Exhausting..Stressful...I'm loving it!!

Well, things here have been interesting this week.  On Monday we all went paintballing!  Even President Donald came!  That was pretty fun!  Haha and my team totally dominated!!!  So that was sweet!

On Tuesday we had Mission Leader Conference.  That is always awesome!  We talked a lot about Christ-like attributes and creating more unity in the mission.  So we taught about that at Zone Meeting on Friday.  On Tuesday after MLC, we had to go to the hospital because Elder Barlow had a major ingrown toenail, and we had to get it operated on.  So that pretty much killed our whole Tuesday because of how long it took to get to and from the clinic with traffic.  Wednesday was a pretty normal day and we had some good lessons.  We met with the guy from Malaysia again, which was cool.   Thursday was a long day of weekly planning and planning for ZTM.  But we were able to get some lessons in, too.  Friday we had ZTM, and that went well!  Then we had to go back to the hospital for a follow-up visit on Elder Barlow's toe.  Saturday, we had a few hours in the morning/early afternoon to go out and work.  But then we had to come to the church to set up for a fireside.  We threw a missionary fireside on Saturday evening for members and investigators.  We watched a part of Elder Bednar's "Come and See" talk, and a Mormon Message.  Then we had some cake and had some games set up -- like ping pong, badminton, futsal, and the "eat the donut on a string" game thing.  It was a ton of fun and we had a lot of people show up!  And most of them were investigators and new members.  It was great, because the investigators got fellowshipped well and everyone had a great time!  Everyone was telling us we need to do another one soon!  So that was cool!  That took us from the evening to the night, though.  But Sunday was good!  We had several investigators show up at church!  We had 2 random people just show up to the fireside last night, and they came to church on Sunday and we taught them!  So that was cool!  And we had a member visit with Sister Bombasi from the English ward.  That was fun!  And good food!  Oh, and we brought a new member named Ivan along with us!  He is like the best friend member with the missionaries!  He is the coolest guy ever!  He got baptized about 6 months ago, so just shortly before I got here.  He is indonesian but he speaks fluent English.  He is always going fellowshipping with us, and hanging out on P-Day, and he is way cool and way strong!  And, he has an aunt that lives in California.  Well, this summer he is coming to visit America for about 6 months to visit his aunt and stuff!  Elder Barrus and I have invited him to come spend a few weeks in Utah with us and all the other missionaries he knows, and he is super excited!  So we have been getting him started on Family History work recently so that we can take him to the temple to do baptisms for the dead for his family while he is there!  So we are super excited about that!  I hope it is Ok if I invite him to stay at our house with me for a few days while he is there.  I really want you guys to meet him!  He is so cool!

As for the rest of the work, as you can see we had to spend a lot of time out of our area this week, so we didn't get in as many teaching opportunities as I would have liked.  But we still had a good week.  Pak J is still preparing to be baptized next Sunday!  So that is super exciting!  He is awesome!  Sadly Pak M didn't come to church again yesterday, so he has to be delayed a week.  But we went to his house and taught him the Sabbath more in depth, and I think it helped him a lot, and he committed to for sure come next week, and wants to be baptized the beginning of April.  So that is good!  As for Pak B--ever since his stroke we haven't been able to get ahold of him, so that is a bummer!  D--our African friend--is doing awesome!  He is embracing the gospel and it is awesome!  He said the other day he was riding a train, and the Holy Ghost told him to testify to the blind guy next to him about Jesus Christ.  So he did, and the guy was Muslim, but said that D's testimony touched him, and he wants to meet with us now!  Haha so cool!

That is most of the report on what is going on over here!  It is a lot of good stuff!  I am loving it here!  It is exhausting!  And stressful at times!  But it is such an amazing opportunity!  

Well, I love hearing from you all!  Thanks for the letters and everything!  Haha sounds like things will be busy at home for the next few weeks!  Good--you guys can stay busy so you can stop being so trunky haha!!!  

