Tiffin, Ohio - September 26, 2016

We were able to go to the temple on Saturday, but not in Columbus. We got to go to Detroit because the Columbus temple is closed for cleaning and it won't open until after Elder Nageli (most likely) leaves, so we moved it to Detroit instead! Just a little note to Mom and Emmie and Darcy: Yes, Detroit is still a dump and is still as sketchy as it was when we were there a couple of years ago. So many roads going all over the place and the only place I didn't feel like I could get shot at any second was at the temple! The temple is in a super nice neighborhood. Guess what road it was on? Yep, that's right. Woodward Avenue. There were multiple temple workers who joked about that. The temple was actually in Bloomfield Hills (I think) and it was probably the nicest neighborhood in all of Michigan. There were Lamborghinis and Ferraris driving around like it was nobody's business. All the houses were super nice and huge. Way too big for anyone normal though. 

 

We woke up at 4:45 in the morning to get ready to go to the temple because we had to be there at 8:30 for a 9:00 endowment session and it was a two and a half hour drive. We left at 5:45 and drove up with the couple that was getting sealed. Definitely tried to sleep on the way up but cars just aren't the most comfortable thing to sleep in. The temple is really nice! It looks a lot bigger on the outside than it was on the inside, but it's still a temple and they all do the same thing. I think there are more stalls to change in in the Logan Temple Baptistry than there are in the main dressing room in Detroit. It was so small. It was kind of surprising walking in and it being so small. There were so many people there for the endowment session that every seat was full for both men and women and they even had to pull out six extra folding chairs for the men because there were so many people! It was crazy to see that many people. After the endowment, we got changed and went to the sealing for the couple. It was the couple, the Branch President and his wife, and Elder Nageli and I there for the sealing. Elder Nageli and I were able to be the two witnesses for it so that was really neat. We got to sign the certificate the couple gets so they will always be able to remember us. On our way home, we stopped to eat at Denny's and got some good food. We didn't get back home until 4:00 and then went and did service and had dinner at a members home and then went to a less actives house to teach him. He is the one that I think I talked about last week how he got a suit to come to church and is paying his tithing. He said that this week he started reading the Book of Mormon during his lunch breaks and it seemed like everything this week went better for him. I wonder why... The only bad thing is his truck broke down on Saturday so he wasn't able to come to church yesterday.

 

Trainer calls were last night and guess what? Nope. I'm not training. I couldn't be more happy. Elder Nageli kept telling me all day that I was going to get a call just because he wanted me to train. But I'm not. So I'm guessing I'll be in Tiffin until the middle of November. Unless I get moved at the end of this transfer which is next week. That means that I won't be emailing until Tuesday next week, so don't freak out mom when I don't email on Monday. I'm still alive and everything will be alright. We won't find out until next week where Elder Nageli is going if he does leave, but I keep telling he is going to Warren, Ohio which he hates because he doesn't want to go there. He harassed me about training, so I can harass him about going to Warren. It's all done in love though. 

 

We almost died yesterday on our way to church. But I'm still here and we didn't die so all is good. Don't worry about it mom. We were driving to church and the sun was in the perfect position to blind Elder Nageli from seeing a car so he went to pull out and I saw my life flash before my eyes. It wasn't that dramatic, but it was a little scary. Elder Nageli gunned it and was driving on the wrong side of the road for a little bit so we didn't get smashed into. It was great! Got the adrenaline pumping right before church which is always needed so I don't fall asleep. Just kidding. I don't fall asleep. 

 

Last Monday after preparation day, we went over to the less active's house that we got a referral from to teach her neighbor. The dad came down with his 6 year old daughter because the daughter wants to go to church. She is probably the smartest six year old I have ever met. She knew so much and paid super good attention to the lesson and answered questions that we had. We even gave her a Book of Mormon for her family and she said she would read it! We told her we would get her a Book of Mormon Stories book for her because it's a lot simpler and has pictures in it. It was definitely a good idea because she read the first chapter but didn't really understand it. I guess she is only six. Her dad wasn't quite as interested and said he wouldn't read the Book of Mormon, but we are going to work on him through his daughter. On Friday we were able to meet the wife/mom and she is so cool! She actually wants to learn and had an LDS friend when she was in high school that she went to church with a couple of times. We couldn't teach her when we met with her because she had to run home because family friends were coming from somewhere to visit. But yesterday, the mom and the daughter both came to church! The daughter (Autumn) was a little bit nervous to leave her mom and go with a bunch of strangers but the Primary President grabbed her and made Autumn her "Special Helper" for primary so her mom could come to our class. She was the only one there so we taught her and picked her up as a new investigator! We invited her to be baptized and she said she would, we just didn't leave a date. She smokes a little, but that's typical out here, so that's something we will have to work on. The primary LOVED having Autumn there. They said she answered all the questions and was reading for them and talked about how reading the Book of Mormon made her feel. They gave her a CD for the primary program because there are like five other kids in primary, so they really want her there to participate. As long as they get rides to church, it seems like they will keep coming. They both really enjoyed church.

