I'm Alive!

So, this has been a bit of a crazy week as you have heard!  The first few days of the week were fairly uneventful with not too much to report on.  Just a few lessons, some proselyting, and stuff like that. Then, starting on Thursday, things got a bit interesting.

Thursday:  We were out doing some proselyting and trying to find an address on our bikes when it started raining pretty hard.  Luckily some lady invited us in to wait for the rain under her front porch. Usually the rain only lasts like 15 to30 minutes, so if we are proselyting we wait it out, because there is nobody outside to contact when it rains.  And when it rains it pours.  Well, this rain was even harder than normal, and it had wind with it, too, so it was extra crazy!  I am glad we weren't out in it, because it actually ended up blowing a few trees over and blowing big branches off of trees that fell into several of the roads and caused some nice traffic.  But after the 30 minutes of crazy rain, it was over and we went out and got back to work.  Then on thursday night, as we were going to bed, at 11:00, we heard a loud booming sound.  I thought it was fireworks or lightning or something, and just went to bed.

Friday:  Well when we woke up this morning, it was still  pretty dark outside, and so we almost just went back to bed.  But, we saw the clock and that it really was time to wake up.  So we did.  Well, when I looked out the door, I was super confused and really thought it had snowed and there was frost on the ground for a second. Then I remembered that I am in Indonesia and that is not possible.  Then we saw the gray color and that it was dust still falling from the sky, and immediately realized that a volcano had erupted.  It was funny, we both realized it and looked at eachother and said "Morapi" at the same time (Morapi is the closest volcano here).  Well, turns out it was a volcano a little ways away, but the eruption was big enough to reach here with the dust.  So the "fireworks" we heard last night at 11:00 was actually the volcano erupting.  Kinda crazy!  This morning, we were told not to go outside unless absolutely necessary until the dust stopped falling because it is super unhealthy.  Well, then the wind started blowing and the dust started coming into the houses, because they are not sealed.  So we decided that we would all ride taxis and meet at the church and hope it was cleaner, and then we could still have district meeting and hang out there for the day, too.  So we did.  And we ordered McDonalds delivery for lunch and hung out there for several hours.  Then the dust started settling, and we went and helped clean up the church a little bit.  But there was about 1/2 centimeter of volcanic ash everywhere outside!  Pretty crazy!  After we cleaned up a little bit, I translated the meeting with the Aardema's at the church.  What a small world to meet them here in Solo of all places after such a long time.  It was pretty funny and pretty cool!  They are awesome!  I'm glad they emailed you!  After that, we ate dinner at the church with the meeting people (perks of translating :) ) then went home for the night.  

Saturday:  This morning we knew we needed to spend some time cleaning the house becuase there was a layer of dust on everything!  Well, when we woke up, my comp was sick, so he stayed in bed.  I got up, dusted and swept and mopped the house, and studied a bit (all with no electricity...we ran out last night).  Then at about 11:30 he felt better and got up and we went and got some electricity.  Then we got ready and rode a taxi to a funeral for a member who died that night n the hospital of a stroke.  Then bishop took us to lunch, then we went with another member out to Sister M.'s house to teach the last lesson she needs to be all ready for baptism, and it went really well!  So we are super excited about that and that she is getting baptized next week!  And that was pretty much it for today.

Sunday:  Today was pretty normal.  Church.  Sister M. and her kids came!  So that was awesome!  Other than that, nothing too crazy.

Monday (Today):  Today was awesome!!!  Totally not what we expected today.  So, we had a plan to play futsal all together for district P-day.  But we woke up with a text from Sister M. this morning that something happened last night that made her super nervous and that she wanted to meet today. We got super nervous and almost a bit discouraged.   But we cancelled futsal and went out there this afternoon. Well, when we got out there, we had no idea what to expect.  But it ended up being one of the most amazing lessons and spiritual experiences and testimony builders I have ever had!  Suffice it for now to say that I know that prayers are answered, Heavenly Father still reaches out and guides his children individually, He gives us guidance and help to help others when we and they most need it. Oh, and I learned anew the depth of answers to questions contained in the Book of Mormon.  I will just say, Sister M. had a dream last night that she was very confused about the meaning of.  But her faith is enormous.  And we were able to interpret the meaning of her dream with guidance of the Spirit.  It was an incredible learning experience and testimony builder, and I don't think that I will ever forget it! It was literally one of the strongest feelings of the Spirit testifying with me I have ever had as we found an answer to her questions.  And it was totally from the guidance of the Spirit, not from us at all.  I am so grateful for experiences like this that I can have on my mission!  Oh, and she is completely ready and desiring to be baptized now!

