Youngstown, Ohio - January 31, 2018

Everything this last week went pretty well! I mean, besides the appointments flamed, it mostly went pretty well! Everything is good for Callei's baptism this weekend. She had her interview on Sunday and passed, so that is going to be taking place on Saturday. (Her name is just like Callie, just the e and the i are switched. Don't ask me why because I couldn't tell ya.) Her family is probably one of the best families because the kids are so awesome, but I feel like I say that about every family in the ward. Her brothers and sisters are just super funny kids and teaching them lessons is always a party if you ask me.

 

We had a couple of exchanges this last week and they are always a good experience. Gotta love going on exchanges. Found some new investigators last week and we've already got a hot start to this week, so hopefully things continue on for us! Some people that we found the last couple weeks told us they aren't interested, so that's kind of a bummer, but we are finding new people to start to teach! Also, kind of a little baby miracle happened as well. So we have those pass along cards that everyone and their dog knows about, sometimes we leave them on people's doors, sometimes we don't. On Sunday when we were out tracting, we were leaving some of the free Bible cards on everyone's doors, and most of the time they just get tossed out and not even looked at. Then on Monday we got a call from a random number and they said they were told to call our number to get a free Bible, so we got the information for them with their name and address so we could take it over to them. I plugged the information into the Referral Manager online and it pulled up a map to show me where the address was, and it was the same road and one of the houses we left a card on their door! Don't really know how they got our number, but we took them a Bible and they also said they wanted a Book of Mormon and they would read it and then let us know when we could come over to talk to them about it. So that was awesome! Sometimes leaving those cards behind actually works. 

 

There's been so much happen this last week that I can't really think of everything to tell you, but the short version is that everything is going well for us here in Youngstown. We saw Stacey again but she wasn't at church on Sunday because she wasn't feeling well, but we talked to her and some members about going up to Kirtland in the near future and she was excited to do that, so that's another thing we have coming up soon! It might be as soon as this Sunday after church just hop on up to Kirtland, but not 100% sure if that will be it or not.  Got some pictures for you for this week of an abandoned building we found just yesterday before we went and found a new investigator. That's pretty much what every other house in Youngstown looks like, but I love it here! I decided that I'm going to start to carry my camera with me everywhere and every boarded up or abandoned house we see I'm gonna get a picture with for you, so there's gonna be lots of pictures if I remember to do it. That's the kicker, just gotta remember. Also there's a picture of going to PA and the welcome to PA sign. 

 

I know this is super short, but that's all I got for this week.

Love ya!

Elder Woodward

 

 

Youngstown, Ohio - January 24, 2018

This last week was honestly probably one of the craziest weeks of my entire mission so far! Not all of it was good, but it sure made for a crazy week. We ended off the week with 5 new investigators which was a great change to the last couple of weeks so things are going really well! I'm just gonna give you a day by day of what we ended up doing over the last week so I make sure to not forget anything. After we finished Preparation Day last week, we met with a lady named Stacey who called our Bishop and wanted to meet with us. She grew up in Oregon and went to church with a lot of member friends, but she moved out here to be closer to her sons and wanted to get into church out here, so she did a bunch of researching and found our Bishop's number and called him up, and then he called us. So we met her and taught her and she was super excited to come to church, so we lined up a ride for her and she was able to be there on Sunday! We are seeing her again on Thursday, and she has a baptismal date for March 10th.

On Thursday, we had a special meeting with President and Sister Brown to talk about new guidelines for planning that really help us to focus on the people we are teaching. We were supposed to have district meeting and interviews on Thursday, but instead we did district meeting on Monday and then this special meeting and our interviews on Thursday. So that along with our weekly planning session took up most of the day on Thursday. By the time all of that was done, it was 5:30, so we tried going by someone we had an appointment with who was busy, and then we had time to go get dinner. But after dinner with had an appointment with Callei again. We ended up seeing her three times last week, preparing her for her baptism on the 3rd. We are almost finished up with the lessons and those kids are some of my favorite people ever! Super cool and funny kids, sometimes hard to keep on track with the lesson, but always all good.

Friday wasn't a super good day, we got dropped by Rodney (the crazy guy) when we had an appointment to see him that night, and our afternoon was kind of shot as well getting everything done that we needed to and also someone that we had an appointment with saying to come back at a different time later that day and then being busy when we went back. Kind of disappointing because then all our plans were kinda messed up for the day. Also, the roads out here are straight destroyed from this winter with pot holes everywhere. All Ohio does is fix their pot holes and then winter comes and destroys everything again. So it's always a fun time driving around here. At like 8:50 at night, we got a text from one of the Assistants saying there was going to be a mission wide conference call the next morning at 9am that everyone needed to call in for a big announcement. Nobody knew what it was about, but then we had to call everyone in the zone and make sure they got the text and were going to call in in the morning. Lots of guesses on what the announcement was going to be, but all we could come up with was that there was a general authority coming to visit the missionaries. Friday night was pretty much like Christmas Eve and definitely didn't sleep for a long time because there was some huge announcement and a conference call the next morning, and 9 seemed like it took forever to come around.

