August 27, 2018

My last week in dartmouth😢 

This past week has been so awesome I'm going to be so sad to leave Dartmouth I can't believe that I've spent half of my mission here I just love the people here so much it was hard saying goodbye to the members on Sunday young women's Camp was so so good the young women are such a blast and groom a loved every second of it she said that she's definitely going next year and she is coming to Young Women's tomorrow night and should be coming every week now too and the young woman's activity is learning sign language so hopefully Colleen the lady who I was teaching before but stopped coming to church is hopefully going to be teaching the class with her little girl Lila hopefully this will be one of the first steps in getting them reactivated. The testimony meeting at Young Women's Camp was so powerful I forgot how hard it is for the young women to be at school and to feel alone and left out that they were so kind to each other at camp and helped each other to realize that they weren't alone in their feelings Grandma started crying and testimony meeting and she said afterwards that she really wanted to get up but she was just too nervous. I got to see so many of my favorite people this last week we got to meet with Elena on Sunday she's doing so awesome and is working towards going to the temple soon her daughter Isabella was that camp to Andrea really loved it she's warmed up to us so much. Dang I just really love the young woman it's like a flashback to last year and leaving st. John's and saying goodbye to all of them there thank goodness for Facebook and Instagram so I can stay caught up on their lives. We also got to meet with Vicky she is so sweet she gave us a bunch of her cards and just other things and she gave us a cake when we left your house too she said that she's not ready to work towards baptism right now but she's reading the book of Mormon and she wants to find her answer. that lady Rebecca was at church again this week and she brought her step-daughter I'm excited to hear more about her in the future she reminds me a lot of Laura and speaking of Laura we are seeing her today at 4 so I can go and Say Goodbye it's going to be hard but I hope that it will spark something and that she'll want to start coming back and being caught again. we taught him in again this past week and she promised to come to church again but she didn't come she told us that she moved to Halifax though so we're going to have to pass her off to the house fax sisters but it turns out that she lives super close to the church and Halifax and so it'll probably be better for her. We also finally met with this guy Michael we met him at a family history booth and we finally got to drop it off this past week and he let us in he has a super cute son Gabriel and so we taught him again on Sunday his sister is a super strong number in Sackville and we have really high hopes for him! thanks Grandma for always encouraging me to use family history to find people to teach😆 

 my heart is breaking a bit having to leave Dartmouth and saying goodbye to Sister Cartwright I haven't had to pack in so long (my camera somewhere in this apartment but I can't find it..😰) but I'm excited for what's next we got to see a sneak peek of the transfer table but I won't say anything yet just in case it's wrong or it changes:) I've just been so blessed to serve here. I've really tried to work diligently and help the sisters. I've been able to be apart of so many amazing experiences! Shania's conversion! She is living and going to church in Halifax now and that is just such a miracle! Charli's baptism and alayna coming back to church with her family. Teaching madeline and getting to go to her baptism! She is doing so well now! And also guess what!! Robbie (one of the first people that I taught in St John's) just got sealed in the temple this past weekend!!! I am just so so happy to be apart of these people's lives!!! There's so many others but I would be here forever:) 

I'm grateful that christ is at the head of this work and that I can trust that when I am working my harest everything that's suppose to will work out! 

I love you all and I'm grateful that heavenly father is keeping my family safe! 

Love sister wood 

August 21,2018

I love the yw!

So by far the most exciting thing that is going to happen this week is that sister cartwright and I will get to go to Young Women's camp for a day we screamed when we found out that we would get to go. Tonight we will get to go on a hike with them as well! Garima  is going to come to the hike and she'll be coming to Camp too:) this past week was good we had exchanges with the Halifax sisters, and then we went to truro for our exchanges there. I was with the sister Behlke  and we met this really sweet old black lady Penny she told us some pretty crazy stuff about her life and just had to vent to us. It's really cool how much people trust us they never hesitate to tell us all their life stories there's something about missionaries that just makes people open up :-). A week and a bit ago a was really stressed about going back to university after the mission. I know I don't need to be thinking about that yet but I was just so so nervous. I just couldn't get the thought "you will fail" out of my head. Then in district meeting last week somehow the topic of sacrifice nd taking risks came up. Leaving university is kinda a risky thing haha I defineitely don't remeber all of the things I will need to when I go back for math and my other classes. But when we sacrifice or take risks for God we don't have to fear for our future. I love that quote from president Monson that goes something like " when we are on the lords errand we are entitled to His help". It brought me a lot comfort and it was just so cool to know that God knew my thoughts because I was kinda too embarrassed to pray about it because it wasn't something I felt I should worry about. 

Love you all!

Sister wood 

August 6,2018

Another busy, exciting week! 

