March 10,
2014
Dear Family:
Another good week! Once again I forgot my camera so I don't
have any pictures. I did get my hair cut this morning though and she said she
was going to text the pictures to Dad. I will try and remember next week!!
Monday was normal for P-day here. We just kinda spend all
day at the church hanging out and E-mailing in the family history center. It is
pretty fun, we have some good Elders here to hang out with.
From Last Week Changing a Flat in the Rain
Elder Wood and Elder Ringwood
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Tuesday was busy. We had DLC and DDM that morning. We met
with a good amount of people, I will just talk about a few of the main ones.
Oh! first funny story. So I am the new guy so everybody always asks were I am
from. When I said Altamont the Brother and Sister Hunter who were feeding us
dinner jaw’s dropped. They are like, “No way, we just went there a few years
ago for Thanksgiving”! The Hunters thought they would probably never run into
anyone from there because of how small it was! They said they stayed with the
Henrys and asked if I knew them. I know Mr. Henry all too well from going to
the Principal’s Office so we had a good time with that. I also told them how he
stopped doing that and became my math teacher and had a great impact on me and
was one of my favorite teachers. They know the Henrys because Sister Hunter's
brother (Marcus Arthur) married Amber Henry. She is the one who I think is
Ronny’s age. She texted Amber and she said that she knew "Ron" well.
After that we met with Art, Elva, and Justin. We taught them the word of
wisdom. We had a pretty crazy experience with that. They started to teach us
that lesson before we even started the lesson. Art was telling us about how he
was messing with Elva and called her when he was like 5 minutes from the house
to tell her he was going to stay in Orange County that night and get drunk. She
was all stressed over the phone because the day before he had decided that he
was going to stop hanging around those kind of crowds and stop drinking so he
could set a better example for his family. After that Justin just out of
nowhere was like "Ya and smoking is bad, because your body is a temple and
God doesn't like that" We just started the lesson and hopped right into
it. They really liked it. They don't smoke or drink coffee. They only reason
they make tea is just so they aren't drinking plain water. They are just going
to switch to like lemonade or something like that. The lesson with Michelle
that night was a mess. She got Anti-ed pretty hard. She wasn't down to get
baptized anymore which was a huge block because she needed to stop smoking the
next day so she could get baptized on her 40th b-day (that is the day she set
it to be on). The other problem was that she didn't show up at 8 like she said
she would. We called her and she said she would be there in 25 minutes so we
went and tried to visit some other people. We went back and she didn't get back
until pretty much 9 and the kids were being crazy so we didn't get the lesson
started for a bit. We didn't have a whole lot of time to resolve her concerns. We
are supposed to be home at 9:30. We didn't make it home by then haha.
Unfortunately we didn't have time to resolve all her concerns either. However
we did smooth things over and she was back on board to quit smoking the next
day.
Elder Ringwood and the Broken Church Door
Wednesday we tried to meet with Michelle earlier. Another
thing from the day before. She lost her job, but that made it so we had a lot
more time to meet with her. She has been going through a lot lately. She is
getting divorced, and going through a lot of stuff all at the same time. We didn't
catch her when she was home so Elder Ringwood went while I was at a lesson with
the Fernandez family. That morning we had to run Elders Therman, Godfrey, and
Rock to Riverside to get another cell phone. They are in a trio. Last transfer
the ward was split, but this transfer we have an odd number of missionaries so
they got put back together. President called them and told them Elder Rock is
getting a mini missionary and they would be splitting the ward again and that
they needed to come get their old phone. That took up a good chunk of the day.
When we got to Riverside I was mad at myself. I tried to get two of the
missionaries to stay in their area and work while we took one of them with us
but I didn't push for it very hard. When we pulled up to the mission office I
saw that President’s car was there. Oh well, I tried to get them to stay ha. So
splits that night went ok. The Fernandez family wasn't going anywhere so I set
it up to drop them if they didn't keep the next commitment (I didn't do it just
in case my comp didn't agree). He did so we dropped them on Friday. He met with
Michelle and I guess it went well. She was in a really good mood which she
hasn't been in while I have been here! (We think she has emotional disorders so
it's not completely her fault) He got her completely on board to stop smoking
and get baptized. I was a little worried because I wasn't going to be there. Elder
Ringwood is really quiet and if she got
mad she would just talk over him and he wouldn't be able to resolve her concerns
at all. He is a little like Enoch. He had some speaking problems before he came
out so he is really self-conscience about it. But when he does say something it
is always really good. The advantage he did have is they have a better
relationship because I haven't been here very long. Michelle is timid of new
missionaries because she had a bad experience when they had AP exchanges last
transfer and the AP really offended her. Like to the point where she was not
willing to meet with them anymore but it got smoothed over. Because of this all
the hard commitments had to come from Elder Ringwood or she probably would have
disregarded them. I have been slowly working my way in though.
