¡Buenos dias hermanos y hermanas!
I figured that hearing (and seeing) that Kyle got a haircut was news worthy of being the subject of my weekly email, so asi es [so it is]. It looks nice Kyle and I'm sure it feels nice too. It's always great to hear from you (mom and dad) each week and hearing what everybody is up to. Kristen I hope you have a great birthday this week and hopefully you get your card in the mail if you haven't already... We had a pretty good week here and are continuing to enjoy the sun and the sand here in Santa Teresita!
This week I had my first big missionary vs dog experience. When we are riding our bikes down the street there are always dogs EVERYWHERE, and for the most part they are all really tranquilo [mellow], but then there are also those that for some reason enjoy chasing anything that is moving quickly down the street. For the most part when these dogs chase you they just bark and follow you really closely and don't do anything, but this week I had a dog that actually wanted to eat my leg. Luckily it only bit into my shoe but it ripped a seam by my heel before I was able to kick it (it was probably really entertaining to watch as you can imagine).
This week I also had a great experience with prayer in finding something that I had lost. We were working one day in an area pretty far from our pension, riding our bikes all day in the sand all over the place. When we arrived at one of our investigator's houses I realized something didn't feel right and that my Missionary Manual was missing out of my back pocket... my missionary manual that had a copy of my Passport, all the mission phone numbers and information, and 87 pesos inside [about $23]. When we got back to the pension I was pretty bummed because I basically didn't have any more mission money for the month to use to buy food etc, and also it would be a hassle to get a new one. We made plans the next day to pass by the area where we were working to visit some investigators and to see if my mission manual was still in the street somewhere and prayed that I would be able to find it. We ended up not being able to go because we had to work in a different area and had a service project that lasted longer than we thought it would. The next day I realized that I probably would never find it again, when I noticed that we had a voice message on our cell phone. I called my companion over to make sure at least he understood what the person was saying, when to my suprise the message was from a man speaking almost perfect english saying that he had come across my mission manual. We called the number back and it turns out that it was the man who was the Translator for David A Bednar when he came to speak to us, and that his son who is here in Santa Teresita for vacation came across my mission manual when he was walking in the street one day... with all my money and everything still inside. We met up with his son and I got my mission manual back! :) I was very grateful and I know Our Heavenly Father is aware of us and our needs and listens to and answers our prayers.
That's about all the exciting news from me for this week. I love you all and hope you have a fantastic week and stay warm! I wish I could share a little bit of sun with you!
Les quiero Mucho,
Elder Ian Wheelhouse
Monday, January 25, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
¡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
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
Monday, January 11, 2010
Hello family and friends!
Wow so much has happened in the last 2 weeks or so and I feel very behind! = I hope you all had a happy New Years and a happy birthday Mom! ...and to answer your questions, Elder Spence is still in Fiorito with his 3rd companion in the area, this will be his 5th transfer there.
Here in Santa Teresita I was surprised to find out that we don’t really have any investigators that are progressing very well, so we’ve got lots of work to do! It is a big area (Mar de Ajo is part of our area as well) but luckily we have bikes.... bikes that work great on concrete! Here in Santa Teresita almost all the streets are sand, which makes it very difficult to get around at times, but I’m getting a lot of very good excercise!
Our pension in Santa Teresita is a lot nicer than the one in Fiorito. If you want to look it up on Google earth it is on Calle 4 between Calles 43 y 44 (Directions are very easy here because all the streets are numbered!) We aren’t allowed to go within 3 blocks of the beach unless we have an appointment with someone because apparently people prefer to walk around without clothes in this area sometimes.
Elder Gonzales is a hard worker and I am learning a lot from him (especially Spanish!) Sometimes it is difficult to understand everything he is saying and to be able to respond with what I want to say, but we get along pretty well! He wants to learn english so he can be a translator for General Conference someday, so I am trying to help him out with learning some english when we are in the pension. At least 3 times a day he asks me if we can listen to music on my picture frame. I am getting a lot more practice with Elder Gonzales teaching during lessons and doing contacts, hopefully it will continue to get easier and easier to do.
The weather is PERFECT here. The sun is always shining and even though it gets a little hot and humid sometimes there is always a nice ocean breeze! There are some great members in the branch here and we have an awesome mission leader. This last Sunday I got to bear my testimony in Sacrament meeting as a "welcome to the ward" and also played the piano in Priesthood meeting. The Church was very full because apparently there are a lot of members that are here for vacation.
Recently in my Personal Study I have started reading the New Testament and I’m in the book of Luke right now. It’s amazing to read the accounts of the life of our Savior and the amazing things he did and the example he set for each one of us! Every day I find things that I can improve in my own life to become more like him.
Thank you for your letters and support and I hope you all have a fantastic week!
Les Quiero Mucho!
Elder Ian Wheelhouse
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Hola from Santa Teresita!
