Ituzaingó 1B Week 13! Exciting Stuff Happening!

Hola Amigos!
So I didn't write the exciting news last week because I ran out of time. However, here it is now! I'M TRAINING! Last week I received a "refuerza" as we say here, a greenie in English! Her name is Hna Mughal and she is from Millcreek, UT! It has been really fun to be with her and to get to experience all her "firsts" with her! Her first time on a colectivo, her first time teaching a real lesson. Her first P-day. I could go on, but I won't.

Hermana Mughal and Hermana Cheever.

The sad part of the exciting news is that my time with Hna. Poblete came to an end. She is now in Ramos Mejía learning a ton more and progressing a ton more!

This week was full of miracles! In our lesson with Marina on Tuesday, she told us that the lawyer in charge of Eduardo's divorce finally started to work on it. She told us that now it really actually is in the final steps and she is still super excited for it to come through so she can get married and baptized and be living right in the sight of the Lord! She and Emmanuel (her 10 year old son) came to church yesterday for all three hours! Ema was a little shy the second hour so he came to Gospel Principles with Marina and us, but the second hour he went to Primary!

We also found a new investigator whose name is Arsenio. He accepted a baptismal date for the 7th of January! We asked him how he felt after the first vision and he told us that he knew it was true. He said that he was a journalist and worked in radio as well so he know how to analyze people and he said just by seeing how sincere we were in presenting the gospel and that we wanted to help him by answering his questions, he could tell that it was the truth. Now he just needs the spiritual confirmation that comes from a sincere prayer!

Thanks for all the prayers and everything y'all do! Go out and serve!
-Hermana Cheever

Ituzaingó 1B Week 11! "When can I be baptized?!"

Yesterday we met Daniel! He is the reference an hermana gave us last week that wants to be baptized! He is so great!!! He came to church yesterday, even though he was sick, and stayed all three hours. After church he wanted to go to Castelar with the hermana that takes care of him to listen to the choir practice. When Principles of the Gospel finished, he raised his hand and asked "When can I be baptized?" Sadly, we couldn't have a lesson with him and sacar una fecha, but we have an appointment tomorrow! He also received a blessing for the sick from the elders yesterday so that's great that he's already having these experiences in his first contact with the missionaries! He understands really well and it just amazes me that he appeared (seemingly) out of nowhere! I know that the Lord prepares miracles and we just have to be patient! 

We also found another new investigator this week! We went to teach our investigator, Francisca, and she told us that her grandson, Levi - who is a former investigator - was home and asked if she could invite him. She was a little worried because he's a little shy, but he was super attentive and participated in the whole lesson! He's super great! We fasted with Marina this week that the divorce of Eduardo can go through so that they can get married and be baptized on the 14th of January! She was super willing to fast with us and after she said that, besides the hunger, she felt really good during the fast! And, with the amazing skills of Hermana Cheever, we chose two of the hottest days of the week to fast ...


-Hermana Cheever

Ituzaingó 1B Week ... 10...? "I want to be baptized now!"

This week we received a couple of great references! One of them is from a member in Ituzaingó 3. This member is preparing to leave on his mission to Chile and he started sharing the gospel with his friend's family. Now for us to meet his friend, he's going to invite him to come to church on Sunday and he's going to come to our ward with his friend! 

The other reference is a man named Daniel and he's Jewish! He is a reference from a member in our ward! An hermana came up to us after Relief Society and told us about him. He lives in the geriátrico in our area and he has studied a lot about the LDS population in the US. This hermana started to tell him a little about our basic beliefs and he told her "I want to be baptized!!" She explained that he could meet with us and we could explain about the basic doctrine and that he would need to go to church a few times first to really see what our church is and everything. Well, he didn't like that. He said "No, tell your bishop that I want to be baptized now!" So, long story short, she's going to bring him to church next week and we're going to teach him there and yep, he's going to baptized on hopefully the 17th of December!

We also had a lesson with a member this week with Marina and her son, Emmanuel! One of the counselors in the Primary presidency accompanied us and it was great! We did a little Family Home Evening with them and Ema loved it! The hermana was great as well! She answered some of Marina's questions and she took the initiative in inviting Ema to come to primary! It was really great! 

This week was really great! Thank you all for everything! We're going to go out there and find people to baptize in December!!!

