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 :)

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 :)