families. We have been visiting members and becoming close with them so that is great! Every time we go to a members house I share a scripture and my testimony and that has helped my Spanish a lot! 

Now, because this week was really slow, Elder Montes and I decided to have some fun... we both buzzed our heads! I don't know why we did it, but we did! 

With it being the Christmas season, I have thought a lot about Jesus Christ. I mentioned a couple emails ago about the talk in the Liahona about Joy. All we have to remember is Jesus Christ is Joy. Everything we have in our lives that brings us Joy is because of Jesus Christ. I am so grateful for everything Christ did for me!

Also, thank you everyone for the birthday wishes! For my birthday we painted a members house and they gave me some really good tacos for my birthday! Then later that night we had cake and it was a party. Sorry for the short email, not too many cool things this week!

Love you all!

Elder Wilde 

Before

After

This was hilarious!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Knee deep in the water somewhere

Alrighty, I wasn't knee deep in the water, but I did flood our house... oops! Long story short, I was filling up a bucket of water and halfway through, the water shut off in the house. The water was off for about an hour then we decided to go to the store. We get to the store and I say to Brown, "I either turned the water off or all the way up". Well sure enough when we got home, there was water running down the stairs :). On the bright side, our floors have never been so clean before! Nothing got ruined and the other guys didn't care so that's good. It was a fun night not gonna lie. 

We had a 3 week training in Villahermosa this week and it was awesome! I got to see all of the boys from the CCM and I loved it. It was nice to have some people who finally understood my jokes haha! The training was all in Spanish and I actually understood almost all of it, mainly because it was Americans who were speaking the Spanish. There are some great people here and I am grateful for them!

Sandy (one of the ladies we have been teaching) owns a cool little shop where they sell statues and little figurines. After we finished our lesson, she asked us to help her paint some stuff. If you know me, you know that I can't paint to save my life so it was a struggle. The people in the shop already laugh at me for not understanding them, then my painting skills gave them another reason to laugh at me. All I can do is sit there and laugh with them. 

Even though the people here don't celebrate Thanksgiving, I still took a little bit of time to reflect on the things I was grateful for and man was that list long. As I thought about this, I remembered how much the Lord has done for me. A little challenge for everyone this week is to say a meaningful prayer of gratitude. Don't ask for anything, just say what you're grateful for and you will see the blessings. 

Love you all! 

Elder Wilde

(also got my bday package a little early, shoutout mama)

The boys are back! Elder Burr, Elder McMaster, Elder Wilde, Elder Beus

Love these guys!

Birthday package!!

Alligator scripture cases

Whistle while you work! Cleaning up the flood.

Look how clean these floors are!

Steezin'

Well it has officially been 2 months and I'm still loving it! Not too much happened this week. It is still hot and humid, iguanas and lizards are everywhere, and I still don't know how to speak Spanish. (Although it is getting better.)

We have been teaching a few people this week. I think I mentioned last week but one of the families we are teaching is the Bishop's family. We taught a small lesson about the Restoration and The Book of Mormon to them on Friday. They all seemed pretty interested and I think we can keep making progress with them. It helps to have the Bishop involved so he can help remind them about important invitations and events. We are meeting with them again tomorrow!

We have also been teaching a lady named Sandy. She owns a really cool shop where they make these little statues. They're called "choca statues". Anyways, we teach her in her shop and it is awesome. She is super interested and loves having us around, the only problem is we can't get her to come to church. She is the nicest person and loves everything we have to teach, but she values her Sundays and it is tough to get her to church. It will happen though! 

This week we had 2 people come up to us in the street and told us they wanted to hear our message. We taught them a few things and they were interested. Only bad thing is they are in the Macuspana ward and not our ward (Libertad). We helped them with their questions and are hoping they can find their answers in the Book of Mormon. 

I finished the Book of Mormon again this last week and it is still the best book around. I learn something new every time I read it. Every time I have a question or a doubt I receive an answer in the Book of Mormon. I really love Moroni 10:5 and the power it has. "And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things." I think about this scripture every day and I am always sharing it with the people here. I know that through the Holy Ghost you can find the answer to all things. 

That's it for this week, Happy Thanksgiving! Love you all!

Elder Wilde

I've still got it! My companion was telling me how the claw machines are rigged and nobody can win. So I showed him how it was done on my first try. Totally worth the 5 pesos.

There are iguana's everywhere!

Get that corn outta my face!

