Dear family and friends,
Another great week here in Argentina. The weather has been very pleasant y it seems like the summer heat is finally gone for good! Had a great morning cleaning the pension y doing some laundry (I have really come to enjoy washing my clothes by hand!) y excited to finally sit down and relax, y best of all to hear from and write to all of you!
This week we have started working with a less active member that my companion found one day on intercambios with Elder Sanchez. La Familia Palavecino - Jorge is the father, the mom Argemina, Nadia (18), Belén (15), Ariel (13), Priscila (10) y Nahuel (9). The parents y 2 daughters were baptized several years ago in Guernica y shortly after moved to the Province of Santiago where they pretty much lost contact with the church. They lived about 4 hours from the nearest chapel there, so they decided to attend an Evangelist church near by to be sure that their children were raised with the teachings of Jesus Christ in their lives. When they moved back here to Berazategui, they continued attending a branch of the Evangelist church here that they had been with for the past several years. They recieved us VERY well in their home y are great people! The mother is already set on coming back to the church, but the father is having a little harder time. We have passed by several this weeks and are reteaching the lessons from PMG y helping them remember the things that the missionaries had taught them before. The father admitted that he has all the doctrine confused in his head, but that he has great desires to follow God y knows that He is there to answer and guide him. They also have their son and several grandchildren who haven´t been baptized yet. We are excited to get them involved with the members y they will be a great addition to the ward!
Yesterday in Church Darío was suposed to be ordained a Priest, but he ended up not even showing up! Apparently he had gone to a Young Single Adults activity y dance on Saturday y some friends there had invited him to their ward for some reason. Also, apparently he had gotten in a fight with his family y didn´t stay with them this weekend like he usually does, but he at least said that he won´t let that get in the way of his going to church,etc. Obviously we hope they can get things resolved! We were a little shocked at the news, but content that at least he went to church! We had to explain to him that it is very important that he goes to the ward where he belongs, ESPECIALLY to be able to recieve the priesthood. We had a great lesson with him about the priesthood this week, although he felt a little bummed about not being able to recieve the Melchizedek priesthood right away. He is pretty excited y destermined on preparing to serve a mission!
On Friday we had Zone Conference in Adrogue... which meant waking up extra early to be able to make the 2 hour train trip. Always great to learn from y be with Pres. y Hna. Stapley as well as the other missionaries. We talked a lot about chapter 6 in preach my gospel about developing "Christlike Attributes" y several missionaries were called on randomly to give the 5 minute talk that we all had to prepare before hand speaking about one of those attributes. Even though I didn´t get called on, I enjoyed y learned a lot preparing that talk. After lunch, we have the tradition of singing happy birthday to all the Elders y Hermanas who have birthdays during the 2-3 months between conferences, so this time it was my turn! It was extra special this time because they sang the birthday song in 3 different languages... Spanish, English, y Portuguese for the new Elder that arrived from Brasil y is serving in Wilde (y Hna Stapley who speaks portuguese)! So that was pretty cool... then on top of that we got a tasty chocolate rice crispy treat, homemade with love from Hna. Stapley!
Anyways, that’s all for this week! Can´t wait to hear from you all again soon! ¡Cuidense!
les amo
Elder Ian Wheelhouse
Monday, March 21, 2011
Monday, March 14, 2011
FW: A very "HOT y COLD" week
Dear family y friends,
Wow, already half way through March. Things are FINALLY starting to cool down here yesterday y today, but the last week was very hot y humid! Crazy how the seasons change here... but we´ll see if the cooler weather lasts or if we still have a couple hot days ahead. It was great hearing from several more of you this week and I am hoping to be able to write you all back so I´m going to try to keep this short.
Started off the week with a great Pday. We invited the other Elders in our district over to our pension to do an Asado (BBQ) y it turned out really well. None of us really knew what we were doing... but there we were with 4kg ($150) of meat (chorizo, vacio, tapa de asado, cosquillas), a 5kg bag of charcoal and a parilla and all we had to do was find someway to get the meat cooked. I got the fire started to heat up the coals y we left the Argentines in charge of cooking the meat. It only took 30 seconds leaving the meat unattended as we were all inside for the meat to catch fire, y if the neighbors hadn´t walked in right then we might not have even been able to save it. (We heard them all upstairs laughing afterwards...) Other than that everything turned out really tasty and we had a good time talking y even had some time to play some Uno afterwards.
Thank you for the late warning on being careful what I eat mom! :P Apparently something must have not gotten cooked enough Monday, because I spent Tuesday y Wednesday very sick in the pension. (somehow all the other elders were just fine) Luckily I was able to at least leave in the afternoon to go to the church for lessons with Darío finishing up the lessons to prepare him for his baptism. He listens y understands everything so well and was very well prepared y excited to get baptised! He suprised us with his understanding y testimony of the Restoration y Joseph Smith since it had been several weeks since we had taught it, but as we were talking about the commandments he went off about how "everybody has there own way of interpreting and living the commandments and thats why it was so important that God called a prophet in these last days to help us know the way HE wants us to do things to prepare us to be able to return to live with him." He also talked about how he wants to serve a mission... and he asked us if he would have an opportunity to share his testimony after his baptism. We were both shocked, but of course very happy y excited to see that he had so many desires to continue learning and share what he had found with other people. Friday we had the interview which he passed y he asked me to baptize him.
Saturday we had the baptism y everything actually turned out PERFECT. We actually had the baptism in the morning, which was a first for me, so we had to be there extra early (7 am) to start filling up the font. Taking pictures before the service was pretty cool. It was a pretty overcast day but as we were taking a pic with the fam the clouds parted and the sun shone through on the 3 of us standing. My comp leaned over to Darío y said "looks like God wants to say hello". My comp conducted the meeting, I played the piano, 2 of Daríos sisters gave talks, the Bishop y his wife gave a welcome to the ward, and Darío had his moment to share his testimony. He shared his story about how he found the church through his family, his testimony of the restoration, his desires to always stay faithful, and said everyday he finds something new that he loves about the church. That morning y afternoon there was also an Institute activity there in the church, so it was great for him to have some new friends there for his baptism, y he ended up staying all afternoon playing ping pong, fooseball, eating food, y for the dance that evening.
