Joseph Smith

What's up everyone?!? I named the title of this email Joseph Smith because this week was full of him lol. I will get more into why a little later. 

But first things first Villa Vasquez is slowly feeling like home and I love it here. The ward members were rough at first but they are getting better. Yesterday at church I got to say the opening prayer and I was able to bless the Sacrament. It was so fun. Blessing the Sacrament reminded me so much of home because I swear I blessed it weekly at a point in high school. We also found out last night that this week we are going to the Santo Domingo Temple! We are so hyped. We don't know what day but President told us he will let us know what day tonight. 

As far as the work goes... Wow it is going! I have never felt more overwhelmed in my life. For the first time in my mission we are teaching so many people it is hard to organize our days. It just freaks me out cause you don't wanna miss people. That being said we had 7 people come to church and all 7 are related to a ward member already which is fantastic! We hopefully should have many baptisms to come in this area. 

A highlight of last week was we traveled to MonteCristi to have our district council. Afterwards we ate at this pizza place. I don't know who owned it but wow it was so nice and they even played American music. Harry Styles had like 4 songs play and I was in heaven. Basically that pizza place is the GOAT. So is Harry Styles, but Harry with One Direction is better. I think we should start a petition to make them get back together! 

Now for Joseph Smith. We talked to this lady named Griselda 2 days ago. I wish I could say this story is spirit filled but it is not. She went on for 15 minutes how Joseph Smith appeared to her with his big white beard that was very nice and he asked her for coffee. He then proceeded to tell her that everyone in Villa Vasquez is a bad person except for her. After we listened she said "And guess what I even prayed to him and he answered my prayer." So moral of the story if you are trying to impress missionaries, make sure you study first before making a fool out of yourself. It was pretty comical. My comp and I had a good laugh after. 

But last night my comp and I watched a video about Joseph Smith in the Gospel Library app. Made me realize how grateful I am for him. I also know that this is the true church of Jesus Christ and that Joseph Smith is the Prophet of the Restoration. It was insane how much I felt the Spirit in the video. If I didn't know this church was true and Joseph Smith was a prophet, I know now. 

Love you all! Have a great week! 

-Elder Wilde 

Villa Vasquez

Hey everyone hope you all had a great week! My week was so good but so slow too. First week of the new transfer is always the tough one. But man am I glad it's Pday. So basically in the nicest way possible my parents told me my emails are getting boring. So today will be better I promise. 

First things first, my companion! His name is Elder Zevallos and he is from Canada but his parents are from Peru so he is actually fluent in English and Spanish. It is awesome. It is funny cause if you know me I laugh at a lot of things. I feel like I have a pretty fun personality. This dude does not laugh, but he is still so funny. He just says all the funny things in the most serious way and it kills me. But so far so good with him. We teach pretty well together and I can for sure feel the spirit in all of our lessons. Hopefully we keep this up! 

So basically my new area is Utah in the DR. It is so dry here and so hot and also just reminds me of home way more then other areas. Yes, the houses are still shacks, the language is Spanish most of the time (There are millions of Haitians here cause I live like a 1 hour drive away from Haiti and they all speak Creole.) The food isn't Taco Amigo, but the mountains/hills are like dry and look like some random mountain and hills in Utah so that was fun. Yesterday we drove to a conference in Monte Cristi and we drove by soo many hayfields and it just felt like I was driving through Spanish Fork or Payson it was pretty fun. I enjoyed it to say the least. 

As far as teaching goes we are actually teaching quite a few people. We have this one girl named Yulisa who we found cleaning out our area book. She was talking to the missionaries a while ago but went to Santo Domingo so they lost contact with her. We picked her back up and I honestly have a great feeling about her. She is so interested and we are gonna work hard with her. So other than her we are teaching a butt load of Haitians. They all live in this crazy part of town with a dirt road and no lights and at nighttime the stars SHINE! It is so cool and super sketchy lol. My comp and I can't decide if a flashlight is good for us because without one we can't see a thing but with one people can see us. haha tough debate. But the Haitians are so cool. Problem is they really need the law of chastity in their lives. I would dare say 9/10 women are pregnant. But it is okay that is why we are here, to help them accept and live the gospel!

Now for my apartment. This place is SOOOO nice!! By far the nicest house I have had on the mission. It is so big on the 3rd level and has 2 bathrooms that function. Only problem is when we wash clothes it floods the whole house basically so that kinda sucks. But hey life goes on. 

