I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!!!!!!!!!!

Wow, this week will be absolutely unforgettable! We had so many amazing, beautiful, scary, blessed experiences this week. I am going to try and write them all down and I hope you can all feel how great this week was. :)

On Tuesday, I was super sick, so we couldn't leave our house for two days. It was super stressful because we had so much to do.

When we could finally leave, I'm pretty sure we went to every store in Cañada to find the things we needed for the wedding. We found the dress, flowers, decorations, food, everything. It was all going well.

Friday morning at 10:00, we went to the registro civil and Claudia and Angel were married! It was so great and they were so happy! This actually went all according to plan. ;)

Saturday, we started decorating the gym in the church for the reception that night. We were decorating and decorating, and then Presidente Gimenez told us that we had to open up more doors so that we could have more space because everyone dances here for the weddings. So we had to take all of the decorations down,. open the doors, and then redecorate everything. We only bought decorations for the small space, so we have to make more decorations and spread everything out. The party also was a surprise for Claudia, so all the members showed up early and we shouted surprise at them!!! Claudia was so happy and they both felt so loved and happy. Everyone danced the night away and we also did Karaoke. It was great and the members also feel much closer, which is great.

Now the story of Sheila this week. Satan worked so hard on her. We felt so bad. Estela, her mom, was going to go this week with a friend to Cordoba to go the temple open house! She was super excited and ready to go. They went to buy tickets. The friend got a ticket to go, but Estela didn't. :( She was very sad and didn't understand why she wasn't able to go to the temple open house.

Since she didn't go, Hermana Cerna and I went to visit her at her house. We helped her feel better about the situation, and then we walked to our house at 9:30 at night. They live about 3 blocks from our house. About 30 minutes later, Estela called us and told us she was at the police station with Sheila. About 5 minutes after we left, Sheila was coming home from work and two men tried to rob her and her backpack. She started yelling and the neighbors came out and nothing happened. But they went to the police station to report it. Sheila was really shaken up and was really sad. But we called her and told her that after her baptism, everything will be okay.

We had the baptisms at 8:00 in the morning Sunday! Sheila got there on time and changed into her baptism clothes. when she came out, there was a huge surprise! All of her uncles, aunts, and her dad came from Rosario to be at her baptism! She was sooo happy! It was great to see. Claudia didn't get there until about 7:55, so we were super worried, but she got there and they were both baptized into the church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. It was so great and peaceful and beautiful.

Oh, another thing. I had to give a talk in the baptism. I thought I had to talk about baptism....but when Hermano Merindol announced the talks, he said I was going to talk about the the Holy Ghost. And the other hermana prepared a talk about baptism! so in about 5 minutes I preprared a talk on the Holy Ghost.

It was a super awesome, crazy week! I am so glad that everyone turned out well and that Claudia and Sheila are officially baptized! I love being a missionary1 thank you so much for your love, support, and prayers. They are really felt here. I love you all!!!

Love,
Hermana Wood :)

Vamos a tener bautismos :)

This week has been a little crazy, but super awesome and packed with great experiences!!! On Monday, we went to the dentist here in Argentina and she took out her tooth in 5 minutes! It was super fast and simple. When they finished, Hermana Cerna felt so good and thought that she would be ready to leave the next day. Haha.........nope. The anasthesia went away, and she couldn't move her mouth. So we called some hermanas here in our rama and they were able to help us out! One hermana came to our house and stayed with Hermana Cerna and another went out with me to be a missionary for a day! We had a lot of success and the members learned a lot and loved talking to people and sharing their testimonies. It was super great for them and for me so that I didn't have to stay in the house ALL day long. ;)

Our mission is focusing a lot on the family. How we can support the family and when we are finding people to teach, we need to focus on finding complete families: a mom, a dad, and kids so that they can all be baptized and make these big changes as a family, not as individuals. It is very rewarding to see the people that God puts in our path to find these families that are prepared and ready to be eternal families.

We found 3 complete families this week! We are hoping that they will all continue to progress and I will tell more about them this next week.

The best thing this week is Sheila and Claudia both passed their interviews to be baptized!!! They are getting baptized! Vamos a tener bautismos!!! We are so super excited for them to make these first covenants with our Heavenly Father. Please pray for them this week that all will go according to plan. We know that it probably won't...because that never happens, especially in the mission, be we know that everything will be exactly the way Heavenly Father wants it to be. :)

I love you all!
Hermana Wood

Lots of Food!

Food that we cooked! We eat everything with Mayonesa.

Our torta that looks awful but was delicious!!

I found Hermana Christiansen!!! :)

Wow, this week has been quite long. We went to Rosario two times. Once, was to practice singing for the choir, and the other was to have a special conference with Elder Avila! He is part of the seventy. Presidente and Hermana Zanni and Elder and Hermana Avila talked to us. And wow, did I learn a ton. This is the part that stuck out to me:

In 3 Nefi 17:9-10 Jesus is talking to the people in the Americas. He says that the people that aren't sick need to bring the people that are sick to Him so that He can heal them. And AFTER the non-sick people bring the sick people to Jesus, they can be with Him too. I learned that we can't be with Jesus unless we bring someone else with us. We need to help our fellow man. We need to serve and love everyone around us so that we can all be with Jesus and we can all feel His love and partake of His sacrifice for us.

I also learned in D&C 101:55-57, Heavenly Father needs His WHOLE house in order to complete His work. He doesn't just need missionaries. He needs young people, he needs mature people, he needs all the members of the church to come together and help bring to pass His work. I loved it!

