Week 86 March 28, 2011

Hello family! How are all of you guys dong on this last Monday in March!! I hope that everyone is ready for spring there! All the flowers and the warm temperature and the best part… General Conference!! Wahoo!!! Oh man I am so excited! It truly is such a blessing to be able to hear the words of the prophet, apostles, and other leaders of the church!! There will truly be so many important things that will be passed to us this weekend so be ready and it would be smart to listen and learn, then apply in our lives!! Ahh I'm so excited and grateful for this. I can’t believe how fast time is passing! This transfer has already ended. And today is a start of another… no one has heard anything about transfers either funny huh! So it’s all a mystery. But I'm pretty sure I will be staying here… I only have 3 months here can you believe it!! Anyway where do we start! This week its been pretty crazy. It's been raining cat and dogs the entire week so everything of mine is wet… can you believe it that not even an umbrella does anything hahahah… my scriptures are soaking. Shoes… pants… thank goodness that I have some dry shirts and socks but mostly everything else is wet… hahaha… I sure hope that the joke about the more rain you take, the prettier your wife will be ha-ha is true…. Because all I can say is “wow, the mission is doing me good then” hahaha… but seriously I like the rain, it kind of hurts the work but what can you do huh.. Ha.

Anyway we saw another blessing of the Lord this week. We have a rule in our mission that we can't baptize any children alone they have to go to church for 4 months before they can get baptized and this week we baptized a 12 year old boy that has been going to church for a while now!! He really wants to be a missionary one day and I sure hope that he will be taken in by the members so that one day he will be able to do this marvelous work! So that was a special day!

Also we had some great lessons! We went to the Mineige and Ticaco this week 2 times (the Japanese couple) and we have really become great friends and they trust in us a lot! They are actually one of the most famous families in the south of Brazil we have come to find out…. Which is crazy…. They finally told us that they are Buddhists. Which we were expecting. The told us about their entire lives… how when Mineige came to Brazil they come with some 30 families and it took about 50 days to get here… they took a cruise or something like that passing in many placed to finally end up here in Brazil and all 30 families went to a little city that is by Livramento (my first area) which is called Quaraí. Mineige told me that when he got here he was forced to learn about Christ and read the Bible and stuff because he studies in the “school of the sisters” hahaha how he says… the nun. But still he is Buddhist! Anyway, when we went there for the second time this week they told us at the beginning of our lesson that they respect us and they love our presence and stuff but they didn’t have any desire at the moment to change religion… and our response to that was ok. But that day we had planned to teach the restoration.

When I heard that, I was sad but I know it is just because that they don’t understand, the only thing they need to receive is the spirit, and that will teach them in their heart and that night we had planned to teach the restoration… anyway we continued to teach the restoration and it was one of the most spiritual lessons that we have taught! And I knew that they felt the spirit of our Heavenly Father! They didn’t go to church this week but they said that they would visit!!

We are also teaching a family that is super special that we are hoping to take to conference! We have such an amazing group of people we are teaching at this moment! I haven’t ever worked with so many “families” all at once!!!! It's crazy how much the Lord is blessing us! The only thing that I pray for is that these families that we are teaching will be able to go to the stake center this Saturday or Sunday and hear the words of the prophets! I love this time of the year!

I want all of you guys to know that this truly is an opportunity that we have this weekend and I know that the Lord will pass to us important things that we need to know through this servants here on earth! Watch conference! Write down questions, doubts about live, about anything and without a doubt if you pay attention during conference it will all be answered! I know that this church is true and that we are all so lucky to be lead on this Earth by a prophet of God!!! What scares me is that today in our days the same thing is happening, what happened many years ago in the time of the ancient prophets!! Because of the wickedness, and stiff neckedness of the people, they are coming to know that today there is a prophet of God that lives which is here on earth and many aren’t accepting him and giving heed to his words!! Don’t be one of the people that turn their backs to the words of the prophets! Listen! Follow!!! And I know that those who listen and accept President Thomas Spencer Monson, along with the 12 Apostles, won’t ever be led astray! They are those who will gain the promise that is stated in the Bible and the Book of Mormon, something that is called Eternal life!!!!

I love you all! Have a fabulous Conference weekend! And a fabulous week!

Love you all!!