This week was full of some interesting food... On Wednesday we had a family home evening with one of the families in our ward and she gave us some of that Mexican corn. Nacho Libre makes it look way good and honestly it sucks. They put this sour mayonnaise and this dry cottage cheese on it and it is not very good. Then the next day she pulls the reverse uno card on us and made the best fish I have ever had! Today was definitely the best one... I ate a freaking turtle! It had like no flavor but it was still bomb because I knew I was eating one of the Ninja Turtles. 

The work has been slow. Every time we think we have someone who is interested they drop us so it is kind of discouraging. Well with every bad thing, there is a positive. Today we ate with the Bishop and he told us that nobody in his family is a member and they were being taught by the missionaries before the area closed. We set an appointment with them for this week and I really think that there will be something from this!

Another cool thing happened this week. We were walking around at about 8 at night and we were going to go visit a member that lives in a little sketchier part of town and somehow we got lost even though we knew where he lived. We decided that we would go to another members house that is closer to ours and when we told her we got lost she was happy about it. She told us that we shouldn't go to that area past dark because there was a shooting the night before. So I think there was a reason we got lost... shoutout to Jesus!

My relationship with the Latinos in our house is awesome. I can barely talk with them but we are all best friends. Elder Montes is my favorite person on this planet. I never feel homesick because he is constantly teasing me haha! I decided to play a prank on him this week because why not. He has like 20 pictures of his girlfriend on his wall so I moved them all to my desk and put a picture of me on his wall and said "amor verdadero" (true love). He didn't think it was funny until I gave him the pictures back, then we laughed for a good 10 minutes, I love that dude! 

I am almost done with the Book of Mormon again. I decided I might as well try and read it once a month because that is what I'm on track to do. I read a talk in the Liahona this week by David A. Bednar and in it he talks about the true meaning of Joy. He says how Joy is long lasting happiness and fun is just temporary. As I read in Alma I noticed that Joy was mentioned in a lot of the verses and it is always after the people repent. I don't think that is a coincidence. The Atonement and Jesus Christ are the source of all Joy and I am so grateful for that. I love this gospel so much and am so grateful for it!

Love you all, stay sweet!

Elder Wilde

(If you guys have the chance, read that talk in the Liahona! I promise you won't regret it!)

Me holding the Word of Wisdom pamphlet La Palabra de Sabiduria 

Elder Montes, Elder Wilde, Elder Lopez

Mojarra, deep fried fish. It was really good!

Sorry Raphael. This is the turtle that we ate. They stick the whole turtle in and grill it. Not much flavor, but it wasn't bad.

No Entiendo

No entiendo (I don't understand) has become my favorite phrase, I use it every time someone says something to me. I thought I would for sure be fluent after this week... ha I wish! I have just learned to laugh when they laugh and smile when they say something to me. 

The work here has been a little slow. This area is new so we are still trying to find people to teach. We have been talking with members and asking for referrals and it isn’t working as well as we would like it to be. We have planned to have a family home evening with most of the families in the ward and we are hoping we can get some referrals from them. 

Sunday was the most productive day. We get to church and we talk to the Bishop for a little bit about members and inactives we can visit. After we wrap that conversation up he asked if we could give talks today. Not gonna lie I was really excited for my talk. The members know I can't speak Spanish so I was gonna crack a good joke, earn their love, share my testimony, and sit down. It sounded like the perfect plan. Well, I get up there and say "soy choco" which means I am a native of Tabasco. I got like 2 laughs out of that so shoutout to those people. I continued with my talk and shared Alma 26:12 with them and the spirit was so strong. I closed with my testimony in my broken Spanish and looked around and saw some tears and that made me happy. Not only did I know they could feel the spirit, I knew that they could understand me haha! 

Later on that night we had a family home evening with a hermana in the ward. Our goal is to reactivate her and help her daughter get baptized. We talked about the importance of the Holy Ghost and his role in our lives. Once again I shared my testimony and was able to testify of the greatness of the Holy Ghost. 

One thing I have noticed is that every time I share my testimony I always find the right words to say. I can't have a normal conversation or understand everything that is said, but I have learned to rely on the spirit and be an instrument in the hands of God. I was told  by a few people that my Spanish was nearly perfect in my testimony and I know it is because of the Lord. I am so grateful for the people here and the gospel. 

Love you all, stay sweet!

Elder Wilde 

This is my city! There is supposed to be an S where I am standing, but someone stole it. So the way it looks now is actually how they pronounce it.