Mercedes Week 7! The Miracles Kept Rolling In!!!

Hola Amigos!
First off, thank you all for the birthday wishes whether they were sent in an email or just remembered in your heart I thank you! 

Now for the first week of transfer two in Mercedes! Friends and family, miracles are real and the Lord knows everyone's perfect moment! When I was waiting for Hermana Salino to arrive on Tuesday I still had to finish up a few of the plans for the evening and I wasn't exactly sure where to go or who to visit and I was in Lujan so I didn't have the area book with me to help me. However, the thought came to my mind that we should visit Ezequiel and Belén (the less active member and his wife who came to the conference). I was going to put it off because Belén had never showed interest and had even said she wasn't all that interested, but we could pass by to visit Ezequiel if he was home. I thought "nah, she doesn't want anything and Ezequiel has said that he wants to come back and baptize his family, but then never does anything on his part to make it happen!" But then I thought "Well, maybe it's from the Lord. They did after all come to the conference. And it never hurts to try one more time to find the Lord's sheep." 

When we passed by that night there was something different in Belén. She looked grateful to see us and her countenance was happier. She told us that Ezequiel wasn't home, but let us in (for the first time since I've been here). After getting to know her a bit more and gain her confidence, we said a prayer and Hna Salino pulled out the pamphlet of the Restoration and Belén looked at us like maybe we were a bit crazy and told us that just that morning she had been looking through some boxes for something and had found a pamphlet of the restoration and sat down to read it with Ezequiel. After telling the First Vision, we felt the Spirit super strong and so we invited her to be baptized and guess what! She accepted!!! She's going to be baptized on the 16th of July and we're working with Ezequiel as well so that he can receive the Priesthood and baptize them! Oh yeah, the second time we went, the whole family was there and María Luz, the 12 year old daughter, also accepted to be baptized on the 16th! This family is basically the greatest! 

Now really quickly a couple of other miracles: we had 20 lessons this week! 20! The most we ever had in the last transfer was 15! On Friday the elders gave Santos a blessing to help strengthen him so that he can complete his goals and feel ready for baptism and then no Saturday to Sunday the 5 of us fasted and when we called Santos to start the fast on Saturday we asked who he wanted to say the prayer and he said "I'm going to say it". Then we challenged him to arrive at 9 o'clock on Sunday and he did! The Lord is really working miracles here in Mercedes C! I love this work! I love the Lord! I love my companion! I love everything right now! I love you all!!! 

The gospel's true, God loves you!

-Hermana Cheever

Mercedes week 6! Transfers!!!

Hola amigos!
Sorry I haven't been that great at writing a general email this transfer, but here's the highlights from this week!

• This week we finished teaching Santos everything in the first 4 lessons and today he's going to have his baptismal interview! 
• Elisabet and Milagros continue to be wonderful. A bit of an obstacle we're going to have to overcome with Elisabet is that she smokes and what doesn't help is that she lives in the same house as her sister and her mom who also smoke. She is willing to try to stop and accepted our offer to help her create a plan to quit so that's good! 
• Miriam is also progressing well, well as well as she can without coming to church. She is policia so her schedule complicates coming to church on Sundays. However, the other day we went and she had been reading in the back of the pamphlet about our worship services and she was really interested and wants to be able to come! 
• On Friday we were finally able to contact Cristian and Maria again, we haven't seen them in like 2 weeks, and they are also great. We don't really know much with them at this point, but I think that they'll be able to progress well it's just that their schedules are a little difficult to work with because Cristian gets home from his job at about 4 and Maria leaves for hers at 4. However, they are willing to work with us and Maria has a job that's more flexible and if she advises her work she can come a half hour/hour late and we can teach them together!

On Sunday for the conference we had a miracle! None of our investigators that we've been working more with were going to be able to come because it was Father's Day and the menos activos didn't really give us any hope either. So on Sunday we showed up without an investigator or menos activo and we felt a little bad because that's supposed to be one of the focuses right now, to bring people to church. However, we sat with a few of the members from the branch and a little bit before the meeting started Elder Sales asked us who the family sitting in front of them was. We looked and it was a less active,Ezequiel, and his non-member wife, Belen! The husband is the brother of another member of the ward and I suppose that he made sure they came! We hadn't even really thought about them because we've taught them a couple of times but lately every time we pass by they're not home or are super busy and can't attend us and when we call they don't answer. However, they came! And the brother of Ezequiel said that he (Ezequiel) wants to baptize his wife and daughter!

Another miracle we saw this week was on Friday none of the appointments we had fell through, and we had 4!

Oooh! Exciting news! Yesterday Lujan became a stake! And Mercedes became a ward!!! Woooooooh!

Now for the exciting news! TRANSFERS!!!! I will be staying in Mercedes C! Aaaaaaaaand my new companion is Hermana Salino from Brasil! I'm super excited to work with her! I've heard so much good about her and I think I might know who it is and if she's who I think she is, this transfer's going to be a blast! Also, the 4 Elders in Mercedes stay the same which is super great because our district has great unity!

