You are loved

Hey Mom! 

Yeah it's crazy that I've been here for 8 1/2 weeks now. That's a long time. I'm SO excited to get out of here and start serving the people of Thailand! I'm nervous and not exactly sure what the future has in store, but I'm mostly just excited :) I have actually really enjoyed the MTC and the Spirit here, so I don't think I would necessarily call it a prison, but it is gonna be nice to finally get out of here. I'm not gonna lie. 

So we got our travel plans and Thai name tags this week! I wrote a letter with lots of details that I guess hasn't gotten there yet (which is unfortunate, sorry it took so long), but here's a quick overview. We leave the MTC at 3:30 AM on October 3rd and then fly out of SLC to Chicago O'Hare at 7. We have a 4 hour lay-over at O'Hare and then we go to Hong Kong at like 3:25 I think. After we arrive in Hong Kong we will connect with another flight an hour later and arrive in Bangkok at 11:15 PM on the 4th. Crossing over the International Date Line makes the whole "time" concept all screwy, so I'm not sure exactly how long it'll take, but I estimate it will be well over 30 hours of travel time. I'm so pumped!! I'm gonna be able to call you guys at the airport and I have a charger that works for Seth's old phone, but I don't have the phone which is kinda important. So if you could send me that, it would be greatly appreciated :) In the letter I asked for some other stuff, but I forgot to ask for you to send that iPod you were talking about with the speakers and a flash drive. And the phone. I love getting all the packages and letters and dear elders, so keep em coming! ;) 

So the cost of an overweight suitcase is like $300 so let's not take that route... I'll just leave some stuff/ send it back if I need too. It's cool, there's lots of things that older missionaries leave for younger missionaries and they kinda get passed down from generation to generation. My district has inherited the Canadian Pig of Greed, a fan (which is super helpful cuz our room is stinky...), a donkey pinata, and a bunch of other random things. And TONS of food. But we have plenty of things to pass on too so all is well and right. My carry on bag is too big for our airline so I'm gonna have to send that anyway so I can put stuff in that. If you really want to send something for my b-day then I guess it would be best to send it here. I won't open it until my birthday though. The rest of my requests are in my letter I sent. 

For General Conference this year, there will be Elders singing in the Saturday afternoon session. At regular choir they handed out surveys about our singing abilities and I guess I didn't exaggerate enough because they didn't choose me to go sing. It's ok though, my companion, Elder Fjeldsted is super good at singing so he's going and Elder Kekauoha is going to because he said he took four years of audition choir in high school. He's never been in a choir in his life. It's funny because he felt so guilty that he tried to quit but they wouldn't let him because all the spots had already been filled! So now he and Elder Fjeldsted will be going to Conference to sing. I'm super excited for conference because we don't have any classes that day so it's gonna be super sweet! On Sunday afternoons after the devotional we get to choose a conference or MTC talk to go watch by a general authority and that's my favorite part of the week. So I'm psyched for 10 hours of apostles!! 

Keep on updating on Dad's alternate universe and let me know what kind of trouble he gets into next. It sounds like the family is doing better than ever and that we're still up to our shananagins. I miss you guys so much! I love the pictures you sent, it's so awesome to see the house and all of you having a blast :) This week is going to be hard to stay focused because we are all so excited to finally get out of here, but our teachers have been really good at pushing us to "sprint to the finish" so I'm gonna be trying my best to stay attentive and productive. We only have tomorrow and Thursday left for classes. After that we have in-field orientation, general conference, and then we leave! It's crazy how fast time has gone and that I'm actually to this point. It feels like I'm entering the MTC for a second time. It's gonna be so foreign but I'm incredibly excited for the experiences I'll have, the people I'll meet, the service I'll do, and the Spirit I'll feel as I dedicate the next 2 years of my life to the Lord. I know that even though my Thai is terrible, I'm only 19, and a lot of people just won't be interested, the Lord can do anything and I'm just grateful for the opportunity to be a tool in His hands! 

Thank you so much for your support! Let me know how all of Hayden's and Seth's football and lacrosse games go, I have a feeling they're just wrecking out there. I love you guys and cannot wait to talk to you at the airport! See ya in 2 :)

Love,

Elder Wilcox

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​This is Elder Glaesener from Louxembourg! He's a big kid. 

