November 4, 2013

Mom (and everyone), 
I'll send a picture of my little yellow room so you guys can see. The Lord humbles missionaries the moment they arrive so they won't be stupid haha, so that they realize that they can't serve their mission without Him. I'm glad He does that, and did that for me. Thank you for your letter mom, I'm glad to hear you're all doing well with everything. 

The address I gave you is wrong. The mailing address for packages is:

Misión Bolivia - Santa Cruz
C. Saavedra esq. Cochabamba
Torres CAINCO Piso 7 Of. 1 y 2
Telef. 333-7072 Fax. 222-7074
Casilla de Correo: 2024
Santa Cruz - Bolivia

I hope you didn't send anything already haha. On Saturday, we baptized Jorge Aramayo (Serrano) and yesterday he was confirmed. It was all a very special experience. It's so cool to see people change so drastically. We have an investigator named Edmundo. His family is Jehovah´s Witness, and we have been teaching only him, but his parents are totally okay with it. We taught him about the Restoration, and I honestly thought he was really uninterested for a few reasons that aren't important to say, but when we invited him to church, he said yes, like everyone does. But the weird thing is that he actually came! So he has been assisting the church for like a month, and Mutuals too! We don't even have to remind him to go, he goes on his own. Well we were talking to a teenager in the ward, and he told us that during church one Sunday, he asked Edmundo, "So when is your baptismal date?" Well we hadn't invited him to be baptized yet, so his response was, "I don't have one. But what do I need to do to be baptized?" When we heard that, we were super excited, but we didn't know exactly what to think of it. A couple days later, we stopped by his house to visit him. He answered the door and told us that he didn't have time right then, but we chatted for a few minutes at his door. We asked him if he had any questions about the Book of Mormon, the lesson we taught, or anything he had seen at church. He said, "Yeah, I have a question. What do I have to do to get baptized?" You can imagine our faces at that moment haha, well we told him that its a very important promise we make with God, and that really, all he has to do is learn more about the Church. He said, "Oh ok sounds good, because I wanna get baptized." Imagine the moment!! We were so happy! We hadn't even invited him! (Which we should have, but don't judge me, I´m still being trained) And even more, we have permission from his parents! That is the part we worried about most, but they said it's okay, and we're gonna ask them to sign the permission slip on Tuesday. How great though! During our lessons, you can so tell that he believes. It's amazing to see people accept the Gospel.

That's my story for today. Here are some things I thought of during the  week:

- I was thinking that, if I need too much stuff and am asking for too much, you could have other members of our family send it to me for Christmas too....
- On that note, I would love some Abercrombie and Fitch cologne haha
- I have a question for dad that I would really like a response to:
Dad, what can I do as a missionary to work with the ward and the Bishop more effectively? What do you want from the missionaries in our ward at home? Thanks!
- If you could send me a video (or have someone else send me) The Testaments in English, it would help a lot with proselyting and personal study and contacting ideas. Now that I think of it, send me everything in English and in Spanish haha.
- The weather is wacko here. The other day, we were walking in the heat on a cloudy day, and it started to hail, and the hail was the size of large grapes. And they hit me on the head, legit. And it hurt.
- I don´t know if you knew, but in Spanish, the Sacrament at Church is called The Holy Dinner, La Santa Cena. Pretty interesting.
- It is no longer called "Missionary Work", they changed it to "The Work of Salvation", because this work is not just for missionaries, it's for every member. So there are 15,000,000 missionaries!

I´m gonna send some pictures today! I love you all!

Elder Wilkinson