Hope this email was good! I love and miss you all. Play some golf for me...Wait I heard it is basically the Ice Age over there in Utah.. Sorrry ;) 

-Elder Wilde  

Pres. Called?

Que lo que my pepople?! This week went by SO fast. But here we are again with another Pday. I will get straight into this email by explainingg the title. Pres called a last night. It was about 9:30 and I was showering then I got out and my comp yelled "Elder Wilde get in here pres is calling" hahaha I was freaking out. But we answered and he called to tell us our transfer news. I will be going to a place called Villa Vasquez with a companion named Elder Zevallos to finish up his training.I am not gonna lie I am a little sad to be leaving Nagua. This place has a special spot in my heart. 

But now for my week. Wow missionary work is so fun. Even though we do the exact same thing every single day there is still so much fun in it. We are teaching so many people here in Nagua the work is so good. One of them being Gonzalo. He is the guy who has a wife that is a member. We have been working hard with him to honestly help him just feel welcomed in the church. He came yesterday and was there for the whole 2 hours!! Elder Udy will keep working with him! 

Another is Neydo and his family. Yesterday was a miracle. They haven't been to church for over 6 weeks but this Sunday they showed up randomly! We are horrible missionaries cause we forgot to text them to invite them to church but when they showed up me and Udy looked at each other and we were so shocked! Blessings of the fast.

I had the opportunity to bear my Testimony in Sacrament meeting yesterday. It was such a good experience and honestly was so fun. It was a little scary having 50 Dominicans staring at me but It was a good experience to share my testimony and the reason why I am serving. 

Hope you all had a great week! Love you all! 

-Elder Wilde 

March is on the way!

I don't know about you guys but I feel like it is crazy that February is already over. That month absolutely hauled by. But I am super duper excited for March. It means we are closer to adding nephew number 2 to the family and I will be able to tell people I'm 19 instead of 18 haha. 

This week was a fun week. It was a little long if I'm being completely honest but I have learned to just love it. We had an exchange on Wednesday and I went to Samana which was beautiful. We taught a guy who is 20 and is dating a 30 year old woman. Pretty weird stuff if we are being honest. 

This week I realized that there are so many miracles around us. We just need to be willing to open our eyes and see them. On Saturday we were walking around some streets and I was just dying. It was hot and I was sweaty. We had a lunch appt. at 12 but it was only 11 and we didn't want to be an hour early. I looked at my comp and said "I wish that there was a member who lived close to here" All we had been doing was contacting and we had 0 success. We walked down this ally way and I saw an older lady and talked to her. She invited us in and said "let me go grab something." She walked out with 2 photos from her baptism with the missionaries in 2016. Right after that I looked at my comp and just said "The Lord is so aware of us." I had previously complained about no members and then 10 minutes later we came across this precious inactive older lady. The Lord is always looking out for us. 

Another highlight of the week is we put 5 people on date for baptism. We have a little bit til the dates come so we are gonna work very hard. I hope they can keep feeling the spirit and know that this is the true church on the earth today. 

Shoutout to my cousin Carson who got home from his 2 year service in England on Thursday. I would be lying if I said it was easy to see all the pics of him with his family and my extended family. But I am grateful for the time I have to be out here and serve. My mom sent me a little bit of his homecoming talk and one thing he said that I loved was that his piece of advice for people preparing for missions is to grow your personal relationship with Jesus Christ. My first thought was dang I have over 6 months on the mission and I still am working on that. I hope you can all start working on strengthening that relationship with our Savior Jesus Christ. 

Well that is all for me this week. Still livin’ life and just trying to grind. I know the Book of Mormon is true because every single time I read it I feel peace and happiness. Love you all! 

-Elder Wilde  

Crazies

What is up everyone?!? Hope you all had a great week. This week was actually super good and very interesting. 

This area here in Nagua has like 6 crazy people that we see everyday and wow they are truly insane out of their mind. But one of them scared the crap out of this week and also clutched big time. We were walking on the street contacting when we saw her. We turned and started to walk the other way very fast. My comp saw a little ally and said "Go right" so we went right and ran into this random lady who is probably like 23 and we said "Hey we are the missionaries for the Church .. (you know the drill) we would love to share a message with you." She was like okay so we shared the restoration and at the end I was going to give her a pamphlet but the restoration pamphlets are like gold right now because our mission is running out and the church doesn't have more rn, but anyways I was like here is a card with our number on it but then the spirit was like "Elder Wilde give her the pamphlet." So I did and when we returned she had read the WHOLE thing and even asked us "Who is Joseph Smith?" She is GOLD. She is so genuine and like my comp and I literally love her. She is like the best ever haha. But don't worry the story isn't over. When we left after our first contact the crazy lady was WAITING for us. she demanded we give her a pamphlet and I wasn't trying to get chased any longer so we gave her one of the pamphlets we have a lot of and ran. But basically moral of the story is god works in very many ways. Even if that means getting chased by a crazy to find a person waiting for the gospel. 

