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!

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!

 

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

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...  

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