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

November 3, 2011, email from Brownsville, TX

Dear Family,

Before I forget, I'll throw in my new address...

Elder Roland Wood

1253 E. Alton Gloor, Apt #7

Brownsville, TX, 78521

Well my first week in Brownsville has come and gone, and it was a pretty great week. I'm kind of riding on the coat tails of Elder Rumsey (the missionary I replaced), but we saw a good bit of success. We are currently teaching a family of four who came to church yesterday for the first time. Elder Rumsey and Elder Marble (my new companion) first taught the daughter in the family just a bit before I got here. We had the first lesson with all of them on my second day here in Brownsville. They look like they have a lot of potential. I'm sure that if they do their part, they'll soon have a spiritual confirmation that they should be baptized. We are also teaching a brother and sister who are looking to get baptized soon. They were taught twice by the other elders before I got here, and they are doing really well. They missed church this Sunday because the sister was sick, but they should be on track to be baptized towards the end of the month.

Also luckily, I have great missionaries in my district. All of them are hard workers and the sisters that are in my district are great.

Being a district leader is pretty tiring I'm not going to lie. We have really great Zone Leaders in Brownsville which is a big help. The zone set a record for baptisms in Brownsville in October, and things look like they should keep going well into November and December.

My area is pretty poor, filled with lots of unleashed dogs, but we're in a car and they don't do much to pedestrians. So, we're pretty much safe. The only time that's kind of scary is when we go around on bikes on Saturdays. I had a couple dogs chase me as we biked through the neighborhood, but they were all pretty small or medium sized--nothing I couldn't outrun. I'm still dreading the day I run into an unleashed German Shepard, cause I'm pretty sure those can chase me down. I'll probably just slow down and jump off the bike, normally they're just in it for the chase and if you get off and push the bike at them they'll back off. The neighborhood we work in is mostly Spanish, which is nice. Hopefully I get a good bit of practice over these next couple months.

Our apartment is super nice, which is also a bonus. We have a study room separate from the beds, and we each have our own bathroom and walk in closet. Talk about blessings. We've also got a bench and a bunch of weights which should help me get rid of my few extra pounds from Laredo. I had too many carne asadas and tortillas de arina over there. Anyway, my time for emailing is just about up. It seems like the library here lets me do pictures. Unfortunately I left my camera at home, but next week you all should be getting a big picture dump from Laredo and Brownsville. I hope everybody has a good week! I enjoyed the Halloween pics!

Love,

Elder Wood

October, 31, 2011, last email post from Laredo, TX

Dear Family,

Well, the big news for the week is... bum da da dum!..... I'm being transferred! I got a call from President Trayner on Tuesday and I'll be moving down to Cameron Park in Brownsville for at least the next six weeks. I'll be the District Leader in the Brownsville North District. I'm pretty nervous as far as that goes, but I think that it will be a great experience for me. My companion is Elder Wilcox, who has been out of the MTC for just six weeks. I've heard good things about him though, and I'm sure he'll be a great companion. I'm sad to leave Elder Stewart, we had some pretty fun times together. And even worse is the fact that I'm finally leaving Laredo! I spent five transfers in this city, and the only way I can be in a city for longer than that in the rest of my mission is if I never leave Brownsville. I guess time will tell. I'll be leaving to Brownsville tomorrow and should be settled down in the Valley again in the afternoon. It's a sad thing to leave a city after having so much time there, and also having to leave all the people I've gotten to know, but I guess it's just a part of the whole missionary experience. On a random note, I'm also sad we're leaving because we found an amazing taco place on Saturday. It's called Paulita's. It's pretty cheap and they sell these HUGE tacos that are super good. If I ever come back to Laredo I'll have to go there again.

Anyway, the week was pretty slow again, but we did have some cool experiences. Yesterday I tried tacos de lengua (tacos filled with shredded cow tongue) for the first time in my mission. It's actually pretty good. It tastes like roast beef, and it's fine if you can get over what you're eating. I said goodbye to a couple investigators that we had. The missionary that is taking my place sounds like a pretty good Elder, so I have confidence that they'll be well taken care of. Elder Stewart's bike also died this week. The pipe that goes from the handlebars to the front wheel snapped in half and left him with a pretty much unfixable iron horse. Hopefully he can get a replacement bike soon, but until then he'll probably ride on something we can borrow from one of the members here. Luckily all this with his bike happened while he wasn't riding, or that would have been a pretty spectacular crash.

Today we have to be in our apartments by 7, but we're having a barbeque with some of the members until then, so it should be a fun time. About the pants you sent me Mom, the waist was fine, but they were a little long. I went to an old lady in one of the wards here and I asked her if she could take them up an inch or two for me and she was more than happy to do it. So, now they fit fine, no problems.

Congratulations to Christian on getting into the newspaper. That's a pretty sweet costume if you ask me. I haven't seen too many decorations here in Laredo, but there are a couple houses that get pretty into it. They have some giant inflatable pumpkins, witches and ghosts that look pretty cool.

Oh, I forgot to talk about my new area in Cameron Park. I've heard that it's the poorest area in the whole mission, filled to the brim with mean unleashed dogs. So it's a good thing we played soccer today, I got a chance to practice my kicking skills. Needless to say I'll soon start carrying rocks in my pockets again. One of the Elders in my apartment was also in that area and he loved it, so I don't think I have a lot to worry about. Hopefully I'll have some good stories to tell next week about my first few days back in the valley. I'll send you my new address next week after I get there. I've also heard that the apartment I'm going into is really nice, which is a big perk.

We had the ward trunk or treat party, which went over pretty well. We had two less active members come and they seemed to have a great time. Elder Stewart got some of those thick black glasses with the fuzzy eyebrows, nose and moustache attached, so we wore those during most of the party. They also had a chili cook off and had the missionaries be the judges. The best was one that was made with something like barbeque sauce and bacon, it tasted pretty good.

I hope everybody has a great Halloween night. I'll be spending most of it packing for tomorrow, but it should be good either way. Stay safe, eat some candy for me! (But don't worry, I've been eating more than my fair share of candy.)

Love,

Elder Wood

October, 24, 20011, email post from Laredo, TX

Dear Family,

Well, a bit of another rough week here, but all's well that ends well. And in the work of the Lord we all know that everything is going to end well, so who cares about what happens along the way.

So, for this email I'm only going to focus on the good or funny things that happened this week.