First I will fill you in on the  not so exciting stuff. Laura hasn't been meeting with us she messages us back sometimes. we miss her a lot it was such a blast getting to teach her. Something else that wasn't too exciting was ( i can't remember if I wrote about Marielle and Jason in my last email) anyways theyre this couple that we met last week. we met Marielle in her apartment building and she said that we could come back in like an hour when her husband would be home ( this was on Monday) so we went and taught them they're pretty nice they had some questions and they said that we could come back. we kind of had some weird feelings about them but we're like no they're nice. so three days later on exchanges me and sister ceron go over to their house and we brought a member sister Quist ( my testimony of always bringing members to lessons is so strong now). So we get to the house, they let us in and we all sit down on the couches and we're just talking getting to know each other better. We say an opening prayer and ask them if they had any questions about the last lesson they're like oh yeah a couple so we're like ask away! And then the anti came out 😌. So long story short Jason went and got his questions (he had written out this huge essay like paper and printed one off for each of us) it was quite the experience. So after about 15 minutes of following along with them reading off of this paper they were about to start playing this video that they had ready. Thats when we were like woah woah woah. And then sister quist basically took over for 30 minutes. There are a lot of people out there who don't like joseph smith. They don't realize that even though he was a prophet he was still human like me and you, and still was still vulnerable to making mistakes. I'm so grateful that God restored what was lost by calling another prophet so that we can have a knowledge of god's plan for us and be able to preform ordinances like baptism and other ordinances in the temple. 

So that was that🙂

Some AWESOME things that happened this week was we are teaching 2 new people! Jaden and ximena. The elders found jaden on fb and no we found ximena just street contacting! There and are both on date to be baptized in September!  Ximena is from Colombia and so far she looooves the book of mormon! She is so cool! Eder son from St johns is here for a week and so he is coming to teach her with us today! 

We met with garima again (which was and answer to prayer because we couldn't find them for a bit) and she is all signed up for girls camp!:) 

Something new in the mission is that we have instagram now! We are trying to use it to find more people. Honestly, I was not very excited because instagram has always been way more distracting for me than Facebook. So we downloaded it and archieved some pics that we didnt want on their and it was crazy, the whole time i was just so focussed on me and my image and going to bed that night i just felt so unhappy and i hadnt felt that way in awhile.  The next morning in my personal study I was reading in the epistle of James which said... haha jk i was reading in 1 Nephi  and chapter 6:5 said "Wherefore, the things which are pleasing unto the world I do not write, but the things which are pleasing unto God and unto those who are not of the world." The spirit taught me a lot with that scripture. "Who am I trying to please?" Is the question that I kept asking myself. I know that with having instagram I will be able to learn good skills that I will hopefully keep with me. I don't want to get caught up with comparing myself and comparing others, I want to please God not the world.

Love you all!

Sister wood 

July 31, 2018

Dartmouth is poppin!!!

So many cool things have been happening!! 

So a couple of weeks ago we knocked into this family that moved here from India. We invited her to this yw activity that we planned (sister cartwright was doing hair) and just as we were setting up all of a sudden we saw them walking up to the church!! Now she is going to come to the yw camp that's at the end of August. We are also teaching this other girl on Thursday, the elders found her on fb and hopefully she will come to camp and activities too! We had a volleyball activity on Saturday morning too and it was sweet so many people came, now we just have to get them to invite their friends. Alaynas husband, who's not a member, was their too he really loves volleyball! Alayna is preparing herself to go to the Temple!!! We are so excited!!!

On exchanges sister Hawkins and I met this guy named tim who was sitting outside of his house we talked with him for like and hour. In the end he wasn't interested but right before we left he said he would love for us to come back and teach his 8 year old daughter nikka! So we went back Saturday night and taught her and then they both came to church on sunday!! Veron( a former investigator) commented on one of my pics on fb and so I started messaging her again and we went by and she let us in and we are going back again on Thursday!  I really love veron and would love to start teaching her again! We also stopped by another former christy and we dot think she's ready to be taught again right now but it was really cool. She said how grateful she is to us for teaching her how to pray. Life is stressful for her right now and she said that she's been praying a lot. It was really nice to hear. It reminded me that no effort is wasted. Yesterday we were knocking in this apartment building and this couple let us in. It was a good lesson. They know the bible really well haha so that was pretty intimidating. At the end of the lesson though she told us how she worked at the hospital and i asked if she knew doctor maclennan. She was like "wait doctor maclennans a mormon?". That seemed to soften her heart and now we are gping back again on Thursday. It's cool how one person's example can make a big difference.

There's probably more miracles that I'm missing but I got to go!

Love you!!