Anadarko, Oklahoma -June 30, 2014

Hey there everyone!

Today I am going to be emailing you from Lawton instead of Anadarko since it is Zone P-day.  It just ended up being easier for us to come down here and email since we were going to have to be here in a couple of hours anyways.  

Anyways... So like I said today is our Zone P-day and then this evening we have a Specialized Training Meeting (STM) for the Zone.  Pretty much what an STM is is a meeting for the Zone that the Zone Leaders organize on what they feel like we can work on as a Zone.  I'm pretty sure that they just call it an STM to give it a special name to make it sound fancy.  They are usually really good and I have actually learned a lot from most of them.  

So I guess you are all a lot more interested in what happened last week then what is going to happen later today.  Last week was another pretty good one for Elder Tanner and I in Anadarko.  We were able to contact quite a few of our investigators, but for as many as we were able to contact, we had just as many as we weren't able to get a hold of.  Some of our investigators are doing really well and making a lot of progress.  

So as you may recall last Sunday Zoey got baptized, so yesterday in sacrament meeting she got confirmed.  It was a really exciting day.  Her brother Gerald, who got baptized about a month ago, got back and was able to be there when Zoey was confirmed.  I am sure that Zoey was really excited that Gerald was back when she got confirmed because I know that she really wanted him there when she got baptized.  So it was exciting to get to be here to see Zoey get baptized.  The other exciting thing that happened yesterday was that the Sisters who are also serving in the Anadarko Branch had one of their investigators, Lisa, get baptized after church.  Satan must have been working really hard to try and stop Lisa from getting baptized, because as Lisa was standing in the church parking lot waiting for her family to get to the church someone pulled up in their car and gave her a bunch of anti-Mormon stuff and tried to convince her not to get baptized.  She didn't listen to them though.  

So one of the other cool things that happened this past week was that we had another lesson with Cody and Debbie.  Debbie is part of a part member family, and Cody is Debbie's friend.  Debbie was born into the church, but hasn't been in a really long time.  So this past week we were able to have a lesson with both of them about the restoration.  Most of the lesson we were just with Cody cause Debbie was busy, but it still went really well.  Cody and Debbie have both committed to be baptized on July 20th, so we are working with them to help them prepare for that day.  So after the lesson we invited them to come to church and told them that we would find a ride for them.  Cody ended up going out to Chickasha Saturday evening so he wasn't able to make it to church, but Debbie did get up and come to church yesterday which says a lot about her because the rest of her family has no desire to do anything.  So I have been pretty excited to get to work with both of them.  Another cool thing is that we are finding out a lot of things that we didn't know before we starting teaching Cody.  Probably the coolest thing though would be that Cody is the nephew of Thomas, and Thomas is Gerald and Zoey's step dad.  So that has helped us to be able to keep in contact with Cody and I would say it has also really helped Debbie.  

So that is part of what we did last week.  We did a whole lot more, but it is hard to remember everything that we did, and even if I did remember everything it would take me forever to type it all because I am super slow at typing.  Thank you all for everything that you do for me!  I appreciate all of it! 

Love Elder Woodward

Anadarko, Oklahoma -June 23, 2014

Hey!

Things have been going pretty well for me out here in Anadarko.  We have had a pretty good week and seen a lot of good things come from hard work.  I think that I probably forgot to tell you about this last week mostly because it slipped my mind, but we ended up having an investigator get baptized after church on Sunday.  Her name is Zavondra, but we will call her Zoey for short.  The Sister missionaries were supposed to have an investigator get baptized yesterday as well, but they moved it back to next week so that their investigators family could be there to see her get baptized.  So it just ended up being Zoey that got baptized yesterday.  Since I have only been here a little over a week I can't really tell you a whole lot about Zoey, cause I didn't get to do a lot of the teaching or really anything.  I did get to have to worry about making sure everything was ready for her baptism after church though.  That was really stressful.  I have already decided that I am not a big fan of preparing for a baptism during church on Sunday, but that is what the Branch Presidency likes so that is what we get to do.  

Last Friday was a pretty cool day as well.  We were out on exchanges with the Zone leaders for the day and saw a couple of miracles happen.  The one that I thought was probably the coolest was with a man named Ross.  Elder Holman and I went out to try a couple of investigators and potential investigators on the south side of town.  The first person that we went to try out there was a couple named Mike and Carol.  Well as it turns out some missionary in the past wrote down the wrong house address for Mike and Carol, and I had never met them before, so Elder Holman and I ended up going to the wrong house.  It turned out to be a good thing though.  There was a guy standing in the driveway of the house we had gone to and we asked if he was Mike.  Elder Holman and I both thought that he said he was Mike so we went up to talk to him.  It turns out that this was actually Ross not Mike.  Before we knew that this wasn't Mike we asked him about having talked with some other missionaries and asked how he liked it and so on.  I can't remember at which point we found out who he really was, but as it turns out Ross actually had talked with missionaries up in Edmond about a year ago. So it was really cool that even though we ended up going and talking to the wrong person it turned out to be a good experience and we were able to get a new potential investigator from it.  

