Loaned out my Bike!

February 18, 2014

Dear Family:

Hey so I had another great week!! This is transfer week. I won't know anything until Saturday. I really have no idea if I will stay or go this time, I guess we will see where the Lord needs me!!

I think I wrote about the first few days in my last letter.

Last P-day we went bowling.

Tuesday was the temple

Wednesday was district meeting and E-mail. A good chunk of our day got eaten with that. We ate dinner and then our lesson with Carlos canceled. We were going to drop him but he isn't really meeting with us now. We could just leave it like that but that is what has happened to him in the past. I think that is part of why we were lead to teach him, is so he can be dropped the right way so he can progress in the long run. We almost met with him again this week, but he got sick. I know I said this last week but this week we are going to drop him so he has a very clear understanding of why, not just stop showing up like when he was taught a long long time ago.

Thursday we felt like we needed to meet with Delphina and Melissa again. That has happened in the past and we showed up when Melissa was going through a really hard time so we helped her out of it. This time we showed up and caught Veronica before she could hide from us and we taught her, and she should be meeting with us now. 

Friday we caught up with Mike again. We were just going to stop by to try and catch him because making an appointment hadn't been working. We caught him outside. When he got sat down it took him about 30 seconds to fall asleep. I was still beating off their two undisciplined dogs (I love dogs, even disobedient ones, but these ones are ridiculous and crazy) by the time he was asleep and cussing them out in his sleep. We tried to just get him to read a scripture so he would stay awake. He fell asleep as he was reading it out loud haha. We just gave up. We said a prayer and then set a return appointment with his wife. He was having a really hard time. He has to work out now because his doctor is getting him to lose some weight and he isn't used to it at all. That night we ate with the Crane Bennett family. They gave us a nice Valentine's dinner! They even got us cards and heart shaped cookies from
Panara. They live three or four doors down from the Hoyts. That is the other night we tried to meet with Carlos and he got sick.

Saturday We met with Logan and a whole bunch of active members. Logan is still awesome. He still wants to get baptized, but his parents still won't let him. We set a ton of return appointments for this coming week with the members in our area. We made up a special lesson we are doing with all of them to help them all do more missionary work. We also stopped by the Hicks because they said they were going to come to church the next day. Once again they had another softball game and Jacob won't go without the rest of them. They said next week but we will see. Jacob had two friends there. They had some questions about being a missionary and the church so that was pretty cool.

Sunday we had a meeting with the stake at 7. It was good. The high councilman here over missionary work is amazing. He knows all the missionaries well in the stake and talks to us often about how we think the stake and wards could help us. That meeting was him and other people he asked to help the ward council and missionaries work better together. This is something that happens once a month. Every other month they switch which auxiliary leaders are there from each ward. It didn't used to be productive. Now it is super helpful. Before this high councilman came in the ward would just blame the missionaries if things weren't happening so they were off the hook. This guy has come in and done some digging in the numbers and work with the missionaries more and the auxiliaries more and found out the real problems and he trains on them every month. I think it is great. This time he showed them how we aren't asking them to add to their calling, just to do simple things already in their calling that makes a big difference in the missionary work like looking for non-members when they do visits instead of just trying to see if they want a home teacher. Then we don't have to spend as much time finding. As well he laid out all our standard of excellence and said they need to be helping us with it more. In the last month we had 996 lessons and 33 of those came from the ward. 82 new investigators 8 from the ward. Just stuff like that to help motivate them and see that there is room for improvement and it isn't all the missionaries fault. Church was great as always. We saw a couple active people to start our lesson. We tried to meet with the Kyler Wong but no luck.

Monday morning we had Bro Hoyt help us take out bikes to the sisters home share. They need to borrow them this week. Their car has a scratch so it is getting painted. I told them the money I used to buy that bike somebody saved and sacrificed to give me for my mission (which is true) and to be careful with it. I showed them how to use the lock and told them if they used it right it had insurance. I am just going to keep praying. So this week pray for my bike. Sister Graff is using it and she just learned how to ride one haha. We went bowling again. Before we did we went to In and Out with Chase Dworshak. He was my mini missionary in Hemet when I was with Elder Feist. He lives here. We were going to take him bowling but he had a dentist appointment. At dinner I saw a picture of the family snowboarding and that lead to a conversation far from missionary work ha. He told me somebody is buying the Canyons (he goes to resorts all over the west often) I forgot who it was but he was telling me about how the company at other resorts they own have photographers everywhere. The camera has something that recognizes your season pass and e-mails it to you by the time you get down the hill. I guess the photographers are everywhere. Runs at most the stuff in the terrain park. anyways out of time! Got to Go!! Love ya tons!!

Elder Wood