December 27

Hey! So before I forget, what I was saying about pdays on the Skype call is that we never really know when we are going to have our pday in the week haha so if you want to make sure that I get your email just email Sunday night and you’ll be good

Turns out everyone one was right, Christmas on the mission really is unforgettable.

So we have this family that we are teaching from the Congo and about two or 3 weeks ago their house burned down, they all survived but the story is just so crazy, their dad is injured the worst and he has to stay in the hospital for another 4 weeks. And so last Saturday we were suppose to do a Skype call with the new missionaries but instead President Pratt took sister claus and I out shopping and just left the APs to do the Skype call haha. It was so fun, we just went to the mall and to Walmart and bought a bunch of stuff that their family needed, we found out that we are not the best shoppers haha we were all just running around in circles! Then Christmas eve we drove to their house and put all the presents on the door step and hid and waited for them to get home from the hospital from visiting their dad! It was so special! They were so excited! 

Then Christmas Day we played exploding kittens and werewolf with our district haha it was fun! But not as fun as Skyping you guys! Ugh seeing your faces and hearing your voices was just the best thing in the world!

After that we headed over to the Pratts! I still can’t believe that we got to spend Christmas with them haha they said that they had never had missionaries over for Christmas yet they have 3 of their daughters here and 2 of their grandkids (violet and Shepard) their daughters remind me a lot of my older sisters and it was just so fun playing with the kids! Dinner was DELICIOUS! But the best part of the night was playing mouth guard hahahaha if you don’t know what game I am talking about look it up! Oh my goodness it was so so so hilarious!!! Sister Pratt took some convincing to play haha she was like “I need to be dignified” but then her daughters convinced her. When it was Sister Pratts turn we were all crying we were laughing so hard. President Pratt could hardly handle it hahah. That is something I never dreamed I would get to see on my mission hahaha hands down it was the best Christmas ️

I love you all so much!

December 20, 2017

Hello, hello sooo transfers happened........

bye bye Amherst!:'(

I am being transferred to dartmouth to be an stlt ahhhh! that means a lot of different conferences and training to prepare and a lot of time with president pratt(which I am very excited about:))I am so nervous though haha I need to be such a good example for all of the sisters in the mission. I feel like I am going to learn so much and that is what I am most excited about! Since the beginning of my mission I have prayed for help to have both feet in the mission and I definitely see this as a big opportunity to do that. I want to serve with all I've got, with all of my mind, and talents and that is what this calling will require!

It's hard to leave amherst and everyone here right before christmas. It's crazy how on your mission you just become apart of so many peoples lives. I've learned how to hold in the tears better haha I mostly just cry when I read letters:) We went and said goodbye to nicole this morning, that was hard, i really really hope that she keeps reading the book of mormon and receives an answer that it's true! she hasn't come to church yet because she has been singing in the choir at the united church but they just had their big christmas performance and so she should be able to come now! We went to watch her and it was really cool, the united church is huge and has these giant glass stained windows and a giant organ. It's a beautiful building and our building in amherst is so small but I hope that at church she looks past that and pays more attention to how she feels inside. Our other investigator randi is on date for the 6th of january. she is still battling to quit smoking so we don't know if she will make that date but hopefully sometime in January she will be baptized! I am going to miss our lessons with Chloe (the 12 year old) a lot haha she cracks me up. She comes up with the most funny analogies for things and we just sit there an patiently listen until she finds the right analogy that she likes. The other day she was trying to compare enos begging for forgiveness to a kid begging for a phone haha but she didn't end up really liking that one. I am going to miss the lee wens crazy family a lot haha helena is one of a kind! Laurie murphay is a less active that we have been working with and I think this next year she will make it to the temple!! I gave a talk the other sunday about the importance of daily scripture study and she said that is really touched her, there was this one quote that went something like "filling ourselves daily with the word of God is more important than work, school, sleep (there were some other things listed too but I can't remember what they were). It just really puts it into perspective though. God is number one in our lives, but do our daily actions show that? If someone were to look at the layout of our day yesterday, would they know that we have a faith in Christ and that we are members of His church. Would they know that living the gospel is our number one priority? Maybe we are not making a sufficient enough effort to apply the gospel of Christ into our everyday lives:) and the easiest way to learn how to apply the gospel is to study the gospel; faith in Christ and his atonement, repentance, baptism (keeping/making covenants, recieving the gift or receiving more of the  gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. Recently I read this really awesome talk by Robert d Hales called "behold, we count them happy which endure" and it's really good. I love learning about endurance. Endurance running is something that I've always (weirdly) liked haha I can't wait to just go on the longest run by myself when I get home! So many times when we learn about enduring to the end it is compared to running race. Something elder hales says is that we are not just sent to earth to start the race, we were sent to finish the race! in other words; we were not just sent to the earth to be born, we were went to endure and return to our Heavenly Father with honor. 

it has been amazing to be so focused on Christ this Christmas. Take away all the lights, and the trees and the music and the presents and what is left? A little baby in a manger:)

I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!!! I can't believe that I get to talk to my family in 5 days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

love sister wood

December 13, 2017

CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!

