Mustang, Oklahoma -March 17, 2014

Hey!

Well another week has come and gone here in Oklahoma.  Not to mention that another month has gone by as well.  It seems like it was just yesterday that I was talking about being at 16 months, and now here I am talking about how I have been out for 17 months now.  Mom and Dad you were defiantly right that the time does start to go faster.  Then on top of another month, we have arrived at another transfer.  This past transfer just flew by!  It does not seem like it has been 6 weeks.  

So I guess I will start out this week by telling you all about what is happening this transfer.  Elder Garner and Elder Bolan are going to be staying together in Mustang 1st West.  Elder Davis is going to be transfered all the way down to Seymour, Texas so my new companion is going to be Elder Faulkner.  I am now up to companion number 9.  I have no idea who my new companion is so it will be interesting to see what kind of a person he is.  It should be fun though.  I am still going to be the District Leader here in Mustang.  I thought about asking if our Zone Leaders if they were sure that I was going to stay District Leader, because I defiantly think that someone else should be given the chance to experience being a District Leader.  Oh well I guess that I will continue to do what the Lord has asked me to do.

I can't really complain about how our week went.  We saw some pretty cool things happen and we learned a lot of new interesting "facts."  All of these so called "facts" came from a guy we visited last Thursday.  His name is Ty and he just happens to be an Atheist.  It was an interesting experience getting to talk to him.  There was really nothing more then interesting that came out of it.  So Ty used to be a Christian until he was about 18 years old, then he started to question whether or not God actually existed.  From there the visit we had with him went downhill.  Throughout the lesson his life story reminded me about part of the Book of Mormon where it talks about how those who once knew the truth and then turned away from it were more hard hearted then those who had never know the truth.  Ty was very contentious with us and he didn't have a whole lot of real intent behind wanting to meet with us.  We started to talk about Moroni 10:3-5 about how we need to have a sincere heart and real intent if we want to find out the truth.  Ty told us that he would pray like we asked him to, which was fine with me, but it wasn't good enough for Heavenly Father.  After he said he would pray I felt like I needed to invite him to be baptized which before that though, was the last thing I had thought of inviting him to do.  I went ahead and invited him to be baptized though, and when he replied to the invitation I could see why I felt I needed to ask him to be baptized.  It was Heavenly Father's way of letting us know that Ty wasn't going to do any of the things we asked him to do and to not spend more time then we needed to trying to teach him.  So we will probably stop by one more time and unless there is a significant change in his attitude we probably won't go back.  

We were also able to have another lesson with Brother Oakley again this past week.  We saw him and his wife on Wednesday evening and we taught them about the 10 Commandments.  The lesson went really well and he understood everything we talked about.  He even told us that he would come to church yesterday, but Sunday morning he got sick.  I'm not sure, but I think there might be a new flu going around called the Sunday Flu.  It seems like it only lasts for 5-6 hours and the only time it starts to act up is on Sunday morning on weeks that you have told the missionaries that you are going to come to church.  After church is over it doesn't bother you again until next Sunday.  It has been really frustrating trying to get Brother Oakley to church.  It seems like there is always and excuse.  Hopefully we will be able to help him overcome his concerns with coming to church.  We will see how that goes.

Don't worry Mom there was some good things that happened last week!  I would say the best thing that happened was that on Friday I got to go on an exchange with Elder Schofield down in Mustang 2nd South.  We had a really cool day full of awesome stuff!  We had a really good church tour with one of their investigators.  Funny story though, the investigator we had a church tour with, Leann, was someone that we had started teaching the last time I went on exchanges down to the Mustang 2nd South area.  So I have now taught Leann more then the two Elders who actually serve in the area.  Maybe I will be able to have another lesson with her the next time I do exchanges with them.  Oh and P.S. Leann has only been taught two lessons total.  So that was pretty cool!  But after the church tour we stayed at the church because we got to be the judges for the Pinewood Derby that evening.  We got to judge all of the cars and decide who got what awards.  My favorite award that we gave was the "Best Fuel Economy."  Do you have any guesses at what the award was for?  The Best Fuel Economy award was given to the overall slowest car.  Elder Schofield and I left the church before the awards were given so that we could avoid the mob of angry dad's if their son didn't get the right award.  So that turned out to be a pretty fun evening for me.  It was a lot of fun to go to another pack meeting and see all of the cub scouts running around like chicken with their heads cut off.  

