Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Camo Sweats With The Fur

Branch Trunk or Treat

Clowns
 
 
This week was a long week of tracting! We did exchanges this week and of course i went up to Cherry Grove but i pretty much just slept there and came home. This Friday was our Halloween branch trunk or treat! It was a great time! There was only like 6 cars to go around and get candy for the kids so it didnt last very long.. haha Me and my companion dressed up in our clown costumes that my mom sent to us in a package. And of course i put my camo sweats on with my fur hat. It really has nothing to do with a clown but Halloween is an awesome excuse to be able to wear my favorite outfit in public. Nobody likes it at home but the branch loved it... We didnt even get to meet with any of our investigators this week but we have appointments with all of them this week so i will let you know how those go. Our Philippino investigator named Solud came to church again this week and cant wait for us to come start the discussions. Courtnee has it so easy in the Philippines. haha
Have a great week,
Elder Wood

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Got Wood!!

 
This is a serious pile of Wood!! (haha)
 
We did more service this week then I ever have! It was great! For the first half of the week we chopped wood all day every single day. We have a single less active sister that lives out a ways from town that owns her own little convenient store that is heated with fire so she goes through a ton! We have been working on this wood pile for a little over a month but we decided that we would just finish it this week. After we got done is turns out that this was only the first load and that there is going to be another load coming! We also chopped wood and herded cattle for an older couple that lives out in the middle of no where! Its been an awesome week of service! I forgot to mention also we had exchanges with the district leader this week as well so I went up to Cherry Grove. It was super fun I love going up there. While I was up there I also got to see the northern lights for the first time which was super cool but I didn't get a picture.. Towards the end of the week we helped another single lady whos husband passed away a year ago or so. She had to clean out a huge barn of junk that her husband kept. He was a total horder and we spent literally all day there cleaning stuff out and i dont think we got even close to getting it half way done. She definitely needed our help though so im glad we got to help! She is less active and kind of avoids missionaries but once we helped her out it totally opened up doors. She had us over for lunch and baked us a couple pies to take home and she totally opened up, so hopefully we can start meeting more with her and get her back to church! Kind of a slow week for missionary work but service opens the door for it so we're gonna keep doing it! Ammon first served King Lamoni before he started talking:) Thats my spiritual thought. 
Have a great week everyone,
Elder Wood
 


Got Protein??
 

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Service in St. Paul

Sorry about the gross pictures. I've been married to a Wood for long enough now that this doesn't even phase me, but it might be disturbing to some of you. Who would've thought that all those years of watching his own cows be butchered were actually preparing him for his mission? haha
 


It has been a great week this week! We have been doing a ton of service lately. I love doing service. Its so amazing when I can get to get out of that white shirt and tie and get my hands dirty. We have been helping a lot of people chop wood lately because winter is pretty much here.
This week we helped one of our members butcher his cow. Thats always a good time. My companion is kinda a light weight when it comes to that kind of stuff so ive been giving him crap all week about it. We are continuing to do a lot of work with less actives. This week we went and tracted down some of our less active members that live in a little town called Lac La Biche. Its a pretty cool place! Its close to 2 1/2 hrs away from St. Paul so they dont get seen a lot. We cover a huge amount of area. The work is pretty slow right now. We have 4 investigators and they are progressing but very slow.
Have a great week. I am happy and love being a missionary.
Elder Wood


 
Brother Hatch - Stetson loves this family!

Elder Wood's long drive to Lac La Biche
 

Monday, September 29, 2014

A New Era in St. Paul

Elder Zehr

The Hatch Family - Elder Wood loves this family


My mom asked me a ton of questions so i thought id just answer them as my email. It makes things a lot easier. Transfers were last week and i got a new companion named Elder Zehr. He's from Toronto Canada. Hes super cool and plays football, so we get along great. He is a QB. This week we've already gotten things up and goin in St. Paul. We taught about 20 lessons this week. Only one of them was a investigator but its all good. WE'RE WORKING!!

