Hey!
It sounds like things have been just as crazy as ever in the Woodward home. Like always there has been soccer, soccer, and more soccer. I sounds like Zander is having fun with soccer this year. I'm not really surprised that all he wants to do is dribble to ball and score. He is pretty independent. Hopefully the girls don't start to get an attitude like that.
I am so excited to be able to listen to conference this weekend. I have always been to excited to watch General Conference as a missionary. It is one of my favorite times of the year! Last April Lois (she is the lady who got baptized in Mustang) watched a session of conference and the only question that she had about conference was about how many pipes there were in the organ at the conference center. It was pretty cool. There are always a lot of miracles that happen around conference time, so I am excited to see what will happen this time. Elder Tanner and I have been inviting a lot of people to watch conference this weekend. It is going to be a really fun weekend.
One of the things that I am really excited for next week is that I get to go back up to Woodward for a baptism next week. There is an investigator that I worked with while I was up there that is getting baptized and they invited me to come back for the baptism. It is really exciting to know that this investigator is getting baptized after all this time. I will be sure to take pictures so that you can all see.
Last week we got to go see our investigators, Jose and Angelica. Jose is in the process of recovering from an open heart surgery that he had last week. Jose is doing really well for just having had surgery. I am always amazed with that man. Jose is such a great example of a faithful person. Even with everything that he has gone through recently he is still laughing and joking with us when we go over. I was hoping that he could get baptized before I go home, but since he just had heart surgery, it probably isn't very likely to happen. We had a couple of really good lessons with Jose and Angelica last week. One of the things we taught them was about the 10 commandments. Normally when we teach the 10 commandments we teach them using hand signs. For the sixth commandment which is thou shalt not kill, the hand sign we use is finger guns. Jose decided to crack a joke when we reviewed all the commandments and instead of saying thou shalt not kill he said "no boom boom." The way Jose said it was really funny and so we all started laughing.
Another really cool thing that happened was when we were out in Hinton this past week. There is a part member family that we are teaching up there. The are the Finney family. When we were talking with Sister Finney she told us that she had been talking to her husband and asked him if he was ever going to join the church and Brother Finney had told her that he was going to join the church he just wasn't sure when. That was super cool to hear about. We have been working with the Finney's for a long time now so it was cool to hear that he has been making some progress and his heart is starting to be softened. That was a really cool day for us.
We had the primary program here in the branch yesterday. Like always the Primary program was great! We heard that when they were practicing for their program it was super crazy and the teachers had no idea how it was all going to come together. Actuall the way it was described to us was that is was like trying to heard a flock of cats. It all came together though. What the leaders did in order to motivate the kids to learn the songs was that the kids were promised an eight layer cake if they learned all the songs. It was a pretty impressive cake.
Well thank you all for everything that you do! I love and appreciate all that you guys do for me everyday. I will see you guys in a couple of weeks!
Love Elder Woodward
Hey!
Things have been going really well for me and Elder Tanner this past week. We ended up having a really good week and we saw lots of miracles happen! Last week was also a pretty crazy week for us. We were super busy last Monday and Tuesday with everything that was going on here in our mission for these days. Last Monday we were down in Lawton most of the day because we had a Zone P-day. Our entire zone met down in Lawton to do some activities and spend some time with each other. We ended up playing football for part of the time. You could probably expect this, but I would have much rather played Frisbee instead. Oh well it was still a fun day. We stayed down in Lawton for the rest of the day cause we had our specialized training for this transfer. It was a good training and I was able to receive some good inspiration from it. We spent the night down in Lawton as well so that we wouldn't have to drive back down on Tuesday morning for our Zone Conference. Zone Conference was really good, just like it always is. The end of this Zone Conference was a little bit different for me this time. At the end of our Zone Conferences we have a testimony meeting where all of the missionaries that are going to leave the mission before the next Zone Conference are invited up to give there "departing" testimony. So since this is my last transfer I obviously was invited to go up and bear my testimony. Everything went well. When I went back to my seat and sat down is when everything hit me. I hadn't thought about it a lot before, but after I sat down it dawned on me that I really am about to go home and that I really don't have a lot of time left as a full time missionary. It was a sad moment for me as I sat there and listened to others get up to bear their testimonies. I'm sure Mom and Dad remember what it felt like to be in that situation realizing how close to the end of the mission they were. I don't really know what words to use to describe it.
