Its beginning to look a lot like...summer

Real talk! But it started looking like summer long ago. anyway...

It´s fun getting xmas greetings and feeling that excitement from home! I´m definitely enjoying the season as well, just in totally different ways. People dont really sing christmas songs here, but many do have christmas trees, it´s fun to see those.

This week I gave my very first priesthood blessing in Castellano (argentine spanish). Kind of a scary experience, but amazing nonetheless. I think I have said before that giving a blessing is one of my favorite ways to feel the spirit. You can feel the love the God has for that person, it´s awesome! I have done the annointing plenty of times, but never have I done the actual blessing. It was for a girl that is having real migraine problems. When we left, she tried to kiss us goodbye, but we had to deny her. That happens like 20x a day! I´ve denied many women kisses haha. But not men, it´s okay to kiss them ;)....on the cheek of course.

This week has flown by! Elder Stuart and I are just doing SO great right now with investigators and éxito and happiness. So fun to actually see the fruits of labores. This whole transfer has flown by really.

This week was PESADO, AFUL. In other words, incredibly hot and humid. Ha so many people are like dying either in the house or out, and look at us and ask ¨Why are you wearing those clothes, aren´t you dying??¨ Why yes, yes I am, thanks for asking. The ward had a xmas dinner this week. We had invited some investigators. The dinner was supposed to start at 7. Then at 8 ish was supposed to be a show. They had asked us to do something for the show. We had the other two elders with us from Castillo, E´ Donnelly and Estrada. We changed our plans like 3 times, but didn´t actually get to do anything....because the dinner didn´t start until about 8:50! Argentines....very late people.But our golden golden family, Gustavo y Monica, showed up! SO GREAT. I was so happy. Haha as soon as they came at 9:20 we had to go. But we talked to the bishop and his family yesterday and they said the Gustavo and Monica had a really good time, and things are working out. I LOVE LOVE LOVE being a missionary. The work is so fun to see the changes people are making. We are NOT salesman. We are God´s army, ready to combat sadness and bad choices and replace them with joy and love. How great is that?

Haha something that the members always do when I say I´m from Utah is they make some joke like it´s the ¨factory¨. ¨La fábrica.¨ I got so used to that that I accidentally used it in street contacts! As in, ¨Yeah I´m Elder Wilcox, and I´m from Utah. La fábrica hehe.¨ And then non members who don´t know anything get way confused. STILL LEARNING. Every day. Love it.

Ok, I need to get. We are getting close to having a brand new couple in our midst! Congrats to Shaylee and Michael, hope you have a wonderful wedding. Also to everyone with a white christmas, count your blessings! I love you all, and I love this work! Trying me best everyday to improve, and I know I can through Christ our Lord. ¡Ciao!

Keep on keepin on,

Elder Wilcox

Pic: Its true humility to send a sopping-wet-right-after-the-rain picture. This is how we look. Not too guapo, but can still teach a lesson!

Other Pic: This is a few weeks old, but it´s when we got transfer calls and found out we were all gonna stay together!

When I get where I'm going (Dec 6)

Greetings, friends and family. It´s christmas season, yay! And so hot outside. Doesn´t seem to be xmas at all. I´ve never actually had to dream of a white xmas haha. I started this week out singing a bunch of christmas songs, but quickly stopped. There´s only like 2 christmas songs ever that don´t talk about home and family and snow and mistletoe and everything that isnt in my life right now. But that´s ok, we are doing just dandy down in Rafael Castillo 2! Miracles are seen EVERY day if you look.

This week´s subject comes from a song that I heard this week by Brad Paisley. It´s actually a really beautiful song. It says something like ¨when I get where I´m going, there´ll be only happy tears. I will shed the sins and struggles I have carried all these years.....When I see my makers face, I´ll stand forever in the light of His Amazing Grace!¨ What a great message! Good old country music, eh?