 

The rest of the week was pretty good! We had Zone Conference in Lima on Wednesday which is always good and then exchanges out there for the rest of the day. The Zone Leaders are so great. It's so much fun to work with them. They also have probably the nicest apartment in the mission with hardwood floors and granite counters. It's just a nice place. The only problem is they live in the village of Delphous, Ohio. Massive town. Then on Thursday we did exchanges with the Findlay elders and I took over the area for the first time. Elder Nageli stayed in Findlay and I came back here. It was pretty good, a couple of the members here were a little bit dramatic with stuff that happened, but all in all, it was a good day. We picked up a couple of potentials when we were out tracting, so that's always good. Moving the work forward.

 

Gonna watch conference this weekend, most likely at different member's homes. Pretty excited for it. For the Priesthood session we are going to end up going to Findlay because they are doing a dinner there at 7 and then Conference at 8. So we won't even get home until after 10:30. Pretty rebellious out here in Tiffin. It's weird having Conference at a time other than 10, 2, and 6. I didn't think about the time change until a couple of days ago. 

 

What else made this week great? NOBODY WENT TO JAIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sorry family, it must be boring that nobody was there this week. Maybe next week. 😉

 

This was a really long email. Don't get bored reading it. It was a good week.

Love,

Elder Woodward

Tiffin, Ohio - September 19, 2016

It's been a dry summer here. It didn't rain as much as it normally does and it was the hottest August in 100 years or ever, I'm not really sure. One of those two. It had the most days over 90 degrees ever, so it was probably the hottest August ever too. It was crazy hot. But now it's finally cooling down. 

 

Exciting/typical news from Tiffin for the week: We had a less active go to jail!! So now that makes 2 investigators, one referral, one investigator that should have been, and now a less active. We're just racking in those jail sentences out here! But I'm being dead serious. This guy was behind on his child support payments from his first marriage and called the cops because a neighbor's friend tried breaking into his house so when the cops showed up and checked his ID he was arrested and put in PRISON for three months with serial killers and other bad people. He said it was the worst 3 months of his life. I can imagine. He fits right in with the rest of the area: he is CRAZY! He will just pick up a rock and think it's revelation and he's convinced that he's found the stones from the Jaredites and has them in his house and wrote a letter to President Uchtdorf that is sitting in our apartment. It's hard not to laugh when he's going over all of this stuff. I kind of feel bad for the guy. But he got a truck so he can come to church now so hopefully we can get him to come. He said he would be coming once a month now, so that's improvement over prison. 

 

We started teaching seminary last week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday because the seminary teacher in the branch is in Utah visiting family and the substitute had to make an emergency trip to Texas because her granddaughter was in the ICU, so we get to teach. The only problem is that it starts at 6:25 in the morning so we have to wake up at 5:30. It's surprising what one extra hour of sleep can do for you. We have been so exhausted this week because of it, but it's been good. I'm glad I never had to do early morning seminary because I would die. There are only four kids so it's kind of rough but they love us teaching because we are young and fun. Not saying that old people are boring... 

 

Our neighbors are INSANE! They are outside smoking everynight so we can't open our window or else our room fills with smoke, the kids run up and down the stairs at midnight and wake us up. Saturday night the kids were outside screaming at 1:30 in the morning playing football, and the parent and boyfriend were out partying. When they got back (drunk) at 3:30, the mom started screaming at the kids to get inside. Needless to say, we didn't sleep much. 

 

Anyways, last week was really good. We had exchanges again and it was the best day ever. One of the new elders is so funny and we just had a blast. I never thought tracting would be fun, but we spent just about the entire day tracting and it never got boring. There were some people that yelled "Hail Satan" from across the road at us, so that was interesting. I don't think we knocked on their door when we went up the other side of the street. They have a triple up over there and one elder is in training and the other has been out for 20 months, so it was really good for me and the other new elder to have someone that has been out for so long with us. It was different have three people walking around, but it was so much fun.

 

There is a less active member that we have been going over to his house to do service every week and the changes he has made are crazy! When Elder Nageli first got here, they went over but the member wasn't coming to church or even wanting to come to church, but over the last six months, he has started coming more on than off and got a suit from his brother and bought a white shirt to start coming every Sunday that he can! He doesn't have a ton of money but the first thing he did when he got his paycheck was set money aside for tithing. He hasn't paid his tithing for a long time. A couple of weeks ago he said he wants to meet with the Branch President to see what he needs to do to make the next steps in the church. It's been cool to see how much he has changed since I've been here. 