To start off, I found out today that a kid that I taught in my other area in Larga Vista is getting baptized this next Sunday! It's a great feeling knowing that he has chosen to take that step. I'm glad that the missionaries kept working with him and helping him through the conversion process. He's the last kid in a family that got baptized while I was there in Larga Vista, so it really is a great thing to see.

As I'm flipping through the pictures on my camera I'm trying to see the other stories that we have from this week.

In the apartment we tricked Elder Hunt into going into the laundry room, and then we pushed the fridge in front so he couldn't get out. That was pretty funny. It's a tiny little room that has just the one door that has to slide out so you can leave, but with the fridge in the way he was pretty stuck.

We were biking down Calle del Norte, one of the major streets in our area, and some big heist must have gone down right before we got there. Or somebody got shot or something. We turned onto the street and there were 4 cop cars all together and the cops were all talking. Further down the street there were two cops talking to a lady at her door. It looked like they were trying to figure out where someone or something went. Then, even further down we saw a big reception hall where people hold parties and there were three concerned people in bride's maid dresses talking to a cop. Who knows what happened, but it must have been intense.

To speed things up a bit...

My companion learned a few jiu jitsu moves from a recent convert.

We found a giant turtle with a red, white and blue painted shell. USA! USA!

We visited another recent convert in the hospital and tied up our bikes to the "Clergy parking only" sign.

We had some great tacos at a member's house.

We said goodbye to Elder and Sister Nelson, the senior missionary couple that has been here in Laredo since I got here. They have been awesome. Elder Nelson had to go home because of health problems. We had a fast for him this weekend. Keep him in your prayers if you can. He's a great man.

One of our investigators told us how she prayed to God to help her quit smoking and she hasn't had a craving for about a month. And when she looks at a box of cigarettes she just feels gross! Amazing how the Lord answers prayers huh?

I think that about sums it up, and I'm just about of email time for this week. I hope that everyone has a great week and gets to have some missionary experiences. I love you all!

Con amor,

Elder Wood

24 October, 2011, email post from Laredo

Dear Family,

Well, a bit of another rough week here, but all is well that ends well. And in the work of the Lord we all know that everything is going to end well, so who cares about what happens along the way.

So, for this email I'm only going to focus on the good or funny things that happened this week.

To start off, I found out today that a kid that I taught in my other area in Larga Vista is getting baptized this next Sunday! It's a great feeling knowing that he has chosen to take that step. I'm glad that the missionaries kept working with him and heping him through the conversion process. He's the last kid in a family that got baptized while I was there in Larga Vista, so it really is a great thing to see.

I'm flipping through the pictures on my camera trying to see the other stories that we have from this week.

In the apartment we tricked Elder Hunt into going into the laundry room, and then we pushed the fridge in front so he couldn't get out. That was pretty funny. It's a tiny little room that has just the one door that has to slide out so you can leave, but with the fridge in the way he was pretty stuck.

We were biking down Calle del Norte, one of the major streets in our area, and some big heist must have gone down right before we got there. Or, somebody got shot or something. We turned onto the street and there were 4 cop cars all together and the cops were all talking. Further down the street there were two cops talking to a lady at her door. It looked like they were trying to figure out where someone or something went. Then, even further down we saw a big reception hall where people hold parties and there were three concerned people in bride's maid dresses talking to a cop. Who knows what happened, but it must have been intense.

To speed things up a bit...

My companion learned a few jiu jitsu moves from a recent convert.

We found a giant turtle with a red, white and blue painted shell. USA! USA!

We visited another recent convert in the hospital and tied up our bikes to the "Clergy parking only" sign.

We had some great tacos at a members house.

We said goodbye to Elder and Sister Nelson, the senior missionary couple who have been here in Laredo since I got here and have been awesome. Elder Nelson had to go home because of health problems. We had a fast for him this weekend. Keep him in your prayers if you can, he's a great man.

One of our investigators told us how she prayed to God to help her quit smoking and she hasn't had a craving for about a month. And when she looks at a box of cigarettes she just feels gross! Amazing how the Lord answers prayers huh?

I think that about sums it up. I'm just about of email time for this week, so I hope that everyone has a great week and gets to have some missionary experiences. I love you all!

Con amor,

Elder Wood

October 17, 2011, Email post from Laredo, TX

Dear Family,

Well, another rough week as far as the field goes. October is turning into kind of a bust for us since we haven't had any solid baptismal dates at church, and the month is quickly closing. We're working our hardest to set up for November. I had a really great interview with our President Trayner on Friday. It's always nice to have some counsel about the work, and even more so from the person who has the keys to direct it. We did manage to find a couple of new investigators this week that have a lot of potential. We'll be working with them more over the coming week and I'm excited to see the beginnings of their conversion processes.

Mom's package did come, but we were out working when the mail man came, so we have to go pick it up at the post office, which we will do right after we're done emailing here.

The weather here in Texas has been great as well. Fall is finally starting to settle in. Everything still looks the same mind you, but the air isn't heating the 110s anymore. It's been about mid 80s most of this week, which just made for beautiful days. Especially in a bike area, good weather is much appreciated. Probably my favorite part of being in a bike area is the night time rides home at about 9 oclock. The burning Laredo sun has gone down so its not hot, and the air normally has a nice breeze and has cooled off, making for an enjoyable time. Also, our area is either flat or uphilll from our house, so sometimes we get some nice relaxing downhill rides which are even better.

An Elder in our mission got hit by a car a week back. They were biking on the side of the main road and a drunk driver purposely sideswiped them. Or at least thats what I heard from the story. Both the Elders got hit by the car but one went up onto the car and then came down and the car ran over his leg. Miraculously, he had no injury to his leg and was just a bit shaken up. He was wearing his helmet as well so he didn't have any injuries really. Right after they got hit the next car pulled over and said, "I called 911, and I'm following the guy" and then took off. The cops then took up the chase and caught the guy who is now facing charges. Our mission president came and saw the driver getting into the cop car handcuffed, so I assume from there it will all get taken care of. The Lord does take care of his missionaries. There are numberless examples of that, and this is just another since the Elder was able to leave without any real injuries. Don't worry Mom, I wear my helmet and 95% of the time we're on the sidewalk :P.

