hey everyone! 11/28/2011 Week 42

hey!

Hey i have a question......is my middle name spelled LarsOn or LarsEn??? I´ve always thought it was with an O, but after some recent events I am beginning to doubt myself.....

So this morning a little bit of extermination was done in our apartment to get rid of the millions and millions of cockroaches :( We did everything from step on them, slapping them with shoes, to spraying them with some random spray that we found hiding in the apartment....it didn´t have a label on it, but we decided it would "probably kill bugs?" It did stink, so i´m guessing that's a good sign that it worked haha.

We had some success in the work this week, including helping 4 from the "15 families" list come back to church and some other less-actives have been coming back and staying consistent. I love the members of the ward here and they have been a really big help for us, more than my other areas i believe. We did divisions last week with a couple of priesthood holders in the ward and visited some less-active families.....and i may or may not have ridden on the back of a motorcycle......long story that's not so long but i won´t tell it. We´ve just been pushing forward in the work and there´s nothing more satisfying for me than being able to share the gospel everyday. This week was a roller-coaster type week....good days.....not so fruitful days.....but i learned that even though we don´t have control over things that happen to us sometimes or having success in life/work, we can always control our attitude :) Being happy´s a choice!

I´m sorry i don´t have too much to write this week, it just seemed to fly by really fast. it´s crazy to think i´m almost 20.....it´s about time ;) jaja broma. anyway, i know this church is so true!!!! I love you all so much and i´m glad you had a great thanksgiving :) Tis the season.

Fun fact: finished reading the book of mormon in spanish this past week!. one of my few achievements of anything in this life haha.

Escritura de la semana: D&C 59:7

Con amor,

Elder Winger

It´s almost Thanksgiving! 11/21/2011 Week 41

Hey fam!

Well, today was a p-day was very special for us here, and i would like to name it officially as "American Day" Our district, which consists of 5 americans...and a chileno haha, went BOWLING!! There is a super nice hotel/casino/bowling alley/mall/etc that is in Rosario, so we decided to visit it. I must say it was probably one of the nicest places i´ve seen here in Argentina haha, it was pretty fun. Anyway, i did terrible at bowling, as should be expected. Out of everyone, i got last place. But everyone got a mcdonalds big mac after, so everyone was a winner :) ...yeah, i´ll just keep telling myself that.

This week Elder Waid did a lot of good work, and i´ve never thirsted more than now to serve the Lord with all I´ve got, at in continues to increase as my testimony and love for the gospel grow every day. I was very blessed to be a part of a couple really powerful lessons this week and we currently have 6 people with baptismal dates, 4 of which i think will be baptized.

The family of the week that I want to share with you is the Arana family. It consists of a father, daughter, and her three kids. When we "clapped at their doorway" instead of knocking, they allowed us to come in....which i would soon come to realize was a huge blessing. Oscar (the dad) has never allowed any of the "millions of missionaries that are always passing by" to come in, but we got lucky i guess huh. This family all believes in God, but never have really gone to church, read the bible, or anything like that. Anyways, to make a long story short, we´ve had an amazing couple of lessons with them and they came to church yesterday. Now, you know how it´s hard to keep children reverent in a place for more than 5 minutes or so? yep, we had quite the battle during sacrament meeting on Sunday haha. Lorena (the mom) has 3 kids who are 10, 4, and 2 years old. In order to try and control the yelling, playing tag, playing hide and seek on the stand, doing somersaults in the aisles, and crying......i tried incorporating drawing with them, doing origami (which all i know how to do is fold a piece of paper like a napkin....like i would do at Coppermill haha) and doing anything else to keep them "quietly entertained). But it was a fun adventure, even though i personally didn´t get to "relax and enjoy during sacrament"....maybe a little taste of what´s to come in the future ;). But this family is really nice and i think the gospel so far as really been changing them. We will have a few hurdles with the word of wisdom i believe, but the Lord is the one performing the work. I always feel so blessed to find those people who the Lord´s prepared to hear our message , and Elder Waid and I are continuing to work hard to find them. It has been a little bit discouraging lately not having baptized for 3.5 transfers....but i am still enthusiastic for the work and i know that no effort is wasted. Hey, someone´s gotta do the planting if another is to do the harvest :). I love the Lord and am so grateful for his sacrifice. I know the work of preaching the gospel is the most important thing that any of us can ever do in mortality. it´s everything. the gospel is everything.

