Alliance, Ohio - September 27, 2017

These weekly emails are starting to be a pain right in the butt because everything just blends together and I don't know what goes on from week to week and what I have and haven't already told you about, so hopefully there aren't any repeats of stuff I have already talked about. So if that does happen, that's too bad. If not, then I guess it's a good day for everyone. 

 

Anyways, on to the week. It was pretty good. Now that it's cooling down over in Utah it decided to jump up about 100 degrees out here so this last week has been painfully hot! Back up in the high 80's low 90's and HUMID. Hasn't been this warm since back in June in all honesty. It's been a strange summer with car crashes and training for a second time and weird weather patterns and everyone that I have taught. It's been good though, makes some good stories and things to remember. But yes, it's been hot and we've been putting our blood, sweat and tears into the work here in Alliance to find more people to teach and keep working with those we already found. (Okay, you can take out the blood and tears part. Just putting our sweat into the work, except for last week when I burned my hand with some hand sanitizer and a lighter.... That's a story for another time.) 

 

So last week I mentioned that Brad hadn't smoked at all since Sunday, and, of course, what happens? We went over after emailing and he had had a stressful day and didn't read the Book of Mormon and bought another pack of cigarettes and smoked some of them. The good news is that he felt really bad and gave us the pack of cigarettes to get rid of, which was strange driving around with a pack of cigarettes in the car. Wouldn't look good if anyone saw us with them, so we quickly got rid of them. Also, since that day, he hasn't bought anymore and has been doing well with everything. Almost done with everything we need to teach him, he's still coming to church, and everything is good. Nothing else really new with him, but he fed us on Sunday after church and we had a little cook out barbecue which was good. Jalapeno cheddar sausages over the fire was amazing! 

 

We were on exchanges yesterday with our zone leaders which is always a fun day to be in someone else's area working with other people. Got yelled at once for no reason, taught a whole bunch of people, and had a pretty good day. Now it's back to Alliance for the rest of the transfer. 

 

We had some emergency service on Saturday which kind of put a wrench in our day. There was a member in the Rootstown ward that was moving out and didn't have a lot of notice, so the elders up there called and we headed up there because no one from the ward could help because it was such short notice. I was the tetris master and loaded up their mini van beautifully so that there was no space for anything else to be packed in there, but then it was all destroyed because they were pulling a trailer and with everything in the van and the trailer it was weighed down to much so they wouldn't have been able to drive the four hours to where they were going safely. So we unpacked it all to load it on the trailer and it was weighed down just as much as if it was all in the van, but he thought it was better so we did it. It was fun until we had to unpack and repack it, but luckily didn't have to "re-unpack" it ;) 

 

This weekend is going to be pretty good mainly because of General Conference! It's always good to hear from the general authorities of the church and learn so many new things and be reminded of so many things. Also, we are going to be helping a member of the ward re-do his roof, so Friday we are going to be tearing off all the shingles on his house. It's gonna be fun and luckily it's going to be cooling down again in the next couple of days, so we won't roast as we are taking off the shingles. Gonna be fun. I might get a couple of pictures for you.

 

Love you all!

Elder Woodward

Alliance, Ohio - September 20, 2017

I know it's only been three days so this might be a little bit of an over exaggeration, but on Sunday Brad decided that he was going to live the Word of Wisdom! It has been a struggle for a long time for him, but now that he has to bike everywhere to get stuff and. he's seeing the blessings coming from not smoking, he finally decided that he was going to quit, and also because he really wants to be baptized.  He's been doing well now that crazy Amanda isn't living there any more, and it's been crazy seeing the difference. He's been reading the Book of Mormon every day, praying a lot more, still coming to church, and just doing well all around. He likes to build fires when he knows we are coming, so we have had quite a few lessons sitting around a campfire and surprisingly we never smell like smoke after.

 

We ended up doing some service at his house, trying to get it cleaned up a little bit now that he is living on his own and the mess maker is out of the house. Since they did a lot of smoking in their house, there was one spot that they always went to to smoke, so there was nicotine stains all over in there. We scrubbed it as well as we could and it's still not perfect, but that is reason enough to never smoke. I took some pictures of it that I will send, but you can't really see a difference. There's a little difference, but not much in the pictures. In real life it was way different. So moral of the story is don't smoke. 

 

On Saturday we went to an apple orchard with the Fishers and helped them pick a bunch of apples. So many trees and apples that it seemed like they went on forever, and we ended up eating a bunch of apples while we were there. You take a bite out of an apple to see if you like it, if you do you keep eating and if you don't you throw it on the ground, or if you have Brad there with you, everyone throws them at him and it becomes dodgeapple. Fun game, everyone should try it someday, it just hurts a lot more if you get hit than a dodgeball. You just gotta be really good at the dodging part of it. I would have taken pictures but forgot my camera, so you're outta luck!

