Tiffin, Ohio - December 19, 2016

Well it is currently sunny and a freezing 10 degrees outside. We had a crazy freezing rain storm that came Saturday night and destroyed all the roads. Sunday morning when we woke up, all the roads were covered in a sheet of ice and we had our own personal ice rink in front of our house where the road is supposed to be (that's what the picture is). We didn't even have our car because as we were driving home with our branch mission leader the roads were so bad that our little Chevy Cruze wouldn't have survived on the ice so members with four wheel drive ended up driving us all the way home and our car was fifteen minutes away from our house. There's still ice all over the place, just not as bad as it used to be. The importance of that paragraph is that it is so cold outside now. One day last week it was -2 with the wind chill. Just a little bit chilly. But also church was cancelled yesterday because of the ice all over the place, so now my entire week is already messed up before it even began. 

Anyways, last week was a little bit of a slower week. I was sick on Friday so we had to stay in and not really do anything but try to stay warm, which is really easy when you have an electric blanket keeping you warm. Best invention ever right there. Pretty much all our investigators had to cancel our appointments last week because they were out of town or just forgot or were sick, so that added to the slowness of last week. The lady that watched the Light the World video and talked with the lady in England has been sick all this last week so we haven't been able to meet with her lately. But the investigator of ours that moved in with her mom that I talked about last week is probably the most solid investigator we have right now. Her name is Amy and we were able to meet with her again last week. She had read the Book of Mormon and between Sunday and Wednesday got to the end of 2 Nephi and had good questions about the stuff she had been reading that we were able to answer. She was able to pray and knows the Book of Mormon is true and really wants to be baptized. She's had some rough years in her life and she knows that this is what she needs now. She calls us every day that we are supposed to go over to double check on the time before we even have a chance to call her and make sure we can still come over. She would have been at church yesterday if it wasn't for the devilish ice that came to cancel church.

This week we have exchanges tomorrow with the district leader and then again on Thursday with the zone leaders, and then it's Christmas Eve and Christmas and then transfers next week and I'm most likely moving out from Tiffin. Still planning on playing the organ next week unless church is cancelled again because of ice or snow (Pray that it gets cancelled so I don't have to play or speak!!!!). Everything is still going good here in Tiffin. Hopefully people aren't sick so we can meet with them again!

That's all for this week!

Elder Woodward

Tiffin, Ohio - December 12, 2016

We had another really good week this week! As of yesterday night, we have 5 investigators that have a baptismal date, 2 in January and 3 in February! Over the last two weeks we have found 9 new investigators which is A TON for this area. Normally two a week is considered a good week, so we've had some really good couple of weeks! The only sad thing is that I'll be gone for all of those baptisms because transfers are coming up in a couple of weeks and I'm most likely getting transferred. There's also another 13 year old boy who's family is all members but he has Down Syndrome and is afraid to go under the water that we are working with to get him ready for baptism too! He wants to be baptized so he can help pass the sacrament, he's just a little scared. He's my favorite person ever. He started calling me "New Guy" when I first got here and he stills calls me that to this day, even though I've been here for five months now and Elder K is newer than I am. 

 

It snowed over the weekend and we got a couple of inches and it is still here! We woke up on Sunday morning to snow on the ground for the first time. It was wonderful. But because of the snow it made it so lots of people couldn't make it to church, so there were only around 30 people there. It was all good though cuz our only recent convert Ed Smith got the Melchizedek Priesthood and that's all that mattered! Okay, not really, the Sacrament mattered as well, but he got the Priesthood! He was so happy and it was the biggest smile I've seen from him since his wife passed away a month and a half ago. 

 

The only problem we have here in Tiffin is getting people to come to church! We commit them to come and they say they will, but then they don't show up! It's a little bit frustrating. One of our new investigators is just nervous about coming to a new church and we've only met with her once before and she seems really promising. We just knocked on her door one day but she was getting ready to leave to go pick her son up but we gave her one of the Light the World (Christmas Initiative) cards and she said she would check it out and that we could come back the next night. When we went back the next day, she did watch the video and said it was heart warming and brought tears to her eyes. And then she chatted with a lady from England on mormon.org and they are staying in touch to see how everything goes with meeting with us. We are going over again tomorrow to see her.

