The Power of the Priesthood (Jan 11)

Another wonderful wonderful week in the life of Elder Wilcox and Elder Campos! I am really finding out the blessings of a focused mind and hard work. The Lord commands us to open our mouths to EVERYONE. Does that mean that you won´t get mean people? No. But you´ll eventually find the ¨elegidos¨, the ones ready to accept the Gospel in their lives!

This was a great great week. Every week is really. We are finally over that awk first- week-or-so-of-companionship-stage. I have also been loving getting to know Elder McCardell. We did divisions this week (which were SO simple! Same pench, don´t have to worry about anything) and he is awesome! He is from Murray so automatically we have a lot in common. I also realized how much I appreciate having a Latino comp. With white Elders, you have to switch a LOT between languages. With Elder Campos, it´s just spanish no más. That actually REALLY helps! He taught me how to do the Rubik´s cube this week so that was cool.

Anyway: the power of the Priesthood. There´s a lot of it. We had interviews with President this week. He is such a powerful example of always always having the spirit with you. He gave me some great counsel that stood way out. First, I need to keep the sacrament sacred. That is MY time to worship and ponder and learn. Don´t worry about investigators, noise, or anything. Also, he said he keeps cards (he showed me) with him about topics of things he´s gonna pray for or scriptures he liked or anything like that. ¨Thought topics¨, digamos. Anyway, I am so grateful for a powerful mission president who I really look up to.

Another great experience was yesterday right after church. An hermana requested a blessing from us and a member of the bishopric. She said she is down on both ¨ánimo¨ and health. She doesn´t feel any excitement to go to church or anything like that. We gave her some good advice and told her to never lose hope. That´s what is great about the gospel! HOPE. Like Uchtdorf in that awesome talk, if we step back and look at the bigger picture, it will ¨definitely work for you.¨ Also, I can finally do an annointing/blessing in spanish without reading from the white handbook haha.

Funny culture thing. No idea why but HUGE groups of people gather in public places ALL the time and bang on their drums. They have terrible terrible rythym, it´s just loudness. Everyone who isn´t drumming just steps back and forth, ¨dancing¨ kinda like Will Smith´s simple move from Hitch.

Got to go! Make sure to drink water! Ha that´s what our President told us this week. ¨Make sure to drink water and take breaks if you need them!¨

Lot´s of LOVE. Keep the faith. ¨Be not weary in well doing, for you are laying the foundation of a great work. And out of small things proceedeth that which is great.¨

Elder Wilcox

The Consecrated Year

This subject line was taken from an email from Elder Hemeyer, who retains all the rights and privileges. What a great way to put it! Let´s make this a consecrated year and be the best we can be! Just recently we got a talk from Tad R. Callister that he gave at the MTC. It is about being consecrated missionaries and putting every single bit of uncleanliness ¨on the altar of sacrifice.¨ Great great talk, and it helps me to start off this year right! There are ALWAYS things to improve on.

Right now we are in a nice cyber in Ramos Mejía, and for some reason they have Shania Twain´s ¨Man! I feel like a Woman¨ playing and I think it´s the happiest I´ve ever been.

This week has been great! Just a good old missionary week. Lots of work, and lots of miracles. With Elder Stuart gone, I am leading the area(ish) at least until Elder Campos can learn all of it. I was really nervous at first, but I know Rafael Castillo a lot better than I thought I did! I just had to learn that I know..does that make sense? Elder Campos is a total ¨bestia¨, and a REALLY good teacher. He is really good at holding people´s attention, and simplifying things down, so that people will get them. I was pretty nervous to get a comp with no english at all, but it´s turning out to be a lot better than I thought! There is still somewhat a barrier, but we talk about home and normal things still. He is SUPER funny, but also a good, soft spoken leader when needed. It is a four missionary pench. We still have Elder Estrada, but now we have an Elder McCardell from MURRAY UTAH. So great to have another utah guy to talk to! Just recently his brother´s traveled here to visti old comps and delivered a SUITCASE full of candy, ties, and cool stuff. He got some cool star wars socks, and a small lego model of the millenium falcon. Needless to say, before bedtime I have been having fun with that! New Years was the exact same as xmas, just a lot of fireworks and drunk people. The Hermano we live with did feed us DELICIOUS asado though..mmmmm.

