July 29, 2013

Oi Familia!!!!

Wow Those mountains make me have a lot of misses!!!!! I am so jealous that you all went up there. And those babies are getting so big:) thank you so much for all the pictures and whatnot!! I love seeing all our your wonderful faces. I will try and find an adaptor so that I can send you all some pictures someday but first I will ter que perder um pouco peso:)

This week was just filled with miracles for our mission. So some of you may know that the Angola consulate last week had decided to not issue any more visas for missionaries entering into the country. They did this because of problems they have been having with churches coming into Angola and basically stealing peoples money from tithing and hiding it underneath the governments nose. When we found out we were just astonished and really didn't know what to do because we were waiting for 5 more missionaries that are in the MTC or in the field and  8 others or so pre-MTC missionaries to replace the 10 that we lost the past transfers.

In that same day we got an email from one of the mothers in AZ telling us about a special temple trip that they were going to start on the 3rd week of every month to pray for our mission and no matter where they were at, they would go into the temple on the same day. It was just in the nick of time too.

So a couple of days after all that happened, we received a message from the consulate clearing the missionaries visas allowing them to receive them and enter into the country. Oh man, it was just so cool to see everything working together. President Merrill and the district president had written to the consulate and also Salt Lake and south Africa.  With all the praying and fasting that has been going on these missionaries will be permitted to enter the country.

Anyway just to share a quick story with y'all about this week. We taught Maria and the Abrantes family this week about he word of wisdom. Abrantes has a really bad smoking problem and Maria and the daughters all love to drink coffee. They understood it perfectly and committed to living it. 2 day later we decided to go back to see how it was going and they fell into temptation and drank some coffee and said that when they finish their supply that they would stop drinking it. So I shared a talk from general conference a few years back that I was reading that I think is titled "for how much would you sell you soul" as in would we sacrifice our souls for sins. It was so awesome and they agreed that they needed to stop. So at the end, Elder Mariquele and I told them that we would pass by their house the next day and bring a replacement drink. So we did and threw away all of their coffee right in front of them:) ha ha

Well I love you all!!! Tenham uma boa semana!!!!

Elder Wilhelm

July 22, 2013

OLA MINHA QUERIDA FAMILIA!!!!

It looks like the 24th of July celebrations week awesome!!! I love that time of year:) It is probably my favorite part of the year getting to see family and what not. Thanks for all the pictures of it!! All those grand babies are getting so big!!

So I don't really have all that much time to write today because we are running a little late, so I will be typing kind of fast, so don't mind all of the mistakes that I make:)

This week was so awesome!!! It was really nice to have a full week in our area for once:) Our area, because of everything that was going on, kind of started to die, but after this week, we are having some awesome thing happening. This week at Church we had 12 investigator arrive and the majority of the belonged to a family. Oh I was so pumped!!! And Abrantes finally showed up to church with his family for the first time ever!!!

We also had a couple of zone meetings this week, but thank goodness we didn't have to really do anything. The zone leaders did it. So Elder Mariquele and I went to watch one zone and president went to the other. Elder Tilley and Elder Wilson, the zone leaders that we watched, did an awesome job!! There is just a different spirit about our mission and it is just so awesome. Remember all that computer work I did last week, well we tested it all out with the first video conference by Elder Tilley and Elder Wilson for their zone conference with Huambo. It worked!!! ha ha Doing it this way will help the church save a little on unnecessary travel costs.

Sorry I already ran out of time, but I love you all so much and hope you have a great week!!!

Elder Wilhelm

July 16, 2013

Ola Familia!!!!

Thanks so much for all the news this past week you wonderful people!! It is so cool to hear that Kylie is going to serve a mission. She will be such an amazing missionary, I am so excited for her. And I hope all goes well with gmaW Tell her that I am still rooting for her!!!!

Well This week was definitely something out of the ordinary to say the least. Elder Mariquele and I just got back like 2 hours ago from a week long adventure into the african wild with president and sister!! Well it wasn't the wild, but it was sure fun to go visit the other parts of the mission like Huambo and Lubango!!!

The missionaries down there are just on fire and excited for the work! They really don't have all that much contact with us up in luanda so it was way cool to talk to them about all the miracles that have been going on down there. We tried to do divisions with them, but there wasn't just a whole lot of time.

A lot of the time I was actually working on their dang computers. ha ha! I never thought that I would have to be working on computers in my mission. At both locations I downloaded the mls program from the church, installed some internet routers, and some web cams so that we can start doing video conferencing with them from luanda. (FYI thanks dad for the suggestion on webex!!! it works great!!!) Ya it was a ton of fun to do something different form the norm, but in the future computers are not my thing:) ha ha, sorry dad!

We were in Huambo for just a day, but we got a lot done. Elder Mariquele and I were asked by Elder Caslton, the branch president, to give a training to the members on missionary work and being examples to your families. It was way funny because as soon as president finished with his remarks and we were supposed to divide up, all the lights went out... So by telephone light, we gave our training to 15 people and 5 screaming babies:) ha ha it started off ruff, but Then Elder Clifford gave a little training on missionary work and brought the spirit back. It was way fun and I am already missing that branch!

