Keep On Keepin' On

Jesus Maria is 30 miles north of Cordoba.

¡Hola! ¡Espero que hayan tenido una buena semana!

So this letter is going to be shorter since I emailed only last Thursday.

So, Thursday morning we went and visited all of our investigators. We were dead from our travel and spending three days on our feet. We did quick visits because we could hardly concentrate. Then we wrote home, did some shopping and took a quick nap to rejuvenate. Then we went to clase de inglés with the elders. They teach every week and we decided to come and see it. We are going to start taking turns teaching it.

On Friday, Hermana Romeril woke up with a fever. She´d caught a cold at the temple. So we went and bought her some medicine and she rested. We had planeamiento semanal and I made lunch. She slept and tried to feel better. In the evening, we went to go to an appointment with a new investigator, Mauricio. We could only talk to him for a moment, but he told us that he wants to be baptized! He´d also already been to church once. We were like, perfect! Will you come to church this Sunday too? He said yes. So all he needs are the lessons! He also has to work things out with him mom, though. She is very controlling and doesn´t want him to join the church. He´s in his 20's but doesn´t want to burn bridges with his mom.

Saturday, Hermana Romeril was still sick. But we had some appointments and couldn´t miss them. In the afternoon, we had an appointment with Alejandra and all of her family. We brought an hermano from the ward and we were going to do a noche de hogar with them (Family Home Evening). When we got there, they wouldn´t answer. We could see their keys in the lock, but they never came to the door. We felt so bad! We´d brought this hermano and everything. Later in the evening, we tried to visit some people but they weren´t home.

My companion is the greatest! On Sunday morning, we woke up and she said, "Stay in the room. I´ve got a surprise for you." She made breakfast! She made cereal, toast, and mate. She´s so cute! She´s also feeling better. Her fever went away and now she just needs to get rid of the cough. Then we went to church and had meetings all day. Sundays can be frustrating because I don´t understand the half of it. I just sit there hoping that no one calls on me to make a comment. It´s getting better, though. I didn´t used to understand even the topic that we were on. At least now I get the gist of it.

Anyway, it was a good week. I hope you know how much I love you all!!!

¡Que tengan una buena semana! ¡Les amo!

Love from,

Hermana Micaela Wilson

A Note from a Missionary Mom

Thank you, fellow missionary mom, for taking the time to send me this photo and message.

"My son has been serving in the Argentina Córdoba mission. Today was his last day. When we picked him up at the mission office, we met your daughter. She went to high school with two of our sons who were in orchestra and choir together. The one her age is in Germany on a mission. I wanted you to see your daughter. She is doing well, is picking up on the language. I can tell she'll be a great missionary."

Siguid adelante y Dios le bendicirá

¡Hola! ¿Qué tal?

Sorry I couldn´t write on Monday. We were working in the temple and didn´t get a P-day.

Bueno. Tuesday of last week we went with the elders to give a woman who is neighbors with Jorge y Serafina a blessing. She has lots of migraines and back pains. The blessing was beautiful! I´m so glad we have elders here! Then, we visited Jorge y Serafina (without the

elders) and they committed to baptism!!! We´re so excited!

Wednesday we went to visit Jorge y Serafina and taught them. They’re afraid to pray. I think that it´s something really hard to start doing. It´s new and people *tienen vergüenza. (No sé cómo se dice en inglés.) We´re going to work with them on that.

Thursday was our day of miracles! In the morning, we were teaching Jorge y Serafina and we were about to end the lesson when Sebastian (a nephew of Jorge´s) came in. We started talking to him and he has a lot of questions. We set an appointment for the next day. Then, in the evening we were teaching Alejandra, Elena, and Rut, and Rut was so excited to tell us what she´d learned from Moroni 10! Then we taught them OLA. Orar (pray), leer (read), y asistir a la iglesia (attend church). They were really receptive! It was great! Then we went to go visit a family. We were talking with one of the sons, Matias, who isn´t a member and was a little bit wary of the missionaries. We were talking to him and he told us that he was trying to stop smoking. We asked him why and he said that he´d promised God. We were astonished. The elders are teaching him and he is making a lot of progress.

