December 11, 2018

HOLY is it really my last email!!! I remember sitting in St. John's writing my first email and just feeling so nervous and excited for the next 18 months. I am so so grateful that I was called to serve a mission, it has broken me down and built me up stronger. Before my mission I had a testimony of the gospel, of the plan of salvation, of the prophet joseph smith and the book of mormon. But that testimony wasn't going anywhere. I was very idle and very complacent with my conversion. I have learned though from reading alma 32 hundreds of times (either with members, people we're teaching, in a conference, or on my own) that we CAN NOT settle when it comes to our own conversion. WE need to be continually strengthening our roots. It is not good enough to just know the seed is good because of a little sprout, or to know the gospel is good because we've felt the spirit a couple times in church before. We are all going to continue to face challenges in our lives that will try to uproot us and so the only solution is to grow deeper roots. and we all know how to do that:) it's the sunday school answers that will forever be the right answers. I hope that all of us, even if we are busy or don't have the motivation, or don't see the results yet, can keep watering and nourishing our faith.  To have faith is something that we get to choose to do:) and I choose to have faith. I choose to believe in a loving Heavenly Father. I choose to believe in a modern prophet and apostles and  modern day revelation. I will forever be indebted to my Heavenly Father for everything He has blessed me with especially for my parents who raised me and choose to have faith too. I am just so in awe of everything I have come to realize over the past 18 months. One of the most amazing parts of serving here in nova scotia has been hearing the testimonies of the members! Their conversion stories are amazing!! I wish I could share them all with you!! last week we brought brother and sister fraser to our lesson with glen and brother fraser told glen about how it was the day of his baptism and he still hadn't received his answer yet! but the missionaires had promised him that by the day of his baptism he would receive a witness of the truth:) and sure enough during sacrament meeting during one of the testimonies the spirit came into his heart and told him it was all true. My favourite part of that story is that brother fraser wasn't about to call his baptism off! he had so much faith in the promise from the missionaries which really was a promise from God, I hope to have that must trust in Heavenly Father. 

Well I have to go and finish packing haha we leave bridgewater in the morning and will be staying in halifax till friday! the members keep giving us gifts haha so hopefully everything will fit!! I am just so so blessed!!! thank you for all of the prayers and all of the encouragement!!! I have truly loved this mission that I have been able to serve for God!

love sister wood

December 4, 2018

I was so sad to hear about scott nelson this week. I'm so grateful that in times where we feel helpless we are able to fast and pray. We taught bayne a lesson about fasting last which was really perfect for him because his brother in law had just gone to the hospital after bayne had found him passed out inside his house. A scary experience but also an opportunity to put our faith and trust in the Lord. In one of the testimonies on fast sunday brother edmonds talked about when we fast we are strengthening our spiritual muscle, and we are also strengthening our ability to choose right. usually when we are hungry we just go and grad something to eat, but when we fast we put off that natural reaction and choose something that is better. Our greater purpose is what motivates us. When we are able to master this it prepares us for future dilemmas in life where we need to push away the temptations and let God's greater purpose motivate us. 

This past week we were able to teach glen. He was taught by missionaries about 20 years ago. They helped him to quit smoking but at the time he just couldn't commit to baptism. God placed him in our path though and so hopefully this time he is ready! we are teaching him again tonight:). We also got to meet this older man named roger. It seems like whenever we have a night when we feel like chickens with our heads cut off God leads us to someone cool haha. We were in mahone bay walking and for whatever reason we just couldn't find this road we were going to go to. We stopped and tried pulling up the map on our phone again and realized that we had walked past it. Before we started walking again though we thought that maybe this was God leading our feet and so we knocked on the house that we were closest too. There we met roger:) He has been having a hard time lately. He found out in the spring that he has cancer and so a message of hope is really what he's needing!!

I can't believe I'll only be sending one more email after this one! I have been so blessed and my testimony of chirst and the scriptures has grown so much!

love sister wood