It finally snowed a bunch here! On Monday when we woke up, there was a fresh foot of snow on the ground, all from one night. It went almost up to my knee when I stepped down in it, so it's not even an exaggeration saying it was a foot of snow. It might have been a little bit more than a foot actually. But anyways, now that it's stopped snowing, it has warmed up and all that snow is melting now. It's been back up in the 40's so there's not much snow left anymore. It's supposed to get a little bit nippy this weekend though with less than 20 degree weather though so that'll be fun. Where we live on the lake, we actually don't get a lot of lake effect snow, just the wind. If I were just about any farther east or west, then the lake effect makes it snow a whole lot more. We're just stuck right in the middle so we avoid a lot of it.
So Mirta (the miracle lady we found last week) is still doing really well. We met with her again last Thursday and she told us that since Monday, all she could think about was our church and coming on Sunday. She couldn't stop thinking about it all week and about her baptism. We gave her a Book of Mormon and she said that she would read it again and pray about it and she was still planning on coming to church on Sunday. Sunday rolled around and we had a ride set up for her and everything because she wanted to get a ride for the first week. The ride showed up at 8:30 when she was supposed to and there was no answer. She called Mirta at 8:35 and ended up waking her up, and then Mirta jumped up and got ready for church in just a couple of minutes and still made it on time. It was fast and testimony meeting which is always a little scary to have people there for their first Sunday because you never know what crazy could get up and ruin everything, but it was all super good and she loved it. There were some sisters here that served in this ward a year ago that both got up and one of them was the "angel" that knocked on her door when she prayed asking for an angel, so Mirta was really excited to see her and remembered her. I don't know if the missionary remembered her a whole ton, but that was another little miracle that happened with her this last week. The one week she starts coming to church was the same week that another missionary that knew her came back to visit and was at the ward. Mirta loved the ward because she is from Cuba and was able to talk to a lot of people in Spanish and all the Spanish speakers loved to see her there, and she said that she would definitely be back the next week, which is stake conference. She loved how there were classes to learn and not just go to church to sing and how people can ask questions in class. She also whispered to me that she read the entire book we left her, and I don't know if she meant the entire Book of Mormon because we also left her with a Plan of Salvation pamphlet, so it might have been that. If she read the entire Book of Mormon than I might just pass out and have a heart attack. We're going back tomorrow to meet with her again so I will keep you updated on that.
We also met another lady from Cuba last Thursday that we were able to teach. She lives in the same apartment building as a less active that we read the Book of Mormon with and she has always been saying that she wants to be there when we are then, so this last week it happened! She came right before we were about to leave, so then we got to talk with her and get to know her a little bit more and we gave her a Book of Mormon in Spanish because her English isn't amazing. She has also met with missionaries before, but it was a long time ago and she loves us. She even said that one time she will have to cook us some good Cuban food, so that's always a bonus when you get offered food! Especially from investigators. There was a ward activity on Saturday night that would have been perfect for the two of them to come to because it was Latin Dancing with lots of good food, but then they both couldn't make it at the last second and we were there waiting for them to come. It was another little miracle that it was planned for this weekend right when we found both of those investigators and that is exactly the type of thing that Mirta wants in a church. Too bad they couldn't make it though.
There is a lot of reactivation to do, but it's hard because most of the inactives on the records have either moved and didn't have any contact with the church so their records are just stuck here or they don't want to be contacted at all by the church. There used to be a Spanish branch here a couple of years ago and when they merged it in with the regular ward there were a lot of the Spanish speakers that got offended and stopped coming to church because "they can't worship in their own language". Some people are nice and we are working with them, but a lot just don't want any contact.
Transfers are next week. Elder Rivera could be leaving, he could be staying, or I could for some reason be leaving. Next week there could be transfer news. We will have to see.
OH I almost forgot, there were some changes to the daily schedule for us. Instead of the mornings being strict with the schedule on what we have to do, they have relaxed it a lot so you can decide when between 6:30 and 10 to workout and do personal study, and then planning is being moved from the night to the morning. Then we are supposed to be out working in the morning and then have time to do companion study and language study in the afternoon when it is slower. So now when we get home we can pretty much just get ready for bed and go right to bed so we can get more sleep than before which is always needed. The other change (which will explain why I was on earlier this morning) is that preparation day starts at 8 in the morning and we only do 30 minutes of personal study instead of doing an hour of personal and an hour of companion study and then starting preparation day at 10. So we get two extra hours of preparation day now which is great as well. That was all really random, but I don't care :)
Love,
Elder Woodward
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