Dear Family,
This has been a great past week here in Donna, with my first baptism actually happening Sunday for Hector. I have a few pictures from the baptism, but I always have trouble getting pictures off this camera for some reason. I guess I'll try again next week because I'm running out of time for emailing.
The baptismal service went over well with a high attendance from the ward and a good bit of Hector's family in attendance as well. I gave the talk on baptism, a member, Hermano Cabrera gave the talk on the Holy Ghost and Elder Navarro performed the baptism. My talk went over pretty well, even though it was in Spanish. The talk given by Hermano Cabrera's talk went well, but Elder Navarro had a bit of trouble with the baptism. The first time he said the prayer he made a mistake in Spanish, so the second time he was more focused on his words than he was on where he was holding Hector. He managed to give him a big thunk on the head against the wall going into the water. The whole ward in attendance let out a big, "awwwww", but Hector took it with a good heart and has already forgiven Elder Navarro for his negligence. The refreshments afterwards were good, with a cake bought by the Cabrera family. Hermano Carrasco, a baker in our ward, made a large batch of cookies. All went over well, and I believe it was a great experience for Hector and for his family as well.
Cindy Carrizales and the kids are doing well, but we were only able to meet with them a few times this week. We actually met with them on Cesar's birthday, so I went to a bakery and bought him a piece of cake and afterwards we watched the Restoration movie. during the movie, Cesar managed to make another random comment that left me laughing pretty hard. When Joseph Smith started praying in the movie, and the choir starts singing and the light gets really bright, he piped up and said nonchalantly, "God's coming". That kid has given me some pretty funny quotes to think about whenever I teach the first lesson again.
The only other story I have from this week really isn't actually a story of mine, but something that happened down in Brownsville, another area in my mission. In Mexico this past week, one of the leaders of the gangs there was killed by the government. This got the gangs really mad. So this past week the violence in Mexico has been kicking up with more gunfights and other incidents. One of the fights this past week was very close to the U.S. border, near Brownsville, and the gunfire was bad enough that some of the stray bullets were coming over into this side of the border. A college in Brownsville had to close their campus because the bullets in and shattering windows and hitting walls. No one was hurt, I believe, but it's just weird to get a reminder that the war in Mexico is not far away at all. As missionaries we never see the bad things that go on in town since everybody just leaves us alone, which is definitely a blessing. I'm glad to hear that Elder Christensen has some form of protection in California as well!
I'm glad Mom is having a good experience with missionary work in Virginia. I hope that they will continue to be able to come and hear about the Gospel. Hopefully, soon they'll realize that they can find an answer for themselves from God, because as soon as they have that answer, the rest will come quickly and easily.
I hope everyone will continue to do well or improve and also have a great Thanksgiving week! Missionaries here typically have 3 -5 Thanksgiving meals because different families have different times they plan to eat. I'll have to start warming up my stomach for this Thursday. Hopefully, I'll be ready and able to make it through the marathon of meals. Have a good week and start thinking of things you can be grateful to the Lord for on Thanksgiving day!
Love,
Elder Wood
November 29, 2010
November 22, 2010
Mon, Nov 15, 2010, email from Donna, TX
Dear Family,
This has been a great week here in Donna, with good progress for our investigators around the board. At the moment, we have Hector, and Cindy and her two kids, Cleopatra and Cesar. Both are making good progress towards baptism. Hector had a bit of a delay with his baptism, since we were unable to meet with him very much this past week. However, we finally were able to sit down with him, discuss his progress, and start planning things for his baptism. My companion, Elder Navarro will be performing the baptism. I'll be giving a talk on baptism. Edgar Cabrera, a member in the ward who has done a great job of fellowshipping Hector will give a talk on the Holy Ghost.
We went over the baptismal interview questions already with Hector. Every thing seems to be taken care of and understood. Everything is going well and barring some random incident, he should be getting baptized this Sunday. Teaching him has been a really interesting experience because he understands a lot and always wants to know exactly why things are the way they are. The big turning point in his conversion, I think, is when he took his Book of Mormon one night, walked around his neighborhood, sat down in a garden and prayed to know if it was true. God answered his prayer and from then on he was able to move forward, building his testimony and understanding.
