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
Cam
Monday, February 24, 2014
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
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
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
Monday, February 10, 2014
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
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
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
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
Monday, January 27, 2014
Mustang, Oklahoma -January 27, 2014
Hey!
So I still haven't heard any news about transfers yet, so anything could happen at this point. We will find out exactly what is going to happen on Sunday evening. All that we know at this point is that transfers are going to be on February 5. Most of the missionaries have come up with a bunch of speculation on what is going to happen, but I hardly ever listen to any of it because most of the time it is wrong.
So as for news from this past week... There really wasn't a whole lot of excitement for me this week. Overall the week flew by and the things that happened are all a blur now. The most exciting thing that happened for me this week occurred at church yesterday. I will try to make this as exciting as I possibly can for all of you. So obviously since it was Sunday we were going to be going to church. When we pulled into the church parking lot and I started to look around for a place to park since I was driving. As I looked over to my right there was a man standing there waving at me with a big grin on his face as we drove past. Any guesses as to who it was? So the man that was standing there was Herman. Yep it is the same Herman that I taught up in Woodward, and the same one who got baptized a couple of months ago. I was so excited to see them at church. I don't even know what words to use to describe my excitement. I think that was the fastest that I have ever gotten out of a car before. There was not any time wasted. Herman and Carolyn were both there along with their daughter, Maddie. It was really cool to get to see them yesterday. It was quite the surprise for me and it was the last thing that I would have expected going to church in Mustang. It was kinda funny when they walked into the building because all of the members here thought that Herman and Carolyn were a new family that was going to be moving into the ward. They were just down here visiting a friend of theirs and so they decided to pay a surprise visit to me.
So the work is still going pretty well for me. Things are starting to pick up and we are starting to see some cool things happen. I guess that means it will be time for me to get transfered again. We have been getting a lot more member support over the past couple of weeks. I think this past week we had a member out with us almost every day. So it is really cool to see the members getting involved in missionary work.
Thank you all for everything that you are doing for me! I can defiantly feel you prayers! Thank you again! I love you all so much! Have a great week!
Love Elder Cameron Woodward
So I still haven't heard any news about transfers yet, so anything could happen at this point. We will find out exactly what is going to happen on Sunday evening. All that we know at this point is that transfers are going to be on February 5. Most of the missionaries have come up with a bunch of speculation on what is going to happen, but I hardly ever listen to any of it because most of the time it is wrong.
So as for news from this past week... There really wasn't a whole lot of excitement for me this week. Overall the week flew by and the things that happened are all a blur now. The most exciting thing that happened for me this week occurred at church yesterday. I will try to make this as exciting as I possibly can for all of you. So obviously since it was Sunday we were going to be going to church. When we pulled into the church parking lot and I started to look around for a place to park since I was driving. As I looked over to my right there was a man standing there waving at me with a big grin on his face as we drove past. Any guesses as to who it was? So the man that was standing there was Herman. Yep it is the same Herman that I taught up in Woodward, and the same one who got baptized a couple of months ago. I was so excited to see them at church. I don't even know what words to use to describe my excitement. I think that was the fastest that I have ever gotten out of a car before. There was not any time wasted. Herman and Carolyn were both there along with their daughter, Maddie. It was really cool to get to see them yesterday. It was quite the surprise for me and it was the last thing that I would have expected going to church in Mustang. It was kinda funny when they walked into the building because all of the members here thought that Herman and Carolyn were a new family that was going to be moving into the ward. They were just down here visiting a friend of theirs and so they decided to pay a surprise visit to me.
So the work is still going pretty well for me. Things are starting to pick up and we are starting to see some cool things happen. I guess that means it will be time for me to get transfered again. We have been getting a lot more member support over the past couple of weeks. I think this past week we had a member out with us almost every day. So it is really cool to see the members getting involved in missionary work.
Thank you all for everything that you are doing for me! I can defiantly feel you prayers! Thank you again! I love you all so much! Have a great week!
Love Elder Cameron Woodward
Monday, January 20, 2014
Mustang, Oklahoma -January 20, 2014
Hey everyone!
