Easter

Hey everyone! Happy Easter!!!

First i would like to give a shout out to my future fellow elder, elder johnny henstrom who got his call to NYC, NY spanish speaking!! speaking a beautiful language j and that is where a friend of mine is right now Corbin Sterling. kinda short loves bieber but is one of the nicest and coolest guys I've met. find him.

So this last week went by really fast and was a great week. We worked really hard and have a baptism for this sat!!!!! It keyla who is the daughter of a recent convert. she lives with her dad in another city but stays with her mom on the weekends.

Fun story first. Sadly the mother of a sister who is starting to be active again died this last week. we went to her house to help her organize everything and clean up a bit. After hauling beds and cabinets for a good hour or so she says to me, ¨hermanito, do you sweat like this all the time?¨ i respond ¨yes i'm a wilson i sweat¨ (thanks genes) her response ¨oh, hermanito you need more than you little hanky that you have; you need a towel here you can have one of mine¨ (she has her own little store, everyone has there own little store welcome to paraguay!) she brings me three choices. two of my dear friend winnie the pooh and the other disney princesses. as you all know when i was younger i was a legend at singing winnie the pooh songs. so naturally i picked winnie the pooh. everyone down here finds it kinda funny that a elder is wiping off sweat with his winnie the pooh towel. i find it kinda comforting and brings me to simpler times so ya for me.

Sabbath day holy

Growing up my parents always taught me to keep the sabbath day holy. being on both a traveling soccer and basketball team i had tournaments every weekend year round. since we worked hard and played well as a team we found ourselves in alot of championship games. i have only played in 3 of those games because most of them fell on sunday (those three didn't). we were teaching a recent convert and her investigating cousin. they said they may not go to church because they were gonna go to a fair. the spirit came to me reminding me how much i have been blessed from keeping the sabbath day holy and i told them my experience from keeping that day holy. i was so happy to see them that sunday at church keeping the sabbath day holy and i told them that they will be blessed. also mad probs to mackenzie wilson who got to the championship game for vball in kentuky and kept the sabbath day holy.

Victor

Victor is an investigator who we were going to leave but he did a quick turn around and started following up on his challenges and went to church. When he went to church he talked about a feeling that he got a feeling of calm peace and love. we talked to him that night to discuss more and he said that he loved it and he wanted to learn more. we asked him if he would follow the example of christ and these feelings and be baptized the following month. he was hesitant and wanted to go a few more times. the spirit came flowing to me and my companion telling us that we had to be a bit more forward. i told him that we knew he was ready and that the lord is now knocking at his door and it is his choice to open it. we told him to follow the feelings and the spirit and to make the choice. he has a date to be baptized in two weeks!!!!

Easter

so fun thing about easter. me and my family to a easter egg hunt be we have baskets. my parents put in some little gifts and few chocolates and hide them all over the house. my sister and my brothers take around 5-15 mins to find their baskets. my best time is 45min and average is about an hour. sad but true. fun little story of my lack of finding skills.

but truely easter is the time where we should focus on the savior and all that he has done for us. he sacrificed himself for our sins for us individually. he suffered so that we could repent so that we could be perfect like him and return to live with our heavenly father. he did this not only for the love of our father in heaven but also for us because he loves us and he is our savior. everyday i come to find how much the lord loves us and all that he has done for us. read in mosiah of how abinidi describes the savior it is amazing.

god lives the christ lives this is his church and suffered for us and died for us we have to go to him and we will be saved.

my best wishes and love go out to you all


Elder Wilson
(this weeks pictures in separate post)

April in photos

1. Me, Comp, Teresa and Freddy and Teressas kids alan, Itati, and Keyla. oh and Perry the dog

2. Future elder wilson?????

3.oh my goodness its a chick!!!!

4. My winnie the pooh towel. (they call me elder wilson pooh)

5. so my dad thought that in the next two years i would get worse and ping pong. wait who won every game today at the district ping pong off??? oh elder wilson awwww yea

I arrived in the mission

Though Elder Parker has been in the mission for about a month we just received the traditional: "I've just arrived in the mission" photos. It includes one with his mission president and wife - the Callan's; and the other with those missionaries arriving into the field at the same time. It came from the mission home so no other news from Elder Parker - look for that tomorrow.

Giving it all

Oh, why hello hello everyone!!!

