Hello Everyone!
All is going well here in Donna, and things are moving along, but it seems they're not going too quickly. I'll talk about that in just a minute. First I need to be sure to answer all of Mom's questions so I don't forget.
As far as receiving meals here in Donna, we do a fair amount of eating in Member's homes, but a couple of nights each week we end up eating at our apartment. So far here I'm doing a pretty amazing job of cooking for myself, in my opinion. The first week or so I ate only cereal, but that got old really fast. So I committed myself to vary my diet and work to prepare my food. So far it has been going really well. Currently I'm making eggs and toast for a normal breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, and chicken and vegetables for dinner. Also, Mom doesn't have to worry because I make myself a fruit smoothie every day, out of actual bananas strawberries and whatnot, so I think I've got all my food groups covered. The one thing I will admit, is that this is all pretty cheap compared to what I thought it would be. I figured just living on cereal and milk was cheaper, but with buying all this other stuff, I'm still well under my allotted money per month. (My only junk food consists of a soda once every couple of days and whatever treats people send to me in the mail.)
My P-days here are pretty fun, and normally go something like this: We spend an hour at the gym in the morning and come back and do our laundry. There is a laundromat near our apartment in Donna which has all these really fancy "space age" washers and dryers, but unfortunately it is a bit expensive. Fortunately, the man who owns the laundromat (Dave) has a wife and kids who are LDS. He pays for the missionaries to wash their clothes. After our laundry, we go out and do some activities with our district. For example, today a member is paying for us to go bowling, and after that we're headed over to the town park to play volleyball, which should be pretty fun. After that we've got dinner at a member's house and we'll finish up the day proselyting.
The chapel we attend isn't in Donna, but is in the next town over--Weslaco. The building serves members in Mercedes, Weslaco and Donna, the three cities near here. The good news is that the members here are so numerous and strong that we have to get a larger chapel to accommodate all of them and our recent converts. However, the bad news is that the church is under construction and we can't meet in that building for about a year. So the ward is currently meeting in a rented out adult day-care center. It's not a bad building, but the lack of a built in speaker system, and hard walls that echo kids' cries make it hard for our investigators to hear what is going on during the meeting. The solution is for us to have our investigators sit up front, but it's still a bit of a hassle and not quite as nice as a chapel. However, I am still very grateful for the fact that we have a nice building to meet in, because I know that many missionaries don't even have that luxury.
As an interesting side note that I am sure Dad will appreciate, the LDS Chapel not here, but in McAllen has a similar history to the chapel in Arlington. Like the chapel in Arlington, it was built by the members a while back. Now some of the older members in that ward can point out the rocks that they brought and cemented in place to help build the back wall of the chapel. If Dad is interested in more information on that chapel, I can probably do that.
Now I've got a few minutes to talk about why things have been moving a little bit slowly here in Donna. We have a few really good investigators, but they all seem to be really busy families, and finding them at home is difficult, except for the weekends. Meeting with someone once a week is much less than ideal, and it has been kind of a frustration to me out here. Ideally, we should be meeting or at least contacting our solid investigators every day, but doing that has been really hard. I know that life in the real world goes on, but especially as a missionary, it is hard to have someone not be able to find the time to meet with you. You know just how much it can help them and how much it could bless their lives.
Other than that, the work is progressing well here in the field, and I am eternally grateful for the opportunity that I have to be here among the Lord's servants. Speaking of the Lord's servants, how great was Conference!? It's amazing to hear the prophet and the apostles speak to us as a Church, directly, and receive the advice and council the Lord wants us to hear in our day. I don't have too much time, but I'll relay just a quick thought I liked from Conference.
I cannot remember who said it, since I don't have my journal with me right now, but I really liked this idea: (I think it was President Eyring, but I'm not sure.) There are three ways to learn from the scriptures. First is to read the scriptures, which is good. We may learn something about a principle or doctrine we didn't understand before. Second, is to study the scriptures, which is better. When we study the scriptures we can make connections between passages that support and testify of each other, and use them to strengthen our testimonies and the testimonies of others. Third, is to ponder the scriptures, which is the best. When we ponder, we do both of the other methods, and then sit back and think. We think about the wonderful miracles of God, His power, and His love. When we ponder, that is when revelation comes.
I add my testimony to this, that when we study and read the scriptures, the majority of learning comes from thought and supplication before the Lord. When we ponder the mysteries of God, our relationship with him, and the meaning and significance of the Atonement of His Only Begotten Son, and humbly kneel ourselves before him in prayer, he will answer the questions of our souls. I have come to a knowledge of the truth of this here in the mission field. I know that if anyone will submit this method to the test, they too will know that prayers are heard and answered.
I give my best to everyone this coming week, and I hope that your lives are coming along well. I would love to hear about them. If anyone can find the time to write, I promise that even if it takes me a while, you will get a reply back. Thanks to all that have already written me, and I hope that everyone is doing well.
Love,
Elder Wood
October 7, 2010
September 27, 2010
Sept. 27, 2010, email to 4510 from Donna, TX
Dear Everyone,
This past week has been pretty eventful, so I'll try to get it all in as best I can in the time that I have. First I'm going to try and answer the questions I neglected to answer last time. Also, I'll try to get a handwritten letter off to Rebecca Johnson, Sarah, the Simmons and the Hancocks, since they were all so kind to send me letters around my birthday and I failed to get one sent off this last week. I know I failed at that this week, but I'm working on changing that.
