Training Two

September 29, 2014
Dear Family:

Hi!! This week was good. We had some good things happen, that is for sure! 

Monday was a typical transfer P-day where you don't have time or resources to do anything. We had Elder Franson come with Elder Larson and myself for the day because he is training as well and didn't have a companion.  

Tuesday we were in Riverside all day getting our new companion!! The new guy is Elder  Pennell from Rexburg Idaho. He reminds me a lot of one of Brett's friends. I don't remember his name, but he used to come play Black Opps with us. He had a Duramax and lived at Oakridge. That is about all I remember about him, so you will just have to ask Brett his name and what he is like because Elder Pennell is a lot like him. So we got our car too. That has made such a difference! I don't want to be a bike missionary anymore. I feel like on a bike I just can't get near as much done. That and I just hate biking now. It was nice driving back to my area instead of riding in the car.  

Wednesday was way more successful than it should have been. We had meetings in the morning, then shopping, and E-mail for Elder Pennell. By the time we had all that stuff done we had to some time to talk to people and then we needed to head to dinner. This was Elder Pennell's first time getting OYM's so Elder Larson helped him get 5 and I helped him get 5. It was a different experience for me. The last times I have trained for the most part the missionaries have picked up doing it really fast. Elder Pennell was more uncomfortable with it. In the past I would let the new missionary start it, and if they got caught up I would pick it up for them. Now I have learned they are never going to get it if I do that or at least learn it a lot slower and not be independent. I helped Elder Pennell get his last 5 so he had already gotten use to Elder Larson helping him out when he didn't know what to say. When he looked at me after he introduced himself I just looked back. He got the message and just continued and has learned well how to do it on his own now. One funny story from his first day talking to people on the street he approached a guy gave his little spill and the guy replied "Sorry I don't have time right now". In response Elder Pennell said sorry "I don't speak Spanish and then walked away haha". This is the only one I jumped in on. I talked to the guy for a minute and then let him on his way. I just thought that one was really funny! My style of teaching is different now too as a trainer. Before I would control the whole lesson. Now I am just sitting back and having Elder Larson run the show. He does a really good job. I am impressed with how fast he has picked it up. In lessons Elder Larson leads out, Elder Pennell follows, and I touch a little bit and then pass back to Elder Larson. Right now when people ask hard questions I answer, but soon I am just going to look at Elder Larson and expect him to answer. He doesn't know that yet though haha. That night we wanted to get some things going in the Citrus Hills area, but didn't know what to do. Elder Tafoya and a mini missionary were in the area before us and didn't leave anything but a name or two. One name was Glenda. As Elder Tafoya was running out the door we had him write who the fellowshipper was on the progress record. Other than that we had no info on Glenda. No number, address nothing. We decided we would start with trying to see what the fellowship knew and maybe they had her address so we could go visit her. When we walked in the door a super nice lady named Glenda introduced herself! Funny enough we showed up in the middle of Glenda and Sister Anthony having a discussion about the church! Glenda told us about how she felt empty and was searching when Sister Anthony brought her to church. At church she said she felt as though she wasn't empty while she was there. She told us she wants to become a member but when her family found out she went to church they all showed up at her house and cussed her out and she doesn't want to offend her family by leaving the Catholic Church. The lesson went really well and she felt the spirit. It was cool how the spirit led us there. Looking back it made more sense why people we visited before this didn't answer the door! 

Thursday we taught Omar's brother again. His name is Ramiro. He is way more interested than Omar is. I would give you details, but it was a sick lesson! I don't think I have taught somebody who has ever had such good questions on the restoration or such a good understanding as Ramiro. We forgot to save his number so it was divine guidance that we caught him that day. The sisters before us passed us Ruben. He is somebody who has been coming to church for a while now. He is a little bit handicapped but doing really well. We had a great first lesson with him and we have him on date to be baptized the 5th. Pray for us on that one, we have some obstacles to overcome with him. 

Friday we had another lesson with Glenda. Last time she had so many questions we didn't get to do much other then answer questions. No complaining though, I love that!! This time we taught the restoration and she loved it. It went really well. Sorry this is really short I am out of time!! 

Saturday we went on exchanges. Elder Jenks came into our area with Elder Larson and myself. He served in the Citrus Hills Ward before so he helped us get our feet under us. This is Elder Jenks last transfer. It is crazy to me because it doesn't seem like it was that long ago that Elder  Hammond and I moved in with Elders Jenks and Wilkinson. I did just get an E-mail from Elder  Hammond though saying he has almost been out a year now. Crazy!!  