Well, I hope you all have a great week this week!  I love you all so much!

Love Elder Wood

Elder Wood and Elder and Sister Aardema
Small world!!

Got a New Grandma!

Hey!!!  Glad to hear you are all doing well and that everything is good back at home!  And glad that the fasting and praying all paid off and we are getting some water there.  (There is no shortage of it here.... too bad we can't get it from here to there efficiently).  Sounds like a lot of exciting stuff is happening, which is pretty cool!  Shout out to Sabrina for working hard and getting a superior at Federation and for making it into the symphony!!!!  That is so awesome!!!  I am so proud of you!  And shout out to dad for hitting up the fitness and dropping 20 pounds!  Man, now when I get home its going to be me having to start working out to keep up with you!  That's awesome!

Well, this week has been pretty good!  It was kind of an interesting week, or kinda cool in a way.  So, the whole week I have been feeling a little bit discouraged and bummed that we hadn't been doing as well as we were hoping.  We just weren't getting in as many lessons as we wanted, and proselyting was hard.  But, last night, when we counted up the statistics, we actually hadn't done too poorly.  Ya, our stats were a little lower than the last few weeks, but then I looked back at several months ago, even 2 months ago or less, at our stats.  Our stats now are way higher than they were then,  and we were stoked about them.  This has given me a new vision and testimony of the hastening of the work of the Lord.  And it has also made me grateful for the success and increased vision and ability that Elder Wintolo and I have developed together!  We really are finding joy and success in this work together! And now we are hopefully going to quickly see the harvest of the fruits of our labors in the next two weeks!  Ya, Sister M. and her daughters have a baptismal date for the 23rd of February!  We have had a few setbacks and stuff, but we are pretty sure that this date is going to happen!  (And we are really hoping for it, because we are pretty sure that at least one of us will be transferring on the 24th :(...

Oh, and last night proselyting we had a pretty cool experience.  We were riding our bikes around trying to contact people and find people to teach. We had been going for a while but nobody was interested. Then we rode past this big nice house, and an old lady in a wheelchair on the front porch called out to us and invited us to come over and talk to her.  So we did.  She invited us in the gate and to come inside for a minute.  So we agreed, hoping to meet her and her family.  So we went in, and she talked to us, and invited us to share our message.  And she liked it.  She told us that (even though she is 82 and Islam) she feels that the Lord guided our path so that we could meet and talk with her.  Sadly, because of her condition (old age, she has had a stroke, and is wheel-chair bound), she cannot attend church or be baptized in this life.  But she is probably one of the nicest people I have met here.  After our lesson, she fed us dinner, gave us fruit, and then told us that she wanted us to be her grandchildren, and she was our grandma.  So now I have a grandma in Solo!  She is awesome!  I hope that there is a special place reserved in Heaven for her for her kindness, because she has a place in both my and Elder Wintolo's hearts.  And we pray that later in the Spirit World, she will have the opportunity and will accept the Gospel!  I think she will!  And she has a nephew or something that is Catholic, and we are hoping to start teaching him and his wife and son soon, too.  They have invited us back whenever we want!  It was a tender mercy from the Lord given to us at the end of what to us was a rather difficult week!  

Well, that's most of the highlights of this week from here.  Everything else was pretty normal.  Later we're going to eat at this restaurant that is kinda like a cheap Indonesian version of Texas Road House. Its called D'Koboi (pronounced Da Cowboy I think...).  I don't know, it looks funny.  Its western themed and the employees wear cowboy boots and cowboy hats.  So, I'll try to get some pictures, and hopefully it's good.

Glad things are going well at home!  Know how much I love you guys and look forward to Mondays too.  Sabrina and Eliza, I'm glad you like my shirts, but aren't they a bit big...?  Oh well haha, enjoy them!  (The flannels are great to stay warm skiing, too).

