December 27, email from Brownsville TX

Dear Family,

Sorry I couldn't write yesterday, the library was closed the day after Christmas.

It was great to get to talk to everyone! You forget how much you miss your family until you talk to them and remember just how special the relationships you have are. The weirdest part was definitely talking to Becca on the phone. She couldn't say a word when I left and now she's telling me all about the presents she got for Christmas. I got to talk to everybody except for Warren and Mel, so I just left them a quick message on their machine. I will admit I'm kind of jealous Mark got to talk by Skype, but I'm content with the calls.

I don't have much time to write, but I want to just see if I can organize some thoughts that I've been having. So this will probably just be a rambling letter more of like a journal for me, but we'll see how it goes.

I've been thinking about myself as a missionary. I feel like over these past few months I've progressed a lot. I feel I've become a better teacher, but more, that I've grown a stronger character. Since I've been senior companion I haven't had a baptism. That makes about 5 months now. It wasn't a huge challenge to get baptisms earlier on in my mission. Yes they took some work, but they came. It's interesting that now as I feel like I'm becoming the best missionary that I've been, they seem to have stopped. But the reason that I share that isn't to gripe, really it's just because I believe that I've grown from it. I know that the baptisms will come, and during this time I've learned to work hard regardless of whether or not I see success through baptisms. I'm not frustrated with the work or down on myself or my companions, but rather I feel full of faith because I know that soon, we will have someone make that step. Also, I feel that I've learned to take joy in the success of others. Since I've been a district leader I've come to appreciate more of the other missionaries and their success. I have come to find joy in the success of others in my district, and in my zone, rather than becoming frustrated at what is my own lack of baptisms. The work rolls forward regardless of whether or not we have a few hard weeks. I really do feel like I've grown a lot, especially over the past few months. I thank the Lord for the challenges that I've had, because I know that I've grown because of them. Sorry if that sounded like a rant. Sometimes I just have to write things out and it helps me sort my ideas as I go.

I'm grateful for my family, and that everyone is a member of the church and active. I'm grateful that they set the example for me by going on missions. I really to love all of you and I look forward to seeing you again and the nieces and nephews as well. All is going well here, and I'm having a great time. Christmas in Brownsville was a great experience. Oh, and last thing, I asked for a miracle last night that my throat could be healed. Woke up this morning and it didn't hurt. Guess the Lord wants me out the speaking and working, huh. Love you!

Elder Wood

December 19, 2011; EMAIL post from Brownsville, TX

Dear Family,

Wow, this week was really an amazing experience. It was our first week with our new companion, Elder Sanchez, and we saw a lot of miracles. He really is a man of great faith, and we had some experiences in the week that did a lot to build my faith as well. We'll see how many of them I get to share with the time that I have.

We found a family this week that is just great! We were planning the night before and we had some open time that we wanted to use to go finding. But we weren't sure of what method we wanted to use and where we needed to go. Elder Sanchez suggested that we say a prayer and ask God what we should do at 5 oclock that day. So, we kneeled down, said another prayer (this is in addition to the opening and closing), and then discussed how we felt. All of us had the idea that we should go knocking, and the question then was where. I had a section of town that I had wanted to visit for a while and then it kind of stuck out on the map to me. So we talked about it and then decided to go there. It's a pretty big street, and so when we got to it, we had to decide which direction to go. We chose to start going east to knock on doors. We went a good way down the street and then had to decide whether to continue or try going onto one of the cross streets. We said a prayer in the street, asking God to help us find a family. We then decided to continue around the bend of the same street we were on. Long story short, a short while later, we knocked the door of a lady. We talked for a bit, she invited us in, and we taught her, her husband and two of her kids. It was a really spiritual lesson. We shared with them the doctrine of Christ, and the story of how we had arrived at their home that afternoon. The spirit was really strong and they accepted the invitation to be baptized. And, to make the story even better, they came to church on Sunday, well, at least the mom and the dad. The dad was supposed to be working, but we promised him that if he prayed and asked, God would make a way for him to fulfill his desires to attend church, and look what happened! I still have no idea how his schedule changed, but he got work off and came with his wife. She had just finished work after a 12 hour shift, two hours before church started. It's amazing how the Lord works miracles, huh.

