¡Feliz Año Nuevo!

    Man, it was so good to see you all. The best christmas present ever. Presents are overrated anyways right mom. And dont worry Mom, you have no idea how nice it was to have some real candy from the states! Everybody is so grown up. Ty and Levi are seriously so big now. I couldnt believe it. And they both are talking so much. Seriously so cute! I loved watching them ride their little roaler coaster. I need one of those for the pench! Tan Man, you are a stud. I want to see another ring next chrismtas as well haha. Jordan and Janae, stop growing up and getting so dang beautiful. Wait until I get home to beat up those boys!! Dallin, besides those cool scars, it doesnt seem like you were ever in an accident. You seriously looked so good. And I realized that I even missed your teasing a little bit haha! But you better be able to back up all that trash talking on the court when I get home. Im super excited to have these new nephews! Mom, it was just so good to hear your voice, Dad it was so good to see you and have somebody to talk sports with (nobody in my district or zone knows much about sports back in the states haha), but I didnt appreciate your taunting with the cinnamon rolls and rice crispie treats haha. Tj, thank you so much for all of your help with your help with skyping, and Im looking forward to playing some soccer with you when I get back! Oh Dad, you said you havent gotten to see any of the boal games, but did Arizona make it to a bowl game?

    So this week was pretty good. We recieved a reference for a girl named Leticia Quidoga. All of her family are members and innactive. For a long time the dad wouldnt let anybody go to church. But they just got a divorce with him and now the mom wants to return to church, Letecia is the 20 year old daughter that in one way or another got skipped and didnt get baptized. But she promised her grandmother before she passed away that she would get baptized. we taught her about baptism and put a baptismal date with her for the 11 of january. And she even has a goal to go to the tample a year after her baptism. So super exciting. But during the lesson we had with her, I had one of the biggest temptations of my mission. Her older brother was watching tv in the smae room as us, and sportscenter came on with basketball highlights. Dang, what a test of obedience. Luckilly I was teaching at the time and just kept focused on the lesson and the brother turned it off before I finished. Way crazy.

    I had exchanges this past week with one of our zone leaders named Elder Yao. He was born in China and lived there for 18 years but then moved to Buenos Aires and lived in a Chinese neighborhood there with his cousin. He met the missionaries there, was baptised, and year later was called here on a mission. But he never learned spanish until here on the mission. It is super tought to understand him at times. Just picture a super heavy asian accent mixed with spanish. But a way sick kid and a great missionary. It was a way fun exchange and I learned a lot!

    Patricia is still doing great. Having a few difficulties with gettting her married because the place to get married is closed for the whole month of January. So she cant get a date set up for her wedding until February. So there is a good chance that I could be leaving Alvear before then since I already have 4 months here!

   Well, Im excited for this new year. I will be beginning my black year (being here for the whole year of 2014). Jess Im sorry  that you have to be in by 6. We get to be out until 11:45 as long as we are in a house with members and recieve a ride home with the members. It was the same with Christmas Eve as well!

    Well, thank you all so much for everything. I love you all and happy new years!!

Elder Wengert-W9

2 days!!

First off sorry! I dont have much time to write this week beause of our singing on the radio today. But at least we get to see eachother on Wednesday right?!! But here are a few pictures from my week. Love you all so much!!
1. We had our branch christmas party. They were doing a manger scene, and a few of the members didnt show up. So the other is Elder Delgado who had to be a shepard, I I got thrown in as Joseph haha. (I know, we didnt quite have as good as costumes as you guys).

2. The mission party! I got to see part of my MTC district for the first time since the MTC, or since New Hampshire with Elder Varney.

3. Santa even came to the mission party. (He was actually one of the senior missionaries haha)

¡Feliz Navidad!

     Haha, like Jess said, Im glad to know home hasnt changed at all. Falling chocolate fountains, crashing cars, loosing wallets and keys, and games. Good ol home haha! But I am sorry about your carola momma. And I am so glad to hear grandpas surgery went so well and is continuing to progress and get better. I think all he needs is a good cup of mate haha! And Dad, sounds like Arizona continues to impress. I love the sound of that! Well the heat continues to be blazin here in alvear. But the fan is a life saver and im actually able to get some sleep! Naes good luck on spanish final. Maybe we can speak in spanish now when I skype for christmas haha! Jordy, how was winter formal? How are you old enough to go anyway. Holy cow!! And where are some pictures? Tan Man, what sports are you tearin it up in now?

     Well here in our branch we have an hermano that works with one of the radio stations here in Argentina. And yesterday at church he asked us if next pday we can come and sing some christmas songs for the station and they are going to broadcast it on the radio haha! Except I think that im going to playing the piano, which is pobably better since my piano playing is much better than my singing voice! But it will be interesting how that turns out haha!

     Oh, before i forget to tell you, Im pretty sure I can skype at 12 here, so 8 for you guys back at home. I need to find out what time Elder Evans is going to be skyping at, but Im almost positive that it will work for me at that time!

