August 19, 2013
Dear Family:
Well another good week in So Cal! This last week has been
the best one since I have been in this area. Hopefully things will be picking
up quickly now.
P-day (Monday) we went to the mall again. Elder Spencer has
to keep going back for random stuff. He is going home here in three weeks and
one of his recent converts (Anita the one who texted you the pictures) has been
buying him clothes. Luckily I haven't bought anything yet, but I have one thing
I want to get if I get some birth-day money. As you probably saw when I sent my
SD card home the sisters destroyed our used to be clean apartment. So when we
got home at 5:30 from the mall we cleaned for a half hour before dinner and
then when we got home after working that night we cleaned. We are still
cleaning. They got us pretty good. I leave those stupid paper dots everywhere I
go.
Tuesday we had our district meeting at the mission office
like every week. When we got there Sister Peirce (office Sister) had
forgiveness quotes and scriptures taped all over her desk so we wouldn't get
mad at her for setting it up. We were over it at that point so we just thought
it was funny. We had some really good ideas on how to get them back but we
aren't going to. That could go bad in a number of different ways and people
would probably get the wrong idea or it would get out of hand. However we did
let them know that if we weren't on a mission we would destroy them.
Wednesday I had exchanges with Elder Beeston. He served with
me in Hemet so we know each other really well and it was really fun. This zone
leader companionship is by far my favorite I have had. He came to my area and
Elder Hawkins went with Elder Lapara to Spanish land. Elder Hawkins enjoyed
being off of a bike for a day so it made the week a little easier for him which
in turn helps me out a lot. Elder Beeston and I got work done! That is the most
success I have seen in this area since I have been here and I loved it. I wrote
down a whole bunch of people who haven't called us back and part member
families and visited as many people as we could. Elder Beeston is a pretty
athletic guy, but he hated biking these hills which made it more fun for me ha.
He is a Spanish speaking Elder and they are all in car except for one area in
Corona. We saw a lot of good things happen. I started talking with a guy named
Steve on the street and we went and gave him a blessing. It went really well
and we have been back twice already. I don't know how dedicated he is though;
he reminds me a lot of the people I would talk to on the streets in Hemet. At
some point we drank all of our water so we stopped in at the Gifford’s house.
They are some really cool members here in the ward. She gave us water and then
some grapes and some chocolate bread stuff. We were really grateful for all of
it because we were really thirsty and hungry. She told us one of her neighbors
had been to church before and asked us to go visit her. On the way out we
talked to a different neighbor and got to leave a blessing with him. His name
is Marty. No religious background, but really enjoyed the spirit the blessing
brought. We are going to try and work with him also. We went where Sister
Gifford told us to and this lady named Carol answered the door. Carol is a
super cool super out spoken person. We had a really good talk with her, but she
tried really hard to veer us away from talking about the gospel. She wants us
to come back though. By the end of the day Elder Beeston and I were pretty wore
out, so I enjoyed the day a lot.
Thursday we went with a good chunk of the zone to do service
for the mission. They have a storage unit with furniture in it for the senior
missionaries that needed re-arranged so they could get more in there. When I
got home I had a card from Aunt Linda in the mail for my birthday, Thanks! At
some point in the day I met a lady who was cool but pretty crazy. She was a
medium. So I pried more trying to get her to tell me about it. She pretty much
claims she has the power to have weird out of body experiences and can send
other spirits places. It was pretty weird. We aren't going back there. That
night for dinner we ate with the Hodges family. They are pretty big Utah State
fans, so I got along with them pretty well. Bro. Hodge owns a helicopter
training business. He has one or two friends out in Vernal. I guess one of them
is pretty much the big guys in the state.
Friday I got your letter. It is crazy people getting
married. That is weird. That is still many years down the road for me! haha. I
don't like the Huitts leaving, it is cool he is getting baptized though! That
would have been fun to sit in on the missionary lessons for. I hope Janalee
gets better quickly. We had another good lesson with Steve before lunch. That
night we ate dinner with Anita at Chilies. So that was super good! Hopefully
you have gotten the pictures we sent from her phone. I didn't realize until
Friday I had sent the first picture to my old phone, so we re-sent it to Dads.
I think Jason has my old number, so you still probably got it anyways.
Saturday was a pretty normal day. I am running short on time
so I will keep it short. I got in an interesting conversation with a guy named
Bruce. He is pretty much Agnostic. He has a hard time believing Jesus is the
son of God. For the most part he wouldn't talk to me about religious stuff. I
talked for a while and finally caught his interest. He said his mom is a
Jehovah’s Witness so I told him about who they believed Jehovah is and who
we know he is. He thought that was pretty interesting so he gave me
his number. Unfortunately he lives in Moreno Valley. Other than that
it was a pretty boring day. That night Elder Cook and I got talking
about music. I have asked so many people if they like Huey Lewis and
nobody knows who he is. Elder Cook has been to a concert and loves that
music. I pretty much grew up on that stuff!
Sunday was good. It is normally pretty chill in
this ward. We don't have near as many people here we have to worry about
teaching false doctrine to my investigators. There are some guys here
that are RM's and work selling bug control. One of the guys I found
out just found Elder Feist a new investigator so that was kinda cool. He
is also the one who got Carol to come to church. They still do some
missionary work while they are selling bug control. It’s kinda a weird
combo, but it’s pretty cool too. That night we were looking for somebody
and ran into some college kids who live by us and are part of a religious
club at school. We ended up sitting down with three of them in the
grass and we were having a really good lesson about the restoration.
They had a lot of questions. Then all of the sudden like 10 more of them
showed up and just wanted to bash with us. So it got pointless to be
there so we left.
That is pretty much my week! That felt like a really long
letter so enjoy! Love ya!
Elder Wood