The ward is doing great too! The more I get to know these people, the more I see their strength. Nahuel has been greeted with open arms into the tiny Elder´s quorum. We have had a couple good visits with his mom, Dora. She is a recent convert as well, but completely inactive. She didn´t come to Nahuel´s baptism. But he just loves her the same, and even shares scriptures with her! I think we are gonna try to have a movie night with them and watch the Joseph Smith movie. He is great guy.

Ain´t got much time today, but CONGRATS to Daniel Ernest Ellis the 5th for your mission call to Ecuador! That is super rad, and another friend I´m gonna be able to speak spanish with!

¡Ciao! Great quote i heard ¨He who says he can, and he who says he can´t are both usually right.¨

Love from Elder Wilcox

The new Castillo crew up on the roof on New Year´s

Last week, Elder Stuart´s last visit with the familia Espejo (bishops´s family) They are an AWESOME family. And they made me hold their nasty no-hair dog

Christmas, Baptism, Wedding, Transfer.......and more

What a week! Definitely have never had a Christmas like that.

First off, it was so good to talk to my family! It was definitely a bittersweet thing. Trunky, but at the same time loving the mission. It´s a confusing mix of emotions...very confusing. But you guys look so good, and I got to talk to the newly weds-congrats my friends. That is so exciting: Christmas, Star Wars, and a Wedding all within a week or so! I was a little saddened that my little bro has a deeper voice now-I am missing these years while he is in puberty´s grasp. But it was a great great week nonetheless!

First off, we had a BAPTISM! Nahuel, he is a great great capo of an Argentine. So happy for him. We had invited almost all of the ward. But to not all that much surprise, only 10 people showed up...including 4 missionaries. Me, my comp, and the two other Elders of Castillo. It was on Saturday. Baptisms are nice because we have to be at the church while the font is filling, which takes about 3 hours. During that time, we read the scriptures, and I plunked out some primary songs on the old piano. We had a talk about baptism by Carlos, a counselor in the Elders Quorum. We then had the baptism, I gave a talk on the HG, and we had a musical number by another Elder in the ward. Haha the ward counselor who conducted REFUSED to say my name, even though it was WRITTEN on his paper! That actually happens a lot. He just looked at it, then asked me ¨what´s your name again?¨ ¨Wilcox.¨ ¨Oh...Elder.....Weeel..col¨ Close enough. But it was a really good baptism. I think Nahuel will make a great member of the ward. He advanced through the lessons so quick! He knows quite a bit of english, and loves to read the BOM. He also made his own progress. By that I mean he made changes without us even asking. Por ejemplo: he told us one day he stopped listening to his regular music because he knew it was bad, and we hadn´t even said anything! This gospel changes lives! Yesterday in Church, I got to confirm him member of the church. It was pretty scary in spanish, not gonna lie. I messed up, to say the least. But it was a really good experience.

Christmas was great too! For the Noche Buena (Christmas Eve) we had a great asado dinner at Walter y Mirta´s house, a family of investigators. They are awesome, and are really progressing to baptism! In fact, they might already be there, but she has to get divorced, and then they have to get married. But that was fun, DELICIOUS asado steak and sausage and stuff. Haha we had to order a remis (taxi), because we were allowed to stay out til 10:30 if we got one. I thought it was gonna be at least a good-ish car. But it turned out to be a complete piece of cardboard on wheels! I was pretty sketched out. He had incredibly loud music playing, but the car was wobbling the whole time, like it was gonna fall apart. Haha fun stuff. Argentine Xmas is really just getting drunk, high, and eating asado. And also.....fireworks. Lots and lots of them. Mostly just loud fire crackers. But at midnight on the Noche Buena, they let loose. For you Heber folk, just imagine the Memorial Hill finale, but literally EVERYWHERE around you! So many fireworks, for like 25 straight minutes! It was insane! Christmas day was fun. We had lunch with a member, and a visit with a couple others. We stayed in the members house where we called for a while while we all called home.