Sunday was his confirmation y Darío got there even before we did to have an interview with the Bishop to prepare him to be ordained a Priest next week. We were also suprised to have Pres. Stapley show up to our ward, so it was very cool for him to be there and talk a little bit with him. The talks were perfect as well talking about missionary work y one of the hermanos shared his story about how he found the church when he was 23 years old (same age as Darío) y how he prepared y served a mission in Córdoba. Presidente y Hermana Stapley also shared their testimonies y put in a good word of us about how the members need to give us more people to teach y baptize! That afternoon apparently it was my companions turn to get sick and he spent the afternoon y a good part of the night throwing up in the pension.
Anyways, thats it for now! I love you all! Hope you have a fantastic week.
les amo
Elder Ian Wheelhouse
Wow, already half way through March. Things are FINALLY starting to cool down here yesterday y today, but the last week was very hot y humid! Crazy how the seasons change here... but we´ll see if the cooler weather lasts or if we still have a couple hot days ahead. It was great hearing from several more of you this week and I am hoping to be able to write you all back so I´m going to try to keep this short.
Started off the week with a great Pday. We invited the other Elders in our district over to our pension to do an Asado (BBQ) y it turned out really well. None of us really knew what we were doing... but there we were with 4kg ($150) of meat (chorizo, vacio, tapa de asado, cosquillas), a 5kg bag of charcoal and a parilla and all we had to do was find someway to get the meat cooked. I got the fire started to heat up the coals y we left the Argentines in charge of cooking the meat. It only took 30 seconds leaving the meat unattended as we were all inside for the meat to catch fire, y if the neighbors hadn´t walked in right then we might not have even been able to save it. (We heard them all upstairs laughing afterwards...) Other than that everything turned out really tasty and we had a good time talking y even had some time to play some Uno afterwards.
Thank you for the late warning on being careful what I eat mom! :P Apparently something must have not gotten cooked enough Monday, because I spent Tuesday y Wednesday very sick in the pension. (somehow all the other elders were just fine) Luckily I was able to at least leave in the afternoon to go to the church for lessons with Darío finishing up the lessons to prepare him for his baptism. He listens y understands everything so well and was very well prepared y excited to get baptised! He suprised us with his understanding y testimony of the Restoration y Joseph Smith since it had been several weeks since we had taught it, but as we were talking about the commandments he went off about how "everybody has there own way of interpreting and living the commandments and thats why it was so important that God called a prophet in these last days to help us know the way HE wants us to do things to prepare us to be able to return to live with him." He also talked about how he wants to serve a mission... and he asked us if he would have an opportunity to share his testimony after his baptism. We were both shocked, but of course very happy y excited to see that he had so many desires to continue learning and share what he had found with other people. Friday we had the interview which he passed y he asked me to baptize him.
Saturday we had the baptism y everything actually turned out PERFECT. We actually had the baptism in the morning, which was a first for me, so we had to be there extra early (7 am) to start filling up the font. Taking pictures before the service was pretty cool. It was a pretty overcast day but as we were taking a pic with the fam the clouds parted and the sun shone through on the 3 of us standing. My comp leaned over to Darío y said "looks like God wants to say hello". My comp conducted the meeting, I played the piano, 2 of Daríos sisters gave talks, the Bishop y his wife gave a welcome to the ward, and Darío had his moment to share his testimony. He shared his story about how he found the church through his family, his testimony of the restoration, his desires to always stay faithful, and said everyday he finds something new that he loves about the church. That morning y afternoon there was also an Institute activity there in the church, so it was great for him to have some new friends there for his baptism, y he ended up staying all afternoon playing ping pong, fooseball, eating food, y for the dance that evening.
Sunday was his confirmation y Darío got there even before we did to have an interview with the Bishop to prepare him to be ordained a Priest next week. We were also suprised to have Pres. Stapley show up to our ward, so it was very cool for him to be there and talk a little bit with him. The talks were perfect as well talking about missionary work y one of the hermanos shared his story about how he found the church when he was 23 years old (same age as Darío) y how he prepared y served a mission in Córdoba. Presidente y Hermana Stapley also shared their testimonies y put in a good word of us about how the members need to give us more people to teach y baptize! That afternoon apparently it was my companions turn to get sick and he spent the afternoon y a good part of the night throwing up in the pension.
Anyways, thats it for now! I love you all! Hope you have a fantastic week.
les amo
Elder Ian Wheelhouse
Monday, March 7, 2011
FW: ¡Hoy festejamos CARNAVAL! [Today we celebrate Carnaval!]
Dear family and friends,
OK so we are not really going to celebrate Carnaval in the same crazy way the people celebrate here, (I imagine late at night with lots of alcohol y plenty of mischief to go around) but we are getting together as a district to do an ASADO this afternoon! :) Still having some HOT y HUMID weather here in Buenos Aires. I am very ready for it to start to cool down. Not sure what inspired so many of you to write me this week but I sure can´t complain, it was GREAT to hear from you all! I hope to get the chance to respond to each of you today, but we´ll see what the time allows.
Started off this week with a very laid back p-day, followed by a Noche de Hogar with the Familia Silva (A widowed mother with 12 kids from 3-26 years old). The girls invited a non member friend y we had a great lesson/discussion with everyone. After the lesson came the food... Apparently in Paraguay they have a tradition of eating the heads of animals, and Monday night they happened to prepare a pigs head to eat. Not sure exactly how they prepared it... but they had it set out on the table on a platter y they passed around forks and knives for everyone. Almost immediately after we said "amen" you could hear the clanking of forks and knives as 20 plus hands went in for the attack to pick off some head meat. My comp and I sat back to observe until one of the sons passed us a plate with the lower jaw bone to pick at. The little meat there was was actually very tasty y pretty much tasted like Pork. After about 15 minutes of picking at the meat on the outside of the head one of the sons opened up the skull with a knife to get to the brain. After seeing the steam come out with an unpleasant smell I don´t know HOW I accepted the invitation to try a bit of the brain... but I did it! Everyone laughed at me because I gagged several times getting it down.... I don´t think it was THAT bad really, but the texture killed me! AT least I got lots of pictures to document my experience.
