A Beautiful Week

Full of tiredness and some frustration, but also some really high highs.

We are currently teaching two families right now and they're awesome. The first is the Bucarey family, whose oldest daughter attended church with us yesterday and loved it. Afterwards, she suprised us with an invitation to have lunch with her family! We were blown away and very grateful. I do believe it was the first time in my whole mission that I've had lunch with an entire family of investigators. We're hoping the parents can attend next sunday with Elisa.

We're also teaching the Pacheco family. They're very interested and had a lot of great questions about the Book of Mormon. When we invited them to baptism, it wasn't an emphatic yes exactly, but they definitely did not say no. They're going to progress great.

So we're really happy with all the tremendous potential the Lord has blessed us with in our sector. In the zone we've also seen a lot of miracles. There are three invesitgators that we just found out actually live within the Llaima ward but that have been attending church for the last 2 months in the other stake. So they'll be getting baptised here.

What I've learned this week is the importance of being an intrument in the Lord's hands through our own personal decisions. Every action we take either draws us closer or pulls us away from being an effective tool in His masterful hands. When we do decide to humble ourselves and follow the promptings of the spirit, He literally guides us by the hand to do his will. That is why the Paul explains so emphatically that whatever good works we do are actually not ours, but the Lord's. We have faith and decided to follow the Spirit, and the works flow naturally from within, as God uses us to bless the lives of others.

I want to be an instrument in his hands, because I know that it brings great joy.

May we all strive to do so this week, is my prayer.

With much love,
Elder Wilcox

An Attitude of Gratitude

A big friendly hello from Elder Wilcox down here in Chile to all my family, friends, and other readers.

Thank you for your letters. They inspire me. I love your lives; they are rich with action, hope, virtue, and love. I am especially grateful for the missionary spirit that the Lord has poured out upon the Whitewater ward and upon us as a family. Thanks, Ashley for your willingness and enthusiasm to serve.

Thanks, Mom for sharing that incredible missionary story. It truly brought me to tears of joy as I read it at the computer and then re-read it on the bus on the way to the center. It made me so grateful to be a missionary and to have the restored gospel that I couldn't not share it, and immediately started talking to the two men sitting behind me because I couldn't wait to tell someone about this! Well, they were not terribly interested, but that's okay.

Yesterday we had a great experience. We have been praying a lot with Elder Hanes for the work to pick up here and praying to be able to find a family that we can teach and baptise. While we were out tracting in an area we had prayed about and picked beforehand, we came across one house out of which came a fairly nice man, who explained that he is Adventist, and thus not very interested in receiving us. He said he doesn't like to argue about religion. We explained that we are not here to argue, only to help, and bore humble testimony of our message. After a short pause, my companion asked once more if we could come in. Jaime (that's his name), thought about it a moment and said, let me ask my people. He went in and after a few moments came out again with keys in hand to open the gate and let us in. We met his wife, Karina, his daughter, Daniela, and his sister-in-law, Elizabeth, and we had a wonderful spirit-filled conversation with them. They were all fascinated by the Book of Mormon, as they had not known that Christ had come to the Americas. They asked a lot of great questions, showed lots of interest, and at the end, as Jaime said the last prayer, he asked God for us to be able to meet again. Elizabeth also insisted that we stop by her house to teach her more about all this.

I left the house very greatful, and made a committment with my self and God that I would not stop praying for them, if He would let us continue to teach them and baptize them.

I've been trying to focus on being grateful recently. Every day I try to include something astonishing in my journal entry for which I am happy. I realized that the happiest people are those who think less about themselves (and, consequently, think more of themselves). Generosity and gratitute seem to go hand in hand.

I'm tremendously grateful as well to have seen some of my favorite people on this planet at stake conference yesterday, since Carahue is part of our stake. I saw Ana and Aracely as well as some others. I was going to send a photo, but this computer won't let me. I felt as Alma, when he saw his brothers after 14 years of missionary service, and what increased his joy was knowing that they were still his brothers in the Gospel. (Alma 17:1-3)

There's a million other things I could mention, but I won't. The Gospel is true. Being a missionary is awesome, and I'm devastated that it's ending so quickly.

I hope you all have a wonderful week of miracles, and I invite you to use the phrase "That's what I love about my church" two times this week. Ready, set, go!

