January 4, 2016

Hey everyone!! Happy new year!!! 

Sorry but I don't have a lot of time left so this might be a little short! This week are the transfers and there are going to be a ton of changes throughout the whole mission!! My companion goes home this week and i'm sad he is leaving, but excited to have a new companion and work hard with him!! I have no idea who it is but I will let you all know next week!! 

Saturday was the best!! A man named Rogelio got baptized!!!! It was so cool to see him at his baptism because me and my companion found him one day as we were contacting on a random street. We talked to him and asked where he lived and turns out that he lives in the sister missionaries area from our ward. So we gave them his phone number and everything and they went to visit him! Then the next week we saw him in church and that was one of the best feelings I've ever felt when I saw him in church! He has a really bad knee problem so it makes it hard for him to walk and he lives a little far away from the church here but he was one of the first ones to get to church that day! So anyways he got baptized on Saturday and he asked me to baptize him!! It was cool to be a part of bringing another lamb back to the fold just by opening my mouth and sharing the gospel. Love this work and love being a missionary!!!

Love all of you have an awesome week!!!

Elder Wilks

December 28, 2015

This week was a great one!!! On Christmas eve we went with our ward mission leader to sing christmas carols to all of the members and it was great!! We might not of sounded so good but we all tried our best haha. It was also really cool on christmas eve here because everyone lights off a ton of Fireworks!! It was like a 4th of July firework show so that was cool!!

Christmas day was awesome too! I got to talk to my family which was the best!!! Afterwards we went to share a few messages with members and it all turned out really well. 

I gave a talk in sacrament meeting at church yesterday and the bishop assigned me to talk about "La obra misional".  I absolutely love talking about missionary work and helping members understand why it is so important to invite their friends and family to come to learn of this great gospel. I have a testimony of missionary work. This gospel is what makes me so happy and I feel so blessed to be able to share it with the people of Honduras. I know I am exactly where i am supposed to be, doing exactly what I am supposed to do. I love the Gospel and sharing it with others.

I hope all of you have a great week and a happy new year!! Make some goals that will help you become a better person for this new year of 2016!!! Love you all!!

Elder Wilks

We went to TELA today and it was awesome!! (Thanks for the selfie stick family!!)

December 21, 2015

This week was one of the best weeks ever! Enrique, Wendy, and Kimberly got baptized and confirmed!!!! It was a great experience to teach them the gospel and see them get baptized! They are a great family and they are going to be fantastic members of the church. This week is CHRISTMAS!!!!! I really hope that everyone of you has a great christmas!!! I know I will because I get to talk with the Family!!! Woo hoo!!! 

Love you all sorry for the short message. 

FELIZ NAVIDAD

Elder Wilks

La Familia ISAGUIRRE

December 14, 2015

Hey everyone!!! Wow this week went by way fast again!! The time seriously is flying by I can't believe it. 

This week was awesome for a number of reasons but I will only share a few of them with you!! 

We had our Multi Zone Conference with president Klein on Friday!! It was a great conference and my companion and I had a chance to give a training to the missionaries about chapter 11 in Preach my Gospel. We focused on the way we can extend an invitation to investigators and explain how it will help them in their lives. We felt good about it and everyone was really motivated to apply what they learned in their areas. It was a great conference and we feel like the zone is going to do really well this month. 

   This Friday is the wedding of Wendy and Enrique!! They are soooo ready!! They even started reading the Book of Mormon as a family last week and they are super excited to get married on Friday and baptized on Saturday!! Pray for them so that everything will go well!!! We are also working with other investigators like Ricardo, Donaldo, Sindy, Sindy #2, Edilberto, and Walter. Every one of them has accepted a baptismal date and are working to prepare for it so we are seeing big changes with all of them. 

   I'm so happy that I have this time to serve as a full time missionary!! Sharing the Gospel with other people is the best!! My testimony of Jesus Christ has been strengthened so much and I know that he suffered for every one of us in the Garden of Gethsemane. Remember him this month and I know that your Christmas experience will be better than any other one before.

I love y'all!!

Elder Wilks

No pictures this week I forgot the cord for my camera in the house! 

December 7, 2015

Hello everyone!! Sorry I couldn't send an email last week!! 

