Lunch today...20 min ago

Baptism of Alana

Baking Lemon Bars for the baptism

Week 54 August 21, 2010

Hello family how is everyone doing? It sounds like you are all amazing and that you guys had a great week!

BEFORE I START WITH ANYTHING MY P- DAY HAS CHNAGED!! IT’S NOW ON FRIDAY. President decided to give us the entire day to work on Saturday! What a blessing, its such a crucial day to invite everyone to church and stuff! I’m so happy for this so don’t forget everyone!!!

Well this week went by super fast. I don’t even know where it went. We have been working very hard, both in and outside the office and we are seeing the results! If everything goes according to plans we are going to have some baptisms coming up in the future which will be great!

Something crazy happened this week. As you all know Elder Muller isn’t the financial secretary any more, so he was just serving in the area for the mean time training a new missionary that just got here. Then president called him on Monday morning and said pack your bags you and Elder Jones, you both are going to Cruz Alta. so they left at 1 in the morning and then we were surprised when president brought one person here to this area… so two left and one came…

Right now there are three people living in our house me, Elder Felipe and Faccina. Its super, super fun but as you could guess when you have more than two people in the house its super hard to keep all the rules… just the little ones. Like going to bed on time… studying on time… leaving on time… just the little things and it provides a little bit more force every day… which is good I'm liking it… but I think that the others are getting a little bit bothered with me because I'm trying to do everything “right” ha-ha but whatever I don’t really care.

So with our teaching pool… we have a huge teaching pool, which is nice! And yesterday we filled the baptismal font! Ha-ha ya we had a baptism yesterday of a 17 year old girl name Alana which was awesome! She is so ready and will be a great member! She is super funny because she just could not decide out of us who she wanted to baptize her, she’s so sweet she didn’t want to make one of us feel bad ha-ha. People don’t get it that this is the last thing that is important to us! But she was so thrilled to see Elder Faccina who came the other day because then she would not have to make one of us two sad ha-ha.

And the next week and the next week if all goes according to plan we will have a couple more baptisms too. We have made a pretty high goal for these next couple transfers… but with faith anything is possible!

I had a crazy experience this week something that just shows that we have to following our promptings in our heart… so this week we were where knocking on doors and we were excepted by this old lady and we walked in and we saw the son of a man that we are teaching and long story short we taught there and it was great and then we left and I felt like I should call this man Claudio! The dad of the son that I saw at the lesson…. Anyway long story short I thought I should call him but I didn’t do it right in the hour. But we were on our way pretty much running to another appt… with a man name Claudiomir… (I hope everyone is following.) Anyway I was going through my phone and I was going to advise Claudiomir that we were coming and would be a little late but I accidentally called Claudio. That man I thought felt like I needed to call. I noticed that I was calling Claudo and not Claudiomir and so I hung-up but it had already rang about 5 times. And 30 seconds later I get a call back from Claudio…

So Claudio calls me super, super excited for some reason. This guy is a man we have been teaching forever but he isn’t married and he wasn’t able to make the choice to marry or not… but when he calls and the first ting he says…. Elder Wiscomb, what can I do to get the birth certificates. How do we do that.”? He was so excited and so we are going to start another process of marriage next week!

The way that people are touched when they really look to rely on our Heavenly Father to receive the confirmations that all of this is true is so strong! Is something that an individual isn’t able to deny! The gospel is so true, and it does have the power to change and modify the lives of anyone, on a whole different scale! It’s like that quote that says that God doesn’t see us as mortal humans but as the perfect resurrected beings that we are capable of being. After we receive the confirmation that the gospel is true through the Holy Ghost our minds are opened a loosened a little bit more and we can imagine what it would be like, what it would really be like to return and live with our Heavenly Father and our savior Jesus Cristo as perfect resurrected beings, living in eternal happiness!

I’m so grateful for the hand of the Lord in this work! It’s so visible because this truly is the Lord’s gospel and His church! And I'm so grateful to be His servant in this time of my life!

I love you all so much! Always know I'm here for all of you if anyone needs anything!