So what I can remember from last week. Last Wednesday Elder Davis and I were finally able to go and see one of our investigators that we hadn't been able to see the entire time I have been here. His name just happened to be Jeff as well. He isn't black though. I don't know what it is but it seems like half of the people I have been teaching recently have been named Jeff. So we went and saw Jeff on Wednesday and we had a really good lesson with him. We spent most of the time answering the questions he had for us. He sure did have a lot of questions. One of the questions that he had that no one had been able to answer yet was the reason that we believe there needs to be a prophet on the Earth today. So I turned to Hebrews 13:8 which says "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day and for ever." Then we explained to him that Christ's church is always going to be the same, and that if there were prophets called before Christ came there would be prophets called after Christ came. After we shared that with him he thought about is for a second then said that was the most clear answer to that question he had ever been given. So one thing that I learned from that was that our answers to others questions don't have to be worded fancy, or be long and complicated, but they can be short, simple, and clear. It was really cool to be a part of that lesson.
We spent a lot of this past week tracting and trying to find some new investigators. We didn't get any new investigators, but we did talk to a few people who would be interested in learning more about the church. We were able to set up a lot of appointments for later this week, so we are really excited for those. We had a lot of improvement this past week and it was so much better then the week before. We are seeing a lot more things happen and the work is really starting to move forward.
The only other bit of exciting news (if you can call it exciting) was that I got to give a talk yesterday. Yay... I wasn't very excited for it because I found out that I would be speaking on Saturday night at about 9:30. Oh the joys of being a missionary and the Bishop thinking that you will be able to fill in. Did you notice that I said I found out, not I was asked to speak. The Bishop called the other set of elders in the ward and talked to them, and I guess somewhere in all of that I was volunteered to speak the next day. Oh the joys of being a missionary.
So yeah, that was my week. It was pretty good. There is lots of stuff happening. I hope that you all have a great week! Be safe and don't do anything I wouldn't do. I love you all!
So what I can remember from last week. Last Wednesday Elder Davis and I were finally able to go and see one of our investigators that we hadn't been able to see the entire time I have been here. His name just happened to be Jeff as well. He isn't black though. I don't know what it is but it seems like half of the people I have been teaching recently have been named Jeff. So we went and saw Jeff on Wednesday and we had a really good lesson with him. We spent most of the time answering the questions he had for us. He sure did have a lot of questions. One of the questions that he had that no one had been able to answer yet was the reason that we believe there needs to be a prophet on the Earth today. So I turned to Hebrews 13:8 which says "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day and for ever." Then we explained to him that Christ's church is always going to be the same, and that if there were prophets called before Christ came there would be prophets called after Christ came. After we shared that with him he thought about is for a second then said that was the most clear answer to that question he had ever been given. So one thing that I learned from that was that our answers to others questions don't have to be worded fancy, or be long and complicated, but they can be short, simple, and clear. It was really cool to be a part of that lesson.
We spent a lot of this past week tracting and trying to find some new investigators. We didn't get any new investigators, but we did talk to a few people who would be interested in learning more about the church. We were able to set up a lot of appointments for later this week, so we are really excited for those. We had a lot of improvement this past week and it was so much better then the week before. We are seeing a lot more things happen and the work is really starting to move forward.
The only other bit of exciting news (if you can call it exciting) was that I got to give a talk yesterday. Yay... I wasn't very excited for it because I found out that I would be speaking on Saturday night at about 9:30. Oh the joys of being a missionary and the Bishop thinking that you will be able to fill in. Did you notice that I said I found out, not I was asked to speak. The Bishop called the other set of elders in the ward and talked to them, and I guess somewhere in all of that I was volunteered to speak the next day. Oh the joys of being a missionary.
So yeah, that was my week. It was pretty good. There is lots of stuff happening. I hope that you all have a great week! Be safe and don't do anything I wouldn't do. I love you all!
Love Elder Cameron Woodward
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
Mustang, Oklahoma -January 13, 2014
Hey!
Well this past week hasn't been a very interesting one for me. Not much has been happening with the work. I got sick close to the end of the week, so me and my companion weren't able to go out and get any work done on Saturday or Sunday.
Other then that there isn't too much to tell about. Really the only semi good day I had was when I was on exchanges with Elder Bolan and we got out and did some work. One day I got so sick and tired of how disgusting our apartment was and I finally broke down and cleaned everything up. I guess that growing up around Camille for all those years wasn't such a bad thing after all. So I would like to take this time to thank you Camille for teaching me how to be OCD and showing me it is ok to be a clean freak. Who would have known that would have rubbed off on me. I didn't think it would have rubbed off either until it actually happened. Who would have ever guessed that I would learn so much from my mission about real life.
Thank you all for everything that you do for me! I love you all and I hope you all have a good week
Love Elder Cameron Woodward.
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