Ok so next tuesday we find out if we are being transferred and so pday is on a wednesday again, so I will let you know next week if I am leaving amherst or not. We'll be aloud to email you again if we are being transferd so that we can set up a time to do the skype call! I can't believe how fast it is coming!! tomorrow is my 6 months mark and I feel like i've been out for a month! but then I think back to the MTC and that seems like ages ago haha!

We had our christmas conference yesterday and it was so much fun! there we talks given about Christ and HIs birth. President and sister Pratt told us christmas stories, we had a big christmas dinner, there were musical numbers, we sang christmas carols and then we did a big white elephant gift exchange! The gift I ended up with was from elder olsen and it was a moose stuffy and a president trump chocolate bar and a new world translation bible that he got from a Jehovahs witness haha. Elder phillips who is one of my zone leaders got my gift, it was a big fuzzy blanket with a moose on it and some canadian candies haha. Our district also exchanged our secret santa gifts and I got the sweetest present from elder Olmsted. it's called a "wanderer's bracelet" and it has the coordinates of my first area on it(st.johns) he had jasper who is this ysa recent convert order it haha it is so awesome and it made me feel bad about my dollar store presents I got for elder clark.

Caroling on the mission is probably one of the most fun things I've done in my life haha. Last thursday was the first time we did it and the very first house we went to ( we went to a area where it is all just seniors) we were so nervous and excited and I knocked on the door and then we saw the grandpa living there get out of his chair so we quickly decided what song to sing and just before he got to the door we started singing and then he just looked through the binds on the door and turned around hahah we thought that maybe he was going to get his wife or something so we kept singing but he just never came back hahah. other than that all of the other houses were awesome! and the last house we went to was the best. It was this really old lady who had just had a hip replacement and her son and daughter were over and so they opened the door but as soon as she heard us singing she just sprung right up and started shaking her hips back and forth and they kinda had to calm her down a little bit haha but she just loved us so so much and they gave us a bag of popcorn at the end:)

sunday we had our first real snow fall and so after church the lee wens said that they have a tradition that they have to hit a missionary with a snowball after the first snow fall and so after church we all got into this big snowball fight:D it was so much fun. We also had our branch christmas potuck this past week and it went well, there were a few less actives who came, but the best part was that the zeltners (who are LA) came to church the next day!! I am preparing myself to be wiping out a lot this winter, sister lefter has already wiped out once down these people's driveway haha and the mom inside saw and asked if we were alright and we were just dying laughing! my bad circulation is catching up with me haha I feel like i am just walking on nubs haha but the power of our message keeps me motivated and there is always something to laugh about, my time as a missionary is so short and so there is now time to complain. I think living up in edmonton definitely prepared me to come here haha

oh also I got all of the christmas packages at zone conference!! haha I looked crazy with how many packages were for me, I had to explain to people that my birthday is this month too haha but I am just so grateful for every single package and letter and email! I know that I am love<3

there is more that I wish I could write but time is up!

thought for the week "Who is righteous? ANYONE who is Repenting it doesn't matter what choices you've made, or if you feel like you are a good or bad person, if you are not repenting you're wicked and if you are repenting you're righteous" 

I hope that each day we can strive to become more like our savior, that is the greatest gift to give:)

love sister wood  

December 5, 2017

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!! 

I am just a little excited for christmas and also for christmas president pratt approved any music that brings the spirit and so today went to a music store and I bought the josh groban cd and we have been listening to the "believe" song from the polar express (your fav show ry) on repeat haha also happy early birthday rylee!!! There is no one as smiley and sweet as you:) I miss our sleepovers in the playhouse a lot but I'm sure when I get back mikey will let us have a least one haha. So this girl coralee who the elders in moncton are teaching has wanted to be baptized for a long time but her dad hasn't let her but he has finally softened up and she is getting baptized on the 16th! so this morning we drove to moncton and had breakfast with her and then we played scum with the missionaries and her at the church. 

Well today for light the world is honour thy father and thy mother and so mom and dad THANKYOU!! I can't give you a call with the situation we are in haha but you guys are the most amazing parents. you have done everything for me and I just will never be able to express to you how grateful I am. It has been so cool to hear what experiences you are having since i've left on my mission, you are both such good disciples of christ:) I'm sorry this isn't very long but I love you so much and am so grateful for your strength. Growing up I always knew that if my testimony was struggling, I could lean on yours. 

have an awesome week!

love sister wood!

