Hi Everyone!
This past week in the field has been a tough one, but nonetheless everything has been going all right. A couple of significant things happened and I'll be sure to get those written down.
The biggest thing that happened this past week was that I got dropped for the first time! this last Monday, after I sent off my email home, we came back to our apartment where we got a call from our investigator Sandra. We hadn't been able to contact her all weekend and we were super excited that she had actually put forth the effort and called us. In the lesson we had previously with her she seemed really interested and had accepted a baptismal invitation, so we were really excited to keep teaching her. However, when she called she told us that she was grateful for us coming by, but we wouldn't need to visit her anymore. I'm not really sure what happened between last week and now, but either way I was super bummed. It's surprising exactly how close it feels to a break-up. At one point she said, "But maybe you can come over for dinner sometime" which I took as, "We're breaking up, but we can still be friends."
So, that had me really frustrated on Monday, but then on Tuesday we had interviews with President Trayner and a short zone meeting. In the meeting we had a great discussion about the elect, and President did a lot to motivate us to go back out into the field and work. It was great because after getting dropped by one of our most promising investigators, it was exactly what I needed at the time.
On Saturday, I went on exchanges to Edinburgh with one of the Zone Leaders and had a really good experience over there. I learned a lot about contacting and how to teach powerfully, which has really helped me so far. Most of our lessons that day were in Spanish, but I was able to understand and express most of what I wanted to, which was a really nice experience as I can see my Spanish improving. However, I will admit, Elder Johnson's Spanish is probably already better than mine, since he is immersed in it down in Peru. On an interesting side note, my trainer's trainer, Elder Neyra, was from Arequipa, Peru, but he's already gone home now, so I'm unable to ask him any questions to give to Elder Johnson.
The only other really interesting thing that has happened this week is that we found a young man, Hector, who seems very motivated to investigate the Church. We ran into him contacting in the street, but we were talking mostly to his friend who was with him. However, when we started talking about the Church, Hector piped up in Spanish and asked where it was. After seeing how interested he was, we told him how to get there and asked if we could drop by to teach him sometime. I was in Edinburgh when my companion and the other Zone Leader taught him, but apparently everything went over really well and then he came to Church on Sunday, full of questions for us. He has a lot of questions about moral issues related to the commandments, but hopefully soon we'll be able to teach him about the power of prayer and study and get him started on answering his own questions.
Other than that, all is well in Donna. Oh, before I forget, we're getting our first tie bale today! It should get here sometime this afternoon, a good solid 1000 pounds of ties. (That's the number the other Elder told me. Needless to say, the rest of my day will be spent sifting through that and picking out the best ones. And the best part is, with 5 of us chipping in on it, it only cost me $9! That's less than I paid for one tie back in Virginia! I'll be sure to bring my camera to that and hopefully get some pictures. I do have some pictures to send home. So far I have been a failure at writing letters and sending the pictures off, but hopefully that will all change soon.
I was very glad to hear about all the festivities going on at home. Be sure to give a belated Happy Birthday to Sarah for me! I hope everyone has a good week and everything goes well. The Gospel is true!
Love,
Elder Wood
