This blog is kept by Elder Asher Wilson's family. It will include his general emails and various pictures. It will be updated each week after each new email is received. We hope you enjoy it!

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Monday. January 25. 2016-Week 76







Mi Familia

Well we just finished up our crazy day here in the office. For the last 3 days we have been preparing all of the transfers of the missionaries and today we went out and sent everyone to their new areas. That is a ton of work. One day I'll explain to all of you guys what we do here for transfers. 

I think that Tate is such a stud. I remember all of the hard things that happen in high school and he is just rocking them!! I'm serious I am just more and more impressed by that kid every week. Keep it up Tater you're the man. Also the Eagle Project idea sounds great. I am always hearing from future missionaries that need clothes to go out on the mission so it could really be a big help for us. 

Elder Gandarillas is the man!! He is seriously like my best friend and we are doing so much amazing work together. He has like 20 months in the mission so he goes home 1 transfer before I do. He is completely hyperactive and sort of a spaz and is just always going on and on about something hahahaha it's hilarious but he is also the most humble person that I have ever met in my entire life. He loves the Lord and he serves with all of his heart even though he isn't completely supported by his family. His parents aren't members and neither is his older sister. Just him and another sister are members of the church. He is a huge example for me because he is so strong in his faith and he has only been a member of the church for 3 years. If there are a few words to describe Elder Gandarillas they would be true, strong, faithful and a freaking spaz hahahaah!!!

So this week here in the mission we got to watch an awesome broadcast that was put on by the church for every single missionary in the entire world. It was titled teach repentance and baptise converts and it was amazing. Elder Anderson, Elder Bednar, Elder Oaks, Elder Waddell and a few others gave talks and demonstrations to help us to truly understand and complete with our calling to be representatives of Jesus Christ. They talked a ton about our potential and all of the things that the Lord has called us to do and how we need to have enough faith to accept our potential and grow to become it. They also talked a lot about how our main purpose as missionaries is to help the people to repent and become free from sins and guilt. Every single thing that we do and every invitation that we give to the people is to help them to repent and to come unto Christ. The Book of Mormon was also a central theme in all of this. They said that if we truly want to understand the doctrine of Christ and his great plan of salvation for us and if we want other people to understand it too we must dedicate ourselves to reading it and studying it daily. There is no reason that we are not reading the Book of Mormon daily and if we are not we are denying the blessings that he has for us. Wow!!! These talks seriously blew my mind and I am now applying many new things in my life as a missionary and personally. 

This week was a good one but also a hard one. We have been working like crazy with Gloria and Pia and now with the brother Kevin to have them ready for their baptism date and everything has been going great. They are reading and completing with the commandments and lots of good stuff but they just don't understand the importance of the Sabbath day. They didn't go to church this Sunday so now we cant baptise them this week. They are amazing and have changed so much but they just need to have a little bit more testimony and conversion before they are baptised so please pray for them lots. Raul is great. This week he was a different person and from what I can see is completely ready to be baptised. He even went on a young adults camping trip and said it was one of his best weekends ever!! I am seriously so proud of that guy and everything that he is doing to change his life. He has so much faith and is just trusting in the Lord to lead him though all of his hardships. He is also an amazing soccer player/athlete and is always inviting us to form our team and play against him and some of his friends and tomorrow we are going to do it!!! Gonna kick their butts too!!!

I read a scripture that I loved this week. I finished the Book of Mormon and in my last reading I came across a scripture that was really powerful for me. Its in Moroni 9:6. It says:

And now, my beloved son, notwithstanding their hardness, let us labor adiligently; for if we should cease to blabor, we should be brought under condemnation; for we have a labor to perform whilst in this tabernacle of clay, that we may conquer the enemy of all righteousness, and rest our souls in the kingdom of God. 



It doesn't matter how hard it is or how bad the people treat us or how much we have to suffer, we will continue laboring diligently because that is the task that our father has entrusted us with and if we fail it is to our own condemnation. It just hit me because the life is hard and it will never be easy but we just have to keep giving it our all so that the Lord can bless us with what we need. So that was sort of my thought of the week and is an answer that the Lord gave me.

So that's all for now. Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior and he loves us so much. I love you guys and like always hope you have a great week. Hey also need to know if we need to start doing anything for classes. Hate talking about that. Love you guys!!

