Well, I feel like my last letter was kind of in the dumps. It
probably sounded pretty depressing, so I'll forward you my letter to
President Trayner this week.
Dear President,
We worked this week with a part member family where the mom is the only
member. We saw a miracle because she really wants to come back to
church! We had been trying to meet with her for a week or two and we
were finally able to sit down with her. She really feels the need to
come back to church. Unfortunately, she was out of town this weekend,
but seems really excited to come to church with her husband and children
soon. It was great to see someone so ready to come back to church who has recognized how much it helped her in her youth.
We also met with another less active member, who called us to give a blessing to an older lady that she works for as a provider. The older lady had been sick for a while and had some real health problems. She recently had a surgery that was supposed to help her out. I vividly remember the blessing. When I put my hands on her head after the anointing, I remember that I started off by saying, "We bless you that you can..." and then where I would say be healed or recover, the thought came into my head and the words came out, "pass without suffering or pain." It's the first time that I've blessed someone that the Spirit has indicated to me that it was time for them to move on rather than to stay and recover. It was a weird experience for me, but I knew that was what the Spirit had told me, so it's what was communicated in the blessing. She passed away yesterday. After blessing the older woman we gave a blessing to the less active sister as well. She had become attached to the older lady and had been struggling as she had seen her in her frail condition. I think it helped her a lot. She came to church yesterday with one of her friends who is also an inactive member, paid her tithing and seems pretty intent on continuing in the church.
This week was a good week for the district. We continue to work hard and I can see great changes happening in the missionaries here. They're striving to change and become better and do everything the Lord requires of them so that they can have the full measure of the Spirit.
I'm near the end of the Book of Mormon in my reading, and I've come to find great treasures in the writings of Mormon and Moroni at the end. (This is the end of the Book of Mormon that's before the Book of Ether, not the whole thing.) I think Moroni must be one of my favorite prophets. It's either him or Jacob. It's amazing to me how he can have such a strong testimony and trust in the Lord, even when those around him reject Christ and his Gospel, and everything seems hopeless. If I could have as burning a testimony of the Restoration as Moroni does in Mormon 8 and 9, I don't think I'd let anything get in my way. I'm sure Moroni didn't. So I've been praying this whole week for the Lord to help me open my eyes more to the reality of the Restoration and it's significance in our day.
I'm excited for zone conference, I always love being able to receive training and then repent and improve. Take care President, exito!
Love,
Elder Wood
Dear Family,
Well, this wee was another interesting week. We spent the week
searching for new investigators but didn't seem to have too much luck
finding any. Man we worked hard, but we weren't able to see much of an
immediate result from our efforts. We spent a good chunk of our time
going by former investigators in the hopes of finding someone, but we
weren't met with much results that way. This week we've decided to focus
on working with the less active part member families in our area.
There are a lot of them.
We've tried working with a number of them in
the past, but due to the lack of progress out on the streets we're going
to try to work with the places where we can at least get in to teach. It's kind of a stressful week after working so hard without seeing much
result, but I'm grateful for the chance that I have to at least
participate in the work. Working in the field with the Lord is a great
blessing and joy, even when it feels like things might not be going your
way. The Lord has the work all planned out and He's up there directing
it. When we've given it our all and the Lord sees it fit, we'll see
people come into the church. Until then, we just have to keep on
repenting and improving, making sure we're doing absolutely everything
in our power to make the work progress.
I'm glad to hear that Elder Johnson has extended his
mission. I'm sad I won't be seeing him at BYU for Fall semester, but
he'll be engaged in a much more important work. I'm sure his extension
time will be a very fruitful period of his mission.
Thanks to Sarah for sending me the update pictures
on Dot, I haven't seen her in a while. She's getting big and from the
stories that Sarah tells me it's kind of scary because she already
sounds like a little girl and not like the tyke I was expecting.
Transfers are happening tomorrow in the mission. A
lot of the Corpus Christi zone will be changing, but our district will
be staying the same for the next 6 weeks. We have a great district
here, so I'm happy that everybody is staying. We'll be seeing a lot of
miracles over coming weeks and I'm excited to see the district explode.
All of the missionaries here are working hard and trying the best to
improve, so the Lord will bless us and we'll be seeing some great
success.
I hope everybody has a great Memorial Day weekend! Take care and make some barbeque!
Oh, and in response to Mom's question, it seems like the weather here in
Corpus is pretty similar to that of Virginia-- super humid and it's
been in the mid 90s this past week. Only difference is that here it
never changes haha.
Love,