I don't know how many of you guys actually care to read the emails so I try to make them shorter then most haha. But other than that we have 3 baptismal dates with people but all of them are gonna be after this transfer. I really want to stay in Nagua so I think I might be doing some asking to President in my interview lol. 

Also last night was awesome. We got a huge compliment from one of my favorite members. Her name is Hermana Cuevas and she is gold. She always makes us dinner if we didn't eat it already, and she has a super strong testimony. Last night at her house she told us that she has worked with missionaries since she was a youth (she is in her 60's) and that she feels something different with my comp and I. She said that she can tell we work together and we serve with love. She also said to not change  after we get transferred. It was such nice compliment and made me feel like what I am doing is actually helping the ward here. 

Overall a great week. Lots of ups and downs but so fun. My Spanish is the goat some days and then the other days I don't understand a thing lol. But we just keep going. Love you all! This gospel is so true and if you think otherwise, you're wrong. Sorry but wow I love this church. Read the Book of Mormon and pray about it with sincerity and you'll know it is true. Have a great week!

Elder Wilde

P.S. I don't have a lot of pics this week sorry :( 

Desafios en la vida

What's up everyone! 

This week was a kinda long and not very successful week. First off, Go Chiefs. Glad Andy Reid got another win. Also one day I hope Tom Brady is taken off the GOAT throne by Patrick Mahomes. 

This week we did a lot of travel. My comp had to go to Santo Domingo and I went to our Zone Conference in La Vega. It was a super good Zone Conference and I learned a lot. We did a role play in front of like 70 missionaries I think and I got picked on to do it. That was scary but I lived. In the conference we learned a lot about the importance of working with members and also the importance of finding people in the street with a purpose rather than just making them a number. It was good. 

As far as the baptism we were supposed to have, it didn't happen. We went over to his house Saturday night and he went off on a bunch of reasons why he isn't ready. So we are gonna keep working with him for a later baptismal date. The mission has a lot of ups and downs. Moments like these are tough but we just keep trying cause that's all God asks. 

This week we had a really cool member lesson. We were talking about the Book of Mormon and a video that I have seen a million times popped into my head so I shared it. It is the one on Gospel Library with the chick with bright pink hair and she knows Dwayne wade. haha don't know if that helps but I can't remember the title name. Anyway it was a very powerful lesson and we all felt the spirit so strong. I know that the Book of Mormon is true. 

Love you all! Have the best week ever! 

-Elder Wilde 

6 Months!

Que lo que my people! Honestly this week flew by. My comp and I get along extremely well so the work just seems fun. We are always laughing and having a good time so low key thriving on the mission right now. Also Jan. is over so that's like low key an accomplishment in itself. 

As far as the work goes this week has been great. We have been hitting our goals on Area Book which is exciting and have 2 baptismal dates!! One of them is for this coming Saturday. Pray for us that we can get all the stuff prepared and that Jose Juaquin can feel ready for his baptism. We've been working with him a little bit but this week we are gonna work hard with him to be ready. 

Last night we were at a members house named Verenice. She is the chick that is in a lot of my pics I think lol. She is a returned missionary and helps us A LOT. Last night she was reminding us of ways we can make our lessons fun. We spilled tons of ideas and it was just a good night. Reminded me that God called me out here to teach the gospel with my personality so I really need to be better at using it. 

I hit 6 months on Wednesday. Crazy honestly. A wise man by the name of Jefferson Clark told me that once you hit 6 months on the mission you start to feel pretty good about what you're gonna do for 2 years. He wasn't wrong. He also suggested that to make the time feel shorter just look ahead to every 3 months. It has worked so far. Thanks for the advice Jeffy. In all honesty I have grown way more than I thought possible these last 6 months. Also speak heck of a lot more Spanish than I ever knew was possible. 

Sorry Mom and everyone who loves my pictures. I really sucked at taking them this week. I don't even think twice about it when we are out doing stuff. 

I love and miss you all. Don't forget to STUDY the book of mormon. I can tell a difference when I just read it instead of study it and I promise studying is the move. Have the best week ever!! 

-Elder Wilde