Lakewood, Ohio - March 29, 2017

The weather is hopefully starting to change for the better! It's been warming up here a lot more lately and the trees are starting to get buds (I think that's what they are called) so leaves might be coming in in the near future. We still get a colder day every once in awhile, but for the most part it's getting better. We don't have to bundle up quite as much anymore, so that's always a positive thing to look forward too. 

 

Also, the split in the areas wasn't what we were told it was going to be. We still have most of our area, we just lost some of the southern part of it. We still cover all of Bay Village and all of Lakewood, but we lost Fairview Park and the part of Rocky River that is south of the freeway. We still have most of the members that we had before, just less area that we have to cover now. Instead of our area looking like a T, it's now just a line all the way across.

 

On Sunday, there was a missionary preparation fireside on Sunday for the youth in the stake. We were told to be there and to prepare to practice one thing with them, and then when we actually got to the meeting, they told us we were doing something different to practice with the youth, so that was a fun experience. Always have to be ready for whatever. Then when we were split off with the youth, we had some that didn't say anything, so it was a little interesting trying to get them to do what they were supposed to. We didn't have as much of a role in the meeting as we thought we were going to have, so it was a little bit of a waste of time.

 

We've been trying to get out and knock on a lot more doors to find some people that we can teach, but it's been slow coming for us. There was a new family that has moved into the ward that we didn't know who they were, so we wanted to go and see them and get to know them a little bit. We had set up a time to go and meet with the wife but had to have her husband there, so we went over last night. They have had a crazy life! Alex is from France, moved to China for work where he met Vivian who was born in New York, and she went out there just to learn Chinese. After a little bit they moved to an island off the coast of Madagascar and lived there for a while, then to New York, Henderson Nevada, Virginia, and now to Ohio. While in Nevada, they were introduced to the church and Vivian was baptized, but Alex never was. As we met with them and talked with them, I feel like this might be the time that he ends up joining the church. They will be here for a while until he finishes the project his work is doing, and then they will move to wherever work takes them. He seemed a lot more open than what it sounds like he has been in the past, and his wife really wants him to join the church. He told us that he feels responsible for his mistakes and doesn't like the thought that Christ suffered for him and that's what has been holding him up.  Maybe this is the time for him though. 

 

General Conference is this weekend, so pumped for that. And we haven't heard yet but we will probably be able to go to the Columbus temple for personal worship in April, so also pumped for that. I'll let you know how it all goes next week.

 

Love, 

Elder Woodward

Lakewood, Ohio - March 21, 2017

So this week is transfer week, hence the email on Tuesday instead of Wednesday. And the big news is that Elder Weekes and I will be staying in Lakewood together for at least another transfer. Our area is going to be getting a little bit smaller though because they are bringing a third set of elders into the ward and splitting everything up. We don't exactly know what the new areas are going to be yet, but they will be smaller so that means less walking and less biking everyday.  We helped move furniture into the new apartment in our ward and it was a lot smaller than ours is, so I'm glad we're staying where we are and not having to move. Also, the assistants and the sister training leaders won't be in our district anymore, they are moving to another district. 

 

We had zone conference last Thursday which was super good. It was up in Kirtland so we had the party bus with 4 other elders and some senior missionaries on the way up there because all of us elders are biking and don't have cars. Fun times. It was a really long day but lots of good stuff that was learned. Sister Brown talked to us about Thomas B. Marsh and how pride can lead to apostasy. And then President talked to us about using our brains pretty much. Some people just don't have one and they definitely need it. 

 

St. Patrick's Day in Cleveland is HUGE! At 8 in the morning, most of the bars were open and people were already out getting drunk. It made for a good day. And for some reason when it turns to March 17th, everyone suddenly thinks they are Irish and it becomes the biggest holiday ever. Everyone was wearing green and it could have been -10 degrees and everyone still would have been out. Crazy people. 

 

Nothing really happened this week. We are doing a ton of knocking on doors trying to find people but not much is happening. Haven't been able to contact Wilfredo lately. He's just never home when we go over and we don't have a good number for him. That's about all that we have going for us at all, but that might get moved to the new area. We will find out eventually. 

 

Here is a district picture from last week. 

 

Love,

Elder Woodward

 

 

Lakewood, Ohio - March 15, 2017

This last week has gone by really fast! It feels like a couple of days ago was preparation day but it's already been a week. I don't know why it went by so fast, but it just has. Coming up to the end of the transfer next week, so most likely only one more transfer here in Lakewood. I mean, I could get transferred next week and I could also stay one more to be here for four transfers. You never know with President Brown. So you still gotta make some guesses but most likely going to stay here with Elder Weekes for another 6 weeks. This whole transfer has been going by super fast. And that also means that preparation day is on Tuesday next week, so remember that on Monday night. 

