Hola!
Well This week has kind of been a slow work week. We have worked super hard running around everywhere trying to find people, but peoples hearts just seem so hard recently haha.
So today I hit 10 months in the mission. Woooo! Double Digits BABBBYY!! haha no big deal. FEDERAL WAY MISSSSSSION! that is sooooo awesome! You'll have to tell me where the mission office is when they choose a spot. That's super exciting. Federal Way is going to blow up and be the next Utah (mormon population wise, we don't want their SWAG) hahaha just kidding. What areas are included? Federal Way isn't big enough to host like 200 missionaries. I imagine that includes Kent and Auburn and places like that.
Our most solid people we have right now are kind of slowing down a bit. We were technically supposed to have had a baptism last Saturday, but obviously that didn't happen. I don't know whats going on, its super hard to contact this person now, but were going to try as hard as we can.
On Saturday we had a sweet talent show put on by the missionary team in our branch. The 4 missionaries in our branch included me and my comp. did a sweet sketch-dance haha.   I have a video of it, but its too big to send home. So I guess you just have to wait?
One family we're working with right now is progressing pretty good. Only the dad could come to church last Sunday, but still. We are getting him started on his divorce papers with his past wife, and then getting him and his current wife married. There are several road blocks to baptism, but I think they are willing to do it. We put their goal as the temple. The dad of the family downloaded all the pictures of the temple on his laptop and also downloaded a bunch of conference talks too. Its pretty awesome haha. Also when he came to church, he beat us to the chapel and he came out in a full suit! That never happens if you know Argentina. Everyone thought he was a member from a different branch haha. Super funny. These people are really solid, there are just a couple doubts here and there, but we can work those out for sure. I might not be here to see their baptisms because transfers are coming up soon. But everything is going to be all right with them.
Sounds like you guys as busy as ever over there haha. I guess that's a good thing though!                The weather is starting to change here for the better haha. THANK GOOOODNESS! I'm so tired of coming home sweaty! haha. But yeah, that's about it for now. I love you guys so much! It seems like forever since I've seen you now haha. All my life is now is the mission. I can't really remember what not being a missionary is like now haha. Well gotta run! CHOU! Con Amor,

Elder Wheelwright

Hola familia!
Yeah the beard beanie hat thing is from another Elder in our house. Its pretty coooool. Its call like beard hat or something haha. Yeah the whole dead investigator thing was kinda weird. You don't really know how to deal with it. Because you just have to keep working. So yeah, it was more awkward and strange than anything else. His wife isn't a member or even an investigator really. But she has been really nice to us. We haven't gone back over there yet, we´ll probably do that this week. Maybe this event in her life has shaken her up to want to listen to us! haha. Hopefully!
Yeah so this is really awkward and funny at the same time hahaha. IT was for sure a typo when I said ¨my elder Henry¨... haha. Somehow companion didn't make it in there. awkward...haha. My companion Elder Henry is what it was supposed to say. But we are pretty good friends though haha. That's a funny story about Dallin. That would be weird if he actually got to go home. That would make him a trucho missionary hahaha. Trucho...try to google it?         Dang that sucks about the teriyaki sauce...haha. Its all good though. I guess I can survive a little bit more longer. That's the food that I probably miss the most. That and mexican food.         Luckily I brought a ton of memory cards with me. I have a ton of space left still. And I don't think I'll ever run out of space until the end of my mission. Mediafire takes too long unfortunately, so it eats up a lot of my computer time which is not good haha.
So this week we had 3 people at church today! Now 3 of our investigators have 2 attendances! YEAH! The one that was supposed to get baptized this weekend didn't show up for some reason. We're kind of worried about her. She seemed really solid, but she might have gotten scared...hmm. We'll find out tomorrow at our appointment! We taught the family of our recent convert, Hanna, and we talked about temples and eternal families. We set this as their goal. Of course the parents still have to get baptized. And we talked about how they can get to that point too. Hanna has been asking them when they are going to get baptized haha. Shes so awesome! She is the most mature 9 year old I've ever met. Seriously!
OH....so at church with one of our investigators, we had a member sitting next to one of the investigators. And during the sacrament, the investigator went to grab the bread, and the member slapped his hand and said that he's not allowed to do that... WHAT! I was so mad when I found out that this happened. Luckily the investigator is super old and he probably didn't understand what was happening haha.
Well this week was kind of slow. But it was filled with a lot of good stuff. I love all you guys! Have an awesome week!!

