First Presidency Approved

Hey y'all!

So I don't have much time this week so this well be a shorter one :p

This week went super well! I'm loving it here in Kingwood, Texas, and if I haven't said it before, it's SO much different than my last area. But I do miss Louisiana... yep, I said it. But I also love Texas so it's been good to have both sides :)

So first off, being in a bike area is fun until you are around Texas drivers at night... it's crazy! I've only been here 2 weeks and I've already almost been hit like 6 times!

This week we found out that our mission president had gotten permission from the first presidency to let that one guy I talked about last week get baptized. So that's pretty cool! We are going to continue to work with him and hopefully he will get dunked in the next couple of weeks. :)

I went on exchanges with our ZL's and that went well! Elder Salmond is one of them and he’s from Cache Valley! That makes 5 or 6 of us in this mission! #represent! Haha but it went well. We didn't have much success but I found this beautiful dog! His name was Thor and he is a good doggo. But his eyes like pierced my soul from a block away when he looked at me. :p

We had a lesson with an inactive member and we pretty much just let him talk. He went on and on and then started talking about how when you keep the commandments God gives you power and he started to bawl... then he said, "I don't have that..." Elder Sheppard and I were in shock for a few seconds and then jumped right in and it went super well. It's so cool how the spirit can prepare people for the truth.

Well, I'm really out of time and I hope your week went well!

Thanks so much for the prayers and support. I love my mission and I’m learning so much! Don’t forget to read your scriptures every day! It truly makes a difference.

Love,
Elder Wood

Living like a king in Kingwood

Hey y'all!

This last week went by super fast! I think it's because of the change and we've stayed super busy so that's good I guess.

So we were supposed to do transfers on Tuesday but there was an ice storm down here and everybody freaked so the highways were closed and the bridges were out. So we did it Wednesday. It's so funny how no one here knows how to drive in the snow :p

On Tuesday, which was p-day, all four Jennings Elders were sitting in our car parked at the library when suddenly our door opens and a guy says, "Move over church people!", and scoots right into the back seat with us! Haha we talked to this guy for hours and actually had a really good lesson! Hopefully they can continue to work with this guy and help him progress!

And in other news, it snowed again! Twice in one year is like unheard of!

It was weird to drive out of Louisiana for the last time... I made a lot of good friends and memories there. On the way to transfers we stopped at a member that Elder Kent knew to go get lunch. We went and got Mexican food and in the restaurant Star Wars the Force Awakens was playing on a TV... it was the most tempted I've been on my mission :p haha jk but it was a real struggle. ;)







My new comp is Elder Sheppard. We are getting along super well and we teach really well together! He's from California and likes basketball.

We were going to have a baptism this Saturday with a guy named Craig. I went and had one last lesson with him and then because of complications, it didn't happen... #curseofelderwood Hopefully he'll come around though.

We had a lesson with some recent converts, the O’Keefe’s. They are a super nice couple and the wife has been baptized two years and the husband almost one. We talked about prayer and scripture study and he explained that he felt embarrassed to kneel and pray. After some counsel and scriptures and help from the spirit he told me, "I felt the spirit when you were talking Elder. Let's kneel and pray right now." So we did! I felt like I connected to them super well and I love them so much already.

Sunday we went to our sacrament meeting and we were asked during the meeting to give on the spot testimonies. But, I'm super used to doing that after Jennings branch... So it went well. We also taught sharing time in Primary and that was like the best thing ever! So many cute kids! After church we went and helped with mission prep and it kinda took me back because I realized it wasn't that long ago I was in their place... and I've learned so much already. It's crazy how fast you learn on the mission! I love it!

After our sacrament meeting we went to Kingwood Third Ward's meeting because Elder Bednar was there! He talked and it was all super good. He talked about not taking the temples for granted especially when they are super close. He talked about not thinking the church says the same things over and over because just like Joseph's visions of Moroni, they are never the same.

Anyways that's about it for the week. I love it here in Kingwood so far and it was quite the culture shock coming from Jennings to here! Things are going well and we get fed like every day!!! It’s a miracle! :)

I miss and love you all, I hope your week goes great. Thanks for the prayers and support, they make the world of difference.

Love,
Elder Wood

My legacy

Mardi Gras? More like Mardi Nah.

Hey y'all!

So once again, p-day is on a Tuesday for transfers. But, we got a text saying transfers are put off till tomorrow because of "Winter Harvey". So I’m guessing a winter storm or something... but here in Louisiana, it's just cold, there isn’t a storm though.

Well my week was full of different emotions! I hope this last week was good for y'all and that everything is going alright!

So first off, I'm being transferred! I'm going to Kingwood First Ward! That's in Houston and on the exact opposite end of our mission. It'll be a black and white difference than Jenning,Louisiana. But I'm gonna miss this place and all the people I've come to really love. I feel like I'm leaving a little part of my heart. But, I'm also excited for the new experiences I'll have in Kingwood. It's a biking area and it’s small and only around big, tall houses and there are big trees everywhere and people will have teeth and it will just be different all around.