Well I think that about covers all of the bases for this past week.  I really enjoyed it!  There was a lot to learn and a lot for us to do.  

Thank you for everything that you do for me!  I couldn't be doing this without you guys!  I love you all!  

Love Elder Cameron Woodward

Mustang, Oklahoma -March 10, 2014

Hey!

So there wasn't a whole lot that happened this past week here in Mustang.  There wasn't a whole lot of progress made here over the past week.  We have to reschedule the one baptismal date that we had because our investigator didn't come to church yesterday.  We also weren't able to visit very many of our investigators.  We are working through all of this and we are trying to move forward and doing our best to find new people to teach every day.

So switching over to the good news for the week, we were able to see one of our investigators twice this past week.  We had two lessons with Brother Oakley this past week and they both went pretty well.  The first time we saw him we were on exchanges so I wasn't actually there, but from what I heard the lesson went pretty well.  Elder Davis and Elder Bolan talked about the Word of Wisdom with them.  It turns out that Brother Oakley has been living the Word of Wisdom for a couple of years now.  That came as quite a shock to Elder Davis and I.  The other time we saw hims this week was yesterday evening.  We had planned on teaching him about following the prophet then inviting them to watch General Conference, but Brother Oakley had questions about the Law of Tithing so we taught them about that instead.  At the end of the lesson Sister Oakley asked us what you should do if you weren't sure about whether or not to pay your tithing.  Brother Oakley jumped in and said that you should just pay your tithing and not even question whether or not your going to pay it.  So that turned out to be a really good lesson and Brother Oakley understood why it was important to pay tithing.  So Elder Davis and I were both really excited about that.

So last Wednesday I got to go on an exchange with Elder Garner.  It was a pretty fun exchange and I got to know him quite a bit better.  We did so much walking that by the end of the day I don't think that I could have walked anymore even if I had wanted to.  Ok that isn't necessarily true, but we did do a lot of walking.  We had a pretty good day while we were out on exchanges.  We were able to go and visit one of their recent converts.

Friday I was on exchanges again.  This time it was with our Zone Leaders though.  Elder Edmunds came down here to Mustang with me for the day.  In case you were wondering, yes Elder Edmunds did serve up in Edmond for part of his mission.  We had a pretty good day here.  We found a couple of potential investigators that we are going to start to work with.  We tried to visit one of the new potentials on Saturday evening and all she did was talk our ear off.  We were there for and hour and a half and I think I only said a total of 10 words.  She would not let us talk.  It was kinda funny though.  It made for a funny story.  On the drive back to our apartment the member who was out with us just sat there and laughed at what happened.  He got a kick out of our visit.

Well that is about all for this week.  I hope that you all have a great week!  I love you all!

Love Elder Cameron Woodward

Mustang, Oklahoma -March 3, 2014

Hey everyone!

It sure sounds like things have been kinda crazy this past week.  Like always there is always something to do with soccer.  I would just like to time to tell you that you are all crazy for going out and sitting in freezing cold weather to watch Emmie and Darcy play soccer.  I would have tried to find a place to park where I could see the field and I would have sat in the car the entire game.  You have to remember though that I am not as committed to soccer as the rest of the family.

As for this past week for me...  It was a crazy one to say the least.  To sum it up into a nutshell:  2 exchanges with the district, a 6 hour long meeting on Thursday with some of the members from the Missionary Department in Salt Lake, crazy bad weather that caused at least one Jeep to get flipped upside down off the side of the roadway, and a church tour with one of our investigator who we set a baptismal date with.  