This week was probably the fastest week of my entire life! We were super busy the whole week and got a lot of stuff done. We did divisions with the assistants on Tuesday and that was a cool experience, I learned a lot from Elder Hodson and he helped us see what areas we need to focus on with the zone! We also did divisions with some elders on Wednesday and Friday! I always learn a lot when I go on divisions with other missionaries and good stuff always happens.

Good news with Wendy and Enrique!!!! They are getting married on the 18th of this Month!!!!! We were able to get all of the paper work turned in and they said that they will have their wedding on Friday the 18th!! We are way excited for that and their baptism on the 19th. We have worked with them and waited for over two months so we are way excited for them.

I recognized this week that my perspective of missionary work has completely changed in this area. Something that my companion Elder Tumax has taught me is about really focusing on the necesities of the investigators and really trying to help them with their questions and challenges. We have really been focusing on paying attention to the spirit in our lessons and it has made a huge difference. We feel so excited every day we go out and visit people and I really have come to love the people in our area.

Love all of you and hope you all enjoy this month of December and remember the true meaning of CHRISTmas this year.

Love,

Elder Wilks

November 23, 2015 - Thanksgiving

Hello everyone!!! Happy Thanksgiving this week!!!! Too bad I won't be celebrating down here in Honduras because they don't believe in that holiday!! 

This week was super awesome!!! We had a service project as a zone which was great!!! We went to a school for special ed kids and helped the teachers clean out all of the rooms and paint the walls! They were so thankful for our service and said that what we did in 3 hours would have taken them 3 days to do so they were very grateful that we went and helped them out. I will attach a few photos of the service project.

Welllllll Enrique and Wendy are still in the process of getting all of their marriage papers together so we are doveloping some patience with them and the Honduran laws, but it looks like they should be able to get married and baptized on the 12 of December! 

Love being a missionary and sharing this gospel with others! It's so exciting!! Woo hoo!!! I'm thankful for Jesus Christ and for his Atonement. I know that he really died for us and through him we can be freed from our sins. He is my savior and redeemer and my older brother. I love him and try my best to follow his example in my own life. I'm a long ways away from perfect and make so many mistakes every day, but through the mistakes I make I learn more and thats why we are here on earth, to learn and progress. 

Love all of you have an awesome Thanksgiving!!!!

Elder Wilks

P.S. We had to drop off a matress (I almost couldnt remember that word in english) at some missionaries house and it was funny because everyone was looking at us weird.

November 16, 2015

This week was awesome!! 

We had a baptism on Saturday and it was great!! Josue got baptized and he is such a awesome guy!! One of the young men from the ward baptized him because they are both really good friends. The baptism was really great and my favorite part of it was when Josue shared his testimony. He is kind of shy when there are big groups of people, but he shared his short but powerful testimony which was, "I am just grateful to have been able to know of this gospel." Just one sentence but those words really hit me. Sometimes we forget how blessed we are to have the Gospel of Jesus in our lives.  

We are still working with Wendy and Enrique with their papers and we are planning their baptism for the first week of December so i will keep you all updated on how the marriage papers go..

There was a lot that happened this week and I think it would be better to just send pictures instead of describing everything that happened.. 

Thats all for this week!! I love each and every one of you!! Have the best week ever!!!!!

Elder Wilks

This is Josues baptism!!!

We had a pday activity with the zone where we went to play in the stadium of Progreso!!! Always wearing #32!!!!

This is an area in our zone called TELA and it is beautiful!!

November 2, 2015

Hello everyone! This week was really a good week!! I completed one year in the mission this past week and it is actually crazy how fast the time has passed!! I was thinking about all of the things I have done in the past year and what has happened and it doesn't feel like a year at all!! 

We are still working hard with Wendy and Enrique to get them married and we have set a baptismal date with them for the 28th of this month!! We are still working on getting all of their documents together so they can get married so I will keep you all updated on how that goes. Josue is our other investigator who has a date for the 14th of this month, but he couldn't go to church yesterday and we don't know why yet, but he is really excited for his baptism and is learning a lot! Edilberto is another one of our investigators who is doing really well. His wife is a member of the church and has been helping his so much. The story with Edilberto is that when the missionaries started teaching his wife about the gospel he didn't want anything to do with it and was really not interested, but in the past three weeks we have seen a HUGE change in him. He has come to church for the past 3 weeks and has said that he really likes it. We are really excited to work with him more and we are hoping to be able to baptize him this month as well! 

I love all of you guys and hope that you enjoyed HALLOWEEN!!! They dont really celebrate that here. They have something called Day of the Dead and its a little weird.. 