I did get the package from Mom, and I'm very grateful for that. The belt is awesome, and the snacks and what not were very welcome. However, I am confused about the sending of hot chocolate, since it still averages about 95 - 100 every day, but I'm very excited to use it when it cools down here a bit, probably around December. Everything I need for the bike is here, so you don't have to worry about that at all. And as far as email goes, I believe it is only supposed to used, receiving or sending, with family. However, if my address is lost for a short time, or if someone just has a quick thing they need to get off to me, it's fine, I guess. The one exception for that is other missionaries on their missions. I have sent a few short emails back and forth with a friend of mine in the West Indies, for example, since it is hard to write letters between busy, moving missionaries.
I guess a natural launching point for my first story would be to correct something Mom said in her letter to me this past week. On the contrary, I have seen TONS of rain here in Donna. The rain here beats the rain in Virginia for sure. And, the thing that makes it even worse, here, is that everything, and I mean EVERYTHING is flat. When it rains, it pours, and since there is no natural place for the water to flow, any dip in the road or any depression has at least three inches of standing water in it. There have been days when it was dry, don't get me wrong, but there are also some pretty big storms we've been caught in. Maybe I'll baptize somebody in one of the giant puddles they have around here someday (kidding, but seriously, they're huge).
I guess the most important thing that happened this last week was that we found two new great families to teach. One is the family of a middle-aged woman named Sandra, and her two children Danny, 15 and Ilene, 11. They were a referral from a family in the ward and are all really great. We had our first meeting with them on Saturday and they accepted a baptismal date and then came to church on Sunday. They seem to be really interested in hearing the Gospel. Sandra is a window. Her husband died when she was young, and she has had a hard time providing and caring for her family. But she is a very hard working and productive woman. Danny and Ilene, the two kids, are possibly some of the tallest people I've seen. Danny is 6 foot 4 inches at age 15 and still growing, but Ilene is the really crazy one. She's 11 years old and 5 foot 10 inches! When we were in Church on Sunday, one of the 16 year old girls from Young Women's came by to invite her to their activities, only to find out she's still in Primary! I just shot her a big grin and started laughing, but she seems pretty used to it.
Earlier on that same Saturday, we met Julie and her husband, Herman, and their family of four young boys. We had tried to meet with them over and over but kept finding them busy and to be honest, I was starting to lose faith in them. But we still stopped by Saturday morning to try and see them and Julie answered the door. Her husband was still sleeping but she said that she would call us with a time that we could come back and visit with them. I thought to myself, "Well now, she's just not going to call us and this whole process of trying to catch her free will start over again." However, to my surprise, about a half an hour later she called and asked when was the soonest that we could come over. We hurried back to their house and had a really nice lesson with them. We asked them if they wanted to be baptized, not really sure if they were actually taking in the things we were talking about. My companion and I were both surprised when they both looked at us and said, "Oh yes, we've both been wanting to be baptized for a while now." It's always amazing to me when we're able to catch a glimpse of the work that the Lord is doing in people's lives. We go out and work every day and we think that we're doing a lot in the world, and then you stumble upon a part of God's mysterious workings and grand designs. I can testify that the Lord really is at work here in the vineyard, and that he is doing more to soften and change people's hearts than we could ever hope to do.
The other story that I have from the week is that I had my first day on a bike out here in the mission field. We have a car in Donna, but I was on exchanges with the Elders in Weslaco, a bike area. It wasn't too bad really, but it just made me even more grateful for just how chiflado (spoiled) I am back in Donna. During the exchange I was with Elder Bell, from Tennessee, who interestingly enough, reminds me strongly of Elder Hancock. They don't look similar at all, but they both have similar attitudes. They're both positive about everything and can get excited about any subject.
Anyways, I'm just going to use this last bit of time to talk about some random subjects/questions I got from a few people that I figured everybody might be wondering about. So far, I have not run into anything deathly spicy, except for maybe one small incident. We were at a gas station getting some breakfast right before a meeting in McAllen, and I got a couple of burritos. My companion, who loves spicy things, went over to get some salsa. I figured I'd grab some too. I got a little cup of some tame looking salsa, but, on my way up to the register I figured I'd try just a bit of it. So, I just barely touched my finger into the salsa and licked it, only to find out that the salsa was not "tame" at all. I will admit I was struggling to hold back the tears and painful faces as I was paying for my burrito, desperately trying to reject my gringo status.
Spanish is coming along pretty well here. Pretty much everyone I meet is really impressed with how much I know for having just come off the plane. Most of the Spanish Ward members think that I've been in the mission a while and are quite surprised when they figure out I got here three weeks ago. However, I'm still able to keep the pride out because though I can speak the Spanish fairly well, all of the Mexicans around here talk really fast and have slang words that they never taught us in the MTC. So, I still have trouble understanding a lot of the Spanish speakers here. It is improving, though, and I'm slowly catching on and finding the spaces between their words. Probably the funniest thing that happens though, is that people see that I'm white and assume I don't speak any Spanish.
