August 24, 2015 – Week 46

MILAGRO DE MEXICALI, VERANO 2015

I titled the following, Mexicali Miracle Summer 2015 for a reason, and here is the reason. It is because we are BAPTIZING 4 PEOPLE this coming Saturday and I’m freaking excited and happy and nervous all at the same time, because i dont want anything bad to happen at this time. The whole entire mission had a fast the last Tuesday and Wednesday and this Tuesday and Wednesday we are doing it again to keep baptisms up and up. Not only do we have 4 on this Saturday, but after the following 2 weeks we should have entered about 8 into the waters of baptism which is something awesome.

     The power of fasting is real and especially helps us with blessings when we fast in over 100 degree heat. That fast was like the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, to the point where I stopped sweating after about 3 hours of fasting, and then when I finished the fast, the sweat came gushing out of my body like a river and it was gross! Anyway, the same is going to happen tomorrow and it is going to be awesome because we are going to have so many more miracles and hopefully more people to baptize.

     Other than that everything has been pretty good for us working here in Mexicali.  Summer here is almost over and in another three weeks the heat will drop to about the upper 80s and will be a lot better. When the fall comes around it should drop again to about the 70s, but there’s this weird phenomenon that is supposed to be in a week or so called El Nino, in English as well, and it’s supposed to rain in all of Baja California for 2 weeks non stop or so. Hopefully people don’t drown here because there are no drainage systems since they are all clogged up with dirt and trash.  Hopefully I don’t drown either! I’m thinking about building a ship just like Noah, but well see how that goes.

      Something else, about three weeks ago we had a companion exchange and on this day we had to go really far and we got there with the last little bit of money that we had had, and then we had to walk about four miles because we were off track. After where we got to where we were going, we ate with this family and then we left. We had to walk because we had no money and we ended up walking to the church because we went to go teach someone by there.  We walked about 8 miles to get there and then after we walked about another 2 miles. All in this day we walked about 15ish miles and it was a crap ton and walking all that time in the 110 degree heat gave me an ingrown toenail. It never went away and I still have it.  I refuse to go to the doctor here because they are going to be worse than what happened at the doctor when I had the one taken out at home which was about 30 minutes of excruciating pain, so hopefully I can get it to go away. It hurts pretty bad, but it doesn’t affect my walking so hopefully soon it will go away. I have a lot of faith.  The doctor’s technology here is like 50 years behind. But other than that I’m pretty good! I love y’all so much and I’ll send y’all some more pictures here in a sec!

LOVE YOU!

Elder Wilkes

Danger! Extreme Temperatures

The beer collector – he’s a member too!

Our apartment

August 17, 2015 – Week 45

Temperatures from the past 5 days in HELL, 113, 114, 116, 118, 113… This week was literally the hottest endurance test ever on the face of the planet. I’m literally suffering.  You guys havo no idea what 118 degrees feels like. It literally sucks because the sweat just pours out as you take in the water.  I have some nasty pictures of my shirts and what they look like by the end of the day.

This week was pretty good though.  It wasn’t as successful as I thought it would be, but it was a good week. There was a guy that passed away in our ward this week.  We had to give talks at the funeral and I ended up speaking about the Atonement of Jesus Christ and how we will conquer the bands of death just like him. His name was Eduardo Almazan.  The previous Wednesday he asked us to give him a blessing and I gave it to him and the coolest thing happened. In the blessing I told him to keep holding on to the iron rod until he gets back to Heavenly Father, and after the blessing his wife came to walk us out and she said the days before, they have an iron rod keychain, she told him to hold on to it and dont let go. It was really cool. I also knew that he was going to die soon while giving him the blessing. But sometimes the healing comes in a different way than we think. This man had throat cancer and he had a pipe in his throat to help him breathe. He has been suffering for a long time, but he has been healed. He’s now in paradise and I’m sure he is really happy. He was awesome and I’m a little sad that he passed away, but he’s really in a better place.

