What a week!!!

   First of all....Dad, happy birthday!!!! I couldnt ask for a better father and example in my life! I hope you have a great day!!! But just one question, what is a ´´bullet´´? Oh and thanks everybody for rubbing the navajo tacos in my face haha! But man, those do sound so good! Those kids better enjoy getting dragged out of bed at 6 to go play some ball, i would love to do that! And im awake 30 min later anyways so doesnt make a huge difference haha! So Shelby is home now. That is crazy, seems like she just left. But tell her and Tim hi for me! Oh and Dad, that hotdog i was eating is called a ´´poncho´´. Not really sure why its named that. So sorry but no they dont call it a meter dog! Tan Man, dont worry about your heart murmer. I have one too and have never had any problems with it! But i hope it works out so you can go tear it up on the football field! Oh, so in dads birthday picture, i saw Dan in the pic. How is he doing? Is he still going strong in the church? Hey Dad, so my bishops wife is from the Alvarez family. She said trace only came over one time for a family night but that she was taught by Elder Beserra and Elder Bagley. Mom dont worry, i had a great birthday. Elder Willard made pancakes for breakfast that morning and the hermanas in our district baked me a cake since we had district meeting that day. Plus i already had my calender, so i was perfectly content! Thank you so much again for that birthday package. It was perfect (plus it got here as well!!!).
     So this was a busy week for me! So many miracles in our district that we all saw and ended up having 5 baptisms in our district (the zone leaders baptised a family of 4 and the hermanas baptised one more little boy). And of course being the district leader i had to do all of the baptismal interviews. So i was running around doing those plus trying to find baptismal clothes for them all since they couldnt find enough in their church building. Then they asked me to play the piano at the baptism and for a musical number that the hermanas were singing. But i actually enjoyed that. I now kind of just soak up and take advantage of the chances i get to play the piano (thanks Mom). But in the end, they all got baptised and comfirmed, making it all worth it! Oh, and one thing that i loved about the baptism was that 2 of the members of the family that got baptised were baptised by 2 recent converts from the last year. The first one is a man that moved here from Korea, met a lady and they were living together before the missionaries found them. After being taught they got married and them plus their 2 daughters were baptised. Now in October they are going to the temple to get sealed as a family. The other was a 17 year old kid named Leandro. Before accepting the gospel, he was hard core in a gang, selling drugs, basically just doing anything an everything illegal haha. But about a year ago the missionaries found him, he dropped everything, made a complete change, and is such a strong member. He literally talks to everybody he knows and even people on the street because he just wants everybody to learn about the gospel. Miracles are so real and i cant even begin to tell you how many i have seen during my mission.

   Then to end a great week, Belén came to church and loved it. All of the hermanas from the relief society were so accepting and were just loving her to death. She is progressing so well for the 9th right now. She is just so prepared and has such strong desires to know her Father in Heaven just a little bit more. So yea, a great week if i would say so myself. But I love you all so much and hope you all have an amazing week. ¡Chao!

Elder Wengert-W9

Re: Photos!

Oh sorry, i didnt explain these. We ate an awesome asado yesterday called matambre a la pizza. It was so good!! This family is seriously so awesome and we have an asado with them for lunch everyother sunday!!

On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 11:03 AM, Derek Wengert <derek.wengert@myldsmail.net> wrote:

Photos!

My time of refinement!!!

    Thank you all so much for all of the birthday wishes!! Today is the birthday of one of the other Elders in my district, so we will be partying it up all pday long haha! Thank you so much for all pictures. Everybody looks so good and so grownup. Its so crazy to see. Tan Man, your sleeping experience on your campout out reminds me a lot of some of my nights here in Argentina haha! Sleeping without any blankets, splashing myself with water to cool myself down, and well the bugs arent too bad luckily. So it will be good preperation for your mission! But right now it has cooled off during the nights and we have a good heater. So i have been sleeping like a little baby! Dad, no worries. I am proud of my German heritage. I wouldnt change my Wengert name for anything. It was just a little ´´dodgy´´ (jessie talk right there haha) since a lot people didnt like germans very much after the loss. But it has settled down now and preselyting time is now back to normal! It sounded like a lot of fun having quinton down for a bit and that Tan and him have become good friends! Naes, good job at swimming! By the time you graduate from high school you will probably have every record possible! Jordy, it was pretty funny seeing who all was at your party since i remember going to high school with some of them! Wow, that world wide indexing event sounds so awesome!! I didnt hear anything about that. Family history is just so cool, i love it!!