We found other investigators this week that seem to have a lot of potential, and I'm excited to start teaching them.

I'm excited for Christmas this week. I think it should be a fun time here in the mission. We're going to see some Christmas miracles. All the lights have started to go up in town. It was rainy and cold for a lot of this week, which was kind of a bummer, but I think it has all moved over by now since it's sunny and warm again today. I guess overcast days are a risk when you live right next to the ocean. Brownsville's motto is, "By the border, on the sea." Pretty true statement, and the rain and clouds come with it.

I'm starting to freak out about how little time I have left in the mission. Most of the time I just push it to the back of my mind and don't think about it. Especially around transfers and meeting the new missionaries the thought comes up a lot. The new missionaries really are the lucky ones. They have so many experiences ahead of them and so much growth that it makes me pretty jealous. That's really what I feel like the mission has been like for me so far-- a lot of service and a lot of growth. Spiritual growth of course. Don't think I'm coming back any taller :).

I think that we're really going to have an awesome time here in Cameron Park over these next few weeks. I hope our companionship can stay together for all that time and not go through any mid-transfer changes.

On a random note, I think it's really funny that our area is considered one of the most dangerous places in Brownsville. Really it's not that bad, it just has a reputation from about 10 years ago, when it was just all dirt roads and thugs. I have been offered drugs, though, a couple times by people chilling on the curb, haha. Sad stuff really! How much better would the world be if everyone just lived the Gospel? People look at me funny when I tell them that I'm a white guy/missionary from Cameron (You have to say it with the Mexican accent though).

Anyway, I hope everyone has a great Christmas this week and I'll talk to you all on Sunday! Hooray for Christmas! Oh, also, I'll be calling at 8 pm Texas time now because we have another missionary in our apartment and more time to schedule with the phone. I believe that it 6 o'clock for you in Virginia time. Thanks!!

Love,

Elder Wood

December 12, 2011, email post from Brownsville, TX

Dear Family,

Unfortunately, this P-day has gotten ahead of us and I have very little time to write. So, I'm just going to enter in my response to the zillion things that have happened to all of you this past week, and add just a bit about what happened to me over this past week.

First off, HOORAY! It's amazing that Levi came into the family so fast. Talk about a surprise. Miracles do come to the faithful though, so I have no reason to doubt that the Lord had a big part to play in getting that child into Warren and Mel's family. Second, I thought that I would get home without any other grandkids being born, but apparently I forgot to count on the adoption factor and I don't even know how Jonathan and Emily's baby managed to plan his arrival before I get home in July. I guess there will just be more people for me to meet after my mission.

This week was pretty rough as far as missionary work goes. Most of our investigators dropped us, and a couple of our really solid investigators moved away. I have no doubt that the missionaries will find them in their new homes though. I'm grateful I could have a part in what I hope will be their journey into the Lord's true church. My companion seems to be a bit discouraged, we've had a bit of a rough transfer. The other companionships in our district have seen a lot of success, which is awesome. I love it because it helps me see success in the other missionaries and helps me to keep my faith up, but I think Elder Marble might be comparing himself a bit too much to the other missionaries. In other news, Elder Marble and I will be companions for at least another 6 weeks. But, surprise, surprise, we'll be getting another companion. An Elder from Peru is coming to our mission as kind of an emergency thing. He's being moved into our zone. Elder Sanchez, who he is replacing, will be coming to stay with us. We'll be in a threesome for these three weeks which I think will be really fun. Elder Sanchez is a great missionary, and even better, he's a native, so I get to bug him with all of my Spanish questions.