Right this moment I am stricken with a fever, but the rest of this week has been great! Tuesday and wednesday were rough days. It was hot and humid. REALLY hot and humid. No one wanted to talk and no wanted us around. BUT....something changed eventually. We ended this week with a LOT of lessons, and 10 new investigators! That´s a lot. But guess what else happened? We found ANOTHER familia de oro (GOLDEN FAMILY). The parents names are Walter and Mirta. They have two old kids that are baptized and inactive. But we clapped their house, and they let us right in, no questions! We were kinda surprised, but happy. Then they told us their story. They´ve heared missionaries many times before. But we had a GREAT GREAT first lesson and they committed to come to church. That was on friday. I was happy they committed to come to church, but so do a lot of people. People tell us they are coming to church alllll the time and never show, even when we call them night before, morning of, etc. But they actually came!!! And brought their whole family! Couldn´t believe it. Church yesterday was the best three hours of my life! We had 7, yes, 7 investigators at church! Our mini chapel was full...almost. It was so great! The gospel principles class was taught by our ward mission leader, and not by us, like it usually is. And it was testimony mtg yesterday, a great great time for feeling the spirit. I love to see the ward doing great, all on it´s own! That´s a comfort, seeing these wonderful saints getting the blessings from a restored gospel.

Remember the other golden family, Gustavo y Monica? They are still golden, just much harder to meet with. They always set appointments up a week or more apart. BUT we had a fantastic lesson with them on friday. I felt the spirit more strongly than ever in their little living room. Gustavo brought up some very valid questions. Their concerns are all very valid, just hard to get around. They have NO time, and that´s why they don´t read. The most spiritual lessons are when I worry the least about messing up in the language. I feel the spirit, and they feel the spirit. And THAT is the real teacher, not weakling Elder Wilcox with mediocre castellano spanish. ¨I boast in the strength of my Lord¨ ya know?

Ok, must get going now. This ¨cyber¨ (internet place) is being lame, looks like I cant send any pics today. Have a great week. And remember that Elder Wilcox loves you! ¡Ciao!

Elder Wilcox

 

Family reunion and giving thanks (Nov 30)

What an incredible week it has been! INDREDIBLE, I tell ya.

Most everything was going normal until friday. Just good old working hard and moving the work along. But Elder Stuarts Papi (trainer), Elder Christensen, was made a traveling assistant pretty recently! And if you´re wondering, Elder Stuart is my Papi (even though I´m done with my training now), so that means Elder Christensen is my abuelo, hence the subjec line ¨family reunion¨. He is such an AMAZING missionary.

Friday Elder Christensen and his comp came to do a three day division with us. Elder Christensen came with us and his comp, Elder Furtado, went with Elder Donnelly and Estrada. So the pench that is crowded with four Elders had six for a few days..... Anyway, the weekend was just so good. With him, I kinda realized ¨What am I doing? I could be doing SO much better!¨ At contacting, at teaching, at being confident. He really helped us make a jump on our ánimo. We found 5 new investigators, 3 of which are VERY promising and seem so ready to accept the Gospel. Just this morning on the bus, I talked to three people, and gave out the new xmas cards we missionaries have. (BTW. Spanish report: the castellano is coming along very nicely! Elder Christensen said that I speak really really fluently!)

Elder Christensen also taught us a lot on teaching lesson 1, the Restoration. Simpler is better. So much better. PMG says It´s true intelligence to take something complicated and simplify it so that a child can understand. Or so an Argentine can understand. We put that into play, and after one lesson I saw a HUGE difference, in the spirit during the lesson, in the understanding of the investigator, etc. Seriously, my tesimony just grew right up this week. Plus being with my papi and abuelo was SO FUN. We really did get along great. I give more thanks for all these experiences every day. I would never trade this mission for anything. Nothing. I´m missing my family, yes, but it is so worth it. I will look back on these good times forever.

Funny story of the week: the members we live with have a dog, a really friendly pitbull named Leona. Somehow she got in the pench during the night, and snuggled right up to Elder Christensen who was sleeping on the ground. I heard this terrible licking sound and woke up. I thought it was my comp, but it was her, and I could smell her BAD, she was wet from the rain. She was busy licking my abuelos elbow! He never woke up, but I had to do the right thing and grab her and banish her from the pench. Funny stuff.

Love you all! Excited for diciembre to finally start! Goodbye have a great week.