Alright, so now for my week. I'm gonna try and keep this short cause my emails are always pretty long :p

Tuesday Elder Howard was sick that morning so I stayed with him while Elder Anderson and Elder Kent went to a lesson they had set up. Then Howard and I went tracting all day until we had dinner with a less active family. It was all going well and they were really opening up to us but then we got a call saying that the other Elders had gone out to eat at a place called Cajun Tales, which is a super good but super expensive place. And they didn't have money to pay... and it closed in 15 minutes... So, we closed up our lesson and sped over there to help them out. I went as fast as our Tiwi would let us... haha it all worked out though.

Louisiana country road

Wednesday was a super good day. We didn't have any lessons and our miles are limited so we decided to go bike out in the country roads to try and find people to teach. So we headed out! We biked for miles and miles on dirt roads in the middle of nothing but crawfish fields. It was all foggy and mysterious and it was the real Louisiana experience that's for sure :p I played Mo-Tab on my speaker as we biked and we ran into some super interesting people! Lots of old old Cajun houses in the middle of nowhere. Like houses that have been here longer than the Civil War kinda stuff. Haha it was just a grand old time.

Old house - rotting cow head included!

That afternoon we decided to go bike south of Welsh and try some formers. While we were biking a puppy came up to us, and all it took was one pet. Haha it followed us from house to house knocking doors. It would walk right up to the doors with us and plop down excited to teach the gospel with us! I've never met a nicer dog than this one. Anyways, we were expecting her to follow us for maybe a few houses and then return home. But, she never did! We tried out-running her and we biked a few miles away and we thought we had lost her. But, we were knocking at another house and here she comes from around the house looking all around for us! Covered in mud and water from swimming through crawfish fields to get to us... XD So we took her back to the house we got her at and we asked everyone in that neighborhood if they knew this dog and none of them did. But most of them said it's a common area for people to drop off pets to abandon them because they can't get home in the middle of the country... So we just rode our bikes home and little Kia followed us home the whole way. After running for miles she got super tired though so I stopped and would give her drinks from my water. She followed us about 6 or 7 miles home. Haha So we took care of her for about 2 days and fed her and she lived outside our apartment and our neighbors liked her as well because she was so nice but eventually we had to call the city to come take her because no one was willing to actually take her in and take care of her.

Kia

Friday we had exchanges with our ZL Elder Gill and then we had dinner at the Simiens. I'll miss that family. Their dad loves Shrek and he looks exactly like Shrek and he knows it and it's just great because he lives in Louisiana in a swamp and it's just the perfect meme.

On Saturday we went to do service out in Elton for Sister McClelland. She just had us do yard work and then she made us lunch.

Sunday we got a text from brother Simien saying he needed another speaker. So since I'm leaving, I was delegated to give it. I spoke on joy and peace and how to truly achieve it. People complimented me so I guess it was alright. Then we also taught Young Men’s class. We just answered doctrinal questions they had. That night we got the call saying I'd be going to Kingwood!

Crawfish

Monday wasn't p-day so we went and taught some lessons then I went and said goodbye to some members. Probably saying goodbye to Emma was the hardest... but I’m so so excited for this new area! And I can't wait to meet all the new people and learn to love them all!

Keep being amazing everyone and I'm so thankful for your support and prayers. They mean the world to me.

Love,
Elder Wood

Craig and Krag

Hey y’all!

It’s been a kind of slow week but it is all going well! I hope all of your first week of 2018 was good and that you are still keeping some of the goals you made 8 days ago ;)

So this week we had dinner with a less active family and we got a lesson set up with them once a week so that’s good!

Haha probably my favorite part of the week was finding and taking care of Craig.

Once upon a time, it was a bitter cold early morning in Welsh, Louisiana. Elders Wood and Kent were taking out the trash. They had to walk across the street from their apartment to get to the garbage cans. After they dumped the garbage they turned to walk back to their apartment but to their surprise there was something very unexpected blocking their path. A small, grey and brown, shriveled up anole was frozen to the sidewalk ahead of them. All life had left his body for he was cold-blooded and the days in a row of freezing temperatures were not very giving to his small reptilian body. So, Wood and Kent picked up this small lizard and took him to their car where they started to warm him up and resuscitate him. They named him Craig.

Haha after Craig came back to life he was super chill. We didn’t know how long he had been frozen but he turned back to bright green like he was supposed to be. He literally just would chill on our shoulders or hands or anything whenever we wanted. We made a little habitat for him in our little compartment on our car dashboard and he was a happy little anole.

Craig peeking out of shirt pocket

Now we still had to do missionary work and stuff so we would keep him in his little home in the car when we went to appointments and tracting and stuff. I slowly hand fed him back to health and he was a good anole. We made him a bigger habitat with a Tupperware box and we put soil and bark and some plants and we kept it in the sun so he could get UV rays and I would spray and mist his habitat every once in a while. So I guess you could say I’m a master anole keeper.