I'm grateful our family saw some miracles this week. This last week I memorized the song, "Praise to the Lord, the Almighty" My motivation phrase for the week was, "ponder anew what the Almighty can do", one of the lines from the song. I guess I wasn't pondering very hard, because I didn't see this coming! Haha. I really do love the Lord, he's done so much for me in these past months. He's done so much for my family, for which I am eternally grateful. I don't think we'll ever realize how much He's done for us until we kneel at His feet and ask Him.

Have a Merry Navidad!

Love,

Elder Wood

December 5, 2011, email post from Brownsville, TX

Dear Family,

Merry Navidad! (Tex-Mex, sorry)

Well, I don't know how the weather is where everyone is at, but here it's about 65 degrees. Nice sweater weather if you ask me. Well, we had a great week! I'm gonna start going backwards from Sunday and see what I can remember about what happened.

Yesterday the coolest event was probably when we got to go to the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. I don't know if you all got to see it, but it was great. I liked all of the messages given. I always catch myself thinking how great of a story teller President Monson is. He told the story of Scrooge and "The Mansion" during the devotional. I caught myself thinking during the story of "The Mansion", how cool would it be to be one of President Monson's grandchildren. You'd get to hear that kind of stuff all the time. Well, not all the time I'm sure because he's constantly involved in the work, but you get what I mean.

The District is doing really well. We started the month off with three baptisms, and we have more scheduled to come over the next two weeks. I don't think we have any Christmas baptisms scheduled yet, but you never know. There's still time. I really do like being a district leader. It's a great opportunity to stretch and see what I can do better. I'm still learning. I've got a bunch of things I could be doing better, but I think that I've progressed a lot since the first week. Follow up calls are still interesting. I need to get better at those, but overall I think this is a great experience.

We had a miracle this last week with an investigator. I'm not sure if I wrote about it or not, so I'll just do a brief synopsis. We had an investigator a few weeks back who was doing really well. Then all of the sudden shee fell off when she talked to her mom about everything she was learning and planning to do. Her mom said no. So, we kept in minimal contact with her for a few weeks, mostly through texts. Then, after a few weeks we were in the neighborhood and we stopped by her house just to see if we could see how she was doing. We knocked and her mom opened the door. I figured it might be the only opportunity that we had to talk to her and explain our side of the story. So, we started talking to her and after some powerful testimony and a lot of questions, we were able to gain her permission to teach her daughter again. So, we left and we called the daughter, but no answer. That lasted for like a day or two, so we thought that maybe the mom had talked to the daughter afterwards and had said not to talk to us or something like that. So we were kind of bummed. Then, one day we were in a parking lot waiting to meet a member. It turned out to be the wrong parking lot, but the daughter rolled into the gas station to fill up her car. We called her over and talked to her and she said that she and her mom had talked and that everything was good for us to teach her again. We've been teaching her this past week and she's doing great. She's preparing for baptism in January and hopefully soon I can give you more stories about her. It's funny how the Lord works miracles. Small and simple things really do make the difference.

Going back to the Christmas Devotional, I had heard about the new videos of Christ about six months ago and have been waiting to see them for soooo long. It was great to see the one of the birth of Christ, it was awesome! I hope we get to show those to our investigators soon. If you didn't get to see it you should. It's probably on the website, but I haven't checked.

I hope everyone is getting into the Christmas spirit, or, as President Monson would say, the Christ Spirit. Lights are starting to go up all over town here, and things will get pretty festive over the next coming weeks, I imagine. I also liked the part of President Monson's talk when he said all things happened, "because He came." I have often thought about just how momentous that night was, even if it did pass by without much notice. I think few people there really understood just how much influence and meaning the birth of that baby had. I don't think I really fully comprehend it still. We all come to know our Savior piece by piece, and I don't think we ever really stop building that puzzle in this life. We know soon it will become complete, and I rejoice in the hope that that day is going to come.