Hello family and friends!
Sorry I wasn´t able to write yesterday, and today I really don’t have any time. I just wanted to let you know about some changes. I had my first transfer yesterday and I am now in the area that every missionary in the mission dreams of going to... the COAST! I had an "Other Side of Heaven" experience getting down here because I had to go catch a bus on my own to get down here. Luckily my zone leader and his companion as well as my new companion were there at the bus station waiting for me when I arrived after the 6 hour trip. My new companion Elder Gonzales is from Peru and I am very excited to get to know him better and learn from him. Our pension is about 4 blocks from the beach... I haven’t really seen much of our area yet, but what I have seen it is Beautiful! Very different from Fiorito! It was sad leaving behind all the people in Fiorito but we got to pass by and say goodbye to most of them and exchange contact information etc. Anyways, that’s all I have time for for now so until next week!
Love,
Elder Ian Wheelhouse
Sorry I wasn´t able to write yesterday, and today I really don’t have any time. I just wanted to let you know about some changes. I had my first transfer yesterday and I am now in the area that every missionary in the mission dreams of going to... the COAST! I had an "Other Side of Heaven" experience getting down here because I had to go catch a bus on my own to get down here. Luckily my zone leader and his companion as well as my new companion were there at the bus station waiting for me when I arrived after the 6 hour trip. My new companion Elder Gonzales is from Peru and I am very excited to get to know him better and learn from him. Our pension is about 4 blocks from the beach... I haven’t really seen much of our area yet, but what I have seen it is Beautiful! Very different from Fiorito! It was sad leaving behind all the people in Fiorito but we got to pass by and say goodbye to most of them and exchange contact information etc. Anyways, that’s all I have time for for now so until next week!
Love,
Elder Ian Wheelhouse
Monday, December 28, 2009
First Christmas in Argentina
Hello family and friends!
I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and will be having a fantastic New Years this week! Christmas down here was unlike anything i´ve ever experienced... and not just because it is HOT and humid! We had a great dinner Christmas Eve with our neighbors who live in the house behind us (we had to be "in the pension" at 6:30) and watched Joy to the World and sang some Christmas hymns. After that it was straight to bed at 10:30... I slept really great until midnight when it sounded like we were being bombed! At first when I woke up I thought it was just a really big Thunderstorm. The fireworks here are super loud, and not even that exciting to look at, and EVERYONE was outside doing them. Apparently New Years is going to be worse. We watched them for a couple minutes and then went back to bed and did our best to try and sleep.
My first Christmas in the mission will probably be a day I will always remember, and luckily it will always be a GOOD memory! We had our interviews with President Asay in Banfield (have to take a bus and a train to get there) that morning which went really well, he is an amazing man! After we finished up with interviews and district meeting we went to the mission home a block away from the chapel and had a Christmas FEAST with President Asay and his wife as well as his sons family who is visiting for the holidays! I´m not going to lie one of my favorite things about being in the mission home is being able to walk around in socks ON CARPET! The food of course was fantastic, everything a Christmas feast should be. We had ham, potatoes, different salads, desserts... and most importantly cheesecake and pumpkin pie! We concluded our little celebration having each of the districts share a brief message about Jesus Christ to celebrate the reason for the season as well as singing some Christmas hymns. We also had a quick white elephant gift exchange which was very entertaining with a group of 20 missionaries. I was very grateful that Pres. Asay let us into their home to share that special day with him and his family. There is nothing like Christmas at home, but then again there is nothing like Christmas in the mission either! When we finished up in Banfield it was time to be back in the pension and we got to call our families! It was so good getting to talk to all of you and hearing your voices! I´m already looking forward to getting to call again for Mothers Day!
The past couple days we´ve been working really hard to catch up on the work we missed out on during the holidays. We have some great investigators and we are going to have a couple more baptisms this Saturday! Jorge received the Aaronic Priesthood this last week and hopefully will be blessing the sacrament next week! It has been amazing to see how the gospel has changed and blessed his life. This week we watched The Testaments with him and his family, and the wife seems a lot more receptive now! The only challenge now is to get them to church! This Sunday I also gave my first talk in the mission! Luckily it was a very easy first talk... 3-5 minutes about missionary work! I wasn´t nervous at all and it went really well! The Branch Pres. wife complimented me on my spanish afterwards as well, so that made me feel pretty good too! Hopefully we will have some more luck getting people to help us with the missionary work here in the Branch as we still don´t have any ward missionaries!
That´s all for today! I hope you all have a fantastic week and a Happy New Years! This is the last week of my second transfer so there could be some news about some changes next week!
¡Les Quiero Mucho!
