Iraqi Brussels

Bonjour!! 

How's it going?! I'm doing just dandy out here! Things are going really well. This week was really good, I seriously love working so much. Soeur Poznanski gave a little training about how the mission accomplished all their goals last year accept 1, Finding Families. It's easier to find a single immigrant person who will get baptised, but she said we need to find young, belgian/french families who will stay strong and fortify the church in the future. So me and Elder Wilson made that our goal! We set most of out rdv's for the afternoon or morning so we could use as much of the evening as possible knocking doors to find these people. We haven't found them yet, but that just means we need to keep going and work harder. Will you guys pray that we will be lead to a young, belgian family who is searching for the gospel and will strengthen the church? That would be much appreciated! Families are so cool. I'm so greatful for you all. How cool is it that we get to be together forever? I'm stoked about it! Thanks for being such an awesome family, I love ya. 

Speaking of families, about half the people in our ward are American. I don't know if I already told you that, but I'll just say it anyways. They all work for Nato and the EU and stuff and one of them invited us over for dinner last night, it was glorious. The H, they're from Washington, have a few little boys and he like organized the US missle defense system, way cool. They live in a small castle, no joke, and they fed us burgers, hot dogs and ROOT BEER. It was like manna from Heaven! In liquid form! I forgot how much I loved root beer. French people hate it! Which is so bizarre, but it was super good. Go USA. 

Also where I live is so nutz. It's like they took a little peice of Iraq and just set it down in the middle of Brussels. So. many. arabs. Sometimes they are really nice and give us rides to the store and on the way try to convert us, and sometimes the women are afraid of us and they kind of nonchalantly shield their children from us, and sometimes they circle us in their cars and scream death threats out the window, but they say "on tue les témoigne jehovas démaine!" which means "we kill the jehovas witnesses tomorrow!". Lots of people think we are ti's (Jehovah's Witnesses), but we usually get to tell them we're not. But it's nice and exciting here! 

Our investigators are doing really well. We have a couple that could be ready for baptism, but they just have those little problems that stop them. We teach an African family who are really cool, and at one point the dad had a date! Until we learned that the mom and dad aren't married, so we're working on that one! Also we've found recently some old converts that haven't had contact with the church for x amount of years, who also want their dozens of children to be baptised, so we're working with them! The Christian preacher guy had to go to London for a week, but we've taught him  twice and he really wants to keep learning and take us to get waffles. If you have any wedding slash children teaching advice, let me know ;) 

Weight update: staying steady at  65 kilos, so not gaining anymore. If I keep this up, I may just come home recognizable. 

I love you all so much! Write me a letter! Did you girls get my letters from last week?! I hope so. Let me know how every one is doing! Don't get married or get tattoos or break any of the commandments. Do some good! Share the gospel with someone. Je vous aime, bonne semaine! 

Elder Wood

Belgium!

Hello from Belguim!! 

This week had some pretty huge changes! I'm in Belgium and it is SO Cool!!!  I'll answer some of mom's questions right off the bat. My new comp in Elder Wilson, he's a quietly awkward, hilarious dude. He's been out about 10 months and is a great missionary, we're gonna be great friends. My new area is called Stombeek, but really it's just the northern half of Brussels. Brussels is. the. BEST. I love it so much. We moved into a new appartment the day I got here and it's a dang palace. HUGE. Like 4 times the size of the Antony apartment. And we live with 2 other elders! Elder Davis and Elder Player and they rock a ton. Elder player is brand new from the mtc! Cool guys. Our apartment is right across the street from a huge cool park where they have concerts all the time. The other day some black dude was rapping for an audience of 15 for like 3 hours. It rocked. The ward here is super cool too. The EU, United Nations and some other world wide thing and NATO are all based in Brussels, more than half of our ward is American!! It was super weird to go to church and sing English hymns, and I bore my testimony/introduced myself once in English then once in French. All the meetings have translators and stuff. Pretty different experience, but really awesome as well! Everyone, Belge or american, is really cool. Also they have a ward missionary feeding calender, so we eat with them tons. Also yes, Belguim is pretty cold. It's so far north that it doesn't get dark at night! I woke up at like 2 in the morning and it was still like sunset, pretty cool! Also Belguim is the most diverse country in the world! There are TONs of Arab people and tons of African people and a little tiny bit of Belgian people. But the people that are from Belguim are super nice and a little fatter then French people. But over all it seriously is so so great here, I love it! I know we're going to see lots of miracles. Also my new address is this:

Les Missionnaires (Elder Wood) 

Avenue des Gloires Nationales 11

1081 Koekelberg

Belgium

This week we did lots of house keeping kind of things, like clean and make our apartment habitable, then just started teaching and finding people! Knocking appartment building doors is SO FUN. Not being sarcastic, it's my favorite thing to do.  You get to talk to tons of people, and if one person shuts the door there is another one just right there, and it's a lot more successful than street contacting! Also our aim's (investigators)  here are really great. I've only met a couple of them, but they rock and I really love them! 

Personally, I am doing so, so good. It's a new transfer, new ville, new everything! I love new stuff, it's just a way cool opportunity to just start over and set new goals and just do better! A huge part of the mission is just improving yourself everyday and always trying to be better and better and work harder and harder. That's what I'm here to do. I'm so gratefull just to be here on a mission and be able to do this work! It rocks so much! 

Also, yes, I did get the package from Grandma. Do you guys know what she did? She didn't have time to unpack the goodies, so she gave the suitcase to a cab driver and had him bring it to the chappel in Paris, and he did! So now I have 4 suit cases that I dont know what I'm going to do with, and also so much good cereal and American snacks. Thank you guys so much for sending that, you and Grandma all rock. And one other thing I feel like I should tell you; remember my indestructible Missionary Mall luggage? The handle on the big one bent right off. So, I'll probably have to just pick up a new one before I get transferred again, or was there some kind of warranty or something? But ya, just fyi, not a biggie.

That's about all for this week! Just working hard and having tons of fun. I love you guys! I'll try and write you back today!! I'm so grateful for you all! Have a good week!! 

Elder Wood

Transfer?

Howdy ya'll!

     -Elder Tryon (my new friend from Texas who told me to do this)

You guys rock so much. Our family is so cool and blessed. I was reading A Family: A proclamaiton to the world, during personal study the other day and I read all the principles that a family should be founded upon. I was able to go throu

gh and think of how our family is founded on each of them! It was pretty cool to recognize how blessed our family is. You guys should do that for FHE. The three principles that I think our family is founded the most upon are forgiveness, love and wholesome recreational activities. (that last one kind of cracks me up, but it's eternally important nonetheless. #scripturewords)

This week was absolutely, just totally out of control. I will explain it to you day by day:

Monday. P day. It was good, not much happened.

Tuesday: Nutz. We got to district meeting in Paris. All was seemingly well until the meeting actually started. After about 3 minutes my district leader got in a huge argument with this spanish sister, they screamed French that I didn't understand, she left. He stayed, and when she came back he said "okay everyone, thank you for your service, I am going home. Have a good mission." He sternly patted me on the back, got his stuff and left. The zone leaders continued to chase him around Paris, into his apartment where he called his friend in Bordeaux and packed his bags. Eventually we all had to go to Versailles, we didn't get home until about 6, had no rdv's planned so we just contacted, nuts.

Wednesday: normal day, did tons of finding and for some weird reason nobody would answer our calls. But is was good.

Thursday: Went to Belguim for legality. Belgium was so so so so cool and i ate tons of food. I took several pictures and realised that my cheeks were looking a little chubby. turns our ive gained about 15 pounds, give or take 1 or 2. NBD. Came home from Belgium,  it was again like 6, so we didnt have much work on this day.

Friday: Started good, went contacting and everything went good. 

Saturday: Normal day.

Sunday: Nutz again, but this time with miracles. Stake Conference was in the morning at Versailles, basically in the castle and it was super cool. Tons of people were there and my mission president spoke, along with the stake president and 2 members of the 70, including Elder Patrick Kearon, who gave the talk about the scorpions a few conferences ago, if you remember it. It's one of my favorite talks. His talk in the conference was really good, then afterwards I got to meet him and talk to him for a while. SUPER COOL!! Then we went home, ate lunch, and this man called us and said " when is your church?" We told him next sunday, and he asked if we could meet with him that night. We got to the  church, and he just told us he had attended church for 2 years in Madagascar and wanted to be baptised. So, we fixed a date with him for the 7th of July in 2 weeks!! It was so so crazy. His name is S.