One time a man opened his door and he seemed fairly young so I started off in English and he replied back with a simple "hello". So I started to explain that we were missionaries in English at which point I could tell he wasn't interested and to try to get us to give up he replied, "No hablo Ingles". I just smiled and started speaking in Spanish at which point he just sighed, drew back, and closed the door. I have one other story kind of like that, but more of just one that frustrated me, but was still kind of funny. I have trouble switching between thinking and speaking in Spanish and English, so I like to just stay in one language or the other. So, I was really thrown off and stumbling when we were talking with a man and a couple of his friends. We came up and started talking to them and without fail, the man would always talk to everyone else in Spanish, and then talk to me in broken English. Even after I replied to him in Spanish, the process continued. He'd look at my companion and say, "Buenas dias, como esta?" then turn to me and say, "Hey, how you doing buddy?". With all the switching in languages I just get confused and end up speaking to different people in the wrong language. Hopefully, soon I'll get used to it and be able to switch back and forth without having to consciously think about it.
I hope everything is going well in Virginia, and wherever everybody else is. Everything is great out here in Texas, and things are slowly but surely moving along. I hope everyone has a good week and can try and see the hand of the Lord in whatever work you're engaged in.
Love,
Elder Wood
This past week has been pretty eventful, so I'll try to get it all in as best I can in the time that I have. First I'm going to try and answer the questions I neglected to answer last time. Also, I'll try to get a handwritten letter off to Rebecca Johnson, Sarah, the Simmons and the Hancocks, since they were all so kind to send me letters around my birthday and I failed to get one sent off this last week. I know I failed at that this week, but I'm working on changing that.
I did get the package from Mom, and I'm very grateful for that. The belt is awesome, and the snacks and what not were very welcome. However, I am confused about the sending of hot chocolate, since it still averages about 95 - 100 every day, but I'm very excited to use it when it cools down here a bit, probably around December. Everything I need for the bike is here, so you don't have to worry about that at all. And as far as email goes, I believe it is only supposed to used, receiving or sending, with family. However, if my address is lost for a short time, or if someone just has a quick thing they need to get off to me, it's fine, I guess. The one exception for that is other missionaries on their missions. I have sent a few short emails back and forth with a friend of mine in the West Indies, for example, since it is hard to write letters between busy, moving missionaries.
I guess a natural launching point for my first story would be to correct something Mom said in her letter to me this past week. On the contrary, I have seen TONS of rain here in Donna. The rain here beats the rain in Virginia for sure. And, the thing that makes it even worse, here, is that everything, and I mean EVERYTHING is flat. When it rains, it pours, and since there is no natural place for the water to flow, any dip in the road or any depression has at least three inches of standing water in it. There have been days when it was dry, don't get me wrong, but there are also some pretty big storms we've been caught in. Maybe I'll baptize somebody in one of the giant puddles they have around here someday (kidding, but seriously, they're huge).
I guess the most important thing that happened this last week was that we found two new great families to teach. One is the family of a middle-aged woman named Sandra, and her two children Danny, 15 and Ilene, 11. They were a referral from a family in the ward and are all really great. We had our first meeting with them on Saturday and they accepted a baptismal date and then came to church on Sunday. They seem to be really interested in hearing the Gospel. Sandra is a window. Her husband died when she was young, and she has had a hard time providing and caring for her family. But she is a very hard working and productive woman. Danny and Ilene, the two kids, are possibly some of the tallest people I've seen. Danny is 6 foot 4 inches at age 15 and still growing, but Ilene is the really crazy one. She's 11 years old and 5 foot 10 inches! When we were in Church on Sunday, one of the 16 year old girls from Young Women's came by to invite her to their activities, only to find out she's still in Primary! I just shot her a big grin and started laughing, but she seems pretty used to it.
Earlier on that same Saturday, we met Julie and her husband, Herman, and their family of four young boys. We had tried to meet with them over and over but kept finding them busy and to be honest, I was starting to lose faith in them. But we still stopped by Saturday morning to try and see them and Julie answered the door. Her husband was still sleeping but she said that she would call us with a time that we could come back and visit with them. I thought to myself, "Well now, she's just not going to call us and this whole process of trying to catch her free will start over again." However, to my surprise, about a half an hour later she called and asked when was the soonest that we could come over. We hurried back to their house and had a really nice lesson with them. We asked them if they wanted to be baptized, not really sure if they were actually taking in the things we were talking about. My companion and I were both surprised when they both looked at us and said, "Oh yes, we've both been wanting to be baptized for a while now." It's always amazing to me when we're able to catch a glimpse of the work that the Lord is doing in people's lives. We go out and work every day and we think that we're doing a lot in the world, and then you stumble upon a part of God's mysterious workings and grand designs. I can testify that the Lord really is at work here in the vineyard, and that he is doing more to soften and change people's hearts than we could ever hope to do.
The other story that I have from the week is that I had my first day on a bike out here in the mission field. We have a car in Donna, but I was on exchanges with the Elders in Weslaco, a bike area. It wasn't too bad really, but it just made me even more grateful for just how chiflado (spoiled) I am back in Donna. During the exchange I was with Elder Bell, from Tennessee, who interestingly enough, reminds me strongly of Elder Hancock. They don't look similar at all, but they both have similar attitudes. They're both positive about everything and can get excited about any subject.
Anyways, I'm just going to use this last bit of time to talk about some random subjects/questions I got from a few people that I figured everybody might be wondering about. So far, I have not run into anything deathly spicy, except for maybe one small incident. We were at a gas station getting some breakfast right before a meeting in McAllen, and I got a couple of burritos. My companion, who loves spicy things, went over to get some salsa. I figured I'd grab some too. I got a little cup of some tame looking salsa, but, on my way up to the register I figured I'd try just a bit of it. So, I just barely touched my finger into the salsa and licked it, only to find out that the salsa was not "tame" at all. I will admit I was struggling to hold back the tears and painful faces as I was paying for my burrito, desperately trying to reject my gringo status.