Thursday and Friday this week we had a special Capacitacion for all the District y Zone leaders in the mission with Pres. Stapley in Adrogue. Wednesday evening we got together with another district leader in the zone who stayed in my area with me for the 2 days of the capacitacion while our comps went back to his area. The meetings were GREAT y it was fun seeing almost all the elders from my MTC group y catching up with them. We had about 3 hours in total travel time each day in bus y train y we were both EXHAUSTED by the end of the second day. Always impressed by the love Pres. Stapley has for all of us missionaries. The night before the capacitacion he hardly slept because he recieved a suprise phone call saying that he had 4 missionaries on the way down here that would arrive the next day that he had not heard anything about beforehand. He is and has already made some BIG changes in the mission y we are already seeing some of the results.
Saturday we had a special lunch appointment with my companions mom. She called Pres. Stapley Monday to ask for permission to see her son (she is not a member) y he told us it would be ok to eat lunch with her. She flew in from Cordoba that morning y had several hours here in Buenos Aires before she had to fly out to Cuba for a conference she had to go to. Apparently she came here around Christmas time as well, so it wasn´t really anything new for my comp. Very nice lady! She was VERY against the church when my comp was recieving the discussions y even when he left on the mission. Now she is recieving the missionaries y going to church and as we sat down to eat she even offered to say the prayer! I think he was pretty content to see her progress y luckily he took it really well and it didn´t make him homesick or anything. She also brought us several boxes of tasty Alfajores from Cordoba. :)
Yesterday Darío came to church again and had a great experience. In Testimony meeting an Hermano who I think is from the High Council got up and spoke directly to Darío, which had me a little worried at first but it turned out to be a great blessing. He talked about how he had the same age when he came to know the church and how the gospel had changed his life completely. On top of that we also got him involved with the Young Single Adults in the ward y he seems really excited to start participating in the activities etc. All of that basically built up to the cita we had with him last night when he told us he had felt really good in church y that he made his decision that he wants to be baptized as soon as possible. We talked a little bit about baptism and what he needed to do to prepare... and my comp set the baptismal date for THIS SATURDAY! Caught me a little bit off guard, because we had talked about setting it for the 19th. We still have a lot we need to teach, but we have both felt that he is READY y will be able to make it just fine.
Anyways, thats pretty much the news for this week. Thank you for your prayers y support. I love you all!
les amo
Elder Ian Wheelhouse
OK so we are not really going to celebrate Carnaval in the same crazy way the people celebrate here, (I imagine late at night with lots of alcohol y plenty of mischief to go around) but we are getting together as a district to do an ASADO this afternoon! :) Still having some HOT y HUMID weather here in Buenos Aires. I am very ready for it to start to cool down. Not sure what inspired so many of you to write me this week but I sure can´t complain, it was GREAT to hear from you all! I hope to get the chance to respond to each of you today, but we´ll see what the time allows.
Started off this week with a very laid back p-day, followed by a Noche de Hogar with the Familia Silva (A widowed mother with 12 kids from 3-26 years old). The girls invited a non member friend y we had a great lesson/discussion with everyone. After the lesson came the food... Apparently in Paraguay they have a tradition of eating the heads of animals, and Monday night they happened to prepare a pigs head to eat. Not sure exactly how they prepared it... but they had it set out on the table on a platter y they passed around forks and knives for everyone. Almost immediately after we said "amen" you could hear the clanking of forks and knives as 20 plus hands went in for the attack to pick off some head meat. My comp and I sat back to observe until one of the sons passed us a plate with the lower jaw bone to pick at. The little meat there was was actually very tasty y pretty much tasted like Pork. After about 15 minutes of picking at the meat on the outside of the head one of the sons opened up the skull with a knife to get to the brain. After seeing the steam come out with an unpleasant smell I don´t know HOW I accepted the invitation to try a bit of the brain... but I did it! Everyone laughed at me because I gagged several times getting it down.... I don´t think it was THAT bad really, but the texture killed me! AT least I got lots of pictures to document my experience.
Thursday and Friday this week we had a special Capacitacion for all the District y Zone leaders in the mission with Pres. Stapley in Adrogue. Wednesday evening we got together with another district leader in the zone who stayed in my area with me for the 2 days of the capacitacion while our comps went back to his area. The meetings were GREAT y it was fun seeing almost all the elders from my MTC group y catching up with them. We had about 3 hours in total travel time each day in bus y train y we were both EXHAUSTED by the end of the second day. Always impressed by the love Pres. Stapley has for all of us missionaries. The night before the capacitacion he hardly slept because he recieved a suprise phone call saying that he had 4 missionaries on the way down here that would arrive the next day that he had not heard anything about beforehand. He is and has already made some BIG changes in the mission y we are already seeing some of the results.
