1.9.12

Hey there!

Man another week has past. I feel like I was literally just here typing the letter from last week but another whole week has past. awww how sad to hear that Sassy died. Man how long did we have her? Forever! how crazy! but I am assuming that you still have the other cat that honestly I dont even know the name of the cat. and did you ever find a dog dad? haha

Well truthfully I dont have much to tell about this past week. We have been doing a lot to prepare for the change of area. On Saturday we spent the whole day with the elders because they were showing me my new area (their area) I am not going to lie I am kind of scared for the change because I am comfortable and know my area that changing to a new area with a new comp that doensnt know anything is going to be interesting. lets hope that i have a good memory! At the end of the day on saturday i took off my shoes and it looked like I had a huge tan line from my shoes but the marks were really just dirt! Super gross! I think I am going to be a lot more dirty in this new area because basically the whole area is dirt. no streets!!

We were very blessed on sunday with 5 investigators in church! It is def not easy to get investigators to church. Most of the time when we pass by their house they are sleeping or just dont answer the door. So we were pretty excited when the less active family (Antunes Family) with their son Facundo (9 years old) showed up at church and a few of their neighbors that we have been teaching. I am getting kind of sad because you really start to form relationships with the families and people you are teaching and this week we will be changing and wont be able to teach these people anymore. but luckily I will still be in the branch and will be able to see them on Sundays if they come to church!

Well we have transfers on wed. We dont know anything yet because we wont find out till tuesday night but I do know that I will be getting a new comp. I am super anxious and nervous and praying that i wont be getting another mini missionary! haha but things have def gotten better this week with the mini missionary. We actually get along really well but as far as the missionary work it has been a little hard because she didnt know anything but things are good. but change will be kind of nice! it is always nice to have a little change! I am doing good. I really feel like I am learning so many things that are helping me grow here in the mission and will help me after the mission. there are def some challenges but I am try and sit back and think about what i am learning from these challenges and what I can take from it. I am really grateful for this short time that i have to serve the lord and share this amazing message with the people here in Argentina even though there are a lot that dont want to accept I just hope and pray that i can make a difference in someones life. Love you guys lots and hope everyone is doing good! Have a wonderful week!

Love,

Hermana Van Wagenen

1.3.12

Hey there!

Can you believe that it is already 2012? How crazy huh? Another year has past! I have been thinking a lot lately in what could be my new years goal! I am still in the process of figuring them out! haha Well us poor missionarys again didnt have any plans or invitations for new years and knowing that new years is a holiday of drinking we knew we werent going to have much success knocking doors so we sadly called members to see if perhaps we could stop by for a bit at night and luckily the members who is always there for us (Dora) happily invited us over for the night. So we ended up spending new years eve night (until 11) with Dora and her family. I was lame and went to bed. I didnt even stay up to see the fireworks. but from what I have been told it sounds like New Years here is pretty much the same as christmas. They all have their big bbqs and at midnight light off fireworks and basically drink and party all night. I dont think I missed much. Its not like I am a huge fan of meat anyways. and sadly none of our investigators that said they were going to go to church on sunday showed up. I am kind of ready for the holidays to be over so people can calm down a little bit and wont have as many excuses. haha even though we know they always make up some sort of excuse. haha

Well this week was an interesting one. On friday around 3 in the morning I was woken up to hearing my comp crying and pounding her leg on her mattress. Honestly I was super out of it and I just assumed that she was crying because she was sad and missed her family or something so I didnt say anything. Until about 2 hours of crying later she asked me if I had advil or something because her ear hurt really bad. So I gave her advil and went back to bed and didnt hear much more. In the morning she told me that she was pretty much awake all night with killer pain in her ear but that she was feeling better. We then went out and worked an then had lunch with a member when she said that the pain was back and it hurt bad. So guess what we had to do? yep I had the wonderful privelage of experience a lovely hospital in Argentina and I would like to say that I never want to have that experience again. Can I just say that we are blessd in the United States to have nice clean hospitals. Man what an experience. I just felt dirty the whole time. but it seems like my comp is doing better and hopefully we will be able to work. Man it has been difficult because it seems like almost every other day that she feels sick with something so it kind of hinders our working a little bit. but we are doing what we can!

We are working a lot with inactive members right now and trying to find them. There are like 1500 members here and about 50 active. There is a lot of work to do! Our mission president told us to not even knock doors but to just focus on finding these members because a lot of times there are members in the family who have possibility of being baptized. I am hoping we have some success with that because right now I dont know what is going on but it seems like everyone is in their own little world and dont want anything to do with us. so the members it is!!! haha Well, I hope all is well! Things are well here! We continue working hard and learning lots! Man is there a lot to learn here on earth huh? I feel like there is not enough time to learn!

