Week 90 April 25, 2011

Hello family! How are all of you doing on this wonderful April afternoon! I hope that all is well and everyone had an amazing Easter and all were able to remember a little bit of the real importance of this holiday! Here in the mission it was one busy but amazing week! I truly loved being able to teach specifically about the atonement and the resurrection of our savior Jesus Christ! But lets start from the beginning!

So Monday after I used Internet I got a call of the AP's saying that we were going to be doing a division on Tuesday and Wednesday hahahaha… Surprise…. Ha-ha but it was so much fun, I got to go to Santa Maria and work with Elder Harris a great friend of mine here in the mission!

When I got there in the bus station, the whole division started off with a great surprise!! Elder Harris had plan for someone to come pick me up! Do you guys remember Silivo? Ya he and his wife and daughter came and got us from the bus station so I was greeted with a huge old hug from Lulu (Luisa) who has 7 years old and Silvio and Neusa! It was sooo amazing to see them and to see that they are all so strong still. Silvio is now a ward missionary (ex Jehovah Witness, he loves this job hahaha) and Neusa is still a counselor in the relief society and they are thinking about going to the temple here in about 4 months which will be sooooooooo amazing for them! Anyway the division was so much fun and we worked super hard!

When I to back to my area we started to work super hard! We have some amazing families that we are teaching, like I have been saying and I would like to comment about something that has been happening over the past 4 months since I got here!

Before I got here Elder Ball my old comp had baptized a man (Geraldo) that has a brother in law (Wilson) that was in the hospital and he ask for us to go give him a blessing because the doctor had said that it was for him to dye that very day. The doctor gave him like 5 hours to live that’s about it… anyway we went and we gave him a priesthood blessing and after a couple hours a miracle had happened and his situation in the hospital was getting better! Anyway this family, the brother in law (Wilson) and the sister of Gerald, (Geraldine), we have been trying to work with them ever since I got here! But for me to explain this family through email will be super, super hard! They are unlike anyone I have ever met!!

From the beginning I met this women Geraldine, one of the first days here when all the houses were flooding… remember when I was talking about all the rain..?... Anyway. I remember vividly that I splashed some water on someone or something like that when we were helping and this women (Geraldine) got super, super angry. Ha-ha… lets just say that the way is super, super, super funny ha-ha… she is not an angry person but she is a very closed person because of all the things that have happened in her life!! Its more like you need to gain her respect and confidence before she will open to you and that is super, super hard ha-ha….

Anyway since the beginning I found out that she doesn’t like fake people… she doesn’t like to be called “Sister…” actually she gets pretty angry because the family is something that is super important to her and to be called Brother or Sister is normal in the church so that was hard at the beginning… she always just said that “you aren’t apart of my family…” stuff like that… and she answered our questions shortly and ahhh to be strait up honest she was rude at the beginning! She couldn’t stand the fact that if we talk sooooooo much about family and stuff in the church why does the church send off young men and women far away from their family for 2 years… this has been sooo hard for her to understand!!

Anyway I really wanted to help this women, Geraldine realize the blessing that the church has for the families. That we believe and know that families can be together and all that!!! So we have been passing by there for about 3 and a half months and its been super, super difficult!!! With our continued visits, she has come to gain a great respect for us!!! But we haven’t even been able to teach the lessons we wanted to until this last week… finally we taught the restoration

This woman has been going to church for the last 5 weeks without even hearing about the restoration and we taught a lesson that was super, super spiritual!!! After we sung the song of the first vision in priesthood, my testimony about it grew and I ask her if this has helped her understand why she feels so good there in the church and how she feels about knowing about the marvelous event when God and Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith. The sprit was so strong and when I ask that, the room just went silent… for about 3 minutes we sat there and she started to cry and she said…. “I know that this is true” and if she could she would be baptism tomorrow she said… but then she started to explain that she understands the importance of the family in the church and she couldn’t do anything that her husband wouldn’t be on her side. Her husband Wilson hadn’t ever gone to church and she has invited him every time and he never had wanted to go… anyway we said a pray together asking our Heavenly Father to help her husband go to church the following day and without thinking I promised her that when she invited him the next morning he would go…. I left that house thinking “great what did I say”… but rest of the day I kept thinking and pleading with Heavenly Father that He would give there a way for him to go to church!!

Anyway the following day, Easter Sunday, passed the first class and they hadn’t shown… then right when I saw that the she got there and she wasn’t alone!!!!! They whole family was there!! Geraldine, Wilson and Bruno!! Oh man my happiness was sooooooo big!! And my thankfulness to our Heavenly Father for answering our prayers for this!!! They loved it and I know that this is what the family needs!