 

The weather decided to go crazy and Mother Nature decided to give us round 2 of winter, so it snowed a couple of inches the other night. And it's just super cold now. A couple of weeks ago it was in the 60's and 70's and today biking over to the church it was in the 20's with "gale-force winds".I think that means really strong winds. Pretty sure my lungs were just about frozen when we got here from the cold outside. Last night with the wind it was 6 degrees, and today it is even colder. Last week after we finished emailing there was all the super bad wind and the power went out at the church for a solid couple of hours, so we played basketball in the dark with everyone. There was a little bit of light so you could still see the basket and lines, but that was about it. We hung around the church all day and then went out teaching people with the Young Men and their leaders, so it was a pretty relaxed day. 

 

We went to Wilfredo's house on Saturday when we were supposed to, but he wasn't there so we couldn't meet with him. We have tried back a couple of times, but haven't been able to catch him when he is at home. Mirta pretty much dropped off the face of the earth and doesn't ever return calls or texts. We met with an investigator last night that likes to bash with us and so we were going to talk with him about being with his wife and kids forever and him and his wife straight up told us that in the next life they wouldn't be worried about each other. They wouldn't want to be families forever and it won't matter to them. Kind of mind blowing, but if they don't want to be families forever, then they aren't ready for the gospel. That's what an apostle said once upon a time. 

 

I always talk about the Thompsons (my favorite family ever) and on Sunday we were telling them that we only had two meals signed up for the week so they could pretty much pick whatever day they wanted us to come over. Then later that day, Sister Thompson's visiting teachers went over( and they have callings in the primary so they never see the calendar) and she was telling them how we didn't have any meals, so then on Monday they took us to the nicest pizza restaurant in Lakewood ($25 for just a large pizza) and bought me an extra large pizza and Elder Weekes an extra large pizza, and then gave us $70 worth of gift cards to go out and eat sometime. It was so much pizza and money. There was a special at the pizza place so they got it for half off, but it was still a lot of money that they spent on us.

 

We had exchanges with the other Lakewood elders and went over to Cleveland and they have some sketchy neighborhoods in their area. We did a lot of walking and it decided to full on blizzard for a couple of minutes right in the middle of the day. We also spent the night there and had a little bed bug scare right before we were going to bed, so that made for an interesting night. And then sleeping on the couch and the floor (I got the couch) isn't very comfortable. Very long night. We always have exchanges when the weather decides to go crazy. Last time it snowed a foot and this time it was just blizzarding for a little bit. Gotta love it. 

 

There's a four generation picture on here for you. Ignore all the pasty white legs. That's what happens when they don't see the sun for a long time. From left to right it's Elder Carroll (Elder Nageli's trainer), Elder Nageli, me, and Elder Weekes. 

 

Love

Elder Woodward

 

 

Lakewood, Ohio - March 8, 2017

Last week ended off pretty slow, but this week is already going better. Had some good experiences last week talking with some guys that were stoned out of their minds and probably won't remember much of the conversation. Always fun having those conversations with the crazies. We didn't get to meet with Mirta last week because she said she wasn't feeling well, so no update on her this week. Let me tell you, we had the best week this transfer in one day yesterday. We (finally) received a referral from headquarters late on Monday so we went to visit him yesterday. His name is Wilfredo Galarza and he is Hispanic but speaks English really well. He is an older gentleman who is looking into a whole bunch of different religions. One of his daughters had told him that he needs to find a church, so he found ours and wanted to learn more about us. He was really open and we gave him a Book of Mormon and he said that he would definitely read it. We are going back on Saturday to take him a Spanish Book of Mormon and to teach him again and hopefully his wife as well. We invited her to listen, but there was a crying baby upstairs that she was taking care of so she didn't. Next time though. At the end of the lesson we invited him to be baptized on the 22nd of April and he said, "Well if I find out it's true then that's the only thing I can do. I can't deny that." So now we have an investigator on date and he was already interested before we got there so things are looking good for him. Still working with some of our other investigators and less actives as well, but not much to report on. Still knocking on doors. We had interviews with President Brown on Monday which was good. He's always super laid back in my interview with him. Last time we talked about the weather and this time it was just super short. Gotta love not being in trouble.

 

We got a little bit more snow this last week, but it's already all melted again. The weekend was a little bit chilly but now it's back in the 50's and 60's and there is supposed to be some crazy wind today. There were warnings about over 50 mph winds so good thing it's preparation day and we aren't out riding on bikes. There might be some knocked over trees tomorrow.  

