Miracles in Liege

Hola Hola! 

Apart from the occasional trash can fire in the park, the only thing really on fire in Liège is the missionary work! Things are going so so well! I'm SO happy with some of the things that we've got going on in our branch and with the zone and everything, we've just been seeing miracles all over the place. It's probably thanks to Elder L because I think he is the most faithful person I've met before, but, let me tell you about some of this week's funtivities. 

Friday we had our interveiws with President Poznanski! Each time he teaches me something that gives my like 150 extra motivation points and work gets done all over the place! The sincere care and love one man can have for 260 plus missionaries is incredible, I'm not sure how he does it, but I sure did feel it! We talked about the zone and about how our work was going and towards the end he just looked at me and said "Well Elder Wood, this was our last interveiw!" WHAT?!! I was so shocked! It hadn't even crossed my mind that he would be leaving before I got to have another interview with him. It really has been such an honor to serve under him and Sister Poznanski and I love them a ton. You might want to wish them luck because they are moving to Germany so Pres. Poznanski can be the Seminary Coordinater over all of Europe! 

Then later friday night we had some finding time and we felt as if we should go over by the church. We knocked on a few doors and talked to some people but had little success, until the last man we talked to; (strange how it's always the last person) But, we walked passed him because it was time to get home but we felt like we should stop him, so we turned around and ran over to him and started talking. He told us he was in the middle of becoming a Témoigne Jehovah, so we talked to him about his faith in Christ and gave him a Plan of Salvtion brochure, then we asked if we could fix a rendez-vous with him but he said no, so we asked if we could at least close with a prayer and he said we could. Elder L. said a prayer and we asked the man how he felt and he said that he felt like he could feel the prayer, like it was tangible. We explained the Holy Ghost and how we can receive that feeling always if we are baptised and confirmed, we were going hard because we knew we needed to talk to this guy! We could see that he was very touched, but he still declined our invitation to meet another day. So, we headed home, went through our Saturday normally, then decided to go back around the church to do some porting with the extra time we had Saturday evening. We're knocking, knocking, no one would let us in. Then, the last door we knocked on, could you guess who it was? The man we had taught Friday night! He was really happy to see us and wondered how we found his house, but we didn't know how we found it either! Haha, it was just the Spirit who guided us there. But we taught him about the restoration and how it could bless him and his family. It was cool to see how he just listened to us and really took in the information. We again prayed and he was again very touched and recognized the Spirit, and we invited him to pray and ask God if he should listen to more of this message and he said he would, and we're going to pass by and see him this week! How neat is that??!! To be able to see the Spirit really touch the heart of someone and change them is such a cool experience, and every time I see that, I realize how powerful and loving our Heavenly Father really is and how much this message can change people. This really is His work!! Being a missionary RULES!!

That's just one of the petite miracles that happened this week! I will save the rest for Sunday when we get to talk on Skype! Speaking of which: I will be getting on at 3 o'clock, which will be about 7 a.m. chez vous, does that work?? Let me know and maybe we can make some last minute arrangements if you need, but I'm super excited to talk to you guys! 

That's about it for this week! Thank you for all your prayers and support, it really works! I love you and pray for you all the time and I hope you have a ballin' week. Bisous and I'll see you on sunday! :) 

Love,

Elder Wood

April 28, 2014

Whats up everybody! 

How's it going??! Sounds like things are pretty good! This week was out of control in good ol' Liège. My companion is such a champ. To answer some questions, his parents are from Haiti but he's lived in Boston his whole life. He wears a doo-rag in the mornings to keep his hair down and he has been on his mission for about 20 months. I will recount you some of the cool things we've been able to accomplish this week! 