One day I will tell you allllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll about this family!!! Oh man it has been sooo special to see this family grow!!!

That was the experience of the week probably!!! Maria from last week went again to church!!! I believe that she is doing well!! I wasn’t able to catch them at home this week but I will this week for sure!!!

I just want you all to know that Christ lives and I know that!! I can feel His love in my life along with our Heavenly Fathers!! I am so grateful for His constant guidance in my life and for His part in His work!! This work is imposable without it!!

I’m sorry if this email was little confusion but it’s hard to share an amazing experience and story of about 4 months in one email. hahaha

But I love you all so much!! I will try and get this call all figured our here in a little bit! I am going to try to figure out if there will be a way to use SKYPE again but I will let you all know next week!!

I love you all so much!!!

Have a great week and until next week!!

Love Elder Wiscomb

"Just kidding, we are not allowed to drink Coke a Cola!"

Week 89 April 18, 2011

Hello family!! How is everyone doing on this wonderful April morning!! I hope that all of you guys are just great and happy and always smiling! It seems like from all the emails you guys are in Arizona again… and I hope that you guys are having a great time in the sun and all that!

Gosh so where do I start! I thought that last week was crazy, and I thought that there couldn’t be a week that consisted of more things to do… but I must say that this week was one of the most busy that I have ever had! So lets start from the beginning!

This week we had planned to do a division with the DL that is in Ijuí! It had been planned for about 3 weeks now but we switched it all up! Instead of doing divisions with just on of them we decided that we wanted to see how everyone is doing in that city so we did divisions with everyone there. 3 companionships! We went there on Tuesday morning and Elder Pouslen stayed there from Tuesday until Saturday morning and I returned with the DL there to our area! So practically this entire week I wasn’t with my comp. Haha… so for the first day I was with this Elder, Elder Foster, then on Thursday and Friday I stayed with a different elder that come to Cruz Alta that is named Elder Costa!

We worked super hard and we had some great success this week even though it was raining cats and dogs almost the entire week!

We are teaching some families that are super special! And we were hit with a big shock when we returned Tuesday night and we knocked our hands on the door and the mom (Patricia) answered and I saw that she was a little different! I asked her how she was and she said she was more or less ok. But something wasn’t right, I could tell by her face, she tried to push a smile… anyway we entered and we sat down. And we started to talk… we had planned to teach the plan of salvation that night but we decided to change it up…

With a bit of talked we found out that the night before their daughter had tried to commit suicide, by cutting her pulses and overdosing on medicine… they told us she left her room and came and sat with us all bandaged up and drugged out of her mind... anyway the room and the atmosphere in that house was super heavy if that makes any sense and we decided to teach about how we can receive comfort and love from our Heavenly Father and prayer because after talking we only had about 15 minutes to teach before we had to be home! But it was a great lesson!

A little bit later we returned and we taught about the priesthood and blessings of comfort and of the sick… and they got the concept and they asked if we would be able to give the blessings and if we could pass the hospital and give a blessing to the daughter!! It was super spiritual! I know that the priesthood is real and is something that is giving to worthy men who are members of the Christ of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to really serve others!

We also had a super amazing experience with another family!!! Our neighbors where we live are all members ha-ha it’s pretty cool! So there is a young couple that lives on the other side of the street whose mom and 4 sisters and 2 brothers are all inactive in the church!! It’s only our neighbor that is active at the moment!! Anyway when we can, I have always liked to pass by the mom of our neighbor and give an invite to her at least once a week to go to church!! I really do love this family and the thing that I want more then anything is to help them return!

What all of you guys need to know back home is that the mom (Maria) is together (not married) with a man that lives in her house that hates the missionaries and the church… and brings a lot of problems to their family!!!!! Maria’s daughter (Graciela) our neighbor, was prying that entire week so much about her mom and what she could do to help her stop suffering from this man!! Little did I know (I didn’t know anything) this man that is together with her mom (Maria) threatens her when she wants to separate and stuff and hits her and stuff and she really isn’t able to leave him…. So Graciela was praying and praying and praying the whole week!

So it all started on Friday when we had a day full of appointments… it was a division and you always need to work a little bit harder during divinations hahahahaha. So we went to ALL of our appointed, and plan b and c and d… ha-ha and EVERYTHING FELL I couldn’t believe, I was super sad! And I really started to think… great now what… so I said a little prayer in my mind and Maria came to my mind!! But we were ALL the way on the other side of our area so I ignored it…. Then we started to knock doors… we knocked two doors and we weren’t invited in and then Maria came back to my mind so I said lets go to Maria…. So we walked about an hour to get there. And we entered and started to talk…

When we got there I didn’t know what we were going to teach… I though… just another invite to go to church maybe… but when were talking I opened up the scriptures and it felt like I should talk about prayer… so we did!!!