So that was last week,  crazy right? Then, this morning, I got a phone call. I'm getting transfered to a place called Stombeek in Belgium!!! I'm so, so so excited!! Also a bit sad, because I won't be able to see our investigators get baptised, but they are getting baptised either way so it's okay, and Belgium is going to be so so awesome!! I'll send you my address next week!!

Thats about it for this crazy week! I feel like my letters are like really sporatic(?), but I just can't ever keep my mind straight haha. But I love you all!! Thank you so much for the little package and the letters and everything you do for me. You rock so much. Also Mom, about the missionary thing and inviting people to the house with the missionaries: just do it. How I look at it is,, this is literally the most important message in the universe, in all eternity. If you love these people, you'll want to share it with them! The lord expects us to do our best, but also to DO these things that he has asked us. I know you can do this and you will receive countless blessings if you do so!! You can do it! Take your concerns to the Lord, then do as he asks. I love you so so so so much!!!!!!

Thank you for everything!! Have a great week!

Elder Wood :)

The one with the battle...

Hey Family!!

Haha, those pictures of us eating.. that's really funny. I love me a good eating picture montage.

Things here are going well!! But, I will tell you something. Mom, it's interesting that you said you missed me extra this week, because this week I probably had the hardest day that I've had on my mission thus far. #mommysenses. I feel like I should not really say many details, but I'll just say that me and my comp sat down for about 4 hours and just battled. I literally have never felt so lost.. I had absolutely no idea what to do, so I just cried for a sec, and prayed that the Lord would soften our hearts, and He did. It took a chunk our of our day, but after the battle, we ended up working things out, and ended up getting some work done. I'm really grateful for these difficulties that we are given, for trials of our faith. This was perhaps the largest trial of faith I've ever had in my life! But because of that day, and the rest of this transfer, I have no fear or doubt that with the Lord, I can do anything. But, even though I had maybe the hardest day, I also had one of the best days! I met M. Russell Ballard! Haha, it seriously was so cool. I just laugh when I think about it. I shook hands with an apostle of the Lord, and he taught me. SO COOL!!!! He talked about being a "Preach my Gospel" missionary, and the power of that book and how it has all the answers. He read out of John 14 and just analyzed it for us, it was so cool. It was like, how is he pulling all this info out of the scriptures? But then it.. it's all just right there! We just have to read them! It was such a huge blessing and a cool experience. And that picture of us and him is like.. 7 zones. Our zones have like 10 people a piece. so ya.

Other than that, our work is going really well! We teach more and more every week, and A is still getting baptised on the 30th. She came to church and the ward just absorbed her, we didn't have to do anything! It was super cool to see, the members here are SO focused on missionary work. Not only does it make things easier for the missionaries, but it makes work more successful also! You asked how we do a lot of our finding, and it's mostly talking to people on the street and knocking doors in apartment buildings. But, strangely enough, the two people that have been/will be baptised were referals from members. Members really are the way so be successful! We just try to work with them a ton, whenever we meet with someone we try to always have a member. So, find someone that the missionaries can teach! Invite them over to eat with an investigator! The French is coming along pretty well too. It's not like super good, sometimes the meaner french people say rude things because my accent (which is mostly just funny rather that offensive) but I can understand basically everything, make phonecalls and fix rdv's, and also I do a lot of the talking during lessons. It's really fun actually.. I really love speaking French, so that makes it a lot easier to just want to talk and learn more and more!

This week I also got to put my soccer skills to the test against some French street youths at an Elders quorum activity. I definitely made a fool of myself, but I got a couple compliments, "bien joué" or well played, you know, the uszh (usual). I think I earned a couple of respect points. #sports #america

This coming week is gonna be pretty fun. I'm going on an exchange with an actual Frenchman, then on Thursday I'm going to Belgium to get my legality, then Sunday is the end of the transfer and I'll know if I'm leaving or staying! I had a dream that I was going to Versailles, so that would be really cool if I went there. But also in the dream, I had 12 companions and Gandolf was there.. so I don't know. Also tell Ernie congratulations and I'll see him in a few months!! That's super cool! Maybe I'll even train him. Whoa! 