Ituzaingó 1B Week 9! More miracles!

Hola Amigos!

This week Marina came to church!!! She was going to come with her son, Emmanuel, who's 10 years old, but al final the kids of her pareja ended up coming and one of them stayed the night until Sunday so Ema wanted to stay with her and Eduardo. Anyway, Marina loved church!!! She stayed the whole 3 hours because she wanted to! She participated in all the classes and ah she's super buena! I can't wait until the divorce comes through so that they can get married and be baptized! The ward was so good with hermanamiento for her! Everyone was super friendly and of their own initiative went and greeted her and introduced themselves and their family. 

 
We had divisions this week and Hermana Gioppo came to Ituzaingó with me. We worked on being bolder in contacts and it helped a lot! We found 3 nuevos! And one of them is a young man who's 20 years old so if he progresses and is baptized he can go on a mission!! I learned a lot from Hna Gioppo. Usually we don't contact a whole lot because we don't have a whole lot of people outside in our area. She helped me remember that that's the reason we talk with literally EVERYONE. If you see 5 people in one day, you talk to those 5 people and odds are that one of them will at least let you share the basics of lesson one or accept a return appointment.

The gospel's true and God loves you! And I do too!
-Hermana Cheever

Ituzaingó 1B Week 8! Miracles!

Hola amigos!

Okay so first off, in case you didn't notice from how many weeks I've been in Ituzaingó, transfers came two weeks ago. For the first time in my mission I stayed with my companion in the area!! My first time having a companion for more than one transfer! It's wonderful and we sure are learning a whole lot together. 

Now for my week,
This week was full of miracles!!! Our investigator, Marina, accepted a fecha for the 14th of January!!!! We put the date so far away because they're still waiting for the lawyer to do his part with the divorce of her pareja. However, we hope that they'll decide to find somewhere else for Eduardo to live until they can get married and then she can be baptized either this month or in December! We're going to talk about that with her when we go over the Law of Chastity again. 

We also found a new investigator that's super great! Her name is Stella Maris and she moved to Ituzaingó from La Costa a month ago. Something like 10 years ago her dad listened to the missionaries and she noticed the difference in him, but she was working two jobs and raising her kids so she never had time to stay and listen when they were at her dad's house and until we rang her doorbell on Friday, no other missionaries had ever come to her house and she always wondered why. She's super honest and open! The problem is that she smokes, so we'll be focusing on that a lot because she accepted a fecha for the 26th of November!!! 

This last week we had our zone conference, but this one was different. President Robertson organized all the zone conferences and came and gave us a special training and the assistants came as well and gave us a little training/introduced us to what the church has this year for Christmas. 

As you all probably know, every year the church makes a video for Christmas with a little theme. Well, this year is a little different. Yes, there's still a video with a theme, but there's an invitation as well. The theme is "Light the World" and the invitation is that we can all light the world this Christmas season. There will be a little calendar for the 25 days leading up to Christmas with how the Savior lit the world and how we can follow in his example. I'm super excited for this and I invite you all to get excited for it too, because it starts the 25th of November. I invite you all as well to start thinking of ways that you can light the world. If everyone puts forth their little bit of light, the world will change! 

Something else that was talked about in our zone meeting was that President Texeira, the President of the area South America South, challenged us all to baptize every weekend in December! Every single companionship of missionaries in Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Chile now has this challenge. I am so excited to see the miracles that come from working our hardest so that in our area, we can four baptisms, 8 in the ward, and 376 in the mission! FAITH CHANGES EVERYTHING!!! 

Anyway, I love you all and hope you know that the gospel is true and God loves you!
-Hermana Cheever

PS: If you could pray for my companion and me and our area and the mission that we can reach our goals this month of two baptisms in our area and 94 in the mission and in December of 376 baptisms in the mission, that would be super muchly appreciated.

Ituzaingó 1B week 7!

Hola amigos!

Well this week was pretty good. We walked. A ton. Enjoyed (read "died in") the sun. We saw Presidente and Hermana Robertson in our area on Friday. And they just about killed us with startledness (not sure if that's a word, but hey it works) because we were both looking where we were walking and not at the cars on the street and we just heard a man's voice yelling "Hermanas!" so we ignored it, then heard it antoher time. And another. Then the car started to back up because they already passed us. Then we saw that it was Pte and Hna Robertson and realized that we were okay.

