¡¡Benavidez!!

Hello everyone!!

   Well, sounds like everything is awesome back at home. And definatly not a boring moment at home with Uncle Brian (and thats not a bad thing. I love that guy!!). Jordan and Janae, have a fun time at EFY! And try as hard as you can to soak up all the teachings. I remember EFY being some of my greatest memories. Both spiritually and I have met a lot of close friends there. Are you going to flagstaff or provo? Tara Jo, you are a scout master haha! That will be so much. I just love little kids!! Dad, no worries. I will for sure bring home my mission shoes. They are definitely getting a little warn out, but still going strong. Im proud of those guys! And Kimberly is also getting married? That didnt take long! Well actually as i think about it, she has been home a little bit now since Jess and I hit our 15 month mark last week. But it still feels like we were just at Lisa and Rowes house right before entering the MTC. Crazy how time flies!

    Well this has been kind of an interesting week. It starting off way tough. Every appoitment we had set up ended up falling through and we didnt enter a house the first 3 days. We passed by Pablos house (the old guy we taught last week) and his wife told us not to come back. Dang it!! But luckilly it ended pretty awesome. We visited a family in the ward, familia Laciar, to talk to the son Lucas. He comes out working with us a lot because he just recieved his mission call 2 weeks ago to go to Mexico. But he is awesome. So yea, we stopped by to talk to him and his mom gave us a reference for one of their neighbors named Sonia since she had talked to missionaries before in the past! So we stopped by and talked to her and she was so excited to see us. She told us about how before when she listened to the missionaries, she never really took the time to read the Book of Mormon. But about a month ago she was having some tough trials in her life, so she pulled out the book of mormon and starting reading and found great comfort in it. Ever since she has been reading it every night before going to bed! So we set up an appoitment for saturday where we met in the house of familia Laciar. We had a great lesson about the Restauration and we could tell she truly had a testimony of the book of mormon. The only thing was that her mom was there for the lesson, and she kept trying to shoot down some of the teachings. But she was only here visiting and we will be meeting with her next week. She couldnt go to church yesterday, but we are determined to help her get there this week! Im way excited to teach her. It will be tough for sure since she will need to quit smoking, but i have seen bigger miracles than that during my missin, and she can definitely do it!

     So luckily we have a lot of help from the ward here. A helpful ward who truly undestands the importance of missionary work, not just for the missionaries but for them as well, makes all the difference in the world. Our ward mission leader, named Matias Virhuez, is seriously so awesome. He calls us almost every night to see how our day was and check up on our investigators. But he finished up his mission about a year ago in Chile and he leaves in about a month to move to Provo to study at BYU. So it will be sad to see him leave. But its alright. The work will move on.

      I have been able to keep in good contact with Elder Thomas, and he has been telling me about how Melisa is still just doing awesome. She went out and bought herself a skirt to wear to church and was so excited to show everybody haha. Her conversion has literally made my mission!!

     So yesterday Presidente Àvila oficially left and we now have Presidente Goates here. It was sad to see the Àvila family leave. Words cant describe the impact they have had in my life. Hermana Àvila gave us all a hug before leaving. Just think about it. That was the first time in 15 months I had hugged a girl haha. It was kind of wierd, but awesome haha! But I am way excited to work now with President Goates. He will be coming here to San Juan next week to meet all of us missionaries!

    Oh Dad, so my bishops wife is originally from Chile. And she told me that when she lived there a while back, she had met an Elder Wengert. Do you know of anybody in the family that served in Antofagasta Chile? Just thought I would check! But thank you all so much for everything you for me. Have a great week and I love you!!

Elder Wengert-W9

PS-Sorry, once again my computer wont let me send pictures. But next week I will make it up with a bunch alright!! Love you all!!

Hello from Benavidez!!!

   Well, this has been such a crazy week. But i dont think it is possible for any Wengert to have a normal week. Jordy and Naes, way to ball it up in San Diego! Tan Man, scout camp sounded like so much fun! But you better have saved me some of those wings! Naes, let me know how your FIESTA goes, oh yea!!!! Tj, dont worry, I know that Messi is the only reason Argentina is still in the world cup. But everybody here is still going crazy and saying that Argentina is going to win it all (lets be honest, probably not going to happen haha). But go USA! We have to play good against Germany so we can move on! Hey, so did Tell recieve his mission call? Nobody tells me anything haha! And I want to see the picture of Paul and Kalene!