So is everyone very excited for thanksgiving this week?? i still expect a place setting for me at grandmas ;) It looks like a bunch of us Elders are going to have a thanksgiving together next Monday, so we will see how that goes......but i know that no other thanksgiving can beat the FEAST at G Carma´s and G Richard´s! I love you all so much. thanks for your support, your prayers, and your faith. Keep strong, these are the last days.

Elder Winger

Weird transfer changes! 11/14/2011 Week 39 & 40

hey family!

Well, I made it safe and sound to my area here in Villa Gobernador Galvez! It´s been quite an adventurous first week and I¨m excited to do some work here. My companion Elder Waid is a cool cat. He´s from Arkansas. I keep getting companions from all the weird states (New Hampshire, Arkansas, etc....) haha just kidding, but we get along well. When I got here, I soon came to realize that the area was somewhat "dead" aka, 0 investigators haha. But, we quickly got to work, and we have a lady named Belén, that is a reference from one of the recent converts in our area, that we gave a baptismal date for the third of December, so we are hoping that all works out. On another note, the ward is quite large here! There were 80 people there yesterday! But, the number that need help to be reactivated is quite astonishing....there are 450 members in my ward. 80 attending. bring it on. I'm overly joyous (weird mood) to serve the people here, and we´ve been continually blessed by the Lord.

Right now i´m living in a four-man apartment with Elders Hernandez from St. George and Elder Nuñez from Chile, and we´ve had just a blast so far.

As far as my area goes, I love it. Plenty of dirt roads and people to talk to, my prime conditions :) . As far as the work continues, we´ve had some really powerful lessons this week with Belén and a couple of other people as well. We are teaching a man named David, who´s living with a lady who is a member but less active, and he really has the desire to be baptized and be with his family forever, so we are currently working on trying to get them married hopefully within the next month or so.

Experience of the Day: Where we currently are is really close to the Monumento de la bandera (Argentina Flag monument) so we decided to go visit it today for p-day, and also do some street shopping . As we were walking, suddenly this monstrous parade of people starting coming down the street, screaming, playing instruments, the real deal. But they were all dressed up in crazy costumed! Everything from egyptians to wizards, dragonball z characters to fluffy orange pillows (i think?) but it was pretty wild, there were like 200 people probably. Anyway, after narrowly escaping their stampede, we continued our journey to the monument. The monument was really cool! All of the things are being to "wear away" but it was a cool site, i´ll try to send some pictures.

Anyway, the work is going well, and i´m glad to hear that everyone is doing excellent back home. Have an amazing week, i love you!

Elder Winger

Happy Halloween! 10/31/2011 Week 38

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Hello everyone! Happy Halloween!!!! Here in Argentina if i didn´t know the date, i probably wouldn´t really notice that it was Halloween....some people have some decorations and stuff for it, so it´s at least acknowledged haha.......but i guess i´ll wait until tonight to see if it´s actually celebrated in the same way as in the states...just to give it a fair chance ;). I was at a members house yesterday for lunch and the daughter of the family was asking me how Halloween was in the United States....I told her "just like the movies." She responded with, "do you really go door to door asking for candy?" I said yes, and she just went off about how lucky we were haha. So yes, the Halloween cheer may not be as vibrant here, but then again.....maybe i´ll have to find a way to change that....

This past week we have been having quite a bit of success in the ward! Remember the first week that I got here in this area and we had 13 people in church? Well, yesterday we had 44! It was quite exciting and i´m hoping we can continue bringing people back to church. There are a lot of members that were going regularly a few years ago (some of them former bishops, counselors, and others with callings) that stopped going for reasons that they don´t know and us tampoco. But we currently have investigators that have baptismal dates so that´s pretty exciting! Also this week is going to be a little wacky....we have p-day today, p-day again on Friday and transfers on a Saturday (due to that the president has a meeting to go to for all the mission presidents) I´m not really sure what´s going to happen as far as transfers go, but i´ll keep ya posted.