Love you all lots,

Hermana Van Wagenen

pic 1: Christmas eve in the church!

pic 2: Senor Morales!

pic 3: One of the many beautiful Argentine sunsets

pic 4: Dora the explorer (one of my fav members!)

12.27.11

hey there!

well as you probably have figured out yesterday was another holiday here in argentina so we had to work yesterday and today we are having p-day. We didnt even find out until 10 on sunday night. haha ahhh how amazing it was to talk to you guys. I am not going to lie I was super nervous to call and talk to you guys because it has been such a long time but it wasnt weird at all. I absolutely loved it so much. It was just what I needed and like you said I think I just needed someone to talk to because it has been a while since I have been able to talk to someone in english. What a great day! man I love you guys so much!

well I really dont have much to write today because I just talked to you guys on sunday night but I will just write about christmas for other people to read. haha So they celebrate christmas here was different than I am used to. I figured that everyone celebrated pretty much the same but man was I wrong. So they start celebrating about 1030 on the 24 of December. They all get together with their familys and have a big bbq of meat, meat, and more meat!! They love their meat here!!! Well then at midnight they all start shooting off fireworks and then start partying and dancing and drinking all night (my comp told me till like 11 the next morning) crazy huh? they dont really do the whole santa clause thing. They give each other little gifts. and then I think on the 25 they have another bbq for lunch of meat. but sadly we didnt get invited to anything so we ended up going to the church on saturday night and watched the first presidency christmas message with the elders and a couple in the branch and then ate. Then on sunday we went to church for sacrament meeting and then made lunch in the church and basically spent the whole day in the church with the elders watching church movies and calling home. I actually really enjoyed it. Super relaxing and we were able to focus more on the reason for the holiday. The birth of our savior Jesus Christ. It really was a good day for me.

On sunday we went to pass for some of our investigators in the morning to bring them to church and when we got to their houses the houses were closed and I am pretty sure they were all sleeping. Well we then got to church and three of these kids that we have been visiting their families were sitting in church waiting for it to start. They are 9, 11, and 11. Man what examples they are. They woke up in the morning and all walked together to church without their parents or anything now it the struggle of helping the parents. Man does it really shock me to see kids like that.

Things are still hard right now with the mini missionary. Man do I have to be so strong right now because literally if I dont do anything nothing will get done. Its hard because sometimes you have a bad day or are really really tired and you dont have strength to do anything but luckily you have a comp to help you and to share the work but it is not like that in this situation. If I do teach or talk to people then we dont do anything. man am I really having to learn to leave my comfort zone. I guess that is what I always said before my mission huh? that I wanted to learn to be able to talk to people and not be scared well the mission is really forcing me to do that. haha but I am learning a lot and I know there is a reason for this challenge right now and there are things for me to learn. There are always things to learn from the hard times. Well I love you lots!!! hope everyone enjoyed their christmas and has a happy new year!!!! Dont forget the reason for the season and our savior Jesus Christ! What a blessing it is to have the restored gospel on the earth today and the priesthood. I am grateful everyday for this opportunity that I have to share this with the people here in Argentina.

Love,

Hermana Van Wagenen

12.19.11

Hello over there!

Merry Christmas!!! Its hard to believe that it is already christmas huh? Man does time fly. First of all I would like to express my feelings right now about an email that I received. YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ahhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am seriously soooooooo excited right now! and I think you know why!! Heather is going to Jerusalem!!!!! I couldn't be more happy and excited for her!! Just following in her favorite sister footsteps ehhh? haha Man do I wish that I could experience Jerusalem again. What an incredible experience. I was literally jumping for joy over here when I read the email. Im sure everyone was looking at me like a freak. esta bien I am a freak right? haha.

Well this week was better. Thanks for all of your love and support and prayers. They have def been felt. I am doing better. That doesn't mean that it is easy but I have really been turning to my heavenly father and the sciptures all lot for comfort and help in this time. I realize that this isn't going to last forever and there is something I have to learn from it. Like dad told me, I am hear to help her learn the gospel and she is here to help me with the spanish. I totally agree. I got a call from our mission president on Saturday and he was asking how we were doing and how I was doing with the mini and all he said was that it is my responsibility to be an example to her by being happy and sharing my testimony. She is so new in the gospel I am always so scared that I might say something or do something wrong.