Saturday we had a special lunch appointment with my companions mom. She called Pres. Stapley Monday to ask for permission to see her son (she is not a member) y he told us it would be ok to eat lunch with her. She flew in from Cordoba that morning y had several hours here in Buenos Aires before she had to fly out to Cuba for a conference she had to go to. Apparently she came here around Christmas time as well, so it wasn´t really anything new for my comp. Very nice lady! She was VERY against the church when my comp was recieving the discussions y even when he left on the mission. Now she is recieving the missionaries y going to church and as we sat down to eat she even offered to say the prayer! I think he was pretty content to see her progress y luckily he took it really well and it didn´t make him homesick or anything. She also brought us several boxes of tasty Alfajores from Cordoba. :)
Yesterday Darío came to church again and had a great experience. In Testimony meeting an Hermano who I think is from the High Council got up and spoke directly to Darío, which had me a little worried at first but it turned out to be a great blessing. He talked about how he had the same age when he came to know the church and how the gospel had changed his life completely. On top of that we also got him involved with the Young Single Adults in the ward y he seems really excited to start participating in the activities etc. All of that basically built up to the cita we had with him last night when he told us he had felt really good in church y that he made his decision that he wants to be baptized as soon as possible. We talked a little bit about baptism and what he needed to do to prepare... and my comp set the baptismal date for THIS SATURDAY! Caught me a little bit off guard, because we had talked about setting it for the 19th. We still have a lot we need to teach, but we have both felt that he is READY y will be able to make it just fine.
Anyways, thats pretty much the news for this week. Thank you for your prayers y support. I love you all!
les amo
Elder Ian Wheelhouse
Monday, February 28, 2011
El Fin de Febrero
Dear family and friends,
Another week gone by here in El Cruce. The news about transfers today is that there is no news. Elder Castro Peña y I will be staying together another transfer. This last transfer was pretty rough with all the moving so we are looking forward to a nice tranquilo transfer y hoping to have some success! We are still having some HOT summer weather, it has been super humid lately. Hope you are all still enjoying the snow! I would love to have some of that down here!
This week I had my second EVER baptism interview that went really well. It was a lady that the Zone Leaders had been teaching named Lucy. We spent 15 min talking with everyone in her 1 bedroom apartment, then headed up to the roof to have a private place to do the interview. It was amazing to see how well prepared she was and how excited she was about her baptism and the gospel. During the interview however something came up about something she had done in the past that she felt she hadn´t truly repented of. I knew that in the case that something like that came up... Pres. Stapley had to do the interview y I couldn´t make any promises as to whether she would be able to get baptized that Saturday or not, which I knew would be very disappointing for her. From that moment on I was praying very hard to know what to say. I don´t remember exactly what we talked about but everything turned out really well and I felt that she had truly repented of what she had done. She told me several times that she had never told ANYONE in her whole life, and it suprised me to see for one that she trusted me, and 2 that she recognized the importance of being honest y prepared for the covenant she was about to make with God. Long story short, she was able to have an interview with Pres. Stapley the next day and got baptized on Saturday!!
Also some very sad news this week that I want to be brief about... but Monday night I got a call at around 230 in the morning from an Elder in my district who was spending the night with 2 other Elders while his comp went to Capital to do documents. He said that one of the Elders had left around 11 to "go to the plaza to sleep" (weird) y that he still hadn´t returned. Even weirder was that his companion let him go like it was nothing bad at all. I called the Zone Leaders several times with no response so I eventually ended up calling the Assistants (felt bad waking them up, but when it´s an EMERGENCY) who in turn called Pres. Stapley. Around 330 the Elder showed up again at the pension, so I was able to get back to sleep at least... but I know there were several people that weren´t so lucky and didn´t sleep at all that night. The next day I got a call saying that the 2 Elders that were involved were on a plane home... which was actually a big shock because one of them was one of my companions several transfers ago.
Anyways, don´t want to end on a sad note.... Yesterday we also had a cool experience. Before leaving the pension to go to church, my companion y I said a prayer that our investigators, by some MIRACLE, would be able to make it to church that day. When we got to the bus stop we were only there a couple minutes before we saw what we thought was an answer to our prayers. A returned sister missionary walking towards the stop with her inactive brother y her non member mom who is a SUPER evangelist! We had a cita with them the night before and we were thinking MAYBE something we had shared had her interested in coming to church with us. Turns out she was actually headed to a conference at her church... Little disappointing, but we didn´t give up hope. As we were greeting everyone arriving to Sacrament meeting we found that an Hermana had brought one of her friends to church that day, so we were able to talk with her a bit, as well as the daughter of another family who brought her boyfriend who we have recently started to teach! Truly an answer to our prayers. They both enjoyed the church y couldn´t have been a more perfect topic on the talks talking about the Family y preparing for the future.
Anyways, that´s all for this week. I love you all and hope you have a great week! Thank you for all your prayers and support!
les amo
Elder Ian Wheelhouse
Another week gone by here in El Cruce. The news about transfers today is that there is no news. Elder Castro Peña y I will be staying together another transfer. This last transfer was pretty rough with all the moving so we are looking forward to a nice tranquilo transfer y hoping to have some success! We are still having some HOT summer weather, it has been super humid lately. Hope you are all still enjoying the snow! I would love to have some of that down here!
This week I had my second EVER baptism interview that went really well. It was a lady that the Zone Leaders had been teaching named Lucy. We spent 15 min talking with everyone in her 1 bedroom apartment, then headed up to the roof to have a private place to do the interview. It was amazing to see how well prepared she was and how excited she was about her baptism and the gospel. During the interview however something came up about something she had done in the past that she felt she hadn´t truly repented of. I knew that in the case that something like that came up... Pres. Stapley had to do the interview y I couldn´t make any promises as to whether she would be able to get baptized that Saturday or not, which I knew would be very disappointing for her. From that moment on I was praying very hard to know what to say. I don´t remember exactly what we talked about but everything turned out really well and I felt that she had truly repented of what she had done. She told me several times that she had never told ANYONE in her whole life, and it suprised me to see for one that she trusted me, and 2 that she recognized the importance of being honest y prepared for the covenant she was about to make with God. Long story short, she was able to have an interview with Pres. Stapley the next day and got baptized on Saturday!!