So we called in Saturday morning and at 9 the "meeting" started over the phone and President Brown started talking to all of us. He started talking about the mission getting smartphones which we already knew, but then he started to get emotional, so at that point I knew it was bad news. We had kind of joked about the mission getting split the night before with other missionaries, but then it became more of a possibility. Then President Brown referenced a news release from October or November and read this part of it to us over the phone:

"In 2012, President Thomas S. Monson announced the change in the ages for missionary service. Young men could begin full-time missionary service at 18, while young women could begin at age 19. A surge of missionaries occurred following President Monson’s announcement. The number of elders and sisters serving full-time missions reportedly jumped from 58,000 to 88,000 in just a few years. Five years after the age changes, with missionaries spread throughout more than 400 missions, the Church will be implementing reductions to achieve an overall number “that better fits the total number of missionaries and the needs of each region,” according to Mormon Newsroom. “We’ve leveled off to around 70,000 missionaries—still way up from the 58,000 we had,” Elder Nielson said. “In the orderly process of accommodating changes in our numbers, we’ll be slowly closing missions because we don’t need as many as we required for the great increase we experienced in 2012–13.”

So, the sad news, as of July 1st, the Ohio Cleveland Mission is being shut down. The Presidency of the Seventy determined that missions in Ohio are relatively small in size compared to elsewhere in the world, and due to the number of missionaries decreasing, they are splitting our mission up and joining it with the three surrounding missions, Cincinnati, Columbus, and Pittsburgh. The Youngstown Stake is going to join with the Pittsburgh mission, the Akron, Cleveland and Kirtland Stakes are joining with the Columbus mission, and the Toledo Stake is joining with the Cincinnati mission. So instead of 1 new mission president in July, we are getting 3 new mission presidents. Totally unexpected and took everyone by surprise, and nobody really likes it. It's just weird to think that this mission is going to be gone before too long. So that was a terrible way to start off our Saturday that we had appointments set for noon, 1, 2, 3, 7, and 8 which we thought was going to be a great day. But of all those appointments, we got flamed for all of them except for the 7 and 8, but we had a lot of good backups and were able to get one new investigator from our service finding earlier in the week! So it did end up turning out well for us. Kind of a discouraging day and lots of things going through my mind that day. But the Lord knows what he is doing and it is going to help move the work along in the area and things are going to be good. The leaders were led to do this so that sure does help a lot knowing that and knowing that the Lord is in control of it all.

On Sunday, we were at the church from 8:00 until 4:30 because we had meetings before and after church, but we ended up having about 2 hours to proselyte with dinner and call-ins, but we found two new investigators, another from our service finding on Monday and Tuesday and then the husband of a referral we got. So this area really blew up this last week and the Lord blessed us with a lot of people to teach! So far for this week, we got another new investigator on Monday from our service finding (once again) and then yesterday we had MLC at the mission office. All we learned about was how to use technology effectively and all the ins and outs of it, which is going to be all what zone conference is about this next round. The lucky part? Three transfers as a zone leader now, and this will make it ZERO discussions in zone conferences since then. I'm the luckiest dog ever out here in THE OCM. Not only that I don't have to give a discussion, but I'm the last transfer going home that doesn't need to buy a smartphone, I'm the last transfer that President and Sister Brown have, I'm the last transfer that gets to go through Kirtland right before they leave, and I'm the last transfer that dies with the Ohio Cleveland Mission. Pretty much the most blessed transfer in the history of existence.