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​This is me

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​Soccer challenge from the Viets

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​Basically the reaction of our district when we finally got flight plans

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​Cleaning the showers

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​My Thai name tag! (Elduh Wiwcog)

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​This is Elder Robinson's ID card. He's from Jamaica. It looks like the Facebook profile picture before you actually choose a picture of you...

Love you guys!

Week 8!

Hello!

I'm still alive. I've had some close calls though, the scrambled eggs here are definitely questionable. This last week has been so cool! My district is all kinda about ready to leave so we are starting to get a little distracted, but that's ok, it makes things interesting. The language is still going well but its kinda hard to stay motivated not to just stay stagnant and get comfortable with what we know. We had another awesome Skype TRC to Thailand yesterday. We taught a seminary/ institute teacher over there who lives in Udorn (Northern Thailand). He was so nice and patient and he had a great testimony. It's still hard to understand what the heck the people are saying most of the time, but the spirit is so strong and I love being able to teach them :) Last Tuesday we didn't have Elder Oaks come talk to us, but I wasn't too disappointed because as his replacement we got Elder Cook! His talk was so good. The spirit during devotionals and just all the time here is crazy strong and abundant. It's gonna be weird to leave this bubble and go back into the real world. Elder Brown in my district got a rash from his deodorant so he and his companion had to leave campus to go to the doctors and I think it might have been a little bit too much for them. TVs, people on their phones, magazines, people who aren't missionaries... crazy stuff. They came back a little wide-eyed but they should recover soon. Our 2 investigators are doing way well. They both are scheduled to be baptized this Sunday so I'm way pumped! One of them was supposed to be baptized last Saturday, but we weren't able to get through everything we needed to teach in time. That was super disappointing but it was good prep for the field and I'm so excited to teach real Thai people! They are gonna be amazing.

That's about it that's going on here in the MTC! Life is still good, the gospel is still true, and I'm still loving it! Besides breakfast of course cuz we have the same thing every stinkin day. I don't love that part. I just got back from the temple and I love being able to do that every week, it's such a big blessing. And I'm just now realizing how fast time goes! I can't believe it's already P-day again. I know I've said this kinda thing before, but it's really true. The days feel like weeks and the weeks feel like days. It's crazy. And guess what happens on Friday?? WE GET FLIGHT PLANS!! I've been looking forward to flight plans since week 2 so this will be awesome. They don't really mean much, but it's still exciting. 

I love getting the dear elders and weekly emails, so thank you guys so much for all of those! It's awesome seeing you guys. Keep sending TONS of pictures cuz I miss you guys like crazy. Take some of the rooms with their new owners. I wanna see how that turned out. 

I have the twins and Grandpa in my prayers every night and I know you guys do too. Through the Lord, anything is possible. I'm glad you are all doing well, so keep on fighting! I love you guys to death.

Love, Elder Wilcox

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​These are some native Thais here at the MTC that we met

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​We have matching shirts, therefore we are cool. 

I have more pictures, but I forgot to bring my chord that lets me put them on the computer. So I'll have to send them through the camera later. 

September 13, 2016

They never give us enough time to email!! That's the only thing I have to vent about, so life's good :) I don't know how much I'll be able to type right now before I have to go to choir, but I just remembered that my camera can email, so I'll email some pictures later and say a little bit about them. 

The MTC is still awesome! The spirit here is crazy strong, I literally feel it ALL the time. Especially when we have a devotional (supposedly Elder Oaks is gonna talk to us tonight, so hopefully that happens). So far we have heard from Neil L Anderson, D Todd Christofferson, and M Russell Ballard! Their talks have all been amazing, but Elder Ballard's has been the coolest I think. He really helped me remember my purpose as a missionary and helped me remember to just be happy! I get to represent the greatest being in the universe for 2 whole years, so there is a ton to be grateful for :) 

I like my schedule cuz it keeps me busy and every other day it switches up a little bit, so it's not too terribly repetative. Exercise time is my favorite and I've gotten a lot better at basketball, which doesn't actually mean anything, but I think it's cool. Anyways, yesterday we got to host the senior missionaries who were coming in to the MTC and it was crazy to see how scared they were! I mean, they're only here for like 5 days and 3/4 of them get to live at home. At least they felt bad for shoving their boys out on their missions and being like "oh, you're fine, just go!" Well now they know. We have lots of fun here from arm-wrestling contests (I actually beat everyone in my district, so yeah I guess I'm pretty cool. Thanks for training me right before I came in), Uno games, nerf basketball, or bed-sheet-racing, we find things to do :) No one has been too terribly injured yet, but Elder Turley did get some pretty wicked carpet burn from the racing thing. And I have now come to realize the true value of naps. I've only had 2 so far, but they've been hands down the best experiences of my life. I think I'm gonna have to start going to bed an hour early or else I'm gonna die of exhaustion. It's starting to get a little challenging not to fall asleep during personal study cuz it's so quiet and it's in the morning. 

