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
