We Moved

My mates. :)
My companion........ :)
We moved...again!
Our new house!!!! :)
I still fit in my jeans! That is a big accomplishment. ;)

Well, this week was full of surprises! We weren't able to work as much as we wanted because we moved!!!!!!!!!!! Finally!!!!!! Haha, this is the second time in my mission that I have stayed in the same area, but we have changed houses. I guess I'm an expert now. ;) But our new house is so much better! In our old house, we didn't have windows.......but now we have a balcony and another window so that the air flows throughout the whole house. And just in time, because things are heating up here and it is really hot. So we are super glad we moved. :)

However.........we have had a few problems in our new house. The things that heats up the water (I don't know what it is called in english) started leaking, so we had to find a huge bucket to put underneath so that could actually leave and teach people. We have also had some problems paying all the things and that takes some time. But now, everything is set and we are ready to keep working!

Melisa and Guillermo are doing awesome! They are reading the Book of Mormon together and praying to know if it is true. One day they were reading outside and a random guy came up and started pointing at the book and said, "Stars, stars, stars, stars..." Haha, they didn't know if that was their answer or no..but it was pretty funny. :) They both came to church on Sunday! They really liked the sacrament meeting and felt really comfortable. The ward helped a ton and really helped them feel welcome, and we were really grateful for that. They are awesome! :)

We need to find all of our other investigators this next week, but they are all super great. I am loving this area and I am learning a lot from my new companion! I am learning to be humble, patient, trustworthy, loving, non-judgemental, and willing to do anything in order to help her feel good. I am super grateful for the mission and everything I have learned and all the experiences my Heavenly Father has given me!

I loved ponderizing Alma 6:6 this week because I feel like our ward is finally putting into practice what this scripture says. they are praying for our investigators and trying to help them come closer to Christ. As members, we should always try and share the gospel, no matter the circumstance. This week I am going to study D&C 130:2. It is a very beautiful scripture.

I love you all!!!! Have an amazing week!

Love,
Hermana Wood :)

We moved!

Well...we finally moved!!! We are living in our new house! It is super big. It has two rooms, a living room, and a kitchen! Actually, I think that is really small the in the United States, but it is HUGE here! I have seen a family of 10 people live in a house with two rooms and a kitchen. So we are living really good here. It is nice. I will send a picture of the house next week.

We have had a long week, because we are trying to find new investigators. We found some awesome people!! The best people we found are Pablo and Nely. We were talking with Pablo and he said, "You know what, you guys are right. I need spiritual help in my life. When can you come back?" Haha, whenever you want us to come back! ;) So, we are going to be passing by this week. We also found this woman named Silvina and her kid Nico. Silvina is going to have a baby this week! So she said we can pass by after she has her child. We are excited to work with them. :)

We also have some exciting news! We found an old investigator named Maria. She has already come to church and she already has all the lessons. She came to church this week and the last week and she said that she wants to get baptized this Saturday! So we are probably going to have a baptism this Saturday. We are super excited for this miracle, despite everything that has happened these past couple weeks.

Also, I have been pretty sick this week. In the last 48 hours, I have slept 33 hours. I am FINALLY feeling a lot better. It was a rough time, but I know that Heavenly Father is protecting and watching out for me. And we are still seeing miracles!

Sorry, I didn't have much time to write.

Love,
Hermana Wood

11 Months!

Today I have 11 months in the mission! The time just flies. It is so crazy to think about.

Yesterday was transfers and Hermana Christiansen and I are staying together in Acevedo! That means that we are going to be in the Rosario Argentina mission! I am super excited about that and to have my same mission president. Presidente Zanni is the best and really helps us learn and grow in the way that the Lord wants us to. He cares about us and only wants the best for us. I am happy to stay here in Rosario!

First off, last P-Day, Hermana Calderon colored my hair. She dyed my hair to my natural hair color! I haven't been my natural color since like 9th grade, so it was weird to get used to, but I dyed it that way because I don't want to dye my hair anymore. So I went all natural. I actually really like it now. Everyone says I look exactly like my mom now....so you can all be the judge of that. ;)

This week with Carmelo and Susana has been very interesting. Carmelo and Susana are not from Pergamino, they are from Santa Fe. So they can't get married in Pergamino because their address is from Santa Fe. So they went to Santa Fe about 3 weeks ago and picked a day to get married, June 19th. We were super excited and everything. However....something awesome and very sad happened this week. Carmelo found a job!!!!! He works in a store that sells chicken. He has been praying and praying to find work and he finally found it! We were so excited when we found out! It was a huge answer to prayers. But...now that he has a job, he can't leave Pergamino to go to Santa Fe to get married. :( So...it is a big bummer. They can't get married for quite a while now. We are going to ask him to pray for the courage to ask his boss for a day off so that they can go to Santa Fe. It is going to take a lot of faith and courage on his part, but we know that the blessings are real and God wants them to get married. So if you could pray for him, that would be great!