Loves and kisses!

Elder Wiscomb

D and C 130:20-21

P.S. guess what I'm going to do right now hahahahaha we are going to play paintball!!! I’m so stoked its going to be awesome!!! I can’t wait t o shoot people hahahah love you all!

One year mark tradition of burning a shirt

One year mark tradition of burning a shirt

Father's Day Dinner

Father's Day in Brazil

1 Year Mark!!!

Week 53 August 14, 2010

Hello family! How is everyone doing on this wonderful Saturday! I hope that everything is doing just great, thanks to everyone for all the emails!!

So first of all can your believe that I am on the down slope of my mission. I can’t believe it. My comp, elder Felipe and I were thinking about it the other night because we leave the same day together. That we aren’t going to ever say again! So this week has been a little crazy again… we had the counsel of the leaders here and we also had a huge “emergency transfer” that is what they are called now because we don’t have an established date for transfers… so our house was a huge party house again for some days but now it’s a little bit more calm and president and sister have been traveling again. They are going around training all the leaders of the districts here in the mission field and also the stake presidents. So the office has been filled with work but everything is going pretty smooth a little crazy but smooth at the same time…

This week, as for the work in the field, was a little crazy, well more like weird. To be honest, we were able to find all of these new investigators, but because of our work in the office something this week always came up at the last second, and we had to leave the office a little bit later, and a long story short, we haven’t been able to get that second visit with anyone… it’s so frustrating. We think that we have found a great family and we mark the time for 6, and for example we end up getting there at 6:35 and they are not there. Who knows maybe they never were going to be there or maybe they were there waiting for us at 6 and they thought that we weren’t going to come so they left… I hate being late to appointments… absolutely hate it, and it happened almost every day this week… ahhh…

And besides that, we had to take one day out of the week to do an emergency division because my comp had to go to the hospital with another missionary to pay the fee to do a little mini surgery. So, I went and worked with our assistant Elder Reis for a night. Ya it was awesome and we marked a date in there area but we lost an entire night of working in our area… ya maybe that doesn’t sound like that much, just one night… but its one night in our area that we lost with our investigators… one night really hurts the results of the week. Its super sad. But I have faith that the Lord will help us out with our weekly goals so that we can fulfill them and get some people to the sacrament meeting and on the road to becoming baptized and becoming part of the only true Church of Christ here on Earth.

Other than that, last Sunday here in Brazil was fathers day. It was pretty cool to go to church and to see the little ones come into priesthood meeting and sing to their fathers and stuff it was super cute. And also we got treated to dinner at President and Sister Ribeiros house. It was a blast to sit there and cook with Sister Ribeiro. She is awesome and to talk with president, it was great. What a great treat and I hope that you guys won’t get mad at me… but President and Sister Ribeiro decided to let my comp call his father for fathers day ha-ha which was followed by invitation for me to call you guys. I sat down for a second to think this over for a bit…. as much as a wanted to (oh and I really wanted to ha-ha) I thought that would be way unfair for me to be able to call you guys on just a normal day in the United States when literally no one else in the entire mission was getting that opportunity… so I declined the offer... I also figured that Christmas will come soon enough, which is crazy.

Family! This work, this gospel is sooo important! It’s the only way that we can have the chance to return and live with our Heavenly Father’s kingdom! I have learned this week that we can sit in the front of people and show doctrine to them, the exact doctrine in the Bible that was written by the prophets of old. We can show them the knowledge that we have gained about the true church of Christ, about Christ’s examples and how they were perfect, and should be followed and not changed. We could argue with the people. We could sit there and get mad at them when they try and throw their beliefs at us, but to be honest none of this is the best way to teach… you have to be in tune with the spirit and let Him work through you. Of course, you have to teach the doctrine but it has to be simple and clear… and then after, the only thing left is to share how you know it is true… bearing testimony is the most important part of everything. It’s the time that you give to the spirit to work through you, on the investigators. I am so grateful for the testimony that I have gained here on the mission. Something that I feel can’t ever be challenged won’t ever be changed! It’s something that has created who I am and I'm so grateful for my Heavenly Father who had made these things clear to me and He will make His gospel clear to everyone and anyone who asks!! That is the big part just to ask!