Cindy and her two kids are progressing as golden investigators, which is awesome. The first time we taught Cindy, we extended a baptismal date to her, which she turned down. We were unable to figure out why. However, after teaching her a bit more and getting to know her better, we found out that three other members of her family, including her parents, are members of the Church. This, I think, really helped her to have a good experience and connection with the Gospel. This last week we again extended the invitation to be baptized. This time, she accepted. We encouraged her to prepare herself for baptism in mid December, and she seems excited for that. She was excited enough about her baptism that she called her parents, who now live in Missouri, and invited them to attend. They are now coming down a bit before Christmas to see their daughter and her children get baptized into the Lord's Church.
It is always exciting and reassuring when someone invites their parents to their baptism. It lets you know that they're ready for it if they invite someone else to come. On a random note, her kid, Cesar, is maybe one of the funniest kids I've met. he's nine years old and always manages to do something funny during our lessons. For example, during our lesson about the Restoration, we explained that Joseph Smith went into a grove of trees to pray and know which church was true. When he prayed, God and Jesus Christ appeared to him and told him that he was going to restore the Lord's Church to the earth. After we explained this, Cesar interrupted one of us and blurted out, "Geez, what kind of tree do you have to pray under to get a vision like that?" At that point my companion and I started laughing and his mom explained that it wasn't where you prayed, but how you prayed, with faith and real intent.
So, all has been well here in Donna. We're having a bit of trouble finding new people to teach. This makes things a big difficult because soon we will have Hector moving out of our teaching pool. But I'm confident that the Lord will lead us to someone who is prepared to hear and follow the message of His restored Gospel.
I'm glad to hear that everything is going well at home with callings, sharing food and the like. Mom's story about Jenny Oaks Baker was interesting because she actually gave a short series of talks and played a number of songs for us at a devotional in the MTC. I'm not sure I ever wrote home about that, but I have heard her play. I'm glad you had the opportunity to hear her too. She's an amazing violinist. She's almost as good as Marsali, but I should be careful to say that without too much Arlington Ward pride.
I would suggest to Uncle Marty and Aunt Liz to show Toy Story 3 to their missionaries at Thanksgiving. How to Train Your Dragon was a great movie, but Toy Story is such a classic. I'd hate to have any missionaries miss out on that for any longer than they have to. I'm not sure what we're going to do for Thanksgiving here, probably just eat with a member family or something. Donna is struggling in the way of member families who feed the missionaries dinner. We have one lunch appointment once a week in Donna, and then we have one other dinner and lunch appointment during the week, but it's actually over in Weslaco's area. As far as a Thanksgiving package goes, I'll be excited for whatever Mom can send me. In answer to her question, yes, we do have an oven in our apartment. I'll send a picture of me with my cowboy boots and other stuff next week.
I hope everything continues going well for the family and I hope that Mel improves and everything goes all right! I can't wait to hear more from you all next week!
Love,
Elder Wood
This has been a great week here in Donna, with good progress for our investigators around the board. At the moment, we have Hector, and Cindy and her two kids, Cleopatra and Cesar. Both are making good progress towards baptism. Hector had a bit of a delay with his baptism, since we were unable to meet with him very much this past week. However, we finally were able to sit down with him, discuss his progress, and start planning things for his baptism. My companion, Elder Navarro will be performing the baptism. I'll be giving a talk on baptism. Edgar Cabrera, a member in the ward who has done a great job of fellowshipping Hector will give a talk on the Holy Ghost.
We went over the baptismal interview questions already with Hector. Every thing seems to be taken care of and understood. Everything is going well and barring some random incident, he should be getting baptized this Sunday. Teaching him has been a really interesting experience because he understands a lot and always wants to know exactly why things are the way they are. The big turning point in his conversion, I think, is when he took his Book of Mormon one night, walked around his neighborhood, sat down in a garden and prayed to know if it was true. God answered his prayer and from then on he was able to move forward, building his testimony and understanding.
