August 29, 2017

no parcel yet but i'm sure it will come soon don't worry about the fall stuff yet, but it is getting a little chillier, we are teaching margaret (46) dakota(9) sarah(10) keagan(10) and Kira(22) and hopefully lori (30s) sorry I don't have time to send a long email but I really has just been my week to soak it all in!:) thankyou so much for the pictures and videos and filling me in on the details of the big day! It makes me feel like I was there:) I could not be happier for Kelsie and truman! I'm so so glad that the weather was perfect! you all deserved the perfect day after all of you hard work:)

I'll try and squeeze in one quick thing, we taught relief society this week and the lesson was based on the talk "perfect love casteth out fear" by president uchtdorf. I definitely learned the most from the lesson. Motivating people or ourselves by fear never works, it may change us or the persons actions for a short time but it will not bring that lasting effect, it will only change our behaviors not ours or their nature. We need to motivate by love and we can learn how to do that when we follow the Savior and our Heavenly Fathers example. Loving people really is the key, and the more I love the people here, the more I want to serve them, and the easier it is to teach them<3

love sister wood

August 22, 2017

Whoa! so many weddings!! I'd have to say though that the one I am the most excited for is the one happening THIS FRIDAY!!!! ugh i cannot wait to see pictures!!! I am just so so so excited!! so last tuesday we found out about transfers and decided to do something super fun with elder smith and sister nowlon before they left so we played lazer tag! It was so fun, if i leave st johns after this transfer (which i hope doesn't happen haha) that will be my last request. Thursday night we picked up sister Fernandez from the airport, I have already learned so much from her and I just have this new excitement for missionary work. She is so diligent and I'm grateful that she'll be my trainer for the last six weeks. She was born in the Philippines but was raised in Toronto. She's very calm and collected and know's her purpose:)   She does't have her licence and so I will have to do all of the driving for the next 6 weeks haha I have seriously learned how to get around st johns better than lethbridge and i've been here for 6 weeks... and I've been driving around lethbridge all of my life haha.

Robbie's baptism was on Saturday and oh my that was a gong show hahaha. It was suppose to start at 3 oclock and 3 o'clock rolled around and NO ONE was there but 5 members hahaha. We were calling and texting robbie but he wasn't answering and we were calling and texting the elders who were picking up ederson who was preforming the baptism but they weren't answering. In the end, robbie's girlfriend's plane came in late and  his phone was dead so he couldn't text us haha, and the elders had forgot ederson so they had to turn around and get him. so the baptism started 40 minutes late. the funniest part was the actual baptism though haha poor ederson. this was his first baptism and so he was super nervous but he said everything fine but then when he went to dunk robbie he forgot to put high right hand on robbies back. it looked like he was drowning robbie hahaha robbie came up all out of breathe and couldn't get his footing and ederson was just staring at his right hand like "what have I done" haha so we did the baptism again and that time everything went well. sister nowlon got to stay for the baptism so we actually didn't drop her off at the airport until yesterday morning. So yesterday was the first day where it was just the 2 of us. the day flew by, we were so busy and we found so many potential investigators and got appointments with them for this week which is awesome!!! 

I've set a goal to read the entire book of mormon this transfer and so yesterday I started with the introduction. Everyone here has so many trials and deaths and just so many hard things that they've gone through and are going through and a lot of the time I find myself at a loss of what to say. I know that just because we live the gospel that doesn't mean that our lives are going to be super easy and that we aren't going to experience trails still, and just because we know and believe in the plan of salvation doesn't mean we still don't feel pain from missing our loved ones. In the third paragraph of the introduction though it helped me to finally grasp what it is the gospel does for us in. "The doctrines of the gospel...tell men what they must do to gain PEACE in this life and eternal salvation in the life to come," what the gospel does for us in this life is it gives us peace. It doesn't take away our trails, but it gives us this inner peace that we can keep with us through whatever we face. no matter how crazy life gets we can always have a sense of peace. I few days ago sister fernandez was telling me how at a training from elder ball they were talking about how you know you are feeling the spirit. Satan has his ways of mimicking happiness and excitement but something that satan can't mimic is peace, because he's never felt peace. President Pratt challenged us to study a gospel topic for 15 minutes for 2 weeks and I think I want to study peace. I hope you all have a great week and no matter how crazy it may be (especially with the wedding haha) that you will be able to recognize that inner peace that comes when we live the gospel<3

love sister wood   

 