Sunday we were at the church for 7 hours!! We have to go to all of the meetings for both wards.  

Sorry I didn't have much time. We had an awesome week!! I will write a better one next week!

Love ya!!

Elder Wood

 

Another Different Assignment and Still Over 100 Degrees

September 22, 2014 

Dear Family:

Well I have 14 transfers down! 3 More to go!!  

Monday was a long time ago... Last week was a very long, but very short week. I don't remember much other than it was hot. This week it got up to 114 and then cooled down. I have some good news I got on Saturday though so the heat won't be bugging me as bad!! I got the coolest transfer call I have ever gotten before. We didn't really do anything too special for P-day. 

Tuesday we had our normal meetings and stuff. After we killed two birds with one stone and went out to eat for Elder Uwaseke's birthday and because we had a meeting. After while I was walking in the parking lot I got stung by a bee! I was kinda mad about that. The stupid thing got me in the neck! It just flew up and stung me for no reason, like it literally came out of nowhere. Before I had a chance to have somebody take their tag off and flip it out Elder Taylor grabbed it and pulled it out so all the sting stuff went in ha. It ended up swelling pretty good the next day. I looked like I either had gotten really fat (but only on one side) or I had a tumor. The swelling was there for 2 almost 3 days, it finally went away though. That wasn't my last run in with a bee that day though. We had a lesson with David Volloni. I was doing the opening prayer when all the sudden half way through David ran away screaming like a little girl. A bee was trying to get him! I was surprised at how quick he got up and moved, I have never seen him move so fast! It went away so I tried again only this time I did it Bro. Thacker style with one eye open. David had his eyes closed and I saw the bee land right in front of him when I started. I kept going because he didn't notice. I don't know if he figured it out because I was laughing while I was praying or because he had his eyes open too but he ran away again during the prayer again. I got up and smashed that bee. It made me feel a little better about my neck. Finally we got through the opening prayer but not without another interruption from a bee. The bees must be wanting to feel the spirit that day because one came back for the closing prayer. That night we had a meeting with our wards bishopric and two other wards to organize an open house our ward is hosting this week. 

Wednesday is when my neck started to swell. It didn't really swell on Tuesday. I didn't take very good notes this week, so I don't remember a lot of what happened. I know we had two member presents, I don't remember who we taught though. That is pretty bad. I think one of them was David. I know we went to Riverside that morning. We ran out of Bibles so we had to go get one for David. Elders Thurman and Burris gave us a ride. While we were out there we went to see Elder Ringwood. He is going home tomorrow (Tuesday). Pretty crazy! I am in the same shoes right now that he was in when he left me. That was a fast 3 transfers. It was good to see him, he has done really well. He is a super good guy. He is a lot different now then he was at the first of his mission. He has changed a ton. He is way way more outgoing now.  

Elder Ringwood the day before he heads home, Elder Wood, and Elder ?

 

Thursday I honestly have no recollection of. I did just remember a lesson from Wednesday though. Anita is somebody we have been trying to catch for a lesson for a while. She is the one who invited me to the "party". Anyways we had a good restoration lesson with her. It was hard to concentrate. It was super hot in her house. Literally my face was dripping. It was loud and there were kids everywhere. Luckily the spirit isn't slowed down by things like that and she really liked the lesson. I was super embarrassed earlier we had given away all our Books of Mormon so we didn't even have one to give her. It gave us a reason to come back though!! We had an Aaronic Priesthood Priest with us who had never been on splits before so I think it was a good experience for him. 

A Birthday Card from Grandma Rachel

Friday we had lots of lessons. I think the best one was one we weren't expecting. I don't know if you remember me talking about Omar, but we went to try and stop at his house. He is a wrestler in high school and a cool kid. That is probably all I had told you. We run into him on the street once or twice a week and he said he would be there. Somebody answered the door but I couldn't decide if it was Omar or not. It looked just like Omar, but I didn't think it was. Turns out it was his brother and he invited us in before we even had the chance to ask. He was the only one home. I don't remember his name, so we will just refer to him as Omar's brother. Anyways he really liked the restoration and grasped the concept well. We had to teach it quickly because we had a lesson to go to after with David O'Flynn. We only had about 15 minutes to teach it. It is cool to see how God has worked with him in his life. Right now he is searching. He didn't like the church his mom was bringing him up in (7th day Adventist) because he wasn't feeling like he was getting enough out of it. He moved on to another Christian Church that encourages questions and searching. We told him all of this was happening to prepare him for the message we were sharing with him and he seemed to agree. He accepted baptism so we are headed back this week to see what happened.  