Cindy and her two kids are progressing as golden investigators, which is awesome. The first time we taught Cindy, we extended a baptismal date to her, which she turned down. We were unable to figure out why. However, after teaching her a bit more and getting to know her better, we found out that three other members of her family, including her parents, are members of the Church. This, I think, really helped her to have a good experience and connection with the Gospel. This last week we again extended the invitation to be baptized. This time, she accepted. We encouraged her to prepare herself for baptism in mid December, and she seems excited for that. She was excited enough about her baptism that she called her parents, who now live in Missouri, and invited them to attend. They are now coming down a bit before Christmas to see their daughter and her children get baptized into the Lord's Church.
It is always exciting and reassuring when someone invites their parents to their baptism. It lets you know that they're ready for it if they invite someone else to come. On a random note, her kid, Cesar, is maybe one of the funniest kids I've met. he's nine years old and always manages to do something funny during our lessons. For example, during our lesson about the Restoration, we explained that Joseph Smith went into a grove of trees to pray and know which church was true. When he prayed, God and Jesus Christ appeared to him and told him that he was going to restore the Lord's Church to the earth. After we explained this, Cesar interrupted one of us and blurted out, "Geez, what kind of tree do you have to pray under to get a vision like that?" At that point my companion and I started laughing and his mom explained that it wasn't where you prayed, but how you prayed, with faith and real intent.
So, all has been well here in Donna. We're having a bit of trouble finding new people to teach. This makes things a big difficult because soon we will have Hector moving out of our teaching pool. But I'm confident that the Lord will lead us to someone who is prepared to hear and follow the message of His restored Gospel.
I'm glad to hear that everything is going well at home with callings, sharing food and the like. Mom's story about Jenny Oaks Baker was interesting because she actually gave a short series of talks and played a number of songs for us at a devotional in the MTC. I'm not sure I ever wrote home about that, but I have heard her play. I'm glad you had the opportunity to hear her too. She's an amazing violinist. She's almost as good as Marsali, but I should be careful to say that without too much Arlington Ward pride.
I would suggest to Uncle Marty and Aunt Liz to show Toy Story 3 to their missionaries at Thanksgiving. How to Train Your Dragon was a great movie, but Toy Story is such a classic. I'd hate to have any missionaries miss out on that for any longer than they have to. I'm not sure what we're going to do for Thanksgiving here, probably just eat with a member family or something. Donna is struggling in the way of member families who feed the missionaries dinner. We have one lunch appointment once a week in Donna, and then we have one other dinner and lunch appointment during the week, but it's actually over in Weslaco's area. As far as a Thanksgiving package goes, I'll be excited for whatever Mom can send me. In answer to her question, yes, we do have an oven in our apartment. I'll send a picture of me with my cowboy boots and other stuff next week.
I hope everything continues going well for the family and I hope that Mel improves and everything goes all right! I can't wait to hear more from you all next week!
Love,
Elder Wood
November 9, 2010
Nov. 8, 2010, email from Donna TX
Dear Family,
The weather here in Texas has been surprisingly cold, at least considering what it is normally like here. Most of the Mexican people around here are walking around in sweaters and coats, even though it's still pretty hot. When you've been here for a while, sometimes it seems very cold just because you are used to it being super hot. I do just fine walking around in a short sleeved white shirt. Most people always ask me if I'm cold. I'm guessing I haven't been here quite long enough to have that condition yet.
I was glad to hear that Dad was able to give out a Book of Mormon this past week. Member involvement and work are essential to the whole of missionary work. The help of a member always makes the conversion process better and more comfortable, especially for an investigator. So keep up the good work all of you and do what you can to further the work. I'm glad to hear that Tyler is doing well and has already found a job to go into after he finishes school. I hope Mel improves and that everything will turn out all right for her and for the baby. They will definitely be in my prayers.
