Elder Zach Taylor - October 7

This week has been good! My favorite part was General Conference. I love how everyone has to go to the church to watch it, it makes you feel more united as a church. I never realized how amazing it is too that I can sit here, thousands of miles away, and see into the Conference Center in Salt Lake. It made me realize how really united we are as a church. There are people all over the world who come together every 6 months to hear the prophet and Apostles speak. It´s kind of amazing. I got to hear it in English, so that was good too! We had three of our investigators show up to the Sunday morning session, and I was so glad they did. They don´t realized how great of an opportunity this is, but I´m hoping we can help them learn. To be quite honest, I don´t remember much of the week besides that.. we spent every day inviting people to conference because of what a special opportunity it is. I never appreciated conference at home as much as I do here. I loved how many messages there were about families.. it made me want my own. But we all know that´s not going to happen for a while so.. haha. We did teach Abrahan again, the guy that came up to us while drunk in the street a couple weeks ago. He´s really great. I know he has a strong desire to quit smoking and drinking, but its hard for him, and it´s hard for me to know how to help him since I´ve never known anyone that does that before. It is kind of upsetting when he pulls out his cigarettes in the middle of the lesson.. I just want to yell what are you doing!?!?!!! I have a feeling like that wouldn´t go over too well though.. sometimes I feel like Paraguayans have no concept of the word commitment.. but I¨m going to keep trying! And Conference helped a lot. I also loved how they said that now is the time for members and missionaries to work together. I feel like that was something this ward needed to hear as well as many others. I feel bad now for not trying to help them when I was at home.. there really is more success in the work when the member help the missionaries. I guess we´ll see if anyone´s attitude changes. We also went to Itaipú this morning, which is apparently the biggest dam in the world. It was pretty huge.. I think it powers all of Paraguay and part of Brazil.. crazy, huh? I thought it was really cool that we got to go see that. Well, have a good week everyone!

Elder Taylor

Elder Kaden Barlow - Beak Soup

Elder Barlow and Elder Lumene

Santo Domingo Temple

 

 

On visiting the local university: “We went to the University this last Friday. We got there and just went out contacting! Me and my compañero placed two Book of Mormons and left a bunch of pamphlets with people. It was so much fun, I was super sad we only had just over an hour there. My favorite guy that we taught was this guy named Fernando. He was one of them that we gave the Book of Mormon to. We taught him for around 35 minutes because he just kept wanting to know more! It was really cool to test out our Spanish. :) We will go to the University tomorrow for the last time and then the last two Fridays we are here we go out on splits into our mission so that will be super cool!”

 

On playing the piano: “This last Sunday I accompanied one of the Elders in my district as he sang a solo. We mashed together an arrangement of Come Thou Fount and Joseph Smiths First Prayer(Is that the English name?) because there is no arrangement of Come Thou Fount in Spanish :( We have been playing piano in that room I told you about the first week, everyday after lunch. One time we accidently walked in on one of our teachers who was taking a nap in there so now we actually have permission and we usually draw a bunch of Dominicans and Missionaries in that want to listen. :)”

 

On the food: “I got sick last night and was in the bathroom for awhile, not sure what I ate but I’m pretty sure it was the mystery soup that we had for lunch.. Someone said they found a beak in theirs and I wasn’t the only one sick. The food is done by some Dominican guy, he shows up in his truck everyday. So the food is made else where and brought here. He is a cool guy named Alex and is always teaching Elders things they shouldn’t say. Not bad, just slang that isn't professional.”

 

Life in the D.R.: “The power goes out here all the time! There is a generator here in the CCM so most the time the lights come right back on, but last week I got to use my headlight for a few minutes! Also the Dominicans are very relaxed! Things don't really start on time, except for the meetings run by the Americans, even in the CCM haha. I’m super excited for General Conference Saturday and Sunday It will be really cool to be in the CCM and to watch it. One other cool thing that I did this week was teaching TRC again. It was really cool to see how much more me and my companion could speak in Spanish. We taught a great lesson on prayer and even got cookies. I love the Rodriguez family and I can’t wait till next Monday to teach them again.

 

On Sundays: “Yes I love the CCM and my favorite part is probably Sunday where we can go back to English. . . I get so tired that its nice just to relax and feel the spirit. Plus on Sundays we get Pizza and Ice Cream. . . I taught the District Sunday School class this week on hope. I didn’t prepare much I just had preach my gospel and a few thoughts and figured I could go for 40 minutes and it was no big deal. Then the MTC president walked in with his wife and asked if he could join us, and I started getting nervous. Thanks to the spirit though the lesson went really well and they enjoyed it. She asked us after to help her make pizza for dinner so we got to make 25 pizzas after watching The Joseph Smith movie. I LOVE Sundays!!”

 

 

Elder Christian Tanner - What Does The Fox Say???

