Make Balancán Great Again

Hello there everyone! 

So honestly this week was boring and kind of tough. We started off traveling everywhere because my companion needed to get his green card and then throughout the week when we were back in the area, literally every lesson fell. At the start of the week we had 6 people on date and now we have 0... that hurt. 

I could write this whole email about negatives but I'm not gonna do that because nobody likes negativity. Instead I'll focus on the positives. The last 2 weeks we haven't had any leaders show up to church so I have done the conducting and kind of ran the show, who knows maybe I'm being prepared to be a Bishop haha. Well after sacrament meeting we had Sunday school and nobody came prepared with a lesson so who got to give the lesson? That would be us. We shared a bomb missionary lesson and got the branch pumped about missionary work so that was a huge positive! 

With all of the down time this week I've had the opportunity to study a lot and listen do some good talks. I've also been able to study the Book of Mormon a lot. I love that book. I have been able to reflect on my mission recently and without the Book of Mormon in my life, my life wouldn't be as great as it is. 

That's all I've got for today, love you all!

Elder Wilde 

Last Zone Conference

Hello everyone! 

This week we had a zone conference so we traveled to Villahermosa on Thursday and left on Saturday. Other than that, it was just a normal week. 

Zone conference was so good! It was really weird thinking that it was my last one and honestly it was kind of sad to think that. I was able to share my going away testimony and that was a fun experience. I have learned to love speaking in sacrament meetings and sharing my testimony throughout my mission, but I got a little nervous for this one. I got nervous because I have thought about this my whole mission. I went up and just spoke from the heart and I mainly focused on the conversion I have seen in my mission, whether it be myself or other people. The spirit was super strong and it was fun to experience it with some of the Elders I started my mission with. 

The work here is coming along. We consistently find people but the hard thing is getting people to come to church. This has been my problem for my whole mission and I am hoping I can figure it out these last few weeks haha. We have been doing lots of facebook finding and it has worked pretty well. Basically all we do is search someone's name, for example ¨Juan¨. You would not believe how many Juan's live in Balancán. We add all of them as friends and then send them messages seeing if they want to learn. I would say about 50% answer and out of that we find a few who could be solid. 

To wrap up, I wanted to share a quick testimony about the Priesthood. Saturday night I woke up with the worst stomach pain ever and after about an hour of trying to get rid of it, I woke up my companion to give me a blessing. Him being the nice person he is, got out of bed to do it. Right when he started the blessing I felt the spirit and after he said amen I started feeling a little better. It didn't go away immediately but just enough so I wasn't in too much pain. It was a cool experience and I am grateful for my companion who was worthy to use the priesthood at any given moment. 

Love you all! 

Elder Wilde  

Our first transfer in Mexico

Our last transfer in Mexico

Maestro Wilde

Sup my dudes! 

This week was super weird with transfers and everything and it felt pretty long but here we are and I don't even remember most of the stuff that happened. I'll start off by talking about my new companion. 

His name is Elder Nuffer (new-fur), don't pronounce it like you read it because that's what I did when I first met him and it isn't right haha. He is a super nice kid and we get along great. He is from Rigby, Idaho and is fresh out of the home MTC. It has been fun being with such a new missionary because seeing the culture shock hit someone just like it hit me is entertaining. I have gotten used to living in a house full of spiders and stuff but he is terrified of them! 

The week was good as far as work goes. We were able to find some more people and put a couple more on date but the only problem is nobody ever wants to go to church so that is rough. We have had some solid contacts and believe it or not, I started to work on facebook for the first time in my whole mission. As of now we have had no success but it will come eventually... at least I hope. 

It was a little weird at first adjusting to having a companion who speaks no Spanish but overall I have enjoyed it. Literally all of the stuff that has happened with him happened with me my first couple of weeks in the mission. It has been fun teaching him the language and I am loving his greenie energy straight from the MTC. 

I think the spiritual thought for the week is the power of prayer. Last transfer we weren't the best at praying as a companionship when we left and got back to the house. My goal this transfer has been to do it everyday and so far we have done so. I have noticed that as we pray we find people to teach... who would've thought?? Prayer is such a simple thing that can lead to miracles! 

Love you all! 

Elder Wilde 

Hijo #5

Hello there my friends! 

Had a nice last week of the transfer and got our transfer news... I'll be training for my last transfer so I'm pumped about that! This will be my 5th time training so hopefully I've got it down by now haha. I still don't know who it is and I'll meet him on Wednesday. It's kinda crazy I'm starting my last transfer so I'm ready to get on the grind and finish strong!

So this week we picked up 20 peeps to teach and I'd say about 15 are pretty solid. We were able to go to a rehab place for alcoholics and drug addicts and it was cool to see a bunch of dudes in there who are trying to change their life. We were able to teach from the Book of Mormon and explained the Atonement of Jesus Christ. We explained what Amulek explains of how Christ will come to save us from our sins but not in them. We talked about how we will all sin and Christ won't prevent us from doing it because of our agency. It was cool to see their desires to learn more and change. Overall it was one of my favorite lessons I've been a part of. 