Love Elder Wilcox

Pic: our family reunion. My papi and abuelo are much buffer than I......

 

The Gospel Truth (Nov 23)

Bless my soul, the work is on a roll!

The spanish is improving bastante! Still definitely not fluent or anything close, but I have left lessons this week and then realized that I didnt even worry about what I was saying or grammar or whatever. I think the Don de Lenguas is a real thing, it just takes a little time and work.

Political energy is in the air! Argentina is just finishing elections. We are not allowed to talk about them to anyone except members, and yesterday were the actual elections and we stayed in our pench all day. But the guy that we were secretly hoping for to win won! And he might make it possible for missionaries to get packages! That would be sweetness. Also we heard from some members about bombings in France, that sounds scary. But we also heard something about an attempted bombing in New York(?) I know nothing, but no one mentioned anything so I guess no news is good news.

I think that this is the greatest thing of my life. Is it too cliche to say ¨The Best Two Years¨? The church is just so true and this is just so fun and sometimes so hard and long but that is ok! Gospel aside, a young man grows so much when he leaves his family and tries to something worthwhile and learns along the way. He lives with other young men doing the same thing. Oh, and they do it all while speaking spanish. I want so badly to help the investigators I have and make their lives better! We found yet ANOTHER awesome awesome family to teach. Cesár and Andrea. But she is insanely evangelica, which translates to ¨wont listen¨. We tried to introduce the Book of Mormon, but she just said something like ¨You guys have your conviction and I have mine. Jesus is the way, the only way.¨ We were like ¨yeah we know, and this can help-..¨ But she just interupted and said a bunch of stuff. I agreed with about 99 percent of everything she said but an hour later she was still talking and convinced we were weird. Hopefully her heart can be softened and we´ll be able to get a word or two in. It´s been a great week. Had more progress with David, a wonderful lesson where he really opened up on some questions he has.

The rain continues. It´s actually kinda cold ish when it rains. But the next day the sun comes out (do do do do) and it gets SO HUMID and SO HOT. I hope everyone has a good thanksgiving. We weren´t planning on anything, I actually just remembered thanksgiving today. BUT a member family invited us to dinner for their sons birthday! We´ll probably get a full asado (spread of different types of meat) and I am STOKED! That is good. But most other food is insanely bland. All I want for xmas is pepper. I miss pepper so much. They put way too much salt and absolutely no pepper. I bought some red ¨pepper¨ stuff at the store but it just turned out to be red dust, nasty.

Well I had better get. Not a lot of time. Love you guys! Happy b day recently to Travis ¨BuckWalk¨ Wilcox. 60 has never looked so good! Ha. Have a great week and remember that its only another month til Christmas and Star Wars 7! Not that I´ll watch it or anything....

Love, Elder Wilcox
¨Blessed are they that write to Elder Wilcox, for they shall have favor with him.¨

Pic: Elder Stuart and I outside our front door in the rain. I think only my parents will understand the face I´m making....

 

The Castillo Crew (Nov 16)

SO....transfer calls were this week.

And to my surprise and the surprise of many, Elder Stuart and I are staying together for another transfer and we are still gonna be seeing milagros here in Rafael Castillo! Lucky us. Also Elders Donnelly and Estrada, the two we live with are still here as well. We got the call from our zone leader and were all jumping up and down, ¨Yay! The family is staying together!¨ I am the little hijo, E. Stuart is my Papi, E. Donnelly is the uncle, and E. Estrada is the exchange student from Guatemala. But he`s like family.

I am really seeing the Castillo 2 ward pick things up as well! Much of this transfer we have talked about how to strengthen this ward. How how how? That`s kinda the whole point right? It profiteth us nothing if the missionaries baptize people....and thats it. They need a ward family to accept them and give them callings and really make a spot for them. Well last night, we did visits with some priesthood brethren. Me and my comp split up. I went with a recently returned missionary named Gabi, and elder stuart went with his dad. It was great! I`ve never done a split with a non missionary before, so it was interesting. Really tested my spanish. I can actually kinda hold my own! We had a little bit of a hard time conversing, but we talked about his mission in Brasil and it was good. None of the members we had planned on were home or available, so we just contacted some investigators of ours. We didn´t get in to any houses, but I gave a Libro de Mormon away and Gabi said he was impressed we have so many investigators in this area!

