Week 46

Hello, Everyone!!!!

Ahh, much excitement has happened this week so I'm just going to dive right in!

Oh, and as the subject of this email says, Wisconsin has reached an entire 22 degrees! It's been in the 30s and 40s. Hotness!

First I'll start off by mentioning that one of the Elders butt-dialed the police last week while we were helping the Vazquez family move. Hilarious!!! Apparently they showed up before we got there. And it happened again this week! (There is a button on our phones that calls 911 instantly). The funniest part is that it keeps happening but they haven't yet shared a pass-along card with the cops. Haha, I guess they need to keep coming back! :P

We donated a HUGE amount of bubbly water to the Salvation Army. Three big boxes of it. The captain lady was so excited, I thought she might wet herself. :P Haha. For those of you who don't know this story, some family members have innocently sent me tons of sparkling water in the past, but I haven't been able to drink any because it contains green tea which is against the Word of Wisdom. So, we decided to put it to good use. :)

At the Salvation Army this week I was invited to do something I've never done before in my entire life: cut up whole chickens!! That's right, with a big butcher's knife and everything. It was quite messy! Lots of blood and the knife wasn't super sharp so I had to clang it down on the table lots to break the bones apart. Oh, and of course I did this in a skirt! ;) I didn't mind it too much, actually. It was kind of exciting. :P We were making fried chicken. I think Sister Peel was glad she chose to do the breading part. 

So there I was. Serving food at the Salvation Army, like I do every week. It makes me feel like a lunch lady. :) Then this guy, Jacob, had talked to me a few weeks ago. He was asking us all these questions about what our missions are like, what we believe, what I was doing before my mission, etc. He also had asked some questions about what Bible we use. I explained about the Book of Mormon and he said he already had a copy. It was a good conversation. It seemed like he was interested in the Gospel. Now there I was serving him his food on the tray and I asked him if there was anything else he wanted (food-wise!). Then he says: "No. But I'll take your number!" Ahhhh! I told him I could but it would be on a pass-along card and he should call if he's interested in learning more. He didn't seem as excited about that. :P I told Sister Peel: "And I was thinking he wanted to learn about the Gospel!!! Dx" Bahaha. It's funny to me how this happens to missionaries! And not really at any other time in my life. Go figure!

We had lots of fun playing chair soccer with the Elders in the morning at the church this week. We've started a new tradition where we go to the gym together in the  morning while seminary is going on.  It got a little crazy! But so much fun!!! The seminary kids came in to join us (perhaps because we were getting a little boisterous) AND we were invited in to have breakfast with them!!! AND to make it even better, it was breakfast casserole!!! I died. xD 

We also had a fun time going on secret missions for Sister Moffitt who got released from the hospital last week.  She's got a breathing tube and is pretty homebound so no more gigs for a while. But anyway, she had us go and retrieve some medicine she had left behind, with her birthday, of course, so they would know we aren't just spies (though we felt like it!) stealing medicine. Then she had us go grocery shopping for her. It was pretty adventurous! :) We love her. The Wintry Day is her favorite so I told her I would wait until I could play it with her. 

Ahhh and this week I tossed the phone to Sister Peel and it landed in some hummus. Then... she licked it!!!!!!!! Ahhh I died! For those of you who know me you can imagine this was hard for me !!! (don't put this in my blog,okay? :PP)

I really like Sister Peel. We make a great team! 

One more funny story then I'll go into the powerhouse part of our week! :) (You might also edit this story out of here?) 

We were at the Bishop's house having a Missionary Moment! That's right. This was the premiere week. So they had invited over a less-active older couple who loved to talk on and on and on about the military (that's very common for old people in Wisconsin. Actually, going on and on and on is common for ANYONE in Wisconsin!! No wonder they sent me here. I don't love to talk. :P) and they ended up staying from 6 until 10:30!!!! We, thankfully, escaped much sooner than that, after we shared a good message about the importance of the "small and simple things" (i.e. scripture study, prayer and church attendance.) As a whole the evening went really well and this couple had been thinking about returning to church!! So this was very helpful. 