   Alright, so it was a little sad to leave Rodeo de la Cruz. But I was actually ready for some change as well. 6 months in an area is a lot of time, but i sure did make some awesome relationships there. I recieved the coolest card ever from Melisa. Just showing her thanks for bringing the gospel to her and then ended it with such a powerful testimony. Reading that letter from her just made all of those hard times in Rodeo be forgotten and so worth every bit of work did to help her recieve the gospel. It was super sad to say goodbye to her, but Rodeo is pretty close to the offices, so I promised her that I will pass by atleast one time before coming home. Dang, the Lord truly is preparing his children to recieve the gospel. Just like Devin told me at the beginning of my mission ´´everybody wants what we have, most of them just dont know it´´. What an honor to help those special children of the Lord recognize that and embrase the joy and happiness of the fulness of the gospel.

   So I picked up my new boy last week, Elder Willard from Nevada. He is such an awesome guy. Truly a sports lover like me. We seriously are like the same person. He played football, basketball, and baseball in highschool, his older sister is also on her mission in Idaho, he plays the piano, it just goes on and on. Lets just say, we have plenty to talk about and it has been a blast with him so far. It was way funny though, his first sunday in Argentina and we had to give talks in sacrament meeting haha. But he did good and his spanish (or should i say castellano haha) is pretty good for only a few days here! But we are now here in Benavidez! It has been so crazy washing an area. Showing up here and not knowing anybody or where anything is. And we got here only with 1 investigator. So we have been tearing apart the area book, visiting all of the formers, talking to everybody we see, and walking and walking and walking haha! San Juan doesnt have a very good bus schedule like Mendoza, so we walk a lot!! So yes, it was a long and tough week, but the Lord truly saw our desires and efforts and filled our time with a few tender mercies. One of those was when we were working in one of the neighborhoods here. We were trying to find a certain road that one of the former investigators lived on. But as we were walking a soccer ball bounced over the fence of somebodys yard into the street. So we got the ball and gave it back to them as a old man named named Pablo was walking down the street next to us. After he joked with us saying ´´do you have something for me too?´´ and we just told him ´´oh we sure do´´ haha. So we explained a little bit about the restauration and he allowed us to go to his house. So we finished the lesson, but he was so old that he could barely hear us. So we were basically shouting the lesson to him from across the table. But luckily he was able to understand us and afterwards asked us to come back today so we could teach him and his wife. So awesome! So please pray for him that him and his wife will recognize the truthfulness of the gospel tonight and beging to progress towards baptism.

   Oh also mom, prepare yourself for this. But last week at the trainers meeting they had me play the piano, and it made me realize how I actually missed playing the piano. Kind of wierd right? haha. But thank you for all of those years of lessons mom. I really do appreciate it!

   Well, i hope you all have an amazing week. I will just be here scrubbing and scrubbing until we finish washing! I love you all so much and I will hear from you  next week!

Elder Wengert-W9

Baptism of Gonzalo!

The baptism of Gonzalo was awesome. He is such a little stud! The other one is Kevin (the one that looks a lot like Russel from the movie Up haha)

Here comes number 3!!

Hello!!!!

   Dang, sounded like an awesome week. Tan Man, sounds like you are doing awesome with your boot camp plan. Its way funny that Dad calls you Flaco,  because here alot of husbands call their wifes flaca but it is a way of expressing theire love. It would be like Dad calling mome honey or babe haha. So Dad loves you, and that is why he is calling you Flaco! Tara and TJ, your house looks so good, and the boys are getting so big!! I loved all of the Soccer jerseys for all of the boys. Especially since there was an Argentina jersey. Happy Fathers day to the greatest Dad in the world!! Couldnt ask for a better friend and role model! I look forward to being able to play some basketball and cooking some asados together when i get home haha! Jordy and Naes, girls camp sounded like so much fun. Good luck in your basketball tournmament! Naes, Happy Birthday, for last week!! What are you planning on doing? I want to hear all about it! Oh Dad, I heard the spurs won the championship this year. Everybody is talking about it here!! 