Oh! and we had our FIRST SKYPE TRC YESTERDAY!! IT WAS SO COOL!! We taught a guy named Tan I think (It was hard to hear kinda) and he was way cool. He must have been a college student or something cuz he was about 20ish and he was baptized about 2 years ago. It was hard to understand him cuz I don't think he was even speaking English (jk, I'm like 60% sure it was actually Thai, not English) but the Spirit was still way strong, it was crazy! It was just a testimony builder for me that it doesn't matter what language you speak, everyone can speak the language of the Spirit :) Oh, and it was really funny because he had a room mate who kept walking past the screen in just his boxers. And when Tan would see that we could see him, he would slyly shift his body or lean a little bit so we couldn't see him anymore :) Looks like Thailand is a lot like our house, so I'll be right at home... 

I don't really know what else to talk about or complain about cuz life here is just dandy :) I don't think I need anything else, but dear elders and hand written letters are always appreciated since they come in the middle of the week and kinda divide up the time between P-days. I've gotta go to choir and the devotional now, but I'll send the pictures in a bit with explanations. 

I love you guys!

Elder Wilcox

Hand Written Letter :) August 10, 2016

Dear Family,

            The MTC is awesome! Sorry I couldn’t email yesterday, the wifi here was broken so I couldn’t email anyone during our computer time. I was so bummed about that, but this works too I guess. Takes a lot longer, that’s for sure. Basically the MTC rocks and my district is way cool! We have 8 elders in our district. Elder Fjeldsted is my companion (the j is silent) he’s from Minnesota, not really by Andrew and Lindsay, but he lives kinda by your friend, Dad. He’s pretty cool and loves the gospel and we get along super well. He knows basically every single sister at the MTC, which still confuses me because I wouldn’t really call him a ladies man…  The companionship that shares our room with us is Elder Kekauoha from L.A. and Elder Brown from Orange County, CA.  Elder Kekauoha is one of my favorite human beings because he’s so funny. The TV character I’d compare him to is a more funny version of Tom from Parks and Rec.  Or Gus when he’s doing the radio show. Either one. Elder Brown plays volleyball all year and has a photographic memory so he’s the best at Thai so far. The people in the other room are Elder Holland and Elder Decker, and Elder Turley and Elder Brinkerhoff.  Elder Holland is really cool.  He played a year of college basketball at SVU before he came, so he’s easily the best one here. He’s from Portland.  His companion, Elder Decker is also way funny ad he’s from Las Vegas.  If Elder Decker starts laughing, Elder Kekauoha starts laughing too and it just turns into a domino effect at that point. Elder Turley is from Cottonwood Heights and went to Brighton. He’s really calm but is still fun and jokes around with us. His companion Elder Brinkerhoff, is from Indiana, I feel like he’s the black sheep of the group at this point so I’ll have to work on that. When I can email again I’ll send pictures of them all and of my room and stuff too. Hopefully this has been enough detail for you, Mom? J

            The MTC is awesome, and I think I’ll survive the 9 weeks I’m here. It’s crazy to contrast my life before I came and my life now because I could just be lazy and I”d consider it a successful day if I accomplished ANYTHING, didn’t matter what.  Now my day is 100% scheduled and I’m doing things from 6:30am-10:30pm. Here’s my typical day here: wake up at 6:30 and shower/get ready until I go to breakfast (The food here isn’t terrible, but I definitely miss your cooking, Mom). After breakfast we have 3 hours of class until 11 when we get to have exercise time. I play basketball from an hour with Elder Holland, Elder Kekauoha, and Elder Turley and Elder Decker. We can only play half court 3 vs 3 games to 7 ( by 1’s and 2’s) but it’s fun because we can get lots of games in . I can easily dunk now, but it’s not allowed so that’s a bummer. Elder Holland is a beast and usually just wrecks ‘em all. After exercise time we have lunch fro 45 minutes and then back to class. 3 hours later we have dinner and then another 3 hour class after that. So 9 hours of class total which isn’t as bad as it sounds actually. One of our class clocks is used for Personal Study, Companion study, and language learning. Another one is where our teacher comes and teaches us more Thai. The last block is for teaching “investigators” (they don’t trust us with real ones apparently). Our investigator right now is Phii Cee (pronounced like PJ) and our lessons are going way well even though they’re all in Thai.  The spirit definitely has a role in that. We finish class at 9:30pm and have until 10:15pm to get ready for bed and mess around and  then it’s lights out at 10:30[m. So we get 8 hours of sleep. I’m during. It’s so hard not to fall asleep during devotional and I kept almost dozing off during the temple yesterday, so that was bad…

