Alliance, Ohio - July 25, 2017

This last week was really great! It is transfer week so I will start off with the transfer news for everyone. As expected, Elder Amparan is being transferred out of Alliance and is going to go be a Zone Leader in Lima, and I am going to be training another brand new missionary. The entire Youngstown stake is all one zone and all but three companionships that could train are going to be training, either from last transfer or this upcoming one, so a ton of new missionaries. Sad to see Elder Amparan go, but it's all part of the mission.

 

This will definitely be a better area to train in than Lakewood was, so whoever comes in better appreciate the crap out of this area! I'll probably be here for two more transfers, so the middle of October is when I will leave Alliance. I don't know a single thing about my new companion, no name or anything. There is a list of names that I have but won't find out until tomorrow when they walk into the Visitors Center in Kirtland and President Brown says who is training who.

 

So one of the blessings of being in the best mission in the world is that we get to take investigators up to Kirtland since it is in the mission! I already sent pictures, but on Saturday we took Brent and Aimee and their family up their with their friends in the ward (Brent and Aimee and the furthest to the left in the picture and Cody is the boy with really long hair and Justin is on the far left of the pictures). It was such an amazing experience being up there and spending most of the day at a place that has such a special spirit, and we stopped at the John Johnson farm on the way home. Everyone loved the entire trip, even Brent and Aimee and the kids which was who we went for in the first place. We had some amazing tours of the sites and the video they show at Kirtland is just amazing for everyone to see. I would suggest everyone in the family going there at some point!

 

Besides Kirtland with them, they are doing really well on their own. They were at church again this last week and they are all reading the Book of Mormon. Probably the best part of everything with them is that after Brent for sure committed to baptism, he has been living the Word of Wisdom fully! They are doing so well and the changes they have made in their life is amazing to see!

 

Some sad news about Denia and her pizza guy kids, we hadn't seen her in a while and then we got a text from her saying that her life is taking a completely different direction and she was moving down to Atlanta Georgia the next day, so we aren't teaching her anymore, but she did say that she wants to keep meeting with missionaries down there. Gonna miss her and her kids. But some good news is that Brad was at church again and he is progressing insanely well! He is doing everything right and reading loves every second of it! I was at a meeting yesterday for training but Elder Amparan committed him to be baptized on September 16th, so that's coming up in the next little while as well! So many good things for this lucky trainee to come into. Also, Cassidy was confirmed on Sunday and we are planning on going to the temple with her on August 3rd and she is planning on getting her patriarchal blessing soon! I love this area.

 

The other pictures that were sent are from an abandoned haunted insane asylum/tuberculosis hospital that we found in our area. The whole building was fenced off so we didn't get to go inside of it (no, we didn't break in), but we took a lot of pictures there. It was a super cool building with lots of vines growing all over it, and we wanted to go in but couldn't. For some strange reason the city decided to build a park around it, so there's just a random park in the middle of nowhere next to this haunted crazy hospital. Ohio is a strange creature, but I love it!

 

Love Elder Woodward

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alliance, Ohio - July 19, 2017

We went from last Monday being the worst day on my mission to Sunday being the best day on my mission so far! When we got to church, we got word from President Brown that him and Sister Brown would be at the baptism right after church, so that always freaks you out a little bit. But then we went through all of church and it was so good! One of the talks in Sacrament meeting was just amazing for everyone to hear, and the speaker used to be the stake president, so obviously it's gonna be good. Then all the really good stuff happened right after church. Since the baptism was after church and the entire ward has put so much time into the Fisher family, mostly everyone just stayed after church for the baptism, so there were a ton of people there. The Stake presidency was there, the stake patriarch was there, President and Sister Brown were there, probably like 70 people were there. Kind of a big deal for the Fisher family having a day like Sunday. When we went into the other room for the baptism, we could see Cassidy freaking out a little bit because they had to wait for everyone to file in, and she was already kind of freaking out before. The baptism was a normal baptism, but then what happened after the baptism is what made it amazing. As soon as she came up out of the water, she turned to her dad and gave him the biggest hug in the world. She was crying, her dad was crying (and Brother Fisher is the most unemotional person I know), and the Spirit was so strong. I turned to look at everyone else in the room and just about everyone was crying as well. All the women in the ward and Brother Fisher's mom were all just crying. It was such an amazing moment for everyone there to see it all happen. As Brother Fisher was walking up the stairs and out of the font, he turned and looked at us and gave us a thumbs up, still crying, before going in to change. All it takes is a moment like that to see how much the Gospel truly means to a family like the Fishers to make everything on the mission so far worth it. Every slammed door while tracting, every person chewing us out, every 5 degree day in the winter on a bike, every car crash was all worth it being there for the baptism. Everyone there felt the Spirit as they hugged after the baptism. Never going to forget that moment.