    So this was an awesome week. A little tough with the World Cup starting up. It doesnt get too crazy during the other games. But the whole day is super crazy when Argentina plays. Everybody is just scrambling around all day getting prepared for the game, and everything shuts down about 30 min before the game. So because there are always those crazy fans, President doesnt want us outside during the Argentina games. So we can either chose to stay in the pench or gather with an active member family to watch the game. So the Famlia Aban, the family of the Elders Quorum President, invited us over to watch the game this past week. It was way fun and argentina won 2-1 against Bosnia.

   Well, Gonzalo got baptised this past Saturday with his uncle Kevin and everything went super good! There was a huge group that came and a lot of non members. So after the baptisms, instead of singing songs to wait for them to change, the stake president asked us to share the message of the Restauration with everybody there. So we got on the stage and taught, and acutally went really well and was way awesome. Something I never had done before, but was a great experience. And after the baptism we got to talk to quite a few people and get some return appoitments. One of them were Andres and Mariela. A married couple that was already given a book of mormon and are already reading it. Afterwards, they actually came up to us asking if we could come by some time to teach them more. Such a huge miracle!

   Melisa is still doing awesome. So Mom, the robber didnt read the book of mormon and get baptised, but what did happen is a that she got a phonce call from some random guy who found her documents in the street. So she atleast got those back which are super important for her work since she has to travel back and forth to Chile and here.

    So last night we recieved those terrifying transfer calls and yes Im leaving my area. Its a little sad since iv gotten really close with people after being here for almost 6 months. So I now get to know a new Providence here in Argentina. I will be going to San Juan and my area is called Beneviez. But the thing is that i will be training again for the third time and i will be washing the area. I dont even know what to think right now haha. It for sure will be tough to get to a brand new area where neither of us know it at all. But it will be good. Im excited for a new adventure. But any prayers would be well appreciated!

    Well, im so glad is doing so well. I hope this upcoming week is just as great. I love you all so much and I look forward to hearing from you next week from Beneviez!! ¡Chao! (Bye!!)

Elder Wengert-W9

Re: Today is the Day!! (Im not really sure what the day is, but I thought it sounded like a good title haha!)

Sorry, you will have to wait until next week for pictures. My computer isnt wanting to work with me!

On Mon, Jun 9, 2014 at 10:53 AM, Derek Wengert <derek.wengert@myldsmail.net> wrote:

  Hello from Argentina!!! Lets just say the World Cup starts this week, so things are getting pretty crazy! We are waiting to hear the rules that President Ávila will be putting for it. But whatever they are, im pretty sure it will cut down on our ability to proselyte. Dang it!! But sounds like everything is going great back at home!! Jordy and Naes, good job in basketball! Jordy, watch out for Naes so that she doesnt take your spot haha! Tan Man, take advantage of this Mom time. It doesnt happy very often! Dad, when you get the chance tell Brother Flake hi back for me. I still remember having him as my leader my last AP camp. Such a great guy! Im way excited to hear that Lindsey Parris is coming here to Argentina. Lucky girl haha!! I dont know a whole lot either about Neuquen, but i imagen it is somewhat similar to Mendoza since it is the providence right below us!

   Well, we had kind of a tough week this time. A lot of our citas fell through and investigators dropping us. But we did the only thing we could do, keep going and working! But as we did that, the miracles came! Saturday during exchanges with Elder Alvarado from Peru, we taught a man named Luis! We recieved a reference for him about a month ago, but never could find him home! But during these exchanges, as we passed his house we felt prompted to knock it again. Luis answered the door and immediately let us in saying ´´finally we found eachother´´. So we taught him about the Restauration and the Book of Mormon (which he already had and has been reading it). It was a way good lesson and he had a bunch of good questions. We have a return appoitment with him tomorrow. So we are looking forward to that and are way excited about him!