I started to talk about the principals of prayer just the basics then I said that it’s the way that we gain our testimonies… I wanted to hear how she felt when she accepted the gospel a long time ago… when I asked she stayed quite and was thinking and then she started to cry and said that she hasn’t received an answer to her prayers yet… and its been about 20 years…. Thats a long time ago when she was praying for direction from the Lord she ended her prayers and the missionaries were on the front door step and she took that as an answer…. But she really hasn’t ever prayed about it…. So I invited her to pray and to ask with all her heart if it’s true. Then she opened up completely to us… she started to talk about her boyfriend that she has and how he hits and threatens her and how she felt like she couldn’t go to church because she isn’t married but lives with a man and stuff like that… and I said that this is when she NEEDS to go to church!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The one things that she wants is to leave this man but she isn’t able to, she said that it’s him that needed to leave her but she doesn’t know how to do that..…. And I promised her that if that is really what she wants she needs to go to church and be filled with the spirit and bring it back to her house!!! I know with out a doubt in my mind that if she does this the spirit of the Lord with be so strong in that house that her boyfriend will not to be able to handle and will leave her… anyway she finally went to church yesterday and she was just lighted with a smile the entire time!! I know that the Lord will bless her when continues to do her part!!!

Well family with this being Easter weekend I just want to say that I am so grateful for my savior Jesus Christ and for is atoning sacrifice!! You know like mom said, I think that the human mind isn’t able to understand the concepts of the atonement or how it works or the suffering that Jesus Christ felt but I know that he did this because of the love that He has for every one of you! There is no doubt in my mind that because of Jesus Christ we are able to return and to live with our Heavenly Father, and we are able to have an eternal family!! Jesus Christ has never asked much in return, the only thing He asks is to follow Him! The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is His church! It’s the only true church of Christ here on the face of the Earth, and I know that! I know that we have a living prophet and 12 Apostles and I know that they are called of God to lead us!!

Remember that Christ lives and that He is always extending His hand to his brothers and Sister (all of us) every second of every day to come unto Him and to partake of His love and happiness that we find through repenting and becoming members of His church here on earth!

I love you all!!! Have a great Easter weekend!!!

Your missionary

Elder Wiscomb

"With Leamara! a women that I helped!! Everytime when I'm Santa Maria she goes to the bus staion to see me off haha!"

"with my comps!!

"my group!"

Week 88 April 11, 2011

Hello family!!! How are all of you guys doing on this wonderful Spring afternoon!! So I hear that its going to be quite the Spring with the look of floods hahahaa that’s not good! Be prepared, and I hope it wont be as bad as mom made it sound like hahahaha!!! So first off I must say… HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOMMA!!!!! Haha you thought I had forgotten but nope! how could I!! Mom I hope that you have great week and a fabulous day on the 13th!!! You deserve it!! So now let's talk about the week real fast!! This week was one to remember! We had a big change how I explained this last week with comps and stuff so it was like starting all over again! But with a big pool of investigators! The only problem is, for some reason this week it was super, super difficult to find our investigators in their houses! It was said that these are going to be the last good couple weeks here in Cruz Alta so everyone is working all day long trying to make up for a summer of fun and for this winter that’s coming where there is always little work to be done! We passed by about 5 times in almost all of our investigators and unfortunately and sadly we didn’t talked with the most part of them the entire week! So that was super sad! But we also had a week that was a little different! We had a meeting in Santa Maria where I got to see almost all my friends on Wednesday! It was so much fun!! I saw friends from my group that I hadn’t seen for about 7 months and it was just great! It's crazy because ¾ of the leaders here in the mission are from our group at this moment! There will have to be some changes made here in a bit haha! But it was amazing! The meeting we had was a training on the Plan of Salvation! which was giving by President Ribeiro! And all I can say is “wow” it was amazing! Then we had a part which was about “revelation through personal prayer”! We talked about the importance of prayer especially for our investigators! We talked about the role of the holy ghost and then after we talked about ways to make help our teachings! We talk a lot about questions that we make and how questions are what makes or breaks a missionary and his ability to teach! I learned so much this last couple weeks! We worked sooo hard and we really had a miracle which happened at the end of the week!

