Raising the Bar!

Well things here are going well!  This Sunday, C was confirmed!  So that was awesome!  He is super cool!  All our new members are awesome, actually!  And one of our other new members, Brother E, who was baptized about 2 months ago, just baptized his son yesterday, too!  That was super cool to see!  And we have been getting a lot of lessons and having some good success.  Pak M came again this week, and he brought his brother as well.  And Pak M is still excited for baptism!  Sadly we weren't able to teach his brother yet, because he had another appointment.  But Pak M is excited to help his brother as well!  So that is awesome!

This week we had mission leader conference, and talked a lot about the goals for this year.  We have a mission goal to get almost 400 baptisms this year!  That is super exciting!  And so we are raising all the goals and standards of excellence of the mission in accordance.  Haha it is awesome, because if you had told me these goals in my first few months here, I sadly probably would have laughed in your face and said not possible, because that was just the culture here.  But things are changing, and the Lord is hastening the work and everyone is getting excited.  There are still a few that are pretty shaky about these goals, but they are willing to try I think, and we are seeing success throughout the mission, and it is motivating everyone!  So that is exciting to see!  We had to teach a ZTM lesson on it, and we had some fun object lessons to convey the point, that I think went well!  

Sadly today we weren't able to go paintballing.  I think we will be going next month, actually.  But we are looking forward to it.  Today we are mostly just relaxing and stuff.  We got haircuts and have to go shopping.  Plus, I got strep throat this week, so I haven't been feeling to great.  But I got some antibiotics and stuff and am recovering well. 

Well, I hope you guys have a great rest of your time in Hawaii!  Have fun and be safe!  And Happy Anniversary Trip!  I love you!  

Love Elder Wood

Welcome 2015!

Hey!  Well, welcome into 2015!  Those pictures of skiing were awesome!  I miss the mountains!  But I am going to freeze when I get home, I think!  The other day it was rainy at night and I woke up and it was like 75 degrees, and I felt cold.  Like really cold...  But oh well, I'll get used to it.

Well, this week was pretty slow actually.  Because of the new year, everyone has been out of town and so we have had a really hard time getting many appointments.  So we have been spending a lot of time proselyting.  But it has been raining almost every day this week.  Which makes it hard, because when it rains, not many people are outside to talk to, and we can't knock on doors.  So it makes it a bit difficult.  And we get wet.  So we are just banking on the old missionary rumor that the more you proselyte in the rain, the prettier your wife gets!  Hopefully it comes true!  But we have been able to find a few people.  And then we experienced a few miracles.  

One of them was after proselyting for several hours and having almost no success, we were walking to a members house and a guy called to us "Hey, are you Mormons?"  We started talking to him, and turns out he just moved here about a week ago from Kuching Malaysia.  He was baptized in 2010 there, and knew several of the people we met while we were there.  I asked him and he knew about that guy that we spent a lot of time with that had adopted all those boys.  And he knew Alana, and said that she is serving a mission in Kuala Lumpur right now.  Sadly he didn't know grandma and grandpa haha.  But it was awesome to meet and talk to him.  He said he had been looking for the church here, but hadn't found it yet.  So we took him to the member's house with us, and then took him to the church.  He said he would come this Sunday, but sadly he didn't show up.  Hopefully next week.

Then on Sunday, this random guy showed up at church.  We had no clue who he was and had never met him before.  But we talked to him at church, and then taught him after church.  Turns out his friend gave him a pamphlet a week or so ago, and yesterday he decided to come.  When we taught him, he committed to baptism on the 24th of January, and wants to bring his brother with him next week!  So that was awesome!

On Sunday night we had a "cottage meeting" at President's house.  He invited all the missionaries in Jakarta to come to his house and bring any investigators or new members who could come.  We had a short devotional and then had a little dinner together!  It was awesome!  And that guy, his name is Pak M, came!  And he seemed to really enjoy it, so that was awesome!