Well we are still visiting with this inactive family a lot. They are wanting there son to get baptized so this past week we had an awesome lesson asking them why they want him to be baptized and the importance of being examples as parents for their children and how the gospel is for the family. Well at the end of the lesson they told us to were going to come to church and guess what they showed up!! The whole family!! This might not seem like something special but for me this was huge. It has been several years since they have been to church and they showed up yesterday with the whole family and stayed for classes after. Man was I smiling so big all during church. there are so many people that say they are going to come and then dont show up so when they actually do show up it is the best thing in the world!! SOme of their neighbors showed up to. Yesterday was a good week with attendence in church. we had 5 investigators! yay!

Well here comes another new challenge in my path pretty soon. When president called me on saturday he said that they have been talking a little bit with our branch president about the area here and they feel like they need to make some changes and they are going to be changing our areas. In our branch there is my comp and I and a pair of elders. Well beginning of this next transfer we will be working in the elders area and they will now be in our area. It is basically like doing another whitewash because we dont know anything about their area. oooh
how fun ehh? and it stinks because we have all the awesome members in our area right now. but whatever there is always a good reason right? I am doing good. Just taking it one day at a time and really relying on my savior more than anything and the scripture man do I love the scriptures so much. They provide so much comfort and help me so much. What a blessing it is so have scriptures. I feel blessed to have this opportunity to share my testimony of our Savior Jesus Christ at this time because he is the reason for the season. It is so great to be able to really focus on that this christmas. We really dont have any plans for Christmas. I am hoping that someone will invite us over for something. haha we will see. and if not i guess we will have to figure something out with us two. I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and always remember the reason for the season. love you lots and I am constantly praying for you. I still havent recieved the Christmas package but hopefully sometime this week it will show up. I am crossing my fingers.

love,
Hermana Van Wagenen

p.s. Thanks sis Greenlaw for the letter. I seriously was so excited to read it. I dont have time right now to right back but dont you worry a letter will be coming back. I am so excited because I know that you literally understand everything that I am going through. haha

12.12.11

Hey there!

It sounds like everyone is busy right now taking finals/ getting ready for Christmas! haha I loved the pic of Grandma and Grandpa on Santas lap. I almost died. How funny. I loved it!!!!

Well as I sit here and try to think about my week not a lot of exciting stories come to mind. So it looks like this weeks letter is going to be a boring one. haha Last monday after writing home we went to a members house to hang out and make Chipas!!! have you ever heard of chipas? They are these small balls of cheese bread! mmmm so yummy! i was really wanting to learn how to make them so when I am home I will be able to make them. They are delicious but who knows if I will be able to re make them.

Recently we have been working on going through the list of members. Our branch here is obera has over 1,000 members but only about 50 that are active. Sad huh? so the president gave us the responsibility of finding these people and find out what happened basically. so this week was a week of finding some of these people. but man is it a lot harder to find address here than in the states. some of the address literally say the house next to the blue store. hahaha. ridiculous!! but we did find a few members. We found this sweet young family who have 3 kids and they actually have a son who is 9 who they want him to get baptized! the only problem is that they dont want to go to church! uhhh PROBLEM!!! apparently the dad got offended several years ago when they were rebuilding the church building and they didnt ask him (who is a construction worker) to help with building it. so basically he got offended and stopped going. It is ridiculous who many people/members there are here who dont go to church because they got offended by some crazy thing. the thing that I always says is ¨"we go to church for God, not for the members!" so we are trying to work with this family to get them active and baptize their son!!!! pray for us they we can know how to help them!

Sadly we were not able to watch the christmas devotional because they couldnt get it to work! how was it? I want to hear about it. Man the sun here is just getting stronger and stronger each and every day! I just keep thinking about you guys enjoy nice cold winter and i am kind of jealous! I seriously used to love summer before my mission and now in this moment it is on my hate list. haha but everyone keeps telling me that here is this area the heat isnt that bad compared to other areas in the mission. so i guess i just have to be grateful to be here during summer. I am not one to ask for help much but I am needing your prayers more than every right now! This situation is a lot harder than I was thinking. I literally feel like I am here doing the work alone and since I am a missionary I need a companion and she is just hear to be with me. Last night we didnt have appts or anything so we ended up having to knock doors/talk to people outside and she wouldnt talk to anyone. She was literally in silence the whole night!! I am trying to be strong but man is missionary work difficult to do alone. There is a reason that we have companions to support each other and switch off doing contacts. She keeps telling me that I seem mad or sad. haha but its more that I am stressed and I need her help. She just doesnt seem to understand and the whole language thing doesnt help. ya I understand the language but people have to be patient with me and speak a little slower and at time repeat words or explain words that i dont know. Well she just speaks super fast always and get annoyed when I dont understand what she is saying. She just expects that I know the whole spanish language but man is there a ton to learn! I dont want to sound like I am complaining because it isnt that it is just a very hard time right now! but there is a reason for it right? There is always something to learn from every hard situation.