Friday we went to Córdoba to work in the temple. We are receptionists there. We do one of two things. Either we are in the first tent and introduce the movie that talks about the temple, or we are in the last tent where they can ask questions and fill out comment cards. We go on rotation. I enjoy the first tent best. It was really fun to work with other hermanas, especially because some of them were going home on Tuesday. One of them, Hermana Gonzalez, was an old companion of Hermana Romeril and so I´ve heard a lot about her. She´s hilarious! She even gave me a pair of her earrings as a parting gift. (Since she´s now home.)

On Saturday we were back in Jesus María. We were teaching Serafina in the morning and she told us that ever since we started teaching her, her pains in her back, legs and arm have gone away. She told us that before, she couldn´t even leave the house. Now she can walk around her neighborhood without any problems or pains. That was amazing! Then we went to teach Sebastian. We only had 10 minutes so we did a quick run-through of the restoration. It was really powerful. He even consented to pray at the end! That rarely happens! So many people are too afraid. We were so happy!!!

Sunday... Sundays can be hard because you committed people to come to church, and then they don´t come. So you’re sitting there waiting for them, but they don´t show up. This Sunday, Alejandra and her family committed to come to church. We told them that we´d meet them at their house and we´d walk together. When we got there, the Elena (who can´t come because of her ulcers) told us that they´d already left. So we rushed to the church. But they weren´t there. So we waited. Finally, we took the elders bikes and rode to their house. Alejandra was there and told us that they couldn´t come because Joel had a soccer game and they all had to be there. We were really disappointed. It´s hard because you really love your investigators and you want the best for them. And you know that what is best is this Gospel. So when they don´t keep their commitments, it hurts. But grief is the price of love. So we´ll keep the grief so we can love as He does.

Monday we went to Córdoba to work in the temple again. It´s fun to see all of the people come. The temple closed at 5 though and then the office elders had us go contacting for them. Because it was transfers and the temple open house, they couldn´t really work in their area. We stayed with a investigator family. There´s the grandma, the mom, and the daughter. They´re from England and talked to us in English. Well, the mom and the daughter were born in Argentina, but they speak really good English. In their house, I feel more like I´m in England than Argentina.

Tuesday, we were working in the temple again. There have been a lot of returned missionaries that have come with their spouses. It´s fun to see them look at their areas and their reactions to how much things have grown.

Wednesday we were again in the temple. It´s good. We like the temple, but it´s hard too. We´re on our feet all day for almost 12 hours. I´m more tired from one day in the temple than I am from a week in the field. It´s really weird. It´s amazing to see people´s reactions to the temple. You know that they felt the Spirit and it´s wonderful to be able to talk with them and answer their questions.

Anyway, now we´re back in Jesus María. Oh, transfer news. I´m staying with my companion!!! I´m so glad! Also, the elders stayed too, so nothing changed with us. Next transfer will probably much different, though.

I hope you are all doing well! I love you so much! Keep on keepin´ on!

Love from,

Hermana Micaela Wilson

Sorry I don´t have pictures. My camera died... Next week I promise!!!

*Google translate says it means “ashamed.”

Temple training, splits and a "charla franca"

¡Hola! ¿Cómo andan?

Sorry these are so late. We had to go to Córdoba today for a training in the temple! We´re going to be working in the temple on Friday. We don´t know what other days, but for sure Friday. We also got to see the temple today. It´s the smallest temple I´ve ever seen, but it´s beautiful! I´m so grateful for the opportunity to work there!

Bueno, so Tuesday was very interesting. The Sister Training Leaders came and we had to go on splits with them. I was terrified! I did not want to go, nor did I think that I could go. I didn´t feel like I knew enough Spanish and because my companion for the day doesn´t know these people, I would have to speak. A lot.

But we went out. Her name is Hermana Regalado. We got out and immediately started contacting people. It was great! We got a lot of references! We went to Los Nogales later in the day to talk to Cristina Lucero. Her baptismal date fell through because she hasn´t come to church. We had a charla franca (frank talk) with her. She said that she has felt for a while that she needs to have a job that is more tranquil. (It´s her job that has kept her from coming to church.) She also said that she feels that she needs a change in her life, and she feels that our church might be that change she needs. It was really cool!!! Hopefully this continues. (We haven´t been able to talk to her since then, though, because of her work.) After lunch, we went to contact a reference from a member. When we got there, we realized that he is blind. We talked to him and his mom. Their names are Jorge y Serafina. Serafina is quite old, but both of them wanted us to come back!

