Hello family and friends! 

Have you ever seen the mormon message with the prospector who leaves his home to go look for gold?? He searches around for gold for days and just doesn't find what he wants, so he has a dramatic/kind of funny moment when he throws a rock in the the river and yells,"Theres no gold here!!" Then, an older prospector comes along and helps his realise that he shouldn't be looking for huge nuggets of gold, but just the little tiny flakes, and the prospector finds what he was looking for all along. 

This week i totally had a "Theres no gold here!!" moment. We've been working and working and just havent been able to find the people we're looking for. I was just frustrated and worried and kind of embarrassed that we werent succeeding how I wanted. Finally though I just was humbled, and asked Heavenly Father for some help. Sometimes our desires to go good and help and succeed are so big that we dont count the little successes that we are having. So I went back through the week and just tried to count our miracles and this is what i found!: 

-We ported into an old investigator who said she is again interested in taking the lessons. 

-We helped a less active member take down her wall paper, service rules. 

-We got several referrals from members and a random woman who had received a brochure a long time ago called and wants to meet up with us! 

-We spent a day with two young men in the branch and talked to them about preparing for their missions. 

And there was just a lot of little gold flakes like that that had happened that I had missed. The Atonement is such a great thing because it allows us to start over and do better no matter when, no matter what! I am so grateful for this power and opportunity that I have to use the Atonement in my life and to help others do the same. I love being a missionary, and i love our Savior so much! 

So, the old Prospector showed me how to be grateful and find the little flakes, and now everything is great! Everything is golden, i guess you could say  and we are going to have a killer week! Also, last miracle of the week, we found some apartments to tract out and the parking lot was full of kittens!  They are too fast to be touched, but thats probably good because i am too allergic to be touching kittens. So voila, that was the week. Thank you for your prayers and all that you do, go share the gospel this week! 

Love, 

Elder Wood