The rest of the week kinda went by in a blur. Everything happened so fast. We were able to contact a lot of our investigators last week and have some really good lessons with them. I got to go on exchanges with the Elders down in Elgin last Friday as well. We have been getting a lot of good work done in the past couple of weeks and are seeing some cool miracles come from it.
I am doing well out here and loving the work. Thanks for all that you guys have done for me!
Love Elder Woodward
Hey!
There is definitely a whole lot of stuff that has been happening this month, and like you guys said it is already half over. Things have been going really well for us out here. Last week we had some pretty cool weather that came through town. Most of last week the temperature was down in the 60's or 70's which was a really nice change for us as missionaries. I guess most of the people who live here thought it was too cold, but I really enjoyed driving with the windows down and not sweating all the time. Enough about the weather though.
Last week we had a Mission Tour with Elder Foster from the Second Quorum of the Seventy. We had a really great day up in Norman getting to hear from Elder Foster. It was a very uplifting conference for me. One of the things that he talked about was in the Pearl of Great Price where the Lord it talking to Moses and showing him world without number and where we find out more about the creation of the Earth. On of the scriptures that he shared was Abraham 3:24 which says "And there stood one among them that was like unto God, and he said unto those who were with him: We will go down, for there is space there, and we will take of these materials, and we will make an earth whereon these may dwell." The things that I loved the most about that scripture is that the Earth and everything around us was created for us so that we could come here and get a body and be tested. All of this, the earth, the Creation, the Plan of Salvation, everything that Heavenly Father has done is for us. This is all about us. How cool of a thought is that? That was a really comforting thing to hear last week and it has really helped me since then.
We were also able to have a really good lesson with a family last week after the Mission Tour. The family we went to see was Ryan and Cindy. Elder Tanner and Elder Duffin found him while they were on exchanges ago, well it was more like he found them. They went to try another investigator and when they got out of the car Ryan started talking to them and he ended up inviting us to come back and visit with them. We saw them on Tuesday evening and had a really good lesson about the Plan of Salvation with them. One of the reasons that I thought it went so well was because there was a whole lot of interaction with Ryan and Cindy. They were asking a bunch of questions and asking where the scriptures talked about the Plan of Salvation. All of the interaction is what I thought made it so great cause there are a lot of times when we teach that our investigators give one or two word responses and say ok whenevery we teach something new. It was great to have that interaction while we were teaching cause it helped us to build a relationship with them while we were teaching.
We saw Jose and Angelica again a couple of times last week. Most of the time when we go visit them we have read from the Book of Mormon to help them want to read it when we aren't there. So last week we read 1 Nephi 4 with them and when we went back last night to follow up, Jose told us that he had finished chaper 4 and that he was reading on his own. That was really cool to have happen! It is gonna be a while before we get to visit them again cause Jose is going to have a heart surgery today and he will be in the hospital for most of the week.
Another cool thing that happened last week was that we were able to go and visit a bunch of people that we have had a really hard time contacting for the last couple of weeks. There were a bunch of people who dropped off the face of the earth for a while, but they are all getting back! It was good to be able to contact those people and find out that they have been doing ok since we last saw them.
Well thank you guys for everything that you are doing for me! I am having a great time out here with Elder Tanner and I love this work!
Love Elder Woodward
Hey there!
