P-Day is Thursday this week because we are going to the temple that day, so P-Day was moved.
Wow! This week was insane!! This will probably be my biggest email ever.
As you all already know, we had transfers and we knew I was leaving but didn't know where. Monday night we found out I will be going to the Murray 2nd Ward! And my new companion will be Élder Solis! He was born and raised in Miami Florida, but his parents are from Guatemala. His first language is Spanish, and he just finished his training before I came so he has about 3 and a half months in the mission. He is awesome, loves swimming and volleyball, plus he is also a professional dancer. There are also sisters in the ward now as well because the area is huge. What stinks is that they are on bikes and we are in a car because of my ankle. I would love to drive them places if I could, but I can't. They are awesome though! Their names are Hermana Oteo who is from San Diego, but her parents are from Mexico. She is training Hermana Maldonado who was born in Honduras but raised in Georgia. So yeah, the work here is awesome.
Elder Wilkes with his new companion Elder Solis
Elder Wilkes, Elder Solis and the Sister missionaries, Hermanas Oteo and Maldonado
On my last P-Day in Union Fort we went to Brighton! It is in our area so don't worry we weren't breaking rules ;) jaja it was so much fun. Élder Juarez and I went with our DL and his companion. We obviously took pictures so you could know that we actually went. Élder Juarez received a greenie straight from the MTC. He is cool I guess, doesn't know very much Spanish at all but at least he asked Élder Juarez to talk to him solely in Spanish so that is good.
So our church looks like it was a Catholic Church before jaja. It has a bunch of stain glass paintings and as you turn into the church grounds there is one of Jesus Christ and you expect to see a cross on top but there is only a steeple. I felt very weird there at first but eventually got accustomed to it over time. It is a pretty chapel.
So! Thursday night, I "almost died" according to Élder Solis. Our ward mission leader, Edgar Lopez from El Salvador, and his wife of whom I don't remember her name but she is American and doesn't speak Spanish, they have two amazingly cute bunnies. Well, one is cute, the other looks like the bunny Dracula from that one book I forgot the name of. But I let the cute one crawl and climb all over me. Bad mistake. I got allergies like no other. Both of my eyes were firetruck red and it felt like I was breathing out of a couple coffee straws (you know the super skinny red ones?). It was horrible. So we quickly went home, both took a shower because he had bunny hair all over him as well. I also took a couple allergy pills and within the hour I was fine. We just stayed home after that because it was already like 845 at night.
Well, Friday afternoon, we went to go visit one of our investigadoras. Her name is J- and she is from Peru. She came here because her husband was being incredibly abusive to her so she came here to try and get a better life. She is in the routine for a divorce and a few members are helping her. She is actually living with a ward missionary couple so it is perfect for lessons. Anyways, she has been asked about baptism and she nicely denied it saying she didn't think she was ready. She had already been taught the first 3 lessons, and she had a lot of questions that went along perfectly with the Articles of Faith. So we taught her that. I guess I should also mention that our Mission President, President Hillier was able to come to the lesson with us. Anyways, near the end of the lesson I had the impression to ask her to pray about March 18th for a baptism date. So I did, and exactly after I asked, without even giving her time to reply President Hillier came in. He said these words exactly, "No. I know that you already know that this is true. The Spirit is telling me this very moment that you already know everything is true." And she just kind of sat there and nodded her head and said yes! My companion and I just looked at each other with an expression like "What just happened?" It was incredible! The Spirit was ever present with us.
Then, the next morning, on Saturday, we had another lesson with a part-member family (a person from the family is a member but another isn't a member) and we taught her the Plan of Salvation. Anyways, Élder Solis received the impression to ask the baptismal question for the same day and she accepted! It was incredible. Then to make the day even better, I was able to attend the Baptism for the K family! That was a special treat.
But, that same day, we visited a family of members who are awesome to us. I still don't know their names yet lol but they are super supportive to us and the work. Well, we visited them and they looked in the window a little suspiciously and when they saw it was us they calmed down. When we asked them why they were so suspicious they said it was because ICE and the police has been coming around and knocking on people's doors. Apparently they are deporting people without papers and members and investigators alike are super scared. Probably about 30-40% of the members actually have papers and the rest don't. It is a super scary time for the members so we are trying to go around and give our support and share uplifting messages with them.
Then on Sunday we had another lesson with J and she can't attend church because she works from 9 to 3 on Sunday's at a store called Rancho Market with is basically a store for Latinos and I love it. Anyways, we taught her about the Word of Wisdom and it was awesome. She had lots of good questions that we luckily had all the answers to. Well, kind of. There was one that she asked that she already knew the answer to but just asked us because it was what she heard. The question/comment was this, "I heard that Joseph Smith banned tea, and coffee, and wine, and tobacco and all that stuff because he was racist." We honestly didn't know what to say! It shocked us so much because we had never heard that one before! Infact, we kind of laughed a little bit, the members too! Anyways, we confirmed to her that it was indeed revelation from God and not because he was racist, and also shared Alma 26: 33 with her. But, later during the lesson we were talking about baptism and she stopped us and asked us how many more lessons we had for her. When we replied that we had only a couple more lessons for her she said, "Alright then, I would like to get baptized this Sunday if that's okay." Man were we shocked! One of the brothers asked her what had changed and she said that she has been praying a lot and wants to get baptized sooner! It was super awesome.
I had something called pupusas on Monday. They were super good. Basically what they are, are thick tortillas with cheese and meat mixed inside of it. Or, in other words, you can describe it as heaven. We also had a miniature snowball fight on Monday with our DL and his companion.
On Wednesday we had zone conference and it was incredible! So many amazing and wonderful sermons were given. The whole zone sang Fuentes de Mis Bendiciones (Come thou fount of every blessing) and I lead them. It turned out really good! One thing I learned was from Sister Hillier, the President's wife. She said that repenting is like paintballing. No matter how many paintball spots you have they will always come off in the washing machine. Or, in other words, no matter how many sins you have, they can ALWAYS become clean through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
We went to the Salt Lake City Temple today. It was unbelievable. We happened to be in the temple the same time as the prophets and his counselors, the apostles, and the seventies. It was a wonderful spirit to feel.
Conference Center
Salt Lake Temple
Zone and District
I love you all and we will be talking again in 4 days!
“You can change anything you want to change, and you can do it very fast. It is another Satanic sucker punch to believe that it takes years and years and eons of eternity to repent. It takes exactly as long to repent as it takes you to say “I’ll change”—and mean it. Of course there will be problems to work out and restitutions to make. You may well spend—indeed, you had better spend—the rest of your life proving your repentance by its permanence. But change, growth, renewal, and repentance can come for you as instantaneously as it did for Alma and the sons of Mosiah.” -Elder Jeffery R. Holland
-Élder Wilkes
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