 

Family and Friends,

 

First things first. I had no idea about "What does the fox say?" obviously. We were at Bishops house on Sunday for dinner and he told us about it. Then he showed it to us. But I think I died laughing. The old guy when he goes "wuffff wufff wufff wuffff wuffff" hahahahahahaha. Oh my heck. Funniest thing ever. Maybe just because I havent seen anything like that in forever.

I am staying in Halmstad, as you know by now. I am getting a new companion named Elder Billadue (but i dont know if thats how its spelled.) We get sisters, too, as I menioned. One of them is Sister Christensen and I dont know the other. Tomorrow Millsap goes to Helsingborg and Billadue comes here to Halmstad. Wednesday the sisters come and we'll get settled in. I think I am going to like this, a lot. When these new missionaries come, I will be the only missionary here who knows Halmstad in and out. :) Its kinda fun, I think. As I mentioned, we will be in a District with the Sisters, my comp will be the District Leader and I will be the Senior Companion. It will be really good transfer. I am exctied to see what big changes will happen the next 6 weeks and such.

 

Jens. We are talking to him right now, actually. We were just sitting here writing home and he walks up to us and wants to talk. We arnt talking religion right now. He's having a hard time with his life, so we are just talking about... well... life. So if this letter is short, thats why. He didnt get baptized on the 28th. He hasnt read anything, so it could be a while before we get him in the waters of baptism. Its too bad, though, for Millsap. He was really excited about Jens. Billadue and I will work hard with him. He is so stubborn though. He knows what the spirit fills like and we feel it every time we teach him. His problem is that he just wont commit. We ask him to read, he says yes. Next lesson we find out he hasn't read anything and says why (which is usually a pathetic excuse, to be honest). So we try asking him to do different stuff like pray, come to church or innabandy, and he doesnt commit to anything. So its been tough with him. We just keep praying and hope the Lord will lead us in the right direction with him. I am not going to give up on him until I feel from the Sprit (and my companion confirms it) that we need to stop teaching him. He needs people to talk to, and we are those people. So, I am glad about that. I feel like we are good people for him to talk to.

 

Tony. Well, now that Millsap is leaving he doesnt want to meet with us. He told me "You can come to my house, but not your companion. If your companion comes, then the missionaries will never stop coming. So if you want to come to visit me, give me a call and I will come and get you. But not your companion." That was a little bit depressing. He did tell Millsap he would get baptised in 20 years. But, obviously, thats not a very good... date... for a baptism. I was able to convince him to meet us at the library once in a while. So, we havent completly lost him. Like with Jens, I wont stop meeting with him until I get a confirmation to stop or he just refuses.

 

The good part about both of these, is that they actually have done missionary work for us! Tony gave us a referal to one of his friends and Jens gave his friends one of his 3 Book of Mormon. Last saturday we met with Tonys friend at an asain buffet. It was good too. We didnt just come out and talk about our religion, actually. We felt like we just needed to be really soft and just more get to know him than anything else. We know where he lives so we might go knock on his door (with my new comp) in a few days and just slowly work our way up to lessons.

 

Now that I have been out in the feild for some time, I have been realizing now more than ever just how important the spirit is. You never ever know when an opportunity will come up to teach someone. I realize a lot more now what "set apart" means. We are seperate from the world. We are in it, but not really. For example, I spend everyday outside and I see what the style of clothes is like, I see posters for movies, I see drugs and cigars all over the street, but all of that is a distraction from the Spirit. Like I say, I didnt even know about What Does the Fox Say?. Its because I am focused on what needs to be done and I work hard to not worry about what the "world" is doing. The talk I gave in church on my farewell about how to recognise the spirit has been really really helpful to me. I know that talk helped me realize what the spirit is, and what it sounds like, and how to follow it. Missionary work without the Spirit is like... the story of Lord of the Rings without the One Ring. Just like everything revolves around The Ring, everything revolves around the Spirit.

 

And I think I will just end it with that. I love you guys! Miss you lots!

 

Have it good!

Äldste Tanner

Sister Courtnee Wood - Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays?? - Sister Wood told us that the Filipino people start playing Christmas music and preparing for Christmas at the beginning of the .....ber months. September, October, November December.

Sister Wood's first baptism - Joey

 

BREAKING NEWS!!!

The Philippines LAOAG mission SAVED 101 souls in the month of September ALONE! I don't know about you, but that is pretty sweet. Don't you think? 101 more souls that have the chance to live with our Heavenly Father again! I am pretty happy about it. Makes us 1 step closer to reaching 1000 souls by the end of the year!

And, HAPPY HOLIDAYS from the Philippines! Is it not Christmas there? Because here we are already singing Christmas songs in sacrament meeting hahaha. How cool is that? I mean people already have Christmas lights up and everything! All I am going to say is Christmas here is going to be a celebration like never before. Haha.

