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 27, 2011
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
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
June 13, 2011
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
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
May 23, 2011, Email from Laredo, TX
Dear Family,
Well, this week has been a great week in Laredo! After working hard and having a few difficulties along the way, I think we've finally started our way out of our rut. We've had a rough time ever since I got into the area here in Larga Vista, but this last week we saw some success and hopefully it will keep going that way.
I spent about a month and a half in this area trying to figure out what I could do or improve in order to find people that wanted to learn about the gospel and live it. But, after a lot of introspection and trying out different ideas, I think I finally found out what it was. I feel like I was relying too much on myself and not enough on the Lord. I felt the need to have the Spirit with me and was doing everything I could to have it. During the past few weeks I was too focused on me changing myself in order to have success, when really I should have learned to draw more on t he Lord's strength. I would always think about what I needed to change and do better rather than just trusting in the Lord to make up for my weaknesses. I'll never be a perfect teacher, and though I'm trying to be, it comes down to trusting in the Lord enough to make up for whatever part I'm missing.
This week we started to have more frequent, more sincere prayers, which I felt helped to invite more of the Lord's help as we showed that we were humbling ourselves before Him and asking for His help. We made a rule that we couldn't leave the far without saying a heartfelt prayer first. We would always pray before we left the apartment and in lessons of course, but I just felt that the added companionship prayer before any session of teaching or tracting helped us to not trust in ourselves quite as much. This week we found a few new investigators, none of which were too solid, but the real miracle came through our less active work. We had been working with the less actives a lot and were hoping that they would finally have the desires and circumstances that would permit them to return to activity. During this week we started visiting the less-active members in El Cenizo (a small town about twenty minutes south of our area). We were able to find a small group of members who were ready to come back to church. On Sunday, we had seven less active members come to church which was a great blessing from the Lord. Also, we received a few referrals from the members in this area, which was amazing, considering we hadn't had any from the branch since I've been in Laredo.
It made for a great week and I'm grateful for the blessings the Lord has seen fit to give us. I only hope that we can keep doing our part to trust in Him and have Him make up for our weaknesses.
I'm sending home a few pictures from this week that I thought were pretty good. One is a picture of a billboard in Laredo, that I thought was funny considering it's in Spanish and it's right next to the big American flag next to the border. It translates to "Budweiser, keep being the king," and the Mexican guy on it just makes it even better. Another is a picture of the HUGE Mexican flag they fly on the other side of the border. I mean really, it puts our flag to shame a little bit. I figured Texas would be down for the biggest flag ever, but apparently Nuevo Laredo has us beat. The other two are pictures of the Rio Grande River hat runs by the town El Cenizo we were working in this week. With all the immigration issues, I thought it was funny that it was just open. We saw about ten people just chilling next to the Rio fishing. The border patrol has these camera towers near the river that watch in and you can always see their SUVs rolling around, but I just thought it was funny.
Anyway, I hope everyone has a great week. Thanks for all your support and prayers!
(Editorial note: AOL has recently been rejecting all my mail with attachments, so we did not get any pictures. This letter was sent again by Roland w/o the pictures. We've fixed this problem, so should we get any additional pictures in the future, I will post them to the blog.)
Love,
Elder Wood
Well, this week has been a great week in Laredo! After working hard and having a few difficulties along the way, I think we've finally started our way out of our rut. We've had a rough time ever since I got into the area here in Larga Vista, but this last week we saw some success and hopefully it will keep going that way.
I spent about a month and a half in this area trying to figure out what I could do or improve in order to find people that wanted to learn about the gospel and live it. But, after a lot of introspection and trying out different ideas, I think I finally found out what it was. I feel like I was relying too much on myself and not enough on the Lord. I felt the need to have the Spirit with me and was doing everything I could to have it. During the past few weeks I was too focused on me changing myself in order to have success, when really I should have learned to draw more on t he Lord's strength. I would always think about what I needed to change and do better rather than just trusting in the Lord to make up for my weaknesses. I'll never be a perfect teacher, and though I'm trying to be, it comes down to trusting in the Lord enough to make up for whatever part I'm missing.
This week we started to have more frequent, more sincere prayers, which I felt helped to invite more of the Lord's help as we showed that we were humbling ourselves before Him and asking for His help. We made a rule that we couldn't leave the far without saying a heartfelt prayer first. We would always pray before we left the apartment and in lessons of course, but I just felt that the added companionship prayer before any session of teaching or tracting helped us to not trust in ourselves quite as much. This week we found a few new investigators, none of which were too solid, but the real miracle came through our less active work. We had been working with the less actives a lot and were hoping that they would finally have the desires and circumstances that would permit them to return to activity. During this week we started visiting the less-active members in El Cenizo (a small town about twenty minutes south of our area). We were able to find a small group of members who were ready to come back to church. On Sunday, we had seven less active members come to church which was a great blessing from the Lord. Also, we received a few referrals from the members in this area, which was amazing, considering we hadn't had any from the branch since I've been in Laredo.