As far as holidays go here, it seems like there´s a holiday every 2 weeks or so....but i never really know what it is haha....people just say "it´s a holiday today" just to take an extra day of work off...my personal opinion. Haha, but we did have mother´s day a couple of weeks ago which was really nicely celebrated. All of the mother´s received flowers at church, just like home, which i thought was really special. One sad observance that i´m not looking too much forward too is the absence of THANKSGIVING :( obviously not celebrated down here, but i may or not be celebrating it alone with my companion spending a ridiculous amount of pesos on food that could possibly go in the "it´s-not-turkey-but-its-still-meat-and-other-food-to-improvise-thanksgiving-tradition" category. yay.

Now turning the time over to weather: the sun is hot, now preparing for extreme heat conditions. The climate is still bearable but slowly drifting downhill. I´m still really white, unprepared, and i will most likely be scorched according to local weather enthusiasts. I was thinking of maybe using sunscreen or a nice sunshade of some sorts....but i think i´ll just go "man status" and brave the heat straight on. should be a fun ride.

Anyways, i want to thank everyone from the family who sent me pictures this week!! of the newborns and the wedding of Savannah as well! thank you!

Also this past Sunday, my companion has a real knack for singing in Sunday......so we got up in front of everyone during sacrament meeting, not having practiced before and just relying completely on "winging it"....anyway, we were singing the Spirit of God and when we got to the chorus of the second verse, Elder Tague decides all of a sudden to give me a "grand solo" so i just sang the chorus solo style and it wasn´t exactly pleasing to my ears so i can´t imagine it wasn´t anything greater than terrible for the congregation. Singing FAIL. :)

My testimony has been growing so much out here and i´m loving every week that i have to serve the Lord. I can´t believe how fast time continues to go by, and it´s hard to grasp onto, but i´m trying to make the most out of it and rely completely on the Savior to do what he would have me do. I´ve really been continually having to be humbled in order to be a faithful servant of the Lord, something that has been so hard, but the blessings always come if we continue to do what we are supposed to, even when times get rough. God knows us better than we know ourselves.

I hope that everything continues to go well for you all. I love you all so much and it seems like everything is consistently changing from when i left! Haha but i guess ´change´ is the only constant thing about life right? Thank you for your prayers and support. I know that this is the Lords work and have gained the sincere testimony that i never chose to serve a mission, but have been called by him to serve him (3 nefi 5:13)

UN ABRAZO y BESO!

Elder Winger

Howdy 10/24/2011 Week 37

Hey family!

Well, it sounds like it´s been a good week, not so good week, and just a busy week for everyone!  But thanks so much for taking the time to keep me posted on things back home.

I want to thank Kari and Shantra so much for sending me pictures!!!!!!  Haha i loved all of them, and pictures are definitely one of the "hidden treasures" that as a missionary i love finding within an email, so thank you so much.

  It´s crazy to hear that Dad is out of town again!  He´s been super super busy it sounds like, but that´s good that he´s been having lots of work which = success which = $$$$.  Atta boy pops.  keep it up out there.  But I'm sad to hear that Grandma Winger´s health is beginning to go down hill :( . You´ll have to let me know how the funeral goes and everything.  I wish i could have the chance to see her one more time and say goodbye, but i´ll leave that up to you to do that for me.  I remember all those times we would go over to her house and spend time with her.  Her house was always SO FUN and i loved the choo choo train set that she had set up every christmas for us.  I think i enjoyed crashing the train more than anything, and its actually kind of a miracle it survived all those years of my destructive child behavior....but yes, if you could tell her i love her for me and that I know she´s going to be so happy to see grandpa, that would be a great help :) thank you.

     It sounds like the weather is just BEA utiful there back home, and it´s actually quite nice here as well (depending on the day).  One day it will be nice and the next day it will be a horrific thunderstorm....not so fun when my right shoe has a giant hole in the bottom.....which have caused all of my socks to have holes in them.....so my shoe becomes a heavy, sinking ship every rainy day.  Haha, but the hole in the bottom of my shoe has gotten really annoying.....my bare skin literally touches the ground every step i take...and the ground i walk on usually isn´t "sanitary"....usually dirt roads, rocks, trash, and the occasionally doggy surprises that i have to be careful to avoid.  I'm probably going to get some kind of fungus soon :)  .  But I'm too lazy to get them fixed or buy new shoes at this moment in time, but i´ll get around to it, no worries...mom.

  my, just to let you know, i do not know a Mckinley Heath.