The town is starting to get into Halloween and the decorations are starting to go up. We have a couple pretty rich neighborhoods in our area that get pretty into it, so we'll see if I can get any good pictures of the festivities. It's scary to think that this is going to be my last Halloween in the mission field. Even worse, another missionary asked me how long I had left. I thought about it and I only have 9 months left in the field! So, from now on I should be able to see most of the newborns in the family, except for Rose-Ellen's kid. She'll be the last one born before I get home I think.

I appreciated Mom sharing the letter she got from her Mom in the mission field. It is a good one. I'll have to write it down and take it to the apartment.

Thanks everyone for the good wishes and prayers. I do appreciate them, they help. I'm looking forward to a new week, we should have some good experiences with the people we've just found. Whatever the Lord wants me to learn from the experience is worth it, and soon we'll see the blessings I'm sure. Good luck to everybody this week, I hope everything goes well!

Love,

Elder Wood

October 1, 2011, email post from Laredo, TX

Dear Family,

Well, this week was a bit of a challenge for us, I'm not gonna lie. We worked hard all week to help our investigators come to General Conference. But when the time came around, nobody showed. I had a hard time listening to some of the conference messages because I was just sitting in the chapel stewing in my frustration. We had been working all week really hard to help people set goals and make plans to come to church, but I guess we didn't do as much as we should've. It's hard when you feel like you're becoming a better missionary than you've been, but you don't see anything coming of it.

But, I shouldn't murmur. Nothing good comes of whining. Can't remember who said it, but in one of the past conferences someone said, "I can't think of any problem so great that crying over it will make it better." Or at least something to that effect. I also liked the remarks of the Seventy, I can't recall his name, who had the encounter with President Monson in the elevator. "It's always better to look up". So, although this last week was a pretty big bummer, we have a new week and a new month ahead of us. We didn't see any success in September, but if we work hard and have faith, I know we can find that God will help up to help some of his children here find the gospel.

During conference I decided that D. Todd Christofferson is probably my favorite apostle. Don't know why, but it seems like all of his talks just seem to help me out. HIs talk on repentance this conference was really powerful and profound. Makes you realize just how much you have to do in your own life day by day to find the joy that comes through daily repentance.

Conference did help me a lot. When each of the sessions started I was pretty frustrated and angry since so many people who had promised us they would come, didn't show up. But, by the time the sessions ended I was always a little more calm and ready to go back out and work. I really am sad for our investigators though. They may not know it, but they missed out on a great opportunity, and hopefully we can help them take advantage of that opportunity the next time it comes around.

The weather has been cooling down a bit these past few weeks. It's not quite as sweltering hot as it was. I've heard that November and December in Laredo is really enjoyable weather, so hopefully soon we'll get to see some of that.

I hope everyone got to see some of conference. If you missed any, I highly suggest going back and watching them on LDS.org. you can watch individual talks or whole sessions, so even if you have just ten minutes, you can probably squeeze one in. I can't wait for the Ensign, hopefully it'll come soon so we can study the talks.

Anyway, have a great week everyone, and thanks to JoAnn and Nathan for the pictures and drawings, I got them Saturday. Avalee and Lincoln are looking too old. It's kind of freaking me out. Time flies outside the mission field huh?

Love you all,

Elder Wood

September 26, 2011, email from Laredo, TX

Well, it seems like you had a pretty busy week Mom. It's tough when the people you rely on have conflicts and you've got to pull off an activity without a familiar support system in place. If anybody could do it (with a whole lot of stress along the way mind you) it would probably be you.

We had a bit of a rough time this week. We had not too much change in the area, which was a bummer. Hopefully things will be getting better soon though. I'd like to have Elder Stewart see some success early on in his mission. I think I struggled a lot at the beginning of my mission because I got used to not seeing success. Heck, I'm probably still that way, but at least its gotten a little better.

I've been trying to get pictures of the things on the list that Rene sent me. I think I'm just missing a few more now, and hopefully I can get a letter off with the pictures in it this coming week. I feel bad because Rene has probably been the person who's been the most faithful in writing me without getting any responses, haha. Soon I'll get one off and that way she can at least get something from south Texas.

I got contact lenses this week. They're working all right. It's weird though because I have an astigmatism (spelling??) in my left eye, but not my right. So the right contact works better than the left. It feels like the left one slides around my eye sometimes which messes up my vision. They are nicer to have when you're on a bike though. I'm not sweating all over my glasses every day and getting sweat blown into my eyes instead of evaporating.

It looks like there are a lot of birthdays coming up. Congratulations to everybody, another year gone. Kind of freaky huh? Time just keeps shooting by faster and faster. I guess this is how old people feel, but like x10.

I'm excited for General Conference. It's always a nice spiritual uplift in the mission field. Hopefully we can pump up some of our investigators on hearing the prophet and apostles this week. I wonder what temples will be announced, that's always an exciting part of the conference. So many people waiting for temple blessings and they're just waiting to hear the word from the prophet.

Well, I'm a bit lost on what to write this week, and my brain is pretty tired so I might just end it a bit early.

I hope everybody has a great week. I love you!

Elder Wood

September 19, 2011, Email from Laredo, TX

Wood News

Monday, September 26, 2011

September 19, 2011, Email from Laredo, TX

Dear Family,

First off, thanks for the birthday wishes! I had a pretty good birthday, which was actually on one of the days that we had the three day training here in Laredo. Basically the mission president and the APs had trainings with us from 9 am to 5 or 6 pm. For the rest of the night on my bday we just worked, but we found a pretty cool family, and that's good enough of a present for me.

I got the package from mom with the camera and everything, and I've been taking pictures like a fiend. Thanks so much, the camera is great. Unfortunately I can't send anything in this email cause the library doesn't let you upload pictures, but maybe I can print some off today and snail mail them. If not, they'll get emailed whenever I get moved to a new area or if we go to the college to email one of these days. We heard about transfers on Saturday, and I'll be staying here for at least another six weeks with Elder Stewart.

We had kind of a rough week with our investigators. We have a lot of cool people that seem to be doing very well, but none of them came to church this last week, which was kind of a bummer. We're going to focus more this week on doing our best to explalin to them the importance of church attendance, and hopefully we can see a bit of improvement in that aspect this next Sunday.

However, one investigator we have been teaching that has been investigating for a few months now gave us some good news. She started investigating with the Sisters and was committed to the church but had some fears about baptism. Just this last week we asked her how she was feeling about it, and told us that it was a 'surprise'. With some digging and talking to some members and other missionaries she talked to, we found out she's planning on getting baptized in October. Hopefully she can commit herself to that step and take it soon. She'll be a solid member once she's baptized, we just need to help her commit to that day.