The gospel's true and God loves you!
-Hermana Cheever

Mercedes Week 5!

Hola amigos!

I have very little time this week so here's a little bit about the exciting things!
Saturday we had an activity in the chapel were we watched Meet the Mormons. At the end it finally came through, but it was a little interesting getting it to happen. First off we were going to watch it with the projector - the projector didn't work, but we had the back up plan in mind already of using the TV and DVD player. The DVD player didn't recognize the disc. FInally, Presidente Lettieri ended up looking it up on youtube and we watched it in the security room. So I suppose it might be a good thing that almost no one came. But someone that did come was one of our menos activos, Roberto! We had planned to go visit him in the late afternoon before the activity, but as we were on our way to visit the other people in our plans, we saw him standing outside his house and decided to invite him to the activity then, and if we had time, return before the activity to visit them. Then, as we were figuring out the situation with the movie, Roberto walked in! Ans he came to church the next day! And Santos came to church on Sunday and he came in time for Principios! He usually comes during sacrament meeting and has never arrived on time for the sacrament, so we challenged him to arrive at 10 this week and when we walked out into the hallway to call him in the time between Relief Society and Sunday School, he was standing in the doorway talking to some of the members and the elders and he brought his son, Domingo!

The gospel's true and God loves you!
-Hermana Cheever

Mercedes Week 2! and 3! and 4!

Hola Amigos!

Week 2:

Well, the hermanas of Mercedes C had a very interesting week this week. Monday and Tuesday were pretty normal. There were a couple of lessons, a couple rejections, a couple of doors knocked, a couple of really poorly planned appointments in complete opposite sides of the map, a bit of travelling for the Zone meeting in Lujan, and yeah just normal missionary things.

Wednesday was where the interesting things started. After our lunch we started a special fast for Cristian and Mariana and Santos, some of our investigators, and the fast was great. The day, let's just say the Lord tested our faith and diligence that day. To start off, we lost the phone/maybe someone robbed us of it somehow when we were in an appointment. When we entered one house for a teaching appointment we had it, but at the next house when Cristian (other Cristian) didn't answer the door we went to call him and we didn't have a cell phone. So that was fun for the next couple of days after that, well, really a week, because the zone leaders brought a phone from the offices when they went that Friday and had to come to Mercedes for a baptismal interview of one of the investigators of our district leader on Saturday, but they forgot it. So we weren't going to have a phone until Tuesday, but as we were leaving the chapel on Sunday, Elder Sales called the zone leaders to see if he could leave their phone with us because the 4 elders of Mercedes all live in the same apartment and could share. Yeah, that was an interesting week. To top off that day I fell off my bike as well. But it didn't hurt and I was laughing after so don't worry.

Week 3:
I got a flat tire on Tuesday. However, we also got our new phone that day! Wednesday was the Patriot’s Day I think would be the translation to English (Día de la Patria) and there was an activity in the church. On Saturday and Sunday Elder Sales and Elder Loez had a baptism!

Week 4:
Well first off, we dropped Cristian and Mariana this week. Or maybe they dropped us. It was a mutual dropping. However, it wasn't a forever type thing. More of a we're going to give them some time. It was a little bit sad at first because I was leaving them something to read in the Book of Mormon and I was going to leave something in the Bible as well and I asked if they would read and Cristian said "Hermanas, no voy a leer El Libro de Mormón. Puede dejar algo pero no lo voy a leer. Vamos a leer La Biblia y vamos a continuar orando. Gracias por ayudarnos conocer Dios y Jesucristo más y por ayudar nos tomar este paso de matrimonio porque vamos a recibir estas bendiciones en la familia." [GOOGLE TRANSLATE: Sisters, I will not read the Book of Mormon. You can leave something but I will not read. Let's read the Bible and we will continue to pray. Thank you for helping to know God and Jesus Christ more and help us take this step of marriage because we will receive these blessings in the family ] So yeah, we're going to pass by when they get back from Salta and congratulate them and we'll see what happens from there.

On a happier note, Santos accepted a baptismal date!!!! It's a little complicated because it's for the 18th and we have the district conference so we'll have to move it, but he accepted! And he finally realizes that it's just a little bit of fear that has been holding him back. And he came to church again on Sunday! He now has 4 asistencias! And he brought his 7 year old with him.

This week I had trámites [red tape or formal] paperwork for my residency here in Argentina so I can be legal and we had to go to capital so we weren't working in our area for almost two days, but God loves us and he blessed us. On Thursday when we got back we planned to go contact some references we had for the hour and a half we had before we had to return to the pension and finish planeamiento semanal [weekly planning] and plan for Friday. We had about six or seven people and we looked at all of them and decided to start with the first and work our way down. When we knocked on the door a woman answered and after we presented ourselves she said "Pasen chicas porque hace frio." [Come in, girls, because it's cold.] It turns out this woman, Elizabeth Gutierrez, is an antigua investigadora [former investigator] and she is golden! I think the only reason she got dropped is because of a transfer and she got forgotten. She has two kids that are 8 and 9 that are also great and attentive. I think it's a possibility that we might be able to bring this whole family into the church. The first problem is that Elizabeth is juntada ... But así es en Argentina and it's something that can be solved.

