Youngstown, Ohio - March 28, 2018

Well this last week was another week out here in Youngstown! It ended up being another good week so I was happy for it. We had zone conference last Friday and everyone else in our zone got their phones on that day and everyone was pretty excited. I would have been excited to if I didn't have my phone yet, but too late for that. For the most part, we just got to walk around and help all the other missionaries and answer questions they had about how to do different things on the phones and planning apps. It was a ton of fun like it is every zone conference. Kind of a repeat of MLC but it never hurts to hear something again. 

Thursday we had a really good day though. We were on exchanges with Lisbon and the elder that I was with and I had an amazing day. We saw a few people earlier in the day and we were able to see one of our investigators named Paula. She was a referral from a couple of weeks ago and when we went back she had read some of the Book of Mormon and liked what she read. I asked her if she had prayed about it and she said that she had and that she knew it was true. She is such a nice lady that has been doing well, so we are going to keep seeing her. Then later that day, when out tracting, we found 4 new people to teach in one day. Gave a book of Mormon to one guy, then taught his next door neighbor, then taught his next door neighbor, then we needed to go back to our car to get more copies of the Book of Mormon, and then two houses later we found two more people teach. It was just a blessed street to be knocking doors on. Had some more good lessons and all is well with them.

The rest of the week ended up just flying by and I'm not really sure what else happened. We had more exchanges and found more people to teach, so that's always good. Transfers are next week and I think I'm leaving, hoping I go back to Tiffin but not sure what's going to happen. I'll let you know next week when we email!

Love,

Elder Woodward

 

PS got one picture with three abandoned houses in it on exchanges Monday. Gotta love it!

 

Youngstown, Ohio - March 21, 2018

Well hello there! Life is going well for us out here in Youngstown. Just a couple of more weeks before transfers and who knows what's going to happen. We'll see what happens. Time is flying by now.

 

Speaking of time flying by, yesterday, March 20th, was my last triple digit day. I had 100 days left in Ohio yesterday, so today is day 99 remaining. Not that I'm counting, I just knew when it was. But Elder Schwartz decided that he wanted to celebrate me only having 100 days left, so we walked into Burger King and he bought 100 chicken nuggets. I have never seen so many chicken nuggets, and we just have a big bag in our fridge haha. He walked up to the counter to order and said, "This is going to sound really weird, but I need 10 10-piece nuggets" and the lady at the counter (who happens to be an investigator for some other missionaries) gave him a weird look and said "10 10-piece nuggets?" Needless to say, we got some extremely weird looks, but it was super funny. I got some pictures of them all, so you should be able to see them. Also, got a couple of pictures with some more abandoned houses here in Youngstown. Always a good day when you snag a few pics with empty houses. 

 

Also included in the pictures is our mission picture with Elder Christofferson and Elder Nielson when they came and visited on Saturday. It's not a very good quality picture, but if you look close enough and you remember what I look like, I am sitting on the very front row, far right, second from the end in my blue suit. So now you know where to look in case you couldn't find me before. And this time, we all got to shake both of their hands and it was sooooo good. In all reality, it was kind of sad because it was the last time that our mission was all going to be together in the same place at the same time, and we sang our mission song for the very last time as a whole mission. That was probably the saddest part because President and Sister Brown were up on the stand crying and just about everyone else there was tearing up. But we aren't really sure why we got to have a little meeting with Elder Christofferson, but he said that it is Heavenly Father's way of giving a benedictory prayer to our mission or something like that. So it was super cool to all be there. Really, Elder Christofferson was coming for the different leaders in the stake because they had meetings after our meeting was finished and then he met with the youth in all five stakes in our mission, we just got a little bonus first thing in the morning and got to meet with him. The Spirit was so strong there, especially as we were singing the mission song together. But it was a good day all around and there was a lot of good things that we learned. 

 

We actually had a pretty packed week and were able to teach some super good lessons. We found a new lady to teach who's name is Sereice. She let us right in and we were able to teach her, and she has been reading the Book of Mormon and loving it! She said that we were sent by God to help her get back into church. And she has three awesome kids that are the best thing ever. Exchanges are always happening and those are super good as well. Life is just so good. Zone conference is later this week and the rest of our zone is going to be getting their phones, so it's pretty exciting. All the missionaries are excited to get their phones so it'll be good. 

