Week #50: A bamboo hut, and what you can become...

I live in a bamboo house!

Well the last week in the subida has just ended and now time is really going to start to fly. In exactly one year from this day we will be in a change meeting (that being my last change meeting). Hours after the meeting to be leaving this world behind and heading back to the states. It is a weird, baggy, thought. As I mentioned last week my trainer in the mission, Elder Goodman is in the same zone and we see each other two or so times a week. When I came into the mission he was just finishing his first year in the mission. Every time I am with him here, I feel as though I have just gotten out of the CCM and just barely starting the mission. But now its been nearly a year since we were companions and that is just a little hard to believe.  As I talk with him I am amazed at how good his Spanish is and how much HE has learned this last year.  :-)   Being in the same zone with Elder Cook and Hala again is really cool.   Amazing to think a year has gone by, but at the same time feels like just a short while ago we were all at the CCM.

      Things have been a little different this week. Most of the week as predicted was spent out of our area. Between all of the new meetings, conferences, and interviews I didn't get much of a chance to get to know my new area. Life has become a little more complicated with this change, and now more than ever I believe I will learn the art of planning and planning well.
      On Wednesday we had a district leaders meeting over in Reu, which is only an hour away in bus. This is so much nicer than the four and a half hours to get there from Rio Blanco. Elder Goodman is the other DL here and so we went down together to the meeting. It was a fun, going to the meeting as a trainer and not-so-green-anymore companionship. Even President Ruiz got a little chuckle, out of it as he saw us together.   The meeting was great!. A nice big machete, as most meetings, are but I learned a lot and learned all of the new stuff that I will need to be doing.
      The rest of the week I spent doing all of that new stuff. I was area jumping and interviewing all week long. I honestly think that the interviews are probably one of the coolest things to do. For one you are only talking/teaching the most positive of all of the people in the other areas.   They usually just need to be taught a little bit more, or to clarify something, but other than that already have a testimony of the Gospel. It is absolutely amazing to have the chance to really get to know all of these people right as their faith is beginning to grow.
     One of the things that they were really focusing on in the meetings this week is to really look at each person for what they can become. In one of the meetings they brought a picture of a family that was baptised some time ago. With this photo he asked someone, "What do you see?" Everyone replying a family with several kids, a family that is happy and was just baptised. A family that has just taken a major step in their lives. He continued on to say"yes but here in this photo (pointing to one of the kids) I can see a Stake President, (to another) a temple worker, (to the last) a Mission President.  Our mission president." Sometimes we as missionaries lose our focus, lose our sight. we forget that every single person that we teach that we pass by on the street has the ability to be a god. The song "Look through Heavens eyes" from the Prince of Egypt has become one of my favorite songs here on the mission.
      On Friday we were teaching some jehova witness missionaries. In one part of the lesson they shared one of their believes that after we die in this life we become nothing; lose all consciousness of who we were and that in general that we do not have a progression. Something spoke within me saying that simply cant be true. I responded to this, " so hermano do you have kids? no. Ok well lets say that you have one for the moment. as a father what would you want for your son? I would imagine that you would want your son to have everything that you have and more. Now God is our father in heaven. He loves us more than we can comprehend, more than even our own fathers. What do you think he wants for you?"
     As I think of this and about what God truly wants for me and for all of his children, life is simply a little different. The gospel is just a little bit easier to talk about. and the love for the people comes all the more easier. I truly know that each of us has a divine potential, the only thing that we really need to do is fulfill it.  The easiest way for us to do so, is to help others onto this path, This church, this gospel.

Tell everyone hello, and that I love and miss them!

I received letters from the YM/YW, pretty darn cool, especially hearing about the incredible human hungry hungry hippo game that I was told many times that Tanner George's group won.!

Elder Wilcox

Ps: to start the count anew at this moment I have 37 mosquito bites
Pss: oh and I live in a bamboo house
Psss: Elder Cano isn't my only roommate.
Pssss: Elder Cano and I have a companion goal to kill the rat.