MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!
Hello family!!! So how is everything doing on this fabulous winter day in Salt Lake City? So first thing first…. MERRY CHRISTMAS! It is hard to believe that we are entering the week of Christmas… it feels about the same as any other week on the mission… and it sure doesn’t feel like I will be talking with you guys here on the phone in about 7 days…. But I am so excited to hear all your voices again and talk to you guys! I hope that everyone has a bunch of questions and you guys are making a big list of stuff you want to know about!!
So this whole week has been a little strange… well to be honest this transfer has been a little strange… so week one in this transfer I found out that I would be training in the office, and that someone else would come and I would be able to leave the office at about 4 in the afternoon and it was a great week… then came week 3….. And we had a problem… a missionary went home and left a threesome in our area so president decided to take the comp that was with me and put him in the area with the threesome and made two companionships there… so this last week I came back to the office again… but the new secretary was needing a little bit more help with figuring out all the stuff here so it might have been a good thing… but during that one week we found some good families and stuff who are progressing and they should be baptized before I leave this area, so that will be a blessing!
This week also we had zone conference were we had one of the most amazing trainings from our president that I have had in the mission! We talked about the atonement of Jesus Christ and how it needs to be the center of our teaching! I learned so much! I feel so grateful for the atonement that was done for all of us! Through the Atonement, I know that our Savior, Jesus Christ, knows each one of us on a personal level!
I have thought through this thoroughly these past couple weeks and days… this is what I come down to...
I’m thinking in Portuguese and I hope it comes down to the same meaning in English….
So in our pre-mortal lives we were presented a plan (the plan of salvation) which our Heavenly Father created for us, so that one day all of us would have a chance to gain a body and have experiences here on Earth, so that one day we could accept God and show Him that we want to return and live with Him one day. In the pre mortal life our Heavenly Father already showed us the plan and what would happen and how it would be. At the beginning of this plan, our Heavenly Father knew that there would have to be a Savior provided and when He said this, the scriptures tell us that 2 people presented themselves to be our Savior. One whose name was Lucifer, and the other one was Jesus. Lucifer said that he would go down and save everyone, but we wanted all the glory of God to be his, for doing this! And Jesus said that we would go down and do the will of God! As we know our Heavenly Father chose Jesus to be our Savior and then there was a big battle in Heaven where 1/3 of our brothers and sisters decided to follow Lucifer and they were cast out of heaven and sent down to hell, never having the chance to return and live with God and have the opportunity we have to obtain a body and experience life here on earth!
So, God started this plan with Adam and Eve and gave them two commandments to not eat of the forbidden fruit and to multiply and replenish the Earth with children. We all knew that they transgressed a law menor to complete a law maior. Or in other world they ate the fruit so that we would have a change to come here, but when they did that they surely would die like the scriptures say. When they ate, two things entered the world the spiritual death and physical death. Which means, that these two things would make it literally imposable to return and live with our Father in Heaven again. But good thing that our Heavenly Father already knew that this was going to happen, which it says in 2 Nephi 25: 24 (if you could read a little bit in 2 Nephi 25!! It’s amazing) anyway back to where I was… the spiritual death and the physical death. Which are our sins and death. That is why our Heavenly Father called Jesus to be our Savior to come here and save us from these two deaths.
Jesus is one of my heroes. Learning and imagining about His life has been such a blessing in my life. Jesus, our Savior, the only perfect human being that lived in the flesh, the only begotten Son of our Father in Heaven, never had it easy. He was born in a very humble situation from Virgin Mary. In a straw manger, He was born along the side of the animals, and who would have thought that someone with such great importance to all humanity would start His life like this. Our Savior lived as the perfect example. The one that we all need to strive to be like, the one we need to follow. He left the example and the path to return and lived with our Heavenly Father.
Our Savior Jesus Christ gave us the perfect example of charity, service, love, patients, and every other attribute. He showed us His Gospel; how there has to be a prophet and twelve apostles and there, in that perfect organizing, their would be the complete truth! He shows that they would have the authority to administer the important ordnance of baptism, and sacrament. I could go on forever but what I really want to talk about is how Jesus is or Savior!
Savior is a strong word and when we think of what Jesus did for us most of the world thinks of the Cross-where he was crucified! Ya that was a super important part of His life, when He died for us, but I prefer to think more of the resurrection, which happened 3 days later! Because of Jesus’ resurrection, He gave us all a present. He made it so the death here on Earth will never be the end. One day every single person will resurrect, its something free that Christ has given all of us.
But something even more important happened the day before Jesus Christ was delivered to the Roman soldiers. And it’s about the event that happen in the Garden of Gethsemane. In that place he suffered a pain that we will never understand. In that place our Savior, He paid for all of our sins. He took upon himself all the sins of the world and gives us the “CHANCE” to be forgiven of our sins. He did everything. Did everything, he suffered so much that he bled from every poor of his body. This was the love that He had and has for everyone here on earth. That is the love that He has for us, his brothers and sisters. He knew that it was His purpose to come to Earth. He had to do that so that He could know us each, individually so that He could help us through our trials and our suffering here on earth!