Adiós!!!!!!

Elder Wilks

October 26, 2015

This week was really good!!! We are still working with Wendy and Enrique so that they can get married!! We did an activity to help raise a little money on Tuesday and we sold BALIADAS!!! Thats like the most common food here. Its just a tortilla with beans and eggs and cheese in it and they are actually really good I like them a lot. So we sold those on Tuesday and did pretty well, but we still need a lot more so that we can get them married. We are planning the same activity tomorrow so we will see how it goes. Wendy and Enrique are doing awesome and really progressing well. The only problem is that Enrique works all week and doesn't get home until really late so it is hard to find him sometimes. We are also teaching a guy named Josue and he is super cool! He is 23 years old and we met him through some jovenes from church. He has a baptismal date for the 14 of November and is really excited for it. We are looking for new people to teach and have found a lot of people, but we are working hard to help them understand our message and progress. 

Crazy that I have been out on the mission for 1 year already!!! It has gone by way too fast and I know that this next year will go by even faster! It has been the best year of my life. I have grown so much in my testimony of Jesus Christ. I know he really came to this earth to pay for our sins. Through the Atonement of  Jesus Christ we can repent of our past transgressions and literally be clean. I have been so blessed to be able to help people learn more about Christ in their lives and see the change that comes from really following his example. Love the Mission!

Thanks for all of your love and support I hope that all of you have a fantastic week! 

Elder Wilks

Sorry, this computer wont let me send pictures for some reason.. ADIOSSSS!!

October 19, 2015

Wow this week went by way too fast!!! So I made it to my new area here in a city called Progreso! It is about 20 minutes away from San Pedro Sula and I like it so far! I was also called to be a Zone Leader of the Progreso North Zone! We have 12 companionships in our zone and 10 of them are in training!! Its crazy we have a ton of new missionaries in the zone and we are excited for that because new missionaries are always on fire and make everyone else more excited for the work! My new companion is Elder Tumax and he is from Guatemala! He has 22 months in the mission so he has a lot of experience and is teaching me a lot! My new area is really cool because it includes the downtown part of  Progreso so its a lot different from the areas I have had in the past. We are working right now with a lot of new investigators and i wish i could talk about all of them but there isn't that much time. So I will tell you all about the couple that we are working with. Their names are Enrique and Wendy and they are both really awesome!! Most of their family is a member of the church and they are really progressing well and want to get baptized! The only problem is that they aren't married!! (thats really common here) So we are doing an activity tomorrow to help raise some money so that they can get married and baptized some time in November! We are really excited and we are working hard with them so they can exercise their faith in their conversion process!! 

I'm out of time!! Love all of you and wish you all a great week!!

Elder Wilks

1- The coolest family from my last area who are really funny and like to joke around (even though it doesnt look like it haha)

2- This is my son elder Nuñez and His son (my grandson) Elder Gozart!! We celebrated his birth into the mission field with a diaper and bib! hahaha

October 12, 2015

Hello everyone!! So today I found out that I will have changes this Wednesday! I am sad to leave the ward here, but I am also ready to work hard with new people in this great work. My companion Elder Nunez is going to be training a new missionary next change so that means that I will have a "grandson"! I have loved working with elder Nunez and we have learned a lot together. 

Darlin couldn't get baptized on Saturday because him and his family went on a random trip to visit his Grandma. He should be able to get baptized next Saturday though! 

Every day i learn something new out here on the mission! I love teaching people about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and seeing the changes that come through learning and living the principles of this Gospel.

Thanks for all of your love and support. Wish you all a great week!!

Elder Wilks

October 5, 2015

Wow this week was awesome!!!!! Mostly because of General Conference, but we also were able to have some super awesome lessons and meet some new and prepared people to teach.

So I found out this week that I was a help in somebody's conversion and I didn't even know it! So about a month and a half ago we had a zone meeting where every companionship in the zone went out in front of the church and focused on following the spirit while contacting new people. So me and my companion were walking down the street and we saw some old lady out on her front porch just chillin and we both just walked straight to her without even hesitating. So we talked to her for a few minutes and told her a little bit about the gospel and wrote down her direction and phone number and left. So we gave to phone number to the elders in that area and they went to her house to teach her and she ended up getting baptized last weekend!! It was so cool when I found out because I had totally forgotten about her!! But that was really awesome to know that I was a little part of someones conversion to the Gospel.