 Elders Wood and Larson and a cute family

 

Saturday was pretty slow. The coolest thing that happened was the call we got from President that morning. Saturday morning is leadership calls. We didn't even consider the thought we would have to worry about it so we didn't even bother taking our phones when we went and worked out with the other Elders. Turns out we did. It didn't come until we got back though. I didn't want to answer because I had no idea what he wanted so I made Elder Larson answer it. President talked to him for a little bit and then he handed the phone to me. Long story short we are staying together and getting another new missionary from the MTC. I will stay one more transfer and then Elder Larson will finish up his training. We were also really excited because he told us we would be getting a car! That is all he told us but we were for sure they would double out the sisters and we would have the whole ward. Saturday night at calls we figured out we were wrong. Instead we are keeping the half of the ward we now have and they are giving us all of the Citrus Hills Ward as well! I am super excited!! This is going to be a really fun transfer. Well I am out of time! Have a good week! Love ya! 

Elder Wood

 

Terri's Baptism

September 15, 2014 

Dear Family: 

So you remember how in Utah about this time of year it normally starts to cool off a little bit??? Ya it doesn't do that here ha. This last week was hot, I think every day was over 100. Half the week was pretty humid too. This should be the last week of it though the weather guys say!! I dunno how! I can't tell! It is 110 right now so it doesn't seem to be cooling off to me!! Our AC busted yesterday so last night was pretty hot. Luckily the apartment complex we live in fixes stuff normal the same day you ask them to, so it is already fixed!!  

Last Monday we went on a hike. We got up at 4 (yes it was still hot that early in the morning in the 80's) and hiked Skyline. We did it so we could see the ocean, but it was overcast so we couldn't see it. The hike took a little over 4 hours. It was super fun in the morning on the way up! We had to make two groups because Elders Falou and Guasike needed to go slower. They didn't make it to the top. The way down we were already pretty sore just from going up so it was a long trip down. We were all super tired after that. I talked Elder Larson out of us taking a nap, but he was right we should have. I wanted to stay up so when we got home we would go to bed early and just pass out but it didn't end up being enough sleep. We were super tired the next day. At Walmart we had a weird experience. I saw the ugliest women I had ever seen before, then she came and talked to me and she was a he! All pink shirt and skirt shoulder length permed girl hair with girl sun glasses. He/She asked if (it?) joined the church if then he/she could be one of the wives for a man in our church. My brain kinda got super confused first off because it didn't expect the whole womanlike look (sorta) and man voice, at the same time as a polygamy question. I imagine I had a pretty interesting look on my face ha. I think everybody  else’s brains were still trying to sort it out because they didn't say anything so I just blurted out "we don't practice polygamy!" I get questions about polygamy basically everyday but that one just threw me off. I dunno why! haha. Anyways the person proceeded to tell me about how the Illuminati was using the Catholic Church to take over the world and now they are using ours. I just laughed and walked away. That person was way too crazy for me. 

We got up at 4 am and hiked 5 miles each way for this hike

Tuesday was awesome! We had lots of lessons. We taught both Davids. Ran into a guy named Hector we are constantly trying to get a hold of and things looked promising there. I was most excited to teach the Mitchell family, but they had to cancel and try for next week.  

 

 

Wednesday we went to Riverside to go to the trainer/trainee meeting. It wasn't as good as the other ones I went to. This time they split us up instead of keeping with our companions (which they did do one of my past times) but the AP's did not prepare. These are some of the best ones we have had, so they probably just didn't have time, but they definitely winged it haha. We had a cool thing happen at a lesson with David (Villoni aka investigator not O'Flynn). We only hadn't covered one thing. Tithes and fast offerings. We brought Bro. McKee who is our ward mission leader with us. We were doing our best in the lesson, but I don't think we prepared well enough or something and the lesson just didn't have the finesse that good lessons do. Halfway through the lesson David got a phone call from his boss. This is the job we prayed with him and he was confident that God wanted him there and not at another offer that he got. He would tell us about how God gave him this job and he was very confident in it. In the phone call his boss laid him off. He was bummed and a little confused, but he still accepted to keep the law of tithing even with the hardship in his face. He has been from job to job for the last little while. It just goes to show you don't have to live in a perfect world or be perfect teachers to invite others to come unto Christ. We have the spirit on our side and he does the heavy lifting as long as we are willing to try and pick up the load first.  