We taught Carmen! We talked a lot about prayer and invited her to come to church. Her two kids are awesome, and I hope that they will be able to progress together. She is teaching her kids good things, so I think it will be good.

Amalia has been super sick for the past couple weeks, so we haven't had much contact with her. We are trying to help her, but we can't do much. We did a lot for the house! We bought mattresses, turned on the lights, and fixed the gas! I think we will be able to move Saturday! Lots of people have been helping us and it is finally all coming together! I also did tramites this last week, and they said I should be receiving my ID from Argentina within the next three months, so I am super stoked about that.

I have been reading lots of stories in the Book of Mormon lately and I have been applying them all to the mission life. For example, I read about Ammon and ths servants when they are taking care of king lamoni's sheep. The only way that the missionary (Ammon) could fight with Satan and protect the investigators (sheep) was if the members (the servants) helped by encircling the sheep. They calmed the investigators when temptations arised and they were scared. They were able to help every sheep come back to the king's pasteur. I know that the members are so important and every member needs to help in missionary work. Everyone needs to help so that every single one of our brothers and sisters can come back to Heavenly Father. I love you all! Thank you all for the amazing birthday wishes! It was a great day! I feel old now, but I guess that's okay. :) I hope my pictures works this week!

This Week

Well, since we have finally been able to leave and work, we had to spend a TON of our time buying everything for our new house. It was stressful because we had to wait in lots of lines and be adults and talk to professional people in a language that sometimes we still don't understand because we have never heard these big words before and use a lot of money. We are now really close to moving! We just need to buy mattresses and turn on the electricity, which requires lots of documents as well, but we are getting there. Obviously, I have learned a lot of patience and how to handle stress. Like my daddy told me this week, I am just preparing for the real world, so I guess it is a good thing. :)

Amid all the chaos of moving, we have been able to help people! When we visited Carmelo last week, he told us that he didn't want to keep listening, but Susana wanted to keep listening. We started praying like crazy for him and we also invited him to pray and read the book of mormon. We went back about 4 days later, and he told us that he wants to keep listening and their whole family was at church this Sunday! We are so grateful that the spirit touched his heart. I can see them as an eternal family getting sealed in the temple for time and all eternity. They are amazing and have so much potential.

We are also working with a woman named Maria Chaparro. She has three kids also and she came to church this week. We haven't had many lessons with her, but we think she is going to be baptized pretty quickly. She is super cute and loving.

I know that if I can put my faith and complete trust in my Heavenly Father, we are going to be able to get everything done and also we will be able to help these amazing people here progress and meet their goals. Heavenly Father has everything in His hands and He will help us out. I am grateful for this time to be in the mission and to learn what I need to know for the rest of my life. I love you all!

Love,
Hermana Wood

I love working...and working..and working on bikes!!

I WAS ABLE TO LEAVE MY BED ON FRIDAY AND WORK. LIKE A MISSIONARY WORKS. NO ONE CAN UNDERSTAND HOW HAPPY I AM!!!!!!! Maybe other missionaries can understand, but really, it is the best feeling in the world to be out on the street, talking to people, teaching the gospel, and loving the people. I am so grateful to be a missionary and to have this time in my life to serve Him and represent Him in all I do.

Well, Monday to Friday Hermana Christiansen and I played Uno...all day long. But we got bored of Uno, so we started playing every single card game that I know..with Uno cards. We played Mao, go fish, speed, spit, garbage, phase 10, B.S., happy slap, and Nerts. Yeah, we were quite bored. But..it was fine. We got pretty creative. And some other hermanas had the game of LIFE in their pench, so they sent it to us! I was able to play LIFE! My favorite game! I was so happy. And everything was in spanish, which made it all the much better.

Then on Friday we were able to leave and work!!! I was so happy! We went to the church and we found some bikes so that I don't have to walk. It is so fun to ride in bikes. I only almost got ran over by a bus once. So that was good. ;)

We were able to visit Susana this week. She told us that Carmelo is having some doubts about the church. We haven't been able to teach him, but Susana told us that she is never going to leave because she found the true church. :) She is so great and we are going to be working a lot with them this week. They are so great and we need to find out how to help Carmelo.

We found this new woman named Carmen! She is single and has two kids, one is 12 and the other is 8. She is super open and we are excited to work with her. It is hard to get back into the groove of working and helping our investigators progress when we haven't been able to visit them very consistently, but we are working really hard to try and help them. We are also STILL trying to move, so we are going to be doing a ton this week. Thank you all so much for your prayers and for helping me along the way. I know that this church is true and everything we have to go through is worth it. Heavenly Father has a plan for each one of us and I know that He is always watching over us. I love you all!!!

These are pictures of my shock therapy. :)