March 4, 2013
Well this week was a lot better than last week! On Tuesday I
went on exchanges with Elder Jessup. Hopefully Sister Rex got those pictures
sent to you. She is probably the coolest member I have met here, I wish she was
in my ward. She has a son in the East Salt Lake mission and a daughter she just
took to the MTC. She told me this funny story about running into her missionary
son on accident. He's coming home in like March. So your guys letter took forever
to get here! I got it on Saturday along with one from Jetson. Ronny and
Lisa's got here on Friday. Lisa you telling me about your first
experiences in the field makes me not feel so bad for myself now haha. So that
helped me. I'm in the same country, same language, same food (kinda, I get a
lot more Mexican but I love Mexican food!) same appliances haha. We have
normal washing machines. Just so you know I love the little commentaries
I get from your kids. Keep that up and talking about me and stuff. I
am still worried about them not remembering me or being scared of me or
something cuz they haven't seen me in so long. Hopefully that
doesn't happen though. Ronny, with rocker/camber or just camber you
really can't go wrong with a Lib Tech or Gnu board. My board is a
little bit more steady because it has a little camber, but it still has that
good no-catch feel of a rocker, so I love how much of an all mountain
board it is. When I get home I am going to take a good look at buying a
park pickle because I loved the one I rode. Try and make it
to the day at the canyons where you get to try a bunch of boards. Yes, you
can take my board and try it if you swear to not make habit of it and are
careful with it. Wax out any scratches you might put in it ha. It is in the
Attic in the deepest darkest corner, it is kinda hard to get to. I flew
into Ontario so I was pretty close to Riverside. I think it would have
been to fly into L.A. though, I’ve heard its a sweet airport. Ya I wish I knew
Spanish now, I really want to learn it. I will pick up some here and then when
I get home I want to study it and be fluent. Weather is
great! It was like 90 degrees the for like 3 days in a
row. Brett happy birthday! in a few days. Maybe Hailey Kenz and Mir
will make you a cake hahaha.
Jetson told me in his letter about you guys calling him
from my phone, he got super excited until he figured out what
was going on. I don’t know if he called you back or not. if he didn't
just keep calling, he'll answer sometime. You guys can do the blog if you
want too, other people would probably appreciate it. If you guys are too
busy don't worry about it though, it just up to you guys. Let me know how
much my tax return is so I know how bad I should feel for the lack of money I
left behind. I kinda figured Dad would be the new bishop but I didn't
think it would be until a little longer after I left! I thought he was going to
be bishop last time too though. Those are some awesome councilors, I bet Kasey
looks weird without his goatee. The bike is great, I have like 130 something
miles on it already ha. Dad I can't tell you too much about the mission Prez
cuz I don't know him that well. He seems really cool and pretty laid back. He
knows where Bluebell is kinda. He remembers that Elder Law is from Roosevelt
and that it is really close. Dad you are sounding like me with your crashing
stories. Be careful, it is easy to get hurt boarding, trust me haha. I am
excited for Erica and her parents! Those are both way neat calls. That sucks
they have to move again already though. That’s scary about Rachel, I’m glad she
is ok. You are sending my e-mails to the Gordon family right? I met Elder and
Sister Davis, they are really nice. We talked about the Browns. Ya we did know
about the boundaries changing. I have heard a missionary rumor that they are
thinking about changing the mission times to 18 months for guys too. Do some
research and let me know. I bet it is just something somebody started but you
never know. Sharee the school ghost could be there, but I bet that light has a
vent by it somewhere if you look hard enough that is making it move. Normally
the ghost didn't do stuff like that that you would see very often. What makes
you say somebody brought him in with Kapps stuff? haha. Which Ipod did you get?
So like I said before this last week was a ton better than
my first one in the field. P-day was crazy because somebody broke into the
church that morning and the cops wouldn't let us in here to e-mail and the Hemet
library was closed. So we pretty much spent the whole day trying to find
computers and then ended up having the cops let us in. On Tuesday was exchanges
and I got to experience what it is like to have investigators and how fun
missions can be. Elder Jessup is just a really fun guy to be around and we get
along better than I do with any of the other missionaries. We got to teach some
real lessons and we didn't spend hardly any of the day trying to find people to
teach because we didn't need to. It was great! It was nice to be in a car too.
My favorite one was this tattoo artist with the craziest conversion story that
I don't have time to tell. He was pretty much raised himself, joined the mafia
because he needed money. They tried to kill him one day because they messed him
up one day and was going to die anyways when last minute somebody from his long
lost family came and saved him. He ended up losing his eye (I didn't know that until
after cuz he looks normal) and finding the church and making some huge changes
to his life.
Wednesday I had a lot better attitude and didn't miss home
near as much. I think because I got a good day’s missionary
work in and not getting rejected all day long. Wednesday through Saturday
were pretty standard spending all day locating part member families
and tracting and just trying to find people that would listen to us. We do
this thing called a harvest blessing that the mission has seen a lot
of success from. We basically come in and take notes on who all lives
in the home and something God could bless them with. Then we all kneel
down and either me or my companion leaves a priesthood blessing. We
had one lady who reluctantly let us in and then told us about a death they just
had and some other problems going on. About halfway through the
blessing she was crying cuz how much she could feel the spirit and we
talked for a minute about how she felt after. We are hoping
that goes somewhere.
We also do this thing called O.Y.M's It stands for Open
Your Mouths. As a companionship we talk to at least 20 people a
day going between lessons and other stuff just on the street. Sunday night
we didn't have all of them so we hit up a few bus stops trying to get them all
in. My companion had a guy about our age who really wanted to know more about
Mormons. He has studied the bible a lot so they ended up throwing a lot of
doctrine around at each other. He heard a lot of dumb things that people make
up about Mormons that we got to explain and teach him the truth. We gave him a
book of Mormon and I know he will read it because he studies a lot of doctrine
(it really surprised me, he looked like the kind of kid who wouldn't be
interested in that kind of stuff at all) anyways he probably won't let us teach
him, but maybe he will come around, he was a pretty awesome kid.
Well I am over time so I guess I better go.
Love you all!
Elder Wood
I forgot a story! I got proposed to
the other night! We went into another area to help some of the
missionaries over there move a Bro. Wood. I am very grateful I am not
in that part of Hemet because it was way more getto and a lot more sketchy. As
we were walking in one of the black girls there wouldn't leave me alone and
wanted to elope. She said I was sexy but I think she just thought I had money
ha. anyways that’s it!
