Argentina Rosario Mission

Dear parents:

The Argentina Rosario Mission has received excellent missionaries this week. President Zanni and I are very happy to welcome them. We thank you for the great support you give to your children in this great work of the Lord.

Sister Wood arrived safely. You will now be able to communicate with her on Monday (Preparation Day) through email.

We thank you very much for your collaboration. We know that your daughter is an excellent representative of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We thank you for the support your daughter provides.

We have also attached some pictures of Sister Wood with her trainer, President Zanni, and myself and another with her group. I hope you enjoy.

Thank you for your love and support.

Yours truly.
Sister Zanni

WEEK 5

Dear Mom,

The weeks are all mixed up here. The 6th week starts today on P-Day, so I am writing about what happened in week 5, but technically this is our last week in the MTC!!! It absolutely blows my mind! The weeks slowly sped up and now they are going by so fast. I hope they slow down a little bit once we get to Argentina, but I am realizing how fast time flies. I only have 17 months left on my mission. I have to make the most of it and continue to learn and grow. I had lots of great experiences this week and I am going to share some of them. :)

We finished up with TRC and we had a great last lesson with Javier. We asked him why he wanted to be baptized. He started to give us some doctrinal answers, but that's not what we wanted. We asked him again why he specifically wanted to get baptized and he shared with us his the testimony he has gained about faith and that Jesus Christ is our example. Then Hermana Leavitt and I were able to share our testimonies as well and it was a very spiritual lesson. I learned a lot from TRC: love, lots of doctrine, spanish, teaching well with a companion, and following the spirit. The spirit is the third companion and we need to prepare.....but we need to follow the spirit. I realize that these are very basic things that I learned, but the MTC is the foundation for the rest of your mission and I feel like the MTC has been very good for me. Lots of fun times and happy memories. :)

We had some awesome devotionals this week! Jenny Oaks Baker, Dallin H. Oaks' daughter, is a very famous violinist and she came and talked to us on Sunday. She told us of some experiences where she has learned about her relationship with Heavenly Father and then she played us some songs. My favorite was "Amazing Grace". They were so beautiful and I loved the spirit that they brought. Music can be used for such amazing things.

On Tuesday, Bonnie L. Oscarson came and talked to us!! How cool is that? It was so great and she told us about her mission and the missions her children have served. They had some awesome stories as well. The best thing I learned was when you pray to Heavenly Father for something, the situation usually doesn't change. But what can change is your attitude. Heavenly Father can help you to feel happy or peaceful in a terrible situation. You can remember why you are serving the Lord and find the tender mercies in your life. Heavenly Father's hand is always there, you just have to look for it. For example, I wasn't having a very good day yesterday and we were walking along and we saw the cutest little hummingbird flitting around these beautiful flowers. It made me so happy. It just reminded me that God's hand is in everything and He knows me. He is always with me. In a talk by Brad Wilcox, he said the grace of Jesus Christ isn't some light at the end of a dark tunnel. It is the light that is with you that leads you through the tunnel.

I have had an awesome last week at the MTC!!!
My District's Motto: Stay calm and go to Argentina!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love,
Hermana Wood :)

P.S. At the end of the devotional, Hermana Leavitt and I went and talked to Sister Oscarson because Hermana Leavitt knows her nephews. After talking, Bonnie L. Oscarson GAVE ME A HUG!!! How amazing is that!!!!! It was so great! :)

WEEK 4

Dear Mom,

This week was a little bit longer because I was sick a little and we have a ton of new investigators. We are teaching both our teachers, a missionary from our district, and our TRC progressing investigator. A little bit more about TRC. So on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, we go to his "house", which is another apartment because we are on West Campus, and we teach him. Everyone in my district has different investigators. When my companion and I found out that we were teaching Javier, lots of people were worried for us because he is known as a hard investigator. He knows the ins and outs of the bible and he is actually a mormon, so he knows that questions are difficult to answer. We have been praying, studying, and thinking about Javier the most out of all our people. On our lesson last Friday, we taught him about faith in Jesus Christ. He says that he has faith. So we asked him to act on his faith and be baptized........and he said yes!! The unteachable has been taught by us! The spirit was so strong and I felt so great. He still asks us some crazy questions, but he accepted baptism and lots of people are blown away that we were able to commit him! It was a great experience. :)

Another interesting thing was Hermana Leavitt and I got a letter in the mail that said we were going to have to switch investigators because the times weren't matching up or something. When we first started teaching Javier, I would have been just fine with switching. But when we got this letter, I realized that I didn't want to switch. Javier meant something to me and I wanted to help him. We went and asked to keep Javier. They did a lot of work, but they made it so we could teach him again!! I was so happy. I never thought I would have begged to keep teaching Javier. It was a big learning moment for me. I didn't realize how much he meant to me. It was a cool experience. :)

I am very grateful that you were able to get in contact with people in Salt Lake about my visa and my fingerprints! We got to ride in a police car to the police station and they used this super advanced machine to do my fingerprints. No ink or anything. It was lots of fun and we are now friends with Officer Judd. :)

This week, we had a district meeting and we went around and shared a cool experience or a testimony. I shared my testimony of the Book of Mormon. It goes all the way back to ninth grade. I have always loved the Book of Mormon and all the stories. At the end of the school year, my seminary teacher wrote "I am a witness of the Book of Mormon" up at the top of the board and said to come write your name on the board if you are a witness of the Book of Mormon. I thought and thought about it, and then I decided that I was a witness and that I could write my name on the board. I loved that feeling. I have never lost my testimony and it continues to grow stronger every day.