 

We are still meeting with Melissa and Leah and have started to teach them the commandments. They are the two on date for January, but that might have to move a little bit back if they don't start coming to church soon! Still working on getting them there. One of our investigators dropped us yesterday because they just aren't interested at this time and the Book of Mormon wasn't coming together for her. But when you lose one you gain one, and we got to meet with the daughter of another member who just moved in with her and committed her to baptism in February! Good things are happening. and Zone Conference was last week which is always good.

 

Hopefully it snows more this week!

Love Elder Woodward

Tiffin, Ohio - December 5, 2016

This last week was so good! Obviously the highlight was our Christmas Conference on Tuesday over in Kirtland! We only had to wake up at 5:30 am and left by 6:45 to pick up some other elders on the way and make it there by 9:30. The church sets up a whole bunch of nativities inside the visitors center that we got to look at for a while. And when I say a whole bunch, I mean close to 1,000 different nativities from all over the world. It was pretty cool, but mostly everyone was talking with other missionaries. I forgot my camera so I didn't actually get any pictures when I was there, or else I would send them. But I got to see Elder Walker (my MTC companion) again and the other missionaries that came out with me and then I got to see Elder Nageli again too. He's the best. Then we got fed lunch and watched a slideshow of pictures from all the missionaries, and then went up to the temple to have a meeting. It was so good. Lots of testimonies and musical numbers by missionaries, and President and Sister Brown, and the Youngstown Stake President, and Mr. Kirtland (Carl Anderson, who knows everything about Kirtland). It was the first time that I've seen all the missionaries all together at the same time, and we filled the bottom assembly room in the temple. It was pretty cool to see so many missionaries all there together, and then we have a mission song that we all sang to end the meeting and it was just so good. The Spirit was amazing there, something that everyone should experience. Then we got to drive back across the state of Ohio back to Tiffin and didn't get back until 7:45 at night. It was a long day, but well worth it.

 

It snowed a little bit last night as well, but this morning it was all melted, so that's a little bit of a bummer. I thought I would wake up today and there would be some snow on the ground, but no :( But the good news is that it is supposed to snow more later this week. Some big storm that went through Colorado maybe is coming this way and it's supposed to snow quite a bit. 

 

The 40 day fast that the Branch did is bringing so many miracles! Families have moved into the branch that had no intention of coming back to church but found us as we were walking by their house one day and are now working towards a temple sealing and having their kid that was diagnosed with a bad syndrome sealed to them as well! And then we were out tracting in a richer neighborhood last week and the first couple of houses that we knocked on, nothing came from them and Elder K said that these houses are the hardest to get into because they are the most comfortable where they are at in life. Then the next house we knocked on, the lady opened the door and let us in, mainly because it was cold outside, but that's all we needed. We talked with her for a little bit, and then she said that we could meet with her three kids as well, so we did and taught them all the Restoration and committed them all to read the Book of Mormon. The dad was upstairs in the shower, so he wasn't there, but all three of the kids were over 8 years old so we got 4 new investigators from that lesson. And we've been receiving referrals up the wazoo and have been able to meet with them as well and committed them to read the Book of Mormon as well! This week was just super good.

 

Of course when there's high points, there are also low points. The super duper awesome family from a couple of weeks ago that we met with, we met with them again on Saturday and they told us that at this point in their life, they aren't ready for it and can't accept the Book of Mormon because of the darn scripture in Revelations. They said they would pray about the Book of Mormon, but most likely wouldn't read it unless they had an experience like Joseph Smith had. So now we have that road block to try to get around.

 

This next week is gonna be a good one too! We have zone conference on Friday and then the Branch Christmas Party Saturday that I got forced to play the piano at because the lady that normally plays isn't going to be there. Good thing I already know a couple Christmas hymns!

 

Love,

Elder Woodward