We also put a couple of people on date this week and they are all pretty solid but the tough thing is their families are super catholic and that is usually a challenge. For some reason they just don't like us sometimes and idk why because we are so nice to them. Like they all have a store and sell gross food but I'm Christlike and buy it from them. 

Something I thought about this last week was being an example. Considering I've been training the last 3 transfers I have thought about it a lot. One thing I didn't notice is how much of an impact we make on the people we teach, especially the kids. At church yesterday we talked about as priesthood holders we need to always be examples of Christ because we never know who is watching. It makes me think of Christ himself who was an example to everyone all of the time. 

Love you all! 

Elder Wilde 

Here are some pictures from last weeks visit to Palenque

Wedding Planners

Hello everyone! 

Hope all is well where you are because I'm chillin out here in Balancán! This week wasn't too exciting, literally the only thing we did was planned a wedding... kinda haha. 

So I think I talked about it last email but we are teaching Karen and Jonás and they both are on date to get baptized but before doing that they need to get married so we have been trying to figure that out and I am hoping this week we can get it done because Karen is supposed to get baptized on Saturday. She has wanted to get married for a while but Jonás has some commitment issues and isn't too sure yet so pray that he wants to! 

Today we also went to Palenque and saw the ruins that I've been waiting to see the last 22 months. They were pretty cool not gonna lie. The only sucky thing is we couldn't go inside the temples so that was a bummer but it was fun because we went with the district and had a good time. It was fun to read the different signs and hear the stories of all of the legends about the ruins but we were all like "dudes we have a book that will tell you what really happened". 

This week I listened to a lot of BYU devotionals and I learned a lot. I listened to one about the difference of avoiding temptation and resisting it and that was a great one but the one that I liked the most was called "Quick to Observe" by Elder Bednar and it was so good! I highly recommend listening to it! It talked a little bit about Mormon how he was quick to observe at such a young age and how we need to be the same as him. 

Love you all! 

Elder Wilde  

54 Baptisms! (not clickbait)

What is up everyone! 

It was a fun week out here in Mexico with some cool things. We put a couple people on date, found some cool people to teach, and we went to the temple! It is true that we had 54 baptisms but they were all in the temple but it's still pretty awesome. 

So let's start with the temple. We went on Saturday with a recent convert named Hilsy. She was baptized a couple of months ago and she is pretty solid. She has been wanting to go to the temple for a while and now it is finally in phase 2B down here so we were able to go with her and do some baptisms. The temple is the best and I love it so much. 

The people we put on date this week are pretty sweet. They are a couple who live together, Karen and Jonás. Jonás has a boy named Eduardo who was baptized a couple of months ago and we are planning on having him baptize Karen and Jonás. We still need to help them get married so pray that everything will go smoothly. The best part is when we asked Jonás to get baptized, he said ¨yeah, what time were you thinking?¨ We thought he was for sure gonna be hesitant but he accepted it because he wants the gift of the Holy Ghost. 

We had a lot of other lessons and found some new people. I am getting really excited to work in this area these last couple of months. President told me I won't be leaving the area so I am super pumped to keep working. I am hoping this area will be loaded with work by the time I get home. 

Just to wrap up on a spiritual note. This week I studied about angels. I read the talk "I Believe in Angels" by Carlos A. Gadoy and I loved how he talks about angels being on this side of the veil. A member I met in Arizona told my companion and I that we should introduce ourselves as angels. Usually I would think that is a little weird but this man was a mission president so I trust him. This week I did that. We were talking with Karen and she mentioned how she wants to follow God and she wants to know what is right but she didn't think she had the answer. That's when I remembered the advice from the member so I told her that my companion and I were angels sent to her at this time. I explained how we read in the scriptures so much about angels and how they speak the words of Christ. She was like ¨oh shoot maybe you´re right¨ (not a direct translation haha). Anyway, the moral of the story is angels are real and the church is true. 

Love you all!

Elder Wilde 

Week of Meetings

Hello everybody!

I hope all is well! Not gonna lie this was a pretty boring week as far as lessons and stuff but we had a lot of meetings that I learned a lot in. We had zone conference, interviews with president, and a district conference. 

Because of the covid numbers we had to do interviews and zone conference over zoom which kind of sucked because staring at a screen for 6 hours isn't fun. The good thing about it is there were a lot of things that stuck out to me. We talked about the Book of Mormon. For those who have read my emails the last 22 months know that I love the Book of Mormon so much! We talked about ways to use it and one of the questions was the importance of Moroni 10: 3-5. I look at these verses like a formula. It mentions a few things we need to do. 

Pray in the name of Christ + have faith in Christ + sincere heart + real intent = answer through power of the Holy Ghost. 

Now that is a pretty simple formula I think. I was able to share my thought at the zone conference about real intent and how we need to help those we teach pray with real intent. 

Interviews with president were awesome as always! Not gonna lie it was kind of weird when he kept saying "you go home in a few weeks". We talked about my area and how there are so many inactive members and we made a plan to go knock on all of their doors and invite them to church. After the interview I got pretty pumped and I told president I'm gonna baptize 10 people before I leave haha. 

Honestly there isn't much that happened this week and that's why I don't have any pics (sorry mom I love you). 

Love you all!

Elder Wilde