My companion and I are doing very well and I'm loving the area. Anyway, I've got to get going since I spent a lot of time writing to Christian and Paul. Thanks for the birthday messages from Mel & Warren, Jonathan & Emily, Mom & Dad, Christian and Paul. If I forgot anybody, sorry, and if you didn't write, it's okay. I know you meant to :P.

Love you all, have a great week!

Elder Wood

September 12, 2011, Email from Laredo, TX

Dear Family,

Before I forget, yes, I did receive the driver's license :)

I will admit that this week was a great week, minus one horrible disappointment. On Saturday there was the game between BYU and UT, and although I'm a fan for both teams, I was rooting BYU. We found out Saturday night that BYU lost after being up from the beginning of the match, and that they lost by 1. I had my BYU tie that Mom had sent me prepped for church the next day and I was ready to do a little gloating over some of the youth that are Longhorns fans. But, we were beaten and I wasn't afforded that opportunity, which in reality was probably a good thing. Anyways, I expect that game will probably come up this week as we're out knocking on doors and such.

Well, we had a pretty fun week here in Laredo. It got hot again, but the temperature did stay down lower that it has been over the past couple weeks. Fall is starting to roll in and we should be hitting some of the gorgeous weather soon. Later in the month is when the winter Texans start to arrive, so I wonder how many of them we'll see here in Laredo. In Donna, when I first came into the mission, there were trailer parks just full of older people. I haven't seen too many areas like that here in Laredo, but you never know. All of the sudden an empty field just becomes a giant trailer park with hundreds of people between 60-80 living there.

One of the Elders in my apartment is an avid picture taker, and I've been stealing copies of a lot of the stuff he has taken, but unfortunately the computers at this library are all just run off of one big server. There are no USB ports, so I'll have to send them later.

We had a pretty fun weekend. Another Elder that lives with us had his birthday yesterday, so a couple of the member families threw a Carne Asada for the both of us. It was pretty cool and had some great food as well. There are some families in our area that are very strong in the church and are doing a great job spreading the gospel. They are being great fellowshippers to our investigators. It's cool when you get to see people make some real friendships in the gospel and have a true friend they can go to with their questions.

Thanks for sending the birthday package, I can't wait to get it! The new camera will be put to some good use here in the coming days. The branches here are having a party on the 16th for Mexican Independence Day, and hopefully I'll get some good pictures of the festivities.

We have three investigators right now that are doing really well. Two of them were both very active in different Christian churchs. Since they attended our church and have felt the Spirit there, they've both made the decision that this is the church they want to attend and be a part of. Both of them have just a few fears over the commitment to baptism, but since they've had a witness from the Spirit of the truth of this work, I'm sure that soon they will be making that step. The other girl just came to church for the first time this last week and really seems to be loving the gospel. She's 18 and has a one year old son, and is caught in a hard time right now since she and her husband are getting separated. But the gospel is there to help her and it seems like she has some real desires to follow the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Elder Stewart is doing very well. He's coming up on his 5th week here in the mission field and is adjusting pretty quickly. His Spanish is still funny to listen to and he's had some moments that made some big laughs, but he is moving along and will get there soon =).

I checked the family blog and I will admit that I'm a fan of the pictures of Riggins. Whoever picked out his clothes has some good taste.

Anyway, thanks so much for the birthday wishes and everything, I'll let you know how everything goes next week. Oh, and I'm going to write them a letter, but also just say 'thanks' for me to the Simmons family, they sent me a package with cookies for my birthday. Needless to say we all enjoyed eating them.

Love you! Keep me updated!

Elder Wood

September 6, 2011; Email post from Laredo, TX

Dear Family,

Well, I just have to start off by saying that today is the most beautiful day we've had in South Texas in about four to five months! A cold front rolled in and the temperature dropped drastically overnight. Yesterday was about 105 (not counting the effects of being on a bike) and today it is hovering at about 80 - 85. We woke up this morning and just about shouted for joy when we opened the door. The rest of the week is supposed to stay like this, and it should be cooling off soon for the Fall.

This last week went pretty well. September has started and will shortly be coming to a close. We found quite a few people this last week who seemed very interested in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. One is the father of a part member family who has stayed away from baptism for a long time because of what his family thinks about Mormons. The other is a single mother of a one year old. We found her by knocking on doors. Interestingly, the father of the part member family is a little more excited now because he has a sister that got baptized after marrying a member in Mexico. That has helped to remove a lot of his fear about baptism because now he won't be the only member in his very Catholic family.

My companion and I are doing well. I don't know if I've mentioned this in the past, but my companion, Elder Stewart, has quite a talent for drawing. He draws in most of the free time he has and really produces some amazing stuff. I'll try to send some pictures home of some of his drawings as they are really quite amazing. As a greenie, he's had some funny moments. He took too big a drink of water in front of a member and his non-member girlfriend and swallowed it down the wrong "tube" only to look like he was throwing up violently on the side of the curb. I'm not gonna lie, that was a pretty funny first-impression moment. He' had a couple of baptismal invitations that were a little scattered as well, but he's getting better every day and is really doing a great job.

Now on to the matter of next week. BIRTHDAY! I really can't believe that this is going to be my last birthday in the mission field, but I guess the time is moving by really fast. I've thought about what I might want for my birthday and only a few things come to mind. The first is a vial for consecrated oil (one of the solid steel ones). I managed to lose mine a while ago and have been mostly relying on my companion, which probably isn't a good idea. Second, would be to receive a new camera. I managed to lose the charger for my old camera. In addition, my camera seemed to only take blurry pictures, anyway. I'd like to have something that isn't too fancy, but one that will take some good, solid pictures. I've managed to not take very many pictures the first year of my mission, and I'm hoping I can correct that in the coming months. Other than those things, I don't have any really big preferences on presents. Money for souvenirs is always nice =). In response to Mom's email, 32/32 is probably still good on pants size. If you get any, just make sure they don't have pleats in the front. I'm not a huge fan of pleats.

I hope Riggins is doing well and that Rose-Ellen's pregnancy is coming along fine. Keep me updated on the family and all!