Well, I love you all so much!  But sadly I have to go.  Talk to you next week!  Love you!

Love Elder Wood

Putting on a Roof

Man, sounds like it was a pretty terrible game!  That is a bummer!  I was totally going for the Broncos, too, because I wanted Peyton to win the SuperBowl with 2 different teams!  And from what I have heard from others, it was a bad day in Vegas, too, because the analysts had the Broncos winning, too. Bummer.  It wasn't even close!  That is a pretty lame game!  Well, I hope at least the commercials were pretty funny!  But enough on that.

So, this week.  Well, there is not too much to report on this week.  But it was a pretty good week.  So, Ibu M. and her kids came to church again, which is awesome!  They are really busy, though, and so we have not been able to teach them as often as we would like, but they still really want to be baptized, and we are hoping we can get them ready by the 16th, if not at the very latest the 23rd (before transfers on the 24th because we are fairly certain that one of us will be transferring, but still not sure really.  Just guessing.).  But they are totally awesome and her kids love church and singing Primary songs and stuff. We were going to go out there today to teach them, but it ended up falling through because of timing and we couldn't get anyone to come with us.  It is hard now, because if we go visit anyone that is a female, we have to have another responsible adult there, and we are having a really hard time finding people that have the ability or time to go fellowship with us, and we can't ask the bishop every day.  So that is something new and frustrating that we have been having to try to overcome.  To this point, because of it, we have had to delay or cancel a few appointments despite having called everyone we can think of.  It is making it a lot harder to do the work, but it is from President, so I am sure it is inspired, so we are doing our best to follow it.  So, if the missionaries ever ask you, try your best to make time to fellowship with them or help them find someone who can.  Thats my advice for this week to help other missionaries out.

We have also found a few more new investigators this week, several of which look like they have some pretty good potential to progress and make the baptismal commitment.  So we are going to try to work hard with them and keep looking for more people to work with.  It is exciting to start finding new people and share the gospel with a lot more people!  

On Saturday I went on splits with Elder Giolas to his area.  That was a lot of fun to meet new people and see another area.  That morning we did some service at a new members house.  We helped them put up a new roof.  That was kinda cool.  It reminded me a lot of when I was working on building the shed up at the cabin with Grandpa. While we were there, we had a lot of time to just talk. Elder Giolas and I have gotten to be pretty good friends while we've been here.  (he's the one who's parents just moved to Midway).  He offered me a job to work with him for his dad when we get home as an HVAC salesman.  It sounds like a pretty cool job--going on sales calls, get paid to golf every Friday with clients, and whatnot.  So I don't know, that might be kinda fun.  But not something to think too hard about right now.  I'll focus on that when I get home.  But its good to have options.  That day we also visited several of their investigators and had some good appointments and it was a lot of fun!

In just a few minutes we are going to play futsal for p-day with the missionaries and hopefully a bunch of members and their non-member friends.  Trying to find some more new investigators in fun creative ways.  Then we have an appointment with an investigator tonight, then we are taking another new investigator on a church tour, then hopefully we will have a family night with an inactive member family.  So it should be a pretty good day.

This morning we spent some time cleaning the house, then I wrote a few letters to each of you and a few other people.  I put them all in a big sturdy envelope along with a MicroSD card taped to the back of a picture (I did it more carefully this time so hopefully it doesn't break), and I will put that in the mail tomorrow (its closed now).  Hopefully that gets to you soon!

Thanks for all your love and prayers!  I'm glad to hear you are all doing well!  Tell everyone Hi for me! And I will pray for some water back home, too.  Thats crazy!  Kinda scary!  Well, I love you all so much!  Hopefully that letter gets there soon!  Thanks for the letters and emails!  You guys are awesome!  I love you!

Love, Elder Wood

Ups and Downs

Well, this week has been a pretty good week I think!  We have had some ups and downs and some funny events, and I have a pretty good story to tell.

