May 28, 2012, email post from Corpus Christi, TX

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

On Mon, May 28, 2012 at 11:41 AM, Roland Wood <roland.wood@myldsmail.net> wrote:

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,

 

Elder Wood

May 21, 2012, email post from Corpus Christi, TX

Dear Family,

 

 

   This last week was a week full of lessons, that's for sure.  We didn't see too much progress in our investigators, who didn't come to church, but overall things were good.  The zone has been struggling in May.  It seems like we're going to be ending it on a pretty slow note.  The meeting we had with the zone leaders yesterday was pretty inspiring though.  We talked about the importance of having real, honest desires to work and repenting from our mistakes and disobedience to do better in the next month that we have.  Sadly, the zone looks like it'll be ending May with one baptism among the nine companionships that are here in Corpus Christi.  (Luckily though, that one companionship was in our district.)  But yeah, we have quite a bit of repenting to do and I need to work on making sure that I'm working with all of my heart, all the time.  I haven't been disobedient or anything like that, but I know that there's always more I can give.

 

 

  We read in that meeting with the zone leaders about the importance of desire, and really how we can get it.   I've been praying recently for the Lord to help me to really open my eyes and fully realize the importance of the work that we're doing here and how much every person that I talk to needs it.  If we could only realize that we're employed in God's work and glory and that we're promised the help of the heaven, our fears, doubts and reservations would flee, replaced by unshakeable faith in what the Lord will do.  I know that I'm not alone, I have the Lord's help.  

 

 

   On a random note, we just finished cleaning some graffiti off the church.  Some teenagers must have come around last night.  They wrote on the windows in Sharpie, "Hail Satan! 666!" and other stupid stuff like that.  It's sad the amount of ignorance there is out there about the church and how low some people's respect is for sacred things.  It wasn't too hard to get off though, just some cleaner and a lot of scrubbing.  Hopefully the church will get some cameras here soon or something though. But, either way, we know that no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing!  I love opposition, because it means that great things are on the way!

 

 

  I hope everybody has a great week.  I'll be writing back next week with some miracles!  I love you!

 

 

Elder Wood

May 7, 2012, email post from Corpus Christi, TX

Dear Family,

 

 

   Well, another week has gone by.  It seems scary to me just how fast this one was compared to all of the others.  I swear I woke up on Friday and thought it was Tuesday.  I figure that's a common syndrome among Viejo missionaries.

 

 

   Let me start off by saying that we had a great week.  From the get go on Monday night it just seemed like everything fell into place.   We were able to meet up with quite a few part member families, which was great.  During the course of the week we went out finding, and it seemed like wherever we went there was someone there who needed a message or needed help.  Corpus Christi is known in the mission as a town that is notoriously hard to find investigators.  When I got here I set the goal inside my heart that that wasn't going to keep me down.  We've been working extra hard and have been doing our best to be filled with faith at all times.  Averages on new investigators in the zone run between about 3 and 5, but this last week we found 14!  And they're not junk investigators either; each one of them has real potential.  Basically, every week since I've moved here has just become better and better.  Soon we'll be seeing the fruit of all those labors.

 

 

   On Saturday we had a pretty interesting experience.  On Saturday night, he BYU international folk dance team did a show at the Del Mar College which is here in my area.  We had a member call us and tell us that he wanted us to go with him because he had invited seven of his nonmember friends to go with him.  All of them had agreed.  It was pretty cool because we got to see the show with him and also use it as a finding opportunity with some of his friends.  We talked extensively with two of them and we're going to be making contact with the member to get them over to his house sometime this week so that we can help them start to investigate and progress.  The show was really cool by the way.  Mostly everybody that showed up to it were members from the city here, since at the same day and time there was a giant parade going on in the city for Buck Days.

 

 

   Mother's Day is coming up this Sunday!!  It's kind of freaky that this will be my last call home, but I try not to think about that as much as possible.  I'll give you a call on Saturday night to figure out what time exactly to call on Sunday.  I know Christian's cell.  I don't know if you'll be near him on Mother's Day though.

 

 

   Anyway, I'm running low on time, but know that I'm having a great time here in Corpus Christi and things are only looking to get better.  Wednesday and Thursday I'll be down in McAllen for the mission leadership conference.  I expect good things and then I'll return with a good many ideas to ponder and share.

 

Love you!

 

(and a special I love you to Mom)

 

 

Elder Wood

April 30, 2012 email post from Corpus Christi, TX

Dear Family,

 

    Well, this week turned out to be a pretty good week as well.  We're seeing some good things happen here in Corpus Christi.  We've seen progress since we got here two weeks ago.  I have a bunch of pictures from Brownsville that I was going to try and send home, but it doesn't look like I'm going to be able to since my companion's card reader is freaking out.  Oh well.

