September 25,2018

Hey everyone!! 

hope youre enjoying the snow and everything else thats going on in alberta haha it's been gorgeous here!!! and now fall is right around the corner and I am sooo excited!! nothing beats fall in the maritimes! so it has been a roller coaster of emotions with mary and vienna haha. Last week on wednesday our first lesson with them was amazing!! we brought one of the yw with ys and she did so good, her name in teah! we taught the first part of the plan of salvation and mary the mom was just soaking it all in, she loved learning about the premortal life! "I've just never even thought about that but it just makes so much sense!" to quote her words haha (basically the best sentence you could ever hear as a missionary!) sometimes I just can't handle how cool being a missionary is, like we are literally asking these people to change their whole lives and they do all becasue they feel gods love and the spirit telling them it is true! After the lesson we were just so pumped but we were a little worried about vienna, she's 14 and I know if I was 14 and didn't really grow up learning much about god I would be thinking, "who are these weirdos in my house" haha but while we were drivng we got a text from mary saying the vienna wanted us to come back the next day!! so we started freaking out even more haha! then on thursday though we got a text from mary saying that they would have to reschedule for monday night becasue her husband was getting back from alberta, where he works, a day early and so thrusday night they would have to go pick him up from the airport. friday came and we sent them a text to see how they were doing. After teaching laura in dartmouth and how her husband had reacted to her being taught I was just so so anxious. We didn't hear back from them all friday and saturday and we were just doing our best to keep our hopes high! and then a miracles happened late on saturday night! they sent us a text saying that they were planning on coming to church on sunday!! I wish that you could be with sister edwards and I in these moments haha we just have to express our excitement. so sunday morning came and we were just the happiest people, sister whiting had also asked us to give the yw lesson and so we were so excited to teach a lesson about being genuine and being yourself  and to have vienna there! at the church we waited by the doors for awhile and then it got close to staring and so we went in and kept looking back to see when they would be walking in... they never walked in:( we sent them a text a little after and asked if everything was ok and if we could still come to see them monday night and we didn't hear anything back from them until.... today!!! like 2 hours ago!! haha so now we are ecstatic again!! haha. it turns out that they got really sick and had just been in their beds the past to days. they said that they were so sorry and asked if we would come over tomorrow!:D so that is where we are at with mary and vienna right now haha. we are also teaching this other older lady peggy, she is super cute. she lives 40mins away in liverpool, we were knocking and she let me use her bathroom and from there we bonded haha. we are teaching her again this thursday. 

lately I haven't been getting a lot out of my studies and so I am going to try and start them with listing at least 5 things I am grateful for (a tip given to us by sister beck who we helped with painting yesterday:)).

I love it here in bridgewater!! there is just so much I want to accomplish here!!

love sister wood  

September 18, 2018

Whoever was thinking and praying for me and sister edwards last night, THANKYOU! your prayers paid off!! So, so far in bridgewater we haven't had any people to teach really but tomorrow we have two lessons set up with the sweetest people!! After having dinner and teaching an FHE lesson to this one part member family in the ward, we started knocking. In our area there is a lot of roads that are just in the middle of now where haha and this was definitely one of them. In the FHE lesson the mom talked a lot about having perfect faith and how our doubt cancels out our faith. I have realized while being on my mission that I am a pretty good doubter haha I will hope for things but then in my head I will tell myself that I don't really deserve that blessing or that God is blessing me with other things and so I shouldn't ask for more, or that based on past performance it's too much to expect. However after having that lesson, I was so fed up with myself and my doubts haha. In weekly planning we had set the goal of finding two new people to teach which seemed like a lot because we hadn't found anyone yet and we didnt have any lessons set up for the week, But we both felt good about our goal. So last night we picked a road that this couple lived on. The missionaries, a long time ago, had talked to them once but nothing had ever come from it. I wish I would've taken a picture of the house haha their front yard and back yard is literally just the forest! We knocked on the door and this mom and her 14yr old daughter came to the door. We asked her if she was melissa but she said no, they had moved out about 6months ago and they had just moved in a few weeks ago. We ended up talking to them for an hour and we are going back to teach them tomorrow! The mom's name is marry and the daughters names is vienna:) by the time we left their house it was dark so we pulled out our flashlights and almost stepped on 2 mice but we didnt care we were just so happy! so we walked along the road to the next house and there we met shanny! I dont have enough time to talk about her but she is a mom that has been through a lot and we are teaching her tomorrow too! God is guiding us to the people he's preparing!

love sister wood!

September 11, 2018

everything that I hear about gammy's funeral is so beautiful. I am blessed with such amazing grandparents on both sides of my family. Gammy and gump just had so much love for each other and for the kids and grandkids and great grandkids and you could definitely feel it. It wouldn't matter how many shots I missed in a game, I always played amazing in their eyes haha. We got to go over to this members house yesterday, sister frelick, she was one of the first members here in bridgewater. at the end of the lesson we asked if there was anything we could do for here and she said that there was just one thing that she was embarrassed to ask, "can you peel some apples for me? my hands are always bothering me and I can't do it." :) you can guess who that reminded me of, we were so happy to help sister frelick with her apples and I was grateful to heavenly father for the opportunity to serve someone that reminded me of my gammy. I love knowing that gammy's hands are no longer bothering her, her hands are more beautiful than mine when I got my wisdom teeth taken out ;) (inside joke for my family). 

We have not found anyone to teach yet but we are trying to get more creative. we are going to be doing some family history booths at the farmers markets here, we posted an add for free service (especially wood stacking) on this bulletin fb group that has 4000 members and we are really trying to improve our teaching skills of the first 3 lessons so that god can trust us to be good teachers for the people He is preparing. sister edwards is just a blast, I am so so grateful to be serving with her. she is teaching me so much:) 

We have zone conference coming up this friday and elder haynie a member from the seventy will be there! We are very excited to hear from him and apply his counsel!!

love you and have a great week!

love sister wood 

September 4, 2018

I'm sorry everyone but I don't have time to email this week, we had a 3 hour drive today. 

I am so so grateful for my gammy. Her personality was one of a kind :) I feel so much peace knowing where she is. She couldn't progress any more in this life and so she needed to take the next step. I have the greatest grandparents, they are my biggest supporters! Without them I wouldn't be on a mission right now. I love you gumpy, you are in my heart and prayers 

I'm training in Bridgewater now and it has been a blast!! I'll fill you more in next week!