Ah, I have so much I want to say but my time is up!

Family I love you guys all so much thanks for your influence in my life! You are all so special to me I can’t believe that I will never be able to say I will have another August 14th on the mission again… it’s so sad!!! I am so excited for this next year! Ya it’s going by too fast but I just think about it this way!! 364 more days to work with the spirit to changes lives forever!! I’m not going to let one-day slip!!! Love you all sooo much!!! Big hug and kiss to all!

Ecclesiastes 3:14

Love your son, brother, grandson, and missionary

Elder Wiscomb

sippin terdêdê

Week 52 August 7, 2010

Hey family!!! Thanks soo much for all of your emails!! Ah I love them so much but I don’t have much time so I'm gong to get right down to it.

So this week has been a little more calm which has been nice. Once again we have had some people that were transferred because of the coming of the 3 new Americans that arrived here last night. So this week really just consisted of preparing for them…and talking to the AP and SECS in the Porto Alegre north mission. But other than that just getting things organized to take those three to get registered here in Brazil but that’s all about it here in the office.

We have had some fun things actually, we got a chance to leave and lunch with President Ribiero and stuff, and we got to have a special training from him too, yesterday, which was pretty cool. He sat us down and showed us how to do it, and practically said that we need to start teaching and following from preach my gospel. We have always followed it, but we just add some things here and there and also take some things out just to make it more full of doctrine and stuff. But now it’s more simple and more direct, the way it should be. And more focused on the restoration which is something that I agree with!

Other than that, something really funny happened too that made me feel super weird hahaha. Sister Ribeiro has now made a facebook account, hahaha but she has all these moms trying to talk to her in English and me being one of the only Americans in the office she wanted me to translate for her and also to write the people back when she talked… so ya I have know been playing around on facebook on my mission... I'm not going to lie it was super, super weird ha.

So new stuff. The work here in the field is going pretty well. We are finding more people every day, which is nice. We are really enthusiastic about how the work’s going and I hope that things keep on increasing in all aspects.

Something also really, really cool happened this week. Our branch turned into a ward! How cool is that! If feels really cool to have helped this branch finally reach their goal to turn into ward. This has had some affects though. A switch from a branch to a ward means a switch in the leadership and this has hurt some hearts of some recent converts. Our old president of the branch, President Marcos, he is one of the most amazing men that you would ever meet and him not being the leader of this branch has hurt some people but the new bishop, Bishop Marcos is amazing too!

So right now, in our house we have 5 elders… ya its pretty freaking crazy! We have a new elder that got here yesterday elder Jones, and elder Muller, elder Felipe, and elder Foster who has a problem with his knee… so us five in the house… ya its pretty crazy. This should only be for a couple weeks maybe one more month, then they will leave. But I think there will always stay 4 people in the house now and in our area…

One more week in the mission I can’t believe it. By this time next week I will be writing exactly one year in the mission oh man… I am going to be on the down slope… I can’t believe how fast it has gone by.

But anyway I love you all so much!! I hope that everyone is happy and safe!! Love you all with all my heart and you guys have a great week

Love your son, brother, grandson, and missionary

Elder Wiscomb

Baptism of Beatris and Luzia

Week 51, July 31, 2010

Hello family!! How is everyone doing? Before anything, I would like to wish a happy birthday to the big birthday girl that is turning 15 today!!! Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday to Molly, happy birthday to you!

I hope that you have great day and have a great party tonight. Also thanks you all for your email and your photos and everything! I am so happy to hear that all is just great and that you guys had a great trip and that Katie and Elissa took advantage of the house when you guys were gone, ha-ha and that everything is just great! So thanks again! I have so much to talk about so I will just start strait away!