This last week has been a very slow one sadly. There has been a really bad bug being passed around and my companion got it. (don't worry I´m ok) There is a fever down here and sadly the prescription is not more cow bell hahaha joke. (if you didnt get it watch snl more cow bell) This fever is called Dengue and it can actually kill and there is no remedy or anything for it. It comes from the dang mosquitoes. So as missionaries we have a rule to always put on our repellent but at times it doesn't work. What is the biggest bummer is that it literally drains you. The symptoms are head ache, stomach ache, fever, your bones hurt, and a thing we call chivivi down here which is diarrhea. So the work has been a bit slow, but the Lord has still blessed us dearly with baptismal dates and great investigators!!

Most of our baptismal dates are with kids ranging in the ages of 8-15. Either their parents are in-actives or their grandparents are members. The biggest toughy is for the daughter of a recent convert named teresa. (next week if the computer works you may see a funny video of her son) Her oldest daughter who is 13 lives with her father during the week who is a hard core catholic and attends a catholic school (the ones that have nuns i dont know if there is a special name for that kind of school or not oh well). He doesnt want her to get baptised we have been teaching her on the weekends with her mom and she only needs one more attendance to get baptised wahoooooooooo!!!!! so we are pushing for the 30th. The others are a grandson of a convert of a year who the father will let him get baptised but the mother who lives in argentina doesnt really want him to and there are two kids of a women who has recently activated.

A great thing about this last sunday other than having the opportunity to speak about the scriptures (honestly how awesome are the scriptures all in favor say aye) was that we had a ton of inactives at church!!!!! i think i mentioned Hna Fatima before. A wonderful woman who has had a lot of trials who hasnt been to church in a while was there!!!!! I was sooooo happy!

We have some golden investigators! The first one is Maria and her family. She is a widow who lives with her uncle, mom, and two grandchildren. (Here in Paraguay most people live with their family for most of their lives they just build there own house infront of their parents) We are pushing to have a date for her and her fam but we need to get them to church. That has been our main focus getting our investigators to church. The other is Mr. Trebostoni who is not in the best of health with bad asthma and had a stroke or something of that sort a little while back. He loves reading the BoM and reads every day and wants to go to church but when its humid he can even leave his house. So we are waiting and praying for good weather every sunday.

Some quick ones

how we contact here is we clap houses normally when visits fall through we just clap the houses around them. from what I've seen there hasnt been a service thing set up and i want to figure out how we can change that and find something to do. when opportunities come up though we do them. Also we have a little dog that lives in the gates of our chapel because he has no home. very sad. doesnt do anything bad so we let him stay there. i named him Perry. (for you Phineas and Ferb fans our there that is for you!)

Most of all though i know this gospel is true and i come to see the blessings that it brings to peoples lives everyday. being a missionary is tough but it brings alot of wonderful blessings. i also love the scriptures and the knowledge that they bring to our lives. i am coming closer everyday to knowing that Jesus is the Christ and he suffered for us and he is our savior.

my love goes out to all of you

Elder Parker Wilson

Better Address

Parker would love a letter
if you don't use DearElder.com

try

Elder Wilson
2881 Del Maestro c/ Caballero
Barrio Herrera
Asuncion, Paraguay

Almost A Month

Wow has time flew by. Next week I will be in paraguay for a month and on the mission for two!!!!! so crazy.

First i would like to say how much i truly love my family. The starting of last week was tough. I started reading all of the letters and advice my family has given me. (I have yet to throw out one letter and i doubt that i will) they are truly wonderful. so loving so caring and always with me. i love them so much and am so grateful for them in my life.

So like times before my father has asked me some questions of here in paraguay so i will use those for my emial this week like i did a few weeks ago, but first story time.

The roads here in paraguay are one of three: Asphalt (bad spelling sorry), dirt, or stones. with only the big roads here in San Isidro being asphalt and most being stones we find ourselves walking on sidewalks most of the time not to ruin our shoes. We were walking on a sidewalk and for all of the holes in the sidewalks they just put a piece of wood or nothing on them. Me being myself was walking and didn't recognize one and my leg fell in and yes it was my right leg. really funny moment both me and Elder Piriz got a good laugh.

Temple:
Unfortunately i have only seen pictures of the temple. It is in the North Mission so we can only go twice a year but i think we are going this month which is awesome! I was reading an email from my mom and dad regarding the temple and truly it is the house of the Lord and a little piece of heaven here on earth. GO TO THE TEMPLE IT IS A HUGE BLESSING!!!!!

Teaching:
Teaching in the MTC and teaching here are two completely different things. I found myself going back to step one. So i went through all of the lessons again and looked over my note on how to teach. Every lesson now I am getting more and more time to teach. Most of the time when we teach it is outside of someones home. The houses are normally really hot so most of the time we are outside. Which shows how i got the awesome tan line shown in the picture!!!!