November 28, 2017

A letter from last week--

I'm back!!! haha we were in monton before but now we are in amherst and we got on the library computers here. 

so anyway that talk is really good, one part in it says "Brothers and sisters , we have to stay with it. WE don't acquire eternal life in a sprint- this is a race of endurance. We have to apply and reapply the divine gospel principles. Day after day we need to make them part of our normal life." We are working with this lady named laurie, she's a member but is struggling to do the things that she knows she needs to do to get a temple recommend and receive her endowment. She's always told herself that she'll be better at reading her scriptures ONCE her life gets back to "normal" but recently she's realized that her life is never going to be this perfect non stressful "normal" life that she keeps imagining. I have definitely told myself that I will be better at something when life gets back to normal... but what will happen the next time when life gets crazy and busy again?there will always be things that will pop up and that will keeps us busy and it's in those times where we need to act and where we will realize where our priorities are. Sometimes we might disappoint ourselves when we realize that our priorities aren't where we know they should be or where we thought they were but there is always time to change:) Don't put change off until a later date. In zone conference president Pratt told us about the danger of having an attitude of "when I grow up..." we ARE grown up! and now is the time to be the person that you said your were going to be. and in my case, now is the time to be the missionary that I was going to be. I've been lacking faith without even really realizing it but now i see it. I lacked faith that the investigators we were teaching would be baptized and that they would even want to be baptized. I lacked faith in a lot of things, faith that our message of the gospel is for everyone, faith that people would actually change their lifestyles to accept it, but ultimately I lacked faith in God. This past week though we were promised that if we worked as hard as we could we would find a new investigator and we did, randy and 3 kids, and I was reminded of my purpose. I've learned that I need to have more faith in our message, higher expectations. I've learned that I really do want to teach people and to have more trust that God will fulfill His promises. I also learned that I need to get on my knees more and ask for help. I am so inadequate, I don't know where the people are that are being prepared to accept the gospel and I don't know what it is that they need to hear, but God does and He wants to help but I just need to ask:) During this one point of zone conference I was feeling pretty overwhelmed and down because there are just so many things that I expect of myself and so many things that God expects of me and I just knew that I could never measure up but then sister pratt said something that I think was directly from God, and was meant right for me at that moment, she said, "If you are struggling then GOOD FOR YOU!" and I looked up and in my head i was like what, in my case struggling meant that I was unorganized, that I didn't understand my purpose, that someone else could do the job better than I could. and then sister pratt continued with, "You are doing what you were meant to do when you came here...you are changing." I hope that if you are struggling right now that you will let this touch your heart. Our Heavenly Father loves us but He is more concerned about our progress than our comfort, and we should be too. 

something else that president Uchtdorf says in the talk is "Knowing that the seed is good is not enough" so many of us know that the gospel is true , we know that it's "good" but we don't nourish it...why? do we think that it's not worth our time or effort, do we lack faith in God's promised blessings, do we forget to put our spiritual goggles on, like elder stevenson has said, and only care about our wants here on this earth and not about our eternal well-being? He says "by patiently walking in the path of discipleship, we demonstrate to ourselves the measure of our faith and our willingness to accept gods will rather than our own." IN that other talk about real intent the question is asked, "am I going to do what god wants or am I going to do what I want" this I what I had to ask myself before I served a mission and once we narrow down our problem or concern to it's core and realize that this is the real question we are asking ourselves, how we answer it can really be a make it or brake it moment in our lives. 

there are so many other things I want to write about but now I am really out of time haha. If you have time between all of these other talks that I've said you should read you should also read or listen to "understand who you are" haha by robert c. oaks 

also we taught this lesson to this guys luciano and his family last night but his house was out in the middle of no where and was so sketchy driving to and we just thought that we were going to get murdered out there. we pulled up to this dark falling apart garage and then these two people with flashlights were walking towards us haha but he turned out to be the nicest guy and his 3 kids are so sweet!

have a great week! 

love sister wood

A letter for this week--

So we just finished up some solid grocery shopping at the dollar store, got a loaf of bread some pasta sauce and some glow stick bracelets for our light the world FHE with the Lee wens tonight. My current balance on the mission card is $2 and 40 something cents hahahah I promise it is not like this all the time though, our cards get reloaded at the beginning of each month so end of the month shopping is always a little iffy haha but we will survive!