Elder Wiscomb

Brazilian BBQ with the Japanese Family

Week 85 March 20, 2011

Hello family!!! How are all of you doing on this wonderful March day! I hope that all of you guys are just great and getting ready for general conference here in a couple weeks! Wahoo! Ha-ha, I'm so excited to hear the words of the prophets and see what the Lord wants us to here and apply in our lives! It is always such a great time to take investigators to really see who the leaders of the church of Jesus Christ are, here are on earth! So, be preparing yourselves!

This week has been such an amazing week! We have truly seen the hand of the Lord in our work this week, it's been probably one of the best weeks I have had in my entire mission! To start off, we have a huge teaching pool in this moment, so what we have been trying to do is really focus on the people who we have! Last week I talked a little bit about Omar and Lola who are two grandparents and how they are super special and we visited him a couple times this week and Omar has been super busy! He works with recycling metal and other things like that so he has to go to cities that are close to Cruz Alta and pick up the metal so he is always on the road! Anyway, we taught him about The Book Of Mormon and he understood everything, he truly is so smart! And at the end he made it very clear that when he receives his answer that this church is true he wont need us to tell him that he needs to be baptized ha-ha… he said that he will tell us, “now I am ready, baptize me ha-ha” but the only problem is, is that he is the old stubborn type of man ha-ha! If that makes sense! He even said that he knows that he will be baptized and be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ one day but he just doesn’t know when…. So that’s where it ended with him this week… this week he is going to be traveling the entire week… so that's a bummer, but we will go back next week…

Thursday was by far one of the best days in the mission; it was truly one of the most spiritual days too! One more time we felt the Lord working with us, which always is such an amazing experience….

Thursday night, it was 8 PM and we have to be in the house at 9: 30… the night before in our planning I felt like we needed to contact a person that I did a contact with in the other area during a division that’s name Paulo that is only home after 8, and also a family that we did a contact with some time ago that we know as the Japanese family. (The names are difficult ha.). But its was 8 at night and we also had to talk with a less active to figure out a family night that he wanted to do this next weekend to celebrate his wife’s birthday… the option that seems more “relaxing” more “sure to happen” would have been go to the less actives house and plan the family night but we both felt like we needed to go to those two families and see if they would be in there house so we went…

So we crossed our entire area, and we contacted Paulo and Silvania first… happened to be that it s a family that’s legally married and they accepted us amazingly… we did a prayer and the wife (Silviania) just couldn’t stop smiling! We talked a little bit and we remarked to come back and teach a lesson about our savior Jesus Christ tonight at 8! So am super excited about this appointment tonight!

When we were on our way home it was 9:15 and we passed in front of the house of the Japanese family and we thought… “Ahh it’s late and we are tired and we shouldn’t even knock on the door at this time of the night…. Let's just go home… ha-ha”. But the lights of the house were on and we both felt like we needed to knock, so we returned to the house and we knocked on the door! That knocked turned into one of the best experiences in the mission!

This Japanese family (Ticaco and Mineite) they are directly from Japan and they came here when they both had 15 years of age or around there…. The wife (Ticaco) has lived here ever since, but the husband (Mineite) returned to Japan and worked there for 10 years and moved back here 5 years ago! This family oh my gosh is super special!!!

The Wife opened the door and invited us to enter the house. When we entered the house the husband was watching the television on the disaster that had happened in Japan and he came running to us with a huge smile on his face and shook our hand! We started to talk then they ask us if we were hungry and stuff and we said “no” because we only had 10 minutes to do a prayer there…. Anyway the way of the Japanese hahaha…. Ya….. The husband insisted in ordering pizza… so he was running around trying to find the number of the pizza place and he couldn't find it and so he left to buy pizza…. Ha-ha it was so funny… so while he was gone we talked with his wife, and she went to the other room for a little bit then came back with a super old Japanese couple…. It was her parents!

The parents of Ticaco live there too! They both have 94 years of age and he served in World War 2 they shook our hand and bowed to us and stuff they think that they are living in Japan hahahaha because they only speak Japanese and stuff and they only stay in the house hahaha… but it was soooo awesome!!!