It made for a great week and I'm grateful for the blessings the Lord has seen fit to give us. I only hope that we can keep doing our part to trust in Him and have Him make up for our weaknesses.
I'm sending home a few pictures from this week that I thought were pretty good. One is a picture of a billboard in Laredo, that I thought was funny considering it's in Spanish and it's right next to the big American flag next to the border. It translates to "Budweiser, keep being the king," and the Mexican guy on it just makes it even better. Another is a picture of the HUGE Mexican flag they fly on the other side of the border. I mean really, it puts our flag to shame a little bit. I figured Texas would be down for the biggest flag ever, but apparently Nuevo Laredo has us beat. The other two are pictures of the Rio Grande River hat runs by the town El Cenizo we were working in this week. With all the immigration issues, I thought it was funny that it was just open. We saw about ten people just chilling next to the Rio fishing. The border patrol has these camera towers near the river that watch in and you can always see their SUVs rolling around, but I just thought it was funny.
Anyway, I hope everyone has a great week. Thanks for all your support and prayers!
(Editorial note: AOL has recently been rejecting all my mail with attachments, so we did not get any pictures. This letter was sent again by Roland w/o the pictures. We've fixed this problem, so should we get any additional pictures in the future, I will post them to the blog.)
Love,
Elder Wood
May 23, 2011
May 16, 2011, email from Laredo, TX
Dear Family,
We had another bit of a hard week here in Laredo, but overall I'd say things are going pretty well. Even if we're not having the most success, I do feel like I'm growing a lot as a missionary in this area. I've learned a lot about how to be motivated for missionary work and I have quite a few things I'm working on improving. So far, this area has turned into a bit of a refiner's fire for me, though I've only been here six weeks. We didn't really have any success this last transfer, but I feel like I've at least learned a few lessons that I'm excited to apply over the coming weeks that will hopefully help change the trends we've had.
One of the Elders I live with (Ed note: He's in an apartment with several teams of Elders), Elder Wilde, will be going home to Idaho Falls at the end of these six weeks. He's our District Leader here in the South of Laredo and a great Elder. It'll be interesting to see him on his way home. I have little doubt that he'll be working hard to the end. In fact, the District I was with this last transfer won't be changing at all. All three of the companionships here will be staying the same, something that none of us were expecting very much. However, as tradition dictates, we went out for a quick bite to eat after district meeting to end the transfer. We went to "Laredo Sushi" which was pretty fun. The first thing that I noticed was that every other time I've had sushi, it's been a small roll about an inch or an inch and a half in diameter. The sushi at this place was probably about 3 or 4 inches in diameter and about 8 inches of so long. Basically it was about the size of a burrito from Chipotle if you can think of that. It was pretty delicious and cheap, which was even better.
Other than that, the only story I probably have from this week happened while we were out tracting. We were walking down a street knocking some doors when we saw a family of four sitting out on their porch on the other side of the street. So we started crossing the street to go talk to them when the dad saw us. He tapped his wife on the shoulder, and all four of the, 8 and 10 year old daughters included, ran inside the house, closed and locked the door behind them. At this point, my companion and I are standing in the middle of the street just awestruck that they could disappear so fast. Anyway, we went down the street some more and ended up coming back up. So, the father saw us again and tapped his wife and they ran inside, closing the door after them and locking it. However, the 8 and 10 year old girls were getting something out of the car and were locked outside by their parents with the two terrifying Mormons coming down the street. We just smiled, laughed and waved at the girls, continuing on our way. I don't think I've seen anyone run away that fast from missionaries before. It was pretty funny.
Well, I'm out of time for today, but I hope everyone has a great week. I'll write again, soon.
Love,
Elder Wood
We had another bit of a hard week here in Laredo, but overall I'd say things are going pretty well. Even if we're not having the most success, I do feel like I'm growing a lot as a missionary in this area. I've learned a lot about how to be motivated for missionary work and I have quite a few things I'm working on improving. So far, this area has turned into a bit of a refiner's fire for me, though I've only been here six weeks. We didn't really have any success this last transfer, but I feel like I've at least learned a few lessons that I'm excited to apply over the coming weeks that will hopefully help change the trends we've had.