So first, starting Saturday and going into Sunday we had a really really bad (well bad for Oklahoma) storm come through.  It was one of the strangest storms I have ever seen though.  Saturday it was lightly raining most of the day, then we had a cold front move in so everything that was wet froze, then it started to snow, then it stopped snowing, then it started to hail, then some more snow, more hail, thunder and lightning in the middle of the snowstorm, then it stopped snowing and everything froze over.  It was a very strange storm.  I can now say with assurance that if you don't like the weather in Oklahoma, wait 5 minutes and it will change.  But the silver lining to the storm is that we got grounded so we couldn't go out and work so I spent 3+ hours in the kitchen cleaning everything and de-junking.  Our kitchen finally looks somewhat inhabitable and we didn't have a single dirty dish in the apartment.  It was fantastic, but I'm not expecting it to last very long.  I'm guessing that by tomorrow evening our sink will be full of dirty dishes again even though the dishwasher is empty right now.  It seems like everyone I live with is anti fill up the dishwasher.  

So last Thursday was a pretty cool day for me.  Two guys from the Missionary Department came out here to visit the mission and they wanted to have a meeting with all of the District Leaders, Zone Leaders,  Sister Training Leaders, and the Assistants.  It was a really good meeting and there was a lot of really good stuff that they talked about.  Brother Jarmin who is in charge of ALL of the training at the MTC was one of the two men that came out to visit, and he gave some really good training's to us.  The first one was all about our purpose as missionaries to Invite others to come unto Christ.  One of the other training that we received was about how giving church tours can help us get investgators at Sacrament meeting.  It was a really good meeting.  So the next day we gave one of our investigators a church tour to see how it would go.  Things went pretty well for us during the tour. Afterwards we were able to have a lesson with him and we talked about keeping the Sabbath day holy. He understood everything really well and didn't seem to have any questions about it. He committed to start keeping the Sabbath day holy and coming to church. We shared with him that we would like to set a goal for when he would like to be baptized and he said March 29th was a reasonable date for him. We then asked what he thought he would need to start doing to prepare to be baptized and he told us that he felt like he needed to come to church. So we were expecting to see him at church yesterday, but we had church cancelled due to the weather. So I can now see why church tours are so effective. I feel like the church tour really helped Brother Oakley increase his faith. 

So it turned out to be a pretty good week for us.  Thank you for all that you are doing for me each day.  I love you all!

Love Elder Cameron Woodward

Mustang, Oklahoma -February 24, 2014

Hey Family!

Well where do I even start...  This past week was a pretty tough one for me.  We weren't able to have any lessons with any of our investigators, and we were barely able to see any of the less active members we have been working with.  We had good visits with the few people that we were able to go and visit, but those were far and few this past week.  The other thing that frustrates me the most though is what I discovered last night looking through the District Leader binder.  I found out the reason that the Mustang 1st ward got a second set of missionaries, but it wasn't for the right reasons.  The missionaries that were serving here before they split the area were reporting numbers to President Walkenhorst WAY wrong.  So with the way the old missionaries reported numbers it looked like they were getting 5+ new investigators a week,  10 member present lessons and so on.  Pretty much it was just good looking numbers.  So President Walkenhorst decided it was time to split the area and when new missionaries came into the area and reported accurate numbers of what was happening, everything pretty much dropped to zero.  So it has been really frustrating because there isn't enough work here for two sets of missionaries.  Other then that nothing to big or exciting happened.

So last Thursday I got to go into Moore because there was a meeting for all the missionaries in leadership positions.  The reason we had it was to review the purpose of leadership responsibilities and to train us on how to better fulfill of responsibilities.  It was a good meeting and I learned a lot, but it was a super long meeting.  And there is going to be another meeting this Thursday because some people from the missionary department in Salt Lake are going to come evaluate our mission.  So that should be kinda fun.  It will be interesting to see how it goes.

Well that pretty much sums up my week.  Like I said there wasn't much that happened and it was really frustrating.  Hopefully we will see some improvement this upcoming week.  I hope that you all have a fantastic week!  Love you all!

Love Elder Cameron Woodward

Mustang, Oklahoma -February 18, 2014

Hey!