    Well, this week was a little tough, but we saw many miracles as well. A little tough because we struggled getting into houses to teach. Cita after cita fell. But the Lord knows where he wants us and when we need to be there. Saturday I was on exchanges with Elder Cofer, a brand new elder from texas. He only has 2 weeks here in Argentina. But we were walking down the street after having an appoitment fall through. And this lady who was in front of her house calls us over. So we went over there and she asked if we were the mormons. After she told us "my son is a member of your church and he lives in St. George Utah. He has a strong testimony, and it really impresses me. Can you teach me more?". I basically was in shock and half expected to hear the words "Hallelujah" being sung from the heavens haha. She said I cant listen right now because i am leaveing to go to mendoza. But she gave us her phone number and told us to call her this week to set up a time to meet. Truly a tender mercy of the Lord and a great miracle.

    We had another lesson with Amalia and Emedito Muñoz (the 80 year old couple) that went great. Emedito read some of the book of mormon and prayed about it. We asked him if recieved an answer and he said "i have no idea" haha. So we changed our lesson plan and talked about the holy ghost and how to recognize answers from the Lord. And at the end Amalia asked us about church and what we do there. So we went on talking about the importance of church and about the sacament. We invited them to come to church with us and amalia said "SI" all excitedly, but Emedito said no. But Amalia was just like why?!! But in the end they ended up not coming. But they are super close and believe that they have been prepared by the Lord. They are just the sweetest old people ever. Amalia always trys to give us her chair, even though she is 88 years and barely stand up on her own haha.

    And Patricia is doing great. She finished the papers and will be taking our her turno or her turn this week. So that is when we will know the date of the wedding and when we can put a bautismal date with her. She is super excited!

    Well, we are playng some futbal today and then we have to get ready to leave early tomorrow morning to go to Mendoza for the mission christmas party. Way exciting! Presiente Avila rented a double decker bus to come pick up all of us missinaries from here in alvear and in san rafael. So that will be way fun. Basically another 5 hour party there on the bus haha! Well, thank you so much for all of your love and support. I hope you all have a great week and I look forward to hearing from all of you next week on pday, and expecially christmas to skype. Love you!

Elder Wengert-W9

Just another day in paradise!!

Hello everybody,

       First, im sorry that all of you didnt get an email from me yesterday. We found out late last week that we had Zone Conference yesterday down in San Rafael with Presidente. So because of that we have pday today! Sorry if you freaked out a little Mom. I kind of enjoyed picturing it though and getting a good little laugh about it! So sounds like a crazy week. And Grandpa is in my prayers for sure!! So here, we are 4 hours ahead of you guys. So I sure hope we can end up doing a 3 way skype. That would be amazing! But what is your skype name? And right now I have one package, but im sure more are on there way! No we dont have a tree yet, but soon. I am determined to bring some kind of lights here. Nobody uses Christmas lights here because of how hot it arleady is. Oh speaking of heat, we were able to get a fan for the pench, so you dont need to send me one! Sounds like the Christmas devotional was awesome. We didnt get to watch it here because it didnt start until 10:00. I really wish I could have though. Dang, U of A is number 1. That is so awesome!! I would love it if they could go all the way this season!

       Well, the Zone conference was amazing yesterday! President spoke to us about how missionary work is like a train. We must use the Holy Ghost, prayer, the Book of Mormon, asisting church, and our desire to find (all of these principles were a different cart). And baptism with conversion was the caboose. And the conductors of the train werent just us missionaries, but the ward council as well. It is so important to work with the members. (jess, that is so awesome how much you are working with the members in your ward. It is super hard for use here. Our branch isnt very strong. But we have really focused on strengthing the members and the branch is doing better now). But if we leave one of those principles out, that conversion is leaft behind and that train has broken. He was able to explain it a lot better than I can. And then our mission here has really started to focus using mormon.org. I dont know how it is for you jess, but here we now are being offered one hour a week to get onto mormon.org as a companionship to look for things to use for our investigators. And to make our on spanish profile to share with people.

      This week was both super tough but super rewarding at the same time. First, one thing that we have been struggling with is finding new investigators. So Saturday we set out to find news. Talking with everybody (which during the siesta is just about nobody, it´s rediculous)! But we talked to this older lady. We learned that she couldnt speak or hear. So we took out our agendas and we talkd to her about the restauration by writing sentences out. And in the end she was interested and asked us to come back. Its going to be super difficult, but with lord, anything is possible. We ended up finding 4 more news that day. Truly a miracle! And two of them is and older couple named Amalia and Muño. Both of them are about 80 years old. But they are just the sweetest couple ever and we have a return appoitment with them for tomorrow!

     But like I said, this week was tough as well. We taught Tito again saturday night and told us that he only believes in God when we are there, but when we arent he thinks the Lord is a bad guy because he allowed his mom to pass away from lung cancer after smoking her whole life. So we tried teaching him about agency and how we are given difficult trials to grow. And that in the end, the Lord knows us personally and knows what is best for us. But he ended up telling us the he wasnt interested anymore not to come back. So hard. I just wanted to cry right there in front of him. We had learned to love this guy so much and we know how much he can be blessed if he will just accept our message and the Lord as his father in heaven. But in the end, he has his own agency.