 

Enjoy the pics

 

Love, Elder Woodward

 

 

 

Youngstown, Ohio - March 14, 2018

 

So I kind of forgot to mention this last week, but we have a big weekend coming up. 1. It's St. Patrick's day, but that's really not that special. But 2. We are having a mission conference this Saturday at the mission office and there are a few special guests coming. First, Elder Christofferson is coming. That's the D. Todd Christofferson. Also, Elder Gifford Neilson of the Seventy will be there, and then the area General authority Elder Titera will be there. So a pretty big weekend and lots of good stuff to be heard. We're pretty excited for it and it's probably the last time our mission will have a mission conference before it gets all split up, so it has extra meaning for all of us. 

 

This last week was pretty good! Facebook has been a big blessing and it has allowed us to get in contact with a few people that we wouldn't have been able to get in contact with without it. So good if you ask me! We stopped teaching Victor this last week because we went over with a member and he was telling us how much he loves the church from the bottom of his heart, and then 20 minutes later he was telling us that he's never coming back and that he hates the church. Really he's just mad we can't give him a ride in our vehicle if he needs to go somewhere to get something and he thinks we should be able to help him more than we do. If it's not helping Victor in some way, then Victor doesn't care about it. Victor loved the member that was there with us and then after Victor cursing at us and yelling at us, the member stood up for us and Victor didnt like it so he started yelling even more at us so we just got up and walked out. As we were leaving he told us to leave and never come back, so we aren't. We haven't talked to him since that day, and he obviously didn't come to church on Sunday. Kind of interesting situation. But all is good because we've been able to find more people here that we've been able to start teaching. 

 

We've been on a couple of exchanges which are always fun, it's currently snowing which isn't fun, but it's supposed to warm up this weekend. It's just going to be a good weekend all around. We were out in Pennsylvania earlier this week with our district leader and exchanges really are a blast. We are going to see a couple people tonight,  and have some good things planned for this week until next week. Always a good time out here in Youngstown! It hit me the other day that there isn't much time left before I come home, only three and a half months. Not excited for it to come to an end at all. But I still have that much time left and it's going to be great to keep working here!

 

That's about it for this week! More exchanges this week, mission conference, and then zone conference is next week when the rest of the missionaries in the zone will get smartphones. It's an exciting time to be a missionary and I love it so much!

 

Love, Elder Woodward

 

Youngstown, Ohio - March 8, 2018

This last week flew by and I don't even know what happened for us. But it was still a good week! Our Thursday was gone before it even started because we had a specialized training meeting with our zone and President and Sister Brown that started in the afternoon, but with our weekly planning and that meeting and then interviews afterwards, we weren't even leaving the church until 7 pm. So it was a long day and most of it was spent at the church. While others were being interviewed, we had our district meeting and that's always good. We had another interesting lesson with Victor after because he got to the part in 1 Nephi where Nephi kills Laban and he didn't like that at all. He ended up throwing the Book of Mormon towards us when we were there, but we were still able to talk to him and we tried explaining everything to him but he really didn't want to listen. But we kind of helped him and he is back to normal now. He didn't make it out to church because he wasn't feeling super well, but we are planning on seeing him tonight. The members here are really helping him out and he has loved it all.

Really the rest of the week just blended all together because we had some time and we had some names to go try and see, so that's what we did and had some other things come up that diverted us from that course, but it was good. We've been trying to find people that are a little more likely to come to church so we've been going to the nicer neighborhoods frequently but haven't had much success. Lots of people just aren't answering the door so it makes it hard to find more people to teach. On Saturday, we probably talked to only 10 people in two hours of knocking on doors, so that's always a good time. Lots of fun here in Youngstown and not much else really happened. We have a few appointments for later this week with some people so hopefully those go well, and we're just having a ton of fun. 

Yesterday was really good though. We drove up to the mission office for MLC and the zone leaders and sister training leaders were the first of the missionaries to get the smartphones in this mission. Such a blessing and I forgot what they were like to have one. So, it was just a super good day yesterday and we spent a long time trying to figure out how to use them and use the new Area Book Planner app (so that means no more paper planners or area book), set up a Facebook account (yes, I am on Facebook), and then got to drive home through rush hour traffic and a nice old car crash not by me though, didn't get home until 7:30 and tried a few people, and that just about brings us to this moment here and now. Not much else really happened, but man the phones are super nice to have, and it makes it easier to take pictures now, so there should be some coming in the future. So, ya. That's about it.

Love,

Elder Woodward