Wednesday, I had my companion back! I love her! We had zone conference in the morning in Córdoba and in the afternoon, visited Jorge y Serafina again. They´re great!

Thursday, we went with the elders to visit Jorge y Serafina (we´re trying to contact them daily) for a blessing of health. Then we went to visit Dora with the elders. We gave a 'super' lesson with them. It was really good, actually. It was about Lesson 3. Dora is so cute! In the afternoon, Hermana Romeril really wasn´t feeling well, so I made her rest. I told her that she has to rest now, or her body will make her rest later.

Friday, we visited with Alejandra and her family. Elena was back from the hospital and her leg is being treated. She said that it doesn´t hurt as bad anymore! Also, guess what!?! They read the pamphlet! Woohoo! And, they liked it. We left them a Book of Mormon and they said that they´d read it! That afternoon, Hermana Romeril had to rest again. In the evening, we went to go visit Jonathan. Ok, he has quite the story now. Here goes...

So, apparently his younger brother, Marcos, was getting into trouble with the police (again) and was trying to hide out. Jonathan, in defense of his brother, assaulted the policeman. So did Caro (his mom). So, they all went to jail for the weekend. When we went to go visit them, they´d moved. We have no idea where to. We think to a different barrio with Caro´s boyfriend. But, the family that lives next door is a part-member family. They told us that Caro and Jonathan are smoking again and that they were saying horrible things about God and Christ. I don´t know what´s true and what´s not, but we can´t visit them again. If we do, and the police show up, that´d really just be bad. Friday was pretty sad.

On Saturday, we took Dora with us to visit Jorge y Serafina because we thought that Dora and Serafina could be friends. When we got there it was so cute. They were telling each other of their ailments. I think they´ll be good friends. On the walk back, Dora was handing out invitations to the temple open house to everyone. She´s a natural missionary! She´s awesome! Then, Hermana Romeril had to rest.

Yesterday, Sunday, was really good. Mostly we just have a bunch of meetings. After church, though, there was a baptism. Not one of ours or of the elders. A member´s daughter turned 8. It was a beautiful service!

Okay, about all the resting that Hermana Romeril had to do. She´s had a problem for her whole mission with her stomach. At times it´s worse than others and right now it´s worse. She can only eat rice and jello and so she´s pretty weak. Also, on Saturday and Sunday, she had a fever. The fever is gone, but she´s still fighting her stomach problems. Anyway, she´s resting so that she doesn´t run herself off her feet. She gets tired really quickly. It´s really frustrating to her because she wants to be able to work all day, but she can´t.

Anyway, it was a good week! We´re really excited about Jorge y Serafina and Alejandra and her family! They are all pretty awesome!!!

I hope you all have a wonderful week! Les amo!

Love from,

Hermana Micaela Wilson

Laundry, Food, Singing, Temple Tours and More

Here are a few tidbits from the letters that Micaela has written to me:

Laundry: We have a member wash our clothes. It´s really nice of them.

Best and worst food. The best was emapadadas my first night at the mission home. The worst would have to be today. We don´t have money for food right now, or much food. So we tried to make spaghetti, but the noodles were overcooked and were mush. It was really gross. It tasted more like wet bread dough. For breakfast, we have cereal and for dinner we have this pasta recipe that Hermana Romeril taught me. It´s not much, but it´s good. The food is really good! It´s interesting, though. Lots of pasta and meat and bread. They don´t have much pepper here and one time we were putting pepper on our pasta and the family was like, wait, that´s spicy, be careful. We were just like, yeah, we like it. It´s okay. It was funny. We´ve also had almost every lunch at the home of a member. It´s lunch because they don´t have dinner until very late, so we eat dinner when we get home.

The elders are great. Their names are Elder Barrett (who´ll get home the same time as me) and Elder Koboldt who has a year and a half in the mission. I don´t know them really well, but they are very nice to us. They´re serving in our same ward because there is only one ward in Jesus María.

