January 27,
2014
Dear Family:
Guys.. I just
realized I am an old missionary. It was kinda sad. It took a while for it to
hit me. A couple letters and E-mails saying you're at your hump!! That and Elder
Child won't stop bringing it up ha. It has gone very fast. I am afraid of how
fast the next year will go! I have loved every minutes (almost ha) of my
service to the Lord. I don't do the best job of showing it through my letters
(sometimes this is my venting session!), but being a missionary is the life!!
Monday was
pretty boring. We didn't have any miles and the library was closed, so we
didn't go to zone activity. We are the farthest companionship away from
everybody else. We just stayed home. Cleaned, cooked, played with the dogs.
Just stuff. Nothing too exciting once we went out that night.
Tuesday was
busy. Had DLC and then DDM. Both were good. I didn't get as much time to train
the missionaries as I like. I am trying something new and having everyone in my
district give a 5 minute training. Accountability and all the opening stuff
took extra long and then Elder Child took more than his 5 minutes!! It's OK, I
will just save it for another time. After that I did a baptismal interview for
Alisia. She is an investigator that two sisters from the El Cerrito Ward in my
district have been working with. El Cerrito is a hard ward. Last year they only
had one convert baptism. It is cool to see those sisters doing so well. We had
a lesson with Delphina. We taught her about missionary work and temple work. There
are like 10 non-members in that house. We are really trying to get some of them
to let us teach them. We Met with Carlos as well. He isn't progressing very
well. He is on my list right now.
Wednesday we
met with a return missionary in our ward. We are trying to teach some of his
friends. He showed us a way he used to get referrals in his mission. His name
is Joe, he served in Guam or Micronesia maybe that is the same place. He went
into an area that hadn't had missionaries in a really long time. They worked super
hard but only got one convert. After he got baptized they did this lesson with
him and the island he was on exploded with work. People were lining up to get
taught. One day they got a team-up for each comp so they could teach two
lessons at once. They sat a little ways from each other and then stayed in one
spot for 6 hours. People were lined up waiting to hear the message that their
friends invited them to listen to. One day they got 112 referrals. Now I don't
think we will have the same effect here. But we are going to fine tune the
lesson for the states and try it out. If it works we will share it with the
other missionaries. If it helps us find one person, I am ok with that. More
would be nice though!! We had a lesson with Mike. It was fine. I have been
getting frustrated with our investigators lately. We have all hard ones now.
Thursday I woke
up stressed after a bad dream. I dreamed we were leaving the church and I was
really frustrated because we hadn't gotten Delphina to church to get her
confirmed. In my dream we forgot to go get her!! We met with Logan. I
don't feel like he can learn that much more. He knows plenty. His parents just
are making things difficult. We finally caught a member we have been trying to
chase down. She is friends with a part-member family we have been trying to
catch but moved somewhere else in the ward. We found out she moved like 4
houses down ha. So now we just have to catch them at home. At night we went to
Delphina's house with the intent to teach her family, but none of them would
sit down with us. So we will keep trying. 
This is a part member family with
kids who we have been trying to run down. They live on the same road as us so
we try all the time. This sign didn't used to be there. I think they bought it
for us. I have been knocking anyways.
Saturday my
nightmare about not getting Delphina to church came alive to haunt me. The
members we were borrowing the wheel chair from said we couldn't use it anymore
because the medical facility it came from wanted it back. It took us a while to
talk them into it. This week we are having some ward members get one with her
insurance. That is something we tried to do the first week, but the member who
was helping us out forgot to tell us he wasn't going to be able to get her one.
We had a breakfast at 7 at the church with the stake leaders and all the
missionaries in Corona. After that we had a meeting. We met with Mike again. We
went to Alisia's baptism. I tried to get an investigator there, but it didn't
work out. We are supposed to have a investigator there for us to go. Alisia
asked me to be there though, and I wasn't going to say no! I was sitting there
when President Smart walked in. I love seeing him, but not as much when I could
be being more effective elsewhere. It was fine though, he knows a lot of
district leaders go to the baptisms for lots of different reasons. Get invited,
make sure the sisters can fill up the font (it's been a problem in the past!),
and I think that's all I can think of. What made it worse was the other set of
sisters in the district showed up for no reason! But I couldn't say anything to
them about it because I didn't have an investigator there! Oh well. It's pretty
funny really. President left for a call and then came and sat by me in the
back. We left early so we only got to talk to him before it started.
Sunday we did
get Delphina to church! But Mellisa was super sick, so she will have to get
confirmed next week. After church Elder Child got to go back to Hemet for a
baptism. I stayed and took a Priest out to work with me. We only had 2 people
at church. I made a goal for 4. We will get them next week though!
Well that's all
I have for this week!! Love ya tons!!
Elder Wood