 

We were on exchanges on Monday and I was with Elder Vega and we just had a blast. Found a new investigator, had a party the entire day and got good work done. Went and saw one of my favorite families, the Davises, and they have so many kids running around that it reminds me of home, and they are all super cool too. Always a good time going over there and reading from the Book of Mormon with the family. 

 

Some bad news about our investigator Lynn, we tried to go see her at the hospital and they said that she wasn't there, so we went to her house to see if she was there and nobody answered the door, so we decided to knock on her neighbors doors and do some tracting. Her next door neighbor answered the door and asked if we go and visit Lynn, so we told her yes, and then she asked if we had heard what happened to her. Turns out she was moved from the hospital in Alliance up to Cleveland because now her liver and kidneys are shutting down. So kind of taken a big turn for the worse, so keep her in your prayers!

 

I think that is it for this week, if you have any questions let me know! 

Love Elder Woodward

Alliance, Ohio - September 13, 2017

So remember back to the days in Tiffin when everyone we were teaching was in jail/going to jail? Well that almost happened again over here. I thought I had gotten away from all of that after I left there, but I was mistaken. Just a little bit about our investigator Brad, he has a warrant out for his arrest from some traffic violations a few years ago that he never got taken care of. He just can't get arrested unless he does something else that is against the law and then they can see he has that going on. So Friday night rolls around and we are going over to see him, and as we get close there are two cop cars there at his house so we just kept driving. He was also being put in handcuffs, so I started having flashbacks to Tiffin and all the convicts we were teaching. We didn't really know what was going on, we just thought that he was gone and we didn't know for how long. Saturday rolls around and Brother Fisher texted us and told us that his ex-girlfriend/baby mama that had been living there at his house was moving out. So we had dinner at the Fisher's and Brad was there so we got the whole story, but the police looked up Brad in the computer and told him the warrant had been taken care of and they let him walk back into his house. Once Amanda (Brad's crazy ex) figured out that he didn't have the warrant over his head, she didn't want to stay because she would use that to blackmail him, so she decided she was leaving and she kind of got kicked out. Win win for everyone because she was holding him back in progressing. So then Monday we found out they were moving the rest of her crap out of the house, so we decided to show up, just not in service clothes so it didn't look like we knew it was happening. Turns out it meant a lot to him that we showed up, and he was actually really excited for us to be there to help him move her stuff out, and then we did some cleaning there as well. So that explains the cleaning in church clothes.

And then the spiritual part of it all came later that night after we had a little bit of fun burning stuff at the Fishers. We needed to teach Brad the Law of Chastity which would have been a struggle for him to kick Amanda out because of who she is. So after everything mentioned above happened, he was WAY open to it and it was a really good lesson with him.  We had been pushing it off teaching him it because of the Amanda situation, and we were planning last week to teach it to him this week, and what happens? The Lord prepared a way for Brad to live it and be open to the idea of it, so he was way on board with everything and committed to live it. And last night he told us that by Sunday he will be living the Word of Wisdom, so Amanda moving out really worked wonders for him! It's been good for him everything that's going on.

Lynn went back to the hospital last week after just getting out, so kind of a bummer. Hopefully she gets out soon! Still working with Brent and Aimee to get them some names done with family history to make it to the temple, hopefully before I get transferred out of here as well!

We had interviews yesterday with President Brown and I've decided I'm glad I'm not a mission president. Too stressful for me haha. He's a great man with so much knowledge, and I decided that he likes me. We really just chatted for about 25 minutes about anything, and then he checked my planner and said it looked perfect. So things are good, didn't get in trouble this time!

Training is still going good, ready to be done with it though. Three times is more than enough for me. I hope I don't have to do it again for the rest of my mission, but you never know what's going to happen. I could get another one right after this transfer which would be double stressful because it would be in a new area. We will see. Can't wait to find out what's going to happen!

I'm gonna send a video of the fun we had at the Fishers, but no pictures this week. Burned an old nasty cat hair covered recliner and then threw bags of gasoline on it. And Brother Fisher is a firefighter. Great combination.

That'll be enough for this week, love you all!
Elder Woodward​​

Alliance, Ohio - September 5, 2017

Well I went to type the date in the subject line and typed August, but it's not August anymore! It's already September! Time is going by way too fast. Before I know it, it will be winter and then it will be spring and then I'll be home! Time just flies by as a missionary. And since it is transfer week, I will give you the transfer news to start off with. Just as everyone thought, I will be staying in Alliance for 6 more weeks with Elder Coppieters and finishing off his training, then moving on to a new part of the state (most likely). Anything could happen at the end of the transfer, so it'll be a surprise for everyone in 6 weeks!