This is our time to remember Him. To remember or Savior and to remember everything that He has done for us and ask if we are doing everything in our power to show our gratefulness to him. I am so grateful for this relationship that I feel, I have been able to create with my Heavenly Father, and with my brother Jesus Christ. I know that He is always at our side, but most of time it’s us that are far from Him.
I am so grateful for this time in my life to teach about what Jesus Christ did for us. For His sacrifice that He made for us. For Him making it possible for us to return and live with Christ. And most of all I’m so grateful for the chance that I have to help others create a better relationship with our Heavenly Father and our Savior!
Through our wonderful messages that us, the missionaries have, we are able to see that Christ never is far from us. Like I said at the beginning of this message in are pre mortal life we already heard everything that we would need to know to return and live with God. We already knew what were going to have to do when we got here on Earth. But when we got here on Earth we forgot everything. AND THROUGH OUR MESSAGES, WE REALLY AREN’T “TEACHING” WE ARE HELPING THE ONES WE LOVE,”REMEMBER” THE PLAN OF OUR HEAVENLY FAHTER THAT WAS ALREADY SHOWN TO US! That is why sometimes we meet people that the gospel just seams sooo natural to them. Because they remember!
Anyone can receive this help to remember!! And there is no better time than now, in this season were we remember our Savior, Jesus Christ!
I love you all, thanks so much for everything that you guys all do for me! This week is going to be awesome!! Here in about 7 days I will be talking with you guys! You said that you wanted to call at about 9:15 9:20 AM… ok. I will be waiting. I almost forgot, here in about 5 hours we are going to have some more baptism, which is just amazing! What a great blessing from our Heavenly Father!
I love you guys all so much! I can’t wait to talk to everyone! Ahhhhhh I’m sooo excited!!
Love you all!!
Your missionary
Elder Wiscomb
Hello everyone! How is everyone doing on this wonderful day! I hope that all is well and thanks to all of those who wrote me this week! Ah I just love getting letters and knowing that all of you guys are doing just great and enjoying this holiday season!
So first off the Christmas breakfast sounded like it was a big hit! Good job mom and dad! I’m sure that everyone loved it and appreciated all the hard work that you guys put into it. And then the wonderful gift that you guys gave to those three African families, that is really entering into the true spirit of Christmas. Helping others. That was for sure something that those families will never forget and for sure the highlight of this holiday season for them. Never forget the feelings that you guys get when you do something generous like that. It’s such an amazing feeling huh. To see someone be so happy! There is nothing better then that!
But other than that this has been a pretty crazy week… I don’t even know where to start. Today we climbed the mountain, which was fun. But I forgot my camera so my bad hahaah. But other than that, this week we had another situation of an Elder that had to go home early… and president was gone doing Zone conference so called me and asked me if I could take care of it. So I did ha. He got super sick, so this last Monday and Tuesday I had to figure out how he was going to get home from the furthest point in our mission. Uruguaiana.. Is on the border of Argentina. The last thing we wanted to make him do is get on a bus to here, Santa Maria, which is a 5 hour bus ride then another 4 and a half to Porto Alegre… so I tried to get him a ticket on a plan from Uruguaiana to Porto Alegre then to São Paulo…. But there wasn’t any until next week and he had to get home so we all prayed that he would have strength to do the trip on busses and get to Porto Alegre without getter way worse. Well, away we had to go the Rodoviaria at 4 in the morning to get him and wait there with him until he would get a bus at 5 to Porto Alegre… ya that was fun… not ha-ha… but he got home and is in the hospital getting better now which is good!!
Other than that, I have been training Elder Jones to be the next secretary here and he is sooo lost!! He is going to be a great missionary but he is super, super young! He just finished his first transfer here in Brazil. He served in Oregon for almost 2 months so he has almost 6 months in the mission but he is having a little bit of a hard time understanding what to do because he doesn’t talk that well. And he is getting scared. But just tell him that the Lord will bless him in ways that he will never believe. The Lord will help him with learning! So it’s been pretty fun to do that!
And besides that I have been working with a different comp this week Elder Silva Santos. He has about 5 months in the mission and is been a good week! We have been leaving the office at about 4 so it’s not a full day in the field but we have been working super, super hard! The first day that we left and worked, we taught 6 lessons, 2 with members. We knocked on about 40 doors each and we found 2 pretty good families. With the total of new investigators of 12. And marked 3 baptism dates!!! So that was pretty much like an amazing day!!!! But the Lord blessed us with that day because the Wednesday was a holiday here… some holiday of a saint or something like that, I don’t really know… but it was a super hard day. We worked and worked and knocked and knocked and entered 2 times into houses…
You got to love missionary work!! Last week I said that I was feeling like a “greenie” again because of like the fire inside of me to work again hahaha! I just want to get out there and work! But its going to have to wait for a little bit because I am going to have to help Jones a little bit more then was planned but that’s ok!!
