First Transfer!

Christmas!

Last day in Mayoraz!

THIS is how happy I am to be in Cañada de Gomez!!! :) :)

​I made a graph of all the birthdays in our ward. There were a ton in December!!

Oh my goodness, I am so happy! I got transferred and I am now in my second area! It is called Cañada de Gomez. It is a tiny, little town and all the people are so humble. They are all so ready to accept the gospel and I am so excited to be here and teach them. And I love my new companion! Her name is Hermana Matias. She is 20 and she is from El Salvador. We get along so well and I already love her! I am so excited for this transfer and to work with her. It will be amazing. :)

In the two days that I have been here, we have already had some success and some awesome miracles! We found a woman named Claudia. She is the girlfriend of a recent convert named Angel. He was baptized about a month ago. We went to visit Angel to have a lesson with him and Claudia was there. We started talking to her just about the church in general and the blessings that she can receive and SHE asked US if she could be baptized! She wants to be baptized really bad and start a new life with Angel and just be happy. She is amazing! :)

I don't have much more time, but I hope that everyone had an amazing Christmas and have a Happy New Year! I love you all!

Love,
Hermana Wood :)

Christmas

Both views from our Christmas Skype!

Happy Christmas!!

This SUPER AWESOME slug. It was huge!

Hermana Knapp, my favorite. ;)

You know you speak too much Spanish when you directly translate "Feliz Navidad" into Happy Christmas and tell your latina companion that that's what all the people say in the United States. Oops...Merry Christmas!! ;)

Wow, so much stuff happened this past week. We had lots of activities and lots of amazing lessons. The spirit is so much stronger during this time of year.

The one investigator I want to talk about this week is Belkys. She is so prepared and amazing!!! I love her!! We had a lesson with her this week. We told her that there were certain ordinances that she has to perform here in this life so that she can live with her husband again. We held up a picture of Jesus Christ being baptized. She took one look at the picture and said, "¿Vos sabes que yo quería bautizarme en este forma todo mi vida?" Translated: "Did you know that I wanted to be baptized this way all my life?" Wow!!!! We quickly told her that she can be baptized this way and her face just lit up. She has a date now and she is SO excited to be baptized!! She is 70, and she is still super healthy. She is going to walk to church with us this Sunday. She wrote it down in her calendar. ;) She is so cute and so great and so ready.

Last Saturday, we went to an old people's/disabilitated home with our whole zone and Presidente Zanni and his family to clean and sing songs. While we were there, it started to rain super hard and the home started to flood! It was super good that we were all there because we all started bailing water and helping the workers. It was sad to see, but it was good we were there. :) Then we ate cookies and sang and talked to all the people. Afterwards, we ate empanadas and played games in the stake center. Super fun!!

We also had our ward Christmas party! It was super duper fun! We had 18 investigators come to the party!!!! :) It was amazing and super delicious! I had my first pollo asado! It was so good and so fun. :)

Tonight, we are going to have a cena with some members in our ward and with the Elders, and then tomorrow I am going to skype!!! It will be 7:00 a.m. in Utah. I am super excited!! I love you all!!!

Love,
Hermana Wood :)

Cockroaches!

Argentina is doing weird things to my hair. It's super great.

Family Nights at their finest. ;)

I had to prove to myself that I can still get ready and look nice. ;)

A purple Christmas tree just for you. :)

Don't worry, I am pretty sure that we are always going to have some sort of problem in this house. This week was cockroaches. Every night we came home there were cockroaches! And I am talking HUGE ones. The ones that you have to smash at least 7 or 8 times until they are finally dead. And Hermana Cuchiparte does not like animals or bugs or anything, so I, once again, am in charge of killing everything and making sure everything stays out. Haha, it is a great responsibility to have. ;)

We taught Hermano Enrique twice this week. He really is a great guy, and he knows basically everything about the gospel, because he has been going to church every sunday for 5 years. We asked him if he would be baptized, and he told us that he would be baptized the 30....of February. Ha ha. Not funny. We are trying to figure out what is holding him back and how he can make this step. He told us he knows this church is true, but he doesn't want to be baptized. We are going to keep praying to figure out what he needs.

