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 :)

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 :)

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. :)

Un Bautismo!

Dear Mommy,
This week has been pretty long, but I have learned so much this week. I have learned that everything is in the Lord's hands and that we need to accept His will. I have also learned that you need to try your ABSOLUTE hardest to do His will and follow Him with everything you've got.

The sad new first...Hilen moved away and is living with her grandma for two months.....so she isn't in our area anymore, so she can't get baptized. :( Sad moment. Also, Inez and Maria Elena dropped us this week. They like the church and I'm pretty sure they have felt the spirit and the happiness...but they have decided they don't want to change. We have to acknowledge their wants and trust that somewhere down the line Heavenly Father will help them and they will remember what we have taught them. I hope that they will be okay and that one day they will want to be truly happy and follow our Savior.

We found David this week!!! We had a lesson inside his house and we taught him the restoration completely. He is just like Joseph Smith. He has a lot of questions and we answered them. He obviously works a ton and I don't know how quickly he can come to church and have all the lessons, but he has a desire to follow Jesus Christ and know the truth, so we are definitely going to keep working with him.

We had a crazy learning experience. We were walking along the vía ( I think that means railroad..I'm not sure. It isn't a very safe place to be, but it is much faster and it was in the middle of the day.) and we saw this boy about 16 years old. We usually don't just go up and talk to 16 year old boys..especially on the vía. So we said hi and kept walking...then Hermana Thornton and I looked at each other and we both realized we had the same impression to talk to this kid. We thought about it and decided to do it..but when we turned back around he wasn't there. We were both very sad and felt awful because we didn't follow that prompting. We went on with our day, but this kid wouldn't leave our minds. We wanted to find him so bad and follow this prompting. We kept praying in our hearts for some way to make this right. You wouldn't believe what happened. We walked around this corner and there was the kid!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He was leaning up against a wall, almost waiting for us to walk by. We literally ran over to him and started talking to him. His name is Lucas. He doesn't live in our area, but he was very interested in the church, so we got his address and referred him to other elders. That doesn't happen. We found Lucas again!! I am beyond grateful for this experience and now I know to talk to every person I see because it was 1 in a million that we found this kid again. I am so grateful!!!

Finally, the Elders in our ward had a baptism! Her name is Jesica. She is the strongest, most amazing person I have ever met. She has such a sweet spirit. They found her and she got baptized three weeks later. She is literally amazing. She has a testimony that is stronger than many other people and she is ready to follow Jesus Christ with all her heart, might, mind, and strength. She is amazing!

We started clase de ingles this week. It is hilarious to hear all the people try to speak english. It is super fun!! I love my mission!! We have to other people with baptism dates now: Andy and Rita. Hopefully we can keep teaching and helping these people! I love you!!!

Love,
Hermana Wood :)

Divisions and Diego

Dear Mom,
This week has had lots of changes! We had zone conference this week. It is really powerful. Our entire mission has the mindset that we can't baptize and that we aren't a baptizing mission. Our new mission president, Presidente Zanni, is changing all of that. The zone leaders gave lots of talks that pumped us up and gave us a lot of hope! The best thing that they taught me was to see every person you come in contact with as a child of God. See them dressed in white in the baptismal font. Imagine them having a calling in the church. Picture them standing in the temple, sealed to their family for time and all eternity. This completely changed my mindset this week. We went from having 15 lessons to 28 lessons this week. We found 10 new investigators and we have callbacks with them. We are definitely making progress now and I am beyond excited to be in Mayoraz, Santa Fe, Argentina right now at this exact moment in time. It will be awesome!

I had the opportunity to do divisions this week! It is when the capacitadoras split up and one person in the companionship goes to another area with one capacitadora and the other stays in the area with the other capacitadora. Sorry, I don't know the word for capacitadora in English. But I had to stay in my area and be in charge of it for an entire day! And my companion was Hermana Condori. She is from Peru and doesn't understand a bit of English. We had 9 lessons together while she was here. This is the first time I have truly felt like a missionary. I know I can communicate with the people and I can control my area. I can have success. I am very grateful I had this big learning opportunity.

I want to tell two stories about two of the new people. The first one is a girl named Hilen. She is 22 years old and we found her one afternoon while we were contacting. We gave her a Book of Mormon and got a return appointment. We went back and taught her the first discussion and she accepted the invitation to be baptized! She is going to pray about what day, but she is going to be baptized. We are very grateful for this humungous blessing. :) Hard work brings success.

The other one is about Diego. He made it into my subject line because it is a very interesting story. ;) We found Diego. He is about 17 years old and he told us we could come back and teach his whole family. We went back another day and found his mother and...let's just put it nicely that she never wanted to see us again. However, Hermana Thornton and I both felt like we needed to go back to that house. We went back yesterday. Yesterday was Mother's Day here in Argentina. We knocked on the door and Diego answered. He said his mom was gone, but his aunt was there and that we could come in. We sat down and taught him, his aunt, and his cousin. Then Diego's mom came back and saw that we were in her house and basically threw us out. We probably won't see Diego again, but we know that we needed to go back right then and there. It was pretty cool. :)

Since we had lots of lessons this week, I have lots of other stories. But I will have to save them for another day. Something funny was that we were walking and this almost dead bird made it's final last attempt to fly and flew right into the back of my head and fell down my back and I had blood and guts all over me. The other one was that we were just walking like normal and a bird pooped on my shoulder. I'm not really fond of birds anymore. ;)

I love you!!!!!

Love,
Hermana Wood :)

My Letter Home

Dear Mom,
This week was a little bit slower on the progressing side of investigators, but we still had lots of lessons and I hope we are still helping people.

We had lessons with Inez and Graciella (Grace) this week. We asked both of them to be baptized, but both of them are very well educated and it is obviously a big step for them to accept a fecha, but they said that they want to keep reading and praying and tell us when they are ready. Hopefully that is soon. :)

One of the new families is the Familia Avila. They are a reference of the Familia Carlotta. Hermana Carlotta's son, Albino, and their son play on the same soccer team and they are really good friends. We were talking to the mom, Liliana, about the sons and she commented on how nice and kind and loving Albino was all the time. He was always well behaved and never got into bad stuff. He was a very good friend for her son to have. Albino didn't even know what an impact he had on this entire family by just being himself. Our lesson with them was really good and we have another this week.

We found Carina again this week! We literally haven't been able to contact her for the last month. We asked her why she didn't get baptized and what was holding her back. She proceeded to tell us her entire, beautiful testimony and that she really does want to get baptized. We gave her another baptism date for November 14, and hopefully she will realize that she wants this enough to sacrifice and get married to this man! He really is great, so we are trying to figure out why they don't just get married already. That's our next goal with her.

We realized this week that we say some pretty funny things while we are walking around the streets of Argentina, so we decided to create a quote wall. Probably no one else will think our quotes are funny...but we think they are hilarious. :) Por ejemplo:

H. Thornton: ¿A donde vamos?
H. Wood: El mundo de los espíritus. (because that is always the answer when we are teaching the plan of salvation.)
(about 5 minutes later)
H. Thornton: Hermana, ¿A donde vamos?
H. Wood: Well..are you ready to die?

I don't know if any of you will understand this, but it was pretty hilarious. :)
Also...........I bought hair dye. Yup......we'll see how that goes. :)

Love,
Hermana Wood :)