Today we are going to play some basketball or golf for P Day, and next week we got permission to go paintballing with a new member!  So that will be awesome!  (Oh and tell Sister Sheffield that we got permission for paintballing, because she tried for months and could never get it haha)  

Um, ya, I think that is mostly it for this week!  Hope you all have a great week and that you get some snow!  I'll be praying for it! 

Well, I love you all!  

Love Elder Wood

Christmas, Baptism, and Happy New Year!

Hey!  That was so fun to Skype on Christmas!  You all look great, too!  It was so awesome to talk to you all again!  I'm glad it sounds like you all had a great Christmas!  Man, sounds like the iPhone 6 is a pretty hot item right now!  Fun!  And Sabrina, I want to see a picture of your skis!  Haha I thought someone was getting skis this year!  I knew because of the Alpine Sports sticker on my Christmas box that you sent with the Sheffields ;)  I was just wondering who was getting them!  Sounds like Sabrina was the lucky winner!  Well those will be fun for your ski class!

Well, things here have been good.  On Sunday, C got baptized!  That was awesome!  We were super excited about that!  He was baptized by Brother Subandriyo, which was really cool!  He seemed really peaceful and calm and happy afterwards!  And we had a member bring a friend to the baptism, which was cool.  And the guy really liked it and wants to learn now, too!  That was the highlight of the week for sure!

Other than that, not too much has been happening since we talked on Christmas.  It has only been a few days.  But the baptism was awesome!  

I love you all and hope that you all have a great week and a happy new Year!  ANd that is so exciting that there is finally some snow on the ground!  So cool!  Oh, and congrats on the big 25th Anniversary!  You guys never told me you were going to Hawaii!  But have tons of fun!  I love you tons!  

Love Elder Wood

3 letters - Christmas Testimony

1.  Thanks for the emails!  They are awesome!  Glad you liked the nativity!  Sorry, I had written a card to go along with it as well that I meant to get to the Sheffields as well to bring home, but with the way timing worked out for the rest of the week, I was never able to get it to the office to send home with them before they left.  So I do apologize about that.  It is now just waiting on my desk.  So I guess I will drop it in the snail mail and you will get it in a few weeks.  Sorry.  But I guess it will prolong the excitement.  

This week has been pretty good.  We had our mission tour with a member of the 70 come to speak with us.  It was Elder Randy D. Funk.  He actually served as a missionary here back in the early '70s, so that was pretty cool!  He knew a few of the members, and some are even his own coverts.  But it was a super inspiring meeting, and I learned a lot there about the gospel, about our purpose and commission as missionaries, and many other things.  I don't know what it was, but it kind of became another turning point for me, where ever since that meeting I have had a hugely increased desire to study and understand so much more about the Atonement, and as a result, have also had an increased desire to share it with other people.  I have just been trying to do a few more "little things" to help me be more obedient and dedicated, and to draw even closer to the Savior, and I can feel that even just a few little things have made a huge difference!  It has been really cool to sort of experience!

So, we have been busy with getting prepared for the mission tour and stuff.  And we have had some good lessons with some cool investigators.  We have an investigator, C, who is preparing to be baptized this coming Sunday!  We are super excited for him!  He is awesome!  We also have an investigator named Pak B who is committed to the 18th of January.  We are working with him on stopping smoking.  He is struggling with that, but he has a great desire to be baptized and we are encouraging and teaching him more about the gospel and the Atonement to strengthen him and help him!  We had 4 investigators at church yesterday, which was awesome!

Um, ya, that's most of it for this week!  It was a good week!  Oh, we have also been using "The Living Christ" as a Christmas message door approach.  It is such a powerful and true witness written by men truly ordained as Christ's living apostles of His divinity.  It carries the spirit so powerfully.  And so we have been using it to introduce ourselves to people and share a message about Christ, and also to bridge into explaining about the Restoration, and it has been going really well.  But I would definitely encourage you guys to read and review it this year if you haven't already!  It is awesome!