Elder Wheelwright

Hola family!
I'm dying down here from the heat!   I finally got my haircut!!!! haha.   That helped a little bit, but now the sweat just runs down into my face. Grosssss.
Okay well something sad happened 2 weeks ago that I forgot to mention. One of our investigators died from Pancreas cancer.  He was really awesome and would have for sure gotten baptized.  The last time we talked to him, he told us that he wants to get better so he can go to church. I guess this form of cancer is really deadly and fast moving... Talking to his wife is really hard too. 'Im just this missionary kid from the states. She's crying and my spanish sucks so I don't really know what to do. I just feel really bad and super sad. Although, as we know death is not the end. Roberto will not change in the spirit world. If he was going to accept the gospel here from us, he will for sure accept it there as well.
SOOO...another death related experience that happened yesterday.   I almost died, for real for real haha.  Holy crap, you would have gotten a really crappy phone call if my Elder Henry didn't save me. So we were walking along the side of the road yesterday and this car was apparently coming up on us really fast. He was driving pretty much on the side of the road, where he shouldn't have been. I think he was drunk, I'm not sure.  But yeah, so I was walking, and Elder Henry looked back like 3 seconds before this car almost hit me head on. He grabbed my side instantly and pulled me over away from the car. I looked right when the car was passing me and he was exactly right where I was walking. Everything was all slow motion and stuff.  WIERD! haha.  So yeah, I'm here right now because my companion saved me!  Its crazy how close you can be to death. You can be taken at any second. So live life to the fullest!  It shook me up a little bit after, but I'm totally okay now haha.  Anyways. Enough of the crazyness.
The girl we are teaching went to church again! This time, we didn't even have to call and remind her. Actually she specifically asked us not too haha. But yeah, she showed up again and she is preparing for her baptism on February 23rd!!! I'm super stoked!!   We pretty much just need to teach her the commandments and then boom! In the water! Some guy that we found last Sunday totally came to church too! He is this 86 year old guy and he rode his bike to the church haha. He committed himself within the first 5 minutes of talking to him to come to the church. Legit. Those are the super easy ones haha. He cant hear very well, so when he talks, its super loud. So in the middle of one of the talks, he was practically screaming something to me haha. I tried to everything I could to get him to stop talking haha. But yeah, I think that's all!
I'm sure there was a ton more stuff that happened, but I cant remember...sorry! Well I gotta run!
Chou Family!!

Elder Wheelwright

Hola Family!
This week has been really awesome! We worked really hard, as usual duh, and we found a ton of people! The most we´ve ever found in the area so far! We found this one huge family of like 6 or 7 people, so that's really coool! They aren't 1000% solid, but if they keep up with their commitments, they will be!
I had exchanges this week for a day with this elder from Arizona. That was pretty interesting. I had to guide the area for the first time ever. I was kinda scared haha, but everything worked out good! We had some pretty good lessons!
Right now is the hottest part of the year for sure. You instantly get sweaty when you go outside. GAHHHH. Its so annoying. You just have to get used to smelling bad. Its terrible. But I guess were not out here to smell good and get girls haha. So It doesn't really matter.
During exchanges, we street contacted someone who was busy at the time, so we got her address. Then a couple days later, Saturday, we went and stopped by. The lady we found on the street let us in. Turns out she wasn't really interested, but her daughter sat in with us and in the end had interest in listening to us! It was awesome. The best part? She can speak English!! Not 100% fluent, but still. We taught her the 1st lesson and she accepted a baptismal date. I tried to do the baptismal date in English, but I literally couldn't haha.  I tried and the words didn't come. I forgot how to speak my native language for a second! So yeah, we just did it in spanish instead haha.
The next day Sunday.... we had 2 investigators at church! Whoooooo! One was the girl we found Saturday! It was awesome! And another was from the big family we found. They had a good time at church! It was so great. Although it was fast and testimony meeting...aka bad news. You never know what some crazy member is going to babble about. Thankfully, the only odd thing that got brought up was the word of wisdom. So we were safe! We had full member support during church too. People would say hi to them and sit next to them. This is the ideal ward and how all members should be like haha. So if anyone reading this isn't like that, change! haha.    Its so stressful having investigators at church though. Like its soooo draining!! The whole time, I'm just worrying about how they are feeling and what they are thinking. So when church was over, I was just like exhausted and super relieved. But yeah! AWESOME!
So about the spanish..haha. Yeah familia, I can teach in spanish. I'm probably not as bad as I think I am haha.  I can pretty much say what I want to say for most of the time. Oh, also Natalei is this awesome member in Colorado! She is super great and awesome so you should talk to her haha. She is the ward mission leaders wife.
 Man! Langleys call is soooo awesome! And sooo inspired. Also I don't want to be that prideful guy, but I totally called it! That's 2 for 2!  Langleys and Dallins! Hahaha! But yeah, there is a divine reason as to why he´s going to Cambodia. Maybe something with his ancestors or something. But he was called to his native land for a reason. Its so exciting and I'm super proud of him for making the decision to go on a mission. He is going to kill it in Cambodia! Agghhh!! So exciting!!
The sickness that is going around sounds pretty intense haha. Hopefully it doesn't make its way over here! Well I think that's it! Do you guys have any questions for me about the area or the country or anything like that? If so, shoot me an email!!  Well I love you guys!! You guys rock!