Much love and affection,

Elder Wilcox

Cool photo from San Martín when I was with Elder Badger

One Crazy Week

Seriously...It couldn't have been crazier. Oh how I wish I had the time to tell it all, but I will try to give you a summary. (At any rate, I took a lot of videos to document moments, so in a few months I'll show you).

Monday - Big activity that you know about making Ají de gallina and then in the evening the setting apart of Sister Sandoval, a young lady that left on a mission from the Maquehue ward. Pictures included

Tuesday - Transfers day! In the terminal all morning waiting for the new missionaries, got home around 5, but then had to turn around and head towards center again to the urgent care, because my comp had these three weird unexplainable spider bites on his leg. Day of the Lord's work, lost.

Wednesday - District meeting, and afterwards a special meeting with the DL's and STL (Sister training leaders), got home a little after lunch, worked normally. Good day for the work of the Lord

Thursday - traveled the whole day to Concepción to be able to stay the night in San Pedro, in preparation for Lidership Council on Friday. Fun night being in my old sector again, despite sleeping on the hard wood floor with one blanket.

Friday - crazy day. President Martínez blew our minds with his part of the council. I wish I had time to explain in all, but I don't. Needless to say, he helped wake us all up and rejuvinate us with a greater sense of urgency in doing the Lord's work. After we left council, we headed back to Temuco and got in late, at around midnight. However, during the trip we get a phone call from President letting us know that the Sisters' house had been broken into and robbed earlier that evening. Luckily, the Sisters were not there and nothing happened to them, but it was a big scare and they lost some things. In order to keep the house safe while the Sisters stayed in another location, Elder Hanes and I and Elder Braga (one of the DL's) and his comp were asked to stay the night in the house to make sure the robbers didn't come back. So Elder Hanes and I ended up not sleeping at all that night as we waited for someone to break in. Luckily, no one came (we think. details are in the videos you'll see in two months). But it was a wild experience, one I never thought I'd find myself in.

Saturday - After leaving the Sisters house, headed back to the clinic for a check up for my comp and worked the rest of the day exhausted from zero sleep.

Sunday - the blessing. 3 investigators (Ximena and her two daughters, Amalia and Mimi) came to church for the first time in a long time! And they liked it a lot. Ximena's heart is softening and we're trying to help her prepare for baptism this month. After a crazy week, the blessing came. And I'd do it all over again if it meant the same result.


Again, wish I could go into more detail about the week. Wasn't much time to do the Lord's work, which makes me grateful for everything to be back to normal. And I'm thankful to be a missionary.

Seriously, this work is SO important. It is SO urgent! There is nothing, absolutely nothing more important than the Lord's work. It is the work of salvation. It is the whole reason we're here, why we came to Earth in the first place. It is His work and His glory, His plan of salvation, the reason His Son gave it all for us. How grateful I am to be part of it and to be able to dedicate my whole heart to it. I love the Savior and I know He lives. Let us honor him in ALL that we do.

I love you family, and am ever grateful for your examples.

Elder Wilcox.

P.S. Love the new travel plans, Mom. Thanks!

Happy Peruvian Independence Day!

Not really a day often celebrated in a mission in Chile, but since we live with a peruvian, we thought we'd do something. So in the chapel today we got together with all the missionaries from Temuco Cautín and ate a tradicional peruvian plate, Ají de Gallina. 'Twas delicious. Afterwards we watched Racket Ralph, some new disney movie that came out I don't know when. A good time was had by all.

Before I forget to mention: I have some important bits of info I want to share.

First, the mission office has changed, as you know. So do not send anything to the address in O'Higgins. The new address is:

Misión Chile Concepción Sur
Castellón 1063
Casilla 3560
Concepción, Chile

Second, I was thinking a little about the proposed flight schedule, and how with the trip to Santiago, we won't have a lot of time to tour the mission. So (hoping you haven't already bought the tickets, if so that's okay), I have an idea:

I'm really not all that interested in touring about Santiago, since it has no intrinsic value for me. More that anything it's the temple that calls my attention. So what if, instead of going to Santiago on the 12th, after a day of mission touring, we went on the 11th, the day after you pick me up? I assume that the only reason Santiago has two days on the schedule is so we can go to church, but if we spend just one day in Santiago to go to the temple and then come back to Conce the same day (this is on the 11th), then we could have the 12th and the 13th to tour the mission and go to church. It's not a big change, but it would bye us another day to see my old sectors, and the chance to go to church in one of them.
Again, don't know if it's posible, but I wanted to throw it out there. So to summarize, 10th pick me up and stay the night in Conce. 11th fly to Santiago, go to temple, fly back to Conce, stay the night in Conce. 12th tour the mission and perhaps I can even arrange a stay in a member family's house if we happen to be in the South. 13th go to church and tour a little bit more, stay the night in Conce. 14th fly to Lima. The end. Let me know what you think!

