Well there are some changes that are coming to the good old Ohio Cleveland Mission. Don't ask me why this is happening because I don't know, but it is. First off, we are going to be having zone conferences and interviews both once a transfer and we won't have zone training meetings anymore. But the zone conferences are going to be more like stake conferences for all the missionaries instead of just one zone. We used to switch off between interviews and zone conferences every other transfer, so now they will both be in one transfer every transfer. I think it's just so President Brown can interact more with all the missionaries. Also, the real humdinger (I think that's a word. I just don't know what it means) is that preparation days are going to be moved to Wednesday instead of Monday. That's the part I really don't understand. I don't know if transfer week will be the same with preparation day on Tuesday still or if the day of transfers will be preparation day. We will find out soon enough. But these changes don't take place until the new year, so we only have a couple of Monday preparation days left. That's all the big news with different things coming up. So no more staying up until midnight on Sunday nights to get an email written, unless you still want to. I can't tell you how to live your life. Agency.
Also, in the middle of January we are having a mission conference and Elder Gay of the Seventy is going to be coming. I don't know who he is, all I know is his name and his picture from the trusted old Ensign.
Well Christmas Conference is tomorrow, once again IN THE KIRTLAND TEMPLE. We luckily get to wake up at 5 tomorrow morning to have time to get ready and drive there and pick up some other elders to be there by 9:30. We probably won't wake up at 5 though because mornings are hard. That's just the goal so when we sleep in anyway we can still make it on time. Gotta plan ahead for what you know will happen anyways :)
So I keep forgetting to tell you this, but (sadly) the branch found out that I can play the piano so now they have started to have me play in Priesthood. I accidentally slipped one week and asked if there was an opening song, and then they figured it out and asked if I could, and at that point I couldn't lie, right? So now they like to torture me because I didn't tell them so they pick the hymn and I just have to sight read it. Just think if I did that all the time at piano with Carol and Mary... But the best part of them knowing is that I can use it to my advantage. In the branch you normally have to speak about every three months and I knew it was coming up to me speaking again, mainly because Elder Knickerbocker had to speak, so I knew I had to act quick. I made a deal with the Branch President that as long as I didn't have to speak for the rest of the time I'm here in the branch that on Christmas Day I will play the organ. Can you believe I volunteered to play the organ? But hey, it got me out of speaking. Gotta use what you have to get out of what you don't want to do, right? I love the branch here. It's so much fun to bug certain people because they all like to bug me back. The second counselor in the branch presidency is a HUGE Michigan fan and they played Ohio State on Saturday so leading up to the game I made it a big deal and then when Ohio State won in double over time we went over to his house and took a dead weed to use as a flower and told him we were sorry for his loss and asked if there was anything we could do for him. He wasn't the happiest of people with me, but it's all done in joking. I love it. And every time I saw him at church I just looked at him and smiled and he glared back at me. But then they invited us over for dinner on Christmas Eve so he must not hate me that much. I'm sure that on Christmas Day since it'll be my last Sunday in the branch that they will make me get up and say something anyways because that's what they do. It's great here.
Thanksgiving was good here. It was preparation day so we got to go shopping at WalMart and Black Friday is crazy! They had everything already set up and shrink wrapped so people wouldn't get into the stuff. They should just wait until Friday to do Black Friday. And then we went to a family in the Branch's house for dinner and had a super good smoked turkey with all the normal Thanksgiving food. They tried to call you mom to see about getting a recipe for the Yam and Apple Casserole because that's strangely what I wanted. Don't know why because I don't like yams that much, but that's what I wanted. We played Settlers of Catan and some Book of Mormon games there and then played a nice game of mom's favorite, Monopoly. We still made it home on time, we didn't stay there all night. Don't worry. But smoked turkeys are super good.
It wasn't a good week for meeting with our investigators last week. With the holidays and the changing weather people are getting sick and had stuff going on with family so it was hard to meet with them. We did pick up that new investigator last week that seemed sincerely interested that we will meet with again soon and also the super duper awesome family. We're meeting with them on Saturday and they are going to feed us lunch and we will move forward with preaching the gospel and all that cool stuff. We tore out some plaster from the less active's house that we do service at and got super dusty, but it's all good because demolition is the best, just not for the lungs.
The new Christmas Initiative is out on mormon.org and you should all check it out. It's all about service and lighting the world. Hopefully some people see the video and refer themselves so we can meet new people!
Love,
Elder Woodward
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