This General Conference was the best! I loved so many of the messages that were given but one that really hit me was the talk given by Jeffery R. Holland about maternal love. He explained how the love a mother has for her children is as close as it gets to the love that Heavenly Father has for us. It made me think about my own mom and how she has loved and helped me throughout my life. I couldnt be more grateful for all that she has taught me through her example. Love you mom. It also made me think about how much heavenly father loves each and every one of us and how he wants the best for us. I set the goal to recognize the love that he has for me personally and i know that he loves all of you just as much as he loves me.

This week we have a baptism on saturday so i will send pictures next week!!!! Love all of you!!!

Elder Wilks

pic, this is the coolest kid ever! his name is Kalid

September 21, 2015

Time goes by really fast in the mission. Its probably because we are ALWAYS busy and always feel like there isnt enough time to do everything. One day this week, my companion and I decided to go out to work with out a watch on and just work without keeping track of the time. It was really weird, I felt lost the whole time because we didnt know if we were getting to our appointments on time or not haha. 

I went on exchanges with Elder Calvac this week! He has been out 4 months on the mission, but I was truly amazed at how much he knows and how hard he works. In one of the lessons, we were sharing a message about the atonement of Jesus Christ and the Spirit was SO STRONG. I love teaching about Jesus Christ and his atonement because the spirit is always there to testify of the words we say. Our day was cut short because the lights went out at 630 so we had to go back home because we cant be out in the streets if there are no lights. It was really sweet to be able to go there for a day though. I learned a lot from elder Calvac. 

Alexander is doing really well and really ready for his baptism on the 10 of october! He is reading everything that we leave him and he is growing alot spiritually and is noticing a difference in his life. 

I was reading in the Book of Mormon this week and i read a verse that really impacted me. Its in Alma 7:23

 23 And now I would that ye should be humble, and be submissive and gentle; easy to be entreated; full of patience and long-suffering; being temperate in all things; being diligent in keeping the commandments of God at all times; asking for whatsoever things ye stand in need, both spiritual and temporal; always returning thanks unto God for whatsoever things ye do receive. 

I really like the end of the verse where it says that we should always return thanks to God for whatever he gives us in our lives. There really is a plan behind every blessing and every trial. What we have to recognize is that heavenly father gives us challenges in our lives so that we can be made stronger in the end. If we are humble and patient and if we ALWAYS keep God's commandments, he will bless us. I know that God loves us and has a plan for each and every one of us. I know that the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was called as a prophet to restore the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I am so grateful that i am able to share this message with the people here. It is hard sometimes, but it is so worth it when we see peoples lives change through this gospel.

Love all of you. Until next week!!

Elder Wilks

September 7, 2015

Hola everyone!! Hope todo has been bien for all of ustedes!!

This week was a good week!! Elder Nunez and I are really just focusing right now on helping people keep there compromises and understand what we are teaching. Sometimes it is frustrating because the people here are not very educated so we have to explain everything really simply or they don't understand. It has really helped me to understand that the gospel is actually really simple. If we keep Gods commandments and try to be the best we can each day, he will bless us.

Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you all but changes were last week and I am staying in Buenos Aires with Elder Nunez! I was really happy about that because I will get to finish the training of Elder Nunez and have 4 changes here in the area. And I also was called to be a District Leader! Things have already been more busy but I am super excited to be able to serve the elders in my district. This week we have a meeting with president where he is going to teach us a few things and then we are going to relay the message to the missionaries in our districts. 

This past Sunday was fast Sunday and we fasted for all of our investigators to be able to progress and see a change in their lives. So as we were fasting yesterday we felt impressed to go visit one of our investigators who didn't go to church and thought something might have happened because he almost always goes. So we get there and he walks out of the house. We started talking to him to see how things were going and i asked him if he had been praying lately. He said no which wasn't a surprise to us because he has a hard time believing that God really hears his prayers, but not long after he said, "but im going to start, I feel like its time for me to change". Such a miracle to hear him say that. We are going to visit with him this week and see if we can put a baptismal date with him. God really always hears our prayers and Elder Nunez and i experienced it yesterday. He didn't tell us why he felt like he should start praying, but i know that Heavenly Father helped him to recognize that he needed to make that change in his life.

Love all of you and hope everyone has a great week!!!!!!!!!

CHEKE!!!!!

Elder Wilks