But I hope you all have a great week!  Love you!

Love Elder Wood

We Broke the Barrier

Hey, how's it going?  That is exciting that some snow finally fell!  Pretty late in the season haha!  But better late than never!  

That will be super cool for Grandma to seal Uncle Gene to her family!  So exciting!  And that will be cool to be able to go and see it!  That is pretty cool all the stuff he did!  I wish I could be there!  I miss the temple!  As far as people here going to the temple, it depends a lot on their economic status.  There are people that go maybe once a year, or once every two years, and there are people who have never been, and people who have been once in their lives.  So a lot of it just depends.  But there are quite a few who have been, which is cool!

Well, this week has been pretty good!  So, our mission standards of excellence are to get in 20 discussions a week.  I have done that in Solo and Manado and Tangerang.  But we have never been able to get it done in Jakarta, because we spend such long periods of time stuck in traffic getting anywhere, that it has been a struggle to get it all done.  The traffic is killer here!  We sometimes spend 3 hours in a crappy non-Air Conditioned bus that is falling apart as it idles down the road, but we don't go very far.  Haha it has been a major learning experience on patience.  And it has really slowed us down.  Until this week!  We finally broke the barrier here this week, and got 21 lessons in!  So that was awesome!  We were super excited!  And we had a lot of little miracles along the way!

Right now, we have Pak B, Pak M, F, and Pak J all on date for baptism this month.  And D and his friends K, N, and R (all from Africa) are still learning and progressing and came to church this week and we are just trying to find a time to meet with them and renew their date, because a few things came up and they weren't able to be baptized yet.  But they are all excited, too!  So there is a lot of good things going on!  Oh, and we got another new foreign investigator this week!  His name is C from Spain.  He speaks English well, luckily!  But it is fun, because now on my mission, I can say I have used English, Indonesian, French, and Spanish in teaching appointments.  But my Spanish is very limited at this point, and my French...I think I can say 5 words is all haha!  But it is still fun to try!  So we have a lot of awesome investigators at this point and a lot of potential going on!

We had a miracle to get Pak J on date.  Last week he pretty much rejected us, and we just sat there, took it, and then testified and challenged him to close with prayer.  We walked out feeling that we had lost him, but over the next 24 hours the Holy Ghost worked on him, and he called us back and wanted to meet! So we have met with him several times since, he came to church yesterday, and we taught him last night.  But at the end of the lesson he still wasn't sure about baptism, so we again challenged him to kneel and pray specifically about it, and during the prayer he got his answer.  He opened his eyes afterwards and asked who it is that baptizes him.  We told him it was up to him, but that we wanted him to commit to the 29th of this month, and he accepted!  So that was awesome!  The Holy Ghost came through and worked hard with him!  Prayers are powerful, and answered in the way of the Lord!  I know that much!

Other than that, this week Elder Tufaga, one of the Elders in our house, got Dengue Fever.  So he has been in the hospital since Friday afternoon.  We have been doing splits with him.  And Sunday was my turn, so I didn't get to go to church.  That felt way weird!  That was the first Sunday I have missed in a long time!  And it felt extra weird to not go as a missionary haha!  Made me realize how important church is!  But luckily Elder Tufaga is doing well and will probably get out in the next few days.  His isn't as bad as mine was, luckily!

Oh, and this week these guys came around our neighborhood with these smoke blower things that kill mosquitoes and cockroaches and stuff.  We asked them to spray inside our house, too, because we have a cockroach infestation.  Well, after they sprayed, I swept up about 50 or more dead cockroaches from off the floor around our house...It was pretty disgusting!  The smoke drove them out of all the cracks and they died in the middle of the floor!  Gross!  But at least they are gone for the most part now...

Well, I think that is mostly it for this week!  Thanks for the emails!  I love hearing from you! and I hope you all have a great week!  And get some rest!  Sounds like things are going crazy!  I love things here, though!  I am sad to see it going so fast, but there is still a lot of opportunities ahead the next few weeks!  Talk to you later!