We also saw two grand miracles! Here they are:
1) Thursday we had an appointment with an antiguo investigadora the Hermana Lideres visited in the tormenta blanca and she is amazing! SHe is so prepared! Her name is Liliana and she understood everything so well. We were talking about how the Priesthood was taken from the earth after Christ's earthly ministry and she was super concerned. SHe said something along the lines of "But, how would the world be without the authority of God? Everyone would be lost!" Then when we explained about Joseph Smith, as we were going to tell the 1st Vision, I showed the picture and she said "Ah how beautiful! SO that's the young man, and those two in the light, who are they?" She really felt the spirit and loved the Restoration!

2) The second miracle happened with our investigator, Marina. Last week we shared the Proclamation with her and she really loved it. She had returned a few weeks ago to her Evangelical church, but after sharing the Proclamation with her she said she was going to have to pray again and see what God wants her to do. Well, we had a lesson with her on Saturday and we felt like it would be a good idea to teach her about Noche de Hogar on ella y ahora quiere efectuar una Noche de Hogar every monday with her son and her boyfriend! At the end of the lesson she said (without us even getting to that part) that she wanted to come to church with us the next day! She ended up not coming because Eduardo, su pareja, already had plans to go visit his children on Sunday and he said he wasn't going to go, but if she wanted to she could stay and go with us, but he was going to go visit his kids. She did promise us though that this Sunday she will go with us! And she already has 1 asistencia so if she comes the next two Sundays she can be baptized in November! Well, that is if she tells Eduardo he needs to find somewhere else to live until his divorce comes through and they can get married. We are praying so much for her! 

This area is pretty hard, but I really have a testimony that the harder areas have more lasting conversions because the people really feel it and they aren't ust being baptized to be baptized.

Well, that was my week! The gospel's true God loves you!
-Hermana Cheever

Ituzaingó 1 Weeks 4&5!

Hola Amigos!

Okay so just a couple of exciting things happened these past two weeks. One of those things is that we had divisions! Hermana Poblete and I were separated for the first time this transfer and it was a little traumatic ... Haha JK. Divisions were actually really great! I was with Hermana Rodriguez from Perú in our area and Hna Poblete went to Ituzaingó 4 with Hna Barrera from Argentina. Hna Rodriguez and I saw so many miracles! Here's a list of the miracles we found:

1. The less active we had an appointment with was actually there and she's great!
   
2. We found a new golden investigator! (now if we can find her again, that'll be really cool!)
   We were going to beg forgiveness for not going to visit a less active with whom we had missed our appointment the day before and her ex-mother in-law was there watching her kids a little bit because she had had to travel to Salta to visit her dad. Anyway she talked to us and told us she had a ton of faith and that prayer has great power and we presented the Book of Mormon to her and she said she had already read quite a bit when visiting Virginia (the less active) or her mom and we asked if she wanted her own and explained that it was a treasure in our lives and she accepted very gladly and we said a prayer right there outside the house (I have no idea how many prayers I've said with people in the middle of the street, in a park, outside their house)
   .
3. On our way home in the night we paused before crossing the street because there were cars and that's the smart thing to do in that situation and this man on bicycle stopped and started talking to us and he was really great and we didn't even ask if there was anything we could help him with or anything that he would like us to pray for and he told us that he had a request that we could pray so that his paperwork could go through and he could receive the money he's been waiting for for his military service. Then as we talked a bit more, we found out that he lives in Ituzaingó 4 which is the area of Hna Rodriguez! It was actually a little funny because to get to our apartment (which is in Itu 4) we have to cross two or three blocks of the elders' area and then we live like 3 blocks in the area of the hermanas and we found this man as we were crossing the street that divides the wards and areas so we found someone in the middle of crossing the three areas right there. 

Anyway, I think that's all I have time for this week! I love each and every one of you and your beautiful faces! 

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

Ituzaingó 1 Week 3! Livin' on a Prayer!

Hola amigos!
So, you've probably been wondering if I'm still alive or not and the answer is yes, it's just that the time goes by super fast to email.

As you can see in the subject line I am no longer in 25 de Mayo, transfers were 3 weeks ago and I came to Ituzaingó 1! I'm back in the city and boy is it different! The first few days transitioning from riding a bike all day to walking all day were a little rough, Let's just say I had forgotten that things like hamstrings and calves and feet existed but they let me know they were still there! 