Thursday was weekly planning. We tried to meet with Shawn
Bedient who is the less active guy I was talking about. Got baptized as a kid
and never came back until like 2 weeks ago. He got kicked out of his house by
his roommate so when we tried to meet with him we couldn't find him. He called
us the day before and told us how he wanted to work towards getting the
priesthood and being a better member. Now he is looking for a job and I am a
little worried the only one he will find will be one where he has to work on
Sunday. He called us on a friend’s phone and we got to go talk to him. He was
still really really mad. I felt bad for the friend’s daughter who was there,
cuz he didn't hold back on what he had to say about his roommates. She probably
learned some more vocabulary words haha. He needs to overcome his fear of
praying. We are helping him with that. We saw Michelle again. Also Art, Elva,
and Justin.
Some of the "Sticky Note Goodby" the Walters Family put
in my Scriptures when I left Corona
Friday I had to go to Riverside again!! Elders Therman and
Godfrey needed a German Book of Mormon. That killed the first part of the day.
We saw Michelle earlier. She was having a really hard time from not smoking.
She was really sick and having a hard time. We were trying to look some stuff
up in the car and some random dude walked up to the car and started asking us
questions. The hard thing was he was good. He was using stuff that I normally
use against people so I had no comback cuz they are pretty much impossible
questions to get around. Plus he had some of his own. You just have to be the
one in control of the situation. It wasn't a bash, I hate those. It was a
discussion. The only reason we didn't just bear testimony and leave is cuz he
seemed like he might actually listen. After a while he changed and stopped
listening and started arguing so we stopped. He is all sorts of confused. The
popular churches down here a weird. They are technically called
"non-denominational" churches because none of them believe in
organized religion. What they don't realize is that they are super deceived by
these churches because they are very much a denomination they just don't claim
to be one. It is like saying you don't believe in gay marriage, but you are in
one anyways. That is a pretty accurate analogy for it. These places are more
like social clubs than they are churches. They teach good things they just get
distracted. One of the things they teach is that in John 3:5 "man must be
baptized....water and spirit... kingdom of God. Water is when they are born
(they literally use the word placenta) and the spirit is just like all the way
around the world after Christ died. So in other words they don't have to do
anything. It is very convenient. Anyways that is just to give you an idea of
what kind of religious background people have here that I am teaching. We met
with the Fernandez family and dropped them. After the wife was putting together
some dressers they bought earlier. We saw there was another one so we started
putting it together to help her out. While we did that and she worked on the
other one the two sons and the dad just sat on the couch watching weird stuff
on you tube in the other room. She was super grateful. It was good cuz we got
to leave them feeling pretty good about us.
Saturday was Michelle's baptismal interview. She didn't show
up so we just went to bug her at her house. She didn't answer. We were getting
super worried. She called an hour later and apologized. She was sick and crying
and having a really hard time with the withdrawals. She wanted to meet with us
later when she was feeling better. It is hard because with this hard stuff
going on especially quitting she doesn't want to see anybody. She hasn't met
with us since then but we are praying hard every day she is still going to get
baptized. We ate dinner with Art, Elva, and Justin. It was awesome. After we
ate we had a good lesson. I got a text on Friday from a weird number. It turned
out to be Eddie Lapara (formerly Elder Lapara who was my ZL in Riverside who is
now home). He came back to the mission and wanted to come see me when he came
down to Lake Elsinore. We had a good talk and he is doing really well. It was
really weird to see somebody I served around driving around alone, with an iPhone,
in regular clothes talking about regular stuff. It was cool I was happy I got
to hang out with him for a second. He says going out with the missionaries is
hard now because you are a lot more easily frustrated with the investigators
because you don't love them the same.
Sunday only Art and his family came to church. I tried all
week to get somebody else there so we could hit The Standard but once again we
were short one person. I heard both Jacob Hicks and Veronica from my last area
are on the way to getting baptized so hopefully I get to go back for that soon.
We were on the 15 (Interstate 15) when some people were driving down the
freeway. It was a bunch of 20 year old boys. When they saw us they all started
freaking out. I got worried at first because at first I thought they were like
going to try and harass us somehow. Anyways a second later it looked like they
were cheering us on. We had no idea what was going on. After that they floored
it and took off. It wasn't until they got past we figured out what was
happening. They had a Utah plate. They were probably all RMs. We had a good rest of the day, but still no
luck with Michelle. Well that is all for now. I might run back to the house
really quick and grab my camera so I can send pictures. Well, have
a good week!!
Love ya!
Elder Wood
