Anadarko, Oklahoma -August 25, 2014

Hey!

Well things sound like they are finally starting to go better now that school has started again.  Well for mom and dad they are probably going better.  It is crazy to think how old everyone is getting.  The day might actually come that there won't be anyone living at home with mom and dad.  What would you guys do with all those bedrooms then?  Notice that I did use the word might.  

It is good to hear that Zander and Ian have been getting along so well.  I think that Ian is going to be a really good missionary.  He will probably end up learning another language.  I decided last night that when I get home Ian and Rolando are going to become my new companions and I am going to study with them every morning and help them prepared to serve missions.  I will make sure that they know what the 8 Fundementals of Preach My Gospel are, and all of the other fun stuff you learn as a missionary!  They will be pros before they even leave.  I wonder what they are going to think about that.  

Well I guess since mom is dying to know about what I have been doing this entire past week I can tell you guys.  Last week was a really diferent week for us.  We had a lot harder week then we have had in the past.  It wasn't harder as in Elder Tanner and I got in an argument, or we weren't able to get out and work due to sickness.  Satan was just working really hard this past week to stop the work.  Although Satan was working hard to get the work to stop we still had a good week.  We saw a lot of miracles.  

On Wednesday we were having a not so great day, but we kept working hard and it paid off at the end of the day.  To finish off the day we decided to go visit Alfredo, an investigator that we hadn't been able to see in a couple of weeks.  We got out to Alfredo's house and he was actually there this time!  I was pretty excited about that because we were able to teach him a lesson.  Alfredo is such an awesome kid and all of the lessons that we have had have been very spiritual.  So on Wednesday evening we read through 2 Nephi 31 and talked about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Like always we had a great lesson and Alfredo committed to keep reading the Book of Mormon and we set a baptismal date with him for September 21st.  

Friday was a significantly better day for us as well.  We had exchanges with the other Elders here in the branch.  There always seems to be a lot of miracles when we go on exchanges and Friday was no different.  We had an appointment with a potential investigator, Dayton.  So going back a week earlier to August 15th we were on exchanges with the Zone Leaders which is when we found Dayton.  So we got to Dayton's home and he invited us inside.  Just before we started the lesson I felt prompted to ask Dayton to invite his wife to come in and be there for the lesson and he did.  We taught Dayton and Veeda about the Restoration of the Gospel.  Both Dayton and Veeda were very open and were really interested in the lesson because they had both wondered why there were so many churches on the earth, along with a whole lot of other questions that the church has answers to.  Dayton and Veeda both committed to read and pray about the Book of Mormon and they committed to be baptized on October 19th.  I always love getting to go teach someone about the Restoration and invite them to be baptized, so this visit was no different!  =D  That was another miracle that we were able to be a part of last week.  

Well I think that is about all for this week!  Tell the kids to be good and do their homework.  Thanks for keeping me in your prayers.  It really does help.  I love you guys!

Love Elder Woodward

Anadarko, Oklahoma -August 18, 2014

Hey!

So where to even start?  So I guess just like every other week there was a whole lot of stuff that happened, but also like every other week by the time Monday comes around I can hardly remember what we did yesterday.  I will try my best to fill you in on the entire last week, but it might not be very good.  

Last week one of the miracles that Elder Tanner and I saw were with two different people.  One of them was an investigator, Ray, and the other was with a potential investigator, Elaura.  We had been trying to have a lesson with both of them for a couple of weeks now, but we were having no success in contacting either of these people so we were about ready to drop both of them if we didn't get in contact with them that day.  We went over and tried to see Ray first, and he was there sitting on his front porch just like he was the first day we met him!  He said he was busy that day and that we couldn't talk to his right then, but as we were walking away he yelled at us and told us that he really liked the "native" aspect to the gospel, and that he wanted us to come back over with a member of the church that he had met.  Then right after Ray we walked down the street to Elaura's home and knocked on her door.  She opened the door!  The other times that she had talked to us she would just tell us it wasn't a good time and to come back later, but that day she talked to us more and told us that she was sorry that we kept missing her at home, but that she really did want to come up to church with us and meet with us to find out more about the church.  So all of that turned out really well! 