So overall we had a good week.  We had a lot of fun and got a lot of work done.  

Thank you for everything that you do for me!  Love you all!

Love Elder Woodward

Anadarko, Oklahoma -June 16, 2014

Hey there everyone!

So lots of exciting things have been happening here in Oklahoma!  Transfers, new area, new companion, new district, new missionaries.  How many new things are there going to be each transfer?  It is ok though because I really needed to have some things change. 

It really sounds like things have been going well since the wedding got over.  I am still waiting for that tie that Kelsey said she was going to send to me to wear so I could at least somewhat feel like she thought about me during all the wedding excitement.  I did get the pictures that you sent through email. They all looked very nice.  Braeden could have used a haircut before the wedding though.  It is really exciting to have another sister married.  Luckily at this point I won't have to worry about missing and nephews or neices being born without me.

Things sound like they are going well with soccer.  I didn't know that Darcy and Emmie were going to be playing on two teams.  That is really exciting though.  They are definitely good enough to be playing at that level though.  I will just let you know right now that you won't have to update me on the France Honduras match that happened yesterday.  We went to visit a family we have been working with and we got there just before the end of the game.  TV can be such a big distraction as a missionary.  I don't know if I have ever said that before, but it really can be a distraction.

Ok now to answer all of your questions about everything.  So my new companion's name is Elder David Tanner.  He came out to the mission the same time that Elder Birch did so he has been out for a little over 10 months now.  He lives in Centerville and went to Viewmont with Elder Birch.  I was just showing him pictures of Kelsey's wedding and he knows Uncle Gary.  So that was pretty cool.  He has only been here in Anadarko for one transfer so he is still pretty new to the area.  Elder Tanner is a great missionary!  I have really enjoyed getting to work with him so far.  We are going to have a really good transfer. 

Anadarko  is a really great area!  It is definitely different then the other areas I have served in.  There are a lot of Native Americans that live in this area.  One of the members here said that there are seven different distinct Native American tribes living here in the Anadarko area.  It has been really cool.  There are a lot of other reasons that this is a special area to be in.  Satan is really working hard in Anadarko to stop the work from progressing and a good amount of it comes from the perspective that is spread around the mission about Anadarko.  At transfers I heard so many negative things about Anadarko from other missionaries, but I have yet to see any of those things.  Anadarko is a great area though!  There are so many good things that are going on here.  There are so many things I want to tell you about the area, but they are all so special that it would be hard to do over and email.  I can tell you though that the Lord has an amazing plan for this area and that is why Satan is working so hard here to stop that work from progressing.  I really can tell that there are great things that are going to happen.  

So last night I had a pretty cool experience at the end of the evening that I thought you might like to hear about.  So since I am District Leader every Sunday evening I call the other companionships in the District and get their numbers for the key indicators from the past week.  In our case here there is only one other companionship that is in our district so I called the Sisters and got their numbers.  So after I had all of the district's numbers I called to Zone Leaders to report numbers to them.  I started out by telling them the goals that our district had set for the upcoming transfer and when I gave them the Sister's transfer goals they asked me what I thought about their goal for how many members presents the Sisters had thought the could get.  I told them I thought the Sisters goal could have been higher so on and so forth with the conversation until the Zone Leaders suggested that I should think about calling the Sisters and tell them that as their District Leader I thought that they could do better then the goal they had set and to maybe rethink their goal and possibly set a new one, or I could do what I had thought of doing and just encourage them throughout the transfer and try to help them exceed their goal.  It seemed kinda like the Zone Leaders wanted me to go with the first option to try and get them to reset their goal, but I didn't really feel good about that and it wasn't what I wanted to do, so I told the ZL's that I was just going to engourage the Sister to exceed that.  I really felt like that was the best solution and that is what would get the best results.  After I told the Zone Leaders this Elder White spoke up and told me that they both had felt the Spirit testify to them that that was the right desision to make.  I thought it was quite amazing how it all worked out and to have been able to see that the Spirit was there to help me decide what to do.  I am so grateful that I had the Spirit to help guide me to make the right choice.  

Things went well for Elder Tanner and I this week.  We were able to see quite a few of our invesitgators and some of the other people we have been working with.  We had several experiences where we saw that being in the right place at the right time was an answer to prayer.  We had a lot of good lessons and good visits.  I am really enjoying this area! Like I have already said there are a lot of good things happening!

Thank you for all that you guys do for me!  I hope you all have a great week with soccer, work and everything else you are going to do!  Be safe.