Then Mineite came back (now 9:45) and he said could you wait 30 minutes the pizza coming… hahahaha…. We had to say ya… so we just talked and stuff and we found out that they have so much family there in Japan and they are super worried about them! They have 2 sons that are there and they haven’t been able to talk to them and we talked about everything it was such an amazing night! We gained 2 new friends that night from Japan hahaha!!! And they offered us to come over on Sunday and eat a Churrasco with them!!! So we did

Sunday when we went there, we lunched at there house and talked more, and then we thanked by leaving our first message! I guess that in Japan they are mostly Buddhist or something but they have been living here in Brazil so they are Catholic but really they are nothing hahaha! To be honest the wife doesn't know anything! It was just like in the story of Amon and his brothers teaching the Laminates about the Great Spirit hahah, which is Deus! It was sooooo awesome! And we sang a song the Spirit was soooooooooooooooooooooo strong was unbelievable! Oh man! We have been thinking so much about how we are going to teach them and we have been convinced that with them they are going to need to really feel the spirit more than actually learning about it because they don’t quite understand anything about Christian religions! But I'm excited to continue to see their progress!

This was amazing gosh there was another story with a family Luis and Angela who we found and they were just waiting for us!!! They were prepared by the Lord to receive His gospel and there is no doubt in my mind that they will be amazing members of His church!!

The gospel is so amazing! It brings “true” happiness to our lives and I know that! I am so grateful to be able to share to all those who listen, the gospel of Jesus Christ and He made it possible for us to return to our Heavily Father with our families! I know that this is true! And I known that it's possible for anyone to have this happiness and joy that I feel, and have in my life! It's really simple, just follows Christ and be part of His church, which is lead by a prophet of God!

I love you all with all my heart and I hope that you guys have a great week!!!

Love you all

Elder Wiscomb

week 84 March 14, 2011

Family how are all of you guys doing on this wonderful March afternoon! I hear that its getting warming and its starting to look like spring, and I’m sure that all of you guys are just loving that!! Well dad and mom took of to Palm Springs… which left Katie and Molly in the house… oh gosh… watch out hahahahaha… Molly and Katie take advantage ha!! Just kidding!

Well this week was a great week! Carnival had stopped which is so nice and we were able to work really hard!! So starting on Tuesday let's just say I started out working hard in a different area for half the week hahahaha. It was divisions week again!

So I went to help out the Elders in the Center! So I got there and we were planning, and to be honest their teaching group was super small, which was making the work hard for them… so we started working with that!! On divisions its pretty funny because you have to work the hardest, literally the hardest that you can to help the area of a different person! And I am convinced that when you do that the Lord will bless you in your area!! So I just went to work in the area in the Centro with one of my best friends here Elder Garrett!!!

He is from California and he is such a stud! I remember when her got here I was in the office and we got to work a little bit in Santa Maria together, and who would have thought we would have been working together again for a couple days in Cruz Alta hahaha! Well anyway we started to work that day we taught 8 lessons 3 with member, and we marked a couple dates for them!!! It was such a great day and the Lord was really leading us to find people and to teach the entire day!!!

Then the next day I did divisions with an Elder named Elder Nascimento… he has about 9 months on the mission and I felt so bad for him because he has received some pretty difficult comps which haven’t let him teach and progress the way he should have as a missionary… this was the first time that I taught with him, and he just didn’t really have any confidence… so what I did is that I said… “I'm here just to follow you and be your wing man… this is your area and so its you that says what to do” he was a little nervous at first, but in one day I saw huge progress in his teaching and in his confidence… that day we taught 10 lessons… oh gosh I got home that night literally dead!!! But it was amazing to see how the Lord blessed that area when we worked super hard and it also made them super, super excited to work, which was good!!!

While I was their in the other area, I didn’t really keep track with my area because I wanted to focus in helping the others but I knew that we had a date that was marked for this last Saturday and I was just praying every thing that everything would go according to plan and that a 19 year old boy Juliano would be baptized!!! Well everything when according to plan and he was baptized and it was a super, super special day!! After I gave him a shirt and a tie hahahaha! He loved it! He’s such a good kid and we have seen such a huge change in his heart! He stopped drinking/ partying/ smoking/ and doing bad things with young women and it all started with the desire of his aunt (liamara), which is a member of the church! Really the example that an individual has on a family member or friend is soooooooo strong!!!

Also this week me and Elder all we were praying on behalf of what we could do to make the zone get excited and try and help them see the success that they are wanting! We decided to do a zone fast this last Thursday and a big conference called with 18 missionaries to do a zone prayer!!! This really was such blessing for the zone! We are seeing the Lords hand so much in this work at this moment and I hope that the missionaries in our zone will be quick to thank the Lord for the success that they are seeing!!!!

In our area we are starting to find some families, really special! Most of these families we passed by to do the prayer message and this next week we are going to go back to teach them for the second time so be praying that all will go according to plan!