One of the other cool things that we saw last week was with a less active member.  So I don't know if I told you about this last week, but we ran into a less active member of the church here in Anadarko a couple weeks ago while we were in pizza hut one evening.  This less active, Andrea, moved down here to Anadarko from Woodward last December time.  Well at first thought, I didn't think that I knew who Andrea was because I had never met her before and I didn't recognize her name, but after talking with her and getting to know her better, I figured out the she is the same Andrea that Elder Birch and I spent so many hours trying to find (on top of all the time the Egnews spent trying to find her).  Who would have ever thought that we would have finally found her 8 month after I left Woodward in a small town in the middle of no where.  It is really crazy how it all worked out and I can say that I know it was the Lord that provided a way for us to finally find her.  

Well thanks for everything that you guys do for me!  Have a great week everyone!

Love Elder Woodward

Andarko, Oklahoma -August 11, 2014

Hey!

We were able to spend a lot more time out working last week since both of the rashes that we had are gone.  Last week we had the American Indian Expo here in Anadarko.  I called it an expo because that is technically what it is, but it was very similar to the Cache Valley Fair, it was focused more towards the American Indians though.  The Senior couple here talked to whoever was in charge of it and were able to arrange for us to have a booth at the expo, so we got to spend a couple of hours each day working at the booth.  We had a lot of success come from it and we were able to contact a couple of people who seemed really interested in learning more about the church.  We had a lot more success with people who were visiting and live somewhere else, but there were still a lot of people from Anadarko.  So we should be able to get a couple of new investigators from the booth.  Over the four days that the expo was going we (mostly Elder Philbrick) gave out somewhere around 300 copies of the Book of Mormon.  So it did turn out to be very successful.

We did spend a lot of our time away from the booth and got to go visit a couple of our investigators as well.  We still haven't been able to go and see Sarah since she came to church several weeks ago.  We are still going out to try and visit her since she still has a baptismal date for the 31st, but we haven't been able to make contact with her.  She has been really busy the past couple of weeks, but we are determined to visit with her again!  We were able to have a lesson with Trevor and his Sister last week.  I probably haven't told you much about Trevor yet.  So Trevor has been meeting with the missionaries for 4 or 5 months now and taking the discussions.  Right about the time that I got here to Anadarko Trevor's sister, Tillie, came up from Florida to visit.  Just before Tillie came up here she was meeting with missionaries there and got baptized.  Trevor and Tillie didn't know that the other were meeting with the missionaries until after Tillie was baptized.  Anyways, so when Tillie came to visit, which was right when I got here, Trevor decided that he was going to go back to Florida with his sister to get away from the negative influences he had here.  That is probably why I haven't told you about Trevor yet. So after a short time, Tillie decided that she was going to move back here to Oklahoma, and so Trevor came back with her so we started to teach Trevor again.  Last week we had a really good lesson with Trevor and Tillie about the Priesthood and why we need the Priesthood on the earth.  We taught this lesson using the Gospel Principles manual, which actually turned out to be very good for both Trevor and Tillie.

One of the other cool miracle that we saw this past week was with a less active member that we met when we went to eat at Pizza Hut a couple weeks ago.  So as it turns out this less active, Andrea, is actually a less active that lived up in the Woodward Branch while I was serving up there.  I don't remember ever actually meeting her while I was up there.  Andrea ended up moving down here to Anadarko last December which nobody knew about because her records weren't moved here.  We went over and visited with her and she was very open and she told us that she really wanted to start going back to church.  It was really cool to run into her and have some common things to talk about.

I hope that you all have a great week!  Talk to you guys soon!

Love Elder Woodward

Anadarko, Oklahoma -August 4, 2014

Hey!

It sounds like things have been going good for everyone back home!  It is good to hear that Darcy's ankle is doing better and that she will be able to help kick some Sparta butt this week!  

Things here in Anadarko have been going pretty well for us.  The work continues to roll forward, and we are seeing a lot of miracles every day.  Missionary work is a whole lot of fun!  I love being able to be out here in Oklahoma to do the Lord's work.

This past past week brought with it a whole bunch of different things.  Durning the week it felt like things were going super slow, but now as I look back at our week I can see it went by really fast.  Our week was filled with a whole bunch of different things, but the were all good and all a lot of fun!

