July27th, 2014

Família! 

This week was super good! But super cold! hahaha I thought that the cold would never come! It was raining a lot and the temp. was super low! But it was a nice change. It was funny we would go to teach people and they would be all cuddled up in their biggest blankets with just their faces showing. It is pretty funny! For the baptism this week we boiled some water and mixed it in with the water that was in the baptism font. I dont think it made too much of a difference. 

This week we were really focused on how we can better follow the Spirit. We did the usual routine of praying were to knock doors and we did that. When we got to the road we didn't have any luck. But I knew that there was at least someone on that street that would let us in and accept our invitations. When we got to a door we almost just moved on but got that feeling like we should knock anyway. We knocked the door and a woman came to the door. We told her that we were missionaries of the ........ and that we had a message really special that we wanted to share with her. Then she said like what? We talked a little about prophets and apostles.... Then she asked What do I need to be saved? Then we started to teach her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She started getting teary eyed and said that the exact moment we knocked on her door she was praying to God to send her angels to show her the way. We didn't know if we should cry with her or starting screaming in excitement! It was really awesome! She is super smart in the scriptures. She sleeps about 1 hour every day and so she studies A LOT! The good thing is that this is the true Church so there is nothing to hide or to be worry about! With only one week knowing her there is already many awesome stories! 

This sunday all the classes and meetings were perfect for her! She really loved it! The talks were nearly directly toward her! We will put her on date this week! 

This week we will go to the court house to get a family that we are teaching married. Unfortunately it will be 20 days of process time. And all the papers have to be perfect. If any of the documents are hard to read, they have to have someone mail them to them. Its a rough process, but it will all be worth it! 

wow Hawaii.... That is way awesome! hahaha That will be something that he will remember for the rest of his life! He better take a bunch of pictures. Or at least visit the temple or something! That is way awesome for him! hahaha Looks like I will have to chose my friends wisely when I get home! hahaha 

I am always praying for you and I always feel your prayers and strength! I am so grateful to hear that my family is doing so well and so strong. That is really good for a missionary to hear! Keep it up!

One of the greatest commandments to keep is to endure to the end. If we don't endure to the end it doesn't matter how much we did before we fail, because we failed. We didn't finish. If the worlds fastest runner runs a race and is ahead, but just before the finish line they stop, they wont receive recognition for being in the front during the race. They we receive regrets for not finishing in first! 

Thank you for everything! I  love you all! I am so grateful for such wonderful family and friends! 

Love, 

Elder Wild

July 20th

Thats a pretty awesome video! Thanks for sending that! 

This week was super good! We have been doing lots of work and been working with a lot of families that have been coming to church. We are pushing them to get married so that they can be baptized. Every week we have a ton of investigators in the Church, now we just have to work to get all these investigators coming back! 

We have been working with Diane and her family. They are all pretty awesome! I really like going over to their house and teaching. Their daughter was baptized this weekend and it was really awesome. They will be getting married this weekend and they will be able to be baptized shortly after. I am way excited for it! This week we found out why Diane let us in. It is pretty cool. We prayed about where to knock doors and then when we knocked her door I got the prompting to talk super excited and happy! The other day she said that she was super tired that day and she would not of let us in but because I was excited she knew that it was important. It is pretty awesome to see just listen to the spirit on how I should talk made a huge difference. 

The other baptism this week was from a little brother of our recent convert. It was pretty fun teaching him. Everyday we would have to play a game of hide and go seek for him to listen to us. It was not because he didn't want to be taught but because he thought it was funny! hahaha It was a good baptism! The mom is loving the church. She comes every week. She really wants to get baptized. She justs needs to get married first. They have almost 30 years together but it is difficult to convince the husband to get married. 

This week a missionary from the branch came home. It was super cool to see how happy his family was to see him. Everyone in the branch was super excited. There was a big party for him with lots of food, but we were fasting so we didn't eat anything. 

This week the members of Rio Verde will go to temple. Unfortunately we will never have that opportunity to go on the mission.... but they will bring me back some stuff from the visitor center. (garments and other stuff) 

This week was super hot so I bought some sunscreen. It is a bit expensive here but it is probably a tad cheaper than treatment for skin cancer. It is a good motivation to use sunscreen! 

This week I finished the Pearl of Great Price and I will start studying the Old Testament. It is really neat using studying the Bible because it strengthens my testimony on the Church. All the doctrines of the church are in the scriptures. I was reading a part in the old testament the other day and it talked about a sea of water in the tabernacle sitting on top of 12 oxen. Reading the New Testament especially strengthens my testimony on how there really was a Church of Jesus Christ in the days of Christ. The scriptures really are amazing! We can learn so much from them and they can be a solution to all our problems and answers to all our questions. 