Much Love 

Elder Wilson

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Monday. January 18. 2016-Week 75


With President Rasmussen

President took us to lunch in Tumbes..........a little different that our pensión hahahaha ‏



Sunset in Tumbes


The Rasmussen's


Mi Familia 

Super glad to hear that you guys are all doing so well and keeping life interesting like always. Not a ton of time so I've got to write fast. 

I hate Alabama........

This week was totally crazy. We were only here working in our area for 2 days because we were all over the place in Tumbes and Talara (another little beach town) all week doing these dang interviews and to answer your question no we still aren't even done!! I am seriously tired haha. We have been working our tails off to help these other missionaries and to keep working in our area but I figure that if the Lord could keep working for us as he was bleeding out of every pore in his body then I am sure that I can keep working if I am a little tired. 

I liked your question of what makes a good missionary. For me it is simple. Diligence, humility, obedience and a true love of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. There are many people in this work that have one or two of these qualities but when you can find a missionary that has them all you have truly found something special. I am still not perfect in some of these categories but I sure love the Lord more than anything else and that is what has carried me to become better and better. 

This week in our area it was a great one but also sort of a hard one. We were outside of Piura all week so we were sort of thinking that we wouldn't find too many people this week or maybe not too many people would go to church or stuff like that but the Lord truly worked another one of his many miracles. We ended up finding 4 more new people to teach in those 2 days and a few of them ended up going to church (along with the ones that had already been going to church)!! I was almost surprised by how good this weekend went and how much the Lord is blessing us. Our area is progressing like crazy, our ward is growing like crazy and we are working like crazy to make sure all of this can keep moving like it is. 

So all of our investigators are doing good but we had sort of a scary experience with Raul that ended up being something very spiritual and special. 

I went on divisions with a member yesterday and we had a crazy experience. We have an investigator that is really progressing very quickly. His mom and brother got baptised last month and he says that he has seen so many changes in his house that he wants to do all that he can to follow in their foot steps. He is reading and going to church and he has received an answer about the restoration but he has a big weakness with drinking. So we went to see  him last night after church and he wasn't there and his mom was crying. She told us that he had gone out with his friends that had come up from Lima and she didn't know where he was. So we started teaching when out of no where he showed up. He wasn't drunk but we could just see that something was wrong. He told us that he had been out with his friends but that he hadn't drunk anything but that there had been a ton of people being jerks to him for not drinking and a huge fight had broken out and just craziness. He started crying and telling us that he wasn't going to be able to keep completing with the commandments because they were just too hard. We talked for a minute but he just wouldn't calm down. I really felt like we were going to lose him for a minute but I just had the strongest feeling that I needed to give him a blessing of comfort. So I asked him if he wanted one and explained that it would only work through his faith. He said yes and I blessed him. I don't even remember what I said but when it was finished there was just such a peace in that room. He was no longer crying and the spirit was just there. After that we talked much calmer and we ended up finishing the night with him being completely confident about the choice that he is making to follow Christ. I know that in the most important times the spirit guides us so that we can make the choices that our Savior would make. I know that the priesthood is the power of God and I am amazed daily by the trust that the Lord has in us to let us act in his name. I love this work and all of the people that I serve.

So I just wanted to share that quick story with you guys and to invite you all once again to keep praying for the people that we are teaching. 

So ya I really don't have any more time to write because we have to go and baptise!!!!!!! Sorry I didn't write much but I love you guys so much and I seriously pray for you all every single day. Hope you have a great week.

Much love

Elder Wilson

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Monday. January 11. 2016-Week 74

Mi Familia

Well we finally made it to Tumbes. All it took was like 5 hours sitting in a car!! I was just thinking about it though. The last time that I was here in Tumbes was like 14 months ago!! It didn't seem like that much time had passed by!! So just gonna make the most of this short trip and who knows maybe I'll get to see some people that I knew from Zarumilla. 

It is really cool how the spirit works. I always pray for you guys. Every single day I am always praying for you all but in these last few days I have had the feeling that I needed to pray even more specifically about every single one of you individually. I prayed specifically that you would be protected physically and spiritually mom and I really feel as if the Lord completed with his part protecting you from something that could have been really bad. So that was just a reminder for me. When the spirit tells you to do something just do it!! It doesn't matter what it is or how strange it may seem because the spirit always has the reason and he is never going to tell us to do something that isn't important. So just know that I was there with you in spirit when you were going through all of that. I love you mom. 