   Earlier last week, we got to do some service for familia Alcázar, a less active family where we worked in their vineyard. Way fun! Unfortunatly it wasnt harvesting, but just weeding and cleaning up the area. But I got to work in the vineyard in the Lords vineyard of Rodeo de la Cruz haha!

   Yes, Melisa justs keeps killing it! She is trying to set up a service project we can do together for somebody in her neighborhood. She is just always looking it help people. She was a little sad during this week since somebody broke the window of her car and stole everything inside (the stereo, her backpack, documents, even her Book of Mormon haha). She told us about how she came home just crying but decided to pray to the Lord. That was when she recieved comfort and realized ´´maybe they stole all of my things, but I still have my faith and my trust in God. So I am ok!´´. She is just so awesome and was so prepared to get baptised!

    Gonzalo is doing good as well and is super excited for his baptism on Saturday. He showed up to church as well with invitations for his baptism to pass out to all of the ward members. We still need to finish up a few lessons, but he is a little stud!

   Well, i hope you all have a great week! Dad, Jordy, and Naes, have a good time at girls camp!! Tan Man, let me know how sports are doing!! Tara and TJ/Teddi and Dev, I want to see pictures of your houses. Dallin and Amy, way to go with Mud Run, sounds like it was way fun! Well, this could be my last week in Rodeo de la Cruz, so I need to go out with a bang!! I love you all so much and I will hear from you next week! ¡Chao!

Elder Wengert-W9

Today is the Day!! (Im not really sure what the day is, but I thought it sounded like a good title haha!)

  Hello from Argentina!!! Lets just say the World Cup starts this week, so things are getting pretty crazy! We are waiting to hear the rules that President Ávila will be putting for it. But whatever they are, im pretty sure it will cut down on our ability to proselyte. Dang it!! But sounds like everything is going great back at home!! Jordy and Naes, good job in basketball! Jordy, watch out for Naes so that she doesnt take your spot haha! Tan Man, take advantage of this Mom time. It doesnt happy very often! Dad, when you get the chance tell Brother Flake hi back for me. I still remember having him as my leader my last AP camp. Such a great guy! Im way excited to hear that Lindsey Parris is coming here to Argentina. Lucky girl haha!! I dont know a whole lot either about Neuquen, but i imagen it is somewhat similar to Mendoza since it is the providence right below us!

   Well, we had kind of a tough week this time. A lot of our citas fell through and investigators dropping us. But we did the only thing we could do, keep going and working! But as we did that, the miracles came! Saturday during exchanges with Elder Alvarado from Peru, we taught a man named Luis! We recieved a reference for him about a month ago, but never could find him home! But during these exchanges, as we passed his house we felt prompted to knock it again. Luis answered the door and immediately let us in saying ´´finally we found eachother´´. So we taught him about the Restauration and the Book of Mormon (which he already had and has been reading it). It was a way good lesson and he had a bunch of good questions. We have a return appoitment with him tomorrow. So we are looking forward to that and are way excited about him!

   Earlier last week, we got to do some service for familia Alcázar, a less active family where we worked in their vineyard. Way fun! Unfortunatly it wasnt harvesting, but just weeding and cleaning up the area. But I got to work in the vineyard in the Lords vineyard of Rodeo de la Cruz haha!

   Yes, Melisa justs keeps killing it! She is trying to set up a service project we can do together for somebody in her neighborhood. She is just always looking it help people. She was a little sad during this week since somebody broke the window of her car and stole everything inside (the stereo, her backpack, documents, even her Book of Mormon haha). She told us about how she came home just crying but decided to pray to the Lord. That was when she recieved comfort and realized ´´maybe they stole all of my things, but I still have my faith and my trust in God. So I am ok!´´. She is just so awesome and was so prepared to get baptised!

    Gonzalo is doing good as well and is super excited for his baptism on Saturday. He showed up to church as well with invitations for his baptism to pass out to all of the ward members. We still need to finish up a few lessons, but he is a little stud!