Sorry I really haven't taken any pictures since being here, but there's some pics of the new mission maps and the one from a couple of weeks ago that the lady took of Elder Talbot and I on exchanges. Just so you know what it takes to stay semi-warm in the five degree weather, I have two pairs of socks on, two pairs of thermals under my pants, top thermals, white shirt, sweater, coat, gloves, hat, and whatever you call the thing around my neck and I was still cold. But that's about everything warm I had to wear so I was outta luck. Good times in Ohio :)
 
Love Elder Woodward

Youngstown, Ohio - January 17, 2018

 

Well here we are again on a glorious Ohio winter day and freezing, just like normal. It's like ten degrees outside right now and it makes me sad. But it's going to warm up later this week so I'm always excited for that! Like the subject line says, this last week has been super crazy. We pretty much drove all over the state of Ohio for transfers last Wednesday. We left our apartment at 8:30 in the morning and didn't get home until around 6 in the evening, so just a day with a lot of driving and lots of waiting for stuff to happen. We got to drive to the mission office to drop Elder Klinglesmith's luggage off, and then after picking Elder Schwartz up and getting other missionaries off and going, we drove up to Kirtland and waited for all the new missionaries to come out of the meeting that they have. They were putting a set of senior sisters in one of the wards in our zone, but they didn't have enough room for all their luggage in their car, so since we have a very nice truck, we got to take it to them. But they were going about as far away as possible in the New Castle Ward, so after getting lunch we drove out to New Castle, Pennsylvania and waited for them to arrive so we could take their luggage into their apartment for them, and then the short drive back to our area. Okay, it was like 45 minutes, and then we finally got home. So after about 5 hours of driving and ZERO crashes, we made it home just in time for dinner. 

 

So, onto Elder Schwartz. He is from Saratoga Springs, Utah, been out for a little over a year, has two older siblings and two younger siblings, so right smack dab in the middle of five kids. We both definitely appreciate having a truck after serving in the same freezing cold area on a bike in the winters. All has been good so far this last week, and things are going to stay good. Mission Leadership Council is next Tuesday, we got some special meeting this Thursday and interviews as well tomorrow, got another meeting this Sunday and we had stake conference last Sunday so I've been seeing President Brown like every other day since last Wednesday which is crazy, but it's good because he's awesome. Found out I'm not going to have to buy a phone for sure because I'm the last transfer going home that doesn't have to buy them, so don't worry about all that information. The important thing is that we are getting smartphones!

 

We've been doing pretty well since last week, keeping the work going, meeting with lots of people, doing everything we're supposed to. We had two exchanges in the last week and those are always just amazing. Lots of new missionaries, so they are always super excited and want to work hard, and I was pretty much with two superheroes, Elder Hales and Elder Phillips. Had some fun, found some new investigators, learned a lot like always, and made some good memories. We were able to watch the funeral for President Monson last week, and then also got to watch the announcement of the new Presidency yesterday. Wasn't expecting President Uchtdorf to get released, but it happened. Just to give you an idea of what kind of crazy weather Ohio gets out here, last Thursday, it was literally 64 degrees in the middle of January. Not normal at all. And then Friday, the next day, there was a freezing rain storm which turned into snow and had every closed down out here. Roads were bad, but we still went to work and had a good time, but still didn't get in a car crash. And with all the snow coming, it's given us a wonderful opportunity to serve everyone here and help them shovel their driveway. There's something new that the mission has been implementing called service finding, and so instead of just normal tracting, we just try to help people and serve them. We've done it a few times and it has worked out pretty well, and then yesterday we did it some more because it snowed Sunday and Monday nights. We were knocking on doors for about two hours, but we helped shovel five driveways and then we were able to set up return appointments with all five of those people! Service definitely opens up doors and opens people's hearts to learn more about the gospel, and they love that we don't ask for anything after we help them. Kind of like Ammon in the Book of Mormon and lobbing off some arms opened up the door to teach King Lamoni and all his people. Obviously shoveling driveways is a little bit different than defending flocks and chopping off arms, but it's the same principle, and it worked wonders for us yesterday. We are planning on seeing those people tomorrow, so hopefully there is a lot of good news coming from it for next week. 

 

We ended up needing to move Callei's date back to February because we weren't able to meet with them for a while, but it is still going well at their house. Been doing a lot of finding this last week trying to find more people to teach, found a lot of potentials, so hopefully they turn into some fruit later on. And we were able to get back in contact with a bunch of our investigators so that has helped to have this week go by even faster. Stake Conference was on Sunday like I already said and it was sooooo good. Elder Sinclair of the Seventy was here and he was amazing to listen to, super funny but still able to teach so many great things while he was here. 

 

I think that's about all for this last week, still trying to stay warm out here and so far haven't froze!

Love you all!

