Day 394

Dear Family and Friends,

 Well we are coming up on transfers here in the Peru Cuzco mission and i am all ready to go here in the office.  this last week got pretty hectic but i survived haha so my companion Elder Corredor is now leaving the office and his replacement is already here Elder Gallardo from Panamá and he will be my new companion.  he is coming up on 6 months in the mission and is a good worker.  he will be a great secretary here in the mission office.  well Elder Green the basketball player from Utah state as well is heading out from the office and his replacement has arrived as well Elder Arteaga from Guatemala but when he was ten years old his family moved to the states and so he speaks English and Spanish naturally.  another kinda of side note that i just remembered is that there is and Elder Tavoian from cedar city in our mission I'm not sure if anybody knows him but ya haha today is kinda lonely here in the office because more then half of the missionaries went to machu picchu in the morning and they wont get back till later tonight.  this last sat we had a wonderful baptism of a part member family a few photos are attached but I'm not in any of them :( i have to copy some from elder green's camera but hes not here today. here is a little about the family and Boris who was baptized.

(A little idea that i wanted to do for all the converts)

Profile: Boris Alcides Montoya Cordova

Boris is father of one child (Caleb 5 yrs old) his son love Michael Jackson.  he is always trying to learn new dance moves and show them off.  His wife Hacely has been a member for a long time but has been less active the last few years.  Boris and his wife work in the same place together.  they are wonderful family and they have always tried to do what they think is right.  they live in a very modest home and have blessed by the lord in there finanzas.  i would say they both are close to 30 yrs old.  Boris is a very humble guy and talks really calmly.  his likes to get ready really slow in the morning and arrive late to all his meetings (just like dad :P) haha and his wife is always complaining about it (just like mom) haha

i decided to share a little about the lives of people who are just like you and me. if you think about being in the same position as them but without having the gospel in your life how would it be? we all have day to day problems that don't seem like a big deal to us because we have the big picture and we know what our final goal is.  but if you can imagine what it would be like to have all those things add up and not have the knowledge of why we have to go through those things in our lives.  it would be really easy to complain to god and blame him for all our problems.  but by sharing the gospel we can help other come to know the plan god has created for us.  and just the knowledge of that will help us get through the toughest of times.  i know it has helped me a lot in my life and in the mission.  Some say that i have got over the hump haha I'm not sure if that means how fast time flies or what but all i do know is that spiritually i have hit any hump and i don't want to.  i would rather keep keep climbing the hill and learning more and more.  i don't want to plateau that is my worry.  I LOVE YOU ALL and keep up the good work.  and keep writing me even though i have a year in the mission doesnt mean that im sick of letters haha

Elder Wilkinson

Day 390

Family and Friends,

 

Hello Everybody!!! well sorry for the little wait on the letter :( this tues we are going to be having transfers and so i got a little backed up with all the office work trying to prepare everything for transfers.  But now everything has settled down and we should be all ready to go next week.  Well so the news for this past week the has been a elder in the office with us for almost two weeks that has kidney stones (Elder Matute).  and they arent super small from the x-rays they say they are close to 7 MM in diameter.  he has been in quite a bit of pain and couldnt even walk very well.  well the good news is he is going to get treated in the mission and doesnt have to go home, but the bad news is that he had to go to lima where they have better doctors.  so that one photo with him is from this morning when we dropped him off at the airport.  he should come back in a month or two ready to get back to work.  well also because he was leaving and was kinda depressed about leaving his mission and not being able to do anything president invited the office and Elder Matute to go out and eat.  So those other photos of us in the restaurant are from last night where we went to eat Rodizio (Unlimited meat on shish kabobs) yep just like Tucanos in northern utah.  i think i ate a whole cow, and i aint lying haha but it was the bomb!!! that is one of the bonuses of being in the office :) well the next thing is that we have started playing ping pong on p-days because almost all the churches have ping pong tables and we never thought about using them till now haha i think somebody said hey does anybody like ping pong? and like everybody in the office said they played before the mish so we said well why not and started playing and then told the stake president that always played soccer with us before and he said he also played ping pong,  and boy does he play haha i would say he is better than dad, ya dad thats right haha but i have been improving a ton playing with them and im pretty sure i could skool mitch now haha but ill keep practicing and we'll see after the mission :P well the last thing would just be that last night when we were eating President Calderón told us that Elder Holland was in Valle Sagrado which is like an hour from cusco.  im not sure if he was just messing with us or what but it would be pretty awesome if he ends up passing by the mission office!! alrighy so i think that is all for the week so until next week take care and i love you all!!

