Monday, November 24, 2014

New Week, New Transfer

This is been a very long week! I am trying to remember all that happened this week. Well, first off...I had to say goodbye to Hermana Thornton on Wednesday. That was hard because she is my trainer and we became really good friends. We planned lots of things that we are going to do together when we are both home, so I am excited to see her again later. :) And now I have my new companion! Hermana Cuchiparte! She is from Ecuador. She is going to have one year in the mission in December. Her and her two sisters are the only ones in her family that are members of the church. She got baptized 9 years ago. She is a great example to me and she can relate to all the investigators really well because she knows how they feel. We are learning to work together and help the people here in Mayoraz. :)

We dropped a lot of people this week because they are not progressing. It is hard because I really care about these people and I can see their potential...but they don't want to change or progress right now in this moment, so we have to find new people that are ready and waiting to hear the gospel. I think a lot about in 3 Nephi 11 when Jesus is coming to the Americas and Heavenly Father speaks from heaven two times and the people don't understand the voice...but the third time they understand and they accept Jesus Christ as their Savior. Maybe this is the first or second time these people have heard the gospel and they aren't ready to accept the gospel. We are searching for the people that want to hear the gospel right now so that we can help them. :)

The people we are super excited about right now is a family that we found while we were contacting. Their names are Nestor and Fernanda and their children are named Kime, Abril, and Amanda. We gave them a Book of Mormon to read and they are reading and praying as a family. They are now praying about getting baptized and if it is the right move for them. We are praying for them every day and we hope that they receive an answer this week. They are super aweseome!

We found 12 new people this week, so we are hoping this week to have more lessons and see who we can really help. We are excited for this new week. :)

I love you all!

Love,
Hermana Wood :)

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

La lucha con las lauchas (The fight with rats)

Transfers were this week! I am staying here....but Hermana Thornton is leaving! She is going to a little tiny pueblo named Cañada de Gomez in Rosario. So I am getting a new companion tomorrow! Her name is Hermana Cucheparti. She is a latina! That means that every waking hour will be Spanish. Hopefully that means that I will improve and I won't sound so much like an American when I speak. ;) I am super excited for this change and I have heard so many good things about Hermana Cucheparti. It will be good. :) We were very sad this week because Carina was not able to be baptized. :( We had her interview scheduled for Monday and she had to go to the hospital for her ear. So we moved it to Tuesday, but she couldn't get off work, so she couldn't have it. :( We have tried to stay in contact with her, but it has been very difficult. We are very sad because she was so close to making these precious covenants with our Heavenly Father. But we are going to continue to try and work and teach her. :)

This week overall has been very hard. We dropped a lot of people this week and we have had a hard time finding new people. And our schedule changed. We now wake up at 7:00 and go to bed at 11:00 because of the heat. It is getting so hot here. It is just super great. :)

We had some super great experiences with the rats this week! We now have 5 rats...at least that is what we have seen. We have Rufus, Ramon, Blanca, Churripan, and Maria. We have tried everything to kill them! We trapped Rufus in our bathroom and we are feeding him poison every day, but he is still alive. We are thinking that the poison doesn't really work. ;) We have tried to catch them and "baptize" them in water. Our plan was that we would just baptize the whole family and we wouldn't be sad if they weren't alive to get confirmed. ;) But if they were alive, baptism by fire isn't a bad option either. ;)

I am super excited to start a new week and a new transfer and find new people!!! I am super excited to talk with everyone and share the gospel of Jesus Christ! I am super excited for the opportunity I have to be a missionary and to bring the spirit and joy from Heavenly Father that can't be found anywhere else! I am just super excited! I know that through the spirit, we can accomplish all the things Heavenly Father has in store for us and we can continue to learn and grow and progress. That is the reason we are here on this earth. Through the Atonement, we can repent and change and become better every day. I love you all!!!

Love,
Hermana Wood :)

Monday, November 10, 2014

Oh......Rats!

