How's everyone doing? I hope all is well and that you'll all stop growing, seeing pictures makes me feel like you're all older and different, haha (other than the DWSers still look immature, haha. Nah, I'm joking!) Seems like things are ok up there, that's good!
Down here we have been getting colder weather and it's kinda nice! Argentina is awesome and the way these people speak Spanish is sweet man! Right now in our work we have been working with this same family, the Rodriguez family, to get the couple married and so the dad can be baptized and become a member of the church. They are having struggles, they have been together so long that they fight like a married couple and so they haven't got the marriage date set yet, but yesterday night we had a spiritual lesson with them and hopefully can get things figured out and they'll get married this month.
We are also working with the familia Pereira, mainly the 13 year old, Celena, and 14 year old Simon and the mom, Julietta, the dad is a member. They've been to church plenty of times but they've never prayed to know if the church is true and so they haven't been baptized, but if things work out the way as planned hopefully they prayed last night, and now they know it's a path they should follow. We are also trying to be better at "casting out the net" and being fishers of men. We're trying to find some more people still, but I know with hard work, diligence, and patience and exact obedience we'll get there!
I was reading Preach my Gospel this morning and saw a part in the first chapter titled "My Purpose'. It read, "As your understanding of the Atonement of Jesus Christ grows, your desire to share the gospel will increase." It's very important that we can study the Atonement of our Savior and get to know Him, as missionaries and members, preaching the gospel of our Savior is something we should be involved in. Lots of preaching we do is done by example and the way we live our lives, and then some is spoken word. I thought that was cool cause afterwards I read Alma 5:49, it explained exactly our purpose as missionaries and what our work is. I want to be able to serve the Lord to the best of my potential ability. Like the prophet Tomas Monson said, if the Lord needs and errand ran, Tom Monson will run that errand for him. I always want to be on the Lord's errand, and do my very best to serve him. I also found a scripture in D&C 42:42 that gives the reason why we work hard and preach the gospel.  Keep doing the small and simple things and I will write you next week. Gracias por su paciencia y su bondad!
Elder Wikstrom =O

Hey everyone. I am headed off to get a haircut but before I leave, I just wanted to say that having Easter this last week really caused me to think about our Dear Lord and Savior and His sacrifice He suffered, making it possible for us to return to the presence of God as a family, and enjoy an eternal life. I don't think I will ever understand the love that was expressed by the Lord for us when he suffered the Atonement, the great and last sacrifice. I know that to show him our love back we need to obey Him with exactness and follow his counsels and teachings, they seem like rules but they will really set us free! I have been Called to Serve our Lord and Savior, I know that happiness is found in Him. We have all been called, magnify your church callings and watch the blessing from the Lord pour in! =D
Love you all!
Elder Wikstrom

Pictures!

These pictures were posted on facebook by Gaby Krenz. I love to see pictures!

Elder Wikstrom and Tomas Perez

Elder Jones and Elder Wikstrom

8 months on his mission

How's it going!
Things here are so awesome. Right now we are working with this family to get the mom and dad married so that the dad can be baptized, the family Rodriguez is their name, and they're way cool, they gave us an asado, which is like a bbq without bbq sauce, and it was good. They feed us cow and they had intestines, which are pretty good! I have eaten some pretty weird things here, goat, and random things of the cow, which I don't have a problem with any of it, pretty tasty actually =D haha
We gave a lesson to a family that we had never seen before but it was a family that had spoken to the missionaries before. Anyway, they were like, I am a Jehovah's Witness, but come in anyway. We were like...ok...awesome, so we went in and they told us of a story that happened in December. Their 15 year old pregnant daughter died and they were really sad and were crying, at this moment we were speaking with the mom, she said that he husband was mad at God and that he would't accepts us here, well during the lesson he came home from work, saw us, and just sat down with us not saying anything. We thought he was going to be mad but he wasn't showing any anger, anyways we taught them the Plan of Salvation briefly, they both loved the comfort that came from the message we shared. My companion also knows how to sing really well so he sang them a song and they loved it! Afterwards we said the prayer and they were like, we don't have much but here are two bags of toasted bread that they gave me and my companion. We are hoping that we can help them progress in the gospel and get baptized. It was amazing to see the comfort that the Gospel gave this family and I know that this is a comfort available to all of us. God loves us all, we're his children. Obey his commandments, and the things he says, and he will less you more than you can imagine, I promise!
Sometimes it can be hard to recognize blessings, but it's like we were to have something like a washer, for example, we don't realize the help it gave us until the day we didn't have one. Just an example.
Spend some time to count your blessing and let yourself see how much the Lord loves you! The song that says "Count your many blessings name them one by on and it will SURPRISE you what the Lord has done" isn't kidding.
I am thankful for the Gospel in my life, the opportunity to repent and be forgiven is incredible and it is a gift given to us only by the Lord, because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ! The Lord lives, I know it, he loves us, I've felt it, and he can help us reach potential unimaginable. I've recognized it while the spirit teaches through me in lessons when the words that need to be said don't just naturally come out. I love our Lord and Savior, He lives, look to Him for help, He will help you and comfort you in your afflictions and times of trial and turmoil. Let Him prove it to you. Obey His commandments and see His guidance!