   So we had a miracle pack week this time! Unfortunately we were only able to get in with Roberto and Teresa for like 15 minutes this week. Roberto told us that he still wants to meet with us and learn more, he just cant right now because of his work conditions. He doesnt have a set job and just does whatever he can find. So pray for him to find a good job and still have time to meet with us please! So when Elder Willard and I got here to Benavidez we only had record of 1 investigator, Belén Sanchez, in the area book. We called and passed by her house so many times, but never could find her. But we decided to pass by once again late one night before returning to the pench, and we found her. We got into the house, taught her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and at the end she accepted a baptismal date for the 9 of August!!! She really has a lot of desires to get baptised and join herself with the Lords people, it was just hard for her since she was always at school and studying (she is studying at the university here in San Juan). 1 month of hard work looking for her paid off!!! Miracles are real!!!! She was able to come to church yesterday because we passed by for here and she was sick. Dang it!! But next week for sure! 

    Well this week we saw so many miracles, but we didnt get much time to work. On thursday i had to travel to Mendoza in order to do paperwork to renew my visa since i have kind of been illegal here for the last 3-4 months. But its alright! i almost have it! I love you all so much, have a great week. This is my life and my time of refinement. And it´s the best!!!

Elder Wengert-W9

    

¡Miracles come!

  Ok seriously, do i really look like im from Germany? I cant even begin to tell you how many times this week I have been stopped in the street and asked if im German (ok fine, if you look back far enough in my family tree you will find Germany and the name ´´Wengert´´ does come from there as well, but argentines dont know that haha). But this week has been crazy with the final game going on. But we didnt get to watch it this time. Right after church we were required to go straight back to the pench where we had to stay without leaving for any reason until this morning. But we were able to kind of tell what was happening to just listening to the roars of Benavidez. But in the end Messi couldnt pull it off this time. Oh well, it was fun while it last and now we will finally be able to get back to normal missionary life and have to plan our schedules around the games because nobody would let us in during those times haha!

   Sounded like such an eventful week!! The Family Reunion sounded like so much fun and I really want to see a video of those swim moves haha. The testimony of Grandpa sounded absolutely amazing and so powerful. We are so lucky to be part of such amazing and strong families. And how grateful i am to have the oppurtunity to carry with me both the Wengert and Allen names. I couldnt imagine life without family and i cant imagine life after without family. Heaven just wouldnt be heaven without each and eveyone of you! I am way excited for the reunion next year, mostly for the food haha. Oh Momma guess what?! I got the birthday package this week!! I seriously could not stop laughing at all of the calender pictures. And im not really sure where you got some of those ideas, but good job! I know it was so much work to do it, but i love it! Thank you so much!! Jordy Poo, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! How are you already 17, that cant be! Enjoy your day, eat lots of food for me, and next year we can celebrate our birthdays together ok!

    So this was a much better week. We started it off with a meeting to meet President and Hermana Goates. Wow, they are so amazing. And he even remembered meeting Dad, so i was pretty impressed about that. They are probably some of the most loving people i have ever met, and I am so excited to work with them! So we had a lot of meetings this week which didnt give us a whole lot of time to work in our area. But the time that we did have, we worked hard, and the miracles came! We found an awesome family this past week. Tuesday night it was another tough day working wise, and we decided to knock one more house before heading back to the pench and we found Roberto. We talked to him for a bit and got a return appoitment for Friday. So we came back on friday but nobody answered when we knocked. So we started to walk away and the door gets flung open. There was Teresea, the wife (well more like partner or girlfriend since they arent married) of Roberto who immediatly let us in. So we got to sit down with both of them and teach the restauration. We learned that Teresa is actually a member but hasnt gone to church in a super long time. But they have been feeling like their church they have been going to lacks certain things and were looking for another one to go to. Unfortunately they couldnt come to church yesteday, but we have a cita with them tonight. They are a way solid couple!