Right now we have and investigator that's super great! Her name is Marina and yeah, she's amazing! She's already read the whole Book of Mormon! There's just one slight problem: Her boyfriend needs his divorce to finalize so they can get married and we don't know how long that's going to take and since they live together she can't be baptized until they either get married or he finds somewhere else to live while they wait for everything. If you could pray for her that everything can come through, that would be wonderful! We've got a few really great families here! It's so weird to be in a ward again! And with members who have served missions or been members their whole lives! It sure changes the dynamic of things! 

Ah! I forgot to say anything about my new companion! Her name is Hermana Poblete and she's from La Serena, Chile! Aaand I'm training! It sure is an interesting learning experience. I think I'm learning more than she is! She's super great and prepared! 

As far as the other half of the subject line goes, I hit my halfway mark on Friday! Yup that's right folks! It's been 9 months since Hermana Cheever left her house and entered the mission! I have learned a ton and I love the mission so much!! 

Now for the most exciting part of the week - GENERAL CONFERENCE! I was able to watch 3 out of the four sessions in English and I was so grateful for that because I love to hear the talks from the general authorities in their actual voices and how it was originally written! The spirit was so strong and talk about a focus on missionary work! This conference basically taught us the Restoration and Plan of Salvation with a whole lot of faith and missionary-ness thrown in! I especially loved the talk given by Elder Evan A. Schmutz. The Spirit was so strong in the little room where we were watching that I felt like I could basically reach out and touch it! I encourage you all to go back and read or listen to that talk because I'm pretty sure it's a life changer! Well, I love you all! Never forget your divine heritage (as Elder Rasband taught us)! The gospel's true, God loves you!

-Hermana Cheever

25 de Mayo Week 6!

Hola Amigos!
Well, this week we worked a lot and I just want to tell you about two people we found on Saturday!
One of them was a reference we had of an older man who had had his leg removed removed recently. We went to visit him and we taught the Restoration to him and his wife and neighbor and they were all super attentive and interested, however we didn't feel in the moment that we should invite them to be baptized, so we'll see what happens the next time we go. They were super nice though and they even want to invite us to come eat lunch with them one day so that was pretty great. 

Another person we found was a man we contacted looking for an old investigator. At first we just asked him if he knew the woman we were looking for and he said no so we thanked him and kept looking. However, when we were outside another house Hna Da Silva said to me that she felt like we should go back and give him a Book of Mormon, so we did. He was super great! He's an artisan and travels a lot so he's seen and conversed with a lot of missionaries, but we're the first ones that really presented the message to him. We found out that he lives with his señora and son that has 1 and a half months. I'm not sure if he's married or not, we forgot to ask ... He was so great! He accepted the Book of Mormon and a Restoration pamphlet and said that he was interested so he was going to read! I'm excited to see what comes of that! 

The Lord works miracles when you do your part! The gospel's true, God loves you!
-Hermana Cheever

25 de Mayo Week 5! Temple!

Hola amigos!

Yup, that's right, we went to the temple this week!!! It meant leaving 25 for three whole days, but it was so worth it! I love the temple so much and the Buenos Aires temple is so beautiful! This week I learned that when we are diligent and obedient the Lord will help us, even if we have to be outside of our area for 3 whole days.

We started off this week really well with a lesson with Maxi and Melany on Monday night, and they had two friends there who also listened and accepted compromisos! After that we had a Noche de Hogar with a recent convert and we talked about Patriarchal blessings, only to find out that she's already got hers!

The temple was wonderful!

On Friday we had divisions with Hna Córdova and Hna Mattinson and it was great! I got to work with Hna Córdova and yeah, she's pretty great. Sofia accepted a baptismal date for the 3rd of September! Another one of our investigators, Liliana, did as well!

In our zone meeting at the beginning of the transfer we talked about how to use inspired questions and we've been applying it a lot and it has brought miracles! I know that my leaders in the mission are inspired of God and when I take what they have taught me and apply it in the work in my area and with my companion as well, miracles come! I love being able to represent my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for this time! I love you all! The gospel's true, God loves you!

-Hna Cheever

The attached picture is my group (the zone of Chivilcoy and the zones of Luján with the exception of those in their last two transfers) in front of the temple.