 

   To answer Mom's question, my companion is Elder Mejia.  He's from Mesa, AZ, and has been out in the mission for about 6 months.  He's a native Spanish speaker, not that we use the Spanish much up here in Corpus, but it's still nice.  He's definitely an interesting guy.  We've been getting along so far, but he's different than any other companion I've had, that's for sure.

 

   I went on exchanges this week with the other Elders that live with us.  We were on exchanges for just two days, but we had a couple pretty cool experiences.  The coolest experience was probably when we met Maria Chavez.  We were walking down this one neighborhood and we got to a crossroads.  We were unsure of where we were supposed to go.  So we stopped by the intersection and said a prayer, asking which way the Lord wanted us to go.  After saying the prayer we pondered for a little bit and then I felt impressed that we should continue straight.  We did and went our way knocking down the street.  Few doors were answered, and those that did didn't seem too open.  But, as we walked down the street there was a lady who was walking her dog.  We stopped and talked to her and she seemed fairly open to us.  After talking to her for a while and asking her some questions we finally figured out that she's actually a member of the church who was baptized when she was a teenager because her friend had brought her to Mutual.  She hadn't been to church in over 20 years because her friend had moved away and she had gone inactive.  We testified of the experience that we had with prayer, and she opened up to us and said that she had been thinking about the church for a long time and wanted to come back.  She just wanted to come back, be active and be forgiven for the things that had happened in the past 20 years.  The next day she came to the ward potluck activity.  It was funny because she came in and said "Oohh, I hope I see someone I know."  Then when she went to the table to get some food a lady about her age stared at her for a couple seconds and then said, "...Maria Chavez??  Girl I haven't seen you in years!"  And then they both laughed, starting talking, sat next to each other and it seemed like she had a great time.

 

   The other cool thing that happened actually occurred at that same ward potluck.  There's a member in our area named Henry Ingram.  He's retired, but he used to be a judge in the valley.  I'm pretty sure he's the most missionary minded member I've met in my whole mission.  Since I've been here, he's invited us over to teach 3 people at his house, brought 2 to the potluck activity and one to church, and we have appointments to teach two of those people this week. (One of the people that went to the potluck activity also was the one that came to church).  Basically the guy is on fire.  The lady he brought to the potluck is some lady from Romania who has two TV shows here in Corpus, so it was kind of a big deal.  She came to church and we're set up to teach her on Tuesday.  Pretty cool if you ask me.

 

    Sunday was a pretty great experience as well.  Both wards had all three of the new missionaries speak in Sacrament meeting.  In the English ward we were asked to teach the third hour class.  We read parts of the talk by Henry B. Eyring titled, "Let Us Raise Our Voice Of Warning", which is one I highly reccomend, and then brainstormed ideas as to how we could help others hear the gospel.  I think it went pretty well and we got the members excited.  An active member that had previously been discouraged with her missionary efforts and didn't really want to continue told us after that she's going to invite 10 families to her house for a discussion in two weeks and that we'll come to teach them.  Seeing fruits of your efforts is always nice, isn't it?

 

   Anyway, we're having a great time here up in Corpus.  Today for P-Day we're going to the aquarium and maybe to go visit the Lexington.  Hopefully, I'll come back with some good pictures.

 

  I'm glad to hear that James is doing better.  It's good to know that God's helping the doctors to know what the heck they're doing. 

 

   The computers here at the church have a filter on blogs, so I can't see the family blog anymore, so if someone could email me a picture of Michael that'd be great =)

 

   I love you so much, take care!

 

Elder Wood

Apr. 23,20112, email post from Corpus Christi, TX

Quick update, President Trayner just sent off my recommendation for BYU, so y'all should be able to sign me up for classes now.

On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 2:57 PM, Roland Wood <roland.wood@myldsmail.net> wrote:

Dear Family,

 

   Welcome Michael!  Wow, I can't believe I have another nephew!  That's amazing!  At least it won't be too long before I see him right?  If you could email me some pictures that would be great because I'm using the church computer which has a filter that doesn't let me see the family blog.  Lame, I know. 

 

   Well, let me get off some of the basic info from this last week.  Just to make sure it's right, the address here is 3333 S. Alameda Apt 4H, Corpus Christi, TX, 78411.  I'm in the Corpus Christi central area.  We have a car here in this area, but the other elders that live with us are on bikes.  I'm kind of sad to be back in a car right before the end of my mission.  I really like the bike experience, but sadly it looks like that won't be coming back.  I like the car as well, don't get me wrong, but the bike just gets you more stories.