We have 4 appointments tomorrow so thats shy our pday is today. We are meeting with John who is a paramedic and a new investigator at 9am then sarah who is the only ysa here and is less active but coming back at 11 then nicole at 1 and then randy at 4. Yesturday randy and Chloe were suppose to come to church but neither of them came. We walked over to randy's at 9 yesterday to help her get her kids ready for church but when we got there she had just gotten up and she said that her kids were sick and she didn't want to wake them up:( we are worried about her real intent and if she is willing to put in the effort to find answers for herself. Chloe is 12 and is so smart she asks really good questions. right now she has a baptismal date for december 30th.

This past week we helped out at the moncton parade haha the float was a little bit of a disaster but we worked with what we had. The parade had a theme to go with canada over the past 150 years and so the float was a covered wagon. We also had the miramicha sisters in amherst for exchanges this week on friday and saturday. This is sister greens first transfer (she's a greeny haha) and apparently she was in my ysa ward in edmonton!! haha what the heck! She's so awesome and I'm so glad that she chose to come out on a msission:) she told me that bradly pierson got called to this mission too!

I hope that you are all getting ready to do light the world!! acts 20;35 says "it is more blessed to give than to receive" and that is what christmas should be all about, giving :)

also happy early birthday michaela!<3

love sister wood

 

 

November 22, 2017

Hey everyone!

sorry I forgot to say last week that pday would be on Wednesday this week because we had zone conference last week. Also we only have an hour this week to email so sorry that all the emails are short. I got boots and a winter coat today so that was a tender mercy haha.

ahhh the computer is going to kick me off in ten minutes this is like worse than writing a diploma. Ok where to start. We did a comp study with the summerside sisters and we did in on having real intent. In preparation we read this talk that was so awesome, I learned to much.

ask yourself the question "why" more often. why do we do everything that we do? one example for me is in seminary I think the why behind why I memorized scripture masteries was to get stickers, not to actually learn what the scripture was trying to teach me. that is an example of a bad "why" haha and probably why I don't remember a lot of the scripture masteries.

when it's freezing outside and we are knocking the I have to ask myself why a lot and as soon as I do I can't hold back the smile. The other night we were literally running door to door to try and stay warm haha it was pouring and we were completely drenched and I just yelled out why and we just started shouting out a bunch of different reasons why we were out knocking, I think that is one of my favourite times on my mission so far:).

everyone needs to read the way of discipleship by elder uchtdorf it is so good and I am out of time there is so much more that happened this week that I have to write about but Ill try and remember for next week

love you!!

November 14, 2017

Christmas is in the air!! :D

the christmas parade that we are in is this weekend and I am pooping my pants haha I really hope that everything falls into place for it and that it's not a disaster. Being on a mission has made me appreciate well functioning wards so much haha. The branch here in amherst though is awesome and I love all of the members soo much. This past week was the primary presentation, there are 5 kids in the primary (4 from the lee wens family and 1 from the ackroyds family) and they did so good:)

sister lefler is finally here in amherst and apparently she used to be in barnwell 1st ward! haha what the heck! She knew sadie and brynn. Yesterday we did our companion swap, we met the other sisters in hampton in new brunswick, but me and sister ceron were late because our car wouldn't start so we ended up taking the elders car haha hopefully are car survives the winter! it's not even that cold here yet! I think that our investigator tony is slowly dropping us:( He said "I will just give you guys a call" which is never a good sign. He is strugling with making God the biggest priority in his life. Nicole is still doing well though, she reading the book of mormon every day. this week president pratt has made a promise to all of the missionaries that, if we work hard, we will all find a new investigator this week. I just want to find someone to teach so bad! we have been struggling to find people here in amherst. Yesterday though we found some really cool potentials and I am so excited. We were walking, trying to find this one road that we had planned to knock but we couldn't find it but we ended up talking to this one mother and her kids and apparently the missionaries had taught them before but they had just lost contact. she said that her kids have been asking when the sisters were going to come back:)! 

I am so excited for christmas, and caroling and shoveling people's snow. I'm going to do a secret santa in our district too haha

i love you all so much!

love sister wood

November 8, 2017

Hey!:D

I forgot to tell you last week that pday is on a wednesday this week because of transfers! sister auvigne and sister nowlon are both leaving me to be STLs in different areas!! I am kinda stressed but I am excited to meet my new companion, sister lefler. She won't get to amherst until monday though so until then my companion will be sister seron. on thursday I will pick her up. 

hmm ok what happened this week. tony came to sacrament meeting and was able to listen to everyone's testimonies and really enjoyed it. at first we were so sad because he said he was going to come and then the meeting started and he still wasn't there but then we heard the automatic doors opening and we got so excited because we knew it was tony coming in with his chair:)