Elder Woodward

1917 Youll St #20

Niles OH, 44446

 

Youngstown, Ohio - January 9, 2018

Alright, alright, this is some fresh news straight off the printing press of the Mission President Weekly: "The long awaited time for our mission and technology has finally arrived. We received word a couple of weeks ago that we are now approved to use smart phones. The role out will be gradual with all missionaries having their own phone at the end of March. There will be a lot of training between now and then in both Mission Leadership Councils and Zone Conferences. If you have 3 months or more left in your mission at the end of March, you will be asked to purchase your own phone from an approved list of phone models. (Please do not buy any phone until the appropriate time.) If you have less than 3 months left at the end of March, you will be given a loaner that will be returned when you leave." I don't think I will have to buy a phone depending on what "at the end of March" means, because at the end of March I will have less than three months left. So I'm sure I'll get some more news for you, but that's coming up in the next couple of months. Also, transfer news for this next transfer. Yes, Elder Klinglesmith is going to be going home, back to Roy Utah, and I am staying here in Youngstown for at least another month and a half. I could be here for one transfer or until I go home, just depends on what President Brown is feeling like. I'm thinking I'll leave after two more here, but I don't know. My new companion's name is going to be Elder Schwartz, hopefully you can sound that one out because I tried spelling it a different way, but it's pretty much the same as what it is now. I don't know much about him other than he's been out for a year and he is coming from my old area in Lakewood. So make sure to send some questions that I can answer for you next week. I'm sure he will be happy to be in an area with a truck instead of just bikes like he has been on for a while now. 

 

This last week flew by. We had exchanges with the Assistants last week and some lady that we met when we were out tracting took a picture of us and she was going to send it to you. She told us that she follows someone on Instagram that is a member and has a son on a mission and she put that if anyone has the missionaries knock on their door, to take a picture and email it to their mom, so she took a picture of us out in the 5 degree weather all bundled up and we gave her your email address. Hopefully she sent it off to you so you can see what we have to look like as we are out freezing our butts off in the cold. But Elder Talbot (the missionary I was with) and I made it onto a neighborhood Facebook page for where we were tracting that a member lived in because people were talking about how much dedication we had to be out in the cold when all the schools were cancelled and we were happy to be doing it. So you never know what impression people get, and they are normally a little bit nicer when it's cold. Except since being back here in Youngstown and out tracting, people have been yelling at us that we need to get inside and warm up and go home because it's too cold to be out and that we are crazy. So ya, we are pretty crazy. The only thing is they won't let us in their house to warm up, they just get mad at us for being out when the wind makes it a blistering -10 degrees outside. Oh, and the walmart in our area was sold out of toe warmers, but luckily it has warmed up a little bit and my toes are still attached to my feet. 

 

We've been doing lots of finding lately, had some good dinners, had some funny experiences, but not anything too crazy recently. The lady that walked into church probably like two months ago now has been coming back, and she started asking questions on Sunday when she came which is exactly what we wanted, so we talked with her a little bit and are trying to set up a time to meet with her and teach her a little bit about the church this week. She is a really cool lady, so good things are coming. There was also a less active family that moved into the ward that Elder Klinglesmith actually met when he was in the Lima ward because that is where they moved from. We were able to go see them last Saturday and him and his wife are both members, they have three daughters who are 11, 7, and 4, and the 11 year old hasn't been baptized, but when they were in Lima the husband had talked about how he wanted her to be baptized, so we might be able to start teaching her and working towards baptism with them. We haven't been able to see Callei in a while because of the cold and then her grandpa being sick, so her baptism might not happen on the 20th, but it will be coming up soon!

 

There's a pic of the district from this last week since I have been slacking on sending pictures or even taking pictures since I've been in Youngstown. But half of the district is leaving and this transfer is crazy with everyone moving around. Gonna be exciting this next transfer, so hopefully the work continues on!

 

I know this isn't a super long email, but Elder Klinglesmith's gotta pack so we gotta go. Love ya!

 

Elder Woodward

 

 

Youngstown, Ohio - January 3, 2018

No, I'm not getting transferred, transfers are next week. Ignore the subject line until later. But holy moly it feels like it's been forever since we last had a preparation day, but it is finally here! And it feels like forever since we last talked. Kind of didn't even realize that the new year came because it was just like any normal night when we went to bed and felt like any normal morning when we woke up. Crazy how a mission does that to you. Christmas barely felt like Christmas as well. Maybe it's just because I'm getting older and everything feels the same to me. I don't know. The only real difference lately in the weather is that is has been about 10 degrees all week long, and Friday and Saturday are supposed to have a high of 5 degrees, so it's gonna be cold. Luckily we aren't right next to the lake like I was last year, but we are going on exchanges with the Assistants on Thurday and Friday and guess where they live? Yep, right up by the lake. Hopefully it isn't super windy, but it is always windy up there so praying I don't freeze this week. But over the weekend it will be warmer in the 30's, so there's something to look forward to. Just gotta make it a couple of more days. 