What else happened this week? OH. Got fed blood sausage. I guess they eat it in Hungary too, I hear from elder fitzgerald. Well I am totally with you Elder Fitz, blood sausage will NEVER be good. It´s literlally blood formed into a sausage and cooked. They eat it up here, but I avoid it.

The weather has manifested itself unto us. Quite ferociously (is that how you spell it?) too. Last monday we had a lesson with our awesome friend David. But it was raining. We wore our ponchos, it wasnt too bad on the way to the lesson. But after the lesson, the rain came down HARD. Now this wasn´t some petty utah shower. It was more like God said ¨haha check this out suckers¨ and gave us everything. In the paved streets, we could have floated home on tubes. But on the dirt roads....its a constant struggle to make it out of there alive. Mud bath of mud baths.
But later this week it got realllllly hot. Humid too. The heat and humidity make it rough to sleep. But we are enduring and loving it too.

The progress is awesome! Had great great lessons this week and some service opportunities tambien. We helped a woman move, way across the area. That was fun. Imagine two elders stabling an ancient fridge, in the back of an ancient truck. We stopped and helped a woman shoveling some dirt in her yard, and she totally talked to us afterwards. Service is the key people!

We also had an ¨open chapel¨ and that was great. Dont have much time but just want to say to always be an example of the faith!

3rd Nephi is great isnt it?

Love Elder Wilcox

The white shirts are coming (Nov 9)

My mission in a sentence: ¨I saw a bum here the other night, there were two bums. And I thought to myself, lets talk to these guys about the gospel.¨ -Nacho Libre

What a great week! Why is is that only at the END of the transfer you feel like you start to pick up and be awesome?? Lame. The transfer ends next week and I dont want to be separated from my beloved Elder Stuart. He´s a real capo and friend.

We decided to really start opening our bocas and trying to find new investigators. And stopping by people on the potential investigator list. Something I´ve learned this week is to STOP worrying and dont give up. There will be an hour or so some days where I just want to stop and sit down and scratch my bug bites and rest. Things get hard sometimes! But Preach my Gospel counsels that ¨If you lower your expectations, your effectiveness will decrease.¨ That is a real thing. We found the most PERFECT family to teach and had a great first lesson with them last night. They are from a contact we made weeks ago and thought nothing of. But we talked outside of their house for quite a while about missionary work and stuff. They were super intrigued.Gustavo and Monica. He was so impressed-haha asked like 20 times ¨So what you´re telling me is that you leave your own country for TWO years and never talk to your family just to teach about your church?¨ It felt so good to be validated and appreciated. Not even the members realize the work that the missionaries put in. And then we had a great lesson a couple days later! The fruits dont come quickly, but THEY COME.

We also have been really trying hard and making small progress on David, a son of a recent convert named Pina. She helps him a lot with reading and even coming to church, but he is reallllllly struggling with depression. Poor guy, he has real potential and he´s only 22 years old. And he´s super nice. We finally got in with him last night and had a lesson. I was thinking how we dont know him all that well. We got him to play his guitar for us. He is INCREDIBLE, at playing and singing. I feel like I know him so much better. After that he really opened up and the lesson blossomed. He also committed to a date. Crossing our fingers!

One other person who we´re hoping will be golden is the husband of a recent convert. La familia Guzman. They are so nice and have fed us a couple times. And guess what his name is? Gastón. Great name right? ¨No one reads like Gastón, no one prays like Gastón. No one climbs in the baptismal font like Gastón!¨

SO. The primary program. Super cool experience. The primary in this ward is like a ninth of a typical primary back home, but nine times as crazy. About fifteen or so little creatures with unbridled energy. We practiced on saturday, and it was so crazy. First of all, the piano is just something they are not familiar with at all. They have one, but no one EVER plays it so it´s almost too much for them to handle. Everyone sings! But they are used to acapella, so when I came in with the piano everyone (kids and adults) were like melody? tempo? Whats that? But we eventually figured it out and it was awesome. They fed us panchos (hotdogs) and they only eat them with mayo. The kids are crazy like I said, and both Elder Stuart and I got some mayo stains from the kids climbing on us with a pancho in hand. But it was so fun, and in sacrament mtg it worked out so well. What a spirit there is with a primary program! I love the words of a childs prayer. ¨Speak, he is listening.¨ La verdad.