Also some very sad news this week that I want to be brief about... but Monday night I got a call at around 230 in the morning from an Elder in my district who was spending the night with 2 other Elders while his comp went to Capital to do documents. He said that one of the Elders had left around 11 to "go to the plaza to sleep" (weird) y that he still hadn´t returned. Even weirder was that his companion let him go like it was nothing bad at all. I called the Zone Leaders several times with no response so I eventually ended up calling the Assistants (felt bad waking them up, but when it´s an EMERGENCY) who in turn called Pres. Stapley. Around 330 the Elder showed up again at the pension, so I was able to get back to sleep at least... but I know there were several people that weren´t so lucky and didn´t sleep at all that night. The next day I got a call saying that the 2 Elders that were involved were on a plane home... which was actually a big shock because one of them was one of my companions several transfers ago.
Anyways, don´t want to end on a sad note.... Yesterday we also had a cool experience. Before leaving the pension to go to church, my companion y I said a prayer that our investigators, by some MIRACLE, would be able to make it to church that day. When we got to the bus stop we were only there a couple minutes before we saw what we thought was an answer to our prayers. A returned sister missionary walking towards the stop with her inactive brother y her non member mom who is a SUPER evangelist! We had a cita with them the night before and we were thinking MAYBE something we had shared had her interested in coming to church with us. Turns out she was actually headed to a conference at her church... Little disappointing, but we didn´t give up hope. As we were greeting everyone arriving to Sacrament meeting we found that an Hermana had brought one of her friends to church that day, so we were able to talk with her a bit, as well as the daughter of another family who brought her boyfriend who we have recently started to teach! Truly an answer to our prayers. They both enjoyed the church y couldn´t have been a more perfect topic on the talks talking about the Family y preparing for the future.
Anyways, that´s all for this week. I love you all and hope you have a great week! Thank you for all your prayers and support!
les amo
Elder Ian Wheelhouse
Monday, February 21, 2011
Buenas Tardes de "la Plaza de Miserere"
Dear family and friends,
Ok so if the title made you think we already had transfers... SUPRISE! Actually transfers are not till next week. But today I am writing from downtown Buenos Aires from the train station "el Once"! I actually spent the day in the Buenos Aires West mission boundaries with Elder Jeldes from Chile. He is going home next week and got permission from Pres. Stapley to make a trip to "Ituzaingo" to visit his grandpa y for some reason Pres. didn´t want him to go with his companion... so he invited me! We left early this morning y had a long trip in bus, subway, and train, in areas that neither of us knew anything about. Luckily we arrived ok y had a great visit with his Grandpa and Aunt who aren´t members y ate some very tasty Asado for lunch. I´m pretty sure we were offered just about every drink that is against the word of wisdom.... but ended up enjoying a nice bottle of lemon lime soda. :) Great people!
This week has been very complicated, but the good news is we FINALLY got moved in to our new Pension! It is the nicest one I have lived in yet y hopefully I will be able to stick around to enjoy it for a while! We did meet a couple of our "neighbors" y could possibly have some opportunities to teach them. Our new address for those who want to look it up on google maps... Dardo Rocha 548, Berazategui, Buenos Aires. Very clean, great shower :), we have a great super market across the street and we live very close to the majority of our members y investigators! My companion is very content to finally be moved into the new place after all the work he has done the last 4 months, but a little bummed to realize that next week he could get transferred to a different area!
Overall pretty rough week. We were both pretty discouraged y EXHAUSTED from the moving. Luckily we have some great investigators that kept us motivated to leave each day to work! Yesterday we had Dario in church again. This time he stayed for ALL the meetings. We went with him to the Young Single Adults class. (A girl in our ward actually just got back from spending the last 3 months or so with her sister in Salt Lake, so it was fun to talk to someone in English first of all, but also being able to talk about Utah! I´m not homesick I promise!) But Dario really seemed to enjoy the classes and participated a lot. I think everyone was suprised to discover that he wasn´t a member. We had a lesson about miracles y he shared that it was a miracle that he was there in the church after finding his family who he hadn´t seen for 24 years and how everything worked out perfectly for him to be there. His original baptism date was for this Saturday... 26 Febrero, but he wants a little more time y we still have a lot we need to teach him.
Anyways family, good to hear from all of you this week. Keeping plenty busy as usual y being GREAT at all you do! Hope you all have a great week!
les amo
Elder Ian Wheelhouse
Ok so if the title made you think we already had transfers... SUPRISE! Actually transfers are not till next week. But today I am writing from downtown Buenos Aires from the train station "el Once"! I actually spent the day in the Buenos Aires West mission boundaries with Elder Jeldes from Chile. He is going home next week and got permission from Pres. Stapley to make a trip to "Ituzaingo" to visit his grandpa y for some reason Pres. didn´t want him to go with his companion... so he invited me! We left early this morning y had a long trip in bus, subway, and train, in areas that neither of us knew anything about. Luckily we arrived ok y had a great visit with his Grandpa and Aunt who aren´t members y ate some very tasty Asado for lunch. I´m pretty sure we were offered just about every drink that is against the word of wisdom.... but ended up enjoying a nice bottle of lemon lime soda. :) Great people!
This week has been very complicated, but the good news is we FINALLY got moved in to our new Pension! It is the nicest one I have lived in yet y hopefully I will be able to stick around to enjoy it for a while! We did meet a couple of our "neighbors" y could possibly have some opportunities to teach them. Our new address for those who want to look it up on google maps... Dardo Rocha 548, Berazategui, Buenos Aires. Very clean, great shower :), we have a great super market across the street and we live very close to the majority of our members y investigators! My companion is very content to finally be moved into the new place after all the work he has done the last 4 months, but a little bummed to realize that next week he could get transferred to a different area!
Overall pretty rough week. We were both pretty discouraged y EXHAUSTED from the moving. Luckily we have some great investigators that kept us motivated to leave each day to work! Yesterday we had Dario in church again. This time he stayed for ALL the meetings. We went with him to the Young Single Adults class. (A girl in our ward actually just got back from spending the last 3 months or so with her sister in Salt Lake, so it was fun to talk to someone in English first of all, but also being able to talk about Utah! I´m not homesick I promise!) But Dario really seemed to enjoy the classes and participated a lot. I think everyone was suprised to discover that he wasn´t a member. We had a lesson about miracles y he shared that it was a miracle that he was there in the church after finding his family who he hadn´t seen for 24 years and how everything worked out perfectly for him to be there. His original baptism date was for this Saturday... 26 Febrero, but he wants a little more time y we still have a lot we need to teach him.