Love you!

Love Elder Wood

I'm Loving it!!

Hello!  Wow, I can't believe it is already March!  Time is flying by here!  But things are staying busy and interesting!  And I am loving it!  And glad that I still have time left here!  But it is going away too quickly!  Trying to make it all count!

Well, this week was a pretty good one.  We went on splits to Bekasi at the beginning of the week.  That was fun.  I got to work with Elder Canfield, and that was a lot of fun.  I lived in the same house with him in Tangerang for several months.  He is a great guy and an awesome missionary.  I learned a lot with him, and had a lot of fun and learned a lot of things bouncing ideas back and forth with him and talking about the work here and whatnot.  Fun to have a change of scenery every once in a while.  But splits are always a pain, too, because they take us out of our area for a day and a half, and so we lose a lot of opportunities to spend time proselyting and finding new investigators, because we are then trying to catch up on teaching appointments.  But it is good.

As far as this week goes, we had some cool experiences.  We have an investigator named J.  He promised us last week that he would come to church last Sunday, but then didn't come.  So on Monday we went to his house.  Well, he was totally trying to politely reject us and tell us he didn't need to change churches and whatnot.  But he just couldn't say it.  He was just beating around the bush, and we were just waiting for it.  But he never really got there.  So we just sat and listened and then answered his concerns the best we could, and had him close with prayer and ask God what he needs to do.  Well, during the lesson, we felt we were guided by the spirit, but his attitude wasn't really changing.  And we didn't feel the Holy Ghost during his closing prayer.  So we left thinking that he was gone.  But the next day he texted us and all of a sudden wanted to meet again.  So we met.  And since then, we have met him 3 times this week, and have had some awesome lessons with him, and he really wants to keep learning, and has promised to come to church next week, and almost has said he wants to be baptized.  He just said that after we left that first time, he was ready to put the Book of Mormon away, but he felt a desire and need in his heart to read it, and so he has been, and he has been feeling good about it, and is beginning to gain a testimony of the truth, despite how many people around him (pretty much everyone he knows) telling him that our church is evil and a cult and whatnot.  So that has been a really cool experience to see the Holy Ghost work on him and change his heart so much over such a short time!  A miracle!

We have been teaching D and his friends still, too.  And they are pretty cool.  D is still living with his girlfriend because he hasn't been able to find a place to live yet, but he is looking because he really wants to move out so that he can be baptized!  So he is awesome!  And he came to church this week!

Pak M has stopped drinking coffee and is pretty much all ready, so we are preparing him for the 15th of this month!  Pak B is still smoking just a little, but we visited him today and got him to give us his last pack of cigarettes and commit to stopping fully.  We were pretty blunt with him and his friend that was there, too.  I think his friend got a little offended, but Pak B is awesome and realizes that it really is the Lord wanting him to do it, and he wants to do it too!  So he took it really well!  These are really our most progressive investigators right now, and they seem to be doing well!

We had one guy that some other missionaries contacted show up at church, too, and we taught him afterwards, and he was pretty cool and wants to come back next week as well!  So that was pretty good!  Little miracles!

Today for P Day, we ran into President and Sister Donald when we were going to get lunch, and they invited Elder Barlow and I to go eat lunch with them.  they took us to a nice restaurant and paid for our lunch, and it was so delicious, and so fun to get to sit and talk with them!  They are the most amazing people!  

Well, I think that is most of it for this week!  Things here are awesome and I am loving it!   Mom--for your questions:  My companion is good, my health is good, the weather is hot and humid and the rainy season is ending, and I am good.  The house is pretty good, but they are in a bad habit of talking til way too late sometimes, so we are always tired haha!  We are trying to get a hold on that.

Thanks for all your letters!  I love you all and hope you have a great week! 