My toe is still destroyed......like bad haha!! I think I may have an ugly toe for the rest of my life. But it doesn't hurt too bad so that's good but I really have no idea what I should do for it because right now I'm not doing anything. So give me some advice of that bad boy unless you want me to have a zombie toe forever!!

Elder Gandarillas is the best and a serious bro. We are preaching the gospel in incredible ways right now!!  Enough said.

Well today for our like hour and a half of P Day we went and played soccer with our ward. With all of the young men and some of the old men and all of the Elders. It was awesome because we played on a field of like ankle deep sand!! It was so hard to run but seriously one of the best workouts and also one of the funniest experiences of my life haha!! People were getting super competitive because Peruanos do not like to lose so everyone just started taking each other out and it sort of turned into a huge game of like sand rugby!! Everyone walked away bruised and sweating and covered from head to toe in sand or mud or some nasty combination of the two haha pure awesomeness!! 

He I haven't told you yet but the bishop of our ward, Obispo Silva, just got called to be a mission president in Peru!! Pretty dang cool!! He is a great man and it going to do many great things in his mission!!

This week was completely crazy and busy. We were in interviews every single day of the week with president and going straight into the work in our area as soon as we were done. Interviews might not be the funnest thing in the entire world but we really do help our president in a lot of things and that makes it worth it for me because he is one incredible man and I am really learning a ton from him. But our area is doing insanely awesome!! In these next 3 weeks we have plans to baptise like 6 or 7 people!! Everyone is listening to us and reading their books of mormon and really receiving their own personal answers and it is amazing!! But something even cooler happened this Sunday. So a big problem here in the mission is getting people to go to church. Usually a normal Sunday is to have 1 or 2 investigators in the church but we decided that if we really want to help these people we need to focus a little more in the church. So this week we were just talking about the church and the sacrament and the importance of it all and making people promise us to go. So Sunday morning came rolling around and we went out to pick everyone up to go to church and a miracle happened. Every single person that we had invited was sitting by their front door ready to go with us to church!! We had like 12 people that were less actives and investigators in the church this Sunday!! They all loved it too!! When we put goals with the help of the Lord he is really going to help us to complete them if we just have the faith to do it. So ya our ward is going great and also the people that we are teaching. 

This week I want to ask for your guys help in a couple of things. So we are teaching a few people that are in their 20s and have been into the party life pretty hard for the last little while. So this week we talked all about the Word of Wisdom with them and explained to them how terrible all of that stuff is for their body and spirit and asked them if they would live it. They both said yes but that it was going to be something very hard for them. The world is strong, our friends have a big impact on our life and the things may be hard but the Lord is stronger and if we trust in him he will never let us down and will always help us to achieve the impossible. That is what we promised them but like they said it is still going to be hard that is why this week I would like you guys to all pray especially for Pia and Raul so that they can stop drinking and stuff like that and so they can overcome all of the temptations that are going to be coming their way. You guys are awesome so just help them out with this!! 

Well that's all I've got for this week because I am writing in some small internet shack in Tumbes and we just don't have too much time. No pictures for right now but I'll try to send some later. I love you guys so much and just want you to know that I know that this Church is true. I have been serving the Lord for a long time now and I can honestly say with all of my heart that He lives and He loves all of us so much. If we just follow Him and become humble and submissive and do His will we will never lack anything but we will have everything that is necessary for our lives. The Book of Mormon is the word of God and is completely perfect. Never stop reading it, pondering it and praying about it to have that ever growing testimony that all of us need. We are children of an all powerful God. Never forget that we have divine potential to do great things through our faith, diligence and obedience. Well I'm pretty sure I spelt like 3956 words wrong in this letter haha but you guys get the point. I love you all, I am always praying for you and hope yall have a great week!! 

Much Love 

Elder Wilson

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Monday. January 4. 2016-Week 73



With Algren.

It fell off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mi Familia

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!2016!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well it was a very bitter sweet new year for me. Really cool to see a new year coming along like a new slate but also super sad to know that it is my last new year here in the mission. We passed it really good though.........we just  worked our butts off!! Seriously last year we had like a big old party with the members and burnging muñecos and fireworks and a bunch of other crazy things but this year Elder Gandarillas and I made the decision that we were really going to dedicate that time to the Lord by doing His work. So we left early in the morning and worked until the night and it was really an incredible day. It was hard and there were a ton of drunk people but it was a day that I will never forget because I truly came to understand the purpose of my mission. My mission is fun and we really do a ton of cool things but that's not what it's about. The mission that I am serving is about losing yourself in the Lord's purpose and acting with faith to see true miracles come about. So ya it was an awesome new year. By far the best one that I have ever had.