I really do love Christmas. It's a great time of year. I hope I can treasure it, especially my last Christmas in the mission field. Ack, I shouldn't have said that, now I'm all depressed and nostalgic, oh well. I love you all and I love hearing about the Wood families. I often pull out a picture of our family in lessons and tell people how my family has been blessed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. You all are great examples to me and some of my investigators in South Texas, keep it up :).

As far as packages Mom, just send them to my apartment address, the mission office takes like an extra four weeks to get you anything. I'm glad mom survived her fall, and that Rose-Ellen is feeling a bit better. You'll be in my prayers, don't worry.

Love,

Elder Wood

Nov. 21, 2001, Email post from Brownsville, TX

Dear Family,

Wow, Thanksgiving is this week?? When did that happen?

The time has been flying by. I can't believe November is almost over. They're already playing Christmas music and everything in the WalMart here. It's kind of freaking me out. We had a good week this last week. We had some rough days and some better days, but overall I'm happy with the work we did. Oh, Mom, I got the package off in the hands of the Post office guy, so it should be to Jonathan and Emily pretty soon.

Well, time to start with the random stories from the week. We started a mission this last week to find the best taqueria (taco place) in our area. We've eaten at two so far, and I will admit, Rey del Taco is not nearly as good as Taco Tampico. And get this, Taco Tampico is cheaper too! Dad has a debt to the Mexican people now, because they've made me fall in love with avocados, something I'm sure he'll be proud of. I've decided that my favorite kind of meat is either Barbacoa (face meat of either a pig or cow) or Deshebrada (kind of like a roast beef type thing). But you can never go wrong with a good old bistek. The only thing that makes me sad is that barbacoa is kind of like a special thing around here. They only make it on Saturday and Sundays, which only gives me one day to go and get some.

Elder Marble, my companion is really funny. We started a challenge this last week to try and purify ourselves, or only focus on missionary things. We fasted and wrote lists of the things that normally distracted us, and I will admit, his list made me laugh a little bit. Two of the things on his list were food and farming. Oddly enough, I didn't realize how much we talk about food during the day until we tried to stop doing it. Anyways, everything is going pretty well and we're having a fun time.

Our district is doing really well. It's filled with powerhouse missionaries and fired up greenies which makes for a pretty powerful group, as well as some hilarious moments. Elder Marble has had some pretty funny Spanish moments so far, but he is learning and I'm sure he'll have a firm grasp of the language very soon.

For my ending note, a person gave a talk this last Sunday and had a thought that I really liked, especially right before Thanksgiving. He said, "Where would you be if you only had tomorrow? What did you thank God for last night?"

Hope everyone has some good prayers =).

Love,

Elder Wood

Nov. 28, 2011, Email from Brownsville, TX

Dear Family,

Well, this week was filled with some experiences, let me tell ya... whew!

Basically what went down is that on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, I was super sick! Went to bed at 10:30 and woke up at midnight with some good old diarrhea. Not thinking much, I went to the bathroom and went back to bed. About 1:30, I woke up again, same thing. 2:30 I woke up and it was same thing, but this time vomit came up with it. Basically this continued about every hour until about noon or so, when it finally started to die down. Elder Marble and I drove to a CVS and bought some apple sauce and a couple gatorades to try and get some of what I had lost back into me, but basically it didn't do much.

Unfortunately, on Wednesday we had a couple of key appointments, so despite not having eaten anything and feeling like junk, we went out to a couple of the things that we had arranged. We taught one short lesson with some recent converts, and the other guy wasn't home, so rather than going to our backup plan of knocking doors, we ran back to the apartment cause I was having trouble just standing up for more than 3 minutes. Elder Marble told me I looked paler than ever, which is a pretty impressive thing considering even being in the sun down here I'm still pretty white. My cheeks, which are normally bright red looked super white as well. So, I chose to spend the rest of the day on bedrest to try and get over it.

