Dar Family,
Another week has come and gone here in the mission field, and this one went faster than most it seems like. I'm sure that trend will only continue and before I know it I'll be running out of time here in the field. We haven't had too much in the way of news here in Edinburg, but we do have a few stories to tell that I'll try to get down.
The first story is with Alex. She has been preparing for her baptism this Saturday and is doing very well. This past Wednesday was Ash Wednesday and when she showed up to school she was surprised to see so many of her friends going around with crosses on their foreheads. One of her friends during the day asked her, "Why don't you have a cross on your forehead? You're Catholic aren't you?" To which she replied, "Not no more. I'm getting baptized as a Mormon." Needless to say I had quite a smile on my face when she told me the story. Also this past Sunday she had her baptismal interview which went over very well. The Elder who conducted the interview was very impressed because Alex brought her goal of re-activating her inactive husband and getting him to the temple so they can be sealed as a family. She came to church by herself even when the rest of her part member family didn't come because they chose to sleep in during the change to daylight savings time.
Other than that the only great story from this week that I have is that we have been teaching this eight year old girl, Esmer. Her mother is a member, so really she is a child of record baptism, but her Mom wanted us to teach here since she hasn't had the chance to go to church much and learn about God. So, as we've been talking with Esmer she has managed to say some pretty funny things. For example, when explaining what commandments were, we told her they were like God's rules for us. Later in the lesson she told us that she enjoyed following Gods' "commandrules". But, I think her quote that takes the cake is just from yesterday. We were talking with Esmer about prayer and how we can ask God questions and receive answers. When we asked Esmer, "Have you ever asked a question of God when you were praying?," she replied, "I've asked Him how to get skinny." I pretty much lost it and just started laughing, and her Mom who was sitting next to her just followed suit. Oh the world we live in where eight year old girls are asking God how to get skinny!
We found a small hidden neighborhood in our area which is mysteriously populated with a lot of inactive members, so we plan to be working in there a lot during this week. We also found some new investigators in that area. If we get everyone in this three street neighborhood active and baptized we'll have a little Zion on our hands here, soon. I should have pictures and stories from Alex's baptism and confirmation for this next week, which should make for a bit longer letter.
I'm glad that Mel is continuing to do well, that Dot is still growing and I hope everything goes well for mom's trip to AZ. Strangely enough, my companion lives in Mesa as well. Maybe Mom could go visit his parents for a kick. Anyway, I hope that everyone continues to do well and has a great week! Oh, be sure to send me some notes from James' talk if you can. Thanks!
Love,
Elder Roland Wood
March 18, 2011
March 7, 2011, email post from Edinburg, TX
Dear family,
I'm glad to hear that James got home okay from Japan. I'm excited to read whatever notes people take during his talk next week. I wish I could hear him speak Japanese, but I figure it will be a while before I get to hear any of that. I'm sure Marsali is glad to have him home safe and sound. Also, I was happy to receive the news that Paul got into BYU Provo. He'll have a fun time there, I'm sure. He'll be in a great environment to start preparing for his mission.
This last week proved to be a refiner's fire, as far as the mission goes, having lost most of our investigators and only retaining one who continues to progress. She should be getting baptized on the 19th of March, and she seems ready and excited for that day. She missed church this last Sunday due to some extenuating circumstances, but she plans to be there next week, so she should be all ready by the 19th.
We spent most of this week out on some of the longer, more sparsely populated roads in our area, using our bikes a lot (maybe more than I would have liked). But the bikes do prove to be the most efficient way when the houses are a little bit spread out. We had a couple of days with no set appointments whatsoever, so were were able to spend a good chunk of time searching our area for those who are prepared. This past Saturday, we went out in the morning on our bikes and got caught in a pouring rain storm accompanied by lightning and hail. So, we finished the street we were contacting on, returned to our bikes and then started home. We got thoroughly soaked and upon arriving at our house parked the bikes in the garage and the storm ceased and blue skies appeared. It was my first time getting caught out in a storm on the bike, an experience I do not soon hope to repeat. But, all is well and I figure I will go through many more Texas storms.
I hope Mel continues to do well and that the baby does well since he will probably be coming along in these next few weeks. Be sure to tell James "hi" for me and give another congratulations to Paul. I hope everyone has a good week and that Mom has a good experience with her service expo and doesn't overstress too much =) .
Love,
Elder Wood
I'm glad to hear that James got home okay from Japan. I'm excited to read whatever notes people take during his talk next week. I wish I could hear him speak Japanese, but I figure it will be a while before I get to hear any of that. I'm sure Marsali is glad to have him home safe and sound. Also, I was happy to receive the news that Paul got into BYU Provo. He'll have a fun time there, I'm sure. He'll be in a great environment to start preparing for his mission.
This last week proved to be a refiner's fire, as far as the mission goes, having lost most of our investigators and only retaining one who continues to progress. She should be getting baptized on the 19th of March, and she seems ready and excited for that day. She missed church this last Sunday due to some extenuating circumstances, but she plans to be there next week, so she should be all ready by the 19th.
We spent most of this week out on some of the longer, more sparsely populated roads in our area, using our bikes a lot (maybe more than I would have liked). But the bikes do prove to be the most efficient way when the houses are a little bit spread out. We had a couple of days with no set appointments whatsoever, so were were able to spend a good chunk of time searching our area for those who are prepared. This past Saturday, we went out in the morning on our bikes and got caught in a pouring rain storm accompanied by lightning and hail. So, we finished the street we were contacting on, returned to our bikes and then started home. We got thoroughly soaked and upon arriving at our house parked the bikes in the garage and the storm ceased and blue skies appeared. It was my first time getting caught out in a storm on the bike, an experience I do not soon hope to repeat. But, all is well and I figure I will go through many more Texas storms.