I am going backwards on this email. But on wed, we went to the Buenos Aires Temple as a mission! SOOOO GREAT. My first session ever in Spanish. It was pretty different, but it´s a beautiful temple. They had a great program at the mission offices after that. That took all day, it was our ¨Christmas P-Day¨. Awesome.

We got transfer calls only about 3 hours ago. They are really last minute on those. But it looks like I will be staying in Castillo, yay! But....Elder Stuart, my dear Papi is going away. He is going to a zone called Marcos Paz. But he is gonna be district leader AND finish someone´s training, which means I´ll have a step-brother! I´ve never met him, but my new comp is named Elder Campos. I could be wrong, but I´m pretty sure he´s Chileno. I´ll meet him tomorrow. Oh, and he´s gonna be District Leader, so he´s got to be a good guy! I am pretty sad to see Elder Stuart go, but change is good and helps us grow.

No mo time, better get. I love the mission, and love these people! Missions are the best. Keep the faith everybody. Also, keep the commandments.

Love Elder Wilcox

Pic 1: Nahuel at his Baptism!
Pic 2: This is Carlos, Eva, and Marcos. My FAVORITE member family. Carlos (guy next to me, who spoke at the baptism) loves rock, as you can tell by his hair. He also loves Star Wars, so we get along great!

What's Two Years? (Dec 21)

NOTHING, that´s what! This mission is the best thing that´s ever happened to me, ever! To paraphrase Elder Holland, the mission is CRITICAL, absolutely ESSENTIAL, and worth more than anything in time and eternity for my testimony and personal growth. As a missionary, I am growing in every way possible: spiritually, mentally, in maturity, in how to treat people, language skills, and more! Ha I guess I´m growing physically too.

This week we got training from my Gpa, Elder Christensen, and our zone leaders on how to best teach lesson 2, the Plan de Salvación. This, combined with the training on lesson 1, makes me feel invincible! We know all about teaching these lessons, obviously, but this is tuned to us and our mission and our investigators. Ha these Argentines NEED really simple lessons. That´s probably true throughout the world, but the point is that we have been using these new techniques, and it works. We are combining lesson 2 with Chastity. Because in any given city here, maybe one couple will be married. NOBODY gets married, it´s a real challenge! But I am seeing the lives of Gustavo y Monica, our awesome golden family, just change change change. It´s all in the eyes. You can tell that they have interest, that they are humble, and want to change. The Lord prepares people, and some need more preparation than others! We are getting SO BLESSED right now with a massive teaching pool. Nahuel, great great guy, is getting baptized this saturday and I am stoked! PEOPLE: dont ever judge a missionary harshly for not getting baptisms, or good for getting lots of baptims. We are ALL a team and who takes the credit? Whose strength do we boast in? The Lord. And nobody else.

This week Elder Stuart completed a year, and we burned a shirt! That was fun. We bought a couple pizzas to celebrate. (Argentines aren´t that bad at pizza). Well lesson learned, NOT to buy pizza from the pizzeria called ¨La Napo¨. If you´re ever in Rafael Castillo, go elsewhere! I barfed that stuff up hard all night! The other three didn´t barf, but we did get multiple reports of some weird doo-doos.

Oh yeah Christmas. So happy and stoked! This for sure isnt normal xmas......it´s much better! We have been having real trouble finding someone that´ll accept us for the Noche Buena (Christmas Eve). Our bishop and his fam (who are awesome and like family to us!) are leaving mission boundaries and we cant go with them....BUT, one of the families we are teaching invited us over that night! The Lord provides. Haha we were worried we were gonna get stuck in our pench that night eating cereal. But it´s ok here. Xmas here is like Labor Day back in the states. People check their watches and they´re like ¨Oh yeah, I guess it is christmas time.¨ But I am quite excited, plus we are gonna call fam! I heard there was a birth in the family? Or adoption? WEDDING, that´s it. I´m gonna talk to a new brother. There´s happiness in the air!

¡Ciao! ¨I want to wish you a Merry Christmas from the bottom of my heart.¨ Best wishes from good old....

Elder Wilcox

Pic: Us burning the shirt! That handsome devil taking the selfie is Elder Donnelly.
Other Pic: un Hermano in the ward had us at his parilla (grill) last p day and fed us! Awesome!

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......