It was a pretty interesting week this week with a lot of trials. All six of the sisters from our zone got really sick with bronchitis, we were back and forth between our sector and their's, dropping off medicine and other things, so we lost some time from the work in our sector. But if felt good to help out, so no complaints. Thankfully the zone is in better physical health this week. We found a lot of new investigators with Elder Hanes, and now we're teaching a really cool couple too named Jaime and Jimena. They're really looking for the truth, and they did a great study of the Restoration pamphlet we left them. They seemed really interested in the last lesson about Christ's visit to the Americas. So hopefully we can progress with them and help them come to church so they can learn more.

Rocío and her son Joaquín continue to progress and came to church yesterday, although they have not accepted a new baptismal date yet. Rocío still feels like she needs to know more, even though she's read the entire Book of Mormon. So we tease her and tell her she's crazy, but we're understanding. I have faith that she'll be baptised in August.

That's about it really. I wish I could share a few other stories, but since we were in the Chapel for so long today, we don't have much time. So I'll leave you here.

Much love from Chile!

Elder Wilcox

Many Questions, Many Answers

Mi querida familia y estimados amigos,

Thank you for your correspondance. I enjoy greatly hearing about your daily lives, and calculating a little bit of what I hope my life will be like after the mission. So you serve as examples to me of how to live. Thank you for your diligence and faith.

And thank you, Mom, for having been a travel agent in another life! Or perhaps for having watched Inception too much. A flight within a flight within a flight... I am impressed. And who knows? Maybe we'll find someone who wants to go to Peru in November and not come back. There's got to be somebody... Haha but in all seriousness, thank you for doing all that. The plans look great. It'll be a little tricky visiting old sectors, but I'll try to organize it as efficiently as posible.

Haha Dad, the other day I was actually thinking...I'm in a new sector. I need to give Dad the scoop again. So here it goes:

I'm in the city of Padre Las Casas, on the southside of Temuco. The ward is called Maquehue because it's on Maquehue street with Mac-Iver. Right on the corner. We live in Los Quilantos 1475. If you look for Los Quilantos with Corvalán, you'll find some apartments on the south side of Corvalán we live in the southeast one. Block F. We're on the first floor. There are two stakes in Temuco, Temuco Cautín (ours) and Temuco Ñielol. The stake of Cautín is actually divided into two missionary zones, so unfortunately we don't have Carahue as part of our zone, like it was a year ago. We have Maquehue ward (4 Elders and 4 sisters). It's a big ward where between 140-160 attend. We also have Llaima ward (named for the volcano close by. 4 sisters), the Cautín ward (2 Elders and 2 sisters), and the Cunco branch (2 elders).

What else... our sector (since Padre Las Casas is divided between the elders and sisters), is everything from the Santa Isabel (a grocery store) downwards. That is, Aillacara street downwards.

Umm...I think that's about it. My companion, Elder Hanes is from Idaho. He graduated from High school and left on the mission. He's 20. He's 6 feet 8 inches tall so he towers over everything and everyone. He's a nice guy that reminds me a lot of Sterling actually, in his sense of humor. He's got a little more than a month less that I do in the mission, so he'll be finishing in October as well. We live with two other elders, Elder Valle from Peru, and Elder Valenzuela from Chile.

The camoflauge suits were from my last P-Day in San Pedro. We went to Lota to play paintball with the zone, and it was a blast. I sent a bunch of pictures to Mom, I don't know if she got them..?

That's all!

We're still working hard trying to find a lot of new investigators, and we've had some success. Still working with Rocío and her son, Joaquín too. I think I mentioned them last week... Well Rocío finished the Book of Mormon is pretty much everything you could ever want in an investigator. The only problem is her mom doesn't let her go to church every Sunday for a few reasons. But she'll definitely be getting baptized in August and we have faith that we'll be able to help her mom too.