Thursday we had tons of meets. It drives me crazy sometimes how much we have to be inside because it slows down our area. Those meetings are super helpful though because I learned a ton from them during my mission I just get bored in them now. I am almost out of time so I am going to have to summarize!  

Friday was also as awesome or more so then Tuesday. We picked up two new investigators and had a team up drive us around so we didn't even bike that much! One name is Roxanne Dauer. Her son is a recent convert of 2 to 3 years and she has lots of questions. The other is another part member family. Roxanne is pretty familiar with the church now and wanted to get some questions out of the way. She had a couple of deep doctrine questions I have only ever had missionaries, members, or less active people ask me about, so from an investigator it was kinda weird. We resolved them. I mostly had to lean on saying that there isn't a church stance, somebody just was telling your their opinion. A few weren't even close and obviously came from somebody who tried to anti her so they were super bogus and easy to resolve. But I like questions! She had so many we didn't get to teach the restoration like we planned so we just set up to come another time. The Hoyts fed us. That was super cool too. Tj BBQed for us too, it was super good. It was good to see all of them again. They are awesome. We taught David again. He relapsed in some stuff because of stress from losing his job so his baptismal date is pushed back but he is back on board and doing well.  

Well I am all the way out of time! I got to go back to Lake Elsinore Sunday for Terri’s Baptism. That is all love ya bye!! 

Elder Wood

Elder Thurman Kept Me Up!

September 8, 2014 

Dear Family: 

Last week I wrote about Monday already so I will just jump straight to Tuesday! 

Tuesday we had a slow day because all of the stuff and places we had to go. We went to Riverside to sort some stuff out at the mission office so that took the first good chunk of the day. We were out there already so I figured we might as well have Elder Cook come and go to lunch with us. He is doing good. He is in his last transfer so he only has two more weeks. We taught David O'Flynn that night. Other than that we just e-mailed cuz we couldn't on Labor Day and tried to visit some other people. 

Birthday Cake in the Face Photos

Wednesday I went on exchanges into Elder Taylor's area. He is a Spanish Missionary. Elder Thurman kept me up all night the night before talking to me though so I was super tired all day. Instead of me trying really hard to figure out what they were saying I would just block it out. Then ended up being a bad thing because then I would start dozing a little bit and it was really hard to stay awake. I don't think they noticed, but during Elder Taylor giving the thought at dinner I may have fell asleep a few times for a split second. We had a cool experience were a lady approached us and wanted to be taught and baptized. She said she knows that our church is true. The only reason she isn't a member is because of her husband. Unfortunately she wasn't in my area, and she didn't speak Spanish so we had to pass it as a referral. The other thing I was super excited about was Elder Larson's exchange. He went with Elder Caples, who has only been out as long as Elder Larson, but is very behind where Elder Larson is. So pretty much Elder Larson was on his own! I remember that happening to me in my first area. Elder  Kelley came into my area in my second transfer though. They did an awesome job! Elder  Larson taught a word of wisdom lesson to David. I thought that was super impressive because we haven't covered it yet, so he did it without ever seeing it done before. I wouldn't have done that as a greeny. I think I leaned on my trainer too much.  

Thursday we had a ton of meetings. Weekly planning for the first half of the day. Ward MCM tor the middle part (our ward mission leader talks a lot hahaha). We saw David. We went to the Saunders for dinner. They are the coolest family in the ward! Plus super missionary oriented! They have a great relationship with all of their kid’s friends. DJ, the one I told you about last week, is like part of their family. He eats there at least once a week. Comes over when he needs to get away from his home situation. Bro and Sis Saunders talk to him about life and give him advice. He is like a brother to all the siblings. Anyways I didn't know all of that until Sunday. I just thought they were really good friends with him like they are everybody else, but DJ is much more a part of their family it seems. That made me a little nervous though realizing how much trust they were putting in me and my companion. I know they have had lots of other people taught in their home before, I don't know why DJ wasn't one of them. I guess I should ask haha. Anyways pray for us on that one, we are trying to figure out to get things rolling with DJ. We ate dinner with him again at the Saunder's and had a lesson outside. Sister Saunders suggested we just have sort of a casual conversation and let things roll into it. The conversation was good, but didn't develop as much as I had hoped. I think that is the way that was the best though. I'm not sure if it was more focused on DJ that he would feel a lot of pressure. I want to meet with him on his own to gauge where he is at. We called and texted him today to set something up but no reply yet. They are trying to get things set up so we teach another one of their friends. Their daughter Amy has a friend a few of the Elders keep running into named Joe. He is super busy because of college football and stuff but it sounds like he is interested. The only thing that kinda sucks is Amy is leaving to Rexburg for college, so that might slow it down a little. The parents seem to have a good enough relationship with him though so it should still work. If things happen those would be the two coolest investigators!  