*What time do you get up? 6:30
*Do you set your alarm or do you just wake up on your own? I set an alarm
*Do you get ready for the day before or after individual and companion study? After studies:)
*Do you study one topic for a week for companion study or a different topic every day? What are you studying right now? For comp study we read the Bible together because neither of us can stay awake if we read it in personal studies and then we discuss it. We also play this object and principle game where you choose a random object then you have to relate it to a principle such as the restoration, our life on earth, baptism, etc... Or we go over lessons we have for that day.
*What is your favorite chapter or part of PMG? All of it is good 
*What do you usually eat for breakfast? 5 eggs scrambled
*What time do you leave your apartment? 10. the first 12 weeks i would have to stay in till 12
*Do you ever proselyte on the street or in shops? Yes we do street contacting but mostly talking to people that walk past while were tracting. St. Paul kinda sucks for street contacting.
*What time do you eat lunch? 12
*How long is your lunch? 1 hr
*Do you eat lunch at your apartment or out? apartment 
*Do you share your groceries with your comp? Not really
*Do you get a drink or snack every day from the little stores around? Slurpees mostly
*What is the craziest thing you have done on your mission? cant say over email
*What do you consider to be the most spiritual experience you've had on your mission so far? Teaching the restoration and reciting the first vision to a lady we tracted into while street contacting.  
*What time do you exercise? 6:34 am
*What time do you have to be in your apartment at night? 9 or 9:30 if were in an appointment 
*What time do you go to bed? 10:30
*Is it easy or hard to fall asleep? Easy
*What time do you leave your apartment on P-Days? After were done cleaning and doing laundry 
*What time is P-Day over? 5 pm
*How often do you go on splits or exchanges and who do you go with? We go on splits with the zone leaders once a transfer and twice with our district leader a transfer.
*What do you do on your P-Day's besides laundry and email? Theres absolutely nothing to do in St. Paul on P-day and no missionaries within at least an hr away so we just sleep and email and go to the store.
*When have you felt the spirit the strongest? Confirming Udo a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Have a great week! 
Elder Wood

Elder Wood's bed - He has done that to his pillow since he was tiny. Made me laugh when I saw it

Temple Day during their visit to Edmonton

He has always had a thing for pigs...

The Hatch family gives him fresh milk straight from the farm. Elder Wood loves it!

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Mission Conference and Transfers

 
Elder Wood got to see his MTC companion Elder Clinger at the mission conference this last week.
 
 
This week we went into the city for a mission tour. Elder Martino of the seventy came and spoke to us about working not just harder but smarter. Our mission has goal to baptise transferly and he spoke to us on how we'll be able to do that. He talked to us about how we need to push meeting with less active members and finding all of the families that have kids over the age of 9 that need to get baptised. It was super good. Here in St. Paul we have tons and tons of less active members. Thats not even including the Native people that live in Saddle Lake. So were gona focus a lot on them and getting them back to church. After our mission tour in the city me and my companion got permission to go shopping for winter clothes so of course we went to Cabelas:) I got super trunky when I walked in that place. haha It was sweet though. Everytime we go in the city and stay there its like a mini missionary vacation. haha Also this week we went and did work out in Saddle Lake. We try and go out to the reserve once a week now. The native people that we meet with out there are super cool! They are  totally open to hearing our message. And free Books of Mormon. haha Its super fun teaching them and doing work out there though. At first my companion was super scared to go out there but he's finally opening up. One family offered to take us hunting and fishing with them. The native people get to hunt whenever and wherever here in Canada as part of some treaty with the government so thats pretty cool. Another family offered to take us horse back riding. The families love meeting with the missionaries. Not necessarily going to church but its all good. haha We have seen the blessing that come from talking with everybody this week. We got alot of Potential Investigators this week that i am excited to go follow up on. Transfer calls came this morning and I am going to be staying here in St. Paul and my companion is going into the city. 'Im glad that i am staying here in St. Paul I love the small branch and all of the people in it.
And I love the geese that are migrating right through here.  ITS GREAT!
Elder Wood
 
So....who's idea was it to send an avid goose hunter to Canada? hahaha! This is what we get pictures of lately. Gosh I love him!

 


Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Awesome Week!!

Elder Wood and newly baptized member... Brother Mueller


This week was full of service and fun! We helped one of our less active members in the branch cut tons of wood for her for this winter. She lives in a little tiny town about 30 min out of town. Its a cool place called Foisy. We also helped our branch president butcher the pig for the pig roast that was this Saturday. That was a great time! I wanted to do the honors of shooting the pig but he wouldnt let me and i guess its in the white hand book no fire arms.. its all good. Most importantly Udo was baptized Saturday!! It was sooo awesome! Everybody from the stake also came because the next day we had Branch Conference. He was nervous I think because he is kind of a shy guy but as it went on I could tell he was full of peace and and joy! He planned the program and chose all of the songs and music and so it went perfectly planned how he wanted it. Lots of singing but that is perfect for Udo. After the baptism we had the pig roast and that was tons of fun! Also with the pig we had a Chile cook off. Udo won the cook off last year and he was determined to win it this year. haha our branch gets so into it! Anyways Udo won it again this year. Hes a dang good cook. He thought we planned the baptism at 4 so he wouldnt have time to get his chile prepared for the pig roast but he still won:) Branch conference was amazing. We confirmed Udo as the newest member of the church and it was probably the coolest thing ive ever experienced. The spirit was so strong and the whole branch was balling. Everybody loves Udo in the branch. They changed the branch presidency around so there is alot of change in the little branch of St. Paul kinda weird. Our stake president is such a good speaker and it was the best sacrament meeting ive ever been apart of! Hes so solid. He talked on hastening the work. its been an amazing week her in St. Paul. Happy birthday S/O to my wonderful mother! Shes the best mom in the world:)