One of the Elders I live with (Ed note: He's in an apartment with several teams of Elders), Elder Wilde, will be going home to Idaho Falls at the end of these six weeks. He's our District Leader here in the South of Laredo and a great Elder. It'll be interesting to see him on his way home. I have little doubt that he'll be working hard to the end. In fact, the District I was with this last transfer won't be changing at all. All three of the companionships here will be staying the same, something that none of us were expecting very much. However, as tradition dictates, we went out for a quick bite to eat after district meeting to end the transfer. We went to "Laredo Sushi" which was pretty fun. The first thing that I noticed was that every other time I've had sushi, it's been a small roll about an inch or an inch and a half in diameter. The sushi at this place was probably about 3 or 4 inches in diameter and about 8 inches of so long. Basically it was about the size of a burrito from Chipotle if you can think of that. It was pretty delicious and cheap, which was even better.
Other than that, the only story I probably have from this week happened while we were out tracting. We were walking down a street knocking some doors when we saw a family of four sitting out on their porch on the other side of the street. So we started crossing the street to go talk to them when the dad saw us. He tapped his wife on the shoulder, and all four of the, 8 and 10 year old daughters included, ran inside the house, closed and locked the door behind them. At this point, my companion and I are standing in the middle of the street just awestruck that they could disappear so fast. Anyway, we went down the street some more and ended up coming back up. So, the father saw us again and tapped his wife and they ran inside, closing the door after them and locking it. However, the 8 and 10 year old girls were getting something out of the car and were locked outside by their parents with the two terrifying Mormons coming down the street. We just smiled, laughed and waved at the girls, continuing on our way. I don't think I've seen anyone run away that fast from missionaries before. It was pretty funny.
Well, I'm out of time for today, but I hope everyone has a great week. I'll write again, soon.
Love,
Elder Wood
May 9, 2011, email from Laredo, TX
Dear Family,
Well, emails after phone calls are always a little bit dry, but I think I can come up with a few things to put down.
This week was a little bit slow. We had trouble finding new people to teach this week and were on pretty much a dry pool from the week before. We didn't get to spend too much time teaching, and our time spent finding didn't yield too much fruit. So, not too much of a productive week, but I have high hopes for the week coming. The colleges here got out this last week, and that means that a large portion of the student body has a little bit more free time on their hands. We have a few "formers" that were going to school that have invited us over again now that their schedules are more permitting. So hopefully we'll be able to see some results from that soon.
One thing I realized on the the phone with Mom is that I'm definitely getting into the habit of speaking Tex-Mex. Multiple times on the phone I wanted to say something in Spanish because it was the easiest way to express it, but caught myself having to think and change to English sometimes. I'm sure it's even harder for the missionaries that are in 100% Spanish speaking missions, but it was still a funny experience.
I'm also equally astonished at the fact that Elder Johnson called Mom for Mother's Day. I'm sure that must have been a conversation that Mom wasn't expecting. But, our families are good enough friends that I'm sure it wasn't too weird, overall. I hope he's doing well in Peru, and that everything is going well for him down there. (Ed. note: Mark couldn't get anyone to answer the phone at the Johnson household, so he called us. I could tell him that Rene was on a ten day trip to Guatemala. He went as an assistant for her father Father who is a dentist. They are on a humanitarian effort to improve the dental work in those preparing for missions and members and non-members needing free dental work. Jeff was also traveling. Mark ended up getting permission to call on Monday for his Mother's Day call from Peru so he could talk with family. We had a short, fun chat with Mark.)
Well, I'm not sure really what other stories there are to tell, other than the fact that I saw the pictures of Natalie on the blog which are pretty hilarious.
I hope that everyone had a great Mother's day, especially the new mothers in the family, and that everyone has a good week coming up. Next week I should have some more stories to tell since I won't have exhausted them the night before with Mom over the phone.
Love,
Elder Wood
Well, emails after phone calls are always a little bit dry, but I think I can come up with a few things to put down.
This week was a little bit slow. We had trouble finding new people to teach this week and were on pretty much a dry pool from the week before. We didn't get to spend too much time teaching, and our time spent finding didn't yield too much fruit. So, not too much of a productive week, but I have high hopes for the week coming. The colleges here got out this last week, and that means that a large portion of the student body has a little bit more free time on their hands. We have a few "formers" that were going to school that have invited us over again now that their schedules are more permitting. So hopefully we'll be able to see some results from that soon.
One thing I realized on the the phone with Mom is that I'm definitely getting into the habit of speaking Tex-Mex. Multiple times on the phone I wanted to say something in Spanish because it was the easiest way to express it, but caught myself having to think and change to English sometimes. I'm sure it's even harder for the missionaries that are in 100% Spanish speaking missions, but it was still a funny experience.