Anyway, one of my spiritual experiences from the week was really powerful. My father in heaven has let me know that there are people prepared here specifically for me.

We have been meeting with this 30 year old women named Andrea for the last few weeks.  She´s super nice and has been meeting with the missionaries for over 7 months, but still has not been baptized!  She agrees with all the doctrine and the commandments and everything, but she just doesn´t want the "responsibility, stress, and stuff" of what will come after baptism.  She´s been a really tough cookie to crack, and it´s been really hard to commit her to baptism, no matter how many times the missionaries have gone over the wonderful blessings that come and how necessary it is.

  Well, we met with her this week and we decided to read a section in Principles of the Gospel under baptism.  We opened to it, only assuming to read a small portion.....but as soon as she opened to the page, she began reading out loud from the beginning, and didn´t stop.  she read the whole chapter out loud, making pauses every few sentences, pondering what she was reading.  When we got done with the section, she decided to ask us about the first time we baptized someone.  If you can remember, i had quite the crazy first experience here in Argentina ha.  But as Elder Tague and  I finished telling her our experiences and sharing our testimony, she began crying.  She told me that she didn´t know why, but as i was talking to her she felt touched deeper than ever before. In the next appointment that I had with you, she said she was going to be baptized on the 12th of November and that she wanted me to baptized her!  It was such a humbling experience, and I'm so grateful that shes made this decision in her life.  Elder Tague and I are super excited and we are going to continue preparing her and other investigadores that we have to be baptized.  It was an amazing experience. 

  Also this Sunday Elder Tague and I sang nearer my god to thee in sacrament meeting.  Luckily my comp has a pretty good voice, cuz if he didn´t, the whole thing would have been a nightmare for sure.  I don´t exactly have the voice of an angel haha, but it was a fun time.

That´s a couple of my adventures from the week.  We are continuing to work hard and do all that we can to fulfill our missionary purposes here in Ameghino. 

   Fun tip of the week:  i read a talk by M. Russell Ballard this week called......i can´t remember.....its called how to make a difference or something like that.  Anyway, it talked a lot about how we are changing everyday, and how we need to make necessary changes everyday to help us become more like the Savior.

   He gave an activity that i am beginning to put into practice.  He says every morning right down something that you want to start doing one thing that you know that you should be doing, and one thing that you want to stop doing that you know you should not be doing.  It´s kind of an interesting way to make measurable goals of how we want to become better everyday.  You´re welcome to try the activity as well haha.  But i know that if we can get to the end of the day and say we are a better person than when we woke up, that´s what god wants of us.

Anyway, i g2g so i´ll talk to you next week!  I love you all so much!!!!!

Elder Winger

A Beautiful Day‏ buen día. 10/17/2011 Week 36

¡¡¡¡¡NIXON!!!!!

¡Qué caposo es! 

I must first say congratulations to Casey & Kari for the newest member of the Winger clan.  I was super excited to be able to see the picture that you sent me, and i´m not gonna lie, it´s hard sitting here a billion miles away and not being able to see either my niece or nephew ha.  But, i guess they´ll just have to wait 16 months to meet their number 1 role model.... :)

Anyway, i´m happy to hear that everyone is doing so well.  It still throws me off that everyone there is on "fall break" when i´m here preparing myself for a wicked summer haha. 

The work this week was fairly tranquilo and calm, a solid 7.0 days of work.  We had quite a few things come up this week such as a special conference, "a tarde del milagros", so we didn´t get the full week to work in our area.  I did receive the opportunity to speak in sacrament meeting this past Sunday on service, which i hope went fairly ok....but it went none the less. 