Spanish is coming along pretty well here. Pretty much everyone I meet is really impressed with how much I know for having just come off the plane. Most of the Spanish Ward members think that I've been in the mission a while and are quite surprised when they figure out I got here three weeks ago. However, I'm still able to keep the pride out because though I can speak the Spanish fairly well, all of the Mexicans around here talk really fast and have slang words that they never taught us in the MTC. So, I still have trouble understanding a lot of the Spanish speakers here. It is improving, though, and I'm slowly catching on and finding the spaces between their words. Probably the funniest thing that happens though, is that people see that I'm white and assume I don't speak any Spanish.
One time a man opened his door and he seemed fairly young so I started off in English and he replied back with a simple "hello". So I started to explain that we were missionaries in English at which point I could tell he wasn't interested and to try to get us to give up he replied, "No hablo Ingles". I just smiled and started speaking in Spanish at which point he just sighed, drew back, and closed the door. I have one other story kind of like that, but more of just one that frustrated me, but was still kind of funny. I have trouble switching between thinking and speaking in Spanish and English, so I like to just stay in one language or the other. So, I was really thrown off and stumbling when we were talking with a man and a couple of his friends. We came up and started talking to them and without fail, the man would always talk to everyone else in Spanish, and then talk to me in broken English. Even after I replied to him in Spanish, the process continued. He'd look at my companion and say, "Buenas dias, como esta?" then turn to me and say, "Hey, how you doing buddy?". With all the switching in languages I just get confused and end up speaking to different people in the wrong language. Hopefully, soon I'll get used to it and be able to switch back and forth without having to consciously think about it.
I hope everything is going well in Virginia, and wherever everybody else is. Everything is great out here in Texas, and things are slowly but surely moving along. I hope everyone has a good week and can try and see the hand of the Lord in whatever work you're engaged in.
Love,
Elder Wood
Sep 20, 2010, 4:37 p.m. email to 4510 from Donna, TX
Hello Everyone!
I want to give thanks to everybody that wrote me on my birthday or sent me a package! It was awesome to hear from a lot of people and get some cool things in the mail. On an odd note, we had zone conference with Elder Richards from the 70s this past week and it was on my birthday! The P-day before I had forgotten to buy some cupcakes or something to celebrate my birthday with, so I was very surprised and excited when they rolled out a giant cake during the meal at the conference. It wasn't for me or anything, but at least I got to have some cake.
I don't have that much time to write today, so I'll just write a short story from this week then hopefully get a handwritten letter off tonight. Not too much that I can remember happened, but this week on Friday I had my first exchange in the mission! I was on an exchange with Elder Santa Cruz, one of the Zone Leaders. He is from Lima, Peru. Anyways, overall we just had a pretty good day of contacting with a few lessons, but something kind of interesting happened. We were contacting a man who was outside washing his car, and it turned out he didn't want to listen to our message, but he was willing to buy us some ice cream from the ice cream truck in the neighborhood. The man who was driving the ice cream truck had been to church before and was interested in coming again! He ended up not showing up on Sunday, but it was still a neat experience.
Anyways, I hope all is going well and that everyone has a great week!
Love,
Elder Wood
I want to give thanks to everybody that wrote me on my birthday or sent me a package! It was awesome to hear from a lot of people and get some cool things in the mail. On an odd note, we had zone conference with Elder Richards from the 70s this past week and it was on my birthday! The P-day before I had forgotten to buy some cupcakes or something to celebrate my birthday with, so I was very surprised and excited when they rolled out a giant cake during the meal at the conference. It wasn't for me or anything, but at least I got to have some cake.
I don't have that much time to write today, so I'll just write a short story from this week then hopefully get a handwritten letter off tonight. Not too much that I can remember happened, but this week on Friday I had my first exchange in the mission! I was on an exchange with Elder Santa Cruz, one of the Zone Leaders. He is from Lima, Peru. Anyways, overall we just had a pretty good day of contacting with a few lessons, but something kind of interesting happened. We were contacting a man who was outside washing his car, and it turned out he didn't want to listen to our message, but he was willing to buy us some ice cream from the ice cream truck in the neighborhood. The man who was driving the ice cream truck had been to church before and was interested in coming again! He ended up not showing up on Sunday, but it was still a neat experience.
Anyways, I hope all is going well and that everyone has a great week!
Love,
Elder Wood
September 20, 2010
Monday Sept. 13, 2010, email from Donna, TX
Hey Family!
Well, I've officially made it through my first week here in Texas, and all is going well. Just to get some stuff down so I don't forget in this email, my current address for mail is:
Elder Roland Wood
1308 E. Miller Ave., Apt #2,
Donna, Texas 78537
My P-days are on Mondays here, and today is my first one out in the field. A lot of stuff has happened this week, and it's been a bit of a shock coming from the MTC, but I think that I've been doing all right here. I got here and got through the orientation, and now I'm out in the field with my companion, Elder Nevarro. He is a great Elder who works really hard and speaks pretty good Spanish. I guess I can relate just a few stories of my first days here so you can get a feel of what it is like here.