    Saturday morning we got invited to a youth conference of the 2 stakes here in San Juan. There, the youth got to listen to President and Hermana Goates about missionary work and after they got to come out for a bit with us missionaries and place some cards anda pamphlets. The youth here in Argentina are just incredible. They are so strong and firm, have such strong tesimonies, and such great desires to share that with everybody else! 

    Well, I hope you all have a great week and enjoy the time as family! I love you all so much!

Elder Wengert-W9

Wow!!!!

Hola mis amores,

    Sounds like a great 4th of July for everybody. Painting and painting and painting. And who put my sweet Beau in all of the paint (even though she still looked adorable covered in it haha). We got to celebrate a little bit by drinking a few cokes (coca cola is huge here and so much better than the coke in the states) and then that night Elder Willard and I bought hamburgers to end the day. We had to get something american. Then we are celebrating a little bit more today! Dad, so it was Uncle Trace that served in Chile! We will be passing by bishops house tonight and ill ask her more about it then. That is awesome!! Mom, im sorry you are stuck in that boot. I know exactly how you feel. How long do you have to wear it for? Jordy and Naes, I want to hear more about EFY! And i love how braman got to go as well. I remember getting to go to EFY a few times with Easton. Great memories! So yes, somehow Argentina keeps winning. So everybody is going crazy about it. Even certain meetings with ward members are scheduled around the world cup. And im with you dad, I dont know how messi does what he does when he is so small. But what can i say ´´¡que capo!´´ ¨(what a stud). At first i was bummed out when the states lost. But i realized it was probably for our own good. If we played argentina and won, we would probably have to stay in the pench cooped up for atleast a week. Futbal is life here and if they got knocked out of the world cup by the US, they would really want to do some damage to us gringos haha!

     So one of the most influential people in my life is now gone. He went on home to Buenos Aires. But promised us that when we finish the mission and go through the Buenos Aires temple before going home (mission tradition here) him and his wife will meet us at the temple and do a session with us. He really is amazing! So we now have President Goates here with us. I still havent met him, but we are having a conference with him tomorrow morning. So i am way excited for that! I have heard a lot of good things about him though. So what a huge blessing it will be to have one more influential man to add onto my huge list. And from Arizona where i will be able visit him sometime.

    This week may have been one of the hardest weeks of my mission so far. Every single one of our appoitments that we had fell through and we only taught a total of 3 lessons. Two of them with less active members and the other with a drunk guy that wanted us to bless his house haha. We had been working so hard, but nothing had been going for us. Saturday night we went to an appoitment with a woman named Cecilia and her husband Pablo. Cecilia let us inside and right as we were about to sit down, her husband came around the corner just letting us have it. ´´What are you doing in my house without my permission! I am the man of the house! Get out and dont come back!!!´´. And that was kind of the last straw for me. I was absolutley devestated. Elder Willard and I just walked in silence most of the way to the pench. When we got back we sat down and had a good talk trying to figure out what we could do. And we kind of created a new game plan. But sunday us district leaders had a meeting with the zone leaders and there they shared with us President Ávilas last message to the mission coming home. It was focused on Jacob 5 about the Lord of the vineyard and his servant. In verses 41 and 47, the Lord of the Vineyard was crying and asking what more could he have done for his vineyard, but it still didnt give off good fruit. That was exactly how I had been feeling. What more could I do for my area? We have been working so hard and doing everything, but yet we werent having any success. Then it ends in verse 75 talking about working with dilegence and how blessed we will be to participate in this great work. Exactly what i needed to hear! I just thought it was truly amazing how much guidance and help i have recieved from President Ávila, even until the day he left! This week has now been one of the greatest weeks of my mission because of how it was full of personal growth and progession.

    I hope you all have an amazing week and i will hear from you next week. I love you all so much!!

Elder Wengert-W9