Dear Woodward's
It is great to hear from you again! This past week has been a really good one for Elder Birch and I here in Oklahoma. We had a lot of stuff happen and we saw a lot of miracles! I can't believe how fast this week flew by though. It literally seems like it was just yesterday that I was sitting here writing to you. There is so much that is happening, but there isn't nearly enough time to get it all done. So I guess I will just start off by answering your questions then move onto what has happened this week.
Woodward, Oklahoma is a pretty small. It is a little bit bigger then Smithfield is, but it doesn't have any other cities nearby. The next closest town is Mooreland and that is 10 miles away. There is one small movie theatre here and an old grain elevator. The majority of the people here are really nice, most of them just aren't interested in the church. A lot of people in Oklahoma think that a church is a church and why would I drive 10 miles to go to the LDS church when I can walk across the street to my baptist church. So it can be frustrating at times, but when you find those people who have been prepared to heard the gospel, it is that much more rewarding. I'm sure that there are a lot of people who will Bible bash with us, we have just been lucky enough to be able to avoid those people. I really don't like to bash with people because it is completely useless! So I try not to bash. Most of the preachers won't even talk to us because they don't like us or the church, then they go around telling all the members of their congregations a bunch of false doctrine about what we believe. They do this to give their members a false perspective on the church so that they won't want to listen to us, because if the members from other churches start coming to ours that is less money that goes into the preachers pocket. I'm not sure if you know this, but a part of the money other churches collect from tithing and other donations goes to the preacher for their "service." There are so many churches out here that are run like a business would be. The more people at their church the more money in their pocket. Its dumb. There aren't enough active members here in the Woodward area to have a ward, so we have a branch. Most of the branch comes from two main families, the Alley's and the Smith's. Without those two families that branch would be about half as big as it is. On average we have about 65 members come each week. There are a whole lot of less actives though. Most of the members will help the missionaries if they have time to. Most of them stay pretty busy so it is hard to get them out with us. On a typical P-day here we wake up, study, came email, go shopping for food, wash the car, and then we do whatever we have time for. Last week Elder Birch and I both took naps. Who knows what we will do today. No football though. Football is a very big thing here in Woodward. That is most of what we hear about from day to day. Football this, football that.
So know onto my week.
Since Don, Francie, and Jeff were all baptized we don't have very many progressing investigators anymore. The two that we still have are Herman and Carolyn. They took us out to dinner on Friday night before our lesson with them. After dinner we came back to the church to have a lesson. In my opinion that was one of the best lessons that we have had with them. We talked to them about obedience to the commandments, why should we follow the commandments, blessings that come from keeping them, so on. When we had planned for what we were going to teach them we decided that we were going to invite them to be baptized again to see if they would commit to be baptized. When we were about to finish up Elder Birch took the lead and invited them to be baptized. Right after we asked them they pause and looked at each other to see who would talk first. Herman talked first and said that he would know it is coming when it is coming. So to translate to English from Okie, he said when I feel like it is time to be baptized I will let you know. Carolyn didn't say anything right away so Herman started talking again. He told us that he wanted to know for sure that this church is true like we know it is before he wants to be baptized. When he said that I told them about when I was eight and I was baptized I didn't know for myself that the church is true, all I knew was that I needed to be baptized so that is what I wanted to do. I told them how since I was baptized that I have come to know for myself that the church is true. I think that that hit Herman pretty hard. After that he said something but I don't remember what it was. Carolyn jumped in at this point and said something, but I don't remember that either. I do know that everything that they said made me think of Ether 12:6 that says "wherefore dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith." I had Herman read that scripture and I could tell he read a little bit ahead because he started shaking his head like he had read it wrong, but he kept reading and after he finished he looked up at me gave me a "I can't believe that you just pulled that scripture on me" look. After he looked at me I told Herman and Carolyn that we didn't want to force anything on them and that we would let them decide if they wanted to be baptized. Then before either of them could respond to the scripture we told them we would let them think about that and we finished the lesson, said a prayer and went on our way. So we left them with quite a bit to think about.
The other really cool experience we had this week started on Tuesday. There was a potential investigator that Elder Park and I tracted into about 4 or 5 weeks ago. We offered to pray with her and she invited us in. We couldn't go in because it was just us so she invited us to come back later that evening when her husband would be home. I don't remember why, but Elder Park and I didn't go back that evening and every time we planned to go back after that something happened so we didn't get the chance to go back. So we planned to go stop by and see them on Tuesday and things worked out to where we were able to stop and see them. Elder Birch and I went up, knocked on the door and a different lady answered the door. So we offered to say a prayer and she let us. After the prayer we asked if we could stop by and share a message about Jesus Christ with her. She said we could stop by tomorrow when her sister and brother in law would be there. So the next day we made sure to stop by and see them. We were able to get in and have a lesson. We found out the second lady, Heidi, was visiting her sister, Jamie, for about a week and a half. So we taught them about the Restoration. At the beginning Heidi just sat back and listened and was skeptical about what we were saying and Jamie kinda just sat there. Jamie asked us a lot of questions throughout the lesson mostly about how do we know this church is true and about prophets. We got to the point of the lesson where we talked about the Book of Mormon and how Joseph Smith translated it. After we introduced that Book of Mormon and read part of the introduction and Moroni 10: 3-5, Jamie and Heidi both asked if the could have a copy of the Book of Mormon. We gladly gave them both a copy and committed them to read and pray to know if it was true. They both committed to do that. After we promised them that as they read and prayed that they could receive an answer, Jamie told us about how her entire life she has been waiting for an Ah-ha moment where she knows for herself that something is true. We told her if she read and prayed like she said she would that she would have that Ah-ha moment. We then invited them both to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized. Jamie started to nod her head saying she would, but Heidi jumped in and asked if she would have to be re baptized, so we weren't able to set a baptismal dat with them. Afterwards Elder Birch and I decided that the reason Elder Park and I never went back was because we were supposed to go over again when Heidi was visiting Jamie. That was a miracle that we were able to stop by and catch both of them.
So other then that we had a normal week. I hope you all have a good week. I love you all.
Love Elder Woodward
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