I guess first off, though, I should talk a little bit about Donna. Donna is a town East of McAllen about half an hour, and is bordered by the towns of Weslaco and Mercedes, which are a bit bigger. You might be able to find them on the map. Donna is the poorer part of the area here, with lots of people living in motor homes or factory homes, but it has its nicer areas as well. There are TONS of dogs here, many of which are just stray ones that roam around. Since there are lots of dogs here, normally what we do when we walk up to a house is stand on the edge of the yard and tap the metal fence (which everyone has here) with our tags. It makes a nice 'ping' sound which normally wakes up any sleeping dogs and then we can decide if it's good to go in or not. On our first day here we walked up to a house, pinged the fence and nothing happened, so we went up. However, when we were about to walk up the steps to the house, a giant German Shepherd jumped out from underneath the house like it was gonna rip our heads off. As this was like the second house I had ever knocked on, it scared the crap out of me. I fought the reflex to run, pulled off my backpack and held it between me and the dog to give me some room as we backed out of the yard. So it turned out all right, but I will say that got my heart beating pretty fast.
We've had trouble finding investigators since we've been here, although we've been out contacting quite a bit since I've been here. We've only had a few investigators to meet with, many of whom have stopped progressing or want some more time to learn before baptism. Laura, who is one or our investigators, has a baptismal date, but we've had to push it back because she wants to be baptized, but feels like she needs to learn more before she fully commits. It's hard for us to meet with her because she's in band at the high school and her day starts and ends basically the same time ours does, so we can only see her once a week on Sundays. We had a good lesson with her, yesterday, and hopefully she will continue to study and pray and soon be able to really commit. Her brother, Ramiro, however, is progressing well and wants to be baptized. He will probably be baptized on the 26th of September.
Anyways, we did a lot of contacting this week, and we've found some good potential investigators. Hopefully, we'll be able to follow up with our return appointments with them and get them to progress. Speaking of our potential investigators, it's been interesting because I've managed to find two potential investigators who are Hispanic copies of our family. Roy, one investigator, is just a Hispanic version of Nathan. He looks really similar, talks the same, and does IT work here for an electrical company. He has two twin boys and a one year old daughter. Also, I found Ana, who is just the Hispanic version of Rose-Ellen. She talks really similarly to Rose-Ellen and is wholly devoted to and focused on the well-being of her young daughter. It's weird how I keep running into everyone here that reminds me of my family.
So, I don't have too much email time left, but just know I'm doing well out here, and everything is going fine. My companion is great and we're working hard. I was going to send some pictures home but I haven't taken too many yet and I forgot my camera. I have some good pictures of when our car got stuck in the mud here, though. I had to spend a good hour or so cleaning my shoes after that, yesterday. We got it out, but it was a struggle. Anyways, I hope everyone has a good week. I was very excited to hear about Sarah's baby! Congratulations! The Wood grandchildren are starting to be dominated by the girls. Who knows, maybe that will change soon =).
Love,
Elder Wood
Well, I've officially made it through my first week here in Texas, and all is going well. Just to get some stuff down so I don't forget in this email, my current address for mail is:
Elder Roland Wood
1308 E. Miller Ave., Apt #2,
Donna, Texas 78537
My P-days are on Mondays here, and today is my first one out in the field. A lot of stuff has happened this week, and it's been a bit of a shock coming from the MTC, but I think that I've been doing all right here. I got here and got through the orientation, and now I'm out in the field with my companion, Elder Nevarro. He is a great Elder who works really hard and speaks pretty good Spanish. I guess I can relate just a few stories of my first days here so you can get a feel of what it is like here.
I guess first off, though, I should talk a little bit about Donna. Donna is a town East of McAllen about half an hour, and is bordered by the towns of Weslaco and Mercedes, which are a bit bigger. You might be able to find them on the map. Donna is the poorer part of the area here, with lots of people living in motor homes or factory homes, but it has its nicer areas as well. There are TONS of dogs here, many of which are just stray ones that roam around. Since there are lots of dogs here, normally what we do when we walk up to a house is stand on the edge of the yard and tap the metal fence (which everyone has here) with our tags. It makes a nice 'ping' sound which normally wakes up any sleeping dogs and then we can decide if it's good to go in or not. On our first day here we walked up to a house, pinged the fence and nothing happened, so we went up. However, when we were about to walk up the steps to the house, a giant German Shepherd jumped out from underneath the house like it was gonna rip our heads off. As this was like the second house I had ever knocked on, it scared the crap out of me. I fought the reflex to run, pulled off my backpack and held it between me and the dog to give me some room as we backed out of the yard. So it turned out all right, but I will say that got my heart beating pretty fast.
We've had trouble finding investigators since we've been here, although we've been out contacting quite a bit since I've been here. We've only had a few investigators to meet with, many of whom have stopped progressing or want some more time to learn before baptism. Laura, who is one or our investigators, has a baptismal date, but we've had to push it back because she wants to be baptized, but feels like she needs to learn more before she fully commits. It's hard for us to meet with her because she's in band at the high school and her day starts and ends basically the same time ours does, so we can only see her once a week on Sundays. We had a good lesson with her, yesterday, and hopefully she will continue to study and pray and soon be able to really commit. Her brother, Ramiro, however, is progressing well and wants to be baptized. He will probably be baptized on the 26th of September.
Anyways, we did a lot of contacting this week, and we've found some good potential investigators. Hopefully, we'll be able to follow up with our return appointments with them and get them to progress. Speaking of our potential investigators, it's been interesting because I've managed to find two potential investigators who are Hispanic copies of our family. Roy, one investigator, is just a Hispanic version of Nathan. He looks really similar, talks the same, and does IT work here for an electrical company. He has two twin boys and a one year old daughter. Also, I found Ana, who is just the Hispanic version of Rose-Ellen. She talks really similarly to Rose-Ellen and is wholly devoted to and focused on the well-being of her young daughter. It's weird how I keep running into everyone here that reminds me of my family.