 

Photos:

 

-From the night that we had our one year celebration

-more pictures from Smile Network International

-Vive el Perú

-Abrazador - Rodizio (Pineapple)

-Elder Matute and I

-Ping Pong

 

Videos:

 

-Ping Pong

-Wayqui (it means brother in quechua, but the missionaries call the native descendents of the incas wayquis as well because they dress like i am dressed in the video(kinda) and always are carrying stuff on their backs)

 

Elder Wilkinson

Day 377

Dear Family and Friends,

I am super excited to write the family this week to tell about the wonderful experience i had working with Smile Network International.  It is an organization of doctors from Minnesota that come to cusco every year to do cleft palet and cleft lip surgeries.  they got in contact with the church (im not sure how) and asked if the members could help out.  they found some people to help cook and get food for all the patients and their parents for the whole week.  and then asked if they knew some people that could translate for the doctors.  they told them that they were pretty sure they knew quite a few people that could speak spanish and english really good.  we then had the opportunity to be able to work side by side with all the nurses and surgeons helping all these wonderful little kids get their smile back.  not only did they help out with those surguries but since they are plastic surgeons they also helped two kids that had wwebbed fingers.   we got to really know the doctors and nurses and they have such big hearts.  even though they arent members they still have that light of christ in them that helps them to know what is right.  i did get to know one of them pretty good that was called Richard and today before they left i wrote my testimony in  a book of mormon in english and gave it to him and told him how it has changed my life.  he was really grateful and said he was going to read it and that he thinks it is so cool what we do as missionaries.  it was the experience of a lifetime and i am so grateful we got to help out.  well i think next week i will send a few more fotos because elder green has a some more fotos that i didnt get.  i just want to challenge you all to talk with your friends about the gospel it really isnt that hard especially if you practice. the more you do it the easier it will become in the future to share what makes you happy with others.  i did give himmy email to hopefully he will write and i can give you an update on how he is doing.  love from me to all of you and keep up the good work!!!

 

Love,

Elder Wilkinson

Day 371

Family & Friends,

 

Well hello yalls back home!!! i am sorry im not writing mon anymore but i will probably be writing one of the days closer to the weekend like fri or sat because those are the days we have less stuff going on in the office.  i do have some cool experiences to share with you this week but will get to that in a sec. :) here are some of the photos from a place called "Saqsaywaman" it is a place on top of one of the mountains here in cusco (qosqo in quechua) it has some the biggest stones used in its construction out of any of the ruins in perú!!! we went there about a week ago at 5:30 in the morning. why 5:30 in the mroning you might ask.  well that is because the cusqueños (the people from cusco) have a secret that if you go super early in the morning you dont have to pay which a great sum of money (like 65 soles which would be like $30) but the coolest part wasnt that we didnt have to pay but that we were able to be up on top of the mountain overlooking cusco when the sun came up.  what a cool experience it was to be able stand on top an ancient inca fortress overlooking a city that probably once was an ancient nephite or lamanite city and then thinking that maybe an old nephite/lamanite prophet/missionary came to preach them gospel and also came over this same hill and looked upon this ancient city like we were doing.  i love the book of mormon and its teachings.  everytime we go to ruins i love to think about what would the nephites or lamanite be doing in this same place only a few hundred years ago.  the other experience that we had this week is the following:

 

we were in church sunday talking to a few of the members and investigators to see when we could pass by when Sister Elsa Rueda from our ward asked if we could stop by to give a blessing to her sister that has breast cancer (that doesnt live in our area).  but of course (with permission) we said we would stop by the following day which would be Mon. so we stopped by and she happened to be changing our her deadbolt on the door becaus ethe other one wasn´t working very well.  well she also got stuck trying to change out a part and could figure out how to put it back together i offered to help (because you all know i love tools and fixing stuff haha but not just for that reason) and in like 5-10 min i had it working just fine.  she was very suprised and asked how i knew how to work on doors haha i told her that i hadnt worked on a lot of doors before but just that i like tools haha anyways so we went to her sisters house talked a little about the blessing of the sick, read a couple of scripures and then we gave her the blessing.  now because i told that this was a cool experience you are probably thinking that with our blessing we cured her cancer or something.  but really we are going to stop by next week and see how she is doing but until now we dont know yet.  the cool experience part actually comes after we left her house.  remember that i said her (the lady with cancer´s) house is outside of our area.  so we were walking along the main back to our area when we ran into a couple that had a little girl their arms.  they stopped us and said they were from Arequipa (south end of perú) but that they were living within the boundries of our area!!! they begged us to stop by and said that they had been sealed in the temple but they had fallen away from the church.  that same day they decided they wanted to get active again and they prayed for help and guess what happened?  thats right!! they ran into us!!!  we set an appointment for Wed. and started walking back to the area pondering on what had just happened.  to sum it up we went to their house showed them the video about John Rowe Moyle called Only a Stonecutter if you remember he had a calling to be stone cutter working on the salt lake temple but he lived in a place that is now called alpine utah (which in google maps says it would take 10 hours and 38 mins to walk) so every mon at 2:00 am he would wake up and start walking to be able to get to the temple with all the other workers at 8 in the morning.  he would come back fri night late and the following day would be his only day to work around the farm.  well as the story goes he was milking a cow one day and it kicked him in the leg and broke it wide open.  the only option was to amputate.  they cut off his leg with a saw and hoped that it wouldnt get infected.  well 6 months later it wasnt infected and started working on making a wooden leg that he could use to walk.  well after he started walking again to the ppoint when he could also do almost all the normal day tasks he started packing and his wife asked him

     "where are you going."

he told her "i am going to salt lake."

she then said "why do you need to go to salt lake?"