Thanks for all the Christmas packages and the 12 Days of Christmas!  They have been so fun to open and read or use and stuff!  I have enjoyed it!  And everyone has loved the cookies and stuff!

2.  As I wrote to President what I learned at mission tour the other day, I thought I would share it with you as well.  So I will copy and paste what I wrote to President.

Hello President,

Man, this week has been awesome! I will try to condense what I learned at the mission tour with Elder Funk. I will start off saying that it was a major turning point in my mission for me the last few days. Most of it came through personal revelation telling me what I needed to do. I will just list some of the major points that I felt most important to me:

1. Know PMG as well as Elder Funk knows it

2. Am I always here for Jesus Christ?

3. I appreciate your letter of love, because I truly have felt the love you and Sister Donald have for each of us, and me personally. So one thing I wrote was, "Think of the love i have for President and Sister Donald, and the love I know they have for me. That is only a small manifestation of the infinite love that Heavenly Father has for each of us, and for me personally." so thank you for your love. And know that I truly do appreciate and love both of you so much as well.

4. Make the absolute most of the last few months I have and do everything I can to share the absolute joy of the Atonement with others. Use every hour of every minute of every day. Don't waste a second. (Effective planning).

5. Search myself--find out what it is--what parts of me--that I have not fully given to the Lord yet. And then figure out how to give it all to Him. All of it--lay it out on the table. All in. GO big until you go home. And then keep going.

6. Study and gain a greater understanding and testimony of the Atonement. 

Ever since the mission tour I have had a burning desire to study and better understand the Atonement. It has only been a few days of study, but I have gained a much deeper testimony thus far, and have a great desire to understand and know more. And understanding and knowing more about the Atonement has helped me with all of my other goals and desires that I learned. It has helped me identify areas that I can give more of myself, it has helped me grow a stronger relationship with Heavenly Father through more meaningful prayer, and it has helped me have a greater desire to use time more wisely and make the most of every second. So I learned a lot at the mission tour, but most importantly I learned the Atonement, and that, as Joseph Smith said, everything else that we teach is only an appendage to it. 

3.  Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season!  Thank you all for your thoughts, prayers, and emails!  They mean a lot to me!

What a wonderful time of year this Christmas season is to think of our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ.  At this time we think of his birth, and what his birth and life mean for us.  "For God so loved the world, that He sent his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."  (John 3:16).  

Though far away, I just want to share a few thoughts about Christ, and a few things that I have learned and gained a testimony of throughout my life, and especially throughout my mission.  

The first is my testimony of the reality of His divinity and service on earth.  That He, the Son of God, came down to earth, lead a perfect life free of sin and guile, and became our perfect example I know to be true.  And yet, even more, "He [went] forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people. And he [took] upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he [took] upon him their infirmities, [and] his bowels [are] filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he [knoweth] according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities." (Alma 7:11-12).

His life was real, as was his infinite Atonement.  And it was for you and for me.  He, the Son of God, condescended beneath it all to raise us up that we, through his grace and mercy, along with our works, may be restored to our perfect frame and character, even the character and glory of God.  For God said, "Let us create man in our image." (Genesis 1:26). "In whose image?  In the image of the Gods created they them, male and female, innocent, harmless, spotless, bearing the same character and the same image as the Gods.  And when man fell he did not lose his image, but his character still retained the image of his Maker....Through the Atonement of Christ and the resurrection, and obedience to the gospel, we shall again be conformed to the image of his son, Jesus Christ (Romans 8:29); then we shall have attained to the image, glory, and character of God." (Teachings of the Presidents of the Church--Joseph Smith pg. 52).

I am so grateful for God's greatest gift to man, even His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ.  I know that he is our Savior, and that he lives!  

I love you all so much and hope that you have a wonderful Christmas!  And especially that this Christmas we can remember the true meaning of Christmas, our Savior Jesus Christ and His gift to us. 