I'm also equally astonished at the fact that Elder Johnson called Mom for Mother's Day. I'm sure that must have been a conversation that Mom wasn't expecting. But, our families are good enough friends that I'm sure it wasn't too weird, overall. I hope he's doing well in Peru, and that everything is going well for him down there. (Ed. note: Mark couldn't get anyone to answer the phone at the Johnson household, so he called us. I could tell him that Rene was on a ten day trip to Guatemala. He went as an assistant for her father Father who is a dentist. They are on a humanitarian effort to improve the dental work in those preparing for missions and members and non-members needing free dental work. Jeff was also traveling. Mark ended up getting permission to call on Monday for his Mother's Day call from Peru so he could talk with family. We had a short, fun chat with Mark.)
Well, I'm not sure really what other stories there are to tell, other than the fact that I saw the pictures of Natalie on the blog which are pretty hilarious.
I hope that everyone had a great Mother's day, especially the new mothers in the family, and that everyone has a good week coming up. Next week I should have some more stories to tell since I won't have exhausted them the night before with Mom over the phone.
Love,
Elder Wood
May 2, 2011, email from Laredo, TX
Dear Family,
Well, this week I don't have too much to write about. All I know is that this week was pretty much a blur. We spent a lot of the week trying to find new people to teach, with limited success. We taught a lot of first lessons with people, but had a hard time finding them home for the next appointment. The area I have been in has been in a long rut with church attendance, but we managed to break that this last week and at least have someone attend. So hopefully, this week we can continue that trend and keep improving.
As far as the call for Mother's day goes, I'll probably call on Sunday night, but on Sunday morning or afternoon I'll probably call just to get the timing down. I'm not sure I have Christian's number, but I guess if I call Dad first in VA I can probably get it from him.
In defense of my pancho, Mom, it's more like a Mexican sweater than an actual pancho. It's got sleeves and a hood and fairly tame colors but in a cool pattern. I can actually see it coming more into use than you'd think. I should be sending a box of stuff home, soon. I'm starting to collect random trinkets from the mission that are taking up a bit of space. I'm going to try and ship some of those off to Christian's house if he would be willing to throw them under the stairs for me.
Laredo has been pretty hot this pat week. We've been hitting temperatures of about 110 degrees, without any wind. So, basically, everything outside here just turns into an oven. I've been tempted to crack an egg on the asphalt of the street, just to see if I could really cook it. Today is actually quite cold though. A cold front rolled in from up North or something because it's all cloudy and the temperature probably dropped a good 20-30 degrees or so. That seems to be something consistent here in South Texas. For a few weeks it will be super hot, and all of the sudden one day a cold front comes in and it's cloudy and cold. It normally clears up in a day or two, but it's always a shock when you open the door and freeze without expecting it.
I'll be sure to remember some more stories this week for the call on Mother's day. I was glad to see the pictures of Calvin. He's quite a cute little nino. I hope everybody has a great week and I'll get to talk to some of you, soon.
Love,
Elder Wood
Well, this week I don't have too much to write about. All I know is that this week was pretty much a blur. We spent a lot of the week trying to find new people to teach, with limited success. We taught a lot of first lessons with people, but had a hard time finding them home for the next appointment. The area I have been in has been in a long rut with church attendance, but we managed to break that this last week and at least have someone attend. So hopefully, this week we can continue that trend and keep improving.
As far as the call for Mother's day goes, I'll probably call on Sunday night, but on Sunday morning or afternoon I'll probably call just to get the timing down. I'm not sure I have Christian's number, but I guess if I call Dad first in VA I can probably get it from him.
In defense of my pancho, Mom, it's more like a Mexican sweater than an actual pancho. It's got sleeves and a hood and fairly tame colors but in a cool pattern. I can actually see it coming more into use than you'd think. I should be sending a box of stuff home, soon. I'm starting to collect random trinkets from the mission that are taking up a bit of space. I'm going to try and ship some of those off to Christian's house if he would be willing to throw them under the stairs for me.
Laredo has been pretty hot this pat week. We've been hitting temperatures of about 110 degrees, without any wind. So, basically, everything outside here just turns into an oven. I've been tempted to crack an egg on the asphalt of the street, just to see if I could really cook it. Today is actually quite cold though. A cold front rolled in from up North or something because it's all cloudy and the temperature probably dropped a good 20-30 degrees or so. That seems to be something consistent here in South Texas. For a few weeks it will be super hot, and all of the sudden one day a cold front comes in and it's cloudy and cold. It normally clears up in a day or two, but it's always a shock when you open the door and freeze without expecting it.
I'll be sure to remember some more stories this week for the call on Mother's day. I was glad to see the pictures of Calvin. He's quite a cute little nino. I hope everybody has a great week and I'll get to talk to some of you, soon.
Love,
Elder Wood
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