Thank you very much for all your prayers and everything that you do for me! 

Love, 

Elder Wild

July 14th, 2014

That is super good to hear about the work in the temple! Keep it up! All the branches here in Rio Verde will go to the temple in 2 weeks. I will probably ask them to bring me back some stuff at the distribution center. It is a lot cheaper here to buy things than to have you send them. For example garments are 1.67 and that in the Real. (50cents) Its pretty cheap! 

The work here is going really good! We have found a few families this week. They have been all helping us gain some more unneeded weight. Every appointement that we have we try to run out the door but they have already premade something for us to eat. One day we ate a meal in every house that we went by. By the end of the day we felt so sick. haha but at least we are getting fed! I hear of some missions that it is hard to be full and they always have hunger. It is a blessing to be serving here. 

This week we had a meeting with the branch president. He is a really awesome guy. He told us the story about rio verde. He was baptized when the church was first starting here. He talked about how he wanted to split off from the center branch to make to Popular Branch, everyone told him that it wouldn't work and that they needed to wait some time. (at the time only had 5 priesthood holders) But they did it anyway and now Popular Branch is the strongest branch in the city with a attendance of 140 with 30 priesthood. It is super possible. If Peter could baptize 3000 in one day, why cant we baptize 80 in almost 3 months? To have miracles, we need to have faith. 

Now the Branch president has a vision of getting us qualified to be a stake so our branch has a goal of 80 baptisms in 2 1/2 months! and a attendance of 200! So these next two months will be running from appointment to appointment to not lose any time. I hope that I will stay here at least till the end of september! This is a really good area. It is super fun! 

It is really cool to see all the people excited to make a stake here. The members are always helping us out and giving references. 

This week there will be a rodeo. It is the 3rd biggest rodeo in Brazil. They have this huge stadium that they built up! We probably wont have the opportunity to attend. But we will probably hear it at night. 

Well I hope things are going well there! I love you all a lot! 

Elder Wild

July 8, 2014

Hey Family! 

Happy 4th! I bet it was pretty fun! Boating fireworks and all that! I wore a red white and blue tie on the 4th. That was about all we did for the fourth but it was still fun to remember!

This week was super good. We have been teaching this guy named Davi. We found him knocking doors. It was one of those doors that we thought well just one more door and then we will call it a night. We knocked on his door and he let us right it. He asked us about our doctrine then we taught him and he accepted to be baptized that day. He went to church and it was all good! He liked Church a lot and wanted to get baptized even more! Just that the day of the baptism interview he went to a friends house and watched a preacher film about Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. He didn't want to be baptized after that. So we had to explain and show in the scriptures all the questions that he had. Before the interview he had a page of questions for us! They were all super hard but..... He got baptized the next day! 

He was super happy after the baptism! 

Also a few weeks ago we found this family that is the process of getting married! They are super awesome and they always make a really good dinner for us! The daughters of the family are these two little girls who are super funny. They were talking to their grandma about the church and invited her. Her grandma said that she already had a religion. Then the daughter asked: `Does your church have missionaries?` the grandma said`Yes`. Then the daughter said `well my missionaries visit me!` hahahaha The family is really neat! She likes to make these flipflops and she wants to make you a pair! She needs to know your shoe size... 

We had transfers this week too... but I will stay another 6 weeks here with Elder Hopkins! I am super excited! We will work pretty good together and teach well together. 

This week I have been studying the conference talks! they are so good! They are also super applicable to other people! We can use the talks for every investigator! 

I really liked the talk about the family History. I also read this week the last section in doctrine and covenants. It talked about the work in the spirit world. Joseph F. Smith talked a lot about how important the temple work is. It is really good to hear that Jenna is doing so much family history. It is something that I want to do when I get home. 

Well I am dying in this lan house right now. It  is about 100 degrees with a bunch of little kids that haven't taken a shower in a few days... so I cant think super well right now! But this week was good! We had a lot of baptisms in the branch this week! It got the members really excited to do work! 

Don't hesitate to have the missionaries come over and teach your neighbor. That is what they were called to do and why they are there! You will be so happy with the work that they will do! They will know exactly what to say too! 

Thank you very much for everything! I love you all very much and I hope that you have a super good week!  

Elder Wild

PS I took this foto at one year! I even wore the tie that I came out with! It was pretty funny to think: one year ago I was on horsetooth rock with andre and george, one year ago I was playing badmitten in the backyard, one year ago I was in the bank waiting for dad to get there, one year ago I was walking away from my family for two years.... It is pretty crazy to think that it has been one year already!