So, lets start with the good first.  Sister M. and her 3 kids came to church yesterday and stayed the whole time and totally loved it!  So that was super exciting!  They are all excited to get baptized, but because this was the first time coming to church, they have to come one more time before they can be baptized, so their baptismal date is now for the 9th of February.  But we are fairly certain it is going to happen, so that is awesome!  We were able to go out to her house this week with Bishop and his wife to teach them a lesson, and they immediately bonded a friendship together, so that was awesome and so helpful!  Now Sister M. can feel like she has some friends and support in the church other than just the missionaries, which is so important, especially for when we transfer.  So that is super exciting!

So, for the not so good part, but the funny/sad story.  So, we had stopped teaching Pak D. for a little while, but went back last week to try again.  He had become a lot better and began to progress again. He even tried to come to church last week.  So we went and visited him again this week.  Well, this week, things quickly changed.  We showed up and saw him with a bunch of Anti-Mormon literature, and immediately knew the lesson was not going to go well.  Well, we started and he asked us what we wanted to teach.  We started teaching about the Priesthood, but after less than 5 minutes, he just went off on all these things that he had found out were wrong about the church.  He had all these verses from the Bible to back his stuff up, but the only problem was that he didn't understand the background information behind the verses, or he misunderstood the church's stand on things, or he strewed things out of context and did not want to listen to our explanation.  So we just stood there and testified to him, because we could have argued but with him it would not have gotten us anywhere.  Well, at the end of his rant, he went on to tell us how wrong we were and that he hoped maybe someday we would realize the error of our ways.  But if not, he said, and these are his words as close as I can remember and translate: "At the great and final day of Judgement, God will judge you and tell you that you were wrong and had been led astray.  Then, when He asks you if anyone ever told you or showed you that you were wrong according to the Bible and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, you will have to honestly answer yes.  And God will want witnesses, and I will stand as a witness against you before God at your judgment, and testify against you that I told you and showed you the error of your ways, and God will judge you accordingly."  He said some other stuff along with it, in the same sort of context, but I can't remember it all.  But basically he just condemned us and told us that we were damned. So that was interesting.  But the cool thing was that after hearing that all and still testifying, I left with a stronger testimony than I went in with, even though some of his points almost seemed to make sense.  But we left there and laughed almost the whole way home, because we were just so incredulous at what had just happened, and we couldn't believe how quickly things there turned for the worse.  But I feel bad for him as well, because oh how sad he will be when in all reality the tables are turned.  Only the difference is I don't want to stand as a witness against him, that is not something that would make me happy or bring me joy, so I hope that doesn't happen.  I hope somewhere down the road he realizes the error of his ways and comes to see the light.  But I don't think visits from us anytime soon are going to help him with that...

So ya, those were the biggest events of this week, the rest of the week was pretty normal -  lots of proselyting, which is funny here.  We just ride up to people on the street in neighborhoods and tell them we are missionaries and ask where the Christians live, then go where they tell us to go.  It doesn't bring much success usually, but every once in a while we find someone open to meet with us.

I got the package this week.  Thank you guys so much!  It was awesome!  So much good junk food and whatnot!  I am set on good food for a while now!  In fact, it will be a problem if I transfer too soon, so I better start sharing!  But the best part is always the letters!  Those are what I most look forward to each week in emailing and in the packages!  I'm sorry it is taking me so long, but I am getting some snail mail letters written as well to each of you to send off with the SD Card, so hopefully that gets there in the next few weeks!

I'm glad things are going well at home!  Sounds like the film festival was fun, and it sounds like Elder Oaks' talk was awesome today!  Thanks for sharing parts of it with me!  I hope you guys have a great week again!  Get some good skiing in and whatnot!  Hopefully we get some snow!

I love you all and miss you, but in a good way!  Talk to you next week!  Love you!

Love Elder Wood!!!

Got P'd On!

Hey everyone!  

So this week has been pretty awesome and eventful and productive!  Really one of the best weeks of my mission so far I think!  It was awesome!  I wish I had more time to tell you all about every part of it, but I am running a little low on time for all that, so I will hit the key points.

So, this week we went out and taught Ibu M again.  This time we taught her 2 daughters as well.  We taught them the Plan of Salvation and they understood and liked it, and all 3 of them committed to be baptized on Feb. 2!  So we are praying that all will work out so that it can happen that quickly!  They have had to go to Jakarta this week to help some family move because of the flooding, so we haven't been able to meet with them as much as we would like, but they are coming back this week and we are hoping to go out there and teach them again on Wednesday.  They are so awesome and are a miracle find and a blessing from heaven!