Love Elder Wood

Another Week in Paradise!

Another week in paradise!  We have had a busy week,that's for sure!  On Monday we helped one of the Sisters' investigators move houses in the morning, then played basketball, and emailed,and did other stuff, then taught 2 lessons. One was with a kid named F.  He is Islam.  But he committed to baptism on the 14th of March!  So that is pretty exciting! 

Tuesday was MLC, which was awesome!  President always has way cool things to say to inspire us and direct the mission in the way it needs to go!  It is so cool to have the opportunity to sit in on that meeting and participate!  Such a blessing!  In this one we talked a lot about become full purpose missionaries--not just finding and teaching an baptizing, but also reactivating and retaining, and how to make all of those things work together to be most successful!  About how doing one of those things, we can make it have a positive effect on all other aspects of our work, and that we need to focus to do all 5 of those things!  

The rest of the week we were busy with lessons, teaching investigators and stuff.  And we had to prepare our lesson for Zone meeting, which was on Friday.  The meeting went pretty well and I think the message got across well.  The missionaries seemed to enjoy it!  That has always been one of the hardest things for me--teaching something that everyone already knows, but doing it in a way that will keep their interest and inspire them to do it.  I think we are getting slowly better at it.  But it is definitely a good learning experience!

As far as investigators go, Pak B is still smoking a little bit. He has cut back a lot. So he is still working at it.  And he went to the doctor this week, and the doctor told him that he can't smoke any more or he is at high risk of having a stroke.  So hopefully that will help him to stop, because we definitely don't want him to have a stroke!  But look, the gospel is true!  Pak M is still doing OK. He has cut back a lot on coffee and has pretty much stopped now.  But there are a few other things that we are working through with him to get him fully ready for baptism!  But I think it will still be happening pretty soon!

  

D, the African guy, is awesome!  He had to move this week, so we weren't able to meet with him too much.  But we met with him on Sunday night, along with like 5 other friends.  It was a very interesting lesson, because there were 2 people who only spoke French, 2 who spoke Indonesian, David who speaks pretty good English and French, and us, who speak English and Indonesian.  So there was a lot of translating going on back and forth.  And two of the people in the lesson were Islam.  So we taught a simple lesson about Jesus Christ and the Atonement.  And all of them liked it and are interested in learning more and coming to church.  And there were a few other of their friends that we met that night that are interested in coming to church.  D is awesome, thought!  He is giving tons of referals and still soaking everything in like a sponge!  Last night, he reminded us about his baptismal date for next week before we had the chance to bring it up.  But sadly it cannot happen yet, because he is still living with his girlfriend because they can't afford two apartments he says.  But he promised us that ever since we gave the commitment to live the law of chastity on our first meeting, they have been chaste.  He hasn't even kissed her on the lips!  And he was under the impression that that would be good enough given his circumstances.  It was really hard to tell him no, because we could see how bummed he was about it.  But he took it well, and said that if it is God's command,then he has no right to change it!  So he will wait and keep working for a solution! He is so cool!

Well, that is most of the best information from this week!  Elder Barlow is my companion right now.  He is from Bountiful.  I think his mom said she knows mom, and that dad went to high school with his aunt or something.  But he is cool and we have been getting along well!  Exhausted! but happy!

I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Love Elder Wood

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Happy Valentines Day

Hey!  Glad to hear things are going well back at home.  Bummer that there is no snow!  That is crazy about that plane crashing on Valley View, too!  Speaking of golf, my new companion, Elder Barlow, plays golf, too.  And President told us he wants to take us to go play a round sometime in the next few weeks!  So that will be super awesome!  A round of golf with the mission President!  No Pressure, right!?

Haha that's pretty funny that the JW's stopped by this week!  We run into them quite a bit here!  They actually came to our house here a few weeks ago, too, and tried to contact us.  I think they got a bit more than they were bargaining for there, as we walked in with one short pamphlet and they walked away with a 5 minute explanation, testimony, and a Book of Mormon and 3 pamphlets.  Sadly they weren't too open to having a discussion.  But we gave them our testimony, too.  