 

   The weather up here in Corpus Christi is just amazing.  We're averaging between 75 and 85, sunny, with a light breeze.  We've only had one day so far when it rained, and it wasn't even really that bad.  We live just four or five blocks from the Gulf, which is pretty cool.  We run out to the Gulf in the mornings sometimes.  It's quite a pretty sight in the morning with the sunrise and all. 

 

   We've been having a great time here in Corpus Christi so far.  We've seen a great amount of success here in the wards.  We have a small English ward and an even smaller Spanish branch.  The average attendance for the English ward is about 70 to 80 people, and the Spanish branch normally is about 30 people.  It turns out that I'm whitewashing the area as well with my new companion, Elder Mejia.  He's from Arizona and is a really good elder,  A hardworker for sure, which is something really great.  There are four elders in our district and three of the four of us all got here a week ago, so things in the ward are very new.  I had meetings with both the bishop and the branch president.  We talked to them about some of the goals that they had for the units here. Both meetings went well and I think that we did a lot to gain the trust of the leaders here.  Just in the last week we saw a big improvement in the work and we should be seeing even more success this week.  We have received a lot of referrals from the members here, which I think is a good sign.  There are a large number of part member families here, and we've got appointments with quite a few of them, to try and get things moving with some of those families.

 

   We've been working a lot to clean our apartment since we got here.  It was left pretty messy and we've been trying to clean it as best we can.  It'll be a pretty intense job, but the number of bugs has gone down already.   I think I've managed to take pictures of all my apartments so far, except for maybe one, which was my first apartment in Laredo.  But, other than that,  I'm pretty sure that I have photos of all of them.

 

  On a random note, I just remembered something that happened last week on Monday night.  So you haven't heard about it.  We were visiting our members and recent converts before I left, and that day, there was a big thunderstorm.  We got caught out in the thunderstorm on the bikes, and there was lightning hitting around us, so we  took cover in a member's home.  When the storm was clearing up, we went over to Zulma's house so I could say my goodbyes and give her an exhortation to stay active.  When we got to Zulma's house, there was a giant DOUBLE rainbow that went right over her house!  We got a picture with her and her family outside the house with the rainbows going over it.  Cool stuff.  I also got some really good sunset pictures that day as well.

 

  I sent an email and a text off to President Trayner asking him to make the recommendation so you all can sign me up for the classes.  Hopefully that can happen today. I had an interview with him on Thursday, and I brought it up, so I imagine it will be taken care of soon.

 

   I'm the district leader here for the North district of Corpus.  It's a small district of just two companionships, but I know soon some great things will be coming out of it.

 

   We had a great first week here in Corpus, and next week is gonna be great too!  Let me know how Michael is doing!

 

Love you,

Elder Wood

April, 16, 2012, email from Brownsville, TX ADDRESS CHANGE!

Dear Family,

   Well, kind of sad to say it, but... I'm going to Corpus!  I've been down in the valley and Laredo (the Spanish speaking areas of the mission) for basically my whole time of service, but it looks like I'll be heading up to the 'Great White North', as we call it, for the last three months.  Luckily my area is one of the two areas in Corpus that attend the Spanish branch, and the building is in our area.  Apparently there are a bunch of Corpus landmarks in my area.  There's an area called, 'the cut', which is the rougher part of Corpus, the Lexington, which is a U.S. battleship turned tourist attraction I believe, and Ocean Drive, which apparently has like the billion dollar mansions or something like that on it.  So, I'm sure that I'll be having a great time there and I expect to come back with lots of stories and pictures from that place.

   I'm sad to leave Cameron Park.  I feel like I've had so much growth here.  I've improved my faith, hope and attitude as a missionary so much.  I've had a chance to establish some really meaningful relationships with a lot of the members in our area.  I said my goodbyes to a bunch of our members, recent converts and returning less actives yesterday.  The rest of tonight will pretty much be filled with the same thing.  I've been in Cameron Park longer than I've been in any other area, and it's sad to see it go.  I'm not sure I'll ever have another area that can give me as many memories or hilarious stories as this one.  But, time will tell.  I've heard great things about Corpus and I know that the Lord has a special purpose for me there.  I look forward to giving it my all and doing my best to further the work there with the time that I have.

   Carlos and Cristian, Zulma's children, were interviewed on Sunday and they'll be getting baptized next week.  I won't be there, which is a bit of a bummer, but really I don't need to be there anyway.  The baptism isn't between them and me, it's between them and the Lord, and I know that they'll follow through with it and be strong members regardless of whether I'm there or not.  Plus I'll have them send me a picture anyway, haha.  I'm sad that I'm heading off, but I'm confident that they'll continue in the Gospel path.

   I'm glad to hear that James is back at home.  My letter to him is still sitting in my apartment, sadly.  I failed at getting it off this week.  I'm grateful though that it isn't a brain tumor.  Hopefully soon the doctors can figure out what it is an help him to overcome it.