We did fhe with the lee wens ( the family of 6) and it was so much fun. everyone had to pick a name out of a jar and that is who they are going to do secret acts of service for throughout the week, then we played the squirt bottle game where someone stands in the middle and thinks of a colour or something and then everyone has to guess and if you guess right then you get squirted haha idk if it is an actual game or just a game that we made up while we were growing up but the kids loved it, i think they just liked squirting their siblings:) 

so a couple weeks ago we picked up annie as an investigaor but she has officailly been dropped now haha i don't know if it was really us who did the dropping or her, all i know is that we will not be going back to her house. saturday we went over and taught her a lesson on the porch, she brought out her rat and then she invited us to come into her home and oh my i have never smelt anything so bad. I just can't even describe how bad it was haha I am just laughing looking back now, we were all just gagging and trying not to let her see. after that fun tour we asked her if she'd come to church with us and she said she wasn't sure yet so we told her we'd come by in the morning. So sunday morning came and we drove over to annies and knocked on the door, and long story short she was not in the mood to come to church.... at all haha i don't think annie is a morning person. monday we decided to stop by again because we were a little concerned for her. we knocked on her door, she didn't open it but she asked who it was and we said the sisters, and then through out all the swearing we heard something about calling the cops so we just kinda started running away down the street haha it sounds bad but I promise it was funny. I just wish you could all know annie:)

we had the miramichi sisters and then the summerside sisters in amherst for exchanges this past week and it was lots of fun. I love working with new sisters and seeing how they are doing. I have learned a lot this past transfer about what I need to do better as an STL and I am excited to try out some new things. the mission has been struggling with finding new investigators lately. We need to set higher expectations for ourselves. 

Happy early birthday dad!!!! This is embarrassing but I forget how old you are turning haha i think it might be 53... or maybe 54. good thing abby is around to keep you young!:) I love you so much. thankyou for helping me get out here on my mission and for teaching me to work hard. You are so patient and that is something I am trying to work on and so I often think of you and what you would do:) 

I love you!

love sister wood

ps. you should all read continue in patience by elder uchtdorf 

October 31, 2017

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

This week was pretty crazy, we went to Halifax for our exchanges with the STLTs haha(sister training leader trainers)  and then on Saturday we had our branch Halloween party hahah not the biggest success but it is something we can look back and laugh at now. Basically every one that said they were going to come started to cancel throughout the day and the whole day we were just joking about how sister Goodwin (a lady in the ward) would still come and low and behold when 5:30 rolled around who was the one person to pull up in the parking lot hahah sister Goodwin in her hobo costume,  we were dying laughing haha. The lee Wens ended up staying too, I love that family, they are so awesome, and then just as we decided we should start packing up a less active walked through the door so we kept the party rolling haha.

some sad news, millie dropped us:( she said that the book of Mormon tells her to seek knowledge and so she is going to seek knowledge in the Baptist church... I know right hahah not exactly what you expect someone to take from the book of Mormon. Some very very happy news though is the 3 recent converts in Amherst got to go to the temple on Saturday! They all had an amazing time they said. they went to a Chinese buffet after though and apparently the food was now the best and they were all in the bathrooms after haha .

We gave a training in district meeting about using God's time in the best way. We talked about how we can be doing good things but if we don't have the real intent behind it then we are not going to profit anything from it, to show this made these cupcakes and gave them to everyone but after one bite they found out that the good looking cupcakes weren't good at all. we packed those cupcakes with so much nasty stuff haha it was a good time.

this week I was reading this talk about happiness and I can't remember what it's called but it's by elder Holland. I loved this one line in it that went something like. "happiness is like a butterfly. the more we chase after it the more it will elude us. but when we turn our focus towards other things it will come and land softly on our shoulder" in the talk it tells us what those "other things" are that we should turn our attention to that will guide us down a pathway of happiness.

Before I go shout out to mikey to proposing to my best friend and for doing it in the sweetest way possible!!!!!!! I am so so excited for you rylee and mikey!! everyone is getting engaged! michelle, isabelle, rylee!! I know you are next shay;) I am just waiting for that email!

haha I love you each so much! have fun trick or trerating! we are on house arrest after five but we get to hand out candy so we are going to tape Mormon cards to all of the chocolate bars:)

love sister wood

oh wait temple work is so important so go and find names and do their work for them and if you don't know how to find names then find someone that can teach you:) it is all of our responsibility so don't just shrug it off and leave it all up to someone else to do!