But this last week the highlight of the week would be this old couple with the names of Omar and Lola! These two are so special!! They are part of a family that has been part of the church for 3 years know that live behind our house! A little while back Oimar was in the hospital almost dying and we went to give him a blessing and when he got better he allowed us go to his house and to visit him! He is a very sincere man! And very big!!! Ha-ha! But he is of that age super hard headed! He has a very firm opinion and to be honest the way he thinks is exactly how we think! So we went there and we taught the restoration and it as really good and he said that he will go to church and he went!!!!

Everyone at church was saying “look, it took two Americans to take Omar to church hahahahaha” funny huh!! But he is super awesome!

It just happened to be that this sacrament meeting the young women would sing a song and he has 3 granddaughters that are super strong in the church and when they were singing I looked over and he had a huge smile one his face and was wiping tears from his eyes!!! He loved it!!! What a blessing!! Also I talked again at church funny huh… hahaha

It is such a blessing for all we have in our lives! For our loved ones around us! If its members and comps in this moment or family back home! We are all so blessed by the hand of the Lord and be quick to recognize that everything we have is because of him! I am so grateful to know the church of Christ and to be lead by a true prophet here on earth! I am so grateful to be representing Jesus Christ at this moment in my life!! I know this church is true and I know that its through the church of Christ where we can find true happiness!!

I love you all!!

Have a great week!!!

Love Elder Wiscomb

Week 83 March 7, 2011

Hello Family! How are all of you doing on this wonderful Monday afternoon!! I hope that all is going just great! Here in Cruz Alta, things are gong just splendidly hahahaha… these last couple days it been the most waited holiday here in Brazil which is called Carnival!!! Ya its probably one of the most wicked holidays I have ever seen in my life… its an excuse to stay out late, drink, dance (really bad) and just walk around naked in the roads (at night)… its really bad…. So that’s what we have been having to deal with these last couple days then after Wednesday it will start to calm down a little bit and hopefully everyone will just start to focus on school and reality…. Haha..

This actually was a little different as well! Tuesday we had our Zone Conference, which was just amazing! President talked about faith and everything that has happened in the Bible and in the Book of Mormon with when people have faith!!! It was such an amazing meeting then after we talked about working with members! The day passed by fast but it was a great way to start out this transfer and I can't believe that it's already week 3 in this transfer…. The time is passing by sooooo fast!

After zone conference I went to Ijuí… it’s a city here in our zone and I stayed there for a day and a half doing a division. We did some great work those couple of days with morning dates and creating a plan for a couple to get married! It was a good time!

Then when I got back we went to work in our area but it was already Thursday…. And Carnival started… so its been a pretty hard time to work these last couple days and the icing on the cake was that Elder Neves, he has officially decided to go home…. On Saturday there was also a sister here in our zone that decided to buy here ticket to go back to São Paulo too….. so in the last 5 days we have had 2 missionaries go home which has been super sad!!!

But other then all that ruckus… it was a good week!!! Nothing to complain about hahaha the work of the Lord continues!!! I am so grateful to be missionary!!! And to work for the Lord! We are having some amazing experiences here, which is awesome!

Family I know that this letter is super, super short and might not make sense but I am out of words to say…. Anyway I love you all!! This church is true I don’t have any doubt about it!!

Love you all!!

Elder Wiscomb

"This is for you Molly"

Cake competition at the ward

Week 82 February 28, 2011

Hello family how are all of you dong on this almost March afternoon! Can you believe that we are heading into March and before we even know it April general conference will be at our doorstep!!! WAHOO!!!!! Hahaha but I hope that this week has been just great and that all of you guys are getting better from this sickness which was passed in the Wiscomb family hahaha!

So let me just think real fast about this week because sooooooooooooooo much happened I truly don't even know where to start! I think that this was one of the weeks were I have been the most tired in the mission…. We have had to do soooooooo much!!!!

First off Tuesday morning we went early at 6 in the morning to Palmeiras das Missões! It’s a little city that president will be putting missionaries there this transfer but they don’t have a house so we had to go there and look for a house… I'm pretty sure that we walked that entire city talking with all the rental places and we didn’t find 1 house that was in our limit of money we could spend…. So we were already tried and we still had a big day of work that day… so that was Tuesday

Wednesday we went to Ijui to give training to the district there…it's another city that is really pretty that is about an hour away from Cruz Alta! We went there to meet the new missionaries in our zone and to get everyone excited for this new month and this transfer!!! It was good but tiring as well then we had a long day ahead of us!!!