Merry Christmas!

Love Elder Wood!

Friends From Home

Hey!  So it was pretty crazy to see the Sheffields here!  That was pretty fun!  Kinda weird to see friends from home.  And it was weird, because it didn't seem like it had been a year and a half since I had seen them!  But they said everything back home is good, that you guys are all looking good and doing well.  But they said that dad, you seem the most trunky of the family to them haha!  But not really trunky, just missing having another man around.  But they laughed about the things you have bought.  Especially the fatty bike haha!  But they brought the packages!  Thank you so much!  They are awesome!  Everyone has been loving the cookies and stuff!  And the Donalds were so appreciative of their gifts!  They seemed really touched and said to tell you thank you so much for them. 

Well, this week has been pretty good.  On Tuesday we had Mission Leader Conference and got to sit down and hear President Donald lay down revelation for the mission for several hours!  That is always a really cool and inspiring experience!  I always learn a ton from those things!  And after that, we met the Sheffields and talked for a while.  Then the next few days were pretty normal and uneventful.  Then on Friday we had Zone Conference, and we had to teach.  But it went pretty well I think.  We talked a little bit about the "Which Way do you Face" talk from conference, and also a lot about the Book of Mormon--back to the basics, and how we can use the Book of Mormon to help members do their missionary work, as well as to help the leaders to fulfill their duty to fellowship and involve new converts as well as to become examples in missionary work.  I think it is something that can help make a positive difference, so hopefully it will go well.  

Then on Saturday morning we went and had an appointment with a former investigator that we found in the area book and called up.  We had a great lesson with him reviewing the Restoration and stuff, gave him the baptismal commitment, which he received!  That was awesome!  And then talked a little bit about the Word of Wisdom because we knew that would be something that he would need to overcome to be prepared for baptism.  We didn't have time to teach the whole lesson, but we let him know what he would need to do, i.e. stop smoking, drinking, etc.  He said it would be hard but that he would try because he felt that everything we were telling him about the Book of Mormon was true, and he wants to build his relationship with God.  So we told him we will explain more later and help him, and he said he would start trying now.  So that was awesome!  His name is H, and he has a date for the 18th of January.  So that is exciting!

Yesterday we had the English ward Christmas party.  We had a few new members come, and we went to a members house and sang Christmas carols and ate delicious food and desserts!  And we even had Egg Nog!  It was awesome!  And it finally helped to start feeling the Christmas season, too!  And we had a member who has been working really hard to do missionary work for the last several weeks.  He finally got two of his friends to come to the party and we were able to contact them and get their numbers!  So that was awesome!  Then he got an amazing blessing for his efforts, because he came here and married a Muslim woman,  and she has been super closed off to the church lately, and wouldn't receive missionary visits.  But she wanted to come to the party tonight, and a new member really fellowshipped her and got the sisters an appointment with them!  So that was awesome!  Her husband was shocked when he heard the news, but was super happy!  So it was a great night.

Today we have just been playing some futsal and emailing.

So I got a cool little Christmas service opportunity for you.  There is a member here who is from the Phillipines. Her son is in the MTC in Provo right now, and we were talking about him yesterday.  She was saying that it is so hard to send him packages from so far away, and that it is hard for him because he is the only one in the group that never gets packages from home.  So, sorry, I volunteered you to send him some cookies or something fun for the holidays, because it is also his birthday soon as well, and she doesn't know how to get anything to him.  So I got his address.  It is

Elder B

2007 N 900 E 

Provo UT 84602

I told her you could maybe send him some cookies and a note or something simple, and she seemed really touched and appreciative and said to tell you thank you so much!  So if you could do that, that would be awesome!

Other than that, things here are going well!  I love you so much and love hearing from you!  Thanks again for the packages and stuff!  You guys are awesome!  I can't wait to talk to you on Christmas!  Love You!