   One of the recent converts in our area is a big collector of Hotwheels cars.  We've helped him a lot in the past few months to keep moving forward and progress despite opposition that comes his way.  I was really amazed because yesterday when we said our goodbyes he gave me one of his collectable cars that's worth about $35.  It's one of the newer ones that just came out, and in my opinion it looks pretty dang cool.  It just came out in January of this year and you have to buy twenty other cars from a certain store in order to get it.  I haven't explained much of this in my emails home, but I've learned a lot about Hotwheels collecting from this recent convert.  We have our gospel lessons and everything of course, but he always manages to show us what new things he's found.  In the course of my time here, I think he's given me five or so Hotwheels that are special or collectable. I told him Dad had an Edsel in the garage.  He went out and found me a 55 Edsel Hotwheels that's an 'error'.  That's when the machine messes up and puts the car into the packaging in an incorrect position.  I know, the things you learn right?)  Anyway, it was a really nice gesture from him and I'm sure I'll be missing him a lot.  Also, before his baptism he struggled with drinking, so he gave me one of his old shotglasses that has all of the monuments in Washington, D.C. stamped on it.  That one made me laugh.

   I'm saying my goodbyes to the rest of our people in our area tonight, but I'm excited and nervous for Corpus.  For some reason I feel like it's going to a whole different world just because it's like a U.S. mission up there and more like a Mexican mission down here.  We'll see what the change brings, but I'm excited for it and whatever challenges might come my way.

Thank you so much for your support and prayers, I love you!

Elder Wood

P.S. if there's any way you can start signing up for classes, please do so.  If you look at the classes I've already taken I need to take part two of a Ancient European Culture class or something like that, and then maybe to move onto some more Chemistry classes.  Anatomy would be good as well.  But, just look at the required classes for the Physiology and Developmental Biology major and maybe go from there.  I have interviews with President in a week or two and hopefully I can get a good answer out of him about the reccomendation for BYU and all.  Thanks!

On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 12:31 PM, Roland Wood <roland.wood@myldsmail.net> wrote:

just getting off a short notice before I actually start emailing you all and president.  On tuesday I'll be getting transferred up to Corpus Christi to work in the central part of the town.  (aka the ghetto).  Here's what my address will be up there...

Elder Roland Wood

3333 S. Alameda

Corpus Christi, TX, 78411

Love you!

March 9, 2012, email post from Brownsville, TX

Dear Family,

Before I forget, and so that the confusion can end, my return date home will be Wendesday, July 11th.

I sent a letter off to James, but it came back to me this last week. I'm not sure why. I wrote the 4510 Virginia address, but who knows. I'll try to get it out again today.

Easter was a great experience. As you noticed, I was on Facebook! Mormon.org was running a campaign this last weeked where ads were run on Youtube and the link was made with Facebook to share testimonies about Jesus Christ. Our mission president had all of the missionaires in our zone do it, and it was a pretty cool experience.

Well, Easter really is a great time of year. I'm grateful that we have a chance to remember what Christ did for us, especially in the great culminating event of it all, His resurrection. Unfortuantely, I've squandered my writing time, so you'll have to forgive me, but maybe I can just share one or two quick stories.

Zulma continues to do well. She was confirmed yesterday, since it was the first Sunday after conference. She and her son came to the activities at the church on Tuesday. Her son went to Mutual and she went to a cooking activity that they had. The son has a baptismal date for the 22nd of this month, and I have no doubt that we'll be holding his service very soon. Zulma was able to enjoy some good fellowship which is exactly what we want for her at this point just after her baptism. She enjoyed the activity and got to know a few of the sisters a little better. A big plus--we ate empanadas, which are pretty delicious by themselves. They're also super easy to make, which is great if I ever want to make any myself. Interestingly enough, in the recipe we used, they put Coke in the dough to give it a flavor and make it rise just barely. We made like a billion of them too, so there was plenty to eat and take home. I don't have the recipe on me now, but I'll try to send it home next week so maybe Mom can try making some.

I did get the package Mom sent! Thanks for everything! My companions were pretty impressed about the tie. Down here we get to learn all of the tie brands and why some are better than others because of all the tie digs we go to. You did a pretty good job, Mom. Countess Mara is a pretty good brand and it was a solid tie, so the rest of the Elders in the apartment are pretty jealous; not that that's the goal or anything, but I think it still gets points.

Anyway, I'm out of time and all the other Elders are waiting on me, so I've got to go. Say Hi to James for me, put in my happy wishes for Calvin's first birthday and tell Paul to start learning his Spanish. I'll be writing all my letters to him in Spanish when he's in the field, so now's the time to start practicing.

I love you! Thanks so much!

Love,

Elder Wood