December 9, 2013

Mom,
What up, girl? How you doin? I think you´ll probably send me a letter the moment I leave this internet cafe, so I´ll get it next week haha. But I hope everything is well. Everything is good here. Here are some notes I put in my agenda during the week of things I wanted to tell you guys:

- Yesterday, we were sitting in sacrament meeting, crazy bummed out because we had called and invited and passed by everyone to help them to come to church. And we were sitting there, and not a single one came. Such. A. Bummer. So we were in really bad moods trying to lighten up, and while we were singing the sacrament hymn, we see through the window of the chapel one of the less active members that we are working with, walking toward the chapel. But he has a limp, so he was walking like super slow motion, and because we were so bummed out, seeing him come all slow motion toward the chapel was like the most heroic, dramatic thing ever, it was so awesome haha. It was a movie. My life is a movie.
- I realized this week, that I´m simply happier in the poorer neighborhoods in our area. Like where we live, its like not so ghetto. But off in the boons, there are adobe houses with like an outhouse, and I seriously love it. It´s easy to get discouraged in the city, but out in the subs, I´m so happy. It looks like Nacho Libre out there. I realized that adobe makes me happy. Like it legit just makes me smile when I see it. I wish we lived in an adobe house. Maybe someday.
- Tess, look up the poem called "Day Old Child", and if you can´t find it, email me personally about it and I can get it to you. It applies perfectly to you and Conrad.
- I´m starting to learn how to give my will to the Lord. And it makes itself manifest when our computers here don´t work, and we only get like a half hour of writing time, instead of an hour and a half. You guys know me, I used to FLIP out, like road rage status. But now I´m like super chill and I say to myself, "God, if you don´t want me to write to my family this week, for whatever reason, that´s okay with me. I want what you want." I have a study journal, and on the front it says "My Doctrine and Covenants", because its full of little revelations that I recieve during personal study time, when I study the scriptures. And every day, when I finish reading, I put a "Application In My Life Today" section, and the other day, I wrote in that little section, "Give it all to the Lord, Ryan. Just give every bit of it to the Lord, and hold nothing back."
- I had been thinking about that a lot this last week, because my companion and I had a really awesome conversation while walking. We were talking about how DANG. HARD. it is to serve a mission, and we were talking about why we would have it no other way. We were talking of the blessings that come and will come, and we realized that there is nothing better than a mission. Nothing requires so much faith, and so it´s such a good environment to develop that faith. And therefore, we talked about putting our trust in the Lord, how we´ve both had to do it. And how you can only serve a mission correctly if the Lord´s will is more important to you than yours. Or rather, if your will becomes the Lord´s will.
- When we two tall gringos get on the bus, its the funniest thing to see all the confused faces. "What the heck are you doing here?" is what they seem to say. - My companion got bit by a dog two weeks ago, and we´ve had to go to the hospital, get shots, painfully clean it out, etc. because of the rabies risk...... And it was my fault the dog bit him... We were walking through a pack of calm dogs when I made a "Tssss" sound, and they all got up and attacked my companion....teehee

That´s all for today, I love you all. Stay classy, San Diego.

Elder Wilkinson