So, I don't have too much email time left, but just know I'm doing well out here, and everything is going fine. My companion is great and we're working hard. I was going to send some pictures home but I haven't taken too many yet and I forgot my camera. I have some good pictures of when our car got stuck in the mud here, though. I had to spend a good hour or so cleaning my shoes after that, yesterday. We got it out, but it was a struggle. Anyways, I hope everyone has a good week. I was very excited to hear about Sarah's baby! Congratulations! The Wood grandchildren are starting to be dominated by the girls. Who knows, maybe that will change soon =).
Love,
Elder Wood
September 13, 2010
First email letter from Texas, Sept. 7, 2010
Hola!
I'm now here in Texas, and I have my new area and my new companion. However, first I guess I should go over what happened in the airport. I bought a phonecard at the MTC, and it said it had like 300 minutes on it or whatever. Apparently, pay phones, due to extra charges by the FCC (editorial note: but mostly due to added on charges by the issuers of phone cards, and the pay phone providers themselves), ate up my time super fast, and when I tried to call some of my siblings in my layover in Fort Wort, it said that I had insufficient funds. It was a bummer, but I'll be all right. It happened to quite a few of the elders who were in my travel group. Some of them got down in the dumps because they were planning to call their girlfriends. I felt bad for them, but I will admit it made me kind of happy that I didn't have to deal with any issue like that.
The flights were both fine, and neither of them was over three hours, so they were easy to get by. I didn't really get a chance to nap on the plane, but I did get a chance to do some scripture reading which led me to something very interesting. I was reading in Doctrine and Covenants 105:25 which basically says, "There has been a day of calling, and soon will be a day of choosing. and those that are chosen will be those that are worthy." This scripture stuck out to me because I found it when I was on the plane to my mission field. It just made me think, all missionaries have been called, but today is the day of choosing. It is my duty to work hard, obey and be worthy so that I will be "chosen". I will be able to have the Spirit of the Lord with me, and with that, I will find greater success and happiness in the mission field. I'm certain that I was led to that scripture on the plane, to give me more motivation these first few days in the mission field.
So, I arrived yesterday in McAllen, Texas. The weather here is actually very similar to that in Virginia. (Editorial note: NOT REALLY, he just arrived during a hurricane.) Many of the Elders stepped out of the airport and were shocked due to the humidity in the air, but I just smiled and felt just a little bit at home. The weather here is similar to Virginia, but the terrain is VERY different. It is flat, like God just took a giant rolling pin and flattened out the whole region, and there are palm trees everywhere. The skyline here just goes on and on, uninterrupted by hills or trees and you can just see for miles. It is really quite cool (Ed: as in awesome) and the view of the endless sky is quite amazing. This is the first time that I've actually seen palm trees with my own eyes (Ed: Not really, he's forgetting Arizona and Florida and Alabama) and they're quite a pretty site in my opinion. Surprisingly, it rains here quite a bit, a lot more than I was expecting. (Ed: Hurricanes do that!) A small hurricane passed through the far Eastern and Northern parts of the mission last night and today, but so far it has just rained here. Apparently there was a storm last night, but I was so exhausted from getting up at 3:30 AM in Provo that I just slept through the whole thing.
We met the mission presidency here, President and Sister Trayner, who are both very nice. On an odd, random note, Sister Trayner reminds me very much of Aunt Nancy. She looks a little bit similar, has the same kind of humor, and the same personality as Nancy. President Trayner was a lawyer but I either forgot to ask or can't remember what type of law he practiced. However, he did know Dad was a lawyer and proceeded to apologize profusely for that, which I thought was pretty funny. They were both very kind to us, and we had a wonderful barbecue dinner at their house.
The area I have been placed in is Donna, which is just East of McAllen. My new companion is Elder Nevara, from Nevada. I cannot remember what the exact town he is from, but is is North Nevada, nowhere close to Vegas =). He is half Mexican but doesn't speak Spanish, as his father never taught it to him at home. He seems like he is here to work hard, and I'm excited for the opportunity to work with him and start to improve my Spanish. Donna is in the "valley" as they call it, even though there are no mountains around, and there are many, many Spanish speakers here. Mostly everyone speaks Spanish and English, so that is both a blessing and a curse for me in a way. If I choose to be lazy, I can talk to most everyone in English and get my point across, but if I push myself I should be able to speak mostly Spanish and really start to improve. I don't think I'm going to have the lazy problem, but we'll see. At the moment I've committed to speaking my Spanish.
Anyways, it's getting about time to go I think, so I'll wrap this up. I'm excited and ready to be in the field, and grateful for the opportunity to serve the Lord here. I hope everyone has a good week and hopefully I'll have some good stories in a week or so.
Love,
Elder Wood
I'm now here in Texas, and I have my new area and my new companion. However, first I guess I should go over what happened in the airport. I bought a phonecard at the MTC, and it said it had like 300 minutes on it or whatever. Apparently, pay phones, due to extra charges by the FCC (editorial note: but mostly due to added on charges by the issuers of phone cards, and the pay phone providers themselves), ate up my time super fast, and when I tried to call some of my siblings in my layover in Fort Wort, it said that I had insufficient funds. It was a bummer, but I'll be all right. It happened to quite a few of the elders who were in my travel group. Some of them got down in the dumps because they were planning to call their girlfriends. I felt bad for them, but I will admit it made me kind of happy that I didn't have to deal with any issue like that.