So for dessert we had brownies with pretzels, chocolate chips and hard carmel on top. A very rich dessert! So the carmel was pretty tough and I had tried and tried to cut it with my fork (as my mother has insisted that good young ladies SHOULD do). Well, everyone noticed that after 3 minutes of failed attempts I had not yet succeeded. So they were staring at me, expecting me to do something about it. So I stuffed the giant piece of carmel in my mouth!!! Bahahaha. The bishop's wife thought it was pretty funny. She said: "Good for you!!!xD" Needless to say it was the best bite ever, and it even took my Lacey-sized mouth up for a challenge.

In short, Paige is doing very well and so is her husband! They actually had a freaky experience this past week. The adversary likes to work extra hard on people right before their baptisms and that's what happened here. There was a very awful, horrible feeling in their home. Paige called it a demon. But it was causing lots of contention and bad feelings in their home, causing them to not want to go to church. Nevertheless, they persisted through it and went to church anyway and sought out a priesthood blessing and a prayer to cast it out from Brother Thompson (Paige's father-in-law). After that, they said it was gone! Freaky. It was a neat experience for both of them. They both were able to see the power of the priesthood in action! It caused Andy to want to work towards obtaining the Melchizedek priesthood. It was really neat for us to be able to hear about this and to be able to show Paige that opposition always comes before great things! We showed her what happened to Joseph Smith specifically, how he also faced darkness and the adversary before Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ appeared. Cool! :) They are both on fire and gave us a really great referral!!!!! 

We had a powerhouse lesson with Vere this week. That's the best way to sum it up. We were planning on going in there and being bold by helping him understand that he needs to pray and ask God if the Book of Mormon is true if our lessons and discussions are to go any further. It can be very difficult to be super bold. It's scary, it's uncomfortable. It doesn't matter! I went in there, and the Spirit completely took over. I have never had such a powerful lesson, nor have I ever been so bold with an investigator. We explained to him exactly what it would mean for him if he were to ask God this all-important and life-changing question. He would need to follow the answer he receives completely and change any habits or lifestyle choices, anything to follow the direction he recieves. We told him he would need to be baptized into Christ's church. At first he was hesitant, wasn't really interested in "converting" just "going through the book." His Anglican traditions are what he grew up with and are very important to him. We spoke things, ideas came in our minds that we had never thought of. We told him that these truths helped prepare him to receive the restored Gospel. Sister Peel was super bold, too! The Spirit was so strong! We read 2 Nephi 32 with him (it was funny he was like: " I see what's going on here. This relates to me!") Haha. Coincidence? I think not. :) Anyway, we talked with him about what it means to "feast" on the words of Christ, and especially about how the devil teaches us not to pray (verse 8).  We asked him why the devil wouldn't want him to pray about the Book of Mormon. In the end, we all kneeled down to pray and after he had finished, the spirit was strong! He looked taken aback, surprised by it. I really, really, truly hope he will be persistent and will receive his answer! If not, then perhaps I wrote all this for nothing. I know he will get an answer if he is persistent. I hope he will have the faith and persistence to follow it once the answer does come.  (For those of you who might have no idea what I'm talking about, there is a specific promise to anyone who reads the Book of Mormon. It's found in Moroni 10:3-5. It basically says that anyone can read the Book of Mormon and if they will ask God if it's true, with a sincere desire to know, they can receive an answer by the power of the Holy Ghost that it is true. This is the task we are encouraged to do in order to gain a testimony that our church is true before one joins.) No matter what happens, this was a cherished experience for me! If you feel inclined to pray for him, please do! :)

Other than that, we helped a family move this weekend and had fun visiting some people that live out in Princeton (really far away from Oshkosh.) I really love the ward members here in Oshkosh! I don't ever want to leave. 

I know that this work is true!!! 

Love you all!!!

Sister Woods