Elder Wheelwright

ps...this foto is of this fake pizza hut place in downtown Olavarria haha. Super funny!

Hola Familia!
All is well. I am not sick anymore haha. Thank goodness. It seriously sucked so bad. I think it was just bad food so many days in a row. Your body can only take so many gross empanadas at once. haha.
What happened this week...hmm. Its hard to remember haha. This week was really slow on finding. We worked super hard, but it seems like nothing came out of it..oh well. We´ll succeed eventually if we keep working hard! We had some pretty intense spiritual lessons this week. One was with the family of our recent convert Hanna. We talked about the baptism and they told us they felt the spirit and everything. The mom even told us that, ¨there is something there (in the church)¨. Its so awesome. We just testified like crazy after that. It was amazing. Its probably one of the most spiritually intense lessons of my mission so far. At the baptism, the dad of Hanna told one of the members of our branch that they will probably be getting baptized too into this church. AWESOME! Seriously, the ONLY thing holding them back from baptism is their dumb work schedules. They have to always work on Sunday. We are working with them on this. We read them 1 Nephi 3:7 and yeah. Its just amazing. I'm stoked! This is going to be hard but its all going to pay off when we get the whole family through the temple! Tha'ts where we see this all heading.
Also this week, one of our soso familes that were working with just asked about the marriage that we do in our church, because they have decided to get married!! This is super huge and were definitely going to knock them out with eternal families. Hahaha. Its going to be so great!
 Its still realllly hot down here! I'm dying! Good news is that were almost done with the hottest part of summer, which is January. I don't know what else to write haha. I'm going blank. But missions are awesome! They have their moments, but you just gotta plow through those. I love all of you guys and all of your support!! You rock!

Ohhh... p.s. we finally got a phone!!!! We´re SUPER stoked out of our minds haha. YESSS! World, watch out! Here we come!

Elder Wheelwright

Hola!

SOO....I’m staying in Olavarria for my 3rd transfer!  Transfers just make me super nervous.   I pretty much hate them. A lot of stuff stayed the same.   Elder Henry stayed too, so we'll have 3 transfers together.   This transfer is going to be a long one (9 weeks!), so that should be fun. I’m really glad that I stayed, our area is just starting to pick up.  There is a ton of potential and now we just need to harvest it. One guy that we´ve been working with said he was reading the Book of Mormon one day and he decided that he wanted to quit smoking.   We´ve never even mentioned the word of wisdom or anything like yet, so it’s awesome!! Miracles! Wooot!

Speaking of miracles...Miracle. She sounds like she´s going crazy haha. She just loves being outside. Hmm hopefully this is just a phase or something.    Speaking of dogs....holy crap,  I´ve never been more afraid of dogs than I am right now.   I hate running into mobs of angry dogs on the street.  It happened several times this week haha.  They just look so scary with their huge teeth and what not.  I miss clean, nice dogs from the U.S. hahaha.

We´re just passing the hottest time of the year right now, thank goodness.  I’m so tired of being super sweaty all the time.  It’s so gross. I can’t wait until winter is here!!  Hey so I got my ipod to work, so all is well.   It looks like you never responded to that email anyways.....haha. Gracias.