My testimony in Spanish:
Yo se que Dios es muy amoroso. Yo se que Jesucristo es mi salvador y mi redentor. El Libro de Mormon es veradero. La iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Ultimos Dias es veradera. Mediante la fe en Jesucristo yo puedo volver de Dios otra vez. Te amo!!!!

Te amo,
Hermana Wood :)

Week 3

Dear Mom,

This week was so great! We had lots of fun this week. Some of the things we did were we moved all of our beds out into the living room so that would have sleepovers every night. It is so much more fun to be with all the Hermanas and to bond more while we are at home. However, we did fail our cleaning inspection because of it, but we told the branch presidency what was going on and they fully supported us in our endeavors. :) Another fun thing we did today was go Brigham's Landing with our whole district! It was so fun and I love when people stop us and talk to us. I feel so cool. It definitely reminds me that I am a representative of Jesus Christ and I always need to act like it.

This week was full of music for me. A district that left for Mexico on Monday asked me to accompany them on Sunday at the devotional that is broadcast to all the other MTC's and is in front of both main campus and west campus. They sand, "If You Could Hie to Kolob." I loved playing for them. However, after this experience, I got called to be the Music Coordinator for our branch. I never get any callings besides music callings. So I guess I should get used to it. ;)

We got a new investigator this week. His name is Javier. We teach him on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday for two weeks. Let me tell you, he is brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. He is a professor at BYU and he is a Mormon in real life, but he is a really hard investigator. For example, all in Spanish, he asked us how we know there wasn't an apostasy after Heavenly Father called Joseph Smith to be a prophet and if we need to have a testimony of each individual prophet in the latter-days to make sure that the doctrine hasn't been lost. It was crazy and we told him we would study his question and get back to him on that. We realized we should have talked about the authority of the priesthood and how it is the same priesthood since Jesus, but obviously we didn't know to say that in Spanish to this man. These next two weeks will be interesting, but it has already been a big learning experience.

We got another district of 12 elders today!!! There are us four Hermanas and 40 Elders. It is so crazy. We get picked on all the time, but it is so fun. We are getting a new zone and district leader this week, so there will be lots of change.

Yesterday, Bruce C. Hafen talked to us about the temple and how much power it brings into our lives. We are beyond blessed to live in Utah where we have at least 5 temples that are an hour away. So many people do not have that blessing and I hope we are all using it to the fullest extent. I went to the temple and did sealings today and it was such a great experience. I am so excited to go to the temple in the future!!

I love you!
Love,
Hermana Wood :)

July 30, 2014

Dear Mommy,

Hi! It's p-day again! I can't believe I have been here for two weeks! I am so glad that I have chosen to serve a mission at this point in my life. Someone at a devotional did the stats from 1930 until now, the probability of living in the latter days is 1 in 100,000. The probability of being a hastening the work missionary right now is 1 in 1,000,000. That blew my mind. Heavenly Father has saved us for this time. He trusted us enough that we would choose to follow Him with our whole souls. It isn't even a question to me as to why I am on a mission. I love my Heavenly Father more than words can describe. I will not let Him down.

The devotional this week that really hit me was the talk we got to watch after the devotional. It was given by Elder Bednar in the MTC on Christmas a few years ago. He taught us about the character of Christ. In every situation in Christ's life, when the natural man would turn inward and care about Himself, He turned out. After He had gone through the hardest trial ever, the Atonement, He reached out and healed the guard's ear. When Jesus was dying on the cross, He made sure His mother was taken care of and asked God to forgive them. when any normal human would have turned inward, He turned out. For me, there is no more "I want." I am trying very hard to focus on others, especially when things are hard.

Yesterday after the devotional, we got back to our classroom. This is how our seats were before the devotional.
H. Sheppard      H. Christiansen      me      H. Leavitt      E. Slavens

E. Nord      E. Frandsen      E. Bluth      E.Jackson      E. Manning

I sat in the very front and I loved it. When we got back:
H. Sheppard      H. Christiansen      E. Manning      E. Slavens      H. Leavitt

E. Nord      E. Frandsen      E. Bluth      E.Jackson      ME

Everyone else stayed the same, except for us two that moved. Our teacher moved us because E. Slavens and E. Manning haven't been trying at all so he moved them to the front and put me in the very back corner. I sat down and I couldn't even see! I'm assuming I was already a little stressed out and this hurt me more than it should have. I was starting to cry, but I was hold it in. Then Brother and Sister Price, branch presidency, came over and saw I was struggling. They took me in the other room and I started crying a lot. She cave me a big hug and told me it was okay. They understood that this wouldn't work. Brother Price gave me a blessing of comfort and also he blessed Grandpa inadvertently, which comforted me too. They said they would help me figure it out. After I tried to turn out they way Christ did I wrote all the girls letters and they liked it. I probably should have tried to react differently, but the natural man is very real. The choice to be like the savior is a hard one sometimes, but always worth it.

Now for your questions:
1. Yes, my whole district is going to Rosario. We are finding out that this is very rare, so we are grateful. :)
2. Yup. I'm leaving August 25. And I found out I'm supposed to come home Jan. 12. School starts Jan 11.....so you better have some classes picked for me. I promise that I will have some input when it gets closer. You accidentally put 815 on one of the dear elders. Make sure you put 814.
3.No word on my Visa.
4. I wrote the Bishop a letter.
5. Thanks for including Taylor, Devin, and Clouse! I want Tanner and Ryan to be on there, but I don't know their addresses. I'll find out. And Liz said she didn't get my letter, so could you check that?

Those pants are both perfect! Thank you so much! I'm going to try and send some pictures...hopefully it works.

Te amo para siempre!
Hermana Wood :)