Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving dinner!  So yummy!  Prepared by Sister Lucherini

Hey!  Man, that is pretty crazy to see pictures of you guys with Sister Sheffield back at home!  It is pretty weird that people from my MTC group are already going home!  So crazy!  It makes it seem like time really has flown by and that I don't have a ton of time left!  Which is kinda sad!  But it is motivation I guess to make the very most of what time remains (which is still enough :)

So, this week has been pretty good!  Not too crazy.  Thursday here was just...Thursday.  But we did have a quick streetside dinner with a couple of teenage new members after English class. So that was fun for our Thanksgiving celebration.

But Friday, that was Thanksgiving.  Every Friday we have district meeting at the mission home, and after district meeting this week, Sister Lucherini, one of the senior couples, had prepared a full Thanksgiving dinner with turkey and stuffing and potatoes and pies and everything!  It was so delicious, and so fun to eat it all together at the mission home!  So we were able to have a Thanksgiving here!  Which was awesome!

After thanksgiving lunch we went out to start working, and it was raining, which always causes terrible traffic here.  We headed out to an appointment on a bus, got separated and lost a little bit, and by the time we were out to the area of our appointment it was already too late to go there, and we had to head home, and were still almost late going home.  The traffic was so bad and the lines to get on the buses so long that I think we traveled the total of less than 10 miles in over 6 hours!!!  It was absolutely ridiculous and pretty frustrating, but also kind of a funny experience to just look at and see how crazy that was!  But it was a bummer that we weren't able to make it to our appointment.  But it was OK in the end, because the guy still came to church on Sunday!

This week we also got to go on splits to Bekasi, which was fun!  It is a lot of fun getting to go work with the other missionaries and learn from them!  And it seems like the Lord always blesses us with miracles of great success when we go on splits!  Things just seem to always work out well to boost morale of the other missionaries and help them in their areas!  So that is definitely a tender mercy that seems to often accompany splits! Like this week we found a new investigator and got a lot of really interested contacts and several return appointments with them!

And then on Sunday we had a small miracle happen!  We have a zone goal to get have every companionship get one more baptism by the end of the year, and we were fasting for it.  We had one investigator on date, but he is not doing anything to progress, and still hasn't come to church, and is now just asking us for money.  So we were kind of losing hope on him and wondering where our baptism was going to come from.  But, we had a fairly long time investigator come to church this Sunday again, and we met with him afterwards and had a really powerful lesson about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and we got him to commit to preparing himself to be baptized on the 21 of December!  So that was super exciting!  His name is C, and he seems excited, too!  He has just been concerned that he will not be perfect, and that is why he has not committed beforehand, but we were able to help him understand that baptism is the first step, not the end goal to perfection, and he understood that and wants to go forward with faith!  So that was a miracle and answer to our fasts!  

So, it was a pretty good week here!  Not too much going on!  But lots of little good things!  I am liking the area, though still getting used to the traffic!  Sometimes we go 5 miles in the same amount of time it would take to drive to St. George, which is pretty crazy!  But we try to make the most of it and get contacts on the buses and whatnot!  But Jakarta is a good area and I am liking my companion.  

Glad to hear you are all doing well and had a pretty good, though different, Thanksgiving!  And Sunday today sounds like it was pretty fun!  Tell everyone hi for me as well!  

As far as FB goes, it is actually a mission page called Mormon Jawa Barat, and also Mormon Indonesia.  You are welcome to follow the pages.

For treats sent from home, I don't really know what.  I am kind of just getting to that point of being happy with what's here, and waiting for the rest to be exciting when I get home.  But maybe a few Reeses peanut butter cups would be awesome, and if you can get it through, some home made honey!  Those might be kind of exciting!  And then just whatever you think would be fun!  You always do a pretty good job of picking things to go into "the box."

Well, I love you all!  Thank you for the emails and the pictures, and the advice and the stories!  You are awesome!  I hope you have a great week and Happy December!  Can't wait to skype!  Love You!

Love Elder Wood

Ice Skating for P-Day!  Me trying to be good at ice skating...lacking in form and flexibility haha

Me and my homie Elder Jones chilling on the couch at the mission home before Thanksgiving lunch!