Hey but something super funny also happened a few days ago. So on the first day of the year we went out to teach again and there were just a ton of drunk people laying around in the streets from the parties the night before. There were no cars, no normal people and really no life at all haha. So we were searching around looking for people to teach and out of no where a guy came like speed walking around the corner so we went to catch him and talk to him. Well we started to talk to him and it was obvious to see that he was drunk but we tried to share a little message with him. When we were talking I saw a big stick that he had shoved down the back of his shirt so I asked him why it was there. This guy straight up whips this stick out of his shirt and starts waving it around like a light saber and then out of no where he started fist pumping and yelling THUNDER CATS THUNDER CATS THUNDER CATS hahahhahahahahahahahshahahaha!!!! It was honestly one of the funniest things that I had ever seen in my entire life hahahahah!! Just some of the greatness that we get to see here in the greatest mission on earth or mission Peru Piura. 

This week was the busiest one of my entire mission. Every single day this week we went to a different zone of the mission to do interviews with President. Every 3 months he interviews every single missionary in the mission and we have to go with him to do our part of the interviews. It may not be the most fun activity in the world but it was really good to help president and also to help lots of the missionaries to set some new goals for this year. The mission is seriously looking so good right now!! A few months ago we heard that our mission had some of the lowest numbers in our area of the world but now we have changed our focus and everything has turned around!! We have more investigators, we are working a lot more with the ward and we are baptising much more and really changing the whole mission. It's crazy what a change of attitude can do in life.

Yolanda is doing ok. I don't know how she got so bad with her health but she is pretty weak right now. Even though she is a little weak she is not weak in her spirit. That woman has become a spiritual giant and is really showing her light off to everyone in her path. To her kids, other family and all of her friends she just wants to help everyone to obtain what she has in her life. I love that family so much. Kevin and Yolanda are amazing but please just keep praying for them. Also we have a few sisters that are getting ready for baptism in these next few weeks named Gloria and Pia. They have already seen many miracles in their lives and they are super confident that this is the true church. They are reading and going to church every week!! We are teaching a body builder!!!!! His name is Arturo and even though he is huge he is super sensitive to the spirit and has completely accepted our message. But his dang wife doesn't want to listen to the lecciones with him!! So we are still working there but he has a baptism date for like a month from now. Also this week was super cool because we are finishing up reactivating 2 whole families of people in the church. The 2 of these families have young kids that are 9-10 years old and they haven't been baptised. So we went to visit them this week and put goals with their dads so that they could baptise their kids. It was such a sweet spirit during those talks (even though one of the kids told me that she wanted me to baptise her and not her dad hahaha) but they both have baptism dates for the end of this month!! Their families are active and they are working to get to the temple so that they can be  sealed. That is why I am a missionary. 

Well I've wrote a lot. I had a great long week here in the mission and I hope you guys enjoyed yours. Don't forget to READ your Book of Mormon........READ!! I am always praying for you and cant wait to hear about your goals for the new year!! I love you guys a ton!!

Much Love

Elder Wilson

Monday. December 28.2015-Week 72

We had such a GREAT time Skyping with Elder Wilson on Christmas Day! He is SO happy!!!


He still can't resist making weird faces at us!





Wonder where he gets his weird faces from . . . .




IMPOSSIBLE to get a good family picture with these crazy nuts!





This is horrible but he made me take a picture of his big toenail that is almost falling off. I guess someone stepped on it while they were playing soccer a few weeks ago. Gross! Ouch!





Picking up new missionaries.


This is the Rasmussen's daughter who just finished her mission in another area in Peru. She stayed at the mission home for a few weeks.

Picture from the Rasmussen's.

Hey guys!! I seriously dont have any time to write this week for skype and all of that good stuff but I am great. Hey you guys should pray a ton for Yolanda right now because she is a little sick and she could use the help. Ok Ive got to go but I love you guys and I hope you have an amazing week!! 

Much Love

Elder Wilson