Dear Family,
Well, this week was a great week to say the least. We've seen some great progress in some of our investigators, especially in Zulma, the lady I wrote about last week. She has a baptismal date for this next Sunday and will need a few miracles in order to be able to reach it. She's received so many miracles already that I have no doubt she'll be able to experience those necessary to help her enter the waters of baptism this next Sunday. We're excited because it'll be the first baptism that Cameron Park has had for a while. We're gonna do everything we can to help her get there. Everything is still up in the air a little bit, but these next few days will really tell whether or not that is going to happen.
We saw some miracles again this week that were awesome. We were talking to Zulma and apparently she had been receiving some opposition from her friends at work. She mentioned that she was meeting with the Mormons to a friend of hers there who immediately started to put up protests. After throwing up a bunch of doubts and complaints to her, Zulma responded, "Hey, I've been to the Catholic church, and I've been to Christian churches, and I've been to the Jehovah's Witness church, but it none of them have I felt like I'm feeling now. I know it's true." I like what you said Mom in your letter that, "It's a miracle that anyone joins the church." Really that's true, since there are always so many obstacles and so much opposition that it wouldn't make sense that anyone being taught be 20 year old men would be able to resist it. But in reality they do, and it's because they're not just being taught by 20 year old young men. Everyone that comes into the church is brought in on miracles from on high, I'm convinced of that. The reason the work progresses is because heaven is behind it, and the Holy Ghost testifies to the hearts of men that the message carried by the Lord's humble servants is true.
This last week we had a zone conference which was really amazing. It was a day focused on the talk by David A. Bednar called, "Becoming a Preach My Gospel Missionary." It applies most directly to missionary work, but I love the part right at the end of the talk when he expresses his confidence and love in the missionaries, pronouncing firmly, "You can do this!" If you can look up the talk I'd encourage you to listen to it, especially the last part. Anyone who's, "Trying a little bit harder to be a little bit better," like President Hinckley said, will find that short portion very inspiring.
I sent the letter off to my President Trayner asking for his endorsement for BYU. I'm assuming he knows a lot more about the process than I do, so I think he'll either inform me more about exactly what I have to do or just take care of it. And the bike is fine. The CTR bikes thing that we used to order my bike is great in my opinion. I ended up just getting a new rim from another missionary who had received a completely new bike from CTR bikes, and had all the spare parts from his old one. So, it's all taken care of, no problems at all.
I've been praying for James. I really hope he gets better. I was horrible at writing him during his mission and communicating with him during mine, but I will admit I have been looking forward to seeing him again for a long time. I hope things go well for him and that the results from the scans come back with something the doctors can work with. I've got a letter to send off to him, so hopefully it'll be getting there soon.
Also, I'm excited for conference. I've been looking forward to it for about a month now, and it's only two weeks away! Man, I don't think I've ever been as excited for anything in the mission as General Conference. It's like the Super Bowl for missionaries, only better. I've been doing my best to prepare for it and I've been reviewing some of the talks from the last conference as well. I'm super excited and I know there's going to be some great messages in there that will give me some great guidance. I thank God for a living prophet, it really is amazing!
Anyway, I hope everyone has a good week, I'll continue to pray for James, and I hope that everything goes well with Katelyn's blessing. Love you!
Con amor,
Elder Wood