So we got a new Sister in our apartment and she is filipino, and she is so so so cool. And speaks the language so good. Well duh, she is from here, but for me is awesome. BECAUSE my tagalog is progressing. I told her to only talk to me in tagalog. And if by the end of the month I can have complete normal conversation all in tagalog then I will buy her a halo-halo. Hahaha! Hey I need help okay.

This week we also finally got to have Brother Joey's baptism! Ah what a special day it was. My heart was so happy seeing him get baptized. He bore the most solid testimony in the world after it as well. No, I didn't understand it because it was in ilocano, but I felt it. And everyone was so impressed! He actually has already fellowshipped with us before he was even baptized! He is that good. I know that he will be such an amazing member of the church. Oh my heavens I almost forgot, my kasama and I sang at it........ haha no this is not a joke, this is real. We sang I feel my savior's love and When I am baptized. It went........... Okay. I don't like singing. So that's that. BUT the SPIRIT was felt as we sang so that is all that matters. We were so proud of Joey. He will help so many people! Not to mention that so many people from the ward came out to support him which made it even better. 

 

 

Dad you asked how we contact people, and we try and get referrals, but we mostly contact on the street! It has been working pretty well, and we can kind of discern who really would be interested. Yes it is scary at first, but I have gotten better at it!

The Lord is blessing us with such amazing people to teach that have so much faith. Even though we are teaching them, they are strengthening me! What a blessing. Our attendance from investigators and less active is increasing and it makes me the absolute happiest. 

This place is amazing.

Have an awesome week!

- Sister Wood

P.S. My companion told me my personality/chillness is like a guy. Best compliment I have every received. :) 

Laoag

 Sister Wood representing BYU in her WCC Champions t-shirt and BYU backpack

Sister Wood jogs past this market in Laoag every morning

Sister Wood and Sister Brewer - Sister Brewer is one of the Sisters in her apartment. She is from St. George and Courtnee loves her!!

 

I was so excited to see that Sister Wood sent us a video - The Caption read: hahaha, this is all you get to see of me. She thinks she is so funny!

Elder Xavier Stilson - WHAT?!?!?

Elder Xavier Stilson

 

Bom dia! Well this week has been rough; the work is VERY slow in the area we are at right now. The one thing that I was really excited for when I got my call to Brazil was that I thought that all the people here were going to be very humble due to the Country’s circumstances. The Brazilian people are so amazing but a little prideful and it is very hard for them to change ESPECIALLY their religion. They are very content and don’t like to be told they are wrong. But it is ok, I still love them and will do anything I can to help spread the Gospel to anyone that will listen. We are working hard and finding new people to teach to so we are very excited about that!

Tuesday was transfers and Elder Torres and I are staying here in Jardim da Pehna for now. Like I said, the work is hard but we are moving forward. Elder Mitchell and Elder Conde were transferred. Elder Conde is now a Zone Leader for Serra and Elder Mitchell is a District Leader in Rio de Janeiro! We have one Zone at the top of Rio that is in our mission. I am way excited for them! They are awesome missionaries and I miss having them here.

Wednesday we visited with a lot of our new investigators and it was a pretty good day. I have learned that I do not like it when Brazilians make a tsk tsk sound and then they wiggle their finger at you like you are a little kid. I don’t particularly care for it but I guess that’s just one of those things you have to let roll off.  

Thursday was just an interesting day. I learned something that I really didn’t want to learn. So our house is having more sewage issues and I do not do well with smells at all!!! So I get Elder Torres so we can go talk to the owner again but before we leave Elder Torres asks me "Elder you aren’t flushing toilet paper are you??"

"Only the ones that that I wipe with!" I tell him.

Well…he goes on to explain that here in Brazil you wipe yourself, take the toilet paper and THROW IT IN THE TRASH CAN.... WHAT?!?!? Well I can tell you all right now that we are going to continue to have plumbing problems because I psychologically can NOT do that!! That is really messed up!

Friday we were able to visit with one of our investigators but we had to have a quick lesson because we had a wedding that we were invited to. The lesson went ok but then the wedding was awesome!!

Saturday was not good!!! Everyone we had set up appointments with fell through. It was a little frustrating because not only did we not get to meet with our investigators but we had walked so far! We walked from Maria Otiz to the neighborhood past Praia do Canto which is about 5 miles one way. But while walking we saw a man get off his Motor cycle and he was wearing a RUBBER SUIT.  It was really funny! After that Sister Regina made us cupcakes which were awesome!! She takes way good care of us!!

Last night while we were sleeping someone broke into our apartment AGAIN!!! It was pretty scary to think that they came in while we were sleeping. They took Elder Santos's suitcase and backpack and we don’t have an iron yet again. But, we truly were blessed that he didn’t come into our rooms and take other things or even worse, hurt us!! I love the lord and I am grateful for everything that he has taught me and the blessings that I have received from all of this!!