 

I don't even know what to update you on about this last week. I mean, good stuff happened, I just can't remember it, so sorry if this is a crappy letter this week! Definitely the highlight of it was that Brent and Cody were able to receive the Priesthood on Friday! The youth had a temple trip to go and do baptisms for the dead last Saturday, but in order for Cody to go with everyone, he needed to have the Priesthood. So Friday evening, we met up at the church and Brent was given the Priesthood, and then the way cool part happened. Brent was able to confer the Priesthood upon Cody and give him a blessing for the first time ever! It was such a special moment and a great thing to be a part of. And then Cody went to the temple Saturday and was the only youth that ended up going, so a member in the ward that had 30 names that needed to be done were all done by him. He was pretty much drowned down there, but he said that it was better than he thought it was going to be and loved it and wants to go back. We decided that since we can go with them for the first time they go to the temple, we would wait until Brent and Aimee had some time off work that they could go as well, so we should have that coming up in the near future! Also, to make it all even better, on Sunday, Cody blessed the Sacrament for the first time ever and did it perfectly, and Brent passed the Sacrament for the first time and it was all just amazing! Just a good three days in a row.

 

Also, Lynn was in the hospital for a while but is now home so we have been able to start meeting with her again! Things are going good, just starting to get things rolling again, the only problem is now she has to be on oxygen so coming to church is going to be difficult for her, but we will manage to get her there! Things are going good with everyone, Brad is still doing well, moved his baptismal date a little bit to give him some more time, had a great barbecue at the Fishers last night for Labor Day, District meeting is always good, found a couple new investigators last week, the only bad thing is it is getting cold! Leaves are changing, it's only been about 65 degrees every day, so winter is on it's way and I'm not excited at all. Other than that things are good and I'm loving it out here! Talk to you next Wednesday!

 

Love Elder Woodward

 

PS Sorry about no pictures. Didn't take any this week

Alliance, Ohio - August 30, 2017

Well based on the subject line, we got to have another trip up to Kirtland last week! That's one of the benefits of serving in the best mission in the world, despite what everyone says about their mission. This really is the best one out there. We took Brad up there and had an amazing tour from the sisters because it's just an amazing place to be able to take investigators to help them feel the Spirit! Being in a place that has so much significance with the church is definitely a blessing. We had called ahead to talk to the sisters that would be giving the tour and gave them a little bit of a heads up about Brad and what he is struggling with, so they personalized the tour to him and his needs which is what made it so good. Brad thought he was not going to like it up there that much, but he said that he loves it and wants to go back up there in the near future, so hopefully it helps him to progress a little bit more! It was a good day though and I was worn right out. Didn't even eat dinner, just took a nap because I was so tired. It was well worth it, and then Brad came to church again on Sunday, so it's still good for him! Also, just so ya know, they filmed a new video up in Kirtland and it was the first time that the church that owns the temple let anyone film inside of it, and it is going to be shown before general conference in October. But since we are in the mission with it, we get to see it before it is released to the rest of the world. I'll tell you how it is if we get up to watch it (we will just have to have an investigator that we can take up there to watch it with us, so we will see).

 

The rest of last week flew by as well! With exchanges up in Youngstown with the zone leaders and my favorite person ever in the mission, and the zone conference on Friday, the week was pretty much over as soon as it started! I was with Elder Hershey and we just had a blast the entire day. He has been trying to go on an exchange with me ever since I first came out because we were in the same district, and now that he goes home next week he was finally able to get on one with me. He can go home and feel accomplished. Zone conference was also good, just a lot of reviewing previous things and learning a little bit more and how I can improve and keep moving forward.

 

Monday we had exchanges again, this time with the Rootstown Elders for the last time this transfer and it was another blast of a day. I went with Elder Larsen, the other one with glasses and we just killed it all day. Had, fun, got good work done, got dropped by some investigators, but all is good! Now we can just find some more people to teach and work with. We ended up going to a park with some of our day and just started talking with everyone we saw, and had a good time doing so! It was the perfect time to be there because there were a bunch of people and it wasn't too hot, and the best part is people would talk to us! It's always a bonus when they do that.

 

But now we've got exchanges done, zone conference done, and just working on the last week of the transfer! Next is week is transfers, and yes I feel like we did just have transfers, so gonna be emailing on Tuesday instead of Wednesday. There might be news, but more than likely we will just be staying together for another transfer. But still get in your guesses, and I will make sure that Brother Fisher doesn't know what's happening so he can't spoil the guessing game.

 

Have a good week everyone!

 

Love,

Elder Woodward

 

The pictures:

-Kirtland with Brad

-Real District Picture

-District Picture stick figure form

-Exchanges with Rootstown

-Zone activity a couple weeks ago