Something I learned or rather had reaffirmed this week is that the Priesthood really is the power of God here on the earth. Hermana Sierra and I have a bit of a bad head cold or something similar and yesterday we asked the elders for a blessing and yeah, the Priesthood is real! Even just during the blessing my head started clearing up a bit and then the rest of the day and today I feel a whole lot better. I still have a bit of a stuffy nose and a cough, but I can think clearly and I haven't gotten a fever again.

I love you all and hope you are doing well! The gospel's true and God loves you!

-Hermana Cheever

Mercedes Week 2 - quick highlights :)

Here's my highlights:

Wednesday
- We lost the cell phone
- I fell off my bike
- We had a really good lesson with Santos and the elders


The rest of the week
- We knocked a ton of doors
- Mariana is wonderful and wants to gt baptized on the 20th even if Cristian isn't ready at the same time
- We found a great family Cristian and Maria and their daughter Lucy

Mercedes Week 1!

Hola amigos!
¿Cómo están todos? Bueno, I'm sure you all want to know about Hermana Cheever's adventures in bicycle. The good thing is that I have yet to fall off, kill anyone, or cause any major accidents. Also my part of Mercedes isn't as much campo as I thought so that's good that we have (for the most part) paved roads. However, there's times that we decide to go to the part with basically all dirt roads. And that time happened to be yesterday. After it had rained all night and in the morning. And it was a Sunday so there was almost no one to talk to. Yup. Well, here's the highlights of my week!

I love Hermana Sierra! Also Mercedes is pretty great! Some things I have learned this week are how to ride a bike and how to follow the Spirit (I feel like I learn that every week). 

On Tuesday I learned how to ride my bike. Yep, before Tuesday I had no idea if I still knew how to ride a bike. I didn't really remember all that much. I successfully have to this point in time avoided falling completely or causing any accidents, so that's good! 

I also met Santos, Cristian, and Mariana (some of our investigators). When we had our other lesson with Cristian and Mariana on Thursday we didn't know what we were going to teach them to help them (and us) resolve their doubts so we asked the advice of Elder Sales and our ward mission leader. They gave us some good advice and scriptures to use in our lesson and we felt better about teaching them. Then, when we got to their house and Cristian told us he had doubts about tithing so we ended up having an inspired lesson on tithing (and we had a member with us so that was wonderful because she could share her wonderful testimony about tithing). 

Then on Saturday we once again were clueless as to what we were going to teach and throughout the day we stopped to pray about it about 5 times. Finally about 5 minutes before we were supposed to meet up with the hermano who was going to accompany us we had something. We decided to teach them using Ether 12 and talk about faith. 

Both of these lessons were wonderful and the Spirit was so strong! And at the end of the second lesson, Cristian asked if they could be baptized earlier than the date we had planned! 

On Saturday we were calling Santos to remind him about church but he never answered his phone! We called him again on Sunday morning but he still didn't answer! Then a miracle happened. We were sitting in Sacrament Meeting and Santos walked in! Wonderful things are happening here in Mercedes! 

-Hermana Cheever

Morón Week 6! Feliz Día de la Madre!

Hola amigos!
How's everyone doing? Well, yesterday was my first call home and it was just great! I'm not really sure what to report on because I feel like not much has happened since the last time I wrote. We've had a couple baptisms fall through, taught a few lessons, met a few new people, ate a few meals, I got bitten by a dog, basically life has been just normal. Or at least I don't remember the abnormal things. 

Ah I know what happened! I completed 4 months in the mission! Ah the time is going by so fast!!! It's hard to believe that 4 months have already gone by! As well as 4 months going by, 3 transfers have already gone by too! I'm sure you're all just dying to know what's going to happen with Hermana Cheever! Well, let me tell you. Last night, the Elders never called. Buuuuut they did send a message. Hermana Laurie is staying in Morón 1 for her 3rd transfer here and she's training!!!!! Hermana Cheever (that's me) is going to ... MERCEDES!!!!!!!!!!! AAAHHHH Mercedes is campo campo I don't think I know how to say that in English, sorry. You want to know what that entails? Riding a bicycle. I haven't ridden a bike since I had like 12 years. Also, I'm one of those people that never really learned very well how to ride a bike. Yup. This is going to be really interesting. 

OH! And my companion is ... Hermana Sierra from Colombia! My third latin companion and every one from a different country. I'm actually super excited to have her as a companion. I've heard lots of good things about her and she's Colombiana so she's probably hilarious and Hermana Laurie told me she has a super strong accent! I love the accent of Colombianas!! SO yeah that's my life. 

Well, I was going to send pictures, but my bad luck came back and the computer erased all my photos from this week (luckily only from this week). So, no photos today!
The gospel's true, God loves you!
-Hermana Cheever

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 ...