Later that same day, Tuesday, we went to visit an eternal investigator, Mas P.  He has been learning for 8 years and has a testimony that the church is true, but hasn't wanted to or been able to be baptized yet because he has a smoking problem.  Well, we went out and visited him for the first time in over a month because Elder Wintolo had a prompting to go give him the baptismal commitment.  So we went out there.  He has a job now, and is so different from the last time we saw him.  And we gave him the baptismal commitment, he accepted for the 16th of February, and for the first time gave us a firm commitment that he would quit smoking.  So hopefully that works out, too!

Also this week, Sister A. and her daughter came back to church for the first time in over a month, so that was awesome!  And we were able to have a quick lesson after church.  She still has a strong testimony, but still does not have permission from her husband to get baptized.  So we have been fasting for her and our other investigators. Hopefully later this week we can get out to her house and meet with her husband and teach him and soften his heart!

And then we went to a member that hasn't been able to come to church for several weeks because she has been sick.  Her husband was there and we were able to talk to him for the first time, too.  He was baptized many years ago, but nobody knows if he was ever confirmed, because he immediately went inactive.  He has a problem with drinking and smoking.  But we had been told before that he wants to quit, but is having a hard time.  So the other night, we focused the lesson on him a little bit and read 1 Nephi 3:7 and some other verses and talked about the Word of Wisdom, and he is starting to open up to us a little bit, and we are hoping to be able to keep working with him to help him get active again and overcome smoking and drinking!

And we have one more cool new investigator.  He is actually currently running for what would be the Indonesian equivalent of U.S. Senator, so a national office.  You know, just running with the rich and the famous.

So I did have an entertaining, but rather unfortunate event happen this week...I got peed on... Ya, that wasn't the best night.  So we were at that 9 year old ADHD kid's house that we have been teaching.  Well, he is incredibly hyperactive, and for some reason likes to climb all over me, which I don't terribly enjoy.  But ya, the other night when we were over there, he wasn't paying any attention to the lesson at all, so that was getting frustrating.  Then he comes over to me and I'm sitting in a chair. Well, he walks up and straddles my left leg and sits down on my left thigh.  It was already pretty awkward just that, so I started gently pushing him off of me.  Well, once I got him off of me I realized that my pants were darker where he had been sitting and I could feel that they were damp through to my thigh.  Then I looked at him and his pants were all wet.  Well, I wasn't too excited or pleased about the whole situation.  But I didn't really know what to do about it either.  I don't know if his mom just didn't notice or if she was to embarrassed or what, but she didn't say anything.  Well, I tried to just act natural and finish the lesson and get out of there.  Needless to say as soon as we got home that night I washed my pants and took a shower.  But ya, that was the weirdest, nastiest thing that happened this week.  Other than that, it was all good.

I am loving it here.  My companion and I are really getting along well and getting to have a really good relationship, and we both push each other to work harder and to be better, so that is awesome!  We have started doing a lot more proselyting lately, too, which is good!  And we got in 17 lessons this week, which I think is an all-time high for me so far!  So we are really doing well right now!  I'm glad that you are all doing well, too!  Thanks for the pictures!  I love you all so much!  I hope you have a great week!  I will be sending some letters and that flash disk off in the next week or two, so hopefully that all gets to you soon!  I love you!   Give everyone else my love, too!

Love, Elder Wood

Miracle in the Tropics

1/13/14

Well, this week we had something totally amazingly awesome happen!  We literally had a small miracle and tender mercy of the Lord given to us!