Well mom probably made the announcement that yesterday was my 16 month mark.  It is hard to believe how fast the months go by.  It would be nice if they could slow down a little bit, but I don't think that is ever going to happen so I am doing the best I can to make the most of every day.  It is great to get to be a missionary at this time.  One thing I have really enjoyed getting to see while I have been out is all of the changes that were/ are being made in the mission because of lowering the age missionaries can leave on their mission.  There has been a lot of things change just while I have been out, so I'm excited to see what other changes will happen over the next 8 months.  

Wednesday was a great day for me.  Recently President Walkenhorst changed the policy on how often we can go attend the temple so this past week my zone got to go up to the temple.  It was a really great experience!  I loved having to opportunity to go up to the temple.  It is really nice being so close to the temple right now.  It is defiantly a change from being 2 1/2 hours away from the temple.  Even though we are so close to the temple that still took up the majority of our day.  There wasn't a whole lot of time left to go out and work.

We had a hard week getting in to see some of our investigators.  There were only a couple of people that we were able to see throughout the week.  We were able to see a part member family, the Oakley's, that we have been working with. We were able to have two lessons with them last week.  The first time we saw them we talked about the Plan of Salvation, then when we saw them again on Sunday we taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I thought that both of those lessons went really well.  We have invited Brother Oakley (he is the investigator) to be baptized a couple of times now and he said that he would be, but elder Davis and I have held off on setting a date until they understand the importance of coming to church weekly.  That has been one of the only holdups with their progression.  Sister Oakley did come to church this past week so we are making some steps in the right direction.  Elder Davis and I are both really excited to get to keep working with them.  

The only other investigator of ours that we were able to see this past week was Darrel.  In case I haven't told you about him before, he has been a member of the Roman Catholic church his entire life.  He is a really nice man who loves us going over to see him.  It has been tough trying to teach him though because he is so indoctrinated in his church that whenever we tell him something that we believe happened he replies and tells us that everything we talked about is in direct contradiction to everything that he believes.  So it has been really hard working with him because as we talk with him he gets very contentious, but he doesn't realize the contention that is there, and because of the contention is it hard to feel the Spirit.  So that is Darrel for you.  

So that was pretty much my week.  I am still doing really well.  Thank you for everything that you do for me everyday!  I love you all!

Love Elder Cameron Woodward 

Mustang, Oklahoma -February 10, 2014

Hey!

Well it sure sounds like things are going well back home.  Like always there are always a lot of different things going on that keep mom and dad busy.  

Missionary work sure has been keeping me busy this last week.  It was a harder week to get out and do stuff because of how cold it has been the past week.  It has been really hard to be out walking around in the cold, because with they way the weather is, once you get cold you are going to stay cold.  So it was a rough week.  We did see lots of exciting things happen this week though.  

We were finally able to have a lesson with one of our potential investigators, Kristen.  We had been trying to meet with her for about a month, but something always happened that prevented us from having a lesson.  We had an appointment set up with her on Thursday, but when we went to her house she told us that her mom was embarrassed about how messy the house was so we wouldn't be able to come in.  I thought that we would just end up setting up another appointment and coming back later, but Kristen told us that she would be willing to follow us somewhere to talk to us.  So we came to the library and had a lesson here.  It went pretty well.  The only kinda bad thing was that the member we had at our lesson kept taking us off on some really random tangents, and Elder Davis and I didn't get much of a chance to speak.  The important thing was that we were able to sit down and have a lesson with Kristen.  We were both pretty excited about that.  

The other miracle that we had this past week was with Amanda.  We weren't expecting it to happen, but it did.  We were out last night with Brother Cardon, and we wanted to stop by Sister Crye's house to see if we were still ok to come over on Thursday for the lesson with her and Amanda.  When Sister Crye answered the door she invited us in right away.  Before we had the chance to ask if they were still planning on Thursday Sister Crye started to tell us about how they were going to have some company over on Thursday so that day wasn't going to work, but since we were there she really wanted us to talk to Amanda right then.  She also mentioned that when they found out that Thursday wasn't going to work Amanda started telling her mom that she needed to call us and let us know that Thursday wouldn't work.  So that was really cool to hear that Amanda was wanting to let us know about Thursday.  So last night we were able to sit down and teach Amanda about the restoration of the gospel.  We had a really good lesson.  She committed to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. 