Elder Ian Wheelhouse
I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and will be having a fantastic New Years this week! Christmas down here was unlike anything i´ve ever experienced... and not just because it is HOT and humid! We had a great dinner Christmas Eve with our neighbors who live in the house behind us (we had to be "in the pension" at 6:30) and watched Joy to the World and sang some Christmas hymns. After that it was straight to bed at 10:30... I slept really great until midnight when it sounded like we were being bombed! At first when I woke up I thought it was just a really big Thunderstorm. The fireworks here are super loud, and not even that exciting to look at, and EVERYONE was outside doing them. Apparently New Years is going to be worse. We watched them for a couple minutes and then went back to bed and did our best to try and sleep.
My first Christmas in the mission will probably be a day I will always remember, and luckily it will always be a GOOD memory! We had our interviews with President Asay in Banfield (have to take a bus and a train to get there) that morning which went really well, he is an amazing man! After we finished up with interviews and district meeting we went to the mission home a block away from the chapel and had a Christmas FEAST with President Asay and his wife as well as his sons family who is visiting for the holidays! I´m not going to lie one of my favorite things about being in the mission home is being able to walk around in socks ON CARPET! The food of course was fantastic, everything a Christmas feast should be. We had ham, potatoes, different salads, desserts... and most importantly cheesecake and pumpkin pie! We concluded our little celebration having each of the districts share a brief message about Jesus Christ to celebrate the reason for the season as well as singing some Christmas hymns. We also had a quick white elephant gift exchange which was very entertaining with a group of 20 missionaries. I was very grateful that Pres. Asay let us into their home to share that special day with him and his family. There is nothing like Christmas at home, but then again there is nothing like Christmas in the mission either! When we finished up in Banfield it was time to be back in the pension and we got to call our families! It was so good getting to talk to all of you and hearing your voices! I´m already looking forward to getting to call again for Mothers Day!
The past couple days we´ve been working really hard to catch up on the work we missed out on during the holidays. We have some great investigators and we are going to have a couple more baptisms this Saturday! Jorge received the Aaronic Priesthood this last week and hopefully will be blessing the sacrament next week! It has been amazing to see how the gospel has changed and blessed his life. This week we watched The Testaments with him and his family, and the wife seems a lot more receptive now! The only challenge now is to get them to church! This Sunday I also gave my first talk in the mission! Luckily it was a very easy first talk... 3-5 minutes about missionary work! I wasn´t nervous at all and it went really well! The Branch Pres. wife complimented me on my spanish afterwards as well, so that made me feel pretty good too! Hopefully we will have some more luck getting people to help us with the missionary work here in the Branch as we still don´t have any ward missionaries!
That´s all for today! I hope you all have a fantastic week and a Happy New Years! This is the last week of my second transfer so there could be some news about some changes next week!
¡Les Quiero Mucho!
Elder Ian Wheelhouse
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Feliz...Merry Christmas!
Hello Family and Friends!
Merry Christmas Eve! Here in Argentina I guess the biggest fiestas are today to celebrate the "Noche Buena". I don’t know how many people will be out celebrating tonight unless the rain clears up because it has been raining most of the night and all morning. Anyways, as if there wasn’t enough to talk about for a single week like usual, today I get to try to tell you about what has happened since the last time I got to write a week and a half ago!
I received the packages from home and from Kristine this last week, and I just want to say THANK YOU for keeping them small! The envelopes were perfect sized and I didn’t have to pay ANYTHING! My companion and some other missionaries have already spent 400-500 pesos to receive their packages (100+ dollars) which is ridiculous! Thank you so much for everything and I am very excited to unwrap some presents tomorrow by our little Christmas trees! :) We had another baptism this week for Alejandra! She asked me if I would do it and of course I said yes! We had the service on Saturday, which unfortunately was a rainy day so we didn’t have too many people show up from the branch. The service went great and it was a very cool experience to do a baptism in Spanish! (The water was even nice and hot, but not as deep as I was expecting!) She has a strong testimony and has made some good friends in the church. We had a big fiesta with our branch and one of the other wards in our stake that she came to which was a great chance to get to know the members. It helped even more that the party didn’t really even start until 9:00 which was when we had to leave so she was forced to make some friends. :) We would love to have her 4 kids and her mom come to church as well, but she says it would be too difficult even with our help. We’ll see what happens with that...
Sunday, like most of the rest of the world, we had our Christmas themed sacrament meeting. We share our church building with another ward and their sacrament meeting starts at 9:30. We arrived to church a little late (9:15 or so) and when we got there the other ward asked if I would play the piano for their big Christmas program! I said I would... and I did, and it actually didn’t turn out so bad. I hadn’t ever played any of the songs with people singing before, but somehow I was able to make it through without too many problems. I love the Christmas hymns and I was grateful for the opportunity to be able to share them with this other ward. In our Sacrament meeting we had Alejandra’s confirmation which went really well! Our ward mission leader did the confirmation, and it’s always amazing hearing the things that are said in blessings that are exactly what that person needs to hear even though they barely even know them.