August 15, 2017

Kelsie and Truman get married in 10 days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am soo so pumped! I have their wedding picture right beside my picture of Christ on my desk haha I can't wait to see pictures of the yard. Everything is going to be so beautiful!

Sister Nowlon is being transferred!!! We don't know where exactly yet though. But the great thing is though that instead of flying out tomorrow she is leaving on monday so that she can be here for robbie's baptism on Saturday! haha I dont even remember if i've mentioned robbie yet but yes he is getting baptised on Saturday! My new trainer is going to be sister fernandez. She's from toronto and she actually came out with sister nowlon. I was pretty shocked, I thought sister nowlon and I would be staying together but I am excited to meet and work with sister fernandez:) and I'm super happy that I'll be staying in st.john's. It will be fun to be in a trio for a few days too!

We had dinner with camryn pierson this week, it's still so funny to me that we both grew up in claresholm haha! also we had a little scare with bed bugs hahaha. So we were visiting a new member/ less active courtney( she used drugs in the past so mind has been a little affected by that). She used our phone to call her stepmother while we were there and then after we shared a little message with her. our phone kept buzzing the entire time but we ignored it. As soon as we walked out of the house we looked at our phone and there were a ton of texts and missed calls and voicemails from her step mom sister hollet saying get out of the house!! she has bed bugs!! bag your clothes!!! go have showers right now! hahah we were freaking out, it was so funny though we were just so paranoid the drive to our apartment after was horrible haha we kept itching and hitting ourselves. But so far we haven't seen any bed bugs haha so I think we are good. After we had showers the elders texted us and were like oh and just a heads up don't go over to courtney's she has bed bugs hahaha we were so mad at them.

So something cool that elder weston said at that new missionary conference last week is "we have 2 years (or 18 months) to serve the Lord and the rest of our lives to look back on it". I missed everyone probably the most this past week than I have at any other time on my mission. Everybody out here just has so many struggles and it's really hard knowing that I can't help them all. The only thing that I can think of that I can relate it to is the parable of the ten virgins and I have this extra oil and I just want to give it to everyone, I see them struggle and I just want them to know that this gospel is true. I want them to be keeping commitments that I know will make them happy. And it's so sad to see all these people who are lost and they just won't give the atonement of Jesus Christ a chance. That has been what was hard for me this week... but also it has been the thing that's given me new motivation. In our bible study that I taught at the university last night we were studying in matthew 26, where Christ submits His will to God's when He is in the garden of Gethsemane. in verse 39 (i think) it says that he fell on his face and prayed, He asks if there's another way, if there's an easier path, but in the end He accepts God's will and we can learn so much from His example. Choosing to serve a mission is definitely where i relate the most to Christ at this time, leaving everything and everyone behind was not an easy choice, especially because it wasn't mandatory... but in a way it was to me because I knew and I know that this is what I am meant to be doing right now. I know that there are so many other examples of times where we have to submit our will to God's will. It's not easy, but we will be blessed:) Sometimes it's scary but something that sister stoker (my STL) shared with me this past week while we were on exchanges, has helped me with some of my fears. She said that in her last interview with president Pratt she told him how she has been on her mission for so long now but that she still has a fear of talking to everyone, and she felt bad because she knew that she can't have both fear and faith. But president pratt explained to her that it's ok to still have fear but what matters is what we choose to act on. Will we act on our fear? Or will we act on our faith? Because we can't act on both. We either have to submit our will or choose to do our own will, but no matter how inadequate we may feel, we will always be more successful doing what God calls us to do.