Definitely one of the highlights of the week was going to Rosario and hearing from Presidente Arnold, a member of the presidency of the quorum of the 70, he´s also one of our area 70.  But hearing from him totally helped me want to improve my energy in the work.  He spoke to us on things such as the importance of obedience in all things, how to plan more effectively, and just a powerful reminder that we are representatives of the Lord.  At the end of the conference, he bore one of the most powerful testimonies I have witnessed in person.  Throughout the whole conference the Spirit was impressively strong, but as he stood in front of us 100 or so missionaries and bore witness of the work and of the Savior, I was floored.  Hearing a general authority utter the words that its not based on faith,  but he knows that the Savior lives.  It was amazing.

Anyway, we are continuing to work hard in the Lord´s work.  The time seems to just be picking up faster and faster.  I know I still have a lot of time ahead of me, but I continually am trying to push myself, making sure I don´t waste a minute as a missionary of the Lord, cuz before I know it ·poof· it´ll be gone.  Once again, thank you so much for your support, love, and examples.  I know mom, dad, and family that you´ve sacrificed a lot for me to be out here (even though it´s probably more of  a blessing that you don´t have to see my face for 2 years :)  )  But I just want you to know that I´m going to keep doing my best to bless the lives of these people that I meet everyday and give my whole heart to the work continually, because i know that´s what you, and the Lord, expect of me and all of us out here.  You´re encouraging words and updates give me that added boost that sometimes i need :)  I love you all so much and i hope you have an amazing week!

Elder Winger

Scripture of the week:  King Benjamin´s Address that begins in Mosiah 2 :)  one of my favorite parts of the whole book of mormon.

A thought ‏ 10/10/2011 Week 35

Hey family!!!

Alright, I´m planning on keeping this email fairly short because I want to try writing more emails every week to everyone more personally :) (cuz a personal letter means so much more right?)  Anyway, here are a few of the things that happened this week:

First of all, I met my new ward for the first time at church yesterday.  All 13 members.  Haha, i was pretty blown away when i showed up to the church right before the meeting started, only to see 13 members, 5 of them i believe under the age of 12, and 1 of our investigators.  It was pretty...crazy!  It was a little overwhelming though because this ward used to be just that...A WARD.  Anyway, it looks like we have plenty of work we´ll be doing here in the ward, which is just great because Elder Tague and I just love a good challenge.  The members of the ward are really solid and amazing people, and I know that we are going to be able to work strongly together to bring the members that have fallen from the path a little bit back on track.  Also.....I've been regretting my poor choices of not continuing piano lessons to the point where i could play hymns!  It´s weird singing in church without a piano, not gonna lie.  Anyway, i found a simplified hymn book in the apartment, so we might be doing some winging it here in the ward to bring it back alive.  Another fun fact of sacrament meeting.......both my companion and our investigator bore their testimonies 2 times to fill up time........kinda weird huh?

Other fun facts for the week is that we have 7 people with baptismal dates!  Very big increase from 1 last week ha.  These people that we have are just great though, one of them is a couple that recently had a baby, one of them is a guy that just moved into the area and is seriously INVESTIGATING the church in all aspects (book of mormon, folletos, internet..which can be sketchy, but its exciting to really find people searching for the truth), and just some other people that we´ve been finding that are just really really good people, and it´s exciting to be able to bring them the truth.

Well, that's enough about me.....i´m glad to hear that you are all doing well!  Sounds like winter is just around the corner.....and for me the summer just arriving...BLEH.  But, here´s for Nate (one day late)  ¡¡¡¡FELIZ CUMPLEAÑOS!!!!  I hope that you had a great birthday!

Also mom, I will be getting my package on Wednesday, no worries :)  I´m super excited for it.  Also, if you send another package in the future (wink, wink), i might want some little games that we can play in the apartment during p-day and stuff, maybe games like (missionary impossible, warriors of the promised land)  cool missionary games like that.  just a thought.

Anyway, everything is going well here!  Loving the mission and everything about it. 

Here´s a couple quotes that i heard this week:

"Happiness - only real when shared"  -Into the wild        That's so true.......not only in aspects of the gospel, but in all the fun things of life...can you imagine going to Disney land alone?

"True doctrine understood changes action and behavior"

-David A. Bednar

Anyway, i think that´s all i´m going to write for the week.  I´ll work on sending some pictures as well and writing more frequently to everyone!  Thanks for your prayers and support. 

The Lord´s work moves forward!

Elder Winger