So, I will tell you about it from the beginning.  Well, before Christmas like I told you, the primary for one of the wards put on a singing program at a mall.  Well, we were there and trying to contact people.  There was one lady walking past with three kids, and I just decided I would try to give her a passalong card about family.  Well, she was kinda in a hurry, but she gave me a few minutes, and accepted the card and gave me her phone number.  I didn't really think much of it, because that sort of thing happens fairly often.  But, what surprised me was that the next morning, she had already texted us and asked us to come visit her, before we could even text her first.  That rarely happens.  There was only one problem.  She lives about an hour away by bus, and said she couldn't yet come to Solo, but said she really wanted us to come visit her.  Because we were super busy for those few weeks with Christmas and New Years events and stuff, we didn't have time to go out and visit her yet.  But this week we got permission to go out there, and we set up an appointment with her.  So, on Thursday we got on the bus and went out there.  Now the story gets pretty cool.  We went to her house and started talking a  little bit.  She had already texted us and said that she used to be Christian, but 15 years ago when she got married, she followed her husband and went Islam.  But she was never totally happy or satisfied with that decision.  So, for the last several weeks or months, she had been wanting to go back to Christian but didn't know how--with her husband, and she didn't know what Christian church to go to or how to join one.  But she said that when we met at the mall before Christmas, it was an answer to her prayers--she had found a way to come back to Christianity.  She said that that very night after I contacted her, when she got home she asked her husband for permission to go back to Christianity, and he said gave her permission!  So she texted us to help guide her.  So as we went out there, she was just excited to come back to Christianity.  We were excited about that, but didn't know how open she would be to accepting the Restoration or the Book of Mormon.  But we felt like we should still share it.  So, we gave her the message of the Restoration.  After the lesson, we were talking a little bit and we started talking about her desire to come closer to the Savior again, and we told her how the Book of Mormon could help her do that and that she could pray and get an answer to know if it is true or not.  She then told us that she already had a fairly good answer--that as we were explaining the Restoration, it made sense.  She had been confused as to how to know which church to join--which one is true.  But the Restoration seemed to make sense, and she felt like if she found out it was true, she had found her church.  Then she said that as we were reciting the First Vision and explaining and reading the Book of Mormon together, she just felt a strong peace and comfort in herself, that it was something good.  So we explained to her that that was the Holy Ghost confirming the truth of what we were telling her.  Then it got even cooler.  I felt prompted to talk about getting closer to the Savior, and that we can do that through baptism, and gave her the baptismal commitment in the very first lesson, which I have never done before.  But, she accepted and said she really wants to!  So, Ibu X has a baptismal date for the 26th of January!  So awesome!  And she has 2 kids that are above 8 that she wants to get baptized, too.  So we are going to start working with them, too!  

Then it got even cooler again!  As we were on our way home, Elder W. and I were talking about how cool that all was, and he said that as I gave the baptismal commitment, he had the prompting to give the baptismal commitment, and he said that I said almost exactly what he was prompted to say, which is cool because I gave her the commitment according to my prompting, and it was different than any way we have ever given the baptismal commitment before.  So that was super cool to feel and see the Spirit guiding and testifying and working in that lesson, in someone that the Lord had prepared and placed in our path!  How grateful I am that we were willing to open our mouths and help answer this woman's prayers, and our own, and build God's kingdom on Earth.  Such a cool experience!

So ya, that was by far the highlight of the week!  But the rest of the week was awesome!  We had zone meeting with President Donald, and that was awesome and we talked a lot about having the faith to find people to teach, which went along perfectly with our experience with Ibu X!  And it helped us to be a lot more willing to open our mouths to others and share the gospel with everyone we come in contact with!  This work is true and it is amazing and so rewarding!

And it sounds like things at home are going well, which is good!  I'm jealous of the big powder day! That sounds awesome!  But I definitely can't complain about my week!

Oh, and this week i got the package from Scott and Lisa!  Please tell them thank you for me, they are so awesome!  I also have a letter written for them and a few other people, and i have re-copied the photos, so I will try to send that all off in the next week or two.  Well, I'm glad that you are all doing pretty well!  I miss and love you all so much, but I love it here too!  Thanks for writing! And have a great week!  Talk to you next week!  Love You!

Love, Elder Wood

2014 Already!

Holy Cow, I can't believe it is already 2014.  I remember when I went to the MTC that seemed like ages away!  And it came so fast!  Time is flying!  This week I hit 8 months!