 

The rest of the week was amazing as well! We were able to be blessed with 7 new investigators from last week, and it really wasn't anything that we did. We were able to teach a new family in our Ward Mission Leader's house and have dinner there with them. They are a super cool family with a few kids as well. Good food+good people=good time.

 

Brent and Aimee were on vacation with the members in our ward that introduced us to them, so they weren't at church on Sunday (which we were bummed about because the talk in sacrament meeting and the baptism would have been amazing for them), but then we met with them on Monday and had a really good lesson with them. They had slipped up a little bit on the Word of Wisdom, and we read through the Family Proclamation with them and talked about each of their roles in the family, and really focused on the Priesthood with Brent and being a worthy male to have the priesthood and to be an example to his kids. It really hit him and then we committed him to live the Word of Wisdom fully, and committed the whole family to be baptized on August 12th. And we talked to them about going to Kirtland on Saturday, so as of right now, we are going to Kirtland to take a tour this Saturday. Good stuff.

 

One of the new investigators we picked up has been at church for a while, is engaged to a member, and they are getting married this Saturday. He's been taught in the past by other missionaries and so we met and talked with him for a little bit and had a lesson with him and committed him to be baptized. He already knows that it is all true and is just needing to quit smoking, and he will be good to go!

 

Matt is still reading a ton in the Book of Mormon! He has finished up to Helaman in two weeks and is still going strong with it. He is a super awesome investigator that really wants to learn and know if it's true, and reading is the first part in that! Still just trying to help him to know. 

 

We've started meeting with one of Brother Fisher's good friends, Brad Arp. He was coming to the baptism for Cassidy, so we figured this might be his time. We've met him a few times before but never had an official lesson with him until Monday, the day after the baptism. He said that on Sunday, it was the first time in the last 24 years of his life that he has felt happy. 24 years! He's made some dumb mistakes, but being at the baptism and church all day he truly felt happy. We went back on Tuesday to see him and he said that since he's been reading the Book of Mormon, he hasn't been able to put it down and it's the first time he's really been happy about life. We honestly weren't too sure about his interest level but now he has turned into one of the most promising people we are teaching and loves meeting with us. Good things are coming with him.

 

Obviously by the subject line we got a new car last week. It wasn't supposed to come until the end of last week or the beginning of this week, but they didn't realize how bad the crash was until they called us to check on our health and realized we were in a ton of pain and biking wasn't helping at all, and when they saw pictures of the car they realized that it was a pretty bad accident, so they pretty much emergency shipped a car out our way. It's almost brand new, we just hit 2400 miles on it, and it's a 2017 Rav4, so super nice. And it's really really bright blue so now there's no way that people don't see us when we are stopped in the middle of the road. It's really easy to find in a parking lot because nobody has anywhere close to the same color of car as we do, but all is good for us. No more biking while in pain for us! Speaking of, we are getting a lot better. Just little head aches here and there, but not anything too bad for us. Just taking lots of pain medicine, but getting better. There are definitely good things coming this next transfer!

Love Elder Woodward

 

 

Alliance, Ohio - July 12, 2017

Well, this last week was a very eventful week. Monday was probably the worst day on my mission so far. It was raining first thing in the morning so everything was wet everywhere. We had some time before district meeting, so we were going to see a recent convert and have a lesson before getting to the church for our meeting. She has this weird sidewalk outside of her house that when it gets wet it gets super slippery, and so since it was raining it was pretty much a death trap. I parked the car (for one of the last times that day) and I got out of the car and was moving quickly so I didn't get super wet because I didn't want my suit to get ruined. As I was stepping with my right foot from the road over the tree-lawn and onto the sidewalk, my right foot slipped on the wet sidewalk and I did the "James Brown splits" according to the recent convert. So, I figured out I can do the splits, but it came in an embarrassing way and when my feet slipped apart, my left knee went smashing down into the sidewalk. I ended up just laying there for about ten seconds in a puddle because my knee hurt so bad. After laughing super hard, Elder Amparan came to help me up. That's what companions are for :) So then I was limping around for a bit of the day, but didn't think anything was wrong with it.