Elder Wood servin up swine


Roasted Pig

Baby Bear


Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Snow Flurries

 
Indian Reserve Stop Sign
 
 
*Stetson also wrote us a letter this week and told us that he saw the local high school football practicing and struck up a conversation with the head coach and offensive line coach. They want him to come and again and give the boys some tips. He was so excited to help out.
 
Another great week! We worked alot this week and got alot done! We have a couple indian reserves around St. Paul that we cover so we went to the Saddle Lake indian reserve and did a lot of tracting down. Were not aloud to tract on the reserve but were aloud to street contact.. Weird i know.. but there is a lot of Natives out there that are members of our church that havent been to church for YEARS! Most of them are actually super cool and like the missionaries. We did exchanges this week again and I went up to Cherry Grove for a couple days. I love it up there. we met with Udo a couple times this week and he is doin great! He is super excited for his baptism this week. He had his interview yesterday and he is all ready to go! I think im more excited then he is actually.. 
Its already super cold here. its just about freezing today and there is little snow flurries. It came super fast. Ive been freezing for a couple weeks now and everybody makes fun of me. People walk around in there shorts and t shirts up here when its freezing. There nuts. Next week expect lots of cool pictures but this week i didnt really take any...  

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Rodeo Week

Elder Wood collected money at the local parade for the food bank


What a great week. We had a amazing lesson with that lady that we ran into on the road that wanted to hear what we have to say. We taught her the restoration and its probably the best lesson ive had since being on a mission. The spirit was SOOO strong! At the end of the lesson we committed her to baptism. It was a picture perfect lesson. This week in St. Paul was rodeo week! They do tons of stuff for rodeo week including a parade at the end of the week. Me and my companion got to be in the parade with the food bank. We volunteer at the food bank each week. We helped them build the float and then walked with them and collected money. It was a blast!  Before it started I saw that there was a Philippines float so I had to go get a picture with it to send to my sister! Also that night we went to the St. Paul rodeo! Its been a great week! We had to speak in church again this week.. It went good. I spoke on the holy ghost and my comp spoke on the Book of Mormon. They had out branch mission leader speak as well because they learned there lesson last time. hahah


The Filipino float (for Courtnee)
 
local Filipino's

Elder Wood and Elder Blatter helped build the float for the food bank

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Udo!!

Elder Wood didn't send any pictures this week. So I chose one of my favorites :)


So I'll cut right to it. Udo M.  the investigator of ours that got to go to Utah and sing with the Mormon Tabernacle choir and tour temple square with my family is getting baptized on September 13th!
He had an amazing experience there, and all of his questions and concerns were answered while he was there. We met with him twice this week and have had awesome experiences. Im so stoked! He's the coolest and nicest guy you'll ever meet. The rest of the week has been a pretty average week. We tracted a ton this week and not to much luck, but its all good we have some pretty cool stuff to look forward to.
We just gotta keep working hard. Yesterday we had a cool experience while street contacting. A lady came up to us and just wanted to know what we talk to people about because she said she always sees us walking around. We talked to her about who we were and pulled the golden restoration pamphlet out and talked about our unique message to the world and she was totally interested so we have a return appointment with her this Thursday. We waited until Thursday because we have exchanges Tuesday and Wednesday and I'm not missing out on another appointment. haha
Have a great week
Church is true,
Elder Wood

Brother M. on his visit to temple square

Singing as a guest of the tabernacle choir

Monday, August 11, 2014

Cold Lake

Elder Wood said this was the best pizza he's ever eaten!!