 

Since the last time we emailed, quite a few things have happened. We got a referral for a guy named Rodney that we have started teaching. He kind of lives in an insane asylum, but it's a little bit better than an insane asylum. It's a normal apartment complex, just everyone that lives in there is a little crazy, so that's why it's a few steps above an insane asylum. We met him and taught him the Restoration and have met with him a few times since then and he has been doing really well. He was really excited to read from the Book of Mormon and learn more, but hasn't started reading yet. But he is going to. The first time we went over to his apartment and he let us through the four locked doors to get to his apartment, we had no clue what we were getting ourselves into. Didn't know if we were going to make it out alive or not because of some of the people in there. Not trying to complain about them, but it was a strange place for sure. Rodney that we are teaching has schizoaffective disorder, so sometimes he hears voices in his head, just not when we are there teaching him. He's a really good guy though and is doing well. 

 

We've also been on quite a few exchanges since last week, and they were all super good! One we were out tracting for almost two hours but it felt like we barely talked to anyone because everyone that answered the door was super nice and we were able to talk with each of them for a little bit. Taught the Restoration at the first house that answered the door and gave them a Book of Mormon, gave another Book of Mormon at the next house we went to, just a super successful day tracting in Youngstown. And the missionary that I was with was awesome and I love him haha. Such a good guy and super fun to be around. Then on Monday we had exchanges again and had an awesome experience. There was a member from a ward in Virginia that was visiting her aunt who just had surgery for New Years Eve and her aunt who isn't a member of the church agreed to getting a blessing. It was in the sisters area over in Pennsylvania, but we were able to go over and give her aunt a blessing. And so it was in Pennsylvania, so I got to go there! And something weird that everyone says out here is instead of saying Pennsylvania, they just say PA, so I was over in PA for a few minutes. And then later that day is when the real cool experience happened. Elder Klinglesmith and I were planning earlier in the day for both of our days since we were going to be on exchanges that day, and I had picked somewhere out to go tracting for the time we have for that each day. It wasn't anything special, but then all day I kept feeling like that wasn't where we were supposed to go. So when it got time to go tracting, I told the missionary that I was going to be with that I didn't feel like we should go there, and then we picked a different road out to go tract on. Said a little prayer about it, and then off we went into the 10 degree weather bundled up like the Christmas Story boy. Not really, but just about. We had just started tracting and nobody was really answering the door except for one guy after about 5 houses, but not anything with him. So then I turned to Elder Hales, who I was with, and asked him if he thought if we just asked people if we could come in for a few minutes to warm up if people would let us in, because we were both pretty cold. So the next person that answered we decided we were going to try it. Knock on the door that had a table in front of it so we didn't know if they even used that door or not, but a guy came to the door and so I asked him if we could come in to warm up, and he thought about it for a sec, and then said sure and opened the door and let us right in. Didn't think it was actually going to work, but it did and we were right on in there. Then he pulled out the chairs at his table and told us to sit down and then he just walked out the room and left us there after we talked for about a minute. So there we are just sitting there, not really sure what to do at this point. His wife was in the kitchen cooking, so we just walked back a little and just started talking to her about what she was cooking. Turns out she was cooking gumbo and after a little bit and getting the recipe to her gumbo which she had never made before, she said we could try a little bit. So then, after being let in to warm up, we ended getting a little bit of gumbo which I have never had before, and it was AMAZING!!!! Probably the best food I have had since being in Ohio, and it was the first time she had ever tried making gumbo. We talked with them for a little bit more and they said they were trying to find a church that they liked in the area but weren't going to one specifically, and we were able to give them a copy of the Book of Mormon and the church address and they were super awesome and super receptive! So hopefully we are able to see them again soon and hopefully they read from the Book of Mormon. And maybe we will get some of the leftover gumbo!! I wouldn't complain if that was the case because it was so good. After we talked with them for a little bit, we had some pizza waiting for us at home from the member that we gave her aunt a blessing, so it was just a good day all around besides the temperature.

 

We'v​e been getting a bunch of referrals lately and it's been good, but has definitely provided some interesting experiences. Some people aren't too happy to see us even though they request items from us, but we're just doing what we can, and it's working. We have been able to find a few more people to teach, and now that the holidays are over we have been able to start scheduling appointments with people again, so we have a packed weekend relatively speaking. We were also able to do some baptismal interviews over the weekend for some other elders, so that's always a good thing that others are having success as well. On Sunday for some reason we only had Sacrament Meeting because it was really cold and there were a lot of people not at church, so hopefully this next week will be a little bit more normal. Full church, normal appointments again, and the work is moving forward. 

 

Thanks again for all the Christmas cards and packages! Love ya!

Elder Woodward