We had 2 exchanges, so we only got about 4 total days of work in together, which is a miralce in itself that we got to teach and find so many people, but it started last Monday after emails. We were praying to have a missionary experience during our pday, and while we were waiting in line to get fries this cool girl named G came up and said hello to us. Her story, en breif, is this: She is from Rwanda and her parents were killed in the genocide, leaving her and her brother orphaned. She travelled around Africa in different foster homes then made her way to Belgium, where her and her brother lived for a while before moving to London. They never got adopted but they grew up together and out grew the adoption age in London, then they came back to Belgium again. She some how became the runner up for Belguims next top model, made lots of money by sharing her story all over the place, did lots of studies and is super smart, then met the sister missionaries in Liège, and accepted to be baptised! She was super busy so she didn't get baptised and lost contact with the church for a minute, then bam, she comes up and says hello to us in the friterie. So we go and sit down with her and talk for a while about her life and coming back into church, and she decided to re-take contact with the sisters this week. She is getting baptised this Sunday! How nuts is that? Talk about an answer to our prayers! Then on Friday, after weekly planning and before our branch council meeting we had about 3 solid hours of work to do but no real plans. We got on a random bus and talked to a really nice lady who said we could teach her son and her another day, and after talking to her, the bus stopped right in front of some apartment buildings where some investigators live. So we passed by their house and talked to them for a while about getting the lessons again and they said yes! Then we went to the building across the street that we had ported earlier, and another young family let us in and we taught then and they accepted to pray and let us come back. Then, Saturday, we had planned on passing by some less active members, and none of them were there! They had all moved away or something, but the cool part was that outside of all their houses we taught different people who became new investigators who we are seeing this week! And Sunday was the same. Church was so good and the branch is so focused on missionary work. After church we and taught several of the people that we met previously this week, and also we had a really cool lesson with and old investigator and he is going to take the lessons again as well. So cool! 

I feel like that was a long string of random miracles, but thats what I feel like this week was! We a lot of cool people and had some really cool teaching experiences and we were guided by the spirit a lot this week. We thanked Heavenly Father after each miracle that we saw and I'm pretty sure that is one of the reasons why we kept seeing so many cool things happen, because we always focused on being thankful for the work and the people. Where else does this kind of cool stuff get to happen?! Only on the mission!! I love being a missionary so so much! It's so obvious that this is Heavenly Father's work and that this really is the Church of Christ. Elder L and I were talking about how  what we were doing was just like the bible and the book of mormon, just going out and teaching the people in the street and proclaiming the gospel, it really is the coolest thing you can do. I'm so excited for this transfer that I'll have with Elder L! 

Also just one thing, on the 11 of May I can skype you guys for Mothers day! (it is American mothers day that day, correct?) Anyways we've got a place to skype and it will probably be early in the morning for you guys on the main land, like towards 6 ish. Let me know if that works or if we should change anything. I love you guys! Have a super good week! A là prochaine! 

Love,

Elder Wood

April 21, 2014 - New Area

What is up Family!

Liège RULES!!! I'ts been a great few days so far! I had like 5 hours of train rides to get here last Wednesday, but when I finally got off the train in Brussels, I met my new baller of a companion, Elder L. He is from Belmont, Boston, he is Haitian, he loves rap music and basketball and is super nice and everyone is his best friend. We are gonna be such good friends. We headed to our luxurious appartment where I met Elder B. and Elder H. If you were wondering what Elder B. looks like, just picture a very young and skinny Mr. Beane with a missionary plaque on. Elder H. is only 18! It sometimes blows my mind to meet such young missionaries, but it's also so cool because they got to come so early and help with the work. What a good thing. Also, to my surprise, upon my arrival I met Sister Ashley Doyle! We serve in the same branch and it's cool but super weird to see a friend from high school here. She said one of the prayers in sacrament meeting and she was speaking French and everything, and it was just strange and cool, but it will be way fun to work here with all of them! There are 2 branches in Liège, and I serve in the Liège 1 branch with a set of sisters, and in the other branch is Elder B, Elder H and the other sisters. The members are so so cool! I've never been in a branch before, so I didn't know what to expect, but everyone is so close and there is a ton of love in the branch, truly like a little family. Easter was a great Sunday to come in because we were given so many waffles and actual hard boiled colored eggs to eat. Also, you know what we did? An Egg War! An old Wood family tradition! I've never met anyone in my life that has done it before until yesterday when our Bulgarian Branch mission leader named Krasimir held his egg out to me, and I knew eggxactly what to go. We also had a pretty cool miracle! We went contacting on Thursday night, and the first person that Elder L. and I contacted together was a super cool guy named Germain, and he ended up coming to church yesterday and he's coming to the single adults fhe tonight! We've really been yolking up all the time we have to find and to talk to everyone and its been going so well. It's gonna be a good few months serving here I think! 