I do feel the companionship of the Spirit, I just need to open my mouth more. Have more confidence that the Lord will bless me with the words that they need.

A criollo is a roll thing. It´s kind of hard on the outside but on the inside it´s really soft. You dip the criollo into the mate, and it´s delicious!

Money. We are totally fine now with money. We were only out because we had to go to Córdoba so many times and we also have to pay for credit for our phone because it´s not a mission phone. The hermanas before us lost their phone and now we´re suffering this consequence. We are all good now though. Sorry to worry you!

It´s been raining more than it has supposed to. Winter is more the rainy season, so we´re getting there. It´s not too bad to be out in the rain. Not right now, anyway. My boots, raincoat and umbrella are perfect! I haven´t ever gotten really wet at all. They are amazing!

Hermana Romeril and I sing for people. It´s really fun. Hermana Romeril thinks it´s really cool that I can sing alto and tenor. Also Elder Barrett sings bass, so as a district, we sound really good.

About participating in the Córdoba Temple Open House: We will be in Córdoba from the 13 to I´m not really sure when. But we´ll be there at least until the dedication. I´m really excited! But we have to give our investigators to the elders. I don´t know how that´s going to work. I´m sad to leave them.

Dios Nos Da Bendiciones

¡Hola! ¡Espero que ustedes disfrutaron la Conferencia General!

This week. Ok, here we go.

On Tuesday, we had an appointment that fell through and then tried contacting but no one was there. We tried that until lunch. Then we had correlación misional. At that meeting, the elders told us that they went to go visit Jonathan and invited him to an addiction recovery class that evening. We were astonished. Jonathan gave everything up when he was baptized. Everything. We had una cita con él that night so we visited him. When we got there, he was cutting his friend’s hair with a razon. Like the little dinky razors. Not a hair razor. Since he was fired recently, he´s doing odd jobs so that he can feed his daughter, Sasha. We asked him why he gave up everything before he was baptized. He told us that he did it for Sasha and because he knew it was what he needed to do. He´s not smoking anything. He doesn´t even have enough food to feed himself or his daughter. The elders were trying to do what is right. One of the members told them that they needed to visit Jonathan because he was doing bad things. There was just a lot of misinformation and miscommunication.

Wednesday was a roller-coaster. So, as you all know, Wednesday was April Fool´s Day. On the mission, it´s pretty hard to keep track of days and especially holidays. But this one was easy. So, because we remembered it, Hermana Romeril wanted to celebrate it. So, we decided to prank the elders. She called them and told them that I had run away. That she had no idea where I was. Right before she could get to the April Fool´s part, we ran out of credit on the phone so the connection was severed. She started freaking out. We couldn´t even text them to tell them it was a joke. So, they came over and saw me. They took it really well though. So it ended up being funny. Mostly because the joke that Hermana Romeril tried, backfired.

So, after our fiasco and our studies, we decided to go to Los Nogales even though it was against our plan for the day. We both felt that we needed to go. The only person that was home was Angel. When he saw us he started waving us away saying that he was too busy. We tried to set up an appointment for another day, but he then told us that we were very nice and he enjoyed talking to us, but, he doesn´t want us to pass by again. We knew it was coming, but it was still really hard to take.

"A road en Los Nogales. I just think it´s beautiful here!"

I was feeling really discouraged. Why would the Lord want us to go to Los Nogales just to get rejected? Couldn´t there be a good reason that we had gone? Not a bad one?