Love Elder Cameron Woodward

Anadarko, Oklahoma -June 9, 2014

Hey there!

So sorry this email is coming in a little bit late today.  We decided to switch things up a little bit for today.  The reason I am emailing so late today is because the four Elders in my ward had a member take us up to the Science Museum for P-day.  That was a lot of fun and I had a pretty good time up there.  I think this time we were able to see everything that they had there since we had a lot more time to look around.  Not much else to say about today.  It was a lot of fun to get to do something a little bit different for once.  

Our entire past week has also been a little bit different then it normally would have been.  So with Sisters coming into the Mustang 1st ward we needed to get a new apartment ready for one of the sets of missionaries because Elders and Sisters can't live together.  Originally the plan was for the Sister to move into the new apartment for obvious reasons, but Elder Garner decided to complain until President said it was ok for the Elders to move into the new apartment and the Sisters would move into the apartment we are in right now.  So pretty much our entire past week was spent cleaning and de-junking  the apartment we are living in right now.  Yes it really was a project that took us a week to do.  Before we started cleaning the apartment was DIRTY.  It wasn't a messy dirty it was a filthy dirty.  That is what you get when you stick four 19 and 20 year old guys in one apartment for 3+ years.  It was quite a chore to get done, but we did get it clean before transfers.  Now the only thing that we have left to worry about is explaining to the Relief Society President that it is against mission rules for her to come and inspect our apartment.  For some reason she has gotten it in her head that she has to inspect it before Sister missionaries are allowed to move in, but regardless of what she says they are going to be moving in there on Wednesday.  All of this really could have been avoided at this point if Elder Garner would have just let the Sisters have the new apartment.

So I guess that this now leads to what is going to be happening with our transfer here in Oklahoma.  Elder Faulkner, Elder Bolan, and I are all going to be transfered out of Mustang so that the Sisters can come in.  Elder Faulkner is going to one of my old areas.  He is going to Edmond 2nd South.  Elder Bolan is going to go all the way up to Alva, Oklahoma.  That is the area of our mission that extends into Kansas.  And last but not least I am going to be transfered possibly to my last area, Anadarko.  Another name I have heard for Anadarko is "In-a-dark-hole."  I don't have any idea what to expect with being transfered to Anadrako.  I haven't really heard a whole lot about it so it will be fun to get to go there.  My new companion is going to be Elder Tanner.  I have met him a couple of times and he seems to be a pretty cool guy.  He actually came out at the same time that Elder Birch did and I ended up giving him a ride back to his area after transfers.  I am still going to be District Leader down in Anadarko so that should be fun.  I can finally start to reuse some of my old trainings since five of the eight missionaries in my district currently have been here since I became the DL.  Do you guys realize how hard it is to come up with a different training every week for 4 1/2 months.  I will just tell you it is really hard.  I am excited to get to go to a new area and work with some new people.  It is going to be a nice change.

So now comes the big challenge.  It is time to pack again.  I have decided that is the worst part about transfers, but it is something that has to be done.  Most of tomorrow is going to be a packing day.  

Thanks for everything!  I hope that you all have a great week!  Love you guys!

Love Elder Woodward

Mustang, Oklahoma -June 2, 2014

Hey!

Things sound like they are just as busy as ever in the Woodward home.  It doesn't really help that there is a wedding coming up this week.  I am sure without a wedding to worry about things would have been a lot easier.  It is probably a good thing that soccer tryouts for Darcy and Emmie weren't going on this week because that would have probably taken priority over the wedding.  Ok maybe it wouldn't have but it sure would have been close to taking the priority.  It really should be interesting to see what is going to be happening with soccer over the next couple of months.

So this past week was a pretty mellow week for Elder Faulkner and I.  We were finally able to get back in and see the Oakley family again.  It has been such a long time since we have been able to have a lesson with them, so I was pretty excited about that.  We went over and saw them last night and that ended up going really well.  We talked to them a lot about scripture reading and the blessing that can come from reading.  Brother Oakley (he is the non-member in case you forgot) was really involved in the lesson and he seemed to really want to start reading the Book of Mormon again because he had notice how his days went differently when he did and didn't read.  So things are starting to go better with them.  He seemed to have a desire to start to read again, so we will follow up with them in a week to see how their reading is going.  

Things are going better for us though.  We are looking forward to another week here in Mustang.  Transfers are going to be coming up next week on the 11th.  It is hard to believe that is has almost been another transfer out here in Oklahoma.  Time is going by really fast and the work is going great!  I will be sure to let you all know what is going to be happening this next transfer.  Anything could happen at this point.  Things are going great and I am doing really just as well.  Thank you all for everything!  I hope that everything goes well this week with soccer, the wedding, and moving the 30,000 baby chicks into their new home.  I love you all!  Have a great week!

Love Elder Woodward