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

Week of Pench Life

Hello again from the ever heating up Arj!

Although it´s heating up and thats nice.....I miss the cold. It was pretty cold when I got here and I kinda miss it! The morning chill is even gone.

We had some good lessons this week! Something I am really trying to improve in the work here is having more contacts. Talking to EVERYONE and making ourselves known. We did a lot of that in Cali and I am missing the army of new investigators and interested people! Something I think I have learned this week is that goals MUST be set. And the schedule must be followed. Only exact obedience brings the blessings, it´s important! Oh and also be quiet in sacrament mtg, the ward isn´t wonderful at that......

My poor Papi (trainer) Elder Stuart fell ill this week with a clenching fever. We had only a couple hours of work on thursday before it got the better of him. We stayed in the pench all that day and then all of friday. But it gave me plenty of study and ponder time! I also watched some good videos on our little DVD player, in spanish! Speaking of spanish....its going good. Sloooowwwwly improving. Sometimes I feel like the ancient grandma. Everyone laughs at what I say, even if it´s not meant to be funny. Haha I´m thinking, no that wasnt a joke! And then when I do speak up everyone in the room is like ¨Shhhhh! Grandmas talking!¨

Saturday was good. We decided to get 10, yes TEN fechas (baptismal dates) this week but got the fever. We did however get three. Which was awesome. One investigator broke his leg real bad, and afterwards it got infected. We took a bus to a REALLY sketch hospital to share a scripture and give him a blessing. I felt bad, everything in the hospital was dirty and I just prayed I never get hurt. BTW, Argentina aside, I am terrible at the bus! Everyone stays standing solid like a tree, but I fly about 8 feet each way when it stops and goes, speeds up and slows down. Hah how embarrassing! We take it a good amount because it takes to long to walk some places.

One thing. Hate is a naughty word for missionaries. So here goes: it sufficeth me to say that stray dogs (which I think there is about 4 million of) and cockroaches are not my best friends.

We had yet ANOTHER day of being in the pench yesterday because voting and political stuff is going on. I guess its not the best idea to be out. BUT we had church, which of course was awesome. We teach gospel principles class which has a grand total of three usually, but the class is so great! That book rocks. Wednesday we had a FHE with some families in the ward. We watched the restoration video and I got to testify. The Restauracion is so important! Its what sets us apart, its what makes us the true religion of Christ! We have the restored, COMPLETE Gospel. It rocks.

Well thanks for the emails and prayers. I love them. You never know the power a prayer will have. Have patience. I love being a missionary!

Elder ¨Weeel...cough¨

PS Happy Halloween!

Happy Mother's Day!

Life is flourishing, just never in the ways you expect them to. It takes work. If we put in the time and effort and love, we will see miracles! I have seen it. I am more and more grateful for my weakness. It´s my opportunity to grow. And Elder Wilcox has a lot of room to grow.

Yesterday was Mothers´ Day in Argentina! That was fun. During sacrament mtg there was a bunch of members that bore testimonies of mothers and the power they are to us. After church we went and did lots of visits. Everyone was outside with their families eating asado (big hunks of meat with no thought to take off ANY fat). We got THREE different meals. And long stories short, I was so stuffed to the brim and couldnt walk. The people here just grab my plate when I´m not looking and fill it up completely. I´m not hungry anymore! I even said ¨No more please, I´m full.¨ Maybe my bad spanish said ¨yes please give me more!¨ haha they are very generous with food here. We got to share scriptures about the striplings warriors of the BOM. They were strong in war and in their testimonies because of the strength of their mothers. My mother is pretty heroic, and I am forever grateful for her love and patience. Like Elder Holland at conference, I salute all you mothers, and express my love and admiration. BrenDawg, this is for you!

This has been a good week, one of patience and long suffering. The weather, thankfully, has been good. When I got here it was REALLY cold! But as all you people in the northern hemisphere cool down, it is really starting to warm up here in the south. I hear la navidad and January are really really hot.

We had some wonderful lessons this week. I am grateful for a comp that is really good at spanish. He has to translate for me a lot, but it´s teaching me humility. It´s not always easy being forced to be shy. We had divisions with our district leader, and I was with a certain Elder Tingey. He likes James Taylor, so you know he´s a good guy. We had a very spiritual lesson with an old lady and her 12 dogs and sick husband. All I could see was sadness. But in my yankee castellano spanish (gringoes are yankees here. But pronounced ¨zschonkee¨) I was able to testify of the Lords love. I think the gift of tongues isnt you all of a sudden speaking perfectly. It´s you not caring about the mistakes, and you all of a sudden speaking with the spirit. That´s a language all missionaries must learn. ¨The sweetest tears I´ve ever loved to cry came I as I opened up my mouth and testified. Between the tiny walls of a strangers living room, the spirit told their hearts my words were true.¨

Also I want to tell all members everywhere to never forget the examples they are to the world. We watched Meet the Mormons for a FHE with a recent convert, and the whole time I just marveled at how much ONE person can do. Preach My Gospel says something like ¨If you lower your expectations your effectiveness will decrease.¨ Please never think you don´t do much in this world. If we plant the seeds, eventually the fruit will grow.

I am so grateful for this mission. I love to think of myself back three months ago and laugh. I know I´ll do the same in a couple years. The growing will never stop, IF I let it keep going. Thanks for all the examples and messages. I love people here, and Jesus Christ.