After lunch and more studies, we went to an appointment, but she wasn´t there. So, both of us feeling a bit discouraged, we decided that we needed another game plan. So we sat down on a ledge and took out the list of old investigators. We chose ten names and then prayed about them. We then both felt that we should go visit one. We went to her house and she wasn´t very receptive. She was about to go to work and didn´t really want to talk. As we walked down the street, we passed the house of Alejandra. We decided to see if she was there. We clapped and an elderly lady in the garage called us in. She was sitting in the dark and was all alone. We turned on the light, and saw that she has ulcers in her legs. One is so bad that we could see her bone. She started to cry from the pain and we talked to her for a bit, just getting to know her and trying to comfort her. While we were talking, Alejandra came home with her daughter, Rut. We talked to all three of them for a while and just shared some simple truths. We left them with the pamphlet from the first lesson. Before we left, they told us that they really want us to come back. They could feel something different while we were there and they wanted to feel it again. Then, we asked the elderly woman, the grandma of Alejandra, if she had faith in Christ. Faith that He can do anything He wants. She said yes. We asked her if she had faith enough to be healed and she said yes. We told her that we have companions, the other elders, who have the power of God. That they, through this power, could give her a blessing of health. She said that she would very much like that. We told her that we´d be back on Saturday with the elders for her blessing and she was so grateful. What a miracle! Right after being rejected, after feeling so discouraged, the Lord blessed us with meeting this elderly lady. We truly are in the Lord´s hands.

Thursday we decided to go down to one of los barrios that we don´t visit very often. We wanted to contact some old investigators and see what their feeling was toward the church and being taught again. As we talked with them, we realized that many of them are atheist. Quite atheist in fact. Then we had lunch with Aguirre. I´m just gonna tell you now, every other Thursday we have lunch with them. They cook very, very good food. But, they cook a ton. And you can´t just not eat it. You´ve gotta eat it. Again, I waddled out. That evening, we went to go visit some recent converts, but they weren´t home. But, we talked to their neighbors. Oscar y Vero (Veronica). (Also, Oscar is the son of Dora, who I sent a picture of last week.) Oscar asks a lot of questions. Which is great. We were able to teach them the Restoration. It was so cool! We´re hoping that they´ll let us teach them, too.

The rest of the week wasn´t very productive.

"Hermana Romeril fell asleep on the bus and so I took a picture.

She´s hilarious!"

Friday, we went to Córdoba for un reunión de zona. It was a really good meeting, but going to Córdoba and back takes a good 2 to 3 hours (round trip). After the reunión, we had to go to the hospital. Hermana Romeril has an ingrown toenail and hasn´t tried to fix it until now (she needs to get better at telling me when things hurt her). But, it was a holiday, so the appropriate doctors weren´t there. When we got back to Jesus María we had to do our studies. We didn´t get the opportunity to teach anyone.

Saturday, we took the elders to go give Alejandra´s grandma a blessing. When we got there, we knocked and clapped, but no one answered. Finally, after 5 minutes, one of Alejandra´s sons answered and told us that the grandma and Alejandra were in the hospital in Jesus María. So, we ran over to the hospital, but we couldn´t find her. We were really sad. We are going to visit them again soon and find out what happened.

Then we had General Conference! I was so excited! To be able to listen to the words of God was gonna be great! And in English was going to be so refreshing! But, we couldn´t get it in English. So on Saturday, I watched Conference in Spanish. (We´re going to take time this week to see those sessions in English though, because I couldn´t understand

anything.) I felt really discouraged. I really wanted to be able to understand the words that God wanted us to hear. But, because I don´t know Spanish, I couldn´t understand.

Yesterday was really good, though. In the morning, we had studies and then Conference. And, finally, we got it in English!!!!! Hooray!!!!! I was so relieved! It was beautiful and blissful! I loved the talks. Especially Uchtdorf and Holland! It was wonderful!!!! Then we had District Meeting. We just did a get-to-know-you because our District Leader doesn´t feel like he knows much about us. We showed each other our photos and talked about ourselves. It was good.

Anyway, I just want you all to know that I know that it may seem that I get discouraged and frustrated a lot. And, I´m not gonna lie. This is hard. It´s hard to not be able to talk and it´s hard to not be able to understand everything. But, the thing is, I can talk a bit. I can testify. And right now, that´s good enough. I may not be able to understand everything, but I understand enough. Honestly, I´m living a miracle. That after not even a month in Argentina, I can talk and understand what people mean, it´s a miracle. Also, every day, I can see the hand of the Lord directing us. Guiding us. I know that we are not alone. I know that this is His work. I know, that even though it´s hard, this is where I´m supposed to be. And I´m so grateful for that.

I love you all so very much! Thank you for all your support! Have a fantasmagorical week!!!

Love from,

Hermana Micaela Wilson

Dios Nos Da Bendiciones=God Gives Us Blessings