I hope your week is full of after-easter magic and miracles. I love you! Thanks for all that you do! I am going to go eat something that I have missed for too long, a good old Belgian Waffle. à la prochaine! 

Love, 

Elder Wood

p.s. The pictures: 

1. Saying Goodbye at the the train station in Rennes

2. Elder T, Elder E. And I in Rennes

3. Saying Hello to my new comp Elder L.

Bonjour!

Ca va bien?? I'm pretty good. I'm trying to keep myself calm while sitting in this cyber cafe because I just found out... 

I'M GOING BACK TO BELGIUM!!!!!!!

I'm freaking out! Belgium again! Last time, I was in Brussels but this time I'll be serving in the beautiful city of Liege. I don't really know much about this place! Except for that it is the birth place of the liege waffle, which is the best thing ever, that it's supposed to be really pretty and that my comp is Elder Louis, from Boston. I am super excited to get out there! It's gonna be a long day of travel on Wednesday because it's almost the farthest away I can get from Rennes, but it's cool. I'm so so grateful for the time I've been able to serve in Rennes though and I'm sad to leave. My life really has changed a lot here and I've learned some lessons that will stay with me forever! I'm stoked to learn more in Liege! 

You know the Easter finding that I told you our mission is doing right now? Elder Turley and I have recently found 2 families because of it! I may have already told you but last week we found a lady named M, and we now are teaching her and her children, and this week we found a family from Sri Lanka! The fathers name is E and the mom is S. They are Christian and we went over to their house to share the Easter message with them. The Spirit is always to strong when you teach a family, and it surely was when we were at their house. They then invited us to eat some delicious Indian food with them last saturday night! I have never eaten so much in all my life, but it was super good. 

An interesting devolopment in our transportation story has unfolded this week as well. We only drive the car on Sundays to get to church on time, because there is no bus that could get us there before Sunday school. So, when we talked past the car on Saturday, the day before Sunday and 5 days after we had touched the car, we found it unlocked with the lisence plate on the dash board with a note that said "I found your car in the middle of the parking lot, call if you have any questions" WHAT??? We aren't really sure how this happened, but what is even nutser is that I lost the keys, so we couldn't lock the car. We had no idea at all what to do except pray, so we did! A lot. After lots of phone calls to the office and some further investigation we found out the car was dead as well, and that even the spare key from the office wouldnt lock it. Then, this Thursday, we decided to eat on our balcony. I looked out on the little field behind our building and on top of a wooden post on the side of the field, I saw a little black rectangle. We sprinted down and guess what it was?! The car keys! How did it get on the little post in the field? We have absolutely no idea. But, with the original keys we tried to start slash lock the car and it still didn't work, so we had some of our Nigerian mechanic amis come help us, and they figured out that the car computer was dead and needed to be restarted, so we're taking it in today. Wild. These are just some of the little side things that happen while the work still needs to progress! Luckily the Lord knows what he's doing, and the car problems can't stop Him from progressing His work. 

Anyways, this was a long one! My new address is: 

16/2 rue Carlier

4000 Liege

Belgium

Have a way good week! I would very much appriciate a special prayer for the work in Belgium to keep going well!! I love you guys :) Bye! 

Love,

Elder Wood

Howdy! 

How's it going? Things here are going super well! This is transfer week and I found out this morning that I will be staying here in Rennes with my awesome companion Elder Turley. No relation to Adam Turley, but awesome nontheless. I'm super excited because tons of awesome things are happening in our work now! And I really love new transfers because it's such a fresh start. We're gonna get some work done here in the next 6 weeks! But as for this week, some pretty cool things happened. First, we taught a lesson to our ami Pedro with our recent convert