Well I love you lots thanks for all of your support and letters. It is very much appreciated!!!!!! Have a wonderful week! Love you all lots!!!!

Love,
Hna Van Wag

photo 1: random pic of Hna Green and I.

Photo 2: not a super great pic but its Hna Green and I with our awesome hats for summer. haha

Christmas letters.

Don't forget to send Kara some Christmas love!! I'm sure she would absolutely LOVE to get Christmas cards and letters from everyone!!

The mission home address is:

Misio'n Argentina Resistencia

Entre Rios 435

3500 Resistencia, Chaco

Argentina

Also, dearelder.com still works. It's free and will be printed out for her, like a letter.

Feliz Navidad!

12.5.11

Hi Family!

Well I have to start my email by giving a big huge shout out to the coolest/smartest brother in law in the whole world!! CONGRATULATIONS BRYAN!!!!!! you are such an inspiration and I am so happy for you guys! I am so happy that you guys are going to be in San Fran. You will be close!!! yay!!!

Man does it seem like right as things seem to be comfortable and good in the mission some big huge change comes in the way. Well we are going to back track a little bit to last tuesday.

Tuesday: was our p-day. It was a normal day. We wrote home and then had district meeting and chilled the rest of the day. Then at night we had a branch mission activity that we planned. We just played some fun unity games and gave a short spiritual message at the end. It turned out way good. Well as we were cleaning up from the activity (us and the elders) our district leader recieved the awaited call around 930 from the zone leaders about tranfers. Well we found out that my wonderful comp Hermana Green was headed to Posadas (about 2 hours from here, which is close!) and that I was going to be recieving a mini missionary but they had no idea who it was yet or when she would get here. They basically told me that I need to call a member that night (it was already 1030) to ask them if I could hang out with them/stay with them until I had a comp. well i called a member a luckily she was super awesome and said it wasnt a problem and that I could hang out with here.

Wed: we went to the bus station at 9 in the morning where I dropped hermana green off to head to her new area and Dora (the member) met up with us. I then went with Dora and hung out with her and her family all day on wednesday. It was actually really strange to just sit in the house of a member all day because we dont do that! haha Well it was starting to get late. It was around 830 when I still hadnt heard any information so i asked Dora if she could go with me to my apt so I could get stuff to sleep in because it was looking like I was going to be sleeping in her house. So we went to my apt and as we were on our way back to her house 930ish I got a call from my district leader saying that my companion was at the bus station waiting for me! (ummm why didnt you tell me forever ago that you knew who my comp was and that she was on her way!?!?!?!) so we then went straight to the bus to pick her up and finally got back to our apt at 11ish. Man what a day!

Well the rest of the week has been a pretty normal week. My new comp is Hermana Vera. She is from Formosa (which is one of the ¨states¨that is a part of our mission. She was baptized 2 weeks ago!!!! yes 2 weeks! So basically she doesnt know anything!! I think she knows who joseph smith is. haha I am not going to lie this is worse than training. At least when you train you are with someone that went to the mtc and knows what it is like to be a missionary. She knows that we visit with people and thats about it. This morning I woke up and she told me that around 1 in the morning she called home on our cell phone and talked to her family for a while! ahhhh!!!!! Just as things seem to be going good in the mission God puts another challenge in our way. huh? I just hope that I can be a good example and teach her correctly what the mission is and have it be a good experience for her. I am not going to lie I am feeling super solo right now because basically it is my responsibility every single thing we do and I dont have a lot of support as far as a companion. Man am I realizing how great it is to have a real companion to help in the work. But I guess there is a reason for this right? God put this challenge in my way for a reason and there is always something that he wants us to learn from them. There is so much that I still have to learn here in the mission but its a good thing I still have a lot of time huh?

so I celebrated the 9 months in the mission and with that I basically had a child huh? I basically consider this like training. even though this is going to be a challenging 6 weeks I know that the lord put this is my path for a reason and that he will provide a way to help me do this. I am so grateful for this gospel and I truly am grateful for the things he puts in my path because I know that the will help me grow in so many ways. Bring them on! Thanks for all of your support because it is def appreciated and very needed as a missionary. haha I thank my heavenly father every day for the amazing family that he has given me because I know without you guys this wouldnt be possible. I love you guys a lot! I hope you have a wonderful week. I am hear in Argentina to call people to repentance. What a great opportunity! :)

love you lots,

Hna Van Wag