Fun fact; my hair goes the opposite way now. I dont know why, it just changed it's mind and went the other way, now the cowlick battle is just out of control so that's pretty neat. Also, I sent my ipod home a couple weeks ago so you guys could put some new music on it! Did that happen? Also if you want to send some Lucky Charms, that would be fun.

Alright, that's about it for this week.  I love you guys! I'm writing you all letters back today, so be prepared for some awesome words of wisdom and French slang. I love you!

Elder Wood

*These are some of the pictures Josh was referring to in the beginning of the letter.  His mission President's wife, Sister Poznanski, for some reason, always takes a picture of Josh when he is eating something!  They are always eating, it seems.  Pretty funny!

Hello all!

Family!!

Hello all! Haha, I can't believe you got Carley a car. Sososo cool. haha it looks sweet! And the house is St. George, holy cow!!! That's so nuts. Tell them I will be very upset if they sell the cabin though, but good choice with the house boat.  But thank you for keeping me updated always!

Mom: The package just arrived in the Visitors center last week, so I'm gonna pick it up today. No worries. Sorry I never responded to that question, haha.

Also to answer some other questions! Things with Elder A are going well. We may have been in several heated arguments, but all is well now. Most of the time he just recited some sort of Shakespeare-or-something play to me while I try to speak French to him, but he refuses to speak French with me so I honestly have no idea if my French is good or not! But oh well, he is a nice person and really just want to do good. Which kind of tells you how my French is going; I really don't know. I think it's getting better, and also I can understand it more! Which is really good, I can only get better from here! I study really hard though and just speak as much as I can. My knees are doing well, now it's my back! I'm getting a little out of shape honestly. I use my workout time in the morning to the best of my ability, but I don't have anyone to run with so I can't work off all the food I eat! Which is another thing; I have gained this ability to just eat gigantic amounts of food. More than I ever have before. I am always hungry. I don't know if this means I'm growing up or just out, but still, I'm growing. And also I just heard from Sister Gledhill today!! Her email is waiting to be opened, but I assume she is doing really so great. Actually I'm pretty positive of it.

What is ratchet?

Carley and Erin and Lizzy, I heard of this French girl that I think you might like to listen to, even though it's in French. Coeur de Pirate (heart of a pirate) look her up!

Oh and I thought of some things you could send! 

-american floss

-cholula

-pictures

-a new smallish french dictionary

-ties

-music! such as: Alex Boye, Mindy Gledhill, EFY cd's, Lower Lights and Nearer albums, other church songs.

-peanut butter

-other candies but not too much cause I don't want to continue gaining weight

Work is going well. We are teaching more and more, and we set a baptismal date with this lady named A! She is African, and Africans love Jesus so much. She is really cool and I really think she is going to go through with everything! Also we've been inviting Chris to come teach with us lately which has been super, super cool. He has so much knowledge of the church already and is very eager to share and testify! Despite the language barrier, he really has become a very good friend of mine and I'll miss him a lot when I have to leave Antony. We do a lot of finding, and I'm getting better at it, I think. I've started putting into practice the "Teach when you find, find when you teach" idea, where as soon as I meet someone, I just testify and try to teach kind of a mini- lesson so they can have a chance to feel the spirit, and always, always asking for a referral. It really has made a difference in our work! Also guess what? on the 11th we're going to have a conference with Elder M. Russell Ballard! So cool huh? I'm super excited to get to meet him and hear all his advice! Also I've just started reading my old replica Book of Mormon and it's been really cool. It really is just like reading a story book. 1 Nephi 13 is a super cool chapter, it talks about the pilgrims coming to America and the Revolutionary war, and all this cool stuff about American History! It is really cool to see how much the Lord really is involved in our lives and how he has given us so many blessing in the Promised Land. Also, in the next few chapters afterwards, Nephi has some trouble with his bow and his brothers trying to kill him and he gets asked to build a ship, pretty huge things, but you know where he always goes to find answers and help? The Mountain, or the Temple. Unlike the members in France who have a good 3 hours to the nearest temple, you are like 15 minutes away from 3 different ones!! Thats such a blessing! Go to the temple together.

Autumn: Thank you so much for your messages! I wish I could go to your dance recital, I miss you and love you very much. I'll write you a letter back today and guess who the painter was that you were talking about! Also if you have any math questions, you can write me a letter and I'll try to answer them.  Good luck with school and I love you!