Love,

Elder Wood

Email from Laredo, TX, August 29, 2011

Dear Family,

Another week has come and gone in the mission field. It seems like every day they come a little faster. I've come to realize that the mission seems extremely short when you think about it in terms of the weeks that you have left. Elder Stewart and I are doing very well. His Spanish is starting to develop, but he's still got a bit of a way to go. Probably part of that is my fault for not speaking it with him as much as I should have. We've set some goals for the coming week that should help us fix that problem.

I've come to learn that my new area (further north in Laredo) doesn't speak nearly as much Spanish as did my old area in the south. It's kind of a bummer just because it makes it harder to make yourself to speak Spanish. I have the Spanish/English switch in my brain, and depending on what language people are speaking to me or the language in the atmosphere, the switch goes one way or the other. I'm finding myself having to consciously change it, rather than having the people doing it for me. But, that's all right. I just need to learn to discipline myself more.

We have a couple of cool investigators that we are teaching right now. We found a young girl about a week ago who didn't believe in God at all. Because of the presence of the Spirit when we spoke with her, she now believes, is praying and is reading the Book of Mormon regularly. She's had a change in her countenance as well. I remember the first time we met her she seemed kind of sad and depressed, weighed down, you could say. But n ow, whenever we visit her, she's got a smile on her face and seems to be much more happy.

We struggled this last week in a few respects, but we saw some other parts of our area see some great progress. I'm excited for the week that is coming however, because I know that we're going to see miracles happen as we put in our part of the work. It's about time for me to get going, though, but I'm grateful for the pictures and everything Mom sent. It was good to see some updated pictures of the whole family.

On a last note, my thighs are getting ripped from this bike area. I will admit I'm a fan of racing the cars off of the stop signs around the streets now. They always give me weird looks when I keep up with them for a good little bit. Tell Mom not to worry, cause I can already tell she's thinking about asking me if I wear my helmet. Yes, Mom, I wear the helmet =). I hope everybody has a great week, and I hope that Riggins is having a nice welcome home.

Love,

Elder Wood

August 15, 2011, email post from NEW ADDRESS in Laredo

Dear Family,

Well, this week was the first week of a new experience for me. The new missionary from the MTC arrived, Elder Stewart, from Ogden, Utah. It's interesting going into an area blind with a new missionary. You both walk in just kind of wide eyed and excited, without any real idea of what to do. I'm also in a bike area for the first time in my mission, which makes for an interesting experience as well. Working on bikes is a bit of a different approach than working in a car, but both are pretty great. Our area is also pretty big for a bike area, which is gonna make sure that my legs get pretty buff.

I don't think I've ever had a night of eight hours of sleep that has felt so short before. The biking and the sun manage to take a lot out of you, which has its ups and downs. You can eat just about as much as you want without getting full, since you body is just looking for calories wherever it can get them, and you can fall asleep at night in about a minute. Only problem is it feels like you wake up a minute later, only to realize 8 hours have past. Overall I'm really enjoying the area though, and it seems like it has a lot of potential. We've had a couple of cool experiences where we've found some great people who seem like they could really progress. For example, we walked down this one street and didn't knock any doors, but both felt impressed to knock a specific one. We found a lady who had been taught by elders two years ago, but they had lost track of her when the area got changed from an Elde'rs area to a Sister's area. We should be teaching her tonight and hopefully she'll be ready to start progressing to baptism.

Speaking of sister missionaries, Amy is on a mission?? That's awesome! James just got home and now Amy is going out huh. Taiwan will be an interesting mission I'm sure. Too bad she and James will be speaking different languages. Where is James at right now? Is he going back to school later this month or is he already off somewhere else?

My new address is...

Elder Roland Wood

4420 Loring #9

Laredo, TX, 78040

As far as birthday packages go... I have no idea. I'll think about it this week and hopefully get back to you next week. I don't need any more white shirts. All of mine have lasted so far, and are doing pretty well. A new belt could also be sent, but mine is still good so far. I'll be praying for JoAnn this week, and I hope everything will go well for her until her c-section date.

I hope everybody has a great week and things go well/get better.

Love,

Elder Wood

August 8, 2001, email from Laredo TX

Dear Family,

Well, this has been a very exciting week. We found another small family that has a baptismal date and came to church this week. Carolina and her four kids seem like they could make a lot of progress over the next couple weeks. I have faith that they will be able to prepare for their goal of being baptized on the 28th of August. The mission hit over 100 baptisms in June and July, which is quite the feat. I remember I was here when the mission hit over 100 baptisms for the first time in history a few months back. Now we're on our way to doing it consistently. I'm sure it is due to the blessings and tender mercies of the Lord. I'm excited for the people that we are working with right now. I know that with some good spiritual nourishment and a lot of love, soon they'll be ready to make a covenant with their Heavenly Father. Unfortunately, I won't be here to see that progression. I'm being transferred tomorrow to a new area. The new area is still in Laredo, but I'll be moving further up north. In fact, the area is going from a Sister's area to an Elder's area, so I'll be going in with my new companion who's coming straight from the MTC! I'm not sure if it will be a bike area or not yet, but all signs seem to point to yes.

I'm very excited for this new opportunity. I know it's going to be a lot of work, require a good bit of sacrifice and probably test my faith. During the process I'm sure we'll become stronger missionaries and find a good bit of success. I'll be attending a new chapel. The building in the north and we will probably only be covering one ward. Having only three hours of church on Sunday instead of six (because of both an English and Spanish branch) is going to be a weird experience from the rest of my mission. I'm not sure of what my new address will be, because where we are living is not really certain yet. I might be moving in with two other elders and living out of my area or the mission might just find a new apartment. We'll see. I'm excited to be staying in Laredo though, this really is a great place.

I'm sad to be leaving my companion Elder Piena, after only one transfer. He is a great missionary and we had a lot of fun together. I'm sure he'll do good work here in Larga Vista though and do all he can to help the people here.

I was happy to hear that the service for Calvin went well. I hope everybody had a chance to reflect a little on their covenants and just how important they are. If you haven't read the talk, "The Power of Covenants" by D. Todd Christofferson, I would suggest it. It's very powerful and helps put the importance of obedience into perspective.

Happy birthday to those that had theirs in August. I think I'm a little late for Christian, but I'm sure he can forgive me. Hopefully Ben and Nathan can have a good birthday as well, and anybody else I forgot (which I probably did).