 

We were at BWW for lunch because it was one of the Sisters in the districts birthday and we had just left there when the rest of the day went way downhill. Ohio has this weird thing where they don't have any turning lanes, so when people have to turn left, they just stop all the traffic behind them and it is the most frustrating thing ever, especially when you are already late somewhere. Anyways, back to the story. We had been stopped at a red light behind a few other cars and we were the last car that was stopped at the light. The light turned green so we started to go and the first car that was stopped ended up wanting some lunch so they went to turn into Arby's that was just after the intersection but had to wait for on coming traffic to clear. All of us were stopped behind the car and we were still the last car there and as soon as we were stopped, I looked in the rear view mirror to make sure there wasn't anyone behind us. Bad idea. As soon as I looked up, I saw the lights of a truck right there and only had time to inhale before we were being thrown forward. Luckily we were both wearing our seat belts, but we were hit hard enough to push us into the car in front of us and we ended up rear ending them as well, but there wasn't much damage to them at all. Just a few scratches to them. Our whole back end was smashed in, our bike rack on the back of our car was sliced in half, the back windshield was shattered, and the front of our car was a little out of place. It's a good thing that we had the bike rack on because it took most of the force and really messed up the front of the truck, and the bike rack got sliced in half perfectly. When we got hit, the hitch for the bike rack got shot straight down into the road and left a gouge in the road the entire length that we got pushed, so now there is just a huge piece of road missing. No biggie, just leaving our mark in Alliance. You can see the truck that hit us in one of the pictures, so it wasn't just a normal truck, but a big box truck that the guy was using for work. Also, my knee that I smashed into the sidewalk earlier? It was finally starting to feel better and then when we got hit I smashed it again into the dashboard of our car and so it started to hurt again. Double whammy for my poor knee, and another car that was subjected to my wrath and is gone for good probably. :(

 

The rest of the day was spent at the emergency room getting x-rays on our backs and necks and my knee. These last couple of days since then have been a little bit painful with crappy necks and sore backs and headaches all day every day, and we have to bike now until another car can come down to us from the mission office which won't be until Saturday at the earliest and most likely next week. Oh, and it's supposed to rain every day this week. The one week we decide to get in a wreck so we bike is the week it rains all week. Great timing. The good news is that nothing is wrong from the wreck, just sore from the usual crap of getting in a wreck, and at the emergency room I got to ride in a wheel chair! They knew my knee was hurting so to go get the x-rays they decided to get me a wheel chair. The best part was that I walked into the ER and walked out of the ER, but they had to give me a wheelchair while I was there.

 

But, that's all okay because we got to see President Uchtdorf in the flesh last week! He is one of the funniest people ever and such an amazing man! It was definitely one of the best meetings I have been a part of and there was just a special spirit there with him. He wanted to take a picture with the entire mission so that's how we started, then we went into the chapel at the Kirtland Stake Center and listened to him and his wife. We were all supposed to be able to shake his hand and talk with him for like five seconds, but they didn't realize how many missionaries are in the mission so then it was cancelled at the last second. Kind of a bummer, but he was so great! He didn't use any airplane analogies, but talked about Independence Day and how, through the Atonement and repentance, every day can be an Independence day for us in life and especially on our missions. He told us to forget about yesterday except for what we want to improve on, and then make today a new day. Don't let the difficulties of yesterday affect today. It was so cool how he related it all back together, and all he had was his scriptures! No talk written down, just him and his scriptures. Such a good guy and a great meeting.

 

Cassidy told her parents about the baptism (obviously with the picture that was on Facebook) so now it is official and it is still good to go for Sunday. Her interview is today with the zone leaders so it will officially be official after all that happens.

 

We had a little bit of a slower week other than that last week. Jean dropped us because she talked to her neighbor that knows some deep doctrine and it freaked her out, but we saw it coming because of last week so we weren't too shocked when it happened. We taught a drunk man about the Word of Wisdom (Silas Dawson), we've almost finished all the lessons before Cassidy's baptism, just need to finish lesson 5 which will happen tomorrow, Brent and Aimee and co. were at church on Sunday again after missing last week and then we met with them after church and talked to them about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Word of Wisdom and committed them to live it. And we had dinner at the same time. Did some tracting, now we've been doing some biking, and we saw Crystal again yesterday. She is most likely going to be coming to church this Sunday, and the baptism of Cassidy is what will be the big thing in getting her there. It'll be good though. Did some service helping our Ward Mission Leader put together a deck at their house, saw Matt again and he had read to Mormon in the Book of Mormon, so a ton of progress from him. Denia was out of town for a family reunion so we didn't get to see her last week, but this Saturday we are going to see her again and get her rolling on everything again.

