Dec. 7, 2015

I miss you all and love everyone a lot, just thought I'd start off saying that haha. I can't believe everything that's happening and how fast it's going so far. I'm glad to hear about yours and everyone's week, it sure does mean a lot and makes me happy. As of the call thing.... I didn't have very much time to call everyone. I called my parents first of course and only called talked with Kalee for a few minutes. How'd you know I called her by the way? Anyways I didn't call anyone else because everyone was in school, and I have no idea why I didn't think of calling grandpa, I didn't have his number also. There isn't a restriction of who you're allowed to call, everyone calls their famiily/friends. As for the blog thing I can't do anything with that, the best advice I can say is just take my weekly updates I send everybody and make a blog then put them on there. I haven't received any mail/packages from anyone since grandpa's Thanksgiving package at the MTC, so let me know I guess if you have sent anything and if so what. My address is the Mission Office address. So give that to the church. All mail is supposed to come through there - mission rule. So that's what you send stuff to. Also make sure you send it through USPS and not UPS or FedEx, because if you don't send it through the post office then they cant send it to me. But here's my weekly update and I can't wait to here from everyone else!

Week 3 (Week 1 in the Mission Field)

So this is it! I'm in the mission field as of Tuesday and was assigned my first area on Wednesday! Want to know where I am? I'm in ........................... Milton-Freewater! I cover the whole Walla Walla zone but if you look at the map its literally just below the Washington-Oregon border. So technically I'm in Oregon. NO SALES TAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's like one of the most exciting things about my mission so far haha. So with being assigned to a new area I had to say goodbye to Elder Taylor, buuuuuuutttttt I got a new companion/trainer who's really awesome. His name is Elder Dunnell. It's not pronounced like funnel though. It's more kinda pronounced like Shanelle haha. My plane ride Tuesday afternoon was interesting. They downgraded our plane last second so there was like a 30 minute delay for that. Also with that it only carried 50 people, so they had to ask people to take later flights and all that. But it was only like an hour flight which wan't that bad. I just took pictures out the window the whole time ahah. The airport in Pasco is absolutely the smallest airport in the whole world. Like the whole thing is smaller than just a gate waiting area in a normal airport. I met my Mission President an his wife, President and Sister Ware, and they are literally the nicest people ever. I'm glad to have President Ware as my mission president for the rest of the time that he is here. 

Okay so back to Milton (everyone here calls it that so when I say Milton just know I mean Milton-Freewater). The area is really really really small. It's like a middle-of-nowhere town with under 6,000 people living here. This place reminds me of Cedar, the cute-kinda town with no activity at all haha. Imagine Cedar without a college or Walmart and then half of that. Yep that's Milton! That's the closest I can describe it. On the other hand Kennewick reminds me a lot of St. George. It's pretty much the same. But I was only there for a day. I'll be in Milton though for at least one transfer (6 weeks) so not too bad. My training lasts 12 weeks so I could possibly go to another area to finish out my training with a different companion, but that's unlikely. Usually you stay in the same area with the same trainer the first 12 weeks. But I have a car! So that's awesome. It'd suck to have to walk/ride a bike all the way across town and back because it's a pretty spread out area and there's lots of farms toward the edge of town.

Okay so I kinda described the area and now on to the people...... So imagine farmers mixed with wanna-be gangsters mixed with people from Hurricane. That's a majority of them hah! But most of the people here are nice and willing to listen sometimes, unlesssssss you knock on their door at 8:30 pm, then they get super mad at you and cuss you out or slam the door in your face. But other than that it's a pretty sweet area and I love it so far and everyone that's been here has loved it. And I love the wards too. Oh yeah, I have TWO wards I go to on Sundays...... The first is the Milton-Freewater ward at 9:00 am then it's the YSA branch at 1:30 pm. I go to both blocks AND go to ward/branch council before each meeting so I'm basically at church for over 8 hours. But I like it so far. It just happened to be fast Sunday also so I had the wonderful privilege of introducing myself and bearing my testimony in BOTH sacrament meetings. But it was pretty nice and I forgot about it like 5 minutes later.

