Morón Week 4

Hola todos!
To start off, on Saturday we had an open house for a chapel in La Perlita. It was amazing and the Spirit was so strong! After this we had a baptism back in our area, but it's super far away because we were in another zone. We had to leave early and then the train was cancelled so we had to take two colectivos and ended up missing the baptism part. However, it was a ward baptism so he was confirmed that night and it wasn't completely in vain that we left Moreno early and arrived in Morón late.

Now for the rest of the week. On Monday we had a zone activity in Villa Amelia and because it's so far away, we didn't end up being able to teach Adele because she's only home from 2-6 on Mondays. However, we had a lesson with Leví (the child who was baptized Saturday) and he's wonderful! We taught lesson 1,2, and 3 all together because the mom told us on Sunday that Saturday was his baptism and we were supposed to teach him the missionary lessons. Even though there was a lot all together, he was super attentive the whole time!

Tuesday in our first Reunión de Distrito of this transfer, we practiced inviting members to invite their friends and family to listen to us, the missionaries. It was super great! We put that into practice this week and we saw miracles! One of these miracles was on Wednesday. I was picking up the phone to call someone, it started ringing and it was Elder Figueiredo calling to pass us a reference of a menos activo and his pareja that live in our area! Then on Thursday we went to pass by a member's house to see if the less active son was home. We sat down to share a scripture with them and before we could start, Brother Benitez gave us a reference of his neighbor! 

On Friday we found Adele once again! We were a little afraid she had changed her mind because we had left notes and tried to call her the whole week and nothing. However, she was just super busy so when we passed by she wasn't home and she didn't have credit on her phone to return our calls or send a message. We finished teaching her lesson 5 and tomorrow afternoon she has her interview. We are praying for a miracle with her this transfer! She knows she needs to be baptized, she just doesn't feel ready. Hopefully after her entrevista she will see that she is so prepared! She's even asked the person who organizes the practices she has to do (she's studying medecina) if she can come late on Sundays so she can come to church! 

Yesterday we had divisions with 2 hermanas in our ward who are retornadas. It turns out the hermana I was with served in the same mission that one of my friends is in right now and she knows her! We were also able to find a really prepared nuevo when we stopped to ask for a street because I didn't have a map with me. Her name is Cristina and during the lesson she was so attentive and so open to share with us things that are happening in her life. I have a lot of hope for her.

Well, that was my week! I learned a lot about going where the Spirit leads because God knows best, He knows things that will happen and He knows who He has prepared.
Hermana Cheever

Hermana Laurie, Hermana Garcia, me,
Hermana Chineppe, Hermana Kachkachian, and Hermana Alarcon
at the capilla abierta in La Perlita on Saturday

Morón Week 2! Miracles Do Happen!

This week we saw so many miracles and tender mercies! I'm going to start with Tuesday because I didn't write much in my journal on Monday and yeah. Tuesday - In the zone meeting (is that what it is in English?) I was able to feel the Spirit a whole lot and receive revelation for how to help our investigators and the compromisos the Hermanas and the Lideres de Zona left us have really helped us this week.

Wednesday - We had to go to Capital to renew my visa and when we got back to the offices Elder Millett gave me a bag that had in it my water bottle with the filter (I had forgotten it in the Remis during transfers) and a letter from my dad! Also, we were feeling kind of down because up to that point in the week we had had 4 lessons. When I started to write in my journal I usually start with tender mercies I saw in the day and it was little hard to remember because we had just done our planning and I was looking at our numbers for the week. However, just after this Elder Ruiz and Elder Child called to tell us we had had the most lessons in the zone the week before! They also gave us encouragement that although we didn't feel like we were having much success, the Lord was preparing blessings and we just needed to keep on trying. 

Thursday - we doubled the number of lessons we had had in the week. Friday - We found 2 nuevos! The way we found them was by putting people we thought were less active from the directory in the plans and miracles came! The first one, Alfredo, is the nephew of a member. We don't know if his uncle was less active or not because well, he died a while ago . . . (our directory really needs to be updated, they're working on getting us a new one). The second one, Barbara, is the daughter of a less active. We rang the doorbell 3 different times and no one was answering so we were about to go on with our plans, but then she opened the door! Ah she's great! The spirit was really strong n the lesson and when I was telling the 1st Vision it reminded me of my first time with our "investigator" in the MTC - I couldn't tell if I was saying the right words or even speaking the right language, but the Spirit was strong and guiding my words so I continued. Also, later in the day we were sitting for a bit for our cena and a member called us. He told us that he felt desires to accompany us and that he was available in whatever day at whatever hour, just to call him! 