 

Enjoy the pictures!

Love,

Elder Woodward

 

 

Alliance, Ohio - July 5, 2017

Alright, so some big news from the Ohio Cleveland Mission. Instead of zone conferences for this transfer, we are instead having a mission conference up in Kirtland. We don't have too many of these, but it's because we are having a very special guest speaker coming to the best mission in the world. He wasn't originally planning on speaking to the missionaries so we wouldn't have even had a mission conference, but a couple months ago he changed his mind and decided he would take some time off from his family vacation out to Kirtland to speak to the missionaries. It was supposed to be just an under the radar vacation because his grandson is going on his mission soon so they were coming out, but now we get to hear from the President Uchtdorf because he decided to come speak to us. PRESIDENT UCHTDORF! You can't get much better than that in my opinion. I mean, all the general authorities are good, but the President Uchtdorf is coming tomorrow. Only a little pumped if you can't tell. It's going to be sooooo good. I'll have to update you on it next week because it obviously hasn't happened yet.

 

Now on to the rest of the week that we already had. A family in our ward had a huge tree in their yard that was leaning pretty bad, and then we had a huge rainstorm where it rained for a good long while which softened up the ground enough to make the tree take a tumble. We went over the first day it fell to cut off all the side branches and the ones with leaves, and then Brother Fisher chainsawed the trunk into smaller pieces and then him and his daughter were axing them to make fire wood. We decided that we were going to go help them one day, so after moving a family out of the ward we snuck over to their house (because they could go to where the family was moving to but it was out of our ward so we couldn't) and started chopping wood. When they got back two hours later, we had been going crazy on it and had only finished about half of what was there, but had doubled the wood that had already been cut. On Monday, we went back to finish it up and got all the wood chopped and actually had a ton of fun doing it. Now the stack of wood is about as tall as I am and there was another stack as well. There was so much wood!

 

We met this really cool guy last Saturday when we were out tracting. We knocked on his door and the first thing he asked us was where we were from and then let us right in because we were coming around in the name of Jesus. He knew who we were and what we were doing, but we got talking with him and he said that he had a copy of the Book of Mormon and that he had read it all the way through. The only thing he didn't do was pray about it, so we committed him to read it again and pray about it as he is reading it. Elder Amparan asked him what it would mean to him if it was true, and Matt said, "Well that's a stupid question, I don't do hypotheticals. The only thing I could do is join your church." Couldn't have asked for a better answer myself. He also said it would only take him three weeks to read it, so we are going back over on Saturday to meet with him again.

 

Jean almost dropped us the last time we were over there, but we saved it and we are still teaching her, just trying to get her to come to church. We went to meet with Denia again last week, but she wasn't there because she had a recent death in the family and was out of town. Good reason if you ask me. When we were meeting with the Dawsons, they pretty much told us they know it's true and so we committed them to be baptized in August because they have some Word of Wisdom issues that we will have to work through. It's going to be good with everyone though and all will work out.

 

So the Fisher family is my favorite family ever! Brother and Sister Fisher are members, but neither of their daughters, Hannah and Cassidy, are. Elder Amparan and I had both been feeling for a long time that Cassidy is ready to join the church, so we met with her alone and talked with her to figure out what her concerns are. She really opened up to us about everything that had happened when their family was first introduced to the church, and it gave us a lot to think about how to help her.  So we waited a few days and really thought about her situation and prayed about it and then on Monday we went back over to have a real lesson with her. We taught her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ with a huge emphasis on baptism and pretty much told her now is the time and invited her to be baptized. She said that it was scary because for the last three years it has been terrifying and this is the first time that it has felt right for her. She didn't give us a for sure yes or no when we were there but told us that before Sunday she would give us her answer, and probably earlier than that. It was the best lesson and most spiritual lesson I have even been a part of on my mission, and I have never felt better about a lesson before. Then this morning we were at their house doing our laundry in the basement and she waited for and told us that her answer is yes! She pretty much already knew her answer when we asked her on Monday, but just needed a little bit more time to think about it all, and now she said yes! She was thinking about doing it next weekend and we told her that that can definitely happen, because she has been taught all the lessons multiple times and been to church every week for the last three years and is living all the commandments of the gospel. It was a very good way to start off the day hearing that from her. We were super pumped when she told us.

 

That was about the most exciting thing that has happened and the highlight of this last week, so there's not much more to write about. Have a good week!

 

Love, Elder Woodward