About two months ago, we found this woman named Belkys, but we could never find her again..until this week! We were walking down the street and for some reason, I remember her, so we went and clapped at her house (we don't knock, we clap). She came to door, looked at us, and quickly let us in. We were very surprised and grateful. She told us that her husband died 5 years ago and she still misses him very much. We started talking about the plan of salvation. We got to the part about the spirit world and we read Alma 40:12. She started crying and told us she knows this is where her husband is. I was able to testify with all my heart because I know that the spirit world is real. I know that there is life after death and that my grandpa is still with me. I started crying, she was crying. The spirit was really strong. She offered the last prayer and she prayed so sincerely and was so grateful for our visit and for the knowledge of where her husband is now. We have another lesson this week and I can't wait to teach her.

The final thing is we are working with lots of menos activos. We had two menos activos families that came to church this week because we visited and invited them! They are just as important as the investigators and I was super happy to see them there!

The work our our Heavenly Father is moving forward! Make sure you are on the train and you are constantly trying to help it move forward. There is always something you can do. :)

I love you all!!!

Love,
Hermana Wood :)

Spiders!

Don't worry, we got rid of the rats. But we are pretty sure that some spider laid eggs and they all hatched because one day we woke up and there were spider webs EVERYWHERE!! We didn't get bit, but we had to clean up all the webs. It was quite an adventure. :)

This week has been amazing! We have found so many new people to teach and lots of our investigators are progressing. We have been focusing alot more on part member families and how we can help their families become eternal families. We have found lots of new investigators this way.

The first one is Hermano Enrique. He is 80 years old and he is married a member of the church, Beatriz. We actually didn't know that he wasn't a member. They both come to church every week. They read the book of mormon together and pray every day. Someone mentioned that we should talk to him and once we found out he wasn't a member, we quickly set up an appointment. He has some problems with drinking, but we are working with him. He is super awesome! Another is Dominga. Her daughter is a member of the church and sealed in the temple to her husband and her 3 year old kid named Lucio. Lucio loves Superman. He is so cute. The daughter told us to stop by her mom's house and talk to her. We said we could the next day. We went home and looked in the area book, and we found out that TONS of missionaries have visited Dominga in the past. We were a little worried that she wouldn't want to talk to us, but we went anyway. She quickly let us in and told us she won't ever be baptized. We told her that was fine and we just started talking to her. She told us about her life and she started getting really emotional. We told her that Heavenly Father was just waiting her to be baptized, and she accepted! Whoo! What a miracle! We are super excited to work with her!

The final one in the Familia Cocuzza. Hermana Cocuzza got baptized 4 years ago with one of her daughters, Lilian. However....Hermana Cocuzza has 10 other children who aren't baptized! They are all grown up and have children and none of them are members of the church. Two of her children live with her in her house and we started teaching Paulino and Cristian. They are Hermana Cocuzza's grandkids. They both came to church with her yesterday. It was amazing! :)

Don't forget that there are always people to share the gospel with in your path! They are always there, and you just need to look for them. Pray to recognize who is prepared and just be nice and talk to them. Share the website christmas.mormon.org. It is super amazing and all about Jesus!! I love you all!!

Love,
Hermana Wood :)

Cheers, My Dears

Hey, this week has been hard because we are still trying to find new people to teach! It is hard because I know that everyone needs the gospel and I want to help everyone, but they need to have a desire to learn and listen, or else we can't help them. It is difficult, but I am learning patience a lot this week. :) We had a couple great activites this week! On Satuday night, we had the farewell party of Nico! He is the kid that received his mission call to Columbia. He is leaving tomorrow! It was super difficult because I really am going to miss him a lot. He is a super good friend and he is so strong in the gospel, and I know that he will touch so many hearts in Columbia. He will be great!

This week was also my companion's birthday! It was on Thanksgiving! She turned 26! It was lots of fun and we got to know each other a lot more. Things are going a lot better and I am excited to work with her and to find the people that are ready to hear the gospel! We are focusing a lot this week on less active families and recent converts. In all reality, they are more important because the have already made these covenants with Heavenly Father and they need to keep them.

We are starting this new video all over the world! Probably some of you have heard of it, but we are starting to share it in our mission and I love it! It is found in Christmas.Mormon.org. It is a video about Jesus Christ. Especially during this Christmas time, it is a lot easier to share your testimony about Jesus Christ and tough people's hearts. Please go to that website and share the video! Yo puedo testificar con todo mi corazón y sé que Jesucristo vive. Jesucristo es mi Salvador y mi Redentor. Jesucristo es mi hermano. Él sufrió para mi individualmente y me conoce personalmente. Yo sé que Él es la Dádiva de nuestro Padre Celestial. Estoy muy animada por este tiempo en el año y yo quiero compartir mi testimonio con todos! Les quiero mucho!!!!!!

Con amor,
Hermana Wood :)