So anyway the work is going just great! Even when you have these days when you go and knock and knock and knock and nothing goes according to plans. You always get back into the house tired but with these feeling that you did your best that day! I love that feeling, there is nothing like it! I know that this church is true and I'm sooo grateful for the blessing of the gospel in my life! I am so grateful for this holiday season, although, to be quite honest, it doesn’t feel like Christmas or December or anything like this… it just feels like another day or another month… but I'm grateful for our Savior, Jesus Christ! For His life here on Earth and for His examples that He has given to us! I'm grateful for the chance that all of us have to return and live with our Heavenly Father! And I'm so grateful for the wonderful blessing that He has given me with, my family and His love that I have felt so strongly! I am so grateful for you all and I love you all, thanks for everything you guys do for me!
Elder Wisomb
PS. I almost forgot a while ago on the 30 of November I finished the Book of Mormon like I said I would and I started again I hope that you started mom and whoever else that is doing with me too!
P.S I almost forgot to tell you guys the funny story of the week. So this week in the office I have been with Elder Jones helping him for a little bit… well anyway he has the worst gas in the world sometimes. It truly is horrible hahaha I almost die when he farts… but anyway Felipe and Silva Santos they get sooo pissed too and they left to go to the bank while we did some stuff here! Anyway when they came back they knocked on the door and Elder Jones Riped one right in front of the door hahahahahahaha (he was saving it for them). Oh man it smelled so bad and he waited for like 10 seconds to let it spread so It made with worse you know hahahahaha… then he opened the door and………………………………. Hahahahahah… It wasn’t Felpie and Siva Santos hahahahahahahaha… it was a different person that is super important and he just looked at Elder Jones and started to laugh and Jones got all red and I was dying almost on the floor hahahahahhaahhaha… oh man it was super, super, super funny!!! Pretty bad but funny!! Well that was story of the week!
Love you family!!
Elder Wiscomb
Hello everyone!! How are all you guys doing on this fabulous winter day back home! I hope that all is well and that you guys are enjoying that cold weather there, because here it’s literally ridiculously hot! You seriously leave, and when you get to the road and you just start to drip! I am taking advantage of my last couple days here in this air conditioning office!! Yes you heard it. I am coming to an end here!!
So there is now not an official day for transfers. It’s whenever and whomever president feels inspired to change at a given moment. He decided to show everyone that this last week. This last week was transfers. And we are having another big one this week… and the new secretary is coming here! I am getting a new comp his name is Elder Silva Santos and we are going to go to the road! Wahoo!!!!!!! The entire day of working in the field! I feel like a greeny heading out for the first time again. I will fry and sweat again! It’s going to be great!! I truly am super excited. So that was the new news that I found out today!
But lets talk about the week.
Well, this last Saturday we went and played paintball with the young men in our church. Long story short it was so fun and we dominated. Usually we wouldn't be able to go but we took 3 guys who are investigators and it was in the morning so we went. Something happened though, which was pretty funny.
Most of the people who went paintballing, it was their first time and at the end of the game the people who had a couple balls left they starting to empty their guns just shooting at a car that’s in the middle of the field. After one of the kids looks at me and said. Look elder Wiscomb all it does now is shoot air and pointed it at my arm from point blank and shot my arm but if that wasn’t enough he shot pulled the trigger twice and then in the leg.... but not with just air… hahaha… ya there were two more balls left that he didn’t notice and it got me pretty good and ya it hurt. But I just laughed it was pretty funny!
Also it’s been a week pretty crazy… it was another one of those weeks we lost some really good investigators… I don’t know if it’s because of transfers of what. But it just felt like nothing was going good for us hahaha… but that’s ok. The work sometime goes like this.
We went back to that family where were went with president and we taught the Book of Mormon! They loved our message and the women said that she will read the part that we marked for them and then after they started to tell us about their history… we knew that they were catholic but we soon found out that the grandparents built all the churches here and the man who we were teaching was some president or something. They just loved us and were intrigued… well long story short we taught and she, the women said she would read. So I hope that she reads because we will just let the Book of Mormon work then… the Book of Mormon is one of the most amazing tool to watch work!!! The spirit just flows from it!! I hope that she reads!!
As for our other families, we just haven’t had time to pass by… it's crazy… I can’t really believe how busy we have been. So it’s been way too long of time without contact… which is bad…
Well that’s pretty much our week… I am looking outside and it’s going to rain cats and dogs right now… oh man… we are going to get wet hahahahah awesome huh!
Well family I just want to say that the church is true!! If anyone has any questions about it just ask God, He, though the holy ghost, are the only ones that can truly show you that it is…!
I am sooo grateful for the prayer, actuall prays that I have done!! There is no doubt in my mind that this church is true and everyone can have this confirmation! I love you all!! Have a great winder day!
Elder Wiscomb
