Well it is now official. The Sisters are gone and the Elders are here. That is really all I have to say about that. The change isn't as different as I thought it would be, but it is different. As get further into this transfer I should be able to tell you about some of the other stuff that will change.
So this past week was fun. You remember me telling you about Elder Tanners rash. Well his is just about taken care of and gone, just in time for a rash of my own to show up. I don't know if I got it from him or from something else, but it is driving me crazy! It itches so bad all of the time. Luckily it hasn't spread to my entire body like Elder Tanner's rash did. It is mostly confined to my right leg, which is probably the worst place it could be cause I have slacks rubbing up against it all day long. Oh well enought about the rash. I'm sure none of you want to know about that anyways.
So recently (by recently I mean yesterday) I have had a huge desire to know more about Native American culture and how it ties into the gospel. The reason that this came up is because yesterday there was a member visiting from out of town who served his mission here in Oklahoma and served here in Anadarko for 14 month. (I will call him Brandon, because that is what his name is.) See look I can have Dad's weird sense of humor as well. I must be related to him in some way. Anyways back to what I was saying. So Brandon served here in Anadarko for 14 months and got to know a lot about Native American culture and he said that because he did that it really helped him while he was serving in this area because he was better able to relate to the people who live here. So as you probably remember there are seven distinct Native American tribes living here in the Anadarko area, all of which are literal descendants of the Lamanites. Remember it says that in the introduction to the Book of Mormon? If you don't remember that you need to read the introduction again. It was really cool to get to hear from him about all of the relations between the church and Native American Culture. Maybe if I am able to learn more about it I will share some of what I learned when I get home. I guess the main thing that I wanted to get at from this is that from the things I learned yesterday from Brandon is that a lot of what I he said "screams" at me that Christ DID come here to America and teach the people that lived here. There are so many relationships between the church and the Native American culture. The only way that they could have known these things is because Jesus Christ was here. There is no way on this earth that I could ever deny the truthfulness of the gospel. Although a lot of missionaries here look at Anadarko as the "dark hole" of the mission I am so grateful for the opportunity that I have had to serve here and the things that I have learned.
Things have been going well for Elder Tanner and I here in Anadarko. Last week was a little slower then some of the other week that we have had in the past. We still saw a lot of miracle happen though. Last Wednesday we talked to a guy named Chris and it was a planning miracle that we saw. On Tuesday evening as we were planning for the next day Elder Tanner and I felt like we needed to go try and visit the recent convert that the Sisters wanted us to start working with once they left the area since the recent convert actually lives in our area. (I will call her Lisa, because that is what her name is.) So Elder Tanner and I went to try Lisa, and she wasn't home so we walked back behind her house and got distracted by an old abandoned extra large covered garage behind Lisa's house. That wasn't where the miracle happened though. So as we were leaving the covered garage thing we found to go back to our car, an old lady across the street yelled at us and asked us where we were going. We didn't have anything happening right away so we went over an talked to her. Over at her house was her grandson Chris who recently became a Christian. So while Elder Tanner took on the old lady and the moving worker guy there at the house, I talked to Chris. Elder Tanner said it was a good thing that I was talking to Chris because the worker was saying a bunch a weird and not true stuff that he had heard about the church. While I was talking with Chris we talked a little about the church and what makes it different from other churches and so naturally I brought up the Book of Mormon. Chris was really interested in the Book of Mormon and how is was about "Gods dealings with the ancient inhabitants of the Americas." When we told him about when Christ came here to America he got a "what did you just say" look on his face. So we told him a little more about what Christ did when he was here. Chris was super excited and he wanted to read about Christ coming here, so we gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon and marked 3 Nephi 11 for him. It was cool to see how our planning the night before lead us to be able to find Chris.
Thank you all for everything that you do for me! Have a great week everyone!
Love, Elder Woodward
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