So this week has been such a crazy week. To be honest I don’t even know where to start. So this was the first week in the office with Elder Filipe and it’s been so much fun. I love my new comp he is from São Paulo and he is super, super intelligent and fun, you can just tell. We are going to have a great time together. And do some great work in this area

So this week was also transfer week. What a transfer, oh man hahaha. There were sooo many things that went, not wrong but not according to our plans…. So with the visa of Elder Abrham I had to do so many different things that I haven’t ever done before with the government and I was a little lost, but we figured it all out and now I feel pretty good about registering the new ones coming this next week so that’s nice… we have been running around just because of transfers and this whole visa confusion was one of the last things that I needed but it all turned out ok and he wasn’t imported hahahahaha just messing. But it went well, so that’s nice.

And if I didn’t already have enough on my plate for this week I had a situations with the people who were leaving… the sisters forgot their passports here in Santa Maria…. HOW DO YOU DO THAT?…. Oh man… so they missed their flight in Porto Alegre and I had to figure out to reschedule their planes and find a place for them to stay and stuff and call the airlines and their families oh man it was a big confusion so I was running around doing that too for the entire day on Tuesday.

I’ll just say this, I am sooo happy that this transfer week is over!! Whoop, whoop!!

Besides that, this was also a week that was pretty sad too. Elder Burnham, our AP and my best friend here on the mission, finished his mission. It was probably one of the hardest “goodbyes” I have ever done in my life! I have been fortunate enough to be with him my entire mission. I started with him in Livramento and stayed with him for 5 months there. Then I had a month and a little away from him and then we were here in the office together until the end of the mission. This kid is amazing. I hope that you guys are going to get a chance to meet him. Before he left he said he wanted to pass by and say what up because he is going to Salt Lake I think in two weeks or something. So if you get a call from a Zach Burnham its him ok.

Other than that we had those 3 baptisms. What a great day the 24th was. It was a day that I will never forget. The baptisms were just great but I think that the best part was at the end. After everything seeing Sabrina and Beatris and Luzia those three all hugging in a threesome and crying it was truly something that will never forget!! What a memorable day!

We had elder Abrahm stay will us for a week and then we left, another good friend on the mission and we are going to get 3 more Americans this next Friday so that will be fun but which means a lot more work for me. Which is good I guess ha-ha.

About the area… I don’t know what happened but we had a huge cut in our investigators this last couple weeks and we haven’t had much time to work because of transfers… so when Elder Felipe got here it was practically like starting all over again hahaha. We started with a couple investigators but we had to get out and find more! Which was exactly what we did. We are working really hard and finding good people! So the only thing that we need to do is to continue working and we are going to have some really good success here in this area! I’m super excited!

The mission; what a great opportunity to learn and to grow. Every house we stop by or we clap at is a new memory that I hold onto for the rest of my life… getting shut down or rejected was, and still is one of the hardest things that I have to deal with here on the mission… but ever time this happens, I become more grateful for the knowledge of the gospel and the blessings that I have obtained through the gospel of Christ! Sure, it’s one of the hardest things that I have ever done but you just need to laugh, and know that everything you do is for the benefit of others… this time in our life, ya is ours… but with the service of our fellow men, this is how I gain the force and the happiness to be far from house and from the ones I love…

People always ask me, “wow your from the United States, you’re far away from home. And you are doing this as a volunteer. I bet you are so homesick.” Yes all is true, long away from home that is true. A volunteer, ya that’s true too. But homesick, not really, actually not at all… I love to explain what is our “payment” or “salary” for doing this work. I always say that what we receive is so amazing that it doesn’t have value, in other words it’s priceless, the joy and the happiness that an individual or a family gains through our lesson and coming to know the true church is what makes us missionaries happier than ever. It’s what makes us put on this name tag, that has the name of Christ on it and it what makes us work harder then ever for just two years of my life!! Giving my testimony about this work is one of my most favorite things to do and I’m so grateful for the time that I have to be a missionary and pass through these difficult times, that if looked at in the right way its way more rewarding.

I love you all so much! Thanks for everything! Molly have a great birthday! And you all have a great week and a great day! Until next week!

Love you all!

Your son, brother, grandson and missionary

Elder Wiscomb