¡Christmas!

1. My awesome Christmas/Halloween present haha

2. Christmas night with Elder Evans and Hermano Lucero

¡2014 and Baby Clay!

    Dang, what an exciting email session!! Welcome to the fam baby Clay, and congrats Dallin and Amy. He is such a good lookin baby boy! Dang, im just so happy haha! Amy, I hope you recover quickly! Sounds like everything is great though! Dang, mom nice writing on the bathroom wall. It was a little wierd to see a bathtub as well. I think that tub is probably bigger than our whole bathroom! Tan, sounded like you played awesome in your football game. And what do you think you are doing? Your feet are only 1/2 a size smaller than mine!! ¡Que capo! Sounds like Arizona continues to kill it! Won their bowl game (which bowl game was that?), and Arizona basketball. Holy Cow!!! They sound so impressive! They beat both washington schools so that means they are in Pac-12 play now right? Exciting times, both in the mission world and the sports world haha! Nae Nae, go and kill it on JV. It really helped me a lot!

    Well, we had a great New Years here in Alvear. We spent it with the Familia Franco, a younger couple that have to little kids. They both served missions here in Argentina and Hermano Franco plays professional soccer. Which is a big deal here in Argentina. So we had dinner with them and after had a family home evening about setting goals for the next year. It was way fun!!

     Jess, I think its funny how you were talking about how nobody was outside the next day after New Years, so you didnt have anybody to talk to. But the thing is that is kind of like everyday here in Argentina because of the siesta! So just about nobody outside from 1 to about 6ish. It gets super frustrating. I love Argentina and I love the people, but I would love to change the cultural part of the siesta haha.

     We had such an awesome week. Mom, Leticia isnt able to get baptised this saturday, because she hasnt been able to come to church yet. But she is reading the book of mormon and has a super strong desire for baptism. She even has a goal to go the temple a year after. Way awesome! But this week we found Edit Fernandez (the lady who has a son living in St George Utah who is a member). We had been calling and calling and passing by the house for the last 2 weeks. But we saw her working in front of her house and went and talked to her right as her husband arrived. So they invited us in and had an awesome talk with them. They told us that we werent able to get into contact with them because they visited their son in St George for the holidays. While they were there, they visited the Christmas lights at Temple Square, the St George temple, and the house of Brigham Young. And they straight up told us that they felt the spirit very strongly at Brigham Young´s home. And it gets better, they are already reading the book of mormon. How crazy is that!!!!! They werent able to come to church with us yesterday, but we have a cita with them for this week. Super exciting!!

     Yesterday we saw a guy sitting on the side of the road on a slab of concrete just stairing at the ground. So we went on over and talked to him. We learned that his name was Walter and he went on to tell us about how terrible his life is. How he is having some very difficult trials and also bad spirits. So we talked to him about how we are here on the earth with a purpose. To learn how to obtain happiness and joy in this life. So we leaft him with a plan of salvation pamphlet and promised him that if he would read the pamphlet and meet with us, hat we would find that joy and happiness. So we have a cita with him this Tuesday. we walked away for about 10 minutes down the road and felt prompted to go back and leave him with our number. So we went back and he was sitting there really reading the pamphlet through. We gave him our number and you could see how much he already changed from the little bit he read. Already found a little bit more happiness. Truly an amazing experience!

    We are finally starting to get things rolling here in Alvear. We have found some people that look so promising. But this is the last of this transfer, so I could be leaving next week. I have 4 1/2 months here, so its very likely. So we will know this upcoming Sunday.

     Well, last year was a very tough year. But looking back I can truly see the growth that all of us obtained  through our trials and difficult times. I am looking forward to this new year of 2014 to grow some more and better myself. I love you all so much, I love you baby Clay, and hope you all have an amazing week!

Elder Wengert-W9

¡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

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