To answer Mom's question, all of my clothes still fit fine. I walked through one pair of my shoes, but I still have one good pair and a pair of Sunday shoes. (Not to mention my boots as well if worse comes to worst.) I've been thinking about getting some contacts though, as my glasses get kind of annoying, especially when I sweat a lot. If I go to a bike area, that's pretty much going to be a given.

I hope baby Riggins does well this week, and I know the Lord is there helping everything move along. Please give my regards to Petrine Squires as well, I'm sure she must be having a hard time. It's always hard to see something tragic happen to someone who has spent so much time sacrificing on your (and many other's) behalf.

I'll be writing you from the new area next week!

Love,

Elder Wood

August 1, 2011, email post from Laredo, TX

Dear Family,

I am grateful for the Gospel. Few people have what we have. I am eternally thankful for a loving Heavenly Father who cares for us and who set forth the great plan of happiness. One of my favorite quotes from Preach My Gospel has always been, "All that is unfair about life can be made right through the Atonement of Jesus Christ." I can't imagine the difficulty of a challenge like this, but I do know that God has all power in heaven and earth, and if we ask Him, He can give us the strength to overcome whatever trial we may face. Jesus Christ suffered all things. He went beneath all things, so that he could lift us up, together with those we love, back into the presence of the Father.

I'm grateful to know that heaven is a real place. And I'm thankful that I know that there are people there waiting for me. I wasn't able to meet Calvin before he moved on to the next world, but I know that I will meet him someday. The blessings of the Gospel are eternal, of that I'm sure. The Lord has promised an eternal family, and he can never take away that blessing. We can only take it away from ourselves. I know that Calvin will be the son of Warren and Mel Wood eternally, and that they will always be his parents. And one day, very soon in the perspective of eternity, they will be reunited, never to be apart again. I didn't always know that, but I'm glad that I do.

The kids of the family that we have been teaching got baptized yesterday. The mom still needs to attend church. She works on Sundays and the dad doesn't seem too interested, but the kids are great and were very excited. They have a good group of friends in high school that are members of the church as well. They should be set to stay active. We're going to be working more with the mom over the coming weeks in order to help her find a way not to work in order to attend church with her kids and get baptized. I hope that soon this family will be able to take part in all the blessings of the Gospel. I've come to learn that everyone needs it now whether they realize it or not, because when the day comes when they have trials or tragedies they will need the comfort that can only come through the Gospel and the atonement of Jesus Christ.

I'll be finding out this week if I'm staying in Laredo or going to a different place. I would imagine I'll be staying here but you never know. A large portion of the mission leadership will be changing and a lot of people will be training. We'll see what will happen. I suspect I'll stick here with Elder Piena for at least another transfer.

Know I love you and that God loves you too. Families are eternal. I know it and so do you.

Love,

Elder Wood

June 27, 2011, email post from Laredo

Dear Family,

Well, a few changes are going to be happening over the next few days. My companion, Elder Anderson, will be leaving the area and I will be receiving a new companion. My new companion will be Elder Piena. He's Hawaiian, but from what I understand comes from Henderson, Nevada, next to Las Vegas. I've never met him before, but everyone who knows him tells me that he is a great missionary. I'm excited for the chance to have a new companion. It's always an exciting experience, and there's always a lot to learn from another person. Every companionship in our district here in Laredo is going through a change, which should make for an interesting experience. In all of Laredo there are a lot of changes going on as well. President Trayner is sending a large group of some of the best Elders in the mission here to Laredo. He put in a request to the First Presidency a few months ago to add Eagle Pass to the Laredo District in order to make it into a Stake. From what I understand, he has the permission to do so and is just working out some of the things that need to be done beforehand. It's seems like he's putting quite a force into Laredo to help push it through this change and keep it growing.

Anyway, I don't have too many stories from this week. Hopefully, I'll have some good ones to report soon with Elder Pinea. I'm glad Natalie survived the encounter with the St. Bernard. Most of the time when I see big dogs like St. Bernards or German Shepards on the other side of a fence I don't bother trying to fight them by going in the yard.

Congratulations to Rose-Ellen on the the new kid on the way. That will be another niece/nephew born before I get back home. I hope JoAnn can get some more rest and improve a little bit over the coming weeks. Points to Mom on finding Dad's car, too.

Love,

Elder Wood

June 20, 2011, email post from Laredo

Dear Family,

It seems like I'm writing again after no time at all. Not too many things have changed this week, but I guess I could try to think of a few stories to tell.

We had zone conference this past week here in Laredo, which was a pretty cool experience. President Trayer spoke to us on finding people, which was a good topic to learn about since we've had trouble finding some people that want to progress. I don't know if I've ever commented on it before, but our mission president is hilarious. Our conference was filled with jokes that kept it very lively. The jokes he tells aren't really story type jokes, so it would be hard to repeat them to you since they normally just run along with whatever situation he is speaking about. He gave us a couple of new ideas for finding and contacting which I'm excited to apply in the coming weeks.

I also spent some time copying a large number of talks given by the apostles and prophets of this dispensation. I've come to realize this week that the Gospel is endless. You can never really come to know everything. When you think that you've read every chapter on faith in the Book of Mormon, you start reading somewhere else, and it shows up again. As members of the Lord's restored church, we know that the Lord has said, "My works will not end and my words will not cease." The best analogy I've come up for this idea is that it is as if you were thrown out into the middle of the ocean. You can swim as far around as you want on the surface of the water, and still not see any land. You can dive down to the deep and hold your breath for as long as you can, but you still have to come up because your lungs are burning before you can get anywhere near the bottom of the ocean. There is a listless number of topics and themes to study, and each one of them is so complex and fascinating that you'll never understand it all.

That's just a little thought I've had recently. If anyone would like to go read through some talks on LDS.org and then send me some of your favorites, that would be a cool experience to share with me. That goes for everybody--not just Mom!

I neglected to send a message home last week in honor of Father's Day due to lack of foresight. I figure I ought to remedy that situation now, even if it is a day late. First off, I'm grateful that I have a Dad that understands the importance of the Gospel. Because he is a convert to the Church, I'm sure it was nothing easy to do, but nevertheless he did it. He never let me get away with sleeping in instead of going to Church. I'm sure I must have made it a real battle sometimes. I'm thankful I have a Father who is willing to make sacrifices for others, especially his children. Few people I've met are as friendly, open-hearted and giving as Dad is. I'm sure that Dad will do great in the contest for the garden. If he doesn't win, I would invite them to make a contest between those people to see who has raised the best children. That's what Dad has really spent most of his time growing, and I don't think anyone could have a more impressive garden, persay. So thanks, Dad, for all the work. I hope that you had a great Father's Day. I love you!