     "because if you remember right i have a calling i need to fullfill." 

     "but there is plenty of work you can do here for the lords kingdom"  she told him. "you are only a stone cutter im sure there are plenty in salt lake that can handle the work"

     "But its MY calling my love"

gives her a kiss and he walks out of the house and heads to salt lake.

(i belive this video is in youtube you should watch it)

this story everytime i watch it gives me strength to press on even in the most difficult of times.  we explained to them about enduring to the end and that they need to magnify their callings (the hunsband told us that he had recently recieved a new calling but wasnt keeping up on it very well) they were super happy we had stopped by and that they had found us.  they told us that felt they had recieved like spiritual kickstart and in the final prayer the husband said that "from this day on we keep the sabath day and we will go to church every sunday and from this point on there wont be any excuses to do what we know to be right" well from this expereince i have felt a hapiness helping this family that feels just like the feeling when somebody says they want to be baptized.  i know a lot of missionaries focuse on the baptisms but our goal is to invite others to come unto christ by helping them recieve the restored gospel through faith, repentence, baptism by immersion, recieving the holy ghost, and enduring to the end. and if they so happen to be on the last step (enduring to the end) if we can help them understand better that step and help complete it we are fullfilling our purpose as missionaries.

i would just like to finish this huge letter (to make up for some of the other short ones) withmy testimony that I KNOW that this church (the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints) is the same church that jesus christ himself established when he was here on the earth.  I KNOW that The Book Of Mormon is the word of god and was written specifically for us in these latter days and it conatains answers to the things we want to know or solutions to the problems that we might have. I LOVE YOU ALL and hope you are all feeling the happiness that comes when when we keep the commandments and follow the will of the Father. Until next week 

Day 364

Mitch(Mich),

Hey bro, 

i feel like you have kinda forgotten about me :P but i know you are just to busy with your manfriends.  dont worry you will have plenty of time with man friends during your mission haha you live with one, eat with one, teach with one, learn from one, and of course play pranks on him.  haha but i also just hope that you are keeping up on the things you should be doing that are really the most important things.  make sure that you have the right kind of friends that will help you get ready to leave on the mission.  you probably have also realized that i have been out for a year now and it has flown by.  literally like i dont even know what happened to the tiem or where it went.  you get focused on the people you are teaching and you forget about everything else.  i believe i heard that you are going to play for dixie state for a year and then leave on the mish.  is that right? and if so does that mean i am going to have a full year with you when i get back before you leave?  i sure hope so because i gotta start training with you after the mish so i can play keep at dixie as well.  that would be pretty legit. anywasy well i leave this little note for you and maybe this time i can hear from you back. i love you bro y sigue haaciendo lo que sabes es lo correcto y ora con fe y verdadera intención y escucha tus sentimientos para que puedas oir tu respuesta.  te quiero mucho compadre

 

Tanner(Taner),

Hey T,

How are you doing? is school getting ready to start again? are you excited? you know i only have a year left? it has flown by and i am sure this second year will go by just as fast if not faster.  i dont know how things are coming a long with your experiments but im sure you got them going.  keep doing what you love doing just make sure that you do it in a way that will help to learn to be a good example and better son to mom and dad.  how was your summer? how are the scout camp things going? do you like helping out there? me encantaría escucharte muy pronto y cuando estás en casa la proxima vez puedes escribirme.  te amo mucho y te extraño mucho

 

Jesse(Yesi),

Hey what is up bro? i havent seen one you letters for awhile where have you been? you are alright right? well i am doing good and i miss you guys and crew back home but we will see each other again soon. the time is going to fly and before you know it we will traing together for soccer season so i can start up playing keeper again after the mish.  que tal danny santos? él es tu entrenador de fútbol todavía? dile que le extraño y va ser chevere a jugar juntos con él otra vez despúes la misión.  te extraño a ti tambien y te quiero mucho.

 

Noah(Noé),

Hey, the mini kaden haha well the one that at least loves biking as much as i do. how was summer? do you go skim boarding with your friends a lot? are you taking care of my bike and skimboard there at home? only a year left and i will be there with you skimboarding again and racing BMX.  maybe i can be your coach and you can become professional and race in the olympics in 8 yrs!  well you are going to have a b-day pretty soon and i think that is crazy.  life comes at you fast, and sometimes we dont realize how fast.  before you know it you will be leaving on the mission and you probably will nieces and nephews haha  you got to start getting ready now so can be a missionary just like your older brother well im sure a better missionary than i am.  te amo y te extraño y quiero que sepas que tu eres lo máximo y siempre vas a estar en mi mente y mis oraciones

 

Boston(Bósten),

Hey, oh my goodness! i am sure you are getting huge little guy! you are already 4 and a half years old!  i bet you are running all over the place on the scooter and bike and everybody is struggling to catch you haha i have seen a few of those kinds of kids here in peru haha they reall like to play soccer with little tiny soccer balls inside their house and in the street.  when i get back maybe i can teach you some spanish and you can come back with me later to peru and play with the other kids. i love you Boss and i hope you are growing up to be a good kid and the spoiled youngest haha