 

On Saturday there was a big heritage festival here that is supposed to be the biggest thing of the year and everyone goes to it. Perfect for finding new people, right? Wrong. The weather wasn't that great (it was raining just about all day) and nobody was there because of the rain. There was a Baptist Pastor who just wanted to bash with us and there were a bunch of people around so we couldn't really just walk away. Some people just suck. We're still trying to find more investigators. There has been a big push for member referrals and members to come teaching with us and we've got more member referrals over the last week than we have the rest of the time I've been out. We got one last night and the member is less active but she said she would come with us to the person's house and teach with us! Everything is starting to fall into place. It's going to be a good week this week too. We're have Zone Conference on Wednesday and then we are going on exchanges with the Zone Leaders after in Lima. And then we're doing exchanges again on Thursday with the Findlay elders, so two days of exchanges. Sometimes they are good and other times they aren't, but the Zone Leaders are awesome so it's going to be a ton of fun. I'll tell you about it next week!

 

Love, 

Elder Woodward

Tiffin, Ohio - September 12, 2016

So here I am again on a Monday morning trying to think of what happened all week. ​(Just thought I would copy what dad wrote) But in all honesty I am trying to remember what happened. It was a really long week because we didn't have much to do so everyday was just spent with trying to talk to people. 

 

Last Monday we went paintballing for preparation day and then we drove out to Findlay to use their church to email home because the library was closed for Labor Day. They have a family history center there and the church in Tiffin doesn't have a computer except for in the clerks office but we can't get in there. When we got back we biked around to visit some people but nobody was home for us to visit so we went to the park where we know people always are and there are some people that are slowly getting more interested in the gospel. When I first got here they weren't super interested but now that we've been at the park with them a couple of times they are starting to ask more doctrinal questions. They're coming around, now we just need them to let us come over. 

 

I think Tiffin has a record for investigators that are in jail, should be in jail, or referrals that are in jail. We received a referral from church headquarters last Monday and they live in Fostoria so on Tuesday we went over to visit him and deliver a bible to him. By the time we got there he was in jail so we couldn't actually talk to him, but he had been in jail since at least Sunday so we're not quite sure how he referred himself. 

 

Wednesday was so hot again. It had finally been cooling off (like 80's) and then all of the sudden it jumped back up to upper 90's and even 100. Only on the days that we bike is it super stinking hot. Every other day it's a lot cooler. We were out biking for so long that it was the first day that I have actually got sun burned. It wasn't too bad though, just a little red skin. At about 6:00 we gave up with the bikes and got the car because we were sweating so much. Like too much. It was actually really gross and I definitely wouldn't advise biking in 100 degree weather with humidity for 15 miles any day of the week. Or at all. And to make things worse, our air conditioning unit is having problems so we haven't even been able to use it lately because every time that it's on it leaks. So we have just been dying at night lately. 

 

On Saturday we got a text from a less active saying that a charity group had come to her house to install a bathroom but not enough people showed up to help and she needed our help. I don't know if I told you already about this less active, but she and her husband have a bunch of Amish kids living with them and some are in wheelchairs from having surgery to fix their bowleggedness. I don't know if that's a word or not but ya. We were down in the basement and they trusted Elder Nageli and I to run water lines through the basement from the water heater through a wall and into another room so they could take them up through the house. Then we had to do the same thing with some electical lines. I hope it all works for them.

 

We dropped all of our investigators last week. Marissa (the girl with the baptismal date) dropped off of the face of the earth and won't reply to any of our texts and doesn't want to give up drugs. She said she stopped smoking a while ago but she was high when she said that, so that was a lie. Another investigator is basically impossible to get a hold of because he is never home. So now we are just going to have to spend a lot of time finding new investigators all this week and probably next week and the next week as well. It'll all work out though. They'll come to us eventually.

 

Hopefully this is long enough for mom since last week's email sucked. Have a good week. Love you!

Elder Woodward

 

Oh P.S. We went to jail yesterday. One of the investigators that Elder Nageli was working with before I got here was arrested and in jail for a long time. He got transferred to the jail in Tiffin a couple of weeks ago and so we were able to go and visit him there. He seems like a really cool dude and didn't even do what he got arrested for but he might have 18 months in prison so that kind of sucks. But we were in the jail with him on those weird phone things that you see in the movies all the time.

Tiffin, Ohio - September 5, 2016

Alright, this week it actually is going to be a short email. Mainly because I'm tired, but also because we're in Findlay at the church because the library is closed.