I love you! Enjoy the last few weeks of summer:)

sister wood

August 8, 2017

AHHH I just love you all and everyone so much!!! haha I've just been crying the whole time I've been reading these emails and not because they're super sad or anything, or because I'm home sick, it's just because I just love you all so stinkin much! I am just blessed with such an amazing family and friends and ward and little village, ugh it's just too much to keep in haha sister nowlon probably thinks I have a problem. In my last email to president pratt I just said thankyou thankyou thankyou for making me companionship with  sister nowlon. We have so much fun together. We are getting so much better at talking to everyone. haha sometimes i wish there was just a camera guy following us around because there are so many funny, awkward situations happening all of the time. The new missionary conference was so awesome. sister orr gave this training at the end about finding and she said that she has a motto that goes "It's ok, because our message is true" It's ok if people are mean, or if we look dumb, or if we're knocking in the pouring rain, because our message is true. Jesus Christ is our Savior. It is only through Him that we can gain eternal life. We can never pay Him back, but we can be obedient and live His gospel and I can definitely give 18months of my life to Him to teach people this. Sister Nowlon and I came up with our own motto yesterday, "It doesn't matter, casue IT MATTERS!" Our message matters more than anything and so it doesn't matter what it takes to share it with people.

The new missionary conference was awesome!!! we got to halifax around 3 on wednesday and then got back to our apartment in st.john's at 2am saturday morning haha it was rough waking up 6:30... we may have slept in haha but elder odde (our district leader) said it was ok. Why did I go to bed at 2:30 before my mission! haha it's awful! Seeing Elder weston at the conference at the conference was awesome!! It's just so funny that we are both missionaries here right now. IT was so great seeing sister soucie, barlow and rodrigues! Sister rodrigues' companion, sister kesler is so awsome haha she's hilarious! We all stayed at the STLT's house and we may have have missed curfew haha it was so fun. I learned so much at the conference. It was great because now that we've had some experience in the field we knew what question we had. We are truly out here with our brothers and sisters and so we should be treating them and teaching them as such. If we saw one of our siblings drowning we would not think twice about diving in after them. And so when we see people out here spiritually drowning we should be putting in every effort to save them. Everyday we should be praying for charity, and for help to develop other christlike characteristics. And when we pray for help to develop these attributes we shouldn't be surprised when Heavenly Father presents us with opportunities to grow in these areas. So if we need more patience, pray for it, and then don't be shocked if you have a lot of things popping up that require you to exercise patience. This is not HEavenly Father setting you up to fail, it is Him letting you learn and grow and become humble so that we turn to Him for help to change. This is something that I realized yesterday in our lesson with margaret, we brough sister dillan with us and she brought up this point. 

Right now we have Robbie and margaret scheduled to be baptized on august 19th!!! and Amber lily and jaz were baptized on saturday!!! AHHH i love them so much, they are such good examples and now dakota who lives in their area is taking lessons from us too:))) It was definitely the loudest baptism I've been to haha but that was a given with these girls, they are so full of life! I can't believe tranfers are next week!! I can't imagine leaving these people. 

Every night we've been listening to hank smith's talks and they are SO GOOD. Something that he said that has stuck with me is that there is a difference between being publicly obedient and privately obedient. We have commandments that we are meant to follow, we are commanded to not kill, and for most people this is a pretty easy thing to follow, killing someone is a pretty public thing, but what the Lord really wants to teach us is that we shouldn't even get angry, and that is something private. Only we know the thoughts that are going through our mind about other people. We are commanded to not commit adultery, but really we should not even be lustful. I don't have time to go over all the commandments but you should, and find out what it is you should or should not be doing privately in your life to be obedient to the Lord. 

I love you all soo soo so much! tell grandma I got her letter!! I cried when I got that too haha it was awesome! 

Love sister wood!

