Dear Family,
I did the big event of my being called to ZL in the Email home today, so hopefully in this letter I'll be able to talk about what has happened so far this week.
In the past week's Devotional on Tuesday there was a really good message. The speaker was Elder Evans of the first quorum of the Seventy. His message was mostly about getting our investigators to read the Book of Mormon from the beginning, as well as encouraging us to not being afraid to invite someone to be baptized. However, for me, the coolest part of Elder Evan's talk was in his testimony at the end. He said, "It is not faith for me anymore my friends, now I know." As a missionary I am called to strengthen the faith of others in Jesus Christ and his Atonement, but we are also counseled in Preach My Gospel that "You cannot convert someone beyond your own conversion."
I am grateful for the fact that I can say, "I know". When I testify of the Savior and his Atonement, I can say "I know". When I testify of the Restoration, I can say, "I know". And I'm grateful for that because it will help me to be a better missionary and also to be better at serving the Lord and bring more people back to Him.
This last week when teaching our "investigators" with Hermano Maughan, he had us do splits where companionships split up and taught different investigators. It was pretty interesting. I taught with Elder Covington and his "investigator", Yoel who had a drug problem. It was quite a challenge to try and teach to a new investigator with a concern I haven't ever really researched or studied for, but it was a great opportunity to practice and went over fairly well.
The other thing that was pretty cool for this week is that we had a new teacher for about a week, Hermano Solberg, who also served his mission in Argentina. This past week he has acted for an investgator for us too, "Bernardo". Bernardo is a very prepared individual who readily accepts most of our ideas like prayer, a loving Heavenly Father and the Restoration, but lacks faith a little bit because he gets very upset over small principles. For example, he had a big hangup with Nephi killing Laban in order to get the brass plates, and refused to listen to anything else until we could explain it to him. We did a pretty good job of it and kept the conversation from becoming contentious. It seemed to resolve his worries. Ultimately, he accepted the commitment to be baptized, which is awesome! Also, this past week with Hermano Maughan's "investigator" Jorge, we taught him about the Restoration and invited him to be baptized, which he accepted. Overall a great week for our practice investigators. I have learned a lot about teaching and how to help my investigators.
That's pretty much all of my lesson news for this week and other than that the only cool thing that has happened that I haven't mentioned concerns soccer. When I got to the MTC, I was horrible at soccer. For the past week or so I've been playing during gym and I have gotten way better. So far I have two goals and my footwork and passing are starting to get better. Hopefully I'll be decent by the time I get to McAllen so I don't embarrass myself in front of the Hispanic members :).
Anyways, that's just about it for the week. I hope everyone is doing well. Thanks for keeping me informed on how things are going. I hope everybody has a great coming week!
Love,
Elder Wood