Anyways family, good to hear from all of you this week. Keeping plenty busy as usual y being GREAT at all you do! Hope you all have a great week!
les amo
Elder Ian Wheelhouse
Monday, February 14, 2011
¡Feliz día de los enamorados! pobres misioneros...
Dear family and friends,
Well... the summer heat is back unfortunately, at least for a couple more weeks. I guess I will just have to try to enjoy it while I can. Still not moved into our new place yet either but we got a call from the offices this week saying the papers finally went through and we should be moving in in the next couple of days. How FUN! We recently got back from our Zone Activity today. We had planned to play some sports on the "beach" a.k.a. the shores of Rio de la Plata (I could almost see Uruguay) but we got there to find that it was high tide and the beach was full of water (and DISGUSTING WATER at that). BUMMER!
This week started off GREAT. Monday night we had a great appointment with Dario. We talked about the Restoration y Baptism and invited him to be baptized on the 26th of February. We have a lot to teach in that period of time, but he is very prepared y understands really well the importance of recieving an answer from God for himself if the things that we teach are true. At the end of the lesson he told us that it is not just coincidence that he found his family y we found him at the same time. We are keeping frequent contact with him y were a little sad when we found out he would be staying with his adopted family in Quilmes for the weekend and wouldn´t be able to make it to church Sunday. But to our suprise on our way to the church that morning we saw him with his family just getting off the bus.
Tuesday and Wednesday morning I spent in "Platanos" again doing an intercambio with Elder Sanchez. He and his companion are still not getting along, and everything I had heard told me Elder Sanchez was causing the problems. Tuesday morning after district meeting the zone leaders and I had a little sit down with him to hear his side of the story. The intercambio was also a great opportunity to see how well he works in his area and to get to know him a little better. We actually had a really successful day, and I enjoyed working with him. I found that he is a really good Elder who is trying to do what he is supposed to. At the same time he does have several issues that make it a little hard for him to get along with people... We talked a little more about the situation with his companion and I tried to help him figure out a way that he could finish off the transfer in the best way possible. Hopefully things will get a little better! On top of that today I found out that one of the other companionships in my district is having some major problems y almost got into a fight last night... so on top of moving this week I imagine I will have to do something about that. I am sure there is plenty to learn from all of this, but it can sure be discouraging sometimes!
Saturday we had a nice long service project. A week or so ago we were walking down the street when a guy out in front of his house painting some boards called us over to talk to him. He said "Finally the Elders came to my house to visit me!" After talking a little bit we found out that his mom is a member in a different Stake. We offered to help him with the painting or if he needed help with anything else and he told us that if we wanted to do some work we could come back on Saturday to help him build something. We set an appointment for Saturday morning bright and early y showed up right on time to find that he was still sleeping! After about 45 min of waiting for him to wake up y get dressed y drink his mate, we got to work. I got my hands all blistered up pretty good swinging a pick around y shoveling dirt to poor a big concrete pad in front of their house. We had a great chat getting to know him and he had several questions about the church as well. He has his wife y 4 kids... a 7 month old baby, 2 year old daughter, 4 year old son, and a 10 year old daughter. (See foto) Apart from his family, almost the whole family of his wife lives in the same house (parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, etc.) y we are looking forward to passing by again soon y having a good chat with them!
Yesterday we had Stake Conference which was fantastic. We had 3 investigators show up that we weren´t expecting at all! Dario, the father of a girl who sings in the stake choir who we have been working with, and an investigator that I still dont know who recently returned from vacation in the coast. There were some great investigator friendly messages talking about Testimony y about how the Gospel blesses families. I think just about every single person there got up to go to the bathroom at least once at some point during the 2 hour conference. A little distracting... but we were able to talk with our investigators afterwards and they all said they had really enjoyed the messages that were shared y the music.
Well, thank you to all of you who wrote me this week! and as always to all of you for your prayers! Hope you all have a fantastic week and a happy Valentines day!
les amo
Elder Ian Wheelhouse
Well... the summer heat is back unfortunately, at least for a couple more weeks. I guess I will just have to try to enjoy it while I can. Still not moved into our new place yet either but we got a call from the offices this week saying the papers finally went through and we should be moving in in the next couple of days. How FUN! We recently got back from our Zone Activity today. We had planned to play some sports on the "beach" a.k.a. the shores of Rio de la Plata (I could almost see Uruguay) but we got there to find that it was high tide and the beach was full of water (and DISGUSTING WATER at that). BUMMER!
This week started off GREAT. Monday night we had a great appointment with Dario. We talked about the Restoration y Baptism and invited him to be baptized on the 26th of February. We have a lot to teach in that period of time, but he is very prepared y understands really well the importance of recieving an answer from God for himself if the things that we teach are true. At the end of the lesson he told us that it is not just coincidence that he found his family y we found him at the same time. We are keeping frequent contact with him y were a little sad when we found out he would be staying with his adopted family in Quilmes for the weekend and wouldn´t be able to make it to church Sunday. But to our suprise on our way to the church that morning we saw him with his family just getting off the bus.
Tuesday and Wednesday morning I spent in "Platanos" again doing an intercambio with Elder Sanchez. He and his companion are still not getting along, and everything I had heard told me Elder Sanchez was causing the problems. Tuesday morning after district meeting the zone leaders and I had a little sit down with him to hear his side of the story. The intercambio was also a great opportunity to see how well he works in his area and to get to know him a little better. We actually had a really successful day, and I enjoyed working with him. I found that he is a really good Elder who is trying to do what he is supposed to. At the same time he does have several issues that make it a little hard for him to get along with people... We talked a little more about the situation with his companion and I tried to help him figure out a way that he could finish off the transfer in the best way possible. Hopefully things will get a little better! On top of that today I found out that one of the other companionships in my district is having some major problems y almost got into a fight last night... so on top of moving this week I imagine I will have to do something about that. I am sure there is plenty to learn from all of this, but it can sure be discouraging sometimes!
