A Good Week in the Bayou

 Hey y'all! It's been a good week here in the Bayou! I hope all is going well back home!

So, to start out this week, we drove to Vidor on Monday to do exchanges while all the District Leaders and Zone Leaders went to a meeting in Kingwood about getting Facebook and changing the mission. Now, I’ve been to Vidor a few times before. Mostly to do service or direct traffic when all the Mormon Helping Hands were staying in the high schools. Now if any of you haven't heard of Vidor and its historical significance, I would suggest looking it up. Because unfortunately, in a lot of aspects, nothing has changed. But, that just means there is a lot of work to do there! Elder McBride and Elder Larsen and I all stayed there for the day while our DL companions all went to the meeting. So it was just us "greenies" for the day!

The next day was Halloween! We were still in Vidor for most of the day doing work there. That morning we went to go help at Christian Care, which is a place where people donate food and clothes to and then they distribute it out to the needy. We didn’t really know what was going on but we kept busy so it was good I guess :p

Wednesday we headed out to Crowley with Brother W* for the day. We tried to visit a lot of less actives and members on our records. We found out that most of them had moved away or weren't interested. But while we were there it was raining the entire time. I love the humid rain! It feels like everything has been through a power washer! But, down in Crowley, it only rained for a few hours and the rain water was up to the houses already! So I can't imagine what it would be like if another hurricane came through. After that, Brother W* took us to Cajun Tales. It was so good! They had the best seafood Gumbo! And then I had all this Cajun food and I didn't know what half of it was but it was all super good!





Later this week on Friday I got Facebook! This is something new the mission is doing and it’s to help us hasten and be more effective with our work! I’m super excited because there are a lot of people down here who don’t have working phones or emails, but everyone has Wi-Fi! Haha So it'll be good to be able to contact everyone! The rules are that we can group message anyone in our area and post things that are "Member Appropriate". So with Facebook, we aren't only missionaries, but we are ourselves too. So that helps all the people we come in contact with realize we are regular people :p But all you back home can like and comment on my posts and everything, I just can’t message you or anything like that obviously. That is still saved for Mondays :) But, it would be super cool if you guys would post a thought or your testimonies on the posts I share or anything like that so we can continue to share and spread this great gospel! Anyways, also on Friday, I got in my first car wreck... It was just a backing accident and only scraped the car a little. But still... Our vehicle coordinator Elder Avery is very adamant about his cars...

That night we went to go visit a member and she wasn't home, but her husband and daughter were! They were very nice and let us right in. We talked for about half an hour and taught them about the Book of Mormon. The wife is very less active but the husband and daughter seemed very interested. The daughter had already read from the Book of Mormon before and they said they were going to come to church this Sunday! Plus her best friend in school is a member as well! What are the chances that her friend is the only other member her age in the whole school? They seemed super prepared and hopefully with more work, they can get baptized!

Sunday was a conference thing, I’m not sure what the real name of it is, but it was for a few of the states. I think Utah was one of them. That was good. They talked a little about the clean-up that was going on down here and they even mentioned us missionaries who have been working on it! After church we heard that Brother T* was in the hospital in Crowley so we went to go visit him and give him a blessing. After that, we went to the Young Women in Excellence our branch was having. That was the first Young Women’s thing I’ve ever been to and it was very, Young Womens-ey... ;p It was cool though! It’s great that our branch is starting to do all these things to help strengthen each other! Also, the T* family were there so as soon as we walked in, Emma ran up to us and wanted us to go get nerf guns or something. Haha. She is such a character! We went and sat in the back and she came over to our table and asked if she could sit by me instead of her family. She pulled up a chair and then sat with us. And then she handed me and Jones little pass-along cards that she had from her little stash in her front pocket. Haha. Then after the meeting she had me sit by her again so we could color together. She told me she wants me to come over to her house when we aren’t doing missionary work so we can finish our picture ;p Her brother has a friend that he’s been bringing to mutual and to the Young Women in Excellence thing. It would be super cool if we started working with her and then he could baptize her!

Anyways, that’s all for the week pretty much. It’s been good for the most part. I’m starting to love the people here more and more! And the food is so good! And the weather is perfect! It’s just an overall quality time. :)

I love and miss you all! I hope you have had a wonderful week! Also, congrats to my little brother on all of his band stuff this week! I’m so proud of him and all the hard work they have put in! Keep me updated on everything, I’d love to hear from all of you! Thank you so much for the prayers and support!

Love, Elder Wood (Jonah Wood on Facebook) ;)

What the Jehovah's Witness bible says about Jonah