Elder Piriz:
Well my companion/trainer/dad is a great guy. There is alot of stuff that I am learning from him and I´m teaching him some things too which is good. He has been out for 17 months and is working hard. He is the district leader. Sadly he is for Guarani (soccer team here) as seen in a picture i am for Olympia. Anyone who is for Cerro is not a nice person. don't i just love sport rivalries!! He also LOVES mayo. we honestly eat it with everything. i didn't at first but now im eating more which is kinda gross cuz he eats alot. it reminds me of ev and how he makes his mayo sandwiches. classic. love him. me and him get along really well. he jokes around and teases me and i do the same to him. we have yet to get angry with each other and i find that in being because we both looking for the good and not the bad. not focusing on the dot but the whole picture.

District:
Our zone has three districts and in our district we have the zoneleaders us, another companionship of Elders and one of Sisters. how awesome are the sisters they got 60 lessons this last week!!!! wow. but we all get along very well and we had splits with the zone leaders last week which was awesome. i learned somethings that i want to improve on and how other missionaries work.

Schedule:
Wake up at 630 get ready are out by 1030. 30 for lang study. normally eat around 12 and we are in certain areas for a few hours then we move to another area cuz our area is huge! so we walk alot which is really good.

easter:
holidays aren't that big here sad but true.

i know this church is true. i know that the lord is always there for us and will always guide us. we just need to trust in him. i love this gospel.

sincerely

Elder Wilson

Conference Weekend

Hey all i have a quick thing of fun stuff about the mission then funny story and then conference hope all enjoy!

Food:
As you all know i am a big food fanatic. Here my favorite thing so far are Empanadas. SOOOOO good!! With members we normally eat noodles or rice with chicken or beef but most of the time chicken. At home we cook some burger patties and eat those or an apple or another small snack. me and my companion both cook let me just say that my over easy eggs are pretty rockin awesome.

Laundry:
Every friday we buy soap and drop off our laundry at a sisters house.

PDay:
Unfortunately we havnt really gone out and done anything exciting. We just clean buy groceries and study. We are allowed to take naps and since we got home and went to bed after priesthood session around 1230 we got to take a short one today but there are better things to do.

Language: Guarani is sick! my companion is really good at it but its a super hard language to learn and he isnt even fluent but im learning as fast as i can!

Teaching Pool:
We had 6 investigators come to conference!!!! we have a good mix of recent converts and inactives and we are picking up on new ones and its soooooo awesome!!! we do visit some member for a little bit but alot of the time its for a short message and some cold water.

Stories:
So i have never been one to believe in curses but i think that i may have one and it is the curse of the right leg/foot. Before the mission my injuries to my right leg and foot have consisted of: multiple sprained ankles, broken ankle, hematoma in my thigh, and bruised knee cap. Since here on the mission i have gotten three blisters, an ingrown toe nail and a new one that i fixed and is all good now thanks to a fancy trick taught to me at the mtc, calf cramp in the middle of the night, and twisting my ankle as we walk. my companion says that if i do anything to my left side it will be really bad because im able to push through on all of the stuff on my right side but its still weird.

Quick one i am so grateful that i am able to listen. My parent have taught me to listen not just hear the person. I am so grateful that i was that vent guy throughout high school and my bit in college. It has helped me so much on my mission so thank you to all of my friends you just sit there and vent to me.


Conference:
I was sooooo excited for conference. We had our interviews with president callan and he asked it i was excited and i told him this was the most excited i have ever been for conference. I was able to recieve so much great personal revelation about how to better myself as a missionary, as a man, and how to better myself for the future. What i did miss was not watching it with my family especially this being the first priesthood session without my dad with me but i knew he was with me in spirit. There were so many talks that were amazing but my favorite one was Elder Cooks on women in the church. Honestly without the women in the church things would be in constant chaos. i constantly sat and thought about my mom and the blessing she is in my life and how much i love her and how much women in the church have helped me out. Another thing i loved dearly was the MoTab. i now fully understand why my parent listen to them constantly they are so amazing. and ummmmmm Kurt Metzger anyone???? ya furthest group to the right third row or so down. if you read this kurt i spotted ya and was like YA i know someone in MoTab!!! we were able to bring 6 investigators to conference and they all loved it. and i truely love it as well the spirit that it brings and the feeling that we got to listen to a modern day prophet is amazing.

I know this church is true and the gospel is amazing. we must listen to the prophet and his teaching that is the best way for us to be close to the lord. everyone should depend on the lord constantly he is our best friend and always there.

with all of my love,

Elder Parker Wilson