            So all in all, I’m loving it here and in the MTC! Great start to my mission. I’ve really come to love my district and the opportunities I get to read from the Book of Mormon. We read for an hour today and I didn’t want to have to stop when we moved on to something else. I’m so grateful for the spirit I’ve felt here and I’ve already seen myself grow, both mentally and spiritually. I know that missions definitely bless lives, increase testimonies, and bring people closer to God. I can already tell this is the best decision I’ve ever made.

Now for the family stuff… It’s so awesome getting all these “Dear Elders” and food survival kits! Thank you guys so much for your letters too! Amelia and Eve, I loved your pictures. They’re hanging up above my desk in our room. I now know why missionaries say handwritten letters are absolutely the best and the highlight of my week. What I want most to hear about in letters/emails  is funny family moments (i.e. Aubree sitting on dead bees and she gets stung or more elevator dreams from Dad), big things happening in the family (i.e. sports, dances, school), sports (especially Packers, Utes, Olympics, or any other big news. Dad and Hayden will know), and just how you guys are doing!

            I’ll email each of you individually on future P-days. For now though, I’ll just write a little blip here for each of you. I briefly read all my emails while I was able to so I’ll have to see what I remember…

            DAD- Tony Dungy and Brett Favre are definitely great people to b going into the Hall of Fame.  I’m glad he wants to be remembered as a Packer too, I woudn’t have been happy if he wanted it otherwise. Let me know if you have any other life-changing pieces of advice from your mission. Good luck getting those horses under control. And don’t kill Tucker. Or Charlie.

            MOM- I’m surprised you survived this long! Way to go, keep surviving. How is it having an actual kitchen to work with again? And what else has changed? When the kids all go off to school, and if you find some spare time, you should start watching Parks and Rec on Netflix. My entire district is in love with the show and we’ve been quoting it 24/7.  Good luck handling the kids.  Keep doing what you’re doing and Hayden and Seth will be perfectly ready for a mission too.

            AUBREE- If you stopped showering I bet that guy wouldn’t ask you to the dance. Food for thought. I’m not sure if any elders are hot, cuz I’m not like that… I’ll let you decide.

            HAYDEN- Yes, flirt with your coach. Take him to a nice dinner. If you’re buddies with the coach you have a step up. Keep working out, you’ll be grateful in high school if you play.  Good luck at the scrimmage and basketball camp. I need you to keep me updated on sports, ok? Especially the Pack and Utes.

            SETH- Lacrosse will be perfect! I don’t know how we didn’t think of that before! You’ll have so much fun. I’m so excited for you. How is everything with school going? I bet the ladies just can’t stay away, can they? You’re a great kid, just be yourself and you’ll have tons of great friends in no time. It’s hard going to a new school, but you’re gonna kill it.

            AMELIA- I bet you’re a little cowgirl by now with all these lessons from dad, huh? I miss your cute little laugh. What have Eve and you been up to lately? Keep being so adorable for me, ok?  P.S. I loved your picture!

            EVE- Your picture you drew for me is so perfect! I look at it everyday Are you going to play any sports? I miss playing baseball and basketball with you.  Keep practicing so we can play when I get back. Also, can I have another picture from you?

Things I need:

-bigger shoulder bag

-less powerful flashlight for night

-blue slacks? Don’t know if I brought time…

-Electric razor. I know, mom, you told me so…

Thank you so much for your support! You guys are the season I’m out here and the person I am. I know that this is where I need to be! There’s no where else I’d rather be, and I know that the Lord will bless me and the other missionaries as we five Him our best effort. See ya in 103 weeks!

Love,

            Elder Wilcox