Saturday - Cristian (the member from Friday) accompanied us for the last hour of the day. We had two citas and the first one fell through and the person who was the back-up plan was just leaving. We went to our last plan of the day (our 2nd cita) and a joven answered the door. His dad is the one that we were going to visit, but he wasn't home and Damian (the joven) had to leave soon, but he said we could enter and teach him something for 15 minutes (don't worry, his grandma was in the house). We taught him and once again the Spirit was so strong! There were tears in his eyes during the first vision! 

Sunday - Adele came to church all by herself! And during testimony meeting, she was almost crying. It was so beautiful! We found three new investigator thanks to a reference from our ward mission leader! IN correlation on Thursday he told us about a menos activo and his family who weren't members and told us that we should visit them because they're great. So, yesterday we went and El Turco (the member) wasn't there, but his brother and cousins (who were really the reference) happened to be the people next door when we asked them if they knew who he was. 

All in all a good week. Sometimes it's hard at the beginning and a little slow, but it's just because the Lord is preparing miracles and blessings!
-Hermana Cheever

Morón Week 1!

Mis Queridos Familiares y Amigos,

First off, I love Hermana Laurie!!! We work together great. I love her enthusiasm and diligence. Second, I'm a real missionary now! Yesterday we finished my training and now I get to put in practice all I learned for the next 15 months! Semana 12 was ah I loved it! I realized that my animo had been suffering a little bit the last few weeks, but I love that semana 12 is the same as semana 1 because it reminded me of how diligent and obedient I was my first week and all the animo I had to just go out and work! I have set a goal that every twelve weeks for the rest of my mission I go back and complete semana 12 to see my progress and renew my animo which may be suffering without me noticing.

This week we saw lots of tender mercies. On Wednesday, as we were walking down the street on the way back to the pension we ran into a member from Hermana Laurie's old area. As it turns out, she served her mission in Mexico with my sister! What a small world! On Thursday, sacamos una fecha with one of our investigators, Adele. She is buenisima. Her boyfriend is a member and he started bringing her to church and then Hermana Laurie and her last companion started teaching her. On Friday it rained. A lot. I had my rain boots, my rain coat, and my umbrella and I was still soaked. However, when we got to the house of our investigator he was willing to sit outside in the rain with us because we can't enter his house. ON Saturday, well General Conference! Besides it being conference, in the Saturday afternoon session, which is always my favorite because I have the opportunity to sustain the leaders of the church, two of my favorite apostles (Elder Bednar and Elder Ballard) spoke and the choir was from BYU-ID! Ah I love conference so much!! ON Sunday, we didn't have lunch. the stake president is in our ward and had told us on Saturday that if we didn't find lunch for Sunday to let him know and we could eat lunch with his family. Well, when we called in the night they didn't answer and we they weren't there in the chapel to watch conference so we didn't end up having lunch with Presidente Muni and his family. But, Adele and Josp (algo así) were there and they offered to feed us! So, we went to Adele's house for lunch and we could have one more lesson with a member! 3 tender mercies in one! Adele came to conference, she fed us lunch, and we had a lesson with her!

I have learned a lot about the Lord's timing this week. One day, we were headed to the house of a menos activa and we got lost. We ended up going in a huge circle and losing a lot of time. However, on our way back we were walking through a plaza which Hermana Laurie calls "the plaza of the elegidos" because it's apparently where almost all the recent converts were contacted. There was a little old man sitting alone on the bench and I felt like maybe we should go talk to him and then Hermana Laurie turned to me and asked if we should talk to him or keep going to the colectivo. So, we ended up talking to him and teaching lesson 1. At first he was just friendly but not really that receptive. However, after the First Vision, he was completely receptive. Had we not gotten lost and spent all that time walking in a circle earlier in the day, we would not have been there at that time to talk to Mario.

Well, that's all for this week! The gospel´s true, God loves you!
-Hermana Cheever

The first picture of Hermana Laurie and me! 

Our lunch with Adele
(And Elders Fower, Motta, Figuereido, y Fregenal)

It was raining ...