I've taught quite a bit of people so far and it's been a mix of investigators and RCLA's (Recent Converts or Less Actives). But I did invite someone to be baptized yesterday in the first lesson and he said yes! His name is Gerry Ilg, and he was also super willing to do everything but still, he said yes to me. We're also teaching this family, the Ryan's, and it's the parents, their kid, and his kid. So if we commit them that would be a 4 generation baptism... how cool! We go tracting a lot (knocking on doors) but it's usually my idea haha. I don't mind it except when people are grumpy and slam the door on you or yell at you or whatever. Street contacting is really cool because you're both isolated so there's no real way in offending someone unless they don't want to here our message. Even though it's only been 6 days here in Milton I really love it so far. The absolute best part though is having members feed you dinner, and someone is signed up every single day for this month so I'm super excited for that. The past 5 dinners I've had were overall pretty good and I really do appreciate it.

I don't really have much more to say except that I'm loving it and staying busy all the time. The area is good, the people are overall good, the ward and branch are good, and Subway is good (I only say that because it's the only restaurant here besides McDonald's and Dairy Queen). Waking up at 6:30 am and talking to every person I see is the most challenging thing but other than that this past week has been great and I'm looking forward to the next (at least) 6 more weeks here in Milton-Freewater!

Love Elder Wood!

Nov.30, 2015

I'm so glad to hear how everyone is doing! I miss you all. I kinda want you back. It's been hitting me pretty hard especially because it's actually real and happening now. It's kinda stinks not being able to be there for Thanksgiving, I miss family dinner and Black Fridayshopping. I'm glad to hear Glen is alive, I can stop worrying about that now haha. I got that phone you sent. Thank you. I don't know how the minutes/service works though... I'm assuming that it doesn't have a time limit and that it just has ervice for a month if I'm correct? If I'm wrong let me know. I love the Star Wars inflatables and glad you've started decorating. That list you have going is perfect, thank you. You could send that all to my mission office now because I'm leaving tomorrow morning, which is making me crazy just thinking about it... I heard Hunter's moving in my room, I'm not sure if I'm happy or jealous hah!

Here's how my week went and make sure everyone gets to read it because I don't really have the timne to write my "weekly update" or whatever to everyone hah:

This week has been long yet short. Weird to explain hah. It's been pretty exciting and jam-packed. The weekdays have pretty much have been the same as the other ones (class, food, study, etc.). But Thanksgiving was amazing yet sad. We had a Thanksgiving lunch and then had a service project which was totally amazing. We packed over 350,000 meals for hungry kids in Utah. Then guess who spoke to us? ELDER OAKS!!!!! That was great and he talked mostly about Thanksgiving and service and everything and the whole day was packed and spiritual. But it was kinda saddening because it's now my first holiday away from everyone, and I miss everybody. So Sundaywas pretty nice too. Sundays here are like Sundays back home on steroids. Every other day here is like a Sunday haha. But we had a devotional on Sunday night just from one of the district presidents here and he just talked about the Spirit and how we can keep it with us and also how to recognize it and grow from it. That was good and he really engaged everyone which helped keep all the sleep-deprived missionaries awake hah. After that we watched a movie, Mountain of the Lord, and it was pretty cool to learn all about the Salt Lake temple and it's process. Today was amazing too! It was my second p-day. We went to the temple again but what made it extra special is that it was snowing and has been the past three days! Okay so guess what happened in the temple? Same thing as last week! I swear the people in the prayer circle like to watch me cry. Jk, I really love it and love going to the temple-even if it means I'll ultimately cry every time. That's pretty much been my week. The days go by so slow but looking back on the week it all just seems to have happened in a blur.

I love and miss everyone,

Elder Wood