Saturday we had a nice long service project. A week or so ago we were walking down the street when a guy out in front of his house painting some boards called us over to talk to him. He said "Finally the Elders came to my house to visit me!" After talking a little bit we found out that his mom is a member in a different Stake. We offered to help him with the painting or if he needed help with anything else and he told us that if we wanted to do some work we could come back on Saturday to help him build something. We set an appointment for Saturday morning bright and early y showed up right on time to find that he was still sleeping! After about 45 min of waiting for him to wake up y get dressed y drink his mate, we got to work. I got my hands all blistered up pretty good swinging a pick around y shoveling dirt to poor a big concrete pad in front of their house. We had a great chat getting to know him and he had several questions about the church as well. He has his wife y 4 kids... a 7 month old baby, 2 year old daughter, 4 year old son, and a 10 year old daughter. (See foto) Apart from his family, almost the whole family of his wife lives in the same house (parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, etc.) y we are looking forward to passing by again soon y having a good chat with them!
Yesterday we had Stake Conference which was fantastic. We had 3 investigators show up that we weren´t expecting at all! Dario, the father of a girl who sings in the stake choir who we have been working with, and an investigator that I still dont know who recently returned from vacation in the coast. There were some great investigator friendly messages talking about Testimony y about how the Gospel blesses families. I think just about every single person there got up to go to the bathroom at least once at some point during the 2 hour conference. A little distracting... but we were able to talk with our investigators afterwards and they all said they had really enjoyed the messages that were shared y the music.
Well, thank you to all of you who wrote me this week! and as always to all of you for your prayers! Hope you all have a fantastic week and a happy Valentines day!
les amo
Elder Ian Wheelhouse
Monday, February 7, 2011
18 meces (18 months)
Dear family and friends,
Sounds like some exciting stuff happened this last week! I continue to hear stories from everyone here about how much it has been snowing in the United States.... any of that happening in Utah? We have enjoyed some cooler weather here these last couple days and it seems like the hot summer weather should be coming to an end pretty soon. The mornings and evenings are nice and cool but it can still get pretty hot during the day. Another week gone by with no place to call home! Still no news on when we will be able to move into our new pension.
This week we had interviews with Pres. Stapley. The mission is focusing a lot in Obedience right now and he shared some great scriptures with us. Romans 5:19 y 1 Timothy 3:12-16. We also actually spent a good part of time in my interview talking about a companionship issue in my district that is getting out of control. :S Tomorrow afternoon Pres. asked that the Zone Leaders and I have a chat with this particular Elder to try to understand better why he is doing the things he is doing. I have never been one that likes to correct people, but I think the most important will just be to listen y try to understand his point of view and offer some counsels in a kind, loving way. Apparently he didn´t respond well even to Pres. Stapley, so hopefully we will be inspired to find the best way to help him enjoy and have success in the mission.
We also had some pretty interesting teaching experiences this week. We visited an inactive member family who absolutely LOVES the missionaries y is always talking about how Missionary Work is the best thing the church has. The father has some SERIOUS word of wisdom problems. I´m pretty sure he smoked a whole box of cigarettes just in the hour or so we were visiting with them as well as downing a bottle of beer. He doesn´t want anything to do with the church and told us we could pass by to visit but that he doesn´t want us sharing ANYTHING or inviting them to do anything with the church. They actually invited us to stay for dinner y he actually didn´t have any problem with us blessing the food and he even said the closing prayer. He has 2 daughters who aren´t members y they seem to get along really well as a family, but could be doing SO MUCH better with the gospel in their lives. I imagine we will pass by one or 2 more times to see if there is any chance of possibly sharing a message with them, but if not we can´t afford to continue passing by.
On Tuesday we contacted a reference we recieved last week of a guy named Marcelo who apparently gave the other missionaries the address to his work. We got to the work site y someone must have a) seen how confused we looked and b) known exactly what we wanted, because they came up and asked if we were looking for Marcelo. Not at all what I was expecting, a big 6´4¨guy who looks like he could be a professional football player y who speaks really well in english. They called him over and we talked for a minute before he excused himself to finish loading up a big dump truck with sand before his lunch break. We had a good talk with him and got to know him a little bit, and he even drove us in his car to our lunch cita that we were running late for. He seems more interested in practicing English with us than anything else (he is planning to go to the UK to study) but apparently he is married y sounds like he has a great family! We set a cita with him to have an English discussion in the church on Saturday which ended up falling through, but we have been in contact and he gaves us his address and invited us over to his house this week.
This week we also visited Darío a couple times, y he is turning out to be one of the best/most prepared investigators I have seen in my whole mission! He told us a bit more of his story, how he had been living with an adopted family his whole life and recently made contact with his biological father who lives in our ward. It is very obvious that his adopted family is very well off, y he told us that he never felt like he fit in with his adopted family y never felt loved. His fathers family is almost the complete opposite, a very large, humble family, but he said that in these 3 weeks that he has known them, even though a bit awkward at first, he has felt accepted and loved more than any other time in his life. Almost the whole family are members of the church y even though they are less active, he has seen first hands the blessings of having a family who lives and follows gospel principles. He has already picked up the habit of praying and everything we teach he understands perfectly. He is already making good progress on the Book of Mormon y well on his way to recieving a testimony! The only downside is that he is only at their house on the weekends y he is planning to go study to be a policeman starting in March. This evening we are hoping to visit him and set a baptismal date for the end of this month!
Delio also is doing really well. Still working on the whole marriage issue. He is from Paraguay and doesn´t have Argentine documents so it could be a little harder than we had thought originally. He continues to come to church and is more than ready to be baptized. Yesterday he even got up and bore his testimony about prayer in Sacrament meeting! Noemi also finally came (his member girlfriend) as well as their 3 kids Cristian (7), Juakin (4) y Milagros (5 months). Sure a handfull!