     I really loved the package that y’all sent to me. It was awesome to see all the messages on the flag that you sent. Tell Wayne I’ve got a project for him for when I get home. The shoes I’m wearing suck and I’ve been sticking glue to them to hold them together. Hopefully I can make another 3 months with them! But I’ll save them for him for when I get home.  I really don’t need anything else Mom and Dad, I’m all set!

     Anyways the baptism we were going to have didn’t happen this guy just isn’t ready yet.  He still hasn’t had his answer to the Book of Mormon to see if it is true or not, so hopefully this week he will get his answer and he can get baptized by the end of this month. We are working pretty hard with him, we are probably going to fast this week for him so that he can get baptized. Hopefully all goes well.

     Everything here is going really well.  On Sunday they changed the meetings to an hour and a half long because the air conditioning doesn’t work. We only had 1 investigator come. It sucked because we hardly ever have any. For whatever reason they just don’t come. Anyway this week will be better!  Love all of you and stay on the the boat and don’t get off. Have a great week! LOVE YOU.

August 10, 2013 – Week 44

     This week I will have 10 months in the mission.  I don’t know where the time goes these days, but everything is going well.

The baptism didn’t happen this week, the guy is still waiting on his answer to the Book of Mormon. Last night we read the Book of Enos with him and he really liked it.  He’s a really cool guy, 18 years old named Edgar. We are going to go visit him today as well. This week we dropped all of our investigators and we are trying to find new ones. Seriously, no one goes to church so we can’t waste our time with them, so we’ve been finding new ones! But here’s some good news. Today we made a list of everyone that we can baptize this month and it is a list of 9 people! Me and my companion have agreed to make these 9 people our priorities and to visit them daily and to get them ready for their baptisms, so we are working really hard to baptize these 9 souls. So brethern, pray for us, that we can get these people into the waters of baptism.

     For the most part though everything is going pretty good right now.  Unfortunately, the people we were going to eat with tonight cancelled on us but the bishop said we can come eat with him and his family. We went right after church and then his wife left to go buy us pizza. I felt pretty bad that they had to go buy stuff and break the sabbath but that pizza was freaking good and I ate 7 slices.

     About the family and the temple, there’s a lot of messed up families that I see and teach. A lot of kids falling into drug addictions and getting pregnant at 14 years old (that’s no joke). All these things screw it up for them, but when a family has the gospel things are a lot better, and when they actually keep the commandments the home becomes sacred, becomes a temple where the shafts of satan cannot enter! It’s something really awesome because I was reading in Alma that when we obey the commandments satan cannot have control over us, and also we learn about that in the temple.  I love yall so much! Have an awesome week!!

August 3, 2015 – Week 43

     This week has been pretty cool! We have been working really really hard and we are getting ready for more people to be baptized.  Unfortunately this past week we did not have a baptism, but this week it is very possible that we could have one. So pray for us! His name is Edgar and he’s pretty cool. We have been teaching him for 3 months now and I think it is about time for him to be dunked.

     Good news – I went to the street flea market today and I bought a camera cord and it works so here in a few minutes I’ll send you a couple of snappers. We just started the new transfer today and I’m staying here in Mexicali through all of AUGUST. The month of August is the hottest month here and it will get up to about 125-135 degrees, and that is NO JOKE. This week its supposed to be at 114 all week.  But we were eating lunch at a house and they were watching the news in this small room so we didn’t really have a choice but to listen to what was going on.  The El Nino is here and because of that phenomenon it hasn’t really been as hot as it should and it has been raining a little more than usual as well. But the sun is back out and you can see my sweat lines and its pretty gross! The other day we walked about 15 miles and that is no joke and when I got home I took my shirt off and it was yellow, like a dark yellow and you could definitely tell. It was freaking gross! I wish there was something that you could buy to make it so you don’t sweat. But the only thing I could think of is not drink water. I did a full fast the other day and I really didn’t get thirsty or hungry at all and it was a good one. Hopefully I can get more blessings from it.