October 24, 2017

Hey everyone!

quick email this week sorry!

first off I have to correct myself the talk by elder hales is called "the covenant of baptism: to be in the kingdom and of the kingdom"

We had MLC last week (missionary leaders conference) and we talked a lot about taking responsibility, we read a talk to prepare for it and it was called "be 100 percent responsible" by lynn g robins and that talk has changed my mission:) I've realized that sometimes you just have to go the extra mile to see results. I wish I could sum up the talk but it's just too good so you just have to read it haha. another talk that I read this week was called "the lord doesn't grade on a curve". We need to encourage other peoples talents and not become discouraged from them. often we compare our weakest points to other peoples strongest points. sorry this first paragraph is just going to be really random but I just love sharing things that I've learned. so we know that the book of mormon is the cornerstone of our religion. As missionaries we do all we can to persuade people to read it, to give it a chance and pray about it because that witness that we receive from the Holy Ghost that the book of mormon is the word of God becomes the cornerstone of our faith in Jesus Christ and that His church is restored. cool fact: there will be 5 things that we will stand before to be judged; Jesus Christ, the scriptues, apostales, our bishops, and ourselves. 

This week we had exchanges with the Charlottetown sisters. sister degraffenreid is a new missionary and so it was great spending a day with her. I just can't believe that  Im not a new missionary anymore haha. I was just reading in enos too mom haha and that's cool how you pointed out that he started praying for his brethren because that is what stuck out to me:) I need to pray more for the sisters in my zone, there are a few companionships who are struggling. all of the sisters have so much potential and their areas have so much potential too and they just need the faith that there are people for them to teach.

There were so many people at church on sunday! it was amazing! the lee wins are a family in the branch and they have 6 kids haha and Helena is the youngest. Oh my she is hilarious, she is 4 years old and is just a free spirit. she came up to me and said "can you please just let me sit on your lap i'm not a stanger, I'm just helena" hahah I wish everyone could just meet her. 

right now we are teaching millie, nicole, brittany and dave, and tony. I will try and elaborate more on them next week! 

We have a branch halloween party that we are planning that I will send lots of pictures of, hopefully it is a success!!

I love you! have a great week:)

love sister wood

 

 

October 17, 2017

Hey everyone!

so this week we had zone conference and something that president pratt said in his training that has stuck with me is that we need to get better at helping people see the need they have for the gospel. As soon as they realize why they need the gospel and why it is relevant in their lives, teaching them will become so easy because they will want to learn. something else that I learned this week is that obedience give us the chance to be humble. In the bible Naaman has to humble himself and dunk himself in the river 7 times to be healed of his leprosy, something that is so simple but he almost didn't do it because it was so simple. God gives us such simple commandments, like reading our scriptures and saying our prayers but still we can struggle to do these things. Something that I think is so interesting is that God could give us investigators whenever he wants... but that would in no way benefit us. God is less concerned with our comfort and more concerned about our progress. His desire is for us to become like Him and the key word in that is 'become'. We have to BECOME like God, not just BE God. A talk that I read this week was called "baptism, our first covenant with God" (or something like that) and it's by elder Hales. It talks about being a representative of Jesus Christ and I hope you can all find the time to read it. It is one of my favourite talks. There are so many lines in it that I love but something that I especially like is "The scriptures confirm that the truly converted do more than just forsake the enticements of the world. They love their God and their fellowmen. their minds and their hearts are centered on the Savior's atoning sacrifice." It's October and I am thinking constantly about Brynn and about being more kind. Sunday we had stake conference and President Pratt gave a talk that was all about being kind and serving. His talk began with a few questions like "does it make sense to join a chess club and then refuse to think?" this question then lead to "does it make sense to claim discipleship and then offend, reject, or ignore our brothers and sisters? does it make sense to take on the name of Christ and then not do the very thing that forms His character?" People don't nee a leadership position to feel the need to bless the lives of those around them. Loving and caring for each other is a mandate of our discipleship. Why do we then still find reason to be unkind? We are not justified in ignoring another's need and we are not justified in holding a grudge. Grandpa's favourite song was love one another and I am starting to understand why. "love one another as (Jesus) loves you". We are called to be extensions of Christ's love. Life can be so much more joyful when we love our brothers and sisters without expecting something in return. Our happiness can be independent of our trials.

some soul searching questions that have been asked lately are, "Who is god it you" "who are you praying to, why are you praying?"

by learning who Christ is we can learn who God is. knowing who God is, can we have faith and trust in Him? Why?something I love from conference is "maybe we have the faith to be healed...but do we have the faith not to be healed? what is our faith in?" I hope that all of our faith can be centered in Heavenly Father's plan.