Well that was the extent of our exciting week! I cannot wait to have conference this week! I am so excited to hear the new instructions that the Prophet and Apostles will be giving us during these next sessions!!! Well I love you all and know that you are all in my prayers!!!

Love,
Elder Stilson

 

Elder Tanner Nelson - #3

Elder Tanner Nelson

Hi mom, dad, family, and everyone -

 

I haven’t seen Mav or Taylor yet, but I have no clue when they got here. I have a funny story for you!  On Tuesday, when all the greenies were supposed to come in, there was a monsoon here. We went outside to play volleyball for gym, porque nosotros jugamos al volleyball cada dia por gimnasio (um.....did he mean to say that in Spanish?....just wondering?), and the weather was fine. Then as soon as we started playing, it started to rain. And not just rain. I think it was probably the biggest rainstorm I have ever seen!!!!!!!  After two minutes we were soaked, and we played for an hour!!!  It was really one of the best times I've had here! And it rained until about 7 like that!!!!!!!!!!  But because of that, no greenies came in that night. I think they had to fly to a safe airport for the night or something. So I think they came in yesterday, but I haven’t seen them yet!

We got to go to the temple this morning, and I actually understood alot of what they said! It's about an hour drive away, and let me tell ya, I'm not sure if I would feel safer with me controlling a car or a native driving...its crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! People get within an inch and a half of each other, and it's kind of freaky!!!!!!! 

My Spanish is coming, I can say a lot of stuff if I have a sec to think about it.  Its getting harder to write and say English words because we're supposed to be thinking in Spanish...and even though we aren’t fluent, it still messes with our minds!

We've been learning about the Atonement a lot recently, and how it can help us so that we can apply it and then help investigators apply it.  It's been really cool, because I was really homesick the other day, but after reading some scriptures (Alma 7:11) and watching videos, I felt much better! The other day the language computer program, wasn’t working, so we watched mormon messages instead. I watched the one about Sid Going and what he gave up to go on a mission, and then what he got back from going on a mission, and that really helped me feel at peace too.

We pray about 30 times a day, in Spanish, and that’s a little spiritual in and of itself ;)

Love you guys! 

Sister Courtnee Wood - Life in Laoag Part 2

Zone Conference - Sister Wood and her MTC companion Sister Ulu'ave

Welll what do ya know... it is P-Day again! So I am sure a lot of you heard about the typhoon that went through here. It was actually a pretty big storm. Pretty impressive mother nature is! BUT the sad thing is, because of it, we couldn't have our baptism. So we are shooting for next week! Kinda lame, but that's okay! 

The power just randomly goes out here so you've always got to be ready especially at night time. Last night I was out talking to Sister Brewer (they are our neighbors) and all of a sudden the lights go out and it is pitch dark EVERYWHERE. So yeah, that was a tough one finding my way back inside. I am starting to have dreams in tagalog. Which is a pretty good sign. I need all the help I can get... so at least I am hearing the language even when I sleep! 

This week we had zone conference, and it was AWESOME! We learned so much. I loved it. Plus, we got to see tons of people, so I got to see my peeps from the MTC! Made me so happy. :) 

This week is transfer week. Which means for me, I have 6 weeks to prepare myself to be able to train since that is what I will be doing in November! I am way excited, I can't lie. 

I love being a missionary. It is the greatest thing in the world, but there come some frustrations with it as well. The power of the Spirit is an incredible thing. And I love when our investigators feel it. The other day we were teaching the sweetest young single mom named Pronaline who is so smart. We were teaching the restoration, and it was super powerful. After we shared the Restoration and first vision, she told us that she had goose bumps and knew it was the spirit. Yet, she still said she didn't believe it. WHAT IN THE WORLD? SERIOUSLY? I wanted to go crazy! Because she felt the Spirit so strong!!! Don't worry, we will work on her. She will realize sooner or later :) 

So I made it a goal to read the whole book of mormon this transfer. I started it when I got here and finished it a couple of days ago. I want everyone to know that I have a testimony of that book. I know it is the most correct book on the earth. I love the power of the book of mormon, and the role it plays in my life. Whenever I read it, I always feel strength. And as a missionary, I need that strength more than ever. I know for a fact that it contains all of the things we need to know to live with our heavenly father again. 

Well, I am so sorry this letter is short! Haha I cant even concentrate. THis computer shop is playing Ed Sheeran.....enough said. Have an amazing week! I would love to hear from everyone. :) 

- Sister Wood

PS: GOOD LUCK IN YOUR GAMES COUGS!!! 

Sister Wood and their investigator Joey, his Nanay and cousin - Look at that tiny lady next to Sister Wood

Sister Wood's favorite Filipino dessert - halo halo

a local doing their laba (laundry) in the river

Sister Wood out on an early morning jog and stopped to take another random cow picture