This week has been super interestingly good! We haven't been able to find too many people this past week, but we are working hard and trying to contact more people. We are both getting a lot braver and we are taking to everyone in the calle (street). It is super fun and I love starting conversations with completely random people about completely random subjects. Then...we have to somehow tie in the gospel and it usually goes pretty good. Usually. ;) Update for Carina. She is doing awesome! Everything in her house is calming down and she is still super excited for her baptism this Saturday! Ella va a llegar a su fecha bautismal por fin!!! We are super excited for her. She has been a investigator since December and now she is finally going to be able to get baptized. She has her interview today and we are just beyond excited for her. :)

We were able to teach Rita this week! She is so amazing! We found out that she isn't married....which is sort of a problem. But we explained it all and she told us that she knows this church is true and it makes her happy. She wants to be baptized really bad. We have a man in our ward that is pretty high up in the world and he helps people get married...so he is going to help her out with that. :) We are super excited for her!

I don't remember if I told you this story, but I have a restoration folleto to the woman that runs the kiosko right by our house. We ask her how it is going, and she says she has been reading a little bit every day. She says she loves it and she wants to learn more. :) This is super awesome for her! It is super awesome for us...because then she gives us free food. This last week, she gave us a torta. It's basically a cake, but it's an Argentine cake. And it is delicious. :) Anyway, we went home, ate a little bit of it, and then left it on the counter wrapped up and went to bed. The next morning we woke up.........................and there was rat poop all over the ground. We looked at our torta...and there was a HUGE chunk missing! We have a rat!! His name is Rufus. Yuck! Haha, we are trying to figure out what to do, and thus far we haven't found much to help. But don't worry, there will probably be more stories about Rufus. :)

I have been studying a lot this week about being humble. There is a difference between being confident and being prideful. I sadly admit that most of my life, I have more just been prideful instead of confident. I feel really sad that I have never figured this out before. The opposite of pride is humility. The definition of humility..in Spanish..is "la condición de ser manso y moldeable". I love this definition. Being humble isn't a weakness. Jesus Christ was completely humble. In Matthew 26:39, it talks about Jesus in the garden of gesthemane. He was completely humble and submissive to our Heavenly Father. I want to be more like Him. :)

Anyway, that was my week! The heat is coming and so are all the cockroaches! Oh, and the rats. Hurrah! ;)

Love,
Hermana Wood :)

Monday, November 3, 2014

Don't Happy, Be Worry

Dear Mommy,
My title is not to make you worried or anything. Here in Argentina, lots of stores have clothes with English words on them. No one here knows what their shirts say. Usually they don't make sense at all, and "Don't Happy, Be Worry" was on one of the shirts this week. They are hilarious!

This week was pretty good. But Carina got super sick this week. She has a baptism date for November 14, so we are visiting her almost every day. She was really sick in bed, so we called the Elders to come and give her a priesthood blessing. Her son, Nacho, was in the room as well. He listened to the missionaries a while ago, but he decided he didn't want anything to do with them. The elders got done with the blessing, he had tears in his eyes, and he asked to have a lesson right then and there. We stayed with Carina and the Elders taught Nacho in the other room. We had two other lessons with both of them this week. Great experiences! We hope Nacho will want to change and keep having the discussions. Carina also came to church this week. :)

Something really weird is that we went to teach David this week...and his house wasn't there. Like, it doesn't exist anymore. Nothing is there. We are really confused and a little worried...He hasn't answered his phone or texted us back, so we don't really know what to do in this situation. Oh well, we will keep praying for him. :)

I had to go to Rosario this week to do tramites. Everyone has to do it here. It is kind of like customs so that we can be legal here! Techicnally I am still illegal...but that's okay. :) I have to go to Rosario tonight as well. It is fun because you get to meet other missionaries and go to the mission home...but other than that, it is pretty boring. But something amazing happened! We were waiting in line to do tramites, and this little girl came running over to me and my companion, Hermana Knapp. She told us she loved the way we talked, (because we were talking in English) and she thought we were just so cool. Then her sister and her mom came and talked to us. We told them we were missionaries and wanted to have missionaries come and teach them. They agreed. Guess where they live?? In our ward!!! :) It was amazing because we were all the way in Rosario and we found them there. The elders are going to teach them. They are such a cute family!

Halloween was this week! No one celebrates that here. But..we still wore orange and black. It also poured super hard on Halloween! We ran like two blocks to our house and we were completely soaked! It was super fun! :)

Other than that, this week has just been pretty normal! Lots of work to do and I am super excited to do it!!!! :)

Love,
Hermana Wood :)

P.S. Just in case you are wondering, potato bugs still exist all the way down in Argentina. :)