Also before I go, thank you rope for the letter of encouragement haha I opened it expecting a big long letter from my mom but nope it was just a silly little letter from you but it was perfect and just what I needed<3

I love you all so much!!!

love sister wood 

October 9, 2017

Awe mom I love you so much. I wish I could just tell you every little detail of the week:) 

to answer your questions our address is 35 poplar st. amherst NS B4H 1L4. church on sunday was good, there was about 15 people there, it was kinda sad 4 of our investigators were going to come and then 30 minutes before church they all slowly one by one canceled. something else that is sad is karen. She was our investigator and she was going to get baptized on the 21st this month but last night right before we went to bed we got a text that said she didn't want us to text her or stop by her house anymore and that she wasn't going to be baptized. It was so out of no where, we are still going to try and stop by her and try to figure out what happened, but I remember in the MTC in our last conference the MTC president spoke to us and said that our missions would stretch us and we would go through hard things but that the hardest thing we would go through would be when we spend so much time with a person and we see the gospel change their lives but then our of no where they will say don't come back, and at that moment your heart will brake, but also this is when you will be able to experience the power of the atonement the most stongly. And that is so true. There are so many things that you go through everyday that really should just brake your spirit but but somehow you find the strength and the energy to keep going. I think it comes from truly understanding the gospel and from the tender mercies that God gives to us each day:) I am so grateful for those little tender mercies everyday! I love my family and I miss you all this thanksgiving but I am so grateful for your support and your emails and pictures<3 I just always feel so much love! 

love sister wood

October 3, 2017

ok I will try and answer your questions first haha. I wish I could just talk to you it would be so much faster. yes send the american girl doll clothes to st. johns and on the package just write sister fernandez instead of sister wood so that they don't try and send it to me after. I don't know my address here in amhest yet but you can just send the parcel to the mission office! So sister auvignes birthday is this month and her cousin that passed away from brain cancer has a birthday this month too and I really want to get her a necklace like my little B one from aunt christy. her cousins name is Julia so do you think you could send me a J necklace, it's ok if it doesnt come with this package though. so in the mission there are five zones and then districts within the zones so there are zone leaders and then STL are in charge of all of the sisters in that zone. So we have 3 sister companionships in our zone that we kinda look after and will go on exchanges with (they will come to our area and we will switch up the companionships and make sure they are doing ok and help them to become better and correct any thing that they may be doing wrong) I hope I don't have to correct anyone because I don't like doing that haha  and this is only my 3rd tranfer so it's kinda weird with the sisters who have been out way longer than me. Amherst is a branch and there's about 25 members. I excited for church next sunday to get to meet everyone! Our apartment is soo cute, if I have time I will try and send some pictures this week. I miss st. John's but I love Amherst! It is the cutest little town ever! I feel like it's a town from a nancy drew book haha so perfect for fall! Also next week our pday is on monday for thanksgiving and we have another all day pday!! we are so excited Sister nowlon, and sister auvigne are so much fun haha we are just laughing all the time, also sister auvigne loves sharing clothes which makes me think of all my sister a lot which I love.

Holy was conference ever amazing! There was just so much love felt for President Monson. Every talk answered one of my questions it was awsome! Just something about being a missionary just made me really want to absorb every word and better myself. and knowing that our investigators were watching conference as well just made me pray so much harder for the speakers.I can't wait for the ensign to come out, I usually have a favourite talk but I don't think I can pick one this time.

 

 

September 26, 2017

I have so many things to write about I just wish I could throw them all up on the page haha because I know I am not going to have enough time to write it all.

Ok so first things first, mom could you ask grandma for some american girls doll clothes to send here to st. johns? That little girl keegan has one and I want to surprise her with some new clothes! 

I haven't got to watch the womans broadcast yet but hopefully at some point I will. 

 

Blitz week was crazy but so fun!! we will find out what district won tonight when they post all the transfer information on facebook. We found two new investigators this week! One is diane. she's 50 something and just loves us to pieces and I don't really know why haha. we ran in to her while we were walking down by the ships and she was so excited to have us over. The other one is Abhiram or abhi for short (pronounced as "abby" haha;)) and we met him at walmart. We went there to buy tie dye stuff to do for activity days ( we are going to tie dye pillowcases and then write pray on them to remind the girls to pray) and he was our cashier. He's 22 and is from india. He's been here for 2 years but has only gone to a catholic church once since he's got here but he went to a different church all the time in india. we asked him if he wanted to come to church with us (and this happened on saturday) and he said yes! so he came to church with us the next day and really enjoyed it and then we had a lesson with him later that day. He said that he didn't think it was a coincidence that we came to his till and that he had sunday off work and we told him that we didn't think it was a coincidence either:) I am so excited for him. 

this past week we had a district companionship study and it was on having faith to find. I kinda realized in that meeting that I didn't really have faith to find. I did want to find people to teach but I didn't really specifically have the belief that there are certain people out there who the Lord has prepared to here His gospel. I think just from hearing from other people "No im good" so much that I had started to become "good" with not finding people to teach. After that meeting though I just had such a strong desire to find someone to teach and literally the first person that we talked to when we walked out of the church, amanda, is interested in learning about the gospel 1 

and oh my gosh the transfers table just came out and I am going to amherst and I am a STL with sister nowlon!!!! and sister auvigne is with us too we're in a trio!!! hahah 

i'm out of time!