     This month of August we have a goal of 6 baptisms which is something very possible for us right now. We pray every day for the success and we work hard! Things are going really well. We are having a difficult problem of having investigators in the church but I was talking to the president and he told me just to have faith. Clearly I can believe, but if I don’t work then my faith is dead. For whatever reason in my mission I always have issues of getting these people to church. It’s really hard. I’m praying and reading to figure out what I can do other than to work with my faith.

I know I’ll come up with an answer soon because anything asked in faith, beliveing that he should recieve an answer, shall be given him, and that comes from the book of Enos.

     I had to give another pop talk in church the other Sunday.  I’m really tired of giving pop talks because it is really difficult to talk about things on the fly, but this time I talked about the missionary work inside the ward. The truth is our ward is fried, so I planched (slammed) them on about how they need to work and the last words of my talk was “if you do not work in the work of the Lord (or in general) you are working towards your own condemnation.  These things are true and I testify of them that they are true. The Lord is coming and he comes rapidly- amen” it was pretty awesome.

So you guys need to work, go out with the missionarries and give them stuff to work with and references, INCLUDING MY FRIENDS, give ALL OF MY FRIENDS ADDRESSES AND STUFF TO THE MISSIONARIES!

     Guys, I’m fluent in Spanish! The president said my Spanish is almost perfect and this was about a month ago when he said that. My English sucks and I can’t spell worth a crap, but I love all of you (:

July 27, 2015 – Week 42

Hello everybody its 110 degrees right now and I am dripping in sweat! I hope all of you are having fun at the beach and Disney World during the family reunion. I wish I could be there, but it looks like I am because grandma cut out a stand out of me! Well on Sunday you know what I’d been doing if I really was there – sitting on the couch with Uncle Donnie blasting the TV watching the big race. Hopefully Jeff pulls it out this week. Anyways Mexico is going nuts because they just won the gold cup in soccer and they are getting moved up in the tournement.

     This week we were blessed to have another baptism this past Saturday. Her name is Cruz and she is 13. Her uncle baptized her and it was awesome! We were privileged to baptize her. I just really hope she stays active. Me and my companion have had the best numbers in the zone this week. We taught 39 lessons and had a baptism and the last week we had 37 lessons and the week before we had 35. It’s really hard to keep doing what we are doing, but it keeps everything and everyone happy especially the mission president and our leaders. This might be my last week in Mexicali, but we won’t find out until Saturday. This week as well we might be having a baptism or 2 but we have to check on a couple of things first, hopefully everything will turn out fine!

     Hopefully all of you are having a grand ole time there in Florida. I sure miss y’all because I have to deal with druggies, drunks, half naked women that won’t obey the commandments, teenagers that are 14 and pregnant, and all of the above. It’s pretty hard trying to get people to change the traditions of thier fathers, but few change and the others end up in prision, hell, with aids, or in the orphange.

     I just want you all to know that i am working like crazy out in this sun trying to bring people unto Christ. Anyway, here’s a spiritual thought for this week’s family reunion. It’s about families because it seems that is the theme for this Sonney family reunuion. The Family is the most important social unit for this time and for all of the eternities.  God put us with our families for some specific reasons. One is for the love that we need to have for everyone and for the bonds that unite as a family.  If a family doesn’t have love, well it ends up like a lot of people that I’m teaching and trust me you do not want these issues! The other is friendship, we need to always be there for one another, we need the support for when we are down and we need the encouragement for when we have done something good and are doing things right, the other reason is so that we can have the strength to return back to our Heavenly Father. When we figure out our true purpose in life, we love our family our brothers, we become better husbands, borthers and sisters, children of God, we gain control of the adversary, sharpen our sword of truth, our testimonies grow and we become strong. Live, laugh, love, cry tears of joy, pray always, and love God with all thine heart. And second… love thy wife and cleave unto her and treat her like a daughter of God.

     God speed the right.

     Love, Elder Wilkes