Elder Marble got some good study time in, which helped him a lot since he has a goal to finish the Book of Mormon in Spanish before Christmas, and he was way behind. I basically just tried to rest and sleep it off, but I'm pretty sure I had a fever and too, because even with all my blankets I still kept going from hot to cold. When I went to bed that night, I will say that I probably had one of the most earnest prayers I've had in a long time. After spending a day in bed not working, I basically felt like a super lazy missionary. I missed going out and talking to people. Being away from it, even for that short time, made me realize how much I really do love doing missionary work. So, my sincere prayer was for God to help me get over it that night, so that I could return to service and help some people out on Thanksgiving day. Needless to say, the Lord answers prayers.

Thanksgiving was pretty interesting. The members really wanted to feed us, so we took the opportunity to share some Thanksgiving messages. We had an appointment for 12, 2, and 6 to share a message and eat. Keep in mind, I hadn't eaten anything the day before, and my stomach was just coming back to full activity. I didn't even have that much of an appetite, but Thanksgiving called. Basically,I ate waaay to much for my first day after being super sick, and was pretty much full to bursting with turkey and brisket. (I think it's a Texas thing to cook brisket with the Turkey, just in case the light meat is too wussy for anyone.) But, in the end, everything turned out well and we had a fun time.

The district has been doing really well. We hit our baptismal goal for November, and we've raised our vision for December. All the companionships should be baptizing, and we have the faith that with God's help, we can reach our new, stretching goal. Elder Dewey and Elder Call are our zone leaders here in Brownsville, and I have a lot of respect for them, they're great missionaries.

I don't know how everybody's Thanksgivings were other than Mom's, so I expect reports :P

Oh, also, I've recently been thinking about some people I haven't heard about in a long time. How is James doing? Has he gone back to Utah for studies or is he in VA working or something? I had a dream that I was working with Mark, urr, Elder Johnson, here in Cameron Park. It was a pretty weird dream because his house was in the middle of Cameron Park (our ghetto neighborhood) and we were standing outside of it. Apparently a bunch of cholos (gangsters) didn't like us preaching the gospel so they rolled up to his house and tried to beat us up. We got away and all, but in my mind it started getting me thinking about what it would be like to preach with Elder Johnson in Cameron park. Weird idea, but I think it'd be a pretty fun time. Anyways, don't know why but I've had a lot of weird dreams this week, that was just one to give you an idea.

I hope everyone is having a great week! I'm thankful for you all and the examples you've given me. I don't think there's anything I'm more grateful for in this life than my family.

As far as ideas for Christmas presents.... nothing comes to mind right now, but I'll think about it and let you know next week. Love you!

Elder Wood

November 14, Email letter from Brownsville, TX

Dear Family,

Mom, I got the package you sent from Caldwell, Idaho. Thanks. I will follow the instructions and be sure to mail it later today. I just tried and the library here won't let me send pictures either so it'll be a while before any pictures get sent home. It's a bummer, but as long as I don't lose my SD card or anything it should be fine.

Well, this week was a very sad week. As I saw in the emails from everyone you all have heard about the Elders who passed away in our mission. It really was something very tragic and sad, but at least they were both prepared to go to the other side of the veil. I knew Elder Strong fairly well. My companion and I drove him and Elder Hardman around on P-days for 6 weeks in Edinburg. He was a great missionary, and he will be missed. I didn't know Elder Walker, but we had a conference for all of the Valley that same day that they were killed. Elder Walker got up and did a demonstration with Elder Zivic from the Seventy who was visiting. I saw Elder Strong there, and I was grateful for the chance I had to talk to him at least a little bit before he passed away. It's a sad thing, but I'm grateful for the knowledge of the Plan of Salvation that we have. It makes things much more understandable and acceptable as we focus on the eternal perspective of things.

I was grateful for the letters I received from everyone. I love you all and I'm grateful for your support. It's always nice to know that there are people outside of South Texas praying for you.

I'm out of time for emails this week, but just know that everything is going well and we're working hard. Talk to you soon!

Love,

Elder Wood