And that's it for this week, as we are short on time! I love you all, family dear, we'll see you before the new year!

Much love,
Elder Wilcox

Surprise!

I'm not in San Pedro anymore!

They called me on Monday and told me I'd be going to Temuco Cautín, the zone where I first began my mission, only in another sector.

So...Here I am, in Maquehue with Elder Hanes. The transfer came earlier than expected because Elder Badger (old comp) used to be here but had to go home early for studies.

I'm a little bummed not being in Boca Sur anymore, because it was a fantastic sector, and things were going great, and I kind thought I would finish there. But the Lord has other plans for me. So I'll be finishing down here in Temuco.

Even so, there are great blessings here too. We have an investigator named Rocío and her son, Joaquín. They found Rocío about 2 weeks back, and she's already on page 500 something in the Book of Mormon (in Spanish it's more than 600 pages). She's got a baptism date along with her son for the 27th of this month. Awesome!

The travel plans look great. I talked to the secretary, and she confirmed that yes, coming in on Wednesday and staying the night is the best option. She unfortunately doesn't have any specific details on what's gonna happen on Thursday, since I'm the only one going. Thanks for working in the Temple trip in Santiago, that'll be a really special experience. Also, I think we'll be able to fit in a solid tour of the mission in two days. It's really not that big of a mission anyhow, and all my sectors are fairly centralized and easily-accesible.

I got a new winter toggle coat today! Thank you for sending money! It's a nice coat originally 210 dollars but I got it on sale for 68. Now I look more professional. Yay!

Also, I had a question about my drivers license for when I get home. Since I got robbed almost two years ago, I don't have one. Is there a way of asking for a new one so I can have mine right when I get back?

Well, short on time this week as usual. Thank you for all the letters and fun photos. Time is quickly drawing to a close in my mission, but there is still much to do. So, the shoulder goes to the wheel! Have a great week being latter-day saints!

Love,
Elder Wilcox

The Race Continues

Buenas tards, querida familia.

Man...that's pretty lousy to hear about the rainy 4th of July. Perhaps it will make you feel better to know that down here in Chile we celebrated in our own way with Choripanes (Chilean Sausage with bread) and a delicious key-lime pie-like dessert that Elder Contreras made. It was a simple but enjoyable celebration.

The works going great in Boca 2nd ward. I love working in this new plan that is Operation Alma. It gives us the chance as four missionaries to work for the same purpose in the same ward. Not as two completely separate and distinct sectors. There's no pride, no jealousy, we work together and rejoice in each other's success. Through many exchanges that we do every week, we all 4 end up getting to know all the investigators and less active members that we're working with. This is a unique oportunity, because it gives every one of the 4 missionaries to help in the teaching of these people and receive revelation to know how to help them. So it makes the work more secure, and the people benefit from being taught by four different missionaries.

This sunday we had 9 investigadores in church, including two families, plus 11 less active members, also including 2 families. It was a great success that we owe completely to Heavenly Father. Right now we have 6 people that are preparing for baptism, 5 for this month. Please keep in your prayers Victor and Cynthia, Debora and Tomas, and especially Irma, who's closest to baptism, her date being for the 20th.

Unfortunately, I don't know much about what the schedule will be like on my bye bye date. Typically on normal release dates, the day before is spent in the office, where the missionary fills out a bunch of stuff and has his interview with President, etc. There's usually a lunch with President in his house, a small devotional, dinner with president, and off to the holiday by the airport for the night. The next morning, early, on the actually release date, the missionary boards the plane.

However....I'm the only one, so I have no idea how it will be. I will try to acquire some more information and send an email off tomorrow or wednesday to let you know.

I noticed there's a layover in Santiago. I don't know if this would be possible at all, but typically all missionaries that go home are given the opportunity to go through the Santiago temple before heading on the final flight home...If it's possible, I would love to be able to enter the temple of my mission country before going home. If not possible, I understand, but that's just something that came to my mind.

Thank you for all your preparation and help in this process. I know it's quite complicated right now, but it will all come our right. I'm grateful, family, for your endless love and support and wish you the best of weeks.

I leave you with this scripture that impacted me this week.
Acts 27:23  "For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve,"

In the darkest and longest nights of our lives, we are never alone. There will always be another sunrise, and until then, God will send his angels to lift us up and sustain us.

Much love,
Elder Wilcox