¡Hace Calor! (It's Hot!)

Buenos Dias family and friends!

Another beautiful week in Santa Teresita! It actually rained one day this week for about 2 hours, which was actually nice because the sand is a lot easier to bike on when it´s a little wet. :) Hope you have all had a good week and are enjoying some snow?

Almost every week the people here change because one group of tourists leave, and the next day a whole new group arrives. It´s very difficult to find people to teach sometimes because either they are tourists and only here for a week or so, or they are residents and work all day long because there are so many tourists. Apparently in March things slow down as all the tourists go home, so hopefully I´ll be around to witness that change. (Also we can go to the beach in the winter to play frisbee or volleyball for Pday! :))

Also this week I was introduced to a new flavor of empanada that I have never had before. For those of you who don´t know, Empanadas are basically an Argentine hot pocket. Bready stuff on the outside, and meat, eggs, cheese, basically whatever you want inside. They are DELICIOUS. But here in Santa Teresita there is a place that makes a special Hawaiian Empanada with Ham and Cheese and Pineapple! Let´s just say we have made several orders this last week to have some delivered to our pension at night, great snack! :)

This week we had some success finding some new investigators, including some who were old investigators in different parts of the country who are excited to be in contact with the missionaries again (always a good sign). We had several new investigators in church yesterday, and hopefully we´ll see a baptism or 2 before the transfer is over! Doing contacts is never really fun here, and we are always looking for special opportunities to do a contact rather than clapping houses (even though we do plenty of that). Saturday we were clapping houses on a street when we saw a lady out in front of the pasillo [alley?] where she lives picking up her garbage that had spilled. My companion didn't see her, so I told him that we needed to go help her pick up the garbage. We had a good chat with her and asked if we could pass by one day to talk with her family, she accepted, and also told us that she had a neighbor that had been meeting with the missionaries before. Long story short, that neighbor also had another neighbor, and we now have 3 people in this pasillo to teach all from one small act of service! It was something very small but strengthened my testimony that the Lord is preparing people and directing us to them in small and simple ways.

Yesterday I also had the opportunity to speak in Sacrament meeting again. I found out that I was going to speak on Friday morning... through my companion... through the ward mission leader... basically it was a little weird not hearing it from someone in the bishopric, but he told me that I needed to speak about Missionary work for 5-10 min. I figured it would be a piece of cake. I prepared my talk the next day and finished it up Sunday morning before church, and when we got to church I was informed that I was one of only 2 speakers and that I would be the last speaker in charge of filling the rest of the time. After some last minute preparation and lots of praying, it was my turn to speak, and I was able to speak and fill the remaining time. I felt very calm and grateful that the Lord listened to my prayers and blessed me with his Spirit to be able to speak in this moment of need.

I hope you all have a fantastic week and I am excited to here from you again next week! Thank you for your prayers in behalf of Elder Gonzales and I and for missionary work in general!

¡Les Quiero Mucho!

Elder Wheelhouse