This week has been a pretty good one.  We got some good work done and had some fun times. So I have to laugh, that little woven frisbee pocket disk thing that you got me for Christmas... one of the best Christmas presents ever!  Everyone in the whole district loves that thing and we play with it all the time now!  We played with it last week for P-Day--we played some Ultimate Frisbee in the parking lot at the church. Then another day we played it for a few minutes with the Bishop's family, and they thought it was awesome and were like "we are totally telling Elder Putra to buy one of those to bring back!"  And then we played with it again for P-Day today.  We went over to the church and played Ultimate Frisbee on the grass behind the church, which was super fun because you can dive and stuff!  And it is good exercise!  So that was an awesome idea!  Thank you!

Oh, and for new years.  The 31st was just a normal day.  And then that night there was a stake new years party that went from 8 til like 1 in the church parking lot.  But we all got a text from the APs saying we still had to be home on time, even though it was new years.  So we left and went to bed like a normal day.  And the 1st was just a normal day, too.  So, nothing too special.

So for lessons this week.  We had a hard time getting any appointments set up with any of our investigators, which was kind of a bummer.  But we still got a few in.  One of them was pretty fun, too, because it was with the young kid who wants to be baptized.  We were reviewing the Plan of Salvation with him and made a huge poster with stickers of each part of the plan, and he had to do a relay race thing with them, where he would go get the sticker and an explanation of that part of the plan from Elder Wintolo, then he would run over to me, explain it and answer a few questions, then he got to stick it on the poster.  It was pretty fun, and turned out pretty cool!

The rest of our lessons were with new or inactive members.  With covering the two biggest wards in Indonesia, we have a lot of inactive members to visit.  But it is good, because it keeps us busy.  But, inactives are so frustrating sometimes, because there were a good number that we had awesome lessons with, and were guided in what to say and share with them, and they totally felt it and stuff, and committed to come to church.  And then they didn't come...So FRUSTRATING!  Haha but there's not much more we can do than that.  Then its up to them.  But we did have one cool experience.  There is an inactive member that we had been trying to find for a little while, but were not being able to find him.  Then just before Christmas, we met him while he was working at the mall.  We got his number and he asked us to come visit him.  So, we got out there to visit him this week.  He is about 21 or 22 years old, and it is truly kind of a miracle the way we found him and when we found him. He used to be really strong, and then just all of a sudden went inactive.  But, in our lesson the other day, he told us how he has been wanting to get active again lately, but didn't know how, or if he was worthy, and he was too shy to do it alone.  We basically were able to find him at the perfect time, and he actually asked us how he could go about starting preparing to serve a mission, if it isn't too late!  It was super cool to be able to be there at the right time and be guided by the Lord to help make that happen!  This work is true!  

So, the other big events this week.  On Friday we had Zone Conference.  That was good, and we talked a lot about finding faith to find people to teach, because for the New Year, President has really upped the goals for finding, teaching, and baptizing people.  A LOT!!!  It will be difficult to do all the parts of it, but I guess its inspired, its doable, and we will do our best!  Then on Friday night it was Sister Sheffield's and Elder Haws' birthdays, so we went to Pizza Hut to celebrate, which was fun!

On Saturday, I was on Splits with Elder Loudon, while Elder Giolas (DL) was on splits with my comp. So I went over to their area, which was kinda fun.  We ended up spending most of the day just proselyting, which we are trying to start doing more of, because before we didn't really do much at all. It is kinda weird to proselyte here.  We go ride through little "neighborhood" things, and look for people who look like nice, people sitting on the side of the street, ride up to them, explain who we are and what our purpose is, and ask if there are any Christians that live nearby.  It is pretty awkward and funny sometimes, but it actually worked OK.  By the end of a few hours we had talked to a lot of people and had 4 people who said we could come back another time and teach a lesson.  So that was fun.  And we helped a guy clean up some trees in front of his house for some random service, and he turned out to be Christian and said we could come back whenever, and was super appreciative of our service.  So that was good.  So ya, Saturday was fun!

Sunday we had an inactive member come to church for the first time in a few months or years that Elder Wintolo and Giolas visited on Saturday, so that was awesome!  And ya, that's mostly it for this week.  Sorry, I'm out of time.  But I love you, I am glad everything is going well at home!  That's pretty funny about Duke being all freaked out!  Give everyone Hi from me, and Happy New Years!  

I love you all so much!  Thanks for your emails!  Talk to you later!

Love, Elder Wood