¡¡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!!