I hope everyboyd has a great week and we keep doing well. Just leat me know what happens with everybody!

Love,

Elder Wood

June 13, 2011, email post from Laredo, TX

Dear Family,

Well, another week has come and gone in Laredo. I think that this might have to be the fastest week I've had yet in the mission. I'm guessing that's a trend that will continue as time goes on, but it was quite a surprise when I found myself doing weekly planning again and feeling like I had just done it yesterday.

This was a great week, filled with some pretty good experiences, not all of which I can remember. I guess the most important thing that happened this week is that we had the baptism of Nancy Castaneda. She is an eight year old girl that is part of an inactive family we found about five weeks back. She didn't count as a convert baptism because she's only eight and her parents are both members, but to me it stills feels just the same. The father of the family left about three months ago, leaving the mom with her four children. Her husband was also the one keeping her from full activity in the Church. His departure was a tragedy, but it did open the door for a whole new world of blessings from our Heavenly Father.

So, the sister now holds a calling in the Primary here and it seems like they're on a good track to stay active in the Church. Nancy's baptism was a great experience. It was nice to see some tangible results from our past few months here in Laredo. Nancy had large turnout of support from the Primary who performed a song for her baptism. Also, the Elders that we live with had a baptism of an elderly woman who couldn't lean back. So we taped up the drain on the font, filled it to the brim, and had lean back in a chair for the baptism. It made the baptism of Nancy, after the elderly lady, pretty funny. The water was high enough that Nancy had to tilt her chin up to try to keep her face dry.

Also, this week we had an interesting experience with a less active member. We met brother Mendez, a return missionary who lives in our area who hasn't been to Church in about six years or so. Part of the reason for this is work related, but he also had an argument with another member a while back. It was a pretty bad experience. We've met with him a couple of times and have done our best to remind him about what he knows he needs to do. We reminded him of the things he had learned and experienced in the mission field. It was also a huge help that the member with whom he had the argument now goes to a different Branch. It had still be long enough since he had been to Church that it felt weird for him to go. It seemed as though he had a good time this past Sunday. Hopefully he'll keep going so he can turn it into a habit again soon.

I've been having a change of heart these past few weeks, though it may be just a new way of looking at things and motivating myself. I've always worked hard in my mission. I've never really felt like I slacked off or wasted any of the Lord's time, but I'm learning to not just do the work, but to love it. When I've had hard times and disappointments, I'd find myself doing the work, but maybe not with the attitude that I should have. I'm starting to learn just how important and influential that attitude is. If we don't have it, we struggle to love the people and to work for unselfish motives. Carrying out the Lord's work with a willing and cheerful attitude does so much to help you change your vision of the vineyard. It brings with it the success that missionaries desire. I feel like these past couple weeks I've started on that process of finding a better outlook. It hasn't finished yet, but I feel like it's definitely rolling.

I hope that everyone is doing well and is continuing to have some good experiences. I'm sure JoAnn and the baby will keep doing well, and that everything will turn out great. Congratulations to Tyler on his graduation (I just saw the pictures), and Calvin does look like quite an amazing little kid. He is definitely more worthy of such a great name than I was.

I'm going to throw in a couple of requests in this letter if that would be all right. First, if Mom and Dad are able, I'd appreciate it if they'd get a Liahona subscription at the house for me, in Spanish of course, so that when I get back, I'll have a good stack of reading material to go through and keep my language skills sharp. Also, the pictures I have for the family are pretty outdated, so if Mom would be willing to print off some of the more recent pictures of everybody and send them, that would be great.

Editorial note: As I haven't been carrying a camera at recent visits to family, could each of you print off some of your own and send them to Roland's Laredo address posted at the top of this blog? I know he would love to see pictures of Allison where she isn't a new baby, and of all the other nieces and nephews.

I hope everyone has a great week and I'll be sure to have some cool stories to tell this next week.

Love,

Elder Wood

P.S. The library we are at now doesn't allow me to upload pictures, so I'll have to send home the pictures of Nancy's baptism later.

June 6, 2011, email post from Laredo, TX

Dear Family,

I'm glad to hear that Warren and Mel had a good experience with the baby blessing. That sounds like it was a fun experience.

Well another week has gone by in Laredo, without too many crazy experiences during the course of the week. The one story that I can think from this week that was pretty interesting was when we contacted a man named Frank. He used to be in the Air Force but now lives more of a quiet life at home with his family. We contacted him and he invited us in. We got to talking to him a little bit, and he expressed a lot of doubts about religious topics. He believes in God, but has trouble accepting Jesus Christ as the Savior and Son of God because there are so many different opinions about Him. He also threw out some other random doubts and questions that people have about God, like where does He come from, why He permits suffering and so forth.

I didn't feel like any of the questions were legitimate doubts of his, more just questions that he uses to push God out of his mind. Keep in mind these are all questions that we as Latter-Day Saints have answers to, but I didn't really feel like he was in the position to understand and accept them. Anyway, this process of asking him questions went on for a little while, but I didn't really feel like it was going anywhere. Finally he threw out another question. "How come God didn't talk to the Native Americans? They were here too when the Bible was being written!" My companion and I just looked at each other, smiled and then pulled out our copies of the Book of Mormon. We spent a while explaining to him its history and what it teaches. It seemed to arouse some interest in him. It was a cool experience just to see how the Book of Mormon really does answer so many questions that people have. All we have to do is read and study to find them.

The other experience I guess I had this week was a change in my prayers. These past few weeks have been a time of a lot of progress for me. I've learned a good deal about missionary work, but I still have a lot of things yet to discover, I'm sure. Basically, I've spent the time here trying to change myself into the missionary I want to be. I've wanted to be more spiritual, motivated, successful, hardworking, and other things of that sort. Although these things are good goals, I realized that I shouldn't be trying to become what I want to be. I should be trying to be what the Lord wants me to be and what the people of Texas need me to be. I hope that they're the same as they goals I have. Just shifting my perspective has helped me focus a lot on becoming a better servant, and not trying to just serve myself. I don't know if that makes any sense, but I guess I'll just hope it did.

I hope everyone has a great week and hopefully, I'll have some more stories to tell on Monday.

Thanks for sending the packages, Mom.