p.s.  Yesterday I saw a black rat that was literally big as a cat or like a beaver. I rode right past it on my bike thinking it was a cat and not giving any attention to it, my companion was like dude, what't that? I looked and it had a huge rat tail and it ran into the gutter bank, eeeeeehhhhhh. haha. I almost hit it on my bike, it would've taken me out, hahaha. Have a great week!
Con Amor
Elder Wikstrom

Someone we were teaching about the Book of Mormon yesterday asked me if I had even read it. I am glad I have or we may have lost him. To share a strong testimony that the BOM is true, you have to read it. It is our protection from the devil in this day and it is our armor of God to put on, to deflect the fiery darts of the devil, or temptations.

Wiki the terminator

"Wiki the terminator" as it was titled by the 15 year old investigator (Tomas Perez) who sent me the photo. He told me that it got cold that day and Elder Wikstrom had to borrow his companions sweater.

Hi MOM,
Right now I am in Zarate, we stayed the night in the zone leader's house cause we are doing a zone activity for p day today!
Hopefully I will be able to have one more transfer here. Thanks for telling me what the people said about me! The members here are so awesome and they just suck you in like a family member! There is no handshaking here, everyone gives hugs, except the women of course.
Conference was so awesome this time. I watched it in English in the church for 3 sessions and one session at the Maru's house, in English. I liked the talk a lot on obedience by the older apostle, I want to say Scott for some reason. I liked it, it was good.
I see that Parker bought a motocycle, awesome. Is it a Harley Davidson? Did he ever finish painting his jeep black? I am happy that the frs and dws is still going strong! How is everyone doing? I don't talkt to any of them hardly at all.
We had to skip lunch with familia Mallo this week because we had to go to Zarate, so on Wednesday we'll eat with him.
The church sent us all a letter that said to ask our families to not send packages because with the importing rules of Argentina, nobody is getting them without a costly price. Just so you know.
That is cool that they all had a candy dish by them in the conferences son capos ellos! Well mom, I only wrote you today because I don't have very much time, but tell the dwsers hi and that I love you all. The truth is that I love being here in the mission and helping people come closer to Christ! The members here are the best!
Things here we don't have (in the states) is things like their sodas, candy, mate, other traditional things to Argentina, and pretty much everything, cause everything is made in Argentina here cause they don't like importing other items, nothing from the states is here pretty much, very few things, like some candy like Snickers, Twix (rarely) and Hersheys Cookies and Cream, but not much else. I did see Kit Kats at the airport when I arrived but never again.
I thought I would have to buy a pen drive but I don't think I will need to. I am still using the first camera card of 8 gb. I have like over a thousand pics on it.
We did get Matias pretty good, we told him I crashed on my bike and that I was in the hospital and would have to end up going home for a while, haha. He was in a panic, he wanted to help, he almost drove to the hospital he said.
I forgot that lately we have been praying to find leaders that the church can have in the future, before the first session of general conference on Saturday we were looking for someone and this guy said, vine, like come here, then he said pasen, like come in, so we went in and talked to him but he wasn't able to go to conference, then right before the next session we went to look for this same guy and he wasn't home, so while leaving this guy calls us, a really big stocky guy, I think he was a little high on drugs or just has done them for a long time, and he said to us that he saw us and thought to himself that he wanted to quit drugs and he saw us and thought that we could help so he called us over! We've been finding future priesthood holders all over the place. Neither of them were home when we went back to look for them to go to conference but we will start passing by there and visiting them! We're over here working pretty hard, but we're even going to go harder, we need to!
I love you mom and dad. I love you and I am going to go and try and write bros something before I go!
Love you mom and tell dad that I love him too!
Elder Wikstrom =D

Easter Package

Even though the other package never made it, I was still hopeful. I knew it was getting cold, so I thought he would like this Duck Dynasty blanket...and because it was finally getting cold I sent some chocolate. Not much in the package as I was trying to stay under 4 lbs.

Edited: This package arrived in June.

This is what the blanket looks like unfolded