Well, this week has been pretty good, too!  Our investigator, Pak B, who is really quite old and has a hard time remembering things keeps coming to church.  And he has gone the last 3 days without smoking!  Which is awesome for him!  He is finally starting to pick up on things and is really making the effort!  It has been a lot of work with him!  But it is way cool to see it be paying off!

The African investigators are doing quite well, also!  They are awesome!  Especially the one that can speak English!  He studies the Book of Mormon, Gospel Principles, and Teachings of the Presidents of the Church manual almost every day!  And he always has great questions!  He is way cool!  I think he will be prepared for baptism in the next few weeks along with his friends!  

Pak M is coming along slowly but surely. He also has an addiction to coffee, which is the main thing holding him back.  And he doesn't always do his scripture study.  So his progression is not as fast as it could be.  We are really working on getting him to read and study often so that he can have his testimony grow and be strengthened!

  

And we have several other investigators that are doing well!  We had several of our baptismal dates drop this week.  Not that they rejected us, just that they will not be ready by their date next week, so we will have to meet with them and push it back a bit and work harder to get them progressing and preparing.

This coming week we will be having mission leader conference tomorrow.  That is always an awesome experience!  And today we played basketball for P Day with all the zone leaders that flew in!  That was a ton of fun!

Um, ya, that's most of what is going on here right now.  The work is progressing and the Lord is blessing us!  We are finding many people to teach and several that are prepared to hear and receive!  So that is exciting!  

I love you all and hope you have a great week!  Thanks for everything and for all your love and emails!  I love reading them!

Pray for snow, and baptisms :)

Love you all!

Love Elder Wood

The Spirit Speaks in French!

Well, it has been a pretty busy week!  We had a lot of cool stuff going on and a lot of neat opportunities.  On Monday night, we went to teach this African guy named D, that the Sisters contacted.  He has come to church in the English ward twice, but we have not been able to teach him until now because he is a pro soccer player here and is way busy.  But we showed up.  I was actually on splits with Elder Troff because of all the transfers and stuff.  So it was fun to be with my son again.  Well, we show up and he is in a tiny little apartment.  He is sitting there with his African girlfriend.  Then this huge other African guy that is ripped walks out of the bathroom in just a towel and starts speaking French.  And another one goes into the bathroom.  We have no idea what's going on, or what is going to happen.  Well, we just kind of sit waiting because D is stalling on starting the lesson.  Then the guy that just got out of the bathroom comes in dressed again.  And they start talking in French again.  Well, then D explains to us that he is the only one that can speak English really, and his friends and girlfriend only speak French.  But he wants them to hear the lesson, too.  We were like, “Well we don't speak French, so how's this going to work out?”  But he said he would translate.  So we started the lesson and taught the Restoration as simply as possible.  It was so simple, and after every sentence, D would translate it for his friends.  And although it was simple, the Spirit was so strong, and they all understood.  They answered our questions and they asked questions and everything!  And throughout the lesson, during his translation, we would notice D was saying way more than we had said, but when he stopped, he looked at us and said, "Sorry, I was just telling them that if they read the Book of Mormon, they will feel the Spirit and get peace, comfort, and direction in their life like they have never had before."  and stuff like that.  He is just learning for the first time, but is bearing his testimony from the little he has read and experienced at church!  It was awesome!  Definitely one of the coolest lessons I have ever experienced!  So simple and slow, but to see D so excited to share it and translate with love for his friends was awesome!  I just wished I understood more French!  But at the end of the lesson, all three of them committed to baptism!  And they asked what they had to do to prepare for it, and accepted all the commitments right then and there!  And the friends, in very broken English, kept pointing at his heart and saying, "I feel happy!  I feel so so happy right now!  You are my family now!  You come here whenever you want!"  It was awesome!  They were so genuine and so sincere!  And they came to church on Sunday, and we set up the translating equipment because there is a member that speaks French, and he translated for them!  It was so awesome!  They are so cool!