Scripture of the week. Helaman 5:6. I am Parker TRAVIS Wilcox and proudly so. You´re awesome President Wilcox! Keep it up.

I will go forth boldly declaring the word of God to all of Buenos Aires West. I boast not of mine own strength, but the Lord´s. Unto this end, I close mine epistle. I am Elder Wilcox, son of Travis.

Pic: Elder Donnelly (the one next to me) had a birthday! And bdays in Argentina are cool. We made empanadas and they were way good! They have a tradition where you basically tar and feather the person, but with eggs and flower. We got him gooood, right after this pic was taken. But then the Hermana got all of us with eggs.....

 

Week of Ramos Life (Nov 2)

This is a crazy country. I´ve said it many a time, and probably will many more times. For instance, only an Argentine would run to catch the bus...while breast feeding. Or drench lettuce in oil and call it a salad. Or go CRAZY all night when their soccer team wins. I dont know, maybe other people do that stuff. But that is just a few things I have seen this week.

So. I live in a town called Rafael Castillo. And the church offices are in a bigger city called Ramos Mejía. To get to Ramos is about a 30-40 min ride on the colectivo (bus). And we went there EVERY day. Monday to play bball with our zone. That was fun.

Tuesday we went to Ramos for some trainings with the Mission President, President Robertson. He is such a CHAMP. I have loved getting to learn from him. We had different trainings on new computer things, but the best part was the interview with him. I could feel the spirit so strong. Half the time, we werent even talking about spiritual things, I could just feel the spirit with him. He gave some GREAT counsel. It was so awesome. He told me he was impressed with my spanish, and to keep working hard. One thing I loved that he said was to look to other missionaries and prophets for ideas. Dont ever be scared to look to others for good examples on how to work and share the Gospel.

Wednesday we didnt plan on going to Ramos. But the other Elders we live with went and forgot something, so we had to bring it to them :( It was good though. I actually got a seat on the bus, which never happens, and read about when Moroni and Pahoran beat the tar out of the Lamanites through their great FAITH. Keep the faith!

And then thursday and friday I had to go into Capitál, like the big part of Buenos Aires for something called trámites. That is thing we do to gain a two year visa or whatever. Mostly it was lines in a government building. I met some english speakers and got to talk about missionary work! One from Ireland, one Australia, and one England. (Super cool accents!) Haha the lines and stuff reminded me of Brian Regan: ¨Angry people here, livid people here, keep it organized!¨

Some wonderful other experiences this week! We had a great lesson with a lady named Eliana. Really nice and receptive to the Gospel. Seemed to understand the Restoration really well, and to put that in perspective....NOBODY understands the Restoration. Especially from a young Yankee like myself. (Yankee is like the word Gringo here. Except in Castellano its pronounced ¨zshankee¨) We have been having great lessons with a recent convert named Eva, who I saw baptized my first week here. But in church and in her house, she never wants to pray. What?? How could you not want to? Pray for Eva to see the great importance of PRAYER. It is one of the greatest gifts we have. The Great God who has plenty of things to do wants to talk to him personally.
I have been playing the hymns every week in church which I love to do even on a laaaammmmme piano. I got asked on the fly to play for the primary program next week, so we´ll see how that goes. Funny story from yesterday. Sacrament mtg, I was about to play the sacrament hymn. But before, our stake president was gonna make an announcement. All I was listening for, and all I heard was the ¨hymn number 118¨ from the counselor who was counducting. (The piano faces the wall). I started playing the hymn while the president stood patiently at the pulpet, until someone tapped me to stop. Wayyyyyyy embarrassing, but whatevs. Yankee life for ya!

Love ya! I dont care who you are, I love you. Have a wonderful week. Hope everyone had a great Halloween. I celebrated mine with a little bit of obra misional. Mmmm, delicious.

Elder Wilcox