The District


Its been a good week! 
So we had exchanges this week so I was up in Cold Lake for the first part of the week and I love it there! The missionaries up there have a weight set in there apartment so I LOVE going there! And then the next day me and my companion had to go into the city because he had a doctors appointments and also we had ZTM so we stayed at the mission home on Wednesday. My companion has had stomach cramps so he thought it was kidney stones. Turns out that he was fine, no stones.   ZTM was great. Its always nice to see other missionaries. One of our investigators here in St. Paul spent time in Utah this week and my parents were able to take him around temple square and to the Ogden temple open house and he got home Saturday night and came to church the next day so we were able to talk a little bit but we have a lesson with him tonight that I cant wait for! Hes the coolest guy and also one of the most active people in our branch. HE"S READY. Ill let you guys know next week how it goes. Also Sunday we had a lesson with 2 ladies we tracted into in Elk Point that went awesome!!! Finally. I"ll also keep you updated on them as well. While we were in Elk Point this week tracting I heard a bunch of guys talking in a garage and I noticed that they were Philippines and were speaking Tagalog and I remembered we had a Tagolag restoration pamphlet so I ran back to the car and got it and talked with them. Turns out they're from a city kind of by Laoag where Courtnee my sister is serving so we talked about that and had a good discussion with them. No wonder my sister is having such good luck, Filipino people are so easy to talk to.... haha That pretty much sums up my week. 
Have a great week everyone!!
Elder Wood.





Monday, August 4, 2014

I Don't Drink Coke


Meet Garry, the Branch mission leader. We had dinner with them out at the lake by St. Paul called Lac Bellview way sick


Soo this week has been a slow week... Nothing to exciting happened all week. We worked everyday and haven't had the most luck but something pretty interesting happened yesterday while tracting. 
We knocked on this door and a guy answers it and we talk and introduce ourselves and we start kinda going back and forth because hes way into the bible and not meaning for it to go this way it gets kinda heated so hes like fine. Come in lets talk. So we go in and his wife and another couple are sitting there and hes like we got some Mormons here that are going to answer some questions for us. hahaha im just thinkin to myself im so screwed. I dont know the bible well at all. Hes like I'd offer you some tea or a coke but I know you dont drink that stuff so you can have water. My companion is  like NOPE we drink coke! You have to realize its kinda heated and I dont drink pop but this guy was trying to get to us so we both said we would love a Coke! So we both sit down drink our Cokes and talk. I havent had a coke since I was about 10. It felt horrible. So we sat and bible bashed (well mostly my companion) and I just once in a while threw my two sense in then listened to them go back and forth. hahaha I loved it!! They were throwing bible scriptures everywhere... I had to be careful what I said tho because I'm not the best at backing it up. I never listened in seminary and got my bible scripture masteries down and my companion did and it helped im so much! I kinda regret it now... So things were heated for about an hour strait so im finally just said This isnt going to go anywhere, I think we both know that. We testified what we knew to be true and told them we had a dinner appointments we were late to. We left them two Books of Mormon and a restoration pamphlet. Before we left the lady said lets pray! So out of know where she starts doin some halleljuia prayer and the three other people were sayin amen after everything she said and I honestly couldnt help myself. I  was about to burst out laughing. hahahah such a cool experience. 
Well that really was the coolest thing that happened this week. Life is great here in St. Paul.
Have a great week,
Elder Wood

Monday, July 28, 2014

Exchanges

Elder Wood


This week we had exchanges on  with the zone leaders and i stayed up here in St. Paul. 
Elder Sorenson is who i was with and he is total stud of a missionary. We Tracted the whole time pretty much because we didnt have any appointments but we found 3 new potential Investigators in one night! It was great. We already taught one of them again about the restoration and things are going great with her:) 
Things are starting to pick up here in the St. Paul area! We have a lot of less actives in the area so that has been a big focus lately to meet with all of them and get things goin so that is what we have been doin a lot lately. 
This week the primary president asked if i would teach in sharing time about the Holy Ghost so this week I prepared for that and then Friday night our 2nd councelor in the branch presidency called and asked us if we would speak in sacrament meeting... So last second we had to throw stuff together and get talks ready for Sunday. I spoke on the role of members in missionary work and my companion spoke on the Plan of Salvation. Kinda random but it was good. Our branch takes about 15 min to get started and get through the sacrament. I wasnt even thinking about that! I spoke first and talked for like 15 min then i got done and we still had like 35 min! hahaha i sat down and my companion look at me and just said. " you suck so bad. " I looked at the clock and I almost lost it up on the stand. hahahaha:) by time he got done we had like 20 minutes till it ended so our branch president just got up and talked a little bit. It was good sacrament though. And the talk in sharing time went great! We had a big primaryon Sunday because of visitors (10 kids). 
That was my week in a nut shell... 
Have a great week,
Elder Wood

Studying hard

Monday, July 21, 2014

Answered Prayers



Elder Wood in his workout....tights?