I hope Mel continues to do well and that the baby does well since he will probably be coming along in these next few weeks. Be sure to tell James "hi" for me and give another congratulations to Paul. I hope everyone has a good week and that Mom has a good experience with her service expo and doesn't overstress too much =) .
Love,
Elder Wood
Feb, 28, 2011, email post from Edinburg
Dear Family,
I don't have too much time this week to write, but I'll try to get down what I can.
First, an apology to Dad over my tardiness contacting Gustavo Valadez. I will be calling my mission president today and discussing it with him. I'm sure that sometime soon I'll have the opportunity to meet with him and discuss whatever he wishes to talk about with me. He had better be certain I'm going to be sharing at least a part of the Gospel with him when we meet.
Again, another week has come and gone in Edinburg without too many changes. The new transfer cycle has started and my old companion, Elder Raynor is up here with me for a period of at least six more weeks. We haven't found anyone incredibly solid yet, but we have had a few experiences that I guess I could share. A few weeks back, we had been in a part of our area and we met a man named Louis. We talked with him for about an hour or so at his door because he was familiar with our church through a strong interest that he had in family history. He is a frequent user of the Family Search website, because of the wealth of records that it has and the wonderful quality it has of being free. So that is how he became acquainted with our church though he had never talked with the missionaries before. We talked with him for a good space of time about the mormon.org website which he had also heard of because of the ads on TV, many of which impressed him very much. So, we left him with a mormon.org card and an invitation to find out why we focus on genealogy so much by learning about temples and baptisms for the dead.
Yesterday, we were in his neighborhood again, so we figured we'd swing by and see how he was doing, and to follow up to see if he visited the website/read the pamphlet we left with him. He had read a bit of the pamphlet but hadn't visited too much of the website. So, instead of referring him back to the website, we just took it upon ourselves to explain why we did genealogy. After explaining to him about baptisms for the dead and the purpose of the spirit world, he looked at us and said probably my most favorite words I've ever head, "I've always had that question and you guys are the first ones that ever answered it." He is, however, very reluctant to jump into a church until he knows it very well. We left him with a Book of Mormon to read. He assured us that if we came back in a few weeks he will have read through it, marked it up and have little tabs coming out all of the sides. So we are planning to swing by him again towards the end of the transfer and check up on his studies and prayers. We spent a good hour and a half with him at his door answering the mountain of questions that he had and ended up by pointing him to studying the Book of Mormon and praying to receive an answer from God. it always excites me to find people that have questions who are willing to search and find answers.
Again, I'm excited to hear that Mel and the baby are doing well, and I hope that continues to be true. I hope Mom has success in preparing for her service fair, and I'm sure that all will go well. I hope everyone has a great week and that everything goes well! Oh, and give Paul a big "congratulations" for me on getting into BYU Provo. It's better than Hawaii!
Love,
Elder Wood
I don't have too much time this week to write, but I'll try to get down what I can.
First, an apology to Dad over my tardiness contacting Gustavo Valadez. I will be calling my mission president today and discussing it with him. I'm sure that sometime soon I'll have the opportunity to meet with him and discuss whatever he wishes to talk about with me. He had better be certain I'm going to be sharing at least a part of the Gospel with him when we meet.
Again, another week has come and gone in Edinburg without too many changes. The new transfer cycle has started and my old companion, Elder Raynor is up here with me for a period of at least six more weeks. We haven't found anyone incredibly solid yet, but we have had a few experiences that I guess I could share. A few weeks back, we had been in a part of our area and we met a man named Louis. We talked with him for about an hour or so at his door because he was familiar with our church through a strong interest that he had in family history. He is a frequent user of the Family Search website, because of the wealth of records that it has and the wonderful quality it has of being free. So that is how he became acquainted with our church though he had never talked with the missionaries before. We talked with him for a good space of time about the mormon.org website which he had also heard of because of the ads on TV, many of which impressed him very much. So, we left him with a mormon.org card and an invitation to find out why we focus on genealogy so much by learning about temples and baptisms for the dead.
Yesterday, we were in his neighborhood again, so we figured we'd swing by and see how he was doing, and to follow up to see if he visited the website/read the pamphlet we left with him. He had read a bit of the pamphlet but hadn't visited too much of the website. So, instead of referring him back to the website, we just took it upon ourselves to explain why we did genealogy. After explaining to him about baptisms for the dead and the purpose of the spirit world, he looked at us and said probably my most favorite words I've ever head, "I've always had that question and you guys are the first ones that ever answered it." He is, however, very reluctant to jump into a church until he knows it very well. We left him with a Book of Mormon to read. He assured us that if we came back in a few weeks he will have read through it, marked it up and have little tabs coming out all of the sides. So we are planning to swing by him again towards the end of the transfer and check up on his studies and prayers. We spent a good hour and a half with him at his door answering the mountain of questions that he had and ended up by pointing him to studying the Book of Mormon and praying to receive an answer from God. it always excites me to find people that have questions who are willing to search and find answers.
Again, I'm excited to hear that Mel and the baby are doing well, and I hope that continues to be true. I hope Mom has success in preparing for her service fair, and I'm sure that all will go well. I hope everyone has a great week and that everything goes well! Oh, and give Paul a big "congratulations" for me on getting into BYU Provo. It's better than Hawaii!
Love,
Elder Wood
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