Friday we had ZDM. I was so happy I’m not a zone leader anymore haha. I was awesome to sit back and just be there. We taught David Vollini (the investigator) the law of chastity. That was the most awkward law of chastity lesson I have ever had haha. That is his only hold up. That and he didn't come to church!! We called him at 10 to make sure he was up. If he didn't answer we were going to bike down there but he did and said he would be there so we trusted him. When he didn't come he said he didn't have enough time to get ready even though we called him an hour before. He will come next week though. We ate dinner with the Mitchell family. It is the part member family I talked about last week. Dinner was awesome, Sister Mitchell really likes us I think. Like we thought the only hold up is the husband, when we asked if we could go through the lessons with them, he is the one who protested. The kids really wanted it and so did his wife. I think if we can figure out what to do with Bro Mitchell his wife will get baptized.  

Saturday was more of the same I am just short on time so I won't say much. I remembered a story that happened to Brett on his mission because a similar thing happened to me. If I remember right once Brett and his companion were asked if they were the strippers that were coming to that party or something like that. Anyways we went to visit a referral from the Spanish sisters. When we knocked on the door we could hear a bunch of girls laughing saying something about "The Mormons". Turns out they were all getting ready for a big party haha. They said right now wasn't a good time, but that we could come back for the party! We didn't go, but she did say she wanted to come to church next week. But not that week because she was going to be "busy" ha.  

Sunday Jr. and his family came from Lake Elsinore to eat dinner with us at a member’s house here in Corona. They used to be in this ward. Jr. got his mission call for New York, New York South. Well gotta go!! Love ya bye!!!!  Elder Wood

 

Birthday Week

September 2, 2014

Dear Family: 

This week was pretty awesome!! And we have a great one set up for this coming week! As always I am short on time so I will just jump right into it! 

Monday was one of the better P-days. Not just the same old monotonous basketball at the church that has been my P-day all my mission. In the morning we played tennis! There is a basketball/tennis court at the apartment complex we live at. Some other Elders got some tennis rackets from members. We couldn't find any tennis balls though and it was early enough nothing was open but Wal-Mart was too far away to drive to. So we went to a grocery store and bought two dog toy extra think tennis balls. They were heavy but once you got those things moving they were fun! Then we went and played basketball, but at least I got to do something else first! The rest of the P-day was normal. At night we went to a ward/community party. It wasn't from the church but it was only members there. A family in the ward has a down's syndrome son who is 7. His name is John Saunders. They had a party to introduce every one to the service dog (Skipbo) they just got for him. The ward helped a lot in getting the money they needed. I think you could probably buy a car for how much the training for this dog was! They had pizza there, so that is why we were there! We were invited and some members brought us dinner there (also pizza haha good thing I love the stuff!!) But that was good in getting to know the ward better. I ran into Jr. Morris' mom there. She said Jr. and her husband are normally there but couldn't get there last week. I think I forgot to mention this but the Saturday before this Jr. came from Lake Elsinore to take me to lunch. He had his papers in for a week then. I found out on Sunday he got called to New York, New York south. I think... ha.  

