October
28, 2013
Dear
Family:
So
I have had a crazy two weeks! I will try and run through all of it really fast!
Actually
now I think back I don't really have much to tell you about last week. It was
either really uneventful or I actually just don't remember ha. Last Saturday I
saw a possum for the first time in my life. That’s about it. Last Sunday I got
to go to a ladies baptism that I helped teach on exchanges. So I guess to this
week! It was pretty crazy, I was homeless for like two days.
Monday
was a weird p-day. Oh wait I thought of something that happened last week!
Sunday night we had our whole apartment back up. We walked in and it smelt like
poop. We found some water on the floor so we went into the bathrooms and the
tub was full and the toilets were full. Then something happened and they all
started over flowing! We emptied out our garbages and started bucketing out water. We couldn't
keep up with the sewer ha. I called the maintenance guy and he came and pulled
the plug of the sewer line somewhere. That night they had a carpet guy sucking
up all the water and ripping out carpet. They are lucky we were there to fight
it. They neighbor apartment is just a showroom so the whole place was soaked. I
bet they have to redo a lot there. We even had a member bring a shop vac and we
were fighting the sewer with that. We ended up sleeping at the ZL's place cuz
ours stunk. So Monday I went and saw everybody at the office before I
took off to Corona. By the way I am in the Temescal Valley Ward. I am with
Elder Hammond from Alabama who is waiting for a visa to go to Australia. We
split the ward with two sister missionaries. Anyways mid-day I moved all my
stuff to Corona so it was there when I got there. I met my roommates Elders
Wilkinson and Janks. They are cool, Wilkinson was actually Elder Allen’s last
comp before he went home. He also plays basketball for U of U. The coolest surprise
though is that Elder Feist lives in the same complex as me so I got to see him
while I was unloading my stuff. Then I went back to the office to be companions
with the Office Assistants Elders Cook and Braithweight. That night I got to go
to Ronny's mission! I rode with them to L.A.X! It was super cool. We took Elder
Cram there who was headed to Australia. I don't think I have ever seen a city
that big! We drove through at night. It was like 8. The airport was sick. Lots
of lights and cool stuff. We missed our road on the way there and accidentally
went past Knot's Berry Farm. That was weird. I looked at the GPS and we were
super close to the ocean for quite a while. That was a cool trip. Once we got
back to Riverside at like 9:30 or 10 and ate some Wendy’s
for dinner. That night I slept on the floor in their new apartment.
Tuesday
morning I hung out with the ASL missionaries so I didn't have to chill at the
office all day. They were going to volunteer at the deaf school though so they
took me to Elder Hawkins. I helped him and his new comp clean a little bit and
then they took me to the office so I could go to the trainer meetings and get
my new comp. Meetings were super good. There were only like 5 Elders training
and then like 15 sisters. It was weird... A lot different that the first two
times I was in those meetings. That night we drove to Corona, It was a good
thing I bought a GPS. We had some of the sister’s suitcases in our car so we
took that to their place. Then we went to ours. We unpacked a little bit and
then just crashed in our beds. Elder Hammond at the time had about 3 hours of
sleep for the last two days. I was pretty tired too.
Wednesday
we had district meeting. After that we met with the sisters to work out where
we were going to split the ward. Then they gave me a bunch of records for my
area so my area book wasn't completely empty. We have a brand new one because
this is the first time this ward has had two sets of missionaries, just like my
last area. We had a meeting with our ward mission leader because I asked for
it. I think it just confused me more. He isn't the kind of guy who just gets
things done, he would just beat around the bush and not answer any of my
questions. All the names we got were from the sisters.
Thursday
morning we met with a guy from church headquarters. S.L.C. They were from the
Research and Investigation division or something like that. Chose our mission
to come visit, and President Smart chose our zone. We had a little focus group
kind of thing. We have a large zone so they split us in two. Somehow it ended
up being Elders in one and Sisters in another. That was a blessing in disguise.
Because we were in different rooms we told them things that they hadn't heard
were problems in other missions probably because the sisters were in the room.
They mostly asked about the age change and how it has affected our mission. It
was pretty cool. Both Elder Feist and Elder Hammond got to talk about their
individual experiences on how the age change effected their choice to come and
how it affected them once they got here. That day was boring until night time.
I got to do baptismal interviews for the 3 people the sisters were teaching in
our ward.
Friday
was slow as well. Mostly just trying to organize the area and stuff. I think I
forgot to mention. Once we had our areas all figured out and got working on it
one of the sisters had a feeling that we needed to switch the areas. So we had
to call the Pres and say just kidding we want to switch that. I didn't think it
was a very good idea for a few reasons but oh well. That night our dinner
canceled. We started making some visits with no luck. One part member family
was home. We had a little chat and then they invited us in for dinner which was
super nice. We had a bomb dinner and then a lesson. This guy knows he needs to
be baptized, so I pretty much just asked him why he wasn't and then let the
lesson go from there. After the lesson we were walking to the car and the
sisters called us and told us we had a dinner all the sudden. I was stuffed and
we didn't have the miles to go up there. Luckily they covered for us!
Saturday
We finally got to meet with the Bishop. We got a few names from him. We had to
try a lot harder than I thought we should have though. I dunno why. Elder Feist’s
comp went to a baptism so he got to be our 3rd comp for a little while. It has
been fun being able to hang out with him a little bit. We went to the baptism
of the 3 I interviewed. I will have to hurry, I only have 5 minutes left!
Sunday
was good. Got to meet for a minute with the high councilman over missionary
work. He is going to be a big help. We picked up a really solid potential
investigator because a kid invited his friend to church and then just decided
to ask him if he wanted to get baptized and he said yes. The Spanish Elders and
sisters were having a baptism right after our ward. He started asking questions
and wanted to look at the font. It was super cool. We had some other meetings
and then that was pretty much the day. Well it was a good week, but a crazy
one! Love you all!
Elder Wood
Hey just letting you know my new address so you can send
stuff there. 1172 Chestnut Lane #204 Corona, CA 92881. Also I got a package
from Suzie I will have to tell you about later that was awesome!! But your letter
didn't make it for some reason. Talk to ya soon bye