So one of the most exciting things from last week was when we got to go up to the Oklahoma City Temple with the rest of our Zone.  It is always a lot of fun going up to the temple.  We went up to the Temple last Wednesday.  Not a whole lot more that I can say about that.  I can say that it was great to get to go to the House of the Lord and spend time inside the Temple and have questions that I have had answered.  It was great!  After we got finished in the Temple we went right across the street to the church building there to have our Specialized Training for our Zone.  The Zone Leaders had another awesome training prepared for us.  Last month out STM was about ABC, or Attitude, Believe, and Courage.  That training was all about changing ourselves and our areas into what the Lord wants us to be and what our areas should be.  This month the STM was about Anchoring ourselves in Christ and trusting in Him.  For this training the Zone Leaders made it 1 2 3.  Get it?  ABC easy as 1 2 3.  Thank you Jackson 5 for providing our trainings for us........  We have been really focusing on changing ourselves so that we can become the person the Lord wants us to be.  

So I guess so you already brought up homecoming talks I'm ok with whatever day they want me to speak.  I figure whichever day it is I speak I will probably wait until the day before to prepare.  That part of me still hasn't changed.  Just let me know what the plan is.  

Well thanks for everything!  You are all great!

Love, Elder Woodward

Anadarko, Oklahoma -July 28, 2014

Hey!  

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

Anadarko, Oklahoma -July 21, 2014

Hey!

Things out here in Oklahoma sure have been really crazy over the past week.  We have had a lot of good stuff happen and a lot of not so good things as well.  As you know transfers have come around again and we had a lot of surprising changes here in our District.  Nothing is going to change for Elder Tanner and I.  We will be here in Anadarko for at least another transfer.  The surprise came Sunday morning when the Sisters told us what was happening with them.  President Walkenhorst called them at 10:40pm  on Saturday and told both Sister Hirschi and Sister Safley that they were going to get transfered.  If it wasn't bad enough to hear that we were losing both of our Sisters it was definitely bad to hear they were being replaced by Elders.  Not that having Elders is going to be an entirely bad thing, but our branch president here has had some REALLY bad experiences with Elders in the past and now we are going to have two sets of Elders. It will be interesting to see what is going to happen with the branch when we get another set of Elders.  Anyways so that is the news with transfers.  It is going to be a really big change not having the Sisters around anymore.  Oh well this is what President felt like would be good.  We had better be getting some dang good Elders here or I will be so ticked!

Besides all of the crazy dumb things happening with transfers, Elder Tanner and I had a pretty good week.  We were able to have a couple more lessons with Sarah last week which both went really well.  The first lesson we had with her was on Tuesday.  We were able to get a Sister in the branch, Sister Blanchard, to come to that lesson with us.  Sister Blanchard turned out to be a great fellowshipper for Sarah.  They started talking right away and got along really well.  So at our lesson with Sarah on Tuesday we read through 2 Nephi 31 and talked a lot about baptism and why it is important.  I don't know exactly at which point Sarah said this, but one of her comments during the lesson was that she would probably need to be re-baptized.  You could definitely tell the Spirit was there working on her in order for her to feel like she needed to be baptized again.  We invited Sarah to be baptized on August 31st and she said that she would prepare for that day.  So then when we set up a return appointment we planned to have it at the church building so we could have a church tour so she could be familiar with the church before she came.  Then on Thursday we were able to have the Church tour with her.  It was an almost perfect time to have the church tour with her.  It was great to get her to the church and show her around.  The Spirit was there and it was really strong!  Then yesterday Sarah and some of her family came out to church.  It was great to get to see them there because it shows that they are truely committed and the really are interested in learning more about the church.  There were a lot of miracles with Sarah this week.

We weren't able to have another lesson with Shannon because she got sick and still isn't feeling better.  She can't be sick forever though so we will be able to get to see her soon.

One of the other really good lessons that we had last week was last night.  We had gone to a small town about 10 miles North of Anadarko to do some work up there.  We went to try two potential investigators, Brooke and Krissy, who ended up becoming investigators.  We had a lesson with them about the Restoration and Joseph Smith.  It ended up being a really good lesson.  They both committed to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it.  We shoule be making a trip back up there on Tuesday to visit with them again.  

So that is about all from me.  It was a fun week!  Thanks for all that you guys do for me.  Be safe and don't do anything dumb.  

Love, Elder Woodward

Anadarko, Oklahoma -July 14, 2014

Hey there everyone!