      But Patricia is doing great! She should find out the date of their wedding this week (they cant pick here, it gets assigned). So then we can finally put a fecha with her. She is super excited!

     Well this is an exciting time of year, no matter where you are. The birth of Christ changed the world, now we need to accept it and let it change our lives personally. Next week we have our mission christmas conference in Mendoza. Im super excited. I will get to see Elder Varney for the first time since I leaft New Hampshire. But no matter how much fun this holiday is, we need to always keep the name of Chirst written in our hearts and always remember the type of love the had for us!

       I love you all so much!! Be safe I cant wait to see you all on skype. Have a great week and I will talk to you next week. ¡Feliz Navidad!

Elder Wengert-W9

Photos

¡December!

Hello,

     Im not going to lie, to me it does not feel like December at all. Im not supposed to be sweating to death when its only a few weeks away from Christmas. But its all good, all part of the mission experience. But Dad, we actually will be able to skype from here for christmas. So I will need to your skype name and stuff! Sounds like it was an amazing Thanksgiving for everybody. Those pies look so delicious haha! We didnt get to do anything for Thanksgiving, just a antoher day in the field. But its fine because we have christmas in less than a month!! And to top off your week with going to the temple!! So awesome. Really miss going to the temple. But I will get to do a session in Buenos Aires before I came home. So only 16 months haha! But the temple experience is always so much sweeter when you have family names, and the the work of family history is so important. There wasnt too much of it going on here since they would have to travel all the way to Buenos Aires or to Santiago Chile. But lately the stake here, Estaca San Rafael, has really bumped it up. Its been way cool to see. Jordy and Naes good job with your tournament. Sounds like you did pretty good. And speaking of basketball, Arizona beat Duke!! That is sick!! haha. Sounds like the cats should a good season! Oh, and that movie, the Saravo Approach, sounded pretty interesting. Dont worry, we are pretty safe here haha! Dad, sorry you dont have much help with the lights this christmas. Tan Mans got it, he is a stud! And sounds like the tree looks way awesome. We will be getting our Christmas tree soon! Well i got a few letters this week. And first, please thank Sister Bruse! She is the sweetest lady ever. I got 5 letters from her, and she writes me every week. She asked if she could be added onto my emailing group so can you please get me her email. And then i got a package from Sister McKinley from the ward, letters from the relief society. So please thank her and the RS!

     Oh, so we got our transfer calls last night and im staying here in Alvear for another transfer, and with Elder Evans. So I will get to spend Christmas here with my boy haha!

     Well one morning this week we woke up to the sound of raining, but i looked outside to nothing. So we went outside of the pench and one of our water pipes had broken and water was spraying everywhere haha. So i went outside and was able to repair. I came back inside feeling like Fix it Felix, but it only lasted like 15 minutes and it broke again. And because of how argentina works, we couldnt get somebody to come fix it until after the siesta. So that menas that guy came at like 7 to fix it. So that water was poaring out all day because turning off the water would shut off the water to the whole complex. So now it looks like we have a little swamp in the little back yard we have. I half expect an alligator to come jumping out of it at times!

       We had a pretty good week this week and had some great and powerful lessons. First we are still working with Tito. He is doing much better than before and continues to progress every lesson. Except he was a little confused when we taught him the law of chastity and kept saying, Elders im 65 years old and live with my sister, I wont have any problems with this haha. It was pretty funny. He has gotten a little better with the smoking but is still at like 12 each day. Way better than the 60 before. But we just need to crack down on him at get him to drop the last bit. He has a fecha for the 21 of december (yes mom, that means a baptismal date). So dad, we have good chances for a white christmas. Even with how hot it is here!

      We had a pretty crazy lesson yesterday with a less active family, the Familia Lopez. Well actually just with Hermano Lopez. We have been working with them for while and just dont want to do anything. But we felt pretty strong that we needed to just be firm with him. So we told him that he was not a good example for his family and asked him what he was doing. We went on and talked about how Christ was the light of the world, and how now he needed to be this same light for his family and especially for his children. It was the first time and have been so stern with somebody like that and i was pretty nervous about this lesson. But he really took it in and was even crying during the lesson. He said that he was now going to be that example and be better for his family. It just shows how it always works out if we follow the spirit.

      Patricia is also doing very well. she will be finishing up her papers this week for marriage, which means baptism right after. She is seriously an amazing lady. Probably one of the strongest members we have in our branch, and she isnt even baptized haha! So im super excited for her. So once again Dad, snow is in the forecast to make a white christmas.

      Mom, good look with semanary and your talk. Preperacion will always cause the spirit to guide your thoughts. thank you all for everything. I love you all so much and I look forward to seeing all of your faces in a few weeks. Have a great week, love you!!

Elder Wengert-W9