Then on Tuesday I was at Senopati all day waiting for my companion to get in and stuff.  In the evening, Sister Donald came up to the office, because there were just a few of us here, ordered pizza for us.  Then we went down into their house and we got to watch Meet the Mormons with President and Sister Donald!  That was a way cool experience!  

The rest of the week with Elder Barlow has been awesome, too!  We have been really busy and have been working really hard.  We have a lot of investigators that are doing really well!  In fact, we currently have 8 investigators with a baptismal date, and several others that we are going to commit this week!  So the hastening of the work is really happening!  We got 16 lessons in this week, which is more than I have ever gotten yet in Jakarta, and we didn't even get to go out at all on Tuesday.  And we already have 14 lessons planned for next week with a lot of other time for other investigators to meet!  So there is a lot happening!  We have been working on making covenants with the Lord to bind Him on blessings, and we have been seeing the results.

Well, I probably ought to wrap up.  But I love you all!  I hope you all have a good week!  I am loving the mission, and we are going to do some awesome things in the last few months here!  Love you!

Love Elder Wood

Not an alien!

Well, it has been another busy week!  The beginning of this week was PLD--like zone conference with President.  We had to teach a part of it on the role of the Spirit in conversion.  And it was pretty cool.  I learned a lot.  And we used a fun little object lesson with oil and water.  They don't mix together very well by themselves.  But if you add some soap (the Holy Ghost) they will mix together a lot better and will turn white (pure).  Haha so that was fun.  But we forgot anything to stir it together with, and we didn't add enough soap during the actual lesson...so it only sort-of worked.  But it got the point across.  So that was good.  PLD was good and inspiring as always!

After PLD, we got several new Indonesian missionaries straight from the MTC.  So, Elder S and I have had two of them with us all week.  So we have been on splits with them, which is nice because we can get 2x the work done.  And it has been funny to be with missionaries so new.  My companion is still on white-person shock, so he still thinks I'm something weird and special, kind of like an alien.  Which is funny, because all the other missionaries are already so over that sort of thing.  But it has been fun.  But we were teaching our first lesson together--his first lesson in the field with an investigator. And halfway through it I got a pretty bad random nose-bleed.  And it wasn't stopping.  So I just had to sit with my head tilted back and a tissue over my nose while he and a new member, who was fellowshipping with us, taught the rest of the lesson.  Haha that was stressful for all of us, and definitely an interesting experience!  But it worked out alright!  So that was cool!

It is transfers this week.  I am not transferring, but my companion will be transferring, and I will be getting a new companion, Elder B.  So that will be a lot of fun.  I've met him several times and he is a really good guy and we get along well.  So I am excited for that!  He will be coming in tomorrow.  

This week we found some new investigators.  One of them is from the Congo, and the other is from India.  Who'd have guessed.  But they are both really cool and came to the English ward yesterday!  So that was exciting!  And we are going to teach them later tonight.  Sadly for several different reasons, we did not have a baptism yesterday.  But the investigators are still doing well and want to learn and progress.  We are just working through a few things--mostly word of wisdom things.  But it is progressing.

Today we went ice skating for P-Day which was fun.  And then we ate an italian pizza place, which was pretty good.  And I think you guys are too concerned about the picture.  I think it looks worse than actuality, because everyone here says I look the same as before, and I still weigh the same and eat fine.  So I am ok.  

Well, I am glad that you guys have all been having a good week.  Tell Kye congrats on the baptism! that is awesome!

So ya, that's pretty much it.  Hope you have a great week!  And mom, congrats on winning the food challenge thing at the Superbowl party.  Sounds like you've taken the cake the last 2 years!

Well, I love you all!

Love Elder Wood