Last night I also talked with Elder Alvarez and got some news from Wilde! Apparently they had an emegency transfer y he has been with his new companion for about a week now. They are also looking for a new pension (finally!) but are finding that everything in Wilde is VERY EXPENSIVE, suprise surpise. Apparently a lot of the members are on vacation... but some exciting news... Marcos y Soledad are planning to get married on February 28th!!!! I imagine they will be baptized that following weekend and I am hoping to get permission to go to their baptism considering it is relatively close (7 train stations, we also have several buses that go to Wilde!) He seems to be happy and having some success in the area which of course left me feeling pretty content as well.
Anyways family, thats all for this week! Hope you all have a Happy Valentines day and I am looking forward to hearing from you all next week! As always thank you for your prayers in behalf of all of us here in Argentina!
les amo
Elder Ian Wheelhouse
Sounds like some exciting stuff happened this last week! I continue to hear stories from everyone here about how much it has been snowing in the United States.... any of that happening in Utah? We have enjoyed some cooler weather here these last couple days and it seems like the hot summer weather should be coming to an end pretty soon. The mornings and evenings are nice and cool but it can still get pretty hot during the day. Another week gone by with no place to call home! Still no news on when we will be able to move into our new pension.
This week we had interviews with Pres. Stapley. The mission is focusing a lot in Obedience right now and he shared some great scriptures with us. Romans 5:19 y 1 Timothy 3:12-16. We also actually spent a good part of time in my interview talking about a companionship issue in my district that is getting out of control. :S Tomorrow afternoon Pres. asked that the Zone Leaders and I have a chat with this particular Elder to try to understand better why he is doing the things he is doing. I have never been one that likes to correct people, but I think the most important will just be to listen y try to understand his point of view and offer some counsels in a kind, loving way. Apparently he didn´t respond well even to Pres. Stapley, so hopefully we will be inspired to find the best way to help him enjoy and have success in the mission.
We also had some pretty interesting teaching experiences this week. We visited an inactive member family who absolutely LOVES the missionaries y is always talking about how Missionary Work is the best thing the church has. The father has some SERIOUS word of wisdom problems. I´m pretty sure he smoked a whole box of cigarettes just in the hour or so we were visiting with them as well as downing a bottle of beer. He doesn´t want anything to do with the church and told us we could pass by to visit but that he doesn´t want us sharing ANYTHING or inviting them to do anything with the church. They actually invited us to stay for dinner y he actually didn´t have any problem with us blessing the food and he even said the closing prayer. He has 2 daughters who aren´t members y they seem to get along really well as a family, but could be doing SO MUCH better with the gospel in their lives. I imagine we will pass by one or 2 more times to see if there is any chance of possibly sharing a message with them, but if not we can´t afford to continue passing by.
On Tuesday we contacted a reference we recieved last week of a guy named Marcelo who apparently gave the other missionaries the address to his work. We got to the work site y someone must have a) seen how confused we looked and b) known exactly what we wanted, because they came up and asked if we were looking for Marcelo. Not at all what I was expecting, a big 6´4¨guy who looks like he could be a professional football player y who speaks really well in english. They called him over and we talked for a minute before he excused himself to finish loading up a big dump truck with sand before his lunch break. We had a good talk with him and got to know him a little bit, and he even drove us in his car to our lunch cita that we were running late for. He seems more interested in practicing English with us than anything else (he is planning to go to the UK to study) but apparently he is married y sounds like he has a great family! We set a cita with him to have an English discussion in the church on Saturday which ended up falling through, but we have been in contact and he gaves us his address and invited us over to his house this week.
This week we also visited Darío a couple times, y he is turning out to be one of the best/most prepared investigators I have seen in my whole mission! He told us a bit more of his story, how he had been living with an adopted family his whole life and recently made contact with his biological father who lives in our ward. It is very obvious that his adopted family is very well off, y he told us that he never felt like he fit in with his adopted family y never felt loved. His fathers family is almost the complete opposite, a very large, humble family, but he said that in these 3 weeks that he has known them, even though a bit awkward at first, he has felt accepted and loved more than any other time in his life. Almost the whole family are members of the church y even though they are less active, he has seen first hands the blessings of having a family who lives and follows gospel principles. He has already picked up the habit of praying and everything we teach he understands perfectly. He is already making good progress on the Book of Mormon y well on his way to recieving a testimony! The only downside is that he is only at their house on the weekends y he is planning to go study to be a policeman starting in March. This evening we are hoping to visit him and set a baptismal date for the end of this month!
Delio also is doing really well. Still working on the whole marriage issue. He is from Paraguay and doesn´t have Argentine documents so it could be a little harder than we had thought originally. He continues to come to church and is more than ready to be baptized. Yesterday he even got up and bore his testimony about prayer in Sacrament meeting! Noemi also finally came (his member girlfriend) as well as their 3 kids Cristian (7), Juakin (4) y Milagros (5 months). Sure a handfull!
Last night I also talked with Elder Alvarez and got some news from Wilde! Apparently they had an emegency transfer y he has been with his new companion for about a week now. They are also looking for a new pension (finally!) but are finding that everything in Wilde is VERY EXPENSIVE, suprise surpise. Apparently a lot of the members are on vacation... but some exciting news... Marcos y Soledad are planning to get married on February 28th!!!! I imagine they will be baptized that following weekend and I am hoping to get permission to go to their baptism considering it is relatively close (7 train stations, we also have several buses that go to Wilde!) He seems to be happy and having some success in the area which of course left me feeling pretty content as well.
Anyways family, thats all for this week! Hope you all have a Happy Valentines day and I am looking forward to hearing from you all next week! As always thank you for your prayers in behalf of all of us here in Argentina!
les amo
Elder Ian Wheelhouse
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