It sounds like everything at home is going just as it should be.  It didn't sound like there has been anything that has really changed.  It is probably a good thing that Dad hasn't had Gislene and Zander doing any work out at the farm.  Who knows though, they could do a really good job at gathering the eggs.  It is probably just a better idea to let them play DS and watch movies instead of finding out what would happen in Dad let them try to do something.  

It is good to hear that everything is going well up in Canada as well.  Like always there is something happening with soccer.  I don't know what would happen if the family tried to go an entire week without having to do anything with soccer.  That would probably be a sign that the end of the world is coming.  Good luck to Darcy and Emmie at their next soccer camp later on this week.

This past week was very different from other weeks for Elder Tanner and I.  I don't remember if I mentioned it last week, but when we were doing some service for a member a couple weeks ago Elder Tanner ended up getting some sort of spider bite on his arm.  At first it didn't start out to bad but a couple days later his wrist around the bite got swollen and the bite area started turning black.  Needless to say there was something wrong.  So this week we went to the doctors they gave him some stuff for the spider bite and we left.  To go along with the bite, he started to develop a rash from something.  So the reason that I am telling you all of this is because of everything that happened it prevented us from being able to go out and work as much.  When we were out working Elder Tanner's rash would get really itchy and start to ooze stuff so on the doctors orders we spent a whole lot of time in the house we live at out of the heat so things would get better.  Things have started to get better with his rash.  So the only things that we were really able to do this week was go to set appointments where we wouldn't be outside in the heat.  Other then set appointments we didn't get out much.  The Lord definitely blessed us yesterday though.  

So like I said we only went to set appointments and so we had a couple of appointments yesterday that we went to and saw a lot of miracle with them.  The first one was with our investigator Sarah.  We ended up finding Sarah and her family while we were out visiting a different potential and Elder Tanner and I saw her and the family sitting on the porch looking at us, so we decided to go over and talk to them.  They told us that when they saw us on the other man's porch they thought we were the FBI.  We have been going back to visit them pretty regularly, but we have mostly only been able to talk with Sarah.  Anyways, so yesterday when we went over to see Sarah she invited us inside and she had all of her family there the sit in on the lesson.  Then she had also sent her significant other to get one of their elderly friends who asked if she could come over for the lesson as well.  So I think total we had 9 or 10 people at the lesson not including us.  It was really cool.  Elder Tanner and I taught them about the Plan of Salvation.  Almost all of Sarah's family was involved and paying attention.  Out of however many people were there we counted three of them as new investigators mainly because they were the ones we had seen the most often.  We are definitely planning on working with the entire family because the Branch out here could really use a new family in the branch.  Elder Tanner and I both feel like they are so prepared to hear the gospel.

The other miracle that we saw yesterday was with another investigator named Shannon.  Shannon is someone that we met on the 4th of July because of the booth that we had set up.  Shannon is another person that we feel is really prepared to hear the gospel.  Yesterday was the second time that we had gone to see Shannon.  She wasn't a new investigator yet because the first time we went over we spent some time getting to know her.  Anyways, so we saw her yesterday and taught her about the Restoration and Joseph Smith.  The reason we feel she is really prepared is because shortly after she came and talked to us at the booth her sister started to share a whole bunch of anti Mormon literature and normally when something like that happens is when people tell us they don't want us to come over.  With Shannon though pretty much the exact oppostie of that happened.  Shannon told us that after her sister read her all of the anti mormon stuff she told her sister that she didn't want to hear that stuff because she wanted to go straight to the source (us) to find out what we believe.  So that was a miracle in and of itself but ontop of that she has  a really sincere desire to know if this is true.  She kept reiterating how much she wanted to know if this was true throughout the lesson.  We have another appointment with Shannon on Thursday and I definitely feel like if she reads and prays between now and then she can have an answer about if this is Christ's restored church.

So just yesterday we were able to get four new investigators and two member present lessons.  That was a miracle for sure because of the slow week we had had due to what happened with Elder Tanner.  Heavenly Father was blessing us for having done everything we could throughout the week to do missionary work despite having had to stay inside for most of it.  

Things have been going really well for us!  We are enjoying our time here in Anadarko.  Thanks for everything that you guys do for me!  I will let you know what happens next week with transfers.  Thanks again.

Love Elder Woodward