And then only other big thing that really happened this week was that I got to give my first training at District Meeting.  I thought it went pretty well considering the fact that on Thursday I had planned to talk about a principle called "we invite, they commit, we follow up."  It is basically about the importance of investigator keeping their commitments and what we can do to help them do that.  Then on Friday morning when we got to the church I felt like I needed to change what I was going to talk about.  I was so afraid that was going to happen.  So with what little time I had before District Meeting started, I changed my training to being a consecrated missionary.  So I hope it went pretty well.  

Other then that we had a pretty normal week.  Things went pretty well for us and they are going to keep getting better.  I love you all and hope that you have a great week!

Love Elder Woodward

Mustang, Oklahoma -February 4, 2014

Hey!

So first off, sorry that this email is coming a day late.  The computers at the public library weren't working yesterday because all of the electrical work was being taken care of.  There wasn't a whole lot that I could have done to prevent that from happening. 

Well I guess to start off I will let you know what is going to happen this next transfer.  Elder Davis and I are going to stay together here in Mustang for another transfer.  Darcy didn't do her job and call President Walkenhorst to tell him that I can't stay in Mustang because that is Mountain Crest's mascot.  You have better get on top of that if you ever want me to leave here Darcy.  Elder Bolan is going to be staying here as well, but his companion, Elder Toiava, is getting transfered.  So because Elder Toiava is getting transfered my hopes and dreams of NEVER obtaining ANY leadership responsibilities of ANY kind were crushed.  Yeah unfortunately I got called to be the new district leader.  If any of you have any ideas on what I can do to avoid any further leadership callings please let me know ASAP.  So there is your update on transfer doctrine.

Elder Davis and I saw a huge improvement in our area this past week!  =D  So the first big thing that happened was that we found a new investigator while out visiting a less active.  On the 26th of January we had an appointment that fell through, so I felt like we needed to go try and visit a less active named Sister Crye.  I was really surprised when we knocked on her door and she answered because we had tried a bunch of times before that and she had never answered.  Sister Crye opened the door and immediately invited us in.  We went in and visited with her and her daughter, Amanda.  While we were there Sister Crye told us that Amanda had just gotten back from a baptist bible camp that she had gone to with her friend.  They told us how Amanda didn't really like what was being taught there because all that was being taught was "if you don't accept Christ as your Savior while your alive, your gonna go to hell."  The way Amanda worded it was they were preaching "hate." 

Somewhere during all of this Sister Crye had also mentioned that Amanda had never been baptized into the church.  Elder Davis and I decided that it would be a GREAT time for us to say something and to ask if we could teach her the missionary lessons.  We both let her know that because of the church we knew Heavenly Father was a God of love and not one one hate.  Then we asked if we could tell her more about the church and she said we could.  So we went back on Thursday and taught her about the Plan of Salvation.  We had such an amazing lesson with her.  Right from the very beginning of the lesson she could see the truth behind the Plan of Salvation.  She loved the thought of the Pre-earth life where we lived with Heavenly Father, and the three Kingdoms of Glory and that we don't believe there is just going to be a heaven and hell after this life.  I think the point where we told Amanda about the Spirit World was her favorite part.  She LOVED that we believe that there will be a second chance for those people who didn't have the opportunity to learn about Jesus Christ and His atonement to accept the gospel.  I felt like it defiantly renewed her faith that Heavenly Father loves all of his children.  I would say that the miracle from all of this came at the end though.  We found out that just before we had knocked on the door the previous Sunday, Amanda and her mom had been talking about the bible camp and the concerns that Amanda had, so they decided to say a prayer and ask what they needed to do.  A couple of minutes after that happened we showed up on their doorstep and knocked on the door.  I am so grateful for the guidance of the Spirit because without the Spirit we never would have known that we needed to go over and knock on their door.

Well that is all from me this week.  I love you all!

Love Elder Woodward