I would agree with you that it seems like it was yesterday that it was P-day and we were emailing home. It is crazy how time flies. There isn't a whole lot that I can do to slow things down, so I figure that it is best to make the best of the time I have left. It is crazy that it has almost been two years since I left. I wouldn't mind staying out here a little longer, but I am sure that all of you guys are ready for me to come home. Well too bad the Lord still has me for another 6 weeks!
Last week contained a little bit of everything for me and Elder Tanner. I guess that is what I should have come to expect by now. I am starting to get really bad at remembering all of what we did the week before, but I will do my best to remember.
Recently the Anadarko branch has been doing a 40 day fast. If you have never heard of that before here is what it is. So each day a member here signs up to fast for one day and fasts specifically for missionary work here in the Anadarko branch. The goal of this is to have a different member fasting every day for 40 days straight. It has been a really good way to get the members involved in missionary work and to help get them excited to help us with missionary work. There have been a lot of really cool things happen because of this 40 day fast and we are only halfway through. There have been a whole lot of miracles happen so far.
Yesterday we had a really cool miracle happen. Church had just gotten over for the day and Elder tanner and I were talking to some of the members, when our Branch Mission Leader, Brother Bateman, came up to us with a couple who had just walked into the church a couple of minutes earlier. He introduced us to the couple and told us what they had told him. This couple was Cheyenne and Cody. We had met Cheyenne a couple of weeks earlier at the Indian Expo that was going on here. She was working at the gate and so we saw her and talked to her every time that we went over there. We found out that she lived in Arizona, so I really didn't think about talking to her about the church or asking if we could have missionaries come visit her. Who would have ever thought though that Cheyenne and her husband, Cody, would have moved here to Anadarko recently. They had just moved here and were looking for a church to go to and of all of the churches here in Anadarko, they chose to walk into our building. It was a definitely a miracle that they walked into church at the exact time so that we could talk to them. There are so many other ways that meeting Cheyenne and Cody at church was a miracle, but my favorite part about it was that out of everyone that Elder Philbrick gave a Book of Mormon to, (334 of them if you remember) the only thing that we have seen come out of those 4 days at the expo was a lady that we didn't "force" the church or the Book of Mormon on.
Like I said earlier by the time P-day come I have a whole lot of trouble remembering what happened at the beginning of last week. So that is really all for my email this week. I will probably write you a letter later today with some of the other things that we did last week. I really am sorry that my memory is turning into mush and I can't remember anything.
I hope that you all have a great week! I love you guys!
Love Elder Woodward
Hey!
Well things have been going pretty well for Elder Tanner and I out here in Anadarko. Last week was a slower week for us and we weren't able to get as much done as we would have liked to. Elder Tanner and I both got sick last week which caused us to be stuck inside way more then we would have liked to. There was a lot more that we would have like to do, but there is only so much you can do when your sick.
So since we were sick most of last week there isn't a whole lot to tell you about, but I will do my best to let you know what has been happening. Last week I told you a little about our lesson with Dayton and Veeda. So we weren't able to set up another appointment with them until September 12, but we stopped by last week to follow up and see how there reading from the Book of Mormon was going and if they had been praying. Dayton was at work so we didn't see him, but we Talked with Veeda for a couple of minutes and she had read all of 1 Nephi and she said she had been praying about the Book of Mormon. It was really cool to hear that she had been doing that.
You guys are getting pretty good at keeping track of when transfers happen. It probably makes it really easy that transfers here are a week after Shannon's transfers. Either way transfers are gonna happen here this week. We found out last night what will happen next transfer and my entire District is going to be staying together. So I am going to finish my mission here in Anadarko, and Elder Tanner is going to be my last mission companion. It is kinda hard to think that this is going to be my last transfer as a missionary. It seems like it was a week ago that I was sitting in the mission van thinking that two years seemed like forever. I thought that I was going to spend the rest of my life as a missionary, but it has all gone by too quickly.
Well I think that is everything for this week. Thanks for all that you guys are doing for me. I love all of you!
Love Elder Woodward
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!
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
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