After we had the conference, we went to an unlimited buffet. It was so delicious! I tried octopus for the first time, and it was so good! I also learned that an egg roll is called an empanada chino here. So funny!

Thank you all so much for all your prayers!!!! Jorge did super amazing this week! This weekend in South America was carnival. Everyone drinks and parties for about 3 days. Jorge didn't drink at all and he came to church!!! Can you believe it?? We were so happy for him and we are praying his baptism is soon! :)

Claudia and Angel are now having problems. I don't know why. They both came to church this week, but something happened and now Angel says that he isn't going to come to church again.....we are trying super hard to figure out what happened and how to help him. Please pray for them!

Valentina and Marcos are doing well! They really understood the plan of salvation this week. They progress slowly, but they are progressing. And they have a hard time going to church because they are really old, so next week we are going to focus on getting them to sacrament meeting.

Hermana Cerna loves to cook! Which is super good because it is super delicious..but bad because I think I'm going to gain like 20 pounds this transfer. ;) But it is super fun and I am learning a ton! I love it!!

I love you all!

Love,
Hermana Wood

I love being a missionary!

Saying goodbye to Hermana Matias

Hermana Cerna!

Dear Everyone,
What a week. I am now training another missionary, Hermana Cerna! But..she came pre-trained. She is so strong and she can share her testimony with everyone she meets. I am learning so much from her. I love the way she uses the Book of Mormon to answer EVERY question that people have. I am learning to trust the spirit a lot more to try and find the people that are ready here in our area. It isn't very hard to do in Cañada, but I know that we can't do anything without the help of our Heavenly Father. I love being a missionary!

Update on Jorge. We went to his house this week and he told us that he hadn't drank or smoked for a whole week!!! We were so excited for him. He was reading the Book of Mormon every day and was so excited to come to church. We went to his house Saturday night to have a lesson.....and he was drunk. :( :( We were SOO sad! My heart hurt so much. When he saw us, he started crying and went back inside his house. It was so hard. We are going to find him this week and help him. Please pray for him so that he can have the strength to resist!!!!!

Claudia is still doing amazing! She is growing so much in the gospel. She is reading the Book of Mormon from the beginning and she is now in 1 Nefi 20. She brings her scriptures to church every week and participates in the classes. She received her birth certificate in the mail this week, which means that they can go to the office and pick out a date for their wedding!!! And then she can be baptized!!! Whoo!!! We are so happy for her.

We had an interesting experience this week. We went to a menos activo. He told us about this dream that he had. He said that there was a huge crowd of people and he felt like they were all waiting for him do help them. He didn't know what it meant and he felt really frustrated. I felt in my heart and told him that the people in his dream were his ancestors waiting for him to do their work. He looked at me with tears in his eyes and said (in Spanish, but I'll write it in English) "That is exactly what it means. Thank you so much. How did you know?" I love the spirit! I had absolutely no idea what his dream meant, but we felt that he needed to do his family history work. We gave him a "My Family" pamphlet and he said he will start working on it. He also came to church this week. It was amazing! I love being a missionary!

Well, I think that's it for this week. I love you all!

Love,
Hermana Wood :)

Cambios!

I have way too many stuffed animals. I love it. :)

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Wow, this week has been full of changes. First off, we found out this week that there are only going to be 2 missionaries here in Cañada! Hermana Thornton had an emergency transfer for Santa Fe, so her mini missionary went home to Rosario. We also found out that Hermana Matias is leaving tomorrow. :( She is getting transferred to Santa Fe. I am going to be finishing the training of an hermana from Spain! No one knows how to pronounce her name, so I will tell you all next week. :) I am super sad that Hermana Matias is leaving because I love her so much! We have had some amazing experiences together. I also feel a ton of responsibility because I have all of Cañada now! And my compañera is really new...so we are going to see how this week goes. :)

We had some miracles this week. I will write about a few of them:

First, we have this amazing investigator named Jorge. He was the other hermanas' investigator, but now he is ours because they left. He came to church this week! He has been trying for a very long time to stop drinking, and now he is finally making progress! We are hoping he will be baptized 28 of February.

This Sunday was absolutely amazing. Jorge came to church, Claudia came to church, and two other investigators as well! We also had a complete menos activo family and 3 other menos activos in sacrament meeting. Andres received the priesthood and is going to pass the sacrament next week!!!!! I love to see his progress! He really is super amazing. Also, during sacrament meeting, there was a huge storm outside, and the power went out. But we kept on going and it was super funny. :) And then we got to walk all around Cañada in the rain. I loved it!

But this was the biggest miracle of all. Remember Valentina, the cute little old lady? Well, we visited her this week. Usually when we go, her husband, Marcos, gets up and goes in the other room because he doesn't want to listen. But this week, we went in and he sat down and started talking to us. He asked us a bunch of questions and then he told us something. He said that since he is old, he can't see hardly anything. He hasn't been able to read for a very long time. But this past week, he picked up the restoration pamphlet that we left for them and tried to read. And he could read it! He read the whole pamplet two times. He tried to read other things, and he couldn't see anything. He said that God was trying to talk to him and that he wants to come to church next week. We asked him if he wanted to be baptized, and he immediately said yes. Wow. This was the biggest miracle I have seen in my mission and I am so excited for him!!!! I am so grateful to be on my mission and to be in contact with such amazing people.

Oh, something else happened this week. It was raining really bad, and we were getting off the bus to go to district meeting. I slipped and fell and got banged up pretty bad. I had to go to the hospital to make sure that everything was okay. I recommend NEVER going to a hospital in Argentina. But don't worry, everything is fine and dandy now. :) I love you all! I hope you have a great week!

Happy Valentine's Day!!!