 

On Monday, Elder Weekes and I were at a member's house eating dinner and we decided to have a food eating contest. We were having pizza and it was a pretty big pizza, so there was plenty to eat. I'm known for not having a big appetite, so the members thought that Elder Weekes was going to win. Little did they know that I was ready to go and I had seven pieces of pizza and Elder Weekes only had six. One member had four and the other member took three which was the entire pizza. The member with three felt bad that Elder Weekes was going to lose so then she gave him her last piece because she wasn't going to eat it anyways, so we ended up both eating seven pieces of pizza. And we both drank two bottles of water and had about the same amount of dessert, but I had more and I finished first so I claim that I won that contest. It was a good night. We watched the Restoration movie with that family (speaking of which, they came out with a new Restoration video. Don't know if you already knew about it or not.) and then we talked about baptisms for the dead because one of the members asked if it was too late for the work for her family to be done. They also said it was their favorite Monday night ever, so it was a good day. 

 

That's all for now,

Love Elder Woodward

Lakewood, Ohio - March 1, 2017

We thought it was turning to spring here. Cleveland has some crazy weather. Last Friday it was literally 74 degrees and I could feel the humidity and it was actually really nice to remember what it is like for it to be warm outside, and then the next day (Saturday) it was down in the teens and snowing and windy and cold and miserable and we had a five mile walk home directly into the wind. It was a fun night to be out walking. None of the snow that came down stuck though, so we got off the hook on that one. 

 

Elder Weekes and I came up with the best idea for missionary work. Therapy dogs! That would be the best thing at the end of a long day to come home and actually have somebody excited to see us and jump on us and cuddle at night with a nice fluffy puppy. Let's start a petition to the First Presidency to see if we can get it to happen. It would also be good because then people would actually talk to us if they see we have a dog. What better way is there than dogs? Hit me up with any other ideas you have. 

 

Everything is going good here. Still not much is happening though. It's hard to do all the extra stuff we have to do for training because we got an hour when I was being trained everyday but now we only get half an hour four days a week, so it's hard to do everything. Gotta prioritize and get the important stuff done, but there still isn't time for everything. They are supposed to be sending out new books for training but we haven't got anything. So sad day, the investigator in Tiffin that was supposed to get baptized last week didn't actually get baptized :( She ended up smoking two days before her baptism so now they gotta wait for a little bit and keep working with her. And this last week we were able to meet a new investigator named John. We went to a road to start knocking on doors and right when we got there, a big white van of girl scouts showed up and two got out to go door to door and sell girl scout cookies. We tried for a little bit being around them, but they were being annoying and then we would knock on a door and they would end up selling cookies to that person. It started out really rough. We decided to let them have part of the road so we walked down a little bit before knocking on doors again. We knocked on a few and then John came and answered his door. He had a huge dog that was in his house, and when he went to open the door he stopped and looked at us and said, "She's gonna bite you." At first I had a little freak out and didn't know if this guy wanted us off of his porch or if he was kidding, but it was a big dog. Then he opened the door and I was ready to take off at full sprint if needed, but the dog just walked out and looked at us and smelled us. No big deal. Disaster averted. It was a nice day so we just sat on his porch and started to teach him about the Restoration. He told us that he is wanting to go to church so that his two kids (3 years and a couple months) have that standard and guidance in their life. We didn't get very far into the Restoration when he said he had to go eat his dinner that was cooking inside, but he said that he would read from the Book of Mormon. Girl Scouts can be a blessing sometimes because we found John because they were annoying us. We set up a time to come back to meet John on Monday, but then he flamed us. And I did something to my bike when we got off the bus close to his house so it's not quite right either. So both of those things kind of put a damper on the day. But then we got treated to Wendy's for dinner and then saw a drug bust while tracting later that night. Good times in Lakewood. AND we got a ride home from a less active member so it still ended in a good day. 

 

We are meeting with Mirta again tomorrow, don't know how well that will go. Tough go around with her. And there was one day we were out walking around and some guy from a Baptist Church randomly started to argue with us and was making up scriptures and had no clue what he was talking about but went on and on and on about the Book of Mormon and told us we were wrong. We had a lot of bashing happen last week because it was warmer so people were actually out. 

 

Last week we got four member referrals which is a really good amount for here. Probably the first member referrals we've got since I've been here. So we are working with the members better and trying to find their friends and having everyone pray for people they know. Things will happen soon here. I gotta feeling. 

 

You know me and my food: on Sunday a member made us some really good lasagna and amazing breadsticks and then gave us peanut butter oreo pie for dessert as well. It was the best food we had all week. Remember back when I ranted about having pizza so many times in a short while? Well that happened again, just with chinese food this time. We had it last Wednesday for dinner, Thursday for lunch, and then a buffet Friday for lunch. I was all Chinese fooded out by then. And it seems like this week everyone is going to get us tacos. Last night we had tacos with a member and tonight we are having more tacos and we might have more tacos tomorrow. Who knows. 

 

Have a good week! 

Love,

Elder Woodward