 

love sister wood

September 19. 2017

Hello everyone! 

The weeks are flying by! I can't believe that we are in week 5 of the transfer and that it is september 19th, what the heck! I am so so excited for general conference, I need to start preparing myself for it. I think it kinda works like prayer. We need to watch and listen with sincere hearts and with real intent, going with questions and seeking for answers. I know that the more we put into preparing ourselves for it, the more we will get out of it. 

Last wednesday we had our district meeting in bay roberts and it was my favourite district meeting yet. A question that was posed was "why do you want to the gospel to be true?" Some of you may have a firm knowledge that it is true but some of you may not. So if you don't have that firm belief, why do you want the gospel to be true? Another thing that we talked about was going into modes or putting on masks. It's a lot a lot easier for a missionary to just go into a "knocking doors" mode or a teaching mode than to actually allow ourselves to change. It's easy to go into a church mode and then for the rest of the week forget about what we learned and make no effort to change. When we're fake we see who we are and then who we should be and then for a certain amount of time pretend to be who we should be but with no intent to stay as that person and with every intent to just go back to being who we are. When we're real and don't go into a mode or put on a mask we acknowledge the person that we are and see who we should be. First we have to desire to become that person, then we have to believe that we can become that person and then we have to start making changes that will bridge the gap between who we are and who we can be. In district meetin we also talked about... Blitz week! haha so blitz week is this competition throughout the mission and it's usually just zone against zone but this time it's district against district, and abby will appreciate this, there's 13 districts haha;) we get certain points for doing certain things and before district meeting I was totally ready to just go into this blitz week mode haha and just go so hard because I'm competitive and whatever haha but I ended up having a blitz week change of heart. The spirit softened my heart and taught me. Of course I want to win still haha (we are in 3rd right now) but the things that we are challenged to do are really just things that we should be doing already and I've realized that the point of the blitz week is to aim for a lasting change. so it started on sunday and it will end this coming sunday. 

So something that is super super exciting is MARGARET GOT BAPTIZED ON SATURDAY!!! President Pratt called us last week and told us not to wait until her trial and to go ahead with the baptism so we asked margaret when she would like to be baptised and she said this weekend (which was last weekend) haha so that was crazy telling everyone about the date switch but that was not the craziest part. I keep telling myself that the next baptism will go more smoothly haha but somehow they just keep getting crazier. Most of saturday was spent in the font and it was nasty. The pump was broken and so instead of sucking up the water it was shooting out old water and a bunch of other things. In the end margaret was able to be baptized (an hour later than what the time was originally set as) but the baptism was so good:) During the talk talk that sister earl was giving before the ordination, I looked around the chapel and just had this "aha" moment. I'm starting to finally get it I think. These people have made such an impact on my life and I am just so invested in each of their lives as well. At the end of the days we are exhausted. Emptying out a font with bowls is not the funnest or easiest job haha, planning for and continually worrying about our investigators and the members is pretty stressful but at the same time I could just not imagine going through life without meeting these people. Their problems are my problems and what brings them joy brings me joy. It's taken time and I'm not fully where I want to be yet but slowly I am starting to have enough faith to put both feet fully in the mission.

One last thought. Last week in our lesson we had with margaret we talked about gifts of the spirit. sister earl came with us and told us how charity is the greatest gift. We read from moroni 7 (my favourite chapter from the book of mormon) and it says that Heavenly Father bestows charity upon all those who are true followers of His Son. Charity is a gift and is something that I am continually praying for. Sister earl then asked what charity is and we said the pure love of Christ and then she asked us what that is (this is why I love bringing sister earl to lessons). We said a few answers but then she had us read verse 45 and told us that in that verse were the 13 characteristics of charity. 45 And charity suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity is so many things! I am trying to just work on one characteristic at a time. 

Also, I am starting to say "Where's it to?" instead of "where is it" or "where is it by" haha and I love it. Oh yeah and It was exchanges this week so I got to spend friday with sister Moojalsky! (from mountain view, her family had been evacuated but they are back in their home now:)) And bailey nelson gets here in 2 weeks!

love you all<3

love sister wood