The flights were both fine, and neither of them was over three hours, so they were easy to get by. I didn't really get a chance to nap on the plane, but I did get a chance to do some scripture reading which led me to something very interesting. I was reading in Doctrine and Covenants 105:25 which basically says, "There has been a day of calling, and soon will be a day of choosing. and those that are chosen will be those that are worthy." This scripture stuck out to me because I found it when I was on the plane to my mission field. It just made me think, all missionaries have been called, but today is the day of choosing. It is my duty to work hard, obey and be worthy so that I will be "chosen". I will be able to have the Spirit of the Lord with me, and with that, I will find greater success and happiness in the mission field. I'm certain that I was led to that scripture on the plane, to give me more motivation these first few days in the mission field.
So, I arrived yesterday in McAllen, Texas. The weather here is actually very similar to that in Virginia. (Editorial note: NOT REALLY, he just arrived during a hurricane.) Many of the Elders stepped out of the airport and were shocked due to the humidity in the air, but I just smiled and felt just a little bit at home. The weather here is similar to Virginia, but the terrain is VERY different. It is flat, like God just took a giant rolling pin and flattened out the whole region, and there are palm trees everywhere. The skyline here just goes on and on, uninterrupted by hills or trees and you can just see for miles. It is really quite cool (Ed: as in awesome) and the view of the endless sky is quite amazing. This is the first time that I've actually seen palm trees with my own eyes (Ed: Not really, he's forgetting Arizona and Florida and Alabama) and they're quite a pretty site in my opinion. Surprisingly, it rains here quite a bit, a lot more than I was expecting. (Ed: Hurricanes do that!) A small hurricane passed through the far Eastern and Northern parts of the mission last night and today, but so far it has just rained here. Apparently there was a storm last night, but I was so exhausted from getting up at 3:30 AM in Provo that I just slept through the whole thing.
We met the mission presidency here, President and Sister Trayner, who are both very nice. On an odd, random note, Sister Trayner reminds me very much of Aunt Nancy. She looks a little bit similar, has the same kind of humor, and the same personality as Nancy. President Trayner was a lawyer but I either forgot to ask or can't remember what type of law he practiced. However, he did know Dad was a lawyer and proceeded to apologize profusely for that, which I thought was pretty funny. They were both very kind to us, and we had a wonderful barbecue dinner at their house.
The area I have been placed in is Donna, which is just East of McAllen. My new companion is Elder Nevara, from Nevada. I cannot remember what the exact town he is from, but is is North Nevada, nowhere close to Vegas =). He is half Mexican but doesn't speak Spanish, as his father never taught it to him at home. He seems like he is here to work hard, and I'm excited for the opportunity to work with him and start to improve my Spanish. Donna is in the "valley" as they call it, even though there are no mountains around, and there are many, many Spanish speakers here. Mostly everyone speaks Spanish and English, so that is both a blessing and a curse for me in a way. If I choose to be lazy, I can talk to most everyone in English and get my point across, but if I push myself I should be able to speak mostly Spanish and really start to improve. I don't think I'm going to have the lazy problem, but we'll see. At the moment I've committed to speaking my Spanish.
Anyways, it's getting about time to go I think, so I'll wrap this up. I'm excited and ready to be in the field, and grateful for the opportunity to serve the Lord here. I hope everyone has a good week and hopefully I'll have some good stories in a week or so.
Love,
Elder Wood
September 6, 2010
August 31, 2010 (letter via post to 4510)
Dear Family,
I forgot to say in my last email, but Happy Anniversary to Mom and Dad! It's great to see so many years of happy marriage and to have such a great example for parents. As I've been here I have come to see many of the different circumstances that people come from. It has made me just that much more grateful for my parents and the chance I had to be raised in the Gospel.
Thanks for the package sent from Christian's house. The tie and the pillowcase are both really cool. The food is all really good, so I'm grateful for that. I managed to steal a whole lot of candy from the "Old Testament Table." (It's the ironing board where the departing missionaries leave or "sacrifice" anything that they don't want to take to the mission field. It's all up for grabs.) So, I basically have half my desk covered in Starburtsts, Jolly Ranchers, cookies and PopTarts and the like. I've been making an effort to pass it around to the other Elders in order to spare my health and also to just get rid of it all. I'm pretty sure that with just an hour a day back at the residence, there's no way I'm getting through those treats all by myself!
We're getting another new district on Wednesday, many of whom are going to the Spokane, Washington Mission! I'll only be their Zone Leader for about four days before I leave, but hopefully I'll make enough of a good impression that they'll remember me and say "Hi" to Rose-Ellen for me if they ever run into her. I should get released as ZL on Sunday and then be off on Monday. Oh, and also, just as a heads up for when I'll be calling: We leave for the airport at 5:30 -6:00 a.m. or so, and or flight is at 8:25 a.m. so I'll only have something less than an hour to call. It will probably be between 7:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. Provo time, Monday, September 6th. I can buy my own calling card thing, but that's around when I should be calling.