While we were in Lubango we had more time with the missionaries so we were able to do some division and actually do some sight seeing with them!!! Oh man those elders down there are so spoiled when it comes to activities to do on pdays!!! We went to 2 places in particular that we extra ordinary. One is called O Cristo Rei. O Cristo Rei is pretty much a replica of a statue that is in brazil of Christ. The one in brazil is gigantic, but the one we went to seemed huge to me. We were able to go into in and up on top of the tower until the feet of cristo!! It was so cool!! I will send pictures next week I hope. The second place we visited was is called tundavala. It is probably one of the biggest cliffs I have ever seen in my life.  It is probably deeper than the grand canyon. Man was it so beautiful!!!
Anyways, the whole trip was just amazing and to just get to knew president and sister was worth the whole thing. They are such an awesome couple and definitely right for the Angola, luanda mission.

Well I love you all so much!!! Have a wonderful week!!!

Elder Wilhelm

July 8, 2013

To whom it may concern:

PARABENS LARA!!!!! Your baby is so stinkin cute:) The family is just getting bigger by the week. This week we had one, last week we had one and next week mom and dad are going to get that Samoan to sleep in my room:) Thanks for that pictures and all dad!!! Both of those new babies are so cute.

Well I wish our week was filled with cute new things, our new thing isn't all that new or cute:) haha, but He is helping out a lot. I am so glad that presidente is finally here!!! So This week we had a Mission Conference with all of the Elders serving in Angola. So we pulled all the missionaries from Lubango and Huambo and on thur. we got to listen to President Merrill and sister for the first time. That morning thats all we really did was get to know them a little better and had so amazing food made by sister Merrill. In the afternoon It was our turn to give a training, but we decided to do something a little different. Because there we so many elders We decided to divide everybody up by doing a workshop. Elder Mariquele and I taught about contacting and references, Elder Hobbs and pimentele(ZL) taught about how to work with members and Elder Tilley and Wilson taught how to help people be married. So we all had 20 min and we switched off groups at the end of the 20 min. It seemed to go well it was way easier to talk to a group of 10 rather than 31. After it all we got to eat once again and play a little soccer as a whole mission!!! It was just so much fun:)

Then on friday we had a testimony meet with all the elders. It was just such an awesome experience. I think we have the best missionaries by far in this mission, and we also had all of our Interviews with presidente on sat. During my interview I could really feel President's Love I am so thankful that he is here. The interview actually turned into a question and answer thing for my sake to clear up a few organizational things. It was so awesome.

Well I love you all!! sorry I didn't write a whole lot this week, but at least you can have a break of my horrible grammar and spelllllignng:)

Elder Wilhelm

July 1, 2013

Ta bala Familia!!!!

WWWHHHAAATTTT!!!!!! I can't believe that Maria has already had her baby! :) I am so excited to see her. Thank dad for the picture of her, she is so cute:) Maria I freaken love you!!! and Lara good luck this week!!! You are getting close also! and don't burn down there in the valley. But thanks y'all for the letters and such.  It was so good to here from all of you!

Our week was so sweet!!! Oh man has it been busy trying to get stuff ready, but totally worth it!!!! I am so happy to be serving here it is just so awesome.

The biggest thing though was presidents arrival!!! At about 3 am on Saturday morning  our heads popped off the pillow with the anticipation to finally have a president here. That night we actually didn't stay at our house, but at the house of the other missionaries that live close to the couple missionaries. So we got ready and met Elder Lopes, one of the couple missionaries, in the parking lot to go and pick up president together at about 4 am ish... So we get to the airport the same time that their airplane lands, but they never came out... We sat there until about 8 just waiting for them to come out. A billion thing were running through my mind like maybe they missed a plane or maybe they never even left the u.s. or maybe they were injured. Tons of thing were running through my head, but then one of the couple missionaries(elder Abdo) talked to one of the  security to see if he could go in and look. So in he went and found president, but with no bags. So president put in a complaint to see if they could find the bags... ya welcome to Angola:) ha ha but they were so excited to just be here it didn't seem to faze them all that much. After we had breakfast with them and talked about a few thing. They are so funny!!! Within the first 5 min of meeting him I felt that I had know him for years. He is also very open to suggestions and loves to tell stories:) I love it so much!!!

So that night we were able to talk to pres about the mission a little bit more and see what his plans are. It was such a cool experience to finally talk to him. His vision of the mission and where we should go, I think, is right on the button. He likes to give people the ability to choose for themselves, to make their own goals and let the missionaries become more self efficient rather than waiting on a command from their leader. In the end we talked a little bit about a mission conference that will be happening this week. We will be bring the whole mission here to Luanda to have the conference to meet president. We all so pumped!!!! After the meeting elder Mariquele and I were walking back to the house when Mariquele looked and me and said, "this is the guy." ha ha we are so excited to have some more direction for our president.

Also we have been teaching a Cuban couple that have learned porto and have there own restaurant (see karen and maria porto. is way better than spanish!!!!) They are such an awesome couple!!! We got them a few books of mormon in spanish and they have been reading pretty regularly. And they also came to church.

Anyways I ran out of time, but I love you all so much and hope you have a wonderful week!!!  Elder Wilhelm