Anyways, while this whole Craig thing was happening we had exchanges with J-Crowe and I went with Elder Howard for the day. We had dinner with the W*'s, who are a family who come from Sulphur to help our ward, and they took us to a buffet place and I kept Craig in my shirt pocket the whole time and his little head was peeking out and no one noticed except for the other Elders.

Thursday it warmed up outside so we finally let Craig back to his home :(

"Now they were desirous that salvation should
be declared to every creature...."

Craig wearing a hat made out of Silly Putty

On Friday I taught a meth dealer who is also a pimp lord so that was cool I guess. We also had district training and the ZL decided to have it at our apartment and it went well. Haha there was a time where Elder Gill was telling us about how if we say yes to commitments with our words but not with our actions then our eternal salvation is at risk and Elder Anderson said "Well, I'll be damned" so that was pretty funny. :p

Saturday we went to Elton and taught a less active and then went to Iowa for the S*'s and then our correlation meeting with Bro D*. Also on Saturday we found another anole on someone’s porch that was frozen. But as soon as we warmed him up he was super mean. He tried to bite me a ton and he had these big black markings behind his eyes that made him seem half velociraptor. We named him Krag and he was NOT a good anole. We set him free as soon as he warmed up.

Krag

Sunday we had 51 people in church. And since President M* left, we got a new branch president. His name is President B*. He is moving to our area from Sulphur. I guess people say he is pretty cool. It’ll be good to get to know him.

Anyways, that’s about it for my week. I hope you all are doing alright and that you continue to see Christ's love in your life. If you are not reading your scriptures every day and praying then how can you expect for God to change your life for the better. Puny effort brings puny miracles. Show God that He is worth it to you by your everyday actions and you will be greatly blessed.

Thanks for everything you all do!

Love,
Elder Wood

Christyear and Newmas

Hey y’all!

I hope your Christmas and New Years were great and that you all were able to spend time with those who really matter to you and feel Christ's love!

So last week I was able to call my family which was awesome! but after the call some other things came up and I wasn’t able to have time to write a weekly email so I reckon this will cover both weeks ;p

Christmas lights on my street

Something that happened last week was the mission Christmas conference! That was a lot of fun. They had lots of good speakers and lots of good food and lots of good friends so it was just lots of good fun. We had a white elephant gift exchange and I got a Wendy’s frosty tag for 2018 so I pretty much got the best gift ;) but as always, it was super nice to see people like Elder Osborne and Davies. Especially since we don’t get to see a lot of other people out here in Jennings.

We did a lot of moving people this last two weeks... lots of moving.

Christmas Eve we spent the day with the T* family. It was super fun. We had tons of snacks, played games like Bingo and Christmas trivia. We had a white elephant gift exchange and I ended up getting an electronic piggy bank. Haha just what I needed as a missionary... to keep all the money I’m earning.... but they gave us gifts as well and it was all just super nice. I played with E* pretty much the entire time and we had lots of fun. We played checkers on her new checkers rug she got but we played her rules which involved us putting our pieces on the board literally however we wanted but we had to pick out the spot before by using her binoculars to see if the spot was good enough. And of course we had her new jewelry box music playing in the background for our game music. Haha she is just so funny and I honestly wish I could be a kid again...

Christmas day we woke up and I unwrapped and opened presents that people had sent me. Thank you all so much for your wonderful gifts and cards and overall support! I love everything that was sent and I really do appreciate you guys thinking of me. After that we went to the C*'s house for the day. We did our family calls and then they said we could pretty much stay as long as we wanted. They were going to Houston to go to the Ute game so they left us the keys and told us to put together their basketball hoop but that was about the only requirement! So we just chilled there for a while. The zone leaders ended up coming up for a bit and we just had a good time.

The 26th was my brother Nate's birthday! Happy birthday bro!

One day this last week I was on exchanges with Elder Howard and we were biking around Jennings trying to find potential priesthood holders. While we were biking we ran into this guy and I tried to start a conversation with him, but when he turned around you could clearly tell he was higher than a kite... So he started rambling and walked the other way. So we got back on our bikes and headed off but when we started riding away he turned back towards us and started yelling like super loud. He walked and followed us for about 4 or 5 minutes just yelling in the middle of the road... it was super weird and thinking back now I probably should have cast the unclean spirits out of him because it really was super sketchy and weird.

Also, I had gizzards and gizzard juice this week... not a fan :p

New Year’s Eve! Church was good! I played the piano in Sacrament meeting and then taught the second and third hour classes :p but we had 3 investigators there and that was super cool! Then, that night we went and spent it with J* but we had to be in by 7:00. We had a little New Year’s celebration and used the poppers my mom sent me and everything. This year will be my only full year on my mission. And I’m hoping for the best! I’m expecting miracles to come from the work I put out and I really hope I can see others come closer to their Savior as I do the Lord's work.

Anyways, I guess that’s all for the week. I love and miss you all and I hope you all have a wonderful new year! I love being a missionary and I’ve learned so much from my experiences here. Especially since some recent events that have happened I can really notice a change in who I am. Hopefully that will be a good thing in the end :p

Talk to you all next week!

Love,
Elder Wood