For Christmas we also got to get together as a Zone and do a service project. For our project, the hermanas arranged for us to go play with the kids at an Orphanage in their area. It was a little sad but we had a great time playing with the kids! We also had several bags of toys that were donated by members, and it was awesome handing those out as well! We had a couple Elders who took guitars and played and sang primary songs, people were playing ball, swinging on the swings, reading, drawing, and I was the "caballito" for a little kid named Seba who rode around on my shoulders for about an hour and a half. The kids had a lot of problems, but we all had a lot of fun and it was very sad leaving! The workers were very grateful, we were very grateful as well for the great opportunity, and it really is amazing what they do for these kids every day.
That’s all I have time for today, but I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and I am very excited to call home tomorrow! (I will call tonight to let you know what time I will be calling tomorrow).
¡Les Quiero Mucho!
Elder Wheelhouse
Monday, December 14, 2009
Baptism in Fiorito!
Mon, 14 Dec 2009
Hello family and friends!
It was great hearing from so many of you this week and I wish I had more time to email you all back! Sounds like some exciting things happened this week, and I have learned it is so much better to be busy than to have to try to find things to do. I am doing really well but very sick of being sick! I´m trying to accept that maybe that´s just part of being a missionary and trying hard not to complain too much. :P Just a heads up, I will not have another P-day until next Thursday (Dec. 24) so you probably won´t hear from me until then. But here is a little bit about my week.
First off, we had our first baptism this week! Jorge Rodriguez (44) was baptized and it was great to have his whole family there for the service! He is setting a great example for his family and hopefully they will follow it soon! The service went really well and we had great support from the members in our Branch. Elder Spence did the baptism, I was a witness and played the piano, and the Branch did everything else. What a great experience to see him take this essential step in his life and make this covenant with our Heavenly Father. The confirmation took place in church the next day, which unfortunately his family didn´t come to, and he met with our Branch President after to have a priesthood interview. He is very excited and already feels very accepted in the Branch.
Coming up this Saturday we have another Baptism. Alejandra (26), the aunt of the baby that died, is very excited to be baptized and has progressed really fast. She has 4 kids and lives with her mom, so it would be great if all of them could come to her baptism! More about this next week.
This week I went on my first intercambio with a Latin companion. It was a great way to evaluate my spanish and it actually went really well! I still have a lot to learn, but we were able to talk all day and he said he could understand everything I was saying (he does have some practice listening to other Elders try to speak his language though). I have learned a lot from Elder Spence and from studying the language as well, but there is nothing better than talking to people that already speak the language perfectly.
Sorry it´s so short this week, we are headed back to the pension to rest for a little bit before we go back out for work. Also, lucky me, I get to wake up at 430am tomorrow morning to go to Capital with the rest of the Elders that came down here with me to fill out some more Documents! I love you all and hope you have a great week!
Les Quiero Mucho
Elder Ian Wheelhouse
Hello family and friends!
It was great hearing from so many of you this week and I wish I had more time to email you all back! Sounds like some exciting things happened this week, and I have learned it is so much better to be busy than to have to try to find things to do. I am doing really well but very sick of being sick! I´m trying to accept that maybe that´s just part of being a missionary and trying hard not to complain too much. :P Just a heads up, I will not have another P-day until next Thursday (Dec. 24) so you probably won´t hear from me until then. But here is a little bit about my week.
First off, we had our first baptism this week! Jorge Rodriguez (44) was baptized and it was great to have his whole family there for the service! He is setting a great example for his family and hopefully they will follow it soon! The service went really well and we had great support from the members in our Branch. Elder Spence did the baptism, I was a witness and played the piano, and the Branch did everything else. What a great experience to see him take this essential step in his life and make this covenant with our Heavenly Father. The confirmation took place in church the next day, which unfortunately his family didn´t come to, and he met with our Branch President after to have a priesthood interview. He is very excited and already feels very accepted in the Branch.
Coming up this Saturday we have another Baptism. Alejandra (26), the aunt of the baby that died, is very excited to be baptized and has progressed really fast. She has 4 kids and lives with her mom, so it would be great if all of them could come to her baptism! More about this next week.
This week I went on my first intercambio with a Latin companion. It was a great way to evaluate my spanish and it actually went really well! I still have a lot to learn, but we were able to talk all day and he said he could understand everything I was saying (he does have some practice listening to other Elders try to speak his language though). I have learned a lot from Elder Spence and from studying the language as well, but there is nothing better than talking to people that already speak the language perfectly.
Sorry it´s so short this week, we are headed back to the pension to rest for a little bit before we go back out for work. Also, lucky me, I get to wake up at 430am tomorrow morning to go to Capital with the rest of the Elders that came down here with me to fill out some more Documents! I love you all and hope you have a great week!
Les Quiero Mucho
Elder Ian Wheelhouse
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