   Well, i hope you all have a great week! Dad, Jordy, and Naes, have a good time at girls camp!! Tan Man, let me know how sports are doing!! Tara and TJ/Teddi and Dev, I want to see pictures of your houses. Dallin and Amy, way to go with Mud Run, sounds like it was way fun! Well, this could be my last week in Rodeo de la Cruz, so I need to go out with a bang!! I love you all so much and I will hear from you next week! ¡Chao!

Elder Wengert-W9

Fwd:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Derek Thomas <duhduhduhderek@myldsmail.net>
Date: Mon, Jun 2, 2014 at 11:10 AM
Subject:
To: derek.wengert@myldsmail.net

1. Nothing better to end the week with a baptism, a coke, and some good ol Churros!!

2. and 3. The baptism!!

Happy June!!!!

   How is it seriously June? And wasnt I barely here writing you last week? The time is literally flying. Its so crazy!!! Dallin, happy one year mark! You are seriously incredible. Like all of you, I have been reflecting on this last year that went by since the accident and trying to imagine how i would be without this experience. Without the time of growth and progression that we had as a family. Though it was one of the most difficult trials i have had, and I didnt enjoy it at all as it was happening, I am so grateful for that opportunity to learn and grow. I am so grateful that the Lord loves us enough to give us these trials knowing that if we endure it well, we will one day look back with a smile on our face and gratitude in our hearts. These past weeks I have been talking quite a bit by email with President Wilkey (my old mission president in New Hampshire). He emailed me to see how  i was doing and telling me that they are thinking and me and my family during the one year mark. He is such an amazing guy and truly the reason i need to wait for my visa in New Hampshire. Tara and TJ, he is home now and lives in Lehi!! So keep an eye out for a David Wilkey!

    Sweet little Beau looked so beautiful on her blessing day! And its always a party with the Lindseys, so that is a plus! When will Tell be leaving for his mission? Mom, im sorry you missed your flight. That just broke my heart to hear! But at least the party sounded so amazing! We will have to throw a 2 year party as well so that I can go to it as a well haha! Oh Tan and Mom, sorry about the confusion. In spanish to say that you chewed somebody out you say ´´bajar la caña´´ or translated to drop the cane. So I have just gotten used to saying that in inglish too haha! Dad, enjoy your week at AP camp, I always loved those trips! Tan and Naes, good job with swim team! Jordy, let me know how girls state goes. I remember my week at boys state, and it was so boring at times but also so much fun as well! I learned a lot there, mostly i learned how much i dont like politics haha. But just get envolved, run for a position, go all out for the basketball tournament haha (if they have that for girls state, and you will have a good week!

    Well. this was an amazing week! And it ended with an amazing baptism for Melisa!! Everything went perfect. She recieved a lot of support from her family who all came to the baptism and from the ward. Especially from the relief society. She is just so thirsty for the knowledge of gospel right now and just wants to learn as much as she can. We stopped by her house last night and she was sitting down at her table with a schedule of institute trying to figure out which class worked best with her weekly schedule! Also, she met with bishop and set goals to work towards going to the temple! It is just so awesome!! And that is not all. When we talked to her last night she told us ´´Elders, Im only 26. That means if i decide to, I can still go on a mission´´! So she is now thinking about working towards going on a mission. This just shows us that there are truly prepared people out there waiting for the gospel. It takes a lot of work. We had been working with Melisa for over 4 months before she finally realized what she wanted more than anything else in the world, the gospel of Jesus Christ. And it was then that she dropped everything to find it. Like Jess said, what a privilege to be the hands of the lord at this time!!!

     Another miracle of this week! Remember I was telling you about our Bishops grandson, Gonzalo. Well last week we recieved permission from his parents to teach him. He is such a stud. He is only 9 years old, but knows so much about gospel. Way more than I did at age 9 at least. So we taught him the restauration and his now has a baptismal date for the 14th of June, the same day his Unkle Kevin is getting baptised. (the youngest son of Bishop that is 8). So it will be awesome for them to get baptised together since they are basically best friends!

     Well Dad, I bought a basketball today!!!!!! its not the best quality, but its a basketball. So we are playing today for pday. Im way excited. It will be my first time playing since December, so wish me luck haha! I love you all so much. Thank you for all of your support and help in everything. Have a great week, love you!!

Elder Wengert-W9