As far as stories go for this week, I've only got one really good one. Cindy is one of our investigators. I think I talked about her last time. She is a younger, divorced mother with two kids--Cleopatra, 11, and Cesar, 8. Both of her parents are LDS and converted just a few years ago. During the last week we had the lesson with her on prayer. We taught her how she could ask for help from God in anything, as long as it is something right. At work she got slammed with a large presentation that she had only one day to prepare before she needed to present it. Even worse, it was on a subject that she knew little about and would have to present to a large number of the employees at her work. While preparing the presentation a lot of problems came up, and she came home that night very stressed, worried and even thinking about quitting. So, remembering our lesson, that night she prayed for help with the presentation and that everything would go over well. Sure enough, the presentation ran smoothly and when she arrived to the question part at the end (which she was very scared about) the only questions that were asked were already in the FAQ portion of the presentation. So all in all, everything went over great, and now she has a strong testimony of the power of prayer. This is definitely something she will need when she wants to know about the truth of our message.
That is my great story from the week. The only other thing I could relate is something I did during P-day, today. Elder Cook (a missionary in Weslaco) and I made a trip into McAllen today in order to buy a set of cowboy boots. I did end up buying a set, and now I'm one piece further into my true Texas uniform. All I'm missing now is a hat and a set of longhorns to send home. I'll have to buy those if I ever get to Laredo.
Anyways, I hope everything is going well for everyone this week. I hope you will all have more chances to share the Gospel. I know if you'll keep your eyes open and look for them, the Lord will put someone in your path to give you an opportunity to share a part of this good news.
I'm grateful for how involved and committed the Ward in Arlington is in things like Home Teaching. It's always great for new or struggling members when they have really determined home and visiting teachers. The work it does to keep people close to the church and fortify new converts is priceless. It helps to build unity in the ward and is one of the greatest ways that we can obey the scripture, "When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren". (Luke 22:32) I hope everyone is being sure to do what they can to fulfill and magnify their callings as home and visiting teachers.
Love,
Elder Wood
The weather here in Texas has been surprisingly cold, at least considering what it is normally like here. Most of the Mexican people around here are walking around in sweaters and coats, even though it's still pretty hot. When you've been here for a while, sometimes it seems very cold just because you are used to it being super hot. I do just fine walking around in a short sleeved white shirt. Most people always ask me if I'm cold. I'm guessing I haven't been here quite long enough to have that condition yet.
I was glad to hear that Dad was able to give out a Book of Mormon this past week. Member involvement and work are essential to the whole of missionary work. The help of a member always makes the conversion process better and more comfortable, especially for an investigator. So keep up the good work all of you and do what you can to further the work. I'm glad to hear that Tyler is doing well and has already found a job to go into after he finishes school. I hope Mel improves and that everything will turn out all right for her and for the baby. They will definitely be in my prayers.
As far as stories go for this week, I've only got one really good one. Cindy is one of our investigators. I think I talked about her last time. She is a younger, divorced mother with two kids--Cleopatra, 11, and Cesar, 8. Both of her parents are LDS and converted just a few years ago. During the last week we had the lesson with her on prayer. We taught her how she could ask for help from God in anything, as long as it is something right. At work she got slammed with a large presentation that she had only one day to prepare before she needed to present it. Even worse, it was on a subject that she knew little about and would have to present to a large number of the employees at her work. While preparing the presentation a lot of problems came up, and she came home that night very stressed, worried and even thinking about quitting. So, remembering our lesson, that night she prayed for help with the presentation and that everything would go over well. Sure enough, the presentation ran smoothly and when she arrived to the question part at the end (which she was very scared about) the only questions that were asked were already in the FAQ portion of the presentation. So all in all, everything went over great, and now she has a strong testimony of the power of prayer. This is definitely something she will need when she wants to know about the truth of our message.
That is my great story from the week. The only other thing I could relate is something I did during P-day, today. Elder Cook (a missionary in Weslaco) and I made a trip into McAllen today in order to buy a set of cowboy boots. I did end up buying a set, and now I'm one piece further into my true Texas uniform. All I'm missing now is a hat and a set of longhorns to send home. I'll have to buy those if I ever get to Laredo.
Anyways, I hope everything is going well for everyone this week. I hope you will all have more chances to share the Gospel. I know if you'll keep your eyes open and look for them, the Lord will put someone in your path to give you an opportunity to share a part of this good news.