Love Elder Wilcox
PS: shoutout to Preston B Willey who should be leaving sometime this month (?) and Mckay Sperry for getting a call! YAY missions

The one and only Argentina

Distinguished colleagues, dear family and friends, and everyone else...

Back to Calhoun status.

Haha i thought I knew stuff back there in van nuys! Nope. Remember when I said that Van Nuys was scary compared to home? Well Van Nuys is paradaisiacal glory compared to where I am now. Dont worry I am absolutely loving life right now, just much harder than anything in cali.

this spanish keyboard is really difficult....sorry

SOO. I had a good trip here. Shay thanks for the jet lag stuff. I was still plenty jet lagged at the end, but I´m sure that stuff helped. There is so so much that has happened there´s no way I can write it all. I´ll try to write a lot. I flew over with some other visa waiter buddies from the MTC which was AWESOME. So good to see them, we had some good Alma 17:2-3 action. We even contacted some people at the airport and it was so cool to see all of our growth over the last bit. Shout out to Quynn G, I used the BOM you sent to me, thank you!

All the apartments are called pensiónes, or a ´pench´ as the americanos call it. My pench.....well it´s good. I definitely slapped myself for ever thinking badly of my apartment in cali. I spend the morning huddled around a dribble of lukewarm water in the shower. But that´s only happened twice. The other mornings I do the good old bucket shower :)but the bucket shower really isn´t too bad. I can at least cover myself with water, where the showerhead can not. then we eat some breakfast. Praise the HEAVENS we have a microwave, which most penciónes dont so thats good. Carpet does NOT exist in any way, shape, or form, it´s all tile. and on that tile is an eternal layer of dirt. My comps name is Elder Brendan Stuart from fresno. He is a really fun guy! I´ve been enjoying being with him. We live with two others, Elder donnelly from alabama and Elder estradas from guatemala. Elder Estradas speaks no english, so that gives me good practice.

The members here are very nice! I have been fed almost every day. At lunch time though, that is the biggest meal here, not dinner. This place is very poor, I´d say more so than my visit to Iquitos, Peru. But the members are very nice in feeding us a lot. Something they feed us a ton is milonesa, which is just a thin piece of chicken or beef that is breaded and fried. super greasy but pretty good! also pizza, and pasta. Not dominoes, homemade pizza dough and all that. Not mexican food or anything of that like. In fact, I might miss mexican food at the end of two years just as much as Whit! Maybe not that much. OK here´s some more culture for you: 1.everyone kisses me and expects me to kiss them back. I can´t kiss women, but men love to kiss just as much.on the cheek, one the cheek, don´t worry. 2. milk is sold in a bag. hmmm. 3.everyone shakes hands different. They grab your hand and then up around your thumb. people do it in the states but it´s every time here. 4.EVERYONE drinks from a family maté cup. a cup with mate herbs and then a special straw that filters the water through. its just their form of tea. We have only three rules. Don´t drink water from the tap, dont drink mate, and follow the white handbook. 5. most people have gates in front of their door (and bars on windows) so what we do is clap, not knock. I still kinda chuckle at that....but it´s fun! 6. pedestrians do NOT have the right of way. The roads are more or less a free for all. most people drive bikes, but there are lots of cars too. a good amount of horse pulled carts as well. There´s only one busy road in our area, and crossing it is like a life or death frogger game. Haha, not quite that dangerous, but a lot like frogger! (btw we walk. I was so blessed to have a car back in cali!) 7. mostly dirt roads. i pulled out my camera to take a picture, and elder stuart was like ´what are you doing??´ he looked around and said thats bad because it could get us robbed. OHHH....

I´ll tell this one story quick. Saturday night, it was late and we stopped by the ward mision leaders house. On the way, two drunk dudes were yelling at us on the corner. We just answered their question (what time is it) and kept walking. One followed us to the leaders house. He came right up and was talking to us. He was RIGHT in our faces, he was drunk out the wazoo! We tried to show him the BOM, but he was so drunk he was falling over. He kept muttering to us, ´i want money....i want to eat....money...´ We left of course, but he kept following! E. Stuart told me to walk faster. We sped up, but so did he. ALL OF A SUDDEN, he jumped forward and grabbed me! E. Stuart was like ¨dude run!¨ We ran like a block. Isn´t that creepy? Wow, I´m sorry. Life here is great. I´ve been only talking about my harsh culture shocks.

My ability to feel the spirit is growing and growing! Spanish....still hard. But we´ve given like 5 blessings this week. That is my favorite, quickest way to bring the spirit. Sacrament meeting was great! The ward is very small, like 50 people. But SOO NICE. The bishop asked me to bear my testimony right there at the start. But I thought he was just introducing me. I smiled but everyone stared. I finally got it. I also got to play the hymns! The church has one very old piano with a hollow sound and a broken pedal. But they love it, and i love it. We had a BAPTISM on saturday as well. We did studies at the church to wait for the font to fill. A cute little lady named eva and her 30 year old rocker-mullet son Carlos. They are really nice. LOVED IT. THis is such a wonderful mission.

Ok no time. I¨LL write more spiritual things later, so sorry! Just know i am good, and loving it. Its hard to adjust and stuff, but life is good.

Elder Wilcox

´How should we think to earn a great reward if we now shun the fight?´