There's just one last story I'd like to tell from this week. On Thursday we went to the Referral Center (RC) here at the MTC. It's basically just a big calling center where you call people who have ordered things like Books of Mormon or Bibles from the Church. You make sure they got it and then see if they want to meet with the missionaries. I was a ward missionary in my BYU ward and we went there fairly often. When I found out we would be doing calls, I wasn't as nervous as a lot of the missionaries were. However, that all changed when he said that we would be doing the calls in Spanish! Upon arriving we found out that we could still make some of the calls in English, but we were challenged to do at least two Spanish calls. We were there for about an hour and a half and I got mostly answering machines, but a few people did pick up. The first was Janine. When I called her I was actually looking for her sister, but apparently she wasn't home so I just talked with Janine, instead. She was on her way out the door to work, so I didn't get to talk for too long, but I bore my testimony, offered her a Book of Mormon, and asked if she would like to meet with the missionaries. She said YES! I hope the missionaries who contact her will bring her to her Savior, Jesus Christ. It was a really neat experience just to find someone willing to hear the Gospel. I was so excited after that (it was in English) that I got up my confidence to start the Spanish calls. However, the Lord must have seen fit to humble me after that experience because the first Spanish speaker that picked up immediately began to chew me out. She was yelling and speaking so fast in Spanish that I was dumbstruck and couldn't think of anything to say or even understand what she was saying She had just been straight yelling at me for about 30 seconds when I picked up, "No me llamada mas!" or "Don't call me anymore!" and then she hung up. Needless to say, I was humbled, but I took it with a good attitude and just started laughing because I realized I had been chewed out for the first time in Spanish. This was one of my big fears for the field, but now that it's happened, I'm not afraid of it anymore. So overall, it was a great experience at the RC and I learned quite a lot that day.
Anyways, it's been a really good week here and the time has flown by. I feel like I walked in here yesterday. It is really true when they say, "The days feel like weeks and the weeks feel like days." I hope things are going well at home and that everyone is doing OK. My next letter home will probably be from the field so wish me luck! The Gospel is true and the Church is the true Church of Jesus Christ. I love you all. Have a good week!
Elder Wood
I forgot to say in my last email, but Happy Anniversary to Mom and Dad! It's great to see so many years of happy marriage and to have such a great example for parents. As I've been here I have come to see many of the different circumstances that people come from. It has made me just that much more grateful for my parents and the chance I had to be raised in the Gospel.
Thanks for the package sent from Christian's house. The tie and the pillowcase are both really cool. The food is all really good, so I'm grateful for that. I managed to steal a whole lot of candy from the "Old Testament Table." (It's the ironing board where the departing missionaries leave or "sacrifice" anything that they don't want to take to the mission field. It's all up for grabs.) So, I basically have half my desk covered in Starburtsts, Jolly Ranchers, cookies and PopTarts and the like. I've been making an effort to pass it around to the other Elders in order to spare my health and also to just get rid of it all. I'm pretty sure that with just an hour a day back at the residence, there's no way I'm getting through those treats all by myself!
We're getting another new district on Wednesday, many of whom are going to the Spokane, Washington Mission! I'll only be their Zone Leader for about four days before I leave, but hopefully I'll make enough of a good impression that they'll remember me and say "Hi" to Rose-Ellen for me if they ever run into her. I should get released as ZL on Sunday and then be off on Monday. Oh, and also, just as a heads up for when I'll be calling: We leave for the airport at 5:30 -6:00 a.m. or so, and or flight is at 8:25 a.m. so I'll only have something less than an hour to call. It will probably be between 7:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. Provo time, Monday, September 6th. I can buy my own calling card thing, but that's around when I should be calling.
There's just one last story I'd like to tell from this week. On Thursday we went to the Referral Center (RC) here at the MTC. It's basically just a big calling center where you call people who have ordered things like Books of Mormon or Bibles from the Church. You make sure they got it and then see if they want to meet with the missionaries. I was a ward missionary in my BYU ward and we went there fairly often. When I found out we would be doing calls, I wasn't as nervous as a lot of the missionaries were. However, that all changed when he said that we would be doing the calls in Spanish! Upon arriving we found out that we could still make some of the calls in English, but we were challenged to do at least two Spanish calls. We were there for about an hour and a half and I got mostly answering machines, but a few people did pick up. The first was Janine. When I called her I was actually looking for her sister, but apparently she wasn't home so I just talked with Janine, instead. She was on her way out the door to work, so I didn't get to talk for too long, but I bore my testimony, offered her a Book of Mormon, and asked if she would like to meet with the missionaries. She said YES! I hope the missionaries who contact her will bring her to her Savior, Jesus Christ. It was a really neat experience just to find someone willing to hear the Gospel. I was so excited after that (it was in English) that I got up my confidence to start the Spanish calls. However, the Lord must have seen fit to humble me after that experience because the first Spanish speaker that picked up immediately began to chew me out. She was yelling and speaking so fast in Spanish that I was dumbstruck and couldn't think of anything to say or even understand what she was saying She had just been straight yelling at me for about 30 seconds when I picked up, "No me llamada mas!" or "Don't call me anymore!" and then she hung up. Needless to say, I was humbled, but I took it with a good attitude and just started laughing because I realized I had been chewed out for the first time in Spanish. This was one of my big fears for the field, but now that it's happened, I'm not afraid of it anymore. So overall, it was a great experience at the RC and I learned quite a lot that day.
Anyways, it's been a really good week here and the time has flown by. I feel like I walked in here yesterday. It is really true when they say, "The days feel like weeks and the weeks feel like days." I hope things are going well at home and that everyone is doing OK. My next letter home will probably be from the field so wish me luck! The Gospel is true and the Church is the true Church of Jesus Christ. I love you all. Have a good week!
Elder Wood
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