 

Last week was a really weird week and a really slow week. Not much happened. We did a lot of service and other stuff. we still haven't been able to get a hold of our investigator. We always visit a ton of less actives because there are so many of them out here. We did go paintballing earlier today. A member in the branch took us and we spent a couple of hours out there. It was way cool and there were a bunch of his friends and people he knew that were going. It was my first time but it was fun. Sadly I don't have any good welts to show for it. Next week I will have a longer email. Today has been crazy.

 

Elder Woodward

Tiffin, Ohio - August 29, 2016

This last week was definitely a weird one. It seemed like it went by super fast because preparation day was moved to Tuesday so we had what normally is a full week in five days. There was a four month old baby in the branch that died two Saturdays ago, so August 20, and there was a viewing and a funeral for her. Definitely not a normal weekly occurrence. It was the first funeral I've been to and hopefully they don't happen too often. There were a ton of non members there and the stuff that was said was really good. We helped with setting up tables and chairs for a lunch after the burial and then we got to put it all away as well.

 

I'm sure mom has already heard about this and was worried, but there were some tornado warnings in northwestern Ohio on Wednesday night and there were even some tornadoes. The Branch President's son sent him a picture that was shown to us of a tornado in northern Ohio that he said was half a mile wide. That could pretty much take out every town in my area besides Tiffin and Fostoria if it were to go right through it. And it would destroy half of Tiffin and half of Fostoria as well. Lots of small towns. We didn't actually get any tornadoes in my area, but Elder Nageli was a little paranoid and scared that it would happen so we slept with the window open just in case the sirens went off. He was stressed about it all night long, but we are both still alive. I just went to sleep because I didn't think it would happen. It would definitely be cool to see one. 

 

On Saturday, we helped two different families move. One was in our branch and is moving to the other side of the road from the boundary but the stake president said it was okay for them to stay in our branch instead of being transferred to Findlay's area. Then we helped move a man from Texas who is moving to Fostoria. He is a member and is moving in with his fiancee who's dad bought a duplex. So we technically helped move his fiancee and her dad out of their house into a storage unit because they had to be out of their house on Sunday but couldn't move anything into the new place until Monday. So then tomorrow we are going back and moving all the stuff from storage into the duplex. The dad will get one side of it and the member and fiancee will have the other part. It's really confusing.

 

Sunday was just a weird day all around. There was an interesting lady from Vegas who is moving in with her parents for anywhere from 3 months to 3 years. She was a strange character. But then we went to some less actives house who blew up at us and kicked us out of her house. She's been a member for a while. We keep running into her grandson.  He always wants us to go over to visit with them. So we did. She said he was home so we went in and she just started going off at us for nothing that we did. She just wants food from the church and she complained about how we didn't bring her any food. The only problem is she doesn't understand that she needs to be coming to church and keeping the commandments to get welfare. She had surgery on her brain to get a tumor removed six months ago and was gone for four months and nobody knew where she was because she didn't tell anyone and she was getting mad that nobody went and visited her. And then she said that when she came home, she had her grandson text the branch president so she could get a hold of someone to take her to church because she wanted to go. Her grandson said that the branch president said that since she hadn't been coming to church, he wasn't going to give her any phone numbers. We texted the branch president and he said that he was never texted by the grandson. She was saying that she's done with the church if the branch president treats her like that and she doesn't get groceries. Then we told her she has to stop smoking and come to church to get food and she said that she deserves it because she's been a member for years and she isn't going to stop smoking for the church, only for her when she's ready. If only she realized that the money that she would save on buying cigarettes could go to food so her and her grandson aren't hungry and starving. And then she kicked us out after yelling at us for half an hour. It was great. Definitely journal worthy.  So she really was crazy. Unless her grandson was just saying that's what the branch president said so she would get mad at the church, which I could see him doing. They're really crazy.

 

We kind of lost contact with our investigator. Her grandma had started to ask questions about where she was always running off to when she would come meet with us. So we didn't meet at all this last week which was a bummer. We still text her everyday and sometimes she responds and other times she doesn't. She did stop smoking a week before her goal was to stop but we don't know if she started again. She was doing so well and now we haven't seen her or really talked to her in a week. So that's kind of sucked.

 

Anyways, this email turned out longer than I thought it was going to. Sounds like everything is going good at home now that everyone is back in school. Sounds like it was a busy week too. Make sure Zander is still feeding the tortoises and not killing them and not sleeping in my bed. Tell Emmie good job for the red card even though it was stupid. She should have pulled the race card on the ref.  I mean, he already gave her the red card so it's not like there's anything else he could have done. 

 

Love,

Elder Woodward