Love,

Elder Wood

Email from Laredo, TX, May 31

Another week in the Laredo Heat!

Dear Family,

I'm glad to hear that Mom and Dad are having a fun time on the family reunion trip to Kentucky. However, I'm probably more excited at the fact that the BMW managed to avoid the huge pit in the road.

Unfortunately, I don't have that much time to write today since it's a day when we've got to get out and work, unlike P-day, but I think I'll probably just tell one quick story from the week that is pretty amazing. Really it's not my story at all, it's from the Elders that live with us. I figure it's a good enough story that it deserves repeating.

(Editorial note: Roland uses computers at the local university to write to us on Monday, P-day. The campus computer labs were closed for the Memorial Dayweekend, so they got permission to write their letters on Tuesday morning.)

In their area, there's a couple, Miguel and Pilar, who have been investigating the church for about eight months. They have both come really close to getting baptized twice, but both times, as the day got closer and closer, they had second thoughts and pushed it off. They have received spiritual witnesses that the church is true, but had a lot of trouble following through on their answers from God. They would worry about other things. They had been visited by other churches in the past as well, while they were being taught, who gave them anti-LDS material and who sowed a lot of doubt. This pushed them away from baptism.

They came to church on Sunday and had a good experience. This is party due to the fact that because they've been investigating so long that they know most of the members pretty well. Anyway, as Miguel and Pilar were leaving church, the missionaries asked them if they could come over to visit them on Monday. They said that it would be fine. So the missionaries asked, "Well, what do you want to talk about?" Miguel responded, "I want to talk about faith. I feel like I'm lacking faith." So the missionaries said, "All right, sounds great."

On Monday, the missionaries went over to visit Miguel and Pilar and at the start of the lesson just asked them, "So, what have you got for us? What's keeping you away from baptism?" Miguel answered that what was really holding him back was they he didn't want to get baptized and then later have someone come over, open up the Bible and say, "Well, you see, this verse here proves that your church is wrong." He didn't want to make a bad decision without knowing, and he also didn't want to be unable to defend the church. So the Elders tried for a while to answer the doubt using different scriptures from the Book of Mormon and D&C, but really to no avail. Nothing really changed in his attitude.

So, one of the elders, who is gong home in about three weeks, decided to tell a story. He told Miguel that when he went home he was going to start looking for a wife. He was going to go home and search for the person he was supposed to marry. He was gong to find a girl that he liked, that he got along well with, and that he admired. Then, he would go to the Lord in prayer and ask Him if it was the woman that he was supposed to marry. If he got the answer that "yes, this is who you are supposed to marry," then he has a few options. He can start thinking, "Well, there are 7 billion people on the planet, maybe there's someone cuter. Maybe there's someone I can get along with better." Thoughts like these would make him keep from marrying this woman, when in reality, he could go along with what God had told him and have a very different experience. Through the trials that might come up in marriage, he and this woman would grow closer together, their love for each other would strengthen, and he would come to know exactly why God had told him to marry this woman. At some point, he had to act on the answer that God had given him, even though he may not fully understand all of it at the time. He could trust in the Lord and come to find out over time exactly why he had done what he chose to do and also come to love his choice more day by day.

Miguel seemed to understand the relationship between this story and his decision to join the church. So, the missionaries asked, "Miguel, when are you going to be baptized?" He said that he didn't really know, and asked the elders when they thought he should get baptized. They responded, "It's your baptism, not ours. What's the day?" He wasn't sure, so he said that he and Pilar would talk about it that night and then call them tomorrow with their decision. This process of talking about it at night and then getting back to the missionaries had been tried before and yielded no fruit. So the missionaries replied, "Well that hasn't worked before, but if you want to try it go ahead." They had the closing prayers where Miguel and Pilar both said a prayer. During the prayers one of the missionaries had the thought, "I wonder what would happen if we had both of them just wrote down what day they wanted to be baptized on a piece of paper and see what date they chose." He thought it was a weird idea, but after counseling with God a little in his heart, he decided to try it.

After the prayer, he told Miguel and Pilar his idea. Miguel went into the next room with his half a sticky note, while Pilar stayed in the room where they had their lesson. The missionaries also thought about it and flipped open their planners to the day they thought Miguel and Pilar would be comfortable to be baptized. The missionaries chose the 19th of June as a good day for their baptism. When Pilar finished, they had her show them her payer. It said the 19th of June, just like the missionaries had thought. Crazy coincidence by the Spirit, right? So they waited for Miguel to return with his decision. A good ten minutes passed, and finally Miguel came back into the room with his slip of paper. he handed the paper to the missionaries who opened it up and looked at it.

It said, "Hoy," or in English, "Today."

Pilar looked at Miguel and asked him it he was serious. He said that he was. The missionaries asked him as well and he confirmed it. He had decided that it was what he really wanted to do. The missionaries called the mission president (who had taught him in the past when he was out working with the missionaries) and he was as excited as could be that Miguel wanted to be baptized. The Elders put the president on speaker phone and he gave his congratulations to Miguel and Pilar, and gave the missionaries the green light to perform the baptism. They drove to the church (now about 9:30 at night) and started to fill up the font and make phone calls to the branch. The mission president called the district president in Laredo and informed him about the situation. The missionairies called the branch president and the members and asked them to attend the service that would start at 10:00 p.m. We received a call from the missionaries asking us to bring their baptismal clothes and towels from the apartment. Of course, we were more than willing to fill the request. Upon arriving at the church, the district president was there, and a few families from the branch had already arrived. The branch president showed up just a few minutes later with his counselors, as well as some of Miguel and Pilar's family members and some investigators from the north side of Laredo. It made for qujite a packed baptismal service, with auxiliaries and presidencies present to support them in their decision, despite the short notice and the time of night. Miguel and Pilar both bore their testimonies after the service and were amazed at the evidence of love shown by the members who were there. The baptismal service started, and it was a sweet experience for all who attended. They were baptized at about 10:30 p.m. last night.

The day of miracles has not ceased.

That can be proven easily enough by the witness of the Spirit given to this man for the time of his baptism, the support of a loving branch and the Spirit present at a baptismal serve announced and planned about twenty minutes before it occurred.

Overall, it made for an amazing and unexpected Monday night, one I'm not soon to forget.

I hope everyone has a great week and gets a chance to rest a little bit from the summer heat.

Love,

Elder Wood