So I´ve been thinking of stuff that I want in my next package;  I want this stuff called Veri Veri Teriyaki. It’s this awesome sauce that you´ve bought before.  Also sweet and sour sauce.   I’m on an asian kick right now.   You can’t get anything like that here. You can buy rice super cheap, but nothing asian.  It’s like 10$ for a small bottle of imported sweet and sour sauce.  Expensive! Yeah.

So right now as I’m emailing...I feel like I’m dying. I don’t know what’s wrong, but I have a bunch of internal pain around my stomach area. I don’t know if it’s because we’ve eaten sketchy food recently or what.   I took a siesta today and I woke up feeling fine, until I started moving.   Immediate pain.   If this continues for much longer, I’m probably going to call the doctor or the Hermana Parreño.   I feel so sick and so in pain gahh.  Haha  Its so annoying.

 Yeah, so I need to control my spending for sure.   Don’t transfer any more money into my account haha. This is the time I need to learn self control. In Spanish self control is autocontrol..random.   But funny, right? haha.

The baptism this week was so awesome!! Hanna´s parents were able to come and everything.   I know without a doubt they are next, when they decide to make sacrifices with their work schedule.   I want to set them a temple date after they are baptized! EPIC!   So when we filled up the font, we kind of overflowed it..haha.  Oops.  We didn’t know it was going to fill up that fast, so we left it and went to work more.  Also the hot water in our building doesn’t work.. The water was 10000% cold!! Gah.   It was my first time actually getting into the water, and it was awesome.   I had been practicing the baptismal prayer all day to memorize it in Spanish.  It was pretty easy.   Hanna´s name was way harder to memorize. haha.  It’s like 6 names long.  The support from the ward was awesome!   So many people came.   We made these invitations and handed them out to families.   Maybe that’s why?   It was super successful and awesome.   Hanna was super happy afterwards.   AMAZING!!   First baptism in Argentina! Many more to come. haha. Lets get to workkk!

Umm honestly I don’t know about the number of missionaries in the mission and if it’s going lower. I’ve heard that there has been a pause on missionaries from the united states because it’s so hard to get a VISA.   But I'm not sure other than that.

Well I gotta go!  Chou!  Love you all!

Elder Wheelwright

 

Planking Argentina style!

 

 

 

              The picture with all the people is when we had refreshments in the cultural hall.

Hola!!

I’m super jelly of the cold weather. I just have to hold out until June! Then I will be plenty cold!   Socks pretty much suck here haha. Argentine quality will last me for a couple months I think or less. So if you have room, feel feel to send them. I don’t need a ton because Grandma Garlick sent me some! YAY!   My clothes are pretty much holding up. All of the pants that I have, have something wrong with them in different ways. But they are still going. So I will let you know in the future. Gracias for ordering me some insoles!    It’s going to be awesome haha.

Okay, so this Sunday, Hanna came again! Which means her baptism for this Saturday is SO going to happen. We´re really stoked. I know that once her parents see her get baptized, they are going to jump on board for sure. In the lessons, they are already like members. They always have BYU TV playing in their house. It’s crazy. The only thing holding them back is their dumb work schedules! Once we get around that, they will be baptized too.    But next transfer.   Hopefully I’ll still be around!    I can’t believe transfers are already here again. I really hope Elder Henry and I stay. Things are just starting to go our way.      The picture I attached of the 2 girls, Hanna is the one in the blue. She went to a baptism of another girl this week. They are like the best of friends now, so it’s perfect. Hanna already has good friends in the church and she is super excited to go every Sunday.

We’re also working with this owner of a pharmacy. I think I’ve talked about him before, but he is awesome. He reads the Book of Mormon a ton and yeah. He had to go to a wedding this Sunday though, so he couldn’t attend the church. LAME. Oh well, we´ll get him next week! He´s another huge reason why I don’t want to be transferred.

Zone conference was this week. It was pretty good. I had a way better experience at this one, than the one I had in the states. It didn’t feel as long! haha. Today I got 2 packages!! WOOOOT! Every hates on me for getting stuff all the time, but I don’t even care.  haha. The first package I got was from Alisha! It had a ton of pictures in it and stuff. Super awesome! The next one I got was from the Bullock family in Colorado. It had a bunch of letters from everybody in the best Colorado ward ever. OAKWOOOOD. haha. But yeah, that was super epic. I have plans on writing people back, it’s just when I get time. It’s super difficult to find time haha. But I will do it! Thanks everyone for your support! I love you all! Chou.

Elder Wheelwright