I miss you all and love you very much! Thank you for all the things youve done for me! Have a really good week, Carley, have fun partying for the next 3 days, cause seriously, it's gonna be awesome, you all rock so much. Write me letters, and I'll talk to you next week!!

Love Elder Wood

short but sweet

Dear Family,

I just wrote you a big fat nice email, and the whole thing got deleted. This is the worst! So, I am just going to sum everything up, and I will write you a better email next week.

Work is going really good! We have been just finding like crazy lately, and this week our finding efforts are going to pay off. We met a couple people who I really think will be baptised. Including this one lady named A. We got her phone number from a member named Ya Gaston (awesome name) and he told us she wants to be baptised. When I called her and told her it was the missionaries, she just started laughing and yelling because she was so excited and she set the quickest rendez-vous possible. Also remember the investigator that got baptised, C? I gave him the preisthood yesterday! It was really cool and spiritual, and he later told me that I was really important to him and that he had wanted me to give him the preisthood for a long time. Also he is planning and preparing to serve a mission! He's so cool and he is a huge testimony builder to me of the Lords love for us. Alme 29: 9-10 explains perfectly how I feel.

Elder A is boss. We are co comps, which means he is not my trainer. We got in a few arguments this week, but its cool now. It's cool to see that even though we are very different, the Lord had given us both strength to keep working hard and overcome our differences to accomplish our goals. He is a really good guy and I like him a lot.

Autumn, hello :) I love you too. I guess its a slippin' slide! Am I right? Tell grandma and grandpa not to sell the cabin, there are too many family memories up there. Write me a letter!

To see grandma and grandpa on the 23rd would be great, but super super difficult. It's Stake Conference that day in Versailles, so I'll be about an hour outside of Paris, and it's also the last day of the transfer, which would mean that if I have to go somewhere I'll have to pack, which is super possible. Tell them they can still call President Poznanski if they want, but lunch would be very difficult.

I'm really sorry this letter is short and has little info, the other one was super good, but alas, it is gone. I love you all so much and I will write you again next week! Thank you for raising me in the Gospel. I love you guys.

Elder Wood

2nd Transfer homie!

Hello Family!!

Mom, Thank you so much for your email and update on Brooke's farwell and everything you shared about the scriptures! I love those chapters. And the Alma 31 verse 5 scripture is so good! That's one we share with less active members to get them to come to church. So good job!

So, as you know, some crazy stuff has been going down in the mission with all the new missionaries and what not. So after 6 weeks of training, I am now co comping it up with Elder A! He loves the Matrix, which he regularly quotes to me, he actually does speak fluent Latin, and he wants to be a lawyer. He is very serious and just ready to get to work. Which is really cool. We are gonna do some work this transfer!

Me being a total noob still, and him not knowing the area at all, we've had some interesting times trying to find our way around. One night, we only had about 30 more minutes of work, so I thought we'd just take a short walk around town and try and find someone to teach. I turned left at the little town hall place, thinking we were still headed in the right direction. After walking for a while things started looking unfamiliar, until we found ourselves in a small town called Cachan, which is just really, really far away from our apartment. I laughed and just decided, what can we do but try to find our way back?! But, unfortunately, Elder A was not too pleased. We had had a bit of an argument earlier that day, so emotions were running high, and he just became very angry. Not at me though, just at himself for not saying anything. We started making our way home in an awkward, happy/angry way, and I just didnt know what to do. He was just super ticked. So, after looking over my "how to cheer people up knowledge", I did what any Jim Halpert fan would do. Without looking up or at him, I just started singing. "Awimba-way, awimba-way, Awimba-way, awimba-way.." I continued for a minute or so, not knowing if it would work, but soon enough I heard a timid "in the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight.." We sang and marched our way home, and Elder A was angry no more.  I'm glad we spent all that time watching The Office together. Thank you, Jim.

Other than that everything is going good!! The first week in always a killer because you lose a couple days of work, but this week we are really just going to be able to hit the ground running and find some new people to teach!

Sorry I don't have a lot of time today, and this is really short! But I love you all so much. Thank you for always being such a good family to me. I am very blessed. And dad, where is my letter eh?

Bonne Semaine, je vous aime!

Elder Wood