We are teaching this family which is super, super special!! their names are Carlos, Patricia, Rafael, alisi, Lurdes! I don't know if I commented on how we found them but a while back I was doing a division in a different area and I did a contact with a man in the street and he lived in our area so we went there a couple weeks later and it was this family! Anyway from that day we have made an amazing friendship with them and they are learning so much about the gospel and are taking this super, super serious! Which I love!!!!!! Anyways finally this week, the family was able to go to church and they loved it but that’s not just all! This family brought another family into our hands!! Because we have such an amazing friendship with them, they are bringing friends to their house on the nights when we go there! And they brought a woman that’s named Jossara! Anyway I was talking with this women after and I asked if we could visit her and her family one night in their house and she said yes! So we went there on Saturday night and on Sunday they all went to church! They hadn’t even heard the restoration yet!! But this next Saturday I am excited to teach it! I have really seen the power of prayer here in the mission! The Lord really answers prayers not necessarily when we want but in His timing. I am so grateful for this gift that we have to talk with our Heavenly Father! Anyway my time is up but I love all of you!! I hope that all of you have a great week!! And a happy birthday to mom!!

Love you all much!!

Elder Wiscomb

A burger Joint we went to in the middle of General Conference on Saturday

Week 87, April 4, 2011

Hello family! How is everyone doing on this fabulous April day after the wonderful General Conference that we were able to see this last weekend!! Wow it was a couple amazingly spiritual days! The words that were passed to us really hit me with a lot of emotion and love from those humble servants of the Lord!

This whole week was crazy!! We were running from appointment to appointment trying to get everyone ready to go hear the prophet of the Lord speak! We invited 20 people to go and hear the words of the prophet and sadly only 9 went but I am planning to burn the talks onto disks for our investigators if they don’t have Internet in their house! There is a certain conviction of the spirit that hits all, who sees and hears the prophet and apostles of the Lord! It's something that makes you get the chills and makes you know with out a doubt that those men are truly called by God to lead us!

Their was much said about love in the family!!! About how a family can be eternal though the restored power of God which we have in the Church of Christ! Much was said about trials and tribulations which are given to us for our benefit and its necessary to grow closer to our Heavenly Father! And much was said about the women of this Church who I must say myself, who are absolutely sensational!! I will do my best to apply all that I learned in these last couple days to my life and I hope and pray that all of you will do the same!

So starting from the beginning we are really teaching some families that are super special and as soon as the crop season settles down, they will for sure become part of the church of Christ! It’s a little challenge here though in the moment because everyone is cropping soy beans here! And its been raining so much and this past week it got a little better so everyone is going crazy!! But there’s know doubt in my mind that we are going to have some success here in a little bit!! All of the people that went to conference loved it so much and said that they wish that this happens every week hahaha! And they also said be ready for questions the next appointment hahahah so that will be fun!!

In the middle of the week I totally forgot that it was April fools day on April 1 and ya a sister got us pretty well…. She called us at about 11 when we were going to an appointment and said that her comp got a letter yesterday and it was something really bad and she was wanting to go home… it was super said and I believe her…. so we hung up did a prayer in the road to figure out what we should do… a second later our Assistant called and told us if we had already heard the news and we said ya and he thought that it would be good for us to meet with them in the stake center to talk to her and try to see what happened….. so we canceled our appointment and we started going to the center…. Anyway on the way their, my comp said “do you think that this is an April fools joke”……. And I sat there thinking “ we can't ask her if it is because what if its not…. Hahaha” so we just sat their confused….. and we called back the sister…

The sister didn’t want to meet us in the chapel and stuff and ya long story short everyone was in on this joke… even the president… we called him and he just started laughing and said… “you need to be smart” hahahahahahahahahahaha... anyway they got us pretty well!!

Also during the sessions on Sunday we had interviews with president… and the Sunday morning meeting didn’t work out to watch for about an hour because the satiate wasn’t working…I know super sad!!! But I talked with president and he told us that me and Elder Ball are not going to be comps anymore..… that Ball was going to stay with the new Elder Rodrigues that got here a week ago.. and that I will help Elder Poulsen grow up a little more in the mission and learn to do little more stuff! Anyway I am excited for this challenge that President has given me and I know with faith and trust in the Lord everything will be just amazing!! I just feel bad for Elder Ball because we were working with some amazing families and president told him that they have to stay with us, and he has to trade everything with the other elder… but I am going to call him and talk to president and see if we can work with these families in 2 companionship's because this would be super horrible for Elder Ball to end his mission like that… so we will see!!

Anyways I hope and pray that all of you will study and read these talks that were given to us!! Really they are so important! Trust in the Lord and follow the words of the prophets! They are given to protect us and to help us in our return journey to our Heavenly Father!! I know that if we give head to those word we will all be their in the presents of our God one day!

I love you all!

Elder Wiscomb