I'm grateful for how involved and committed the Ward in Arlington is in things like Home Teaching. It's always great for new or struggling members when they have really determined home and visiting teachers. The work it does to keep people close to the church and fortify new converts is priceless. It helps to build unity in the ward and is one of the greatest ways that we can obey the scripture, "When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren". (Luke 22:32) I hope everyone is being sure to do what they can to fulfill and magnify their callings as home and visiting teachers.
Love,
Elder Wood
November 1, 2010
Nov. 1, 2010, email post from Donna, TX
Dear Family,
Not too much has happened this week, in fact, not really anything of note at all. We're low on investigators at the moment, so much of our time was spent out tracting and contacting, which will hopefully yield some fruit for this next coming week or so.
A few days in this week were pretty strange; I think it was Thursday and Friday. A cold front rolled in, and for those two days it was like paradise down here--sunny and bright, but temperatures in the 70s and low 80s. Unfortunately, that passed and we're now back to our scorching hot temperatures. As a random note, a few weeks ago we were passing by this church which always has funny sayings on their sign outside. One day it said, "You think it's hot here? What about Hell?" I got a pretty good laugh out of that one.
The only story I can really relate this week is just about the power of God, and that he can really influence things as they go on. It was either Tuesday or Wednesday, but either way, every appointment we had that day fell through, so I was really frustrated. However, we passed by one of our appointments later on in the day and sat down with him and his wife. When I get really frustrated I normally clam up and don't like to do a lot of talking in lessons or things like that. So, going into this one, I was determined not to talk very much. However, the Lord was not very happy about that and saw fit to humble me. Upon entering the home, my companion was struck dumb, to speak biblically, and couldn't speak. It was a regular Zacharias moment. So, since he was unable to speak, I was forced to lead the lesson, to my displeasure. However, it did work to get me out of my rut a little bit, and also helped me to remember that the Lord wants me to open my mouth. My companion's voice returned towards the end of the lesson, leaving us fine for the rest of the day, after the Lord had humbled me.
Anyway, all is going well in the work here, and I hope everything is going well for those at home. I'll be praying for Mel and her baby. Hopefully this miracle can come to fruition.
Love,
Elder Wood
P.S. Hector's still progressing well, so there's no need to worry. =)
Not too much has happened this week, in fact, not really anything of note at all. We're low on investigators at the moment, so much of our time was spent out tracting and contacting, which will hopefully yield some fruit for this next coming week or so.
A few days in this week were pretty strange; I think it was Thursday and Friday. A cold front rolled in, and for those two days it was like paradise down here--sunny and bright, but temperatures in the 70s and low 80s. Unfortunately, that passed and we're now back to our scorching hot temperatures. As a random note, a few weeks ago we were passing by this church which always has funny sayings on their sign outside. One day it said, "You think it's hot here? What about Hell?" I got a pretty good laugh out of that one.
The only story I can really relate this week is just about the power of God, and that he can really influence things as they go on. It was either Tuesday or Wednesday, but either way, every appointment we had that day fell through, so I was really frustrated. However, we passed by one of our appointments later on in the day and sat down with him and his wife. When I get really frustrated I normally clam up and don't like to do a lot of talking in lessons or things like that. So, going into this one, I was determined not to talk very much. However, the Lord was not very happy about that and saw fit to humble me. Upon entering the home, my companion was struck dumb, to speak biblically, and couldn't speak. It was a regular Zacharias moment. So, since he was unable to speak, I was forced to lead the lesson, to my displeasure. However, it did work to get me out of my rut a little bit, and also helped me to remember that the Lord wants me to open my mouth. My companion's voice returned towards the end of the lesson, leaving us fine for the rest of the day, after the Lord had humbled me.
Anyway, all is going well in the work here, and I hope everything is going well for those at home. I'll be praying for Mel and her baby. Hopefully this miracle can come to fruition.
Love,
Elder Wood
P.S. Hector's still progressing well, so there's no need to worry. =)
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