Tuesday was a sad day. Our lizard died... We only had him for a few days.. I promise we fed him! We even made a nice little habitat! We almost named him. That was a close one. So he still remains the "un-named lizard". We were going to name him Pilar. Long story short I told Elder Larson we were going to name it after the first person he would baptize on his mission. An hour before we found out he died we found Pilar Mitchell. A nice lady who is married to a member. What everybody tells me the reason she isn't baptized (she acts like a member and even feels bad they haven't been to church in a while, I'm not sure she doesn't know she's not a member almost haha) is because the husband gets in the way and doesn't let it happen. That is the same thing that happened to me in Elsinore with Mario and Laquisha! Anyways we decided that is who we were going to name it after until we found the "un-named lizard" dead. We couldn't do it then, that would just be bad luck or karma or whatever word fits in there! Don't worry, the lizard who will forever remain as the "un-named lizard" was given a nice burial service. One I have always wanted to do in fact! A Viking Funeral! So we build him a nice little paper boat, placed it in the toilet, and lit it on fire. It didn't work quite as well as I had hoped. It was hard to keep lit. Plus Elder Thurman forgot to bring over his cheep teenager axe to use as a torch so that didn't help either. Earlier that day (at lunch) I got a cake smashed in my face. I don't even know where they got the cake! It wasn't even for my birthday, it was just to do it! We were at the ZL's apartment (we live in the same complex) eating lunch with the Spanish missionaries and playing Monopoly Deal when in walks Elders Thurman, Burris, Franson, and Falou. Elder Thurman was standing right next to Elder Taylor who was next to me when out of nowhere they started singing happy birthday. Normally I would have known something was up and avoided it, expect I just thought they were just early for my birthday! The next second he slams it into Elder Taylor's face and the next second another one comes out from behind me and gets me! It was actually really funny. And it tasted pretty good. I even got it all out of my shirt!! We had a good lesson with David O'Flynn's family. They are still doing awesome! For dinner we got to eat with a young Brazilian couple! They were super cool! They were just there visiting the members we ate with.  

Elder Wood and Elder Larson

I'm the one with the green tie!

Cake!

Wednesday we had exchanges with the ZL's. Do you know what that means!? I got to be in a car again! It was so cool! They had DLC that morning (I don't have to go to that anymore!) so I got to take a nap. It was really good. :) We had a cool lesson with one of their recent converts. He has only been a member for a month or two. He is doing awesome though. He is on fire. He is ready church history right now and is super into the church. He has come a long ways. He looks really rough, he probably threw some people off the first time he came to church. He is in his mid 20's. Tons of tattoos and piercings! He was a satanist. Now he's a Mormon!  

Thursday was super slow. We met with the other David. The one who isn't a member. We had dinner at the Saunders (the ones with the service dog) their son is a RM and brought his friend DJ. DJ is a super cool guy. We should be teaching him this week. So the last half of the day was great after my body stopped freaking out.  

Friday was multi-zones. We were in a meeting until 4! It was too long. In it they did a bad example of how to plan that was pretty awesome. President got mad at those Elders because they were taking too much time and wasting it so that was pretty funny. It was a good multi zone for me. For few it was pretty awful. 3 missionaries had to get up and apologize for something dumb they did. That was part of their restitution.  I only had one bad moment! Multi-zones are only every other transfer. At that meetings the missionaries that go home that transfer or the next give their "outgoing testimonies". In the middle of that I realized that the next multi zone I had to do that. It kinda freaked me out. That night we got to start teaching another recent convert named Manuel. He is 10. We made friends with him and his older brother Gabriel who was also baptized who is working on going on a mission.  

Saturday we went to Texas Roadhouse!!! I was so excited! I have wanted to go my whole mission! I just never served in Menifee were the only one is. Expect they just put a brand new one in Norco in this stake! It was so good!!! There was a recent convert who works there that kept hooking us up with tons of those amazing rolls! So we all left very full. Elder Burris ate so many rolls he didn't even take a bite out of his burger. Our waitress made fun of him haha. Somebody told her it was my b-day so they brought the saddle over and made me ride it! Hey I got free desert out of the deal though! Elder Franson took my receipt thing and put a mormon.org card in there with my e-mail on it because she was flirting with me trying to get a better tip! Luckily she didn't e-mail me ha. That would have not been good. I will figure out how to get even with him.  

Sunday was normal. I was trying to decide if we should drop David. Then he came to church. So I guess that answers my question. We got to teach the youth for the 5th Sunday about doing missionary work. I almost got away without any members finding out about my birthday and then Elder Larson snuck it in at dinner as they were doing desert! So don't worry, I got sung to!  

Yesterday was a pretty normal P-day. I finally got to go bowling again!! The bowling alley in Elsinore was shut down. I dunno how I was getting it cheaper here before besides members giving us passes. I don't remember it being this expensive! That is pretty much it for the week. There was a lot of fun stuff going on so I didn't really get to talk about any of the lessons. I had a great birthday! Have a good week! Love ya bye!!

Elder Wood