Elder Wood

Remember the true meaning of Christmas!

Hey!  Great to hear from all of you!  Glad to hear things are going pretty well back at home!  That is pretty crazy that it is 70 degrees and warm!  Kinda like here!  But not quite as warm...  The Christmas season is still weird here.  About the only time it feels like Christmas is when we play Christmas music at the house or if we go to a nice mall for P Day and they have Christmas Decorations up.  But we have a small tree at the house, too, which is fun.  And the mission home is decorated nice, so that is fun, too!  

That is pretty crazy that the Sheffields are going to be here so soon!  That will will be fun that they will be at the mission home most of tomorrow, because tomorrow is mission leader conference all morning at the mission home, and so I will be there for much of the day as well!  So I probably will see them!  That will be awesome!  I am excited to get the package!  It is always fun to get stuff from home just because it is from you guys and packaged with love!

Well, this week was pretty good!  We had stake conference this Sunday, which was really fun because I got to meet a lot of the members from Tangerang again!  And the talks were all really good about how we can strengthen ourselves, but there was an expecially big focus on strengthening new members and helping them grow in strength so that they will stay active!  That was good, because that is something that our mission has been struggling with is having converts come in but quickly leave as well because of various reasons.  So that will hopefully begin to help!  Luckily I am so grateful that Sister M and her family, Mama V and V, and Brother W are all still active!  

The rest of this week we have been doing pretty well, too!  We went on splits to Bekasi, and I went with Elder Tuttle.  He is pretty new but he is awesome!  We went and taught a contact that they had.  His name is R.  He has the biggest, nappiest afro I have ever seen!  And the front of his house is like an unkempt jungle.  And he doesn't have lightbulbs inside his house.  We knocked and he came out and greeted us wearing some ratty shorts, a wife-beater, and smoking a cigarette.  To be honest, I was a bit nervous to go in at first haha!  But we went in and taught him.  And we had an amazing lesson talking about the role of the Savior and His infinite love for us and the gift of His Atonement, as well as the Restoration of the Gospel and the Book of Mormon.  Well, R used to live a pretty good life, but he got into some bad habits and lost all his money and fell away from God.  He has family in other churches, but has never really been interested, I picked up.  But as we explained the Restored Gospel and baptism, he was really interested and listening.  And by the end of the lesson, we had committed him to baptism, reading the Book of Mormon, praying, coming to church, and quitting smoking!  And then, he took us to his family's house and introduced us to them, and sat in as we taught them!  It was an awesome day!  It is so cool how when people are exposed to the truth and open to receive it, it can totally change their desires and help them find the way back to the path they want to be on!  

And our investigator, C, is still progressing well and receiving all the commitments and working to prepare himself for baptism!  So that is awesome!  He is having a hard time recognizing an answer about the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, so we are working with him on that.  So thank you for your email on personal revelation, dad!  I think that that can really help C!  But he is still going by faith!

And we had some other good lessons and whatnot going on this week.  And we are still battling traffic haha!  Man I miss I-15 and whatnot!  

Well, I am glad that you are all doing well!  Thank you so much for the emails and love and advice!  I love hearing from you every week!  I am excited to get the packages from you and the fresh treats and love!  Haha!

Well, I hope you all have a great week!  Hope it cools down a bit so it feels like Christmas a bit, and so that you can go skiing!

Oh, and you should really check out www.mormon.org/Christmas.  And share it on FB!  The church is doing a big worldwide Christmas campaign thing, and it is even in indonesian at www.mormon.org/ind/natal.  Check it out!  They have some cool videos and stuff, and supposedly there will be new things coming out the whole month to help people remember the true meaning of Christmas!  It is good stuff!

Well, I love you all so much and can't wait to talk to you.  It sounds like we will be able to skype from the mission home on Christmas day here, so at some point on Christmas eve for you guys.  I can't wait!

Love you!

Love Elder Wood

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!