Thursday we had had to do a training here in Cruz Alta for all the missionaries here which was amazing! In these training we talked about the Law of the Harvest and about inviting people, and how we should go about it! As missionaries we aren’t here to convince or persuade anyway we are simply here to invite people to come unto Christ, following the examples of Christ, which He, Himself left for us, hoping that we will follow Him! That is our purpose and it turning out to be an amazing training!

Also Thursday night we had a cake competition in the ward!!! It was super fun we had some investigators there too, which was fun!! There was a huge turn out we had about 100 people there and in church this last week the frequency of the members and less actives has pretty much doubled since we put these activities into plan! It’s been a huge success!!!!

So we had to plan all of that and get that all set up so we were busy doing that on Thursday as well!!!

Friday and Saturday we were focusing on the work, which was nice!!! We got some really good lessons in and we invited about 60 people with invites this week to go to church!!!! Most of these invites were families, so we believe that we achieved our goal of inviting 100 people to go to church this week. The only thing that has been hard is that this was the last week of summer break here… everyone returned to school today so most of the people left out of town Friday night and came back Sunday afternoon… so I am hoping that here in a couple weeks we will be see the results of these invites that we are giving out!!!

On top of everything that has happened this week I forgot until Friday that the bishop in our ward asked me to prepare a talk just in case if he needed me to speak so I prepared a talk on “trust in the lord” and more specifically the way He works to bless His children here on earth. The main point was that He works through His servants, the prophets anciently, and if He is the same yesterday today and tomorrow He will work though a prophet today! It’s so simple!!! And I have trust in the lord that He never changes that He always will work though a prophet here on earth to bless us here on earth today!!!

I have trust that in 1820 God called a boy prophet Joseph Smith to be that prophet and because I have trust in that, I have trust in Thomas Spencer Monson today, that he is a prophet of God! It all starts with trust! When someone has trust their faith will grow and then they will believe!! And though someone believing they will see the blessings of the Lord and this will grow into something that they know!!! That is how I have gained a testimony that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!!!

To be honest maybe it didn’t start with trust in the Lord… I think that where I started was trust in my parents!! Ya you mom and dad. That you guys knew the best for me so for that reason I just went to church and I learned!! I learned that in church too, to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ we follow the examples of Christ! And we are lead by a living prophet of God! Then the prove that this is true came!! The happiness came, the unity in the family was visible, the health that I had was always good, and the meaning of life in general was found!!!

There is now doubt in my mind that the church is true and that we are lead by a prophet of God and I am so grateful for that!

This week on top of everything, I am living with an elder that has been wanting to go home! I have talked with him almost every night for 45 minutes just trying to find out why that we would want to go home and stop doing this wonderful work! And I was able to figure out why…. It's not that he doesn’t have a testimony of the church, I actually found out that it was quite the contrary….

You know the mission is pretty difficult… we hear the word “no” probably 50 times a day to something that you know to be true and its not easy! And this elder is just tired of hearing no. This elder came here with me and he has come to be a great friend. He is from Bahia! Anyway he wants to go home because he is sick of hearing “no” he feels like this isn’t doing anything for his life!

I sat down to talk to him and really the Lord just told me what to tell to him! I talked to him and I heard him just spill out why he was feeling that way…

The only thing he could say is that he was sick of here no…

Then I asked, “Why does he feel that way?”

And he started to explain that he knows that this gospel is true…

Then I asked him how he feels when someone says “no”

And he said sad!!

I went on to explain that we are here to invite people to come unto to Christ and to share to the world that there really is a prophet that lives. And every “no” we hear is heard but it makes us stronger! It makes us realize how happy we are for what we know…. And that we can here 1000 “no’s” but that one person that takes us in, the one person that the Lord prepares for us to teach that has taken us in with an open heart to understand makes up for all those “no’s”

He made his decision some time ago that we would go home today… but this morning he came to me and he decided that he will give it another chance and just realized that to hear “no” is apart of this work!

I am so grateful for this work and the gospel and for what it had done to the life of the people I have taught here in Brazil! But I am always so grateful for what this mission had done to my life!!!

I love you all remember we have a prophet and he will never lead us astray! Listen to his what he has to say!!

Have a great week!

Elder Wiscomb