 

"my present I made for our investigator keegan, she turns 10 on the tenths and this is her favourite saying. We're having a bday party with her and michael who turns ten today!! He is lori's son who is a less active"

August 1, 2017

I am so happy that the reunion went so well!! I would've been crying too when grandma walked in and saw everyone. Props to troy for not spilling the beans haha and good job to everybody for not clogging the toilet this time hahaha. 

I got your package!! I almost started crying when I saw it on our doorstep haha I don't even know why, it was just so awesome! sister nowlon and I basically dropped everything and ran up the stairs with it, it was like christmas morning times 10, she says thankyou for the peach tic tacks, it's her birthday on august 23rd but that is next transfer so we might not be companions anymore :( but I already know what my present will be, so I'll just give it to her early. I loved trey and claires drawings, I have so many keep sakes already. Thankyou brookey for the watch too, I love it. Also thankyou for the invitation to the wedding but sadly I won't be able to make it, best wishes to them though. haha jk the invitation is so so pretty! I love it! could kelsie and truman be a more perfect couple!?!? answer:no, they could not. I can't believe that it is august 1st today and that they are getting married this month!! everyone, don't let mom go too many nights without sleeping haha but seriously, I don't know how you do it all mom.

Ok so this week, ahh I hate this part haha, it is so hard to choose what to put in the emails. well we started this stop smoking program with our investigator margaret and the first step was for her to pull out her box of cigarettes and crush them. She had one cigarette left in the box that she had been planning all day to smoke after 8, but just kept yelling at her "you can do it!" "you can crush it!" "you don't need it1" and then she crushed it!!! we were all screaming and clapping hahah it was awesome! On friday nights we have ysa activities and this weeks was really fun, we went out to a campsite and had a fire and passed around a football and volleyball. thursday though sister nowlon and I tried to spread the word about it haha. We spent an hour making invites, but in the end the printer didn't work haha so we just ended up writing on a bunch of sticky notes, super fancy haha. so we went around door knocking and stuff, passing them out but nobody that we gave them to came, a little sad but not as sad as brock's story about posting a thousand fliers and nobody coming, still sorry about that one brock haha. On sunday I basically had to teach the whole ward haha. Brother young, who usually teaches gospel doctrines, was gone so we combined the two classes together. I feel like it helped me get to know the members a lot better though. We talked about sacrifices. We're not asked to sacrifice the firstling of our flocks anymore but we are asked to sacrifice our time, something that is a lot harder to give up for people now. Where are our priorities? Do we serve just to receive blessings or do we serve because we love our God?

So lately, actually no, not lately, for a long time I feel like I've been struggling with my prayers.I've said meaningful prayers now and again but never consistently. i say them but a lot of the time i don't feel like i'm strengthened from them and it's because I know that they haven't been very sincere. But this past week I've been really focussing on praying for our investigators and something has changed. If you feel like you are not getting anything out of your prayers, change what you are praying for. And specifically, start praying for other people, and don't just say please bless them, but really think about what they need, what you can do to help, you might have to pause and ponder but that gives the spirit time to speak to you. Since my prayers have changed this whole week has been different from the rest of my mission:)

So tomorrow sister nowlon and I fly out to halifax!!! We are so excited. It's for something new that the mission is trying, the new missionary training conference! it was just going to be for one day but they extended it to two, so we get back friday night at midnight, just in time for the yw's baptism on saturday at 10! Elder weston is training and so he'll be there too! I'm so excited to see him, it will be so cool to hear hows he's doing. haha it's still so crazy to me that we're in the same mission. 

I'm so sorry to hear about Mara Bennett. She was so sweet and giving and strong. I'm praying for her family, they are all so amazing. I am very blessed to have been able to go through young womans with alyssa and shantelle, they have a lot of their mother's qualities. The plan of salvation is real, that is something that I have absolutely no doubts about. mountains to climb by elder eyring is a really great talk to listen to.

Love you!

sister wood