Its been a good week. Since last week wasn't the most successful week we worked a lot harder this week to find investigators. We did a ton of service this week as well. We do service for the local food bank and they got a huge shipment in of like 30 pallets of food so we unloaded food FOR EVER on Tuesday. We got a big huge box of little honey packets so thats good! Instead of peanut butter and jelly everyday I can go with the change up:) After doing service for most of the day on Tuesday we went out to a town called Elk Point where we thought we would go tracting for about 30 min before our dinner appointment. When i woke up that day i just had this way good feeling that we were gona find somebody so i was way excited! We knocked a street and didnt have any luck and we had to go soon so i was determined that we were gonna find somebody. We walked across the street to a lady watering her garden so i introduced ourselves and told her about who we are and she actually seemed interested so we talked a little bit more and then she talked about how shes been curious about religion recently and has been listening to religion radio stations and such trying to find more information on questions she had.  She talked about the bible so i introduced her to the Book of Mormon and talked a little bit about it and how it compares to the bible and how it contains the full gospel of Christ and the answers to all her questions. She said I've always wondered what the he** I'm doing here!!" I got so happy. Once again I said this book has those answers. Then she said "I'm gonna have to get a copy of one of those!" I gave her my Book of Mormon and a restoration pamphlet and asked if we could come back tomorrow and talk a little bit more about it. She said we could! I walked away from that house soo happy knowing that my prayers were answered and that we could finally teach somebody! We got to the next house and i remembered that the next day i had exchanges and i was going up to Cherry Grove. I was sooo mad!! Words can explain how mad i was. Its okay though..  when i got back from exchanges my companion said she had a no show and then was busy so she said to pray for her when to come back...? I dont even care cuz now i get to teach her the first lesson and baptize her:) oh and my companion told me this week that i have to much greenie fire... not gonna argue that one but St. Paul definitely humbles that fire. haha sorry to go off on one experience but that was probably the highlight of the week... Exchanges were sweet Cherry Grove is a way cool place. Its a huge Mormon community in the middle of no where right by Cold Lake. Our apartment there is in a basement of an old farm house with an awesome couple that lives there. It was pretty much just like visiting grandma and grandpas house. That night there we played floor hockey with a nonmember family that the missionaries are teaching up there. It got way intense! We were still in our missionary clothes and by time we were done we were soaked in sweat! And also the Elder i was with broke his foot while playing so i spent that whole night there in the hospital waiting with him.. We were there til about 1 in the morning but we got to sleep in the next day so it was all good. And they drive a 2014 Chevy truck so i got to drive that around for two days. It was sweet. And one of the Elders in my zone hooked me up with a Enya CD that pretty much made my life. We listen to it over and over in the car. My companion hates me. That was pretty much my week...
Have a great week everyone,
Elder Wood
Hail in St. Paul

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

A Day In The Life.....

7-11 Free Slurpee Day

Apparently Elder Wood is not doing his dishes :/


Todays been a slooow week. Good week though. We did'nt have one lesson this week. Every single person was a no show. haha its so frustrating! Yesterday we tracted for about 7 hrs and didnt get one potential investigator. We do lots of service around here for the community and were the go to people for our little branch whenever people need help with something so service keeps us pretty busy a lot.
My day kinda goes like this. Wake up workout. Go to the local track or park and do pull ups on the jungle gym toy then we study for three hours. Every missionary that starts out is on a 12 week program that allows you and your companion to have an extra hour of study. Then we do service or eat lunch and then tract till dinner. After dinner we tract and then go to bed. Then repeat every day:) Days go forever but the weeks go by fast! So yea i dont have any stories to tell about investigators cuz our 2 investigators are on trips:) were gona keep working hard though to get some more! These last couple days ive been starving cuz i eat all my food within just a couple days! haha i had to learn the hard way this week. And they forgot to pass the clip board around this week in relief society so we pretty much ate chips and apples for dinner all week. Church was awesome this week. The patriarch came and spoke with his wife and they both gave really good talks. He spoke on marriage and then to me and Elder Blatter about finding the right girl to marry. Yes he talked to us because were the only two in sacrament that are close to marrying age. haha we actually had a lot of people this week in sacrament because two families were visiting. Everybody goes crazy at church when something like that happens here. It reminds me of the movie cars. haha they doubled all the young mens and young womens and primary classes just from there families. 7/11 was this week so you already know i made my companion drive to 7/11 to get us free slurpees! Oh i guess something exciting happened today! I found a pull up bar at the local store so now i dont have to go to the jungle gym toy thing. haha
Thank you everybody for the great support back at home im grateful for such awesome friends and family, im grateful for this gospel and the opportunity to serve the lord for two years and ive already seen it change me, for the good. Im grateful for Jabari Parker going to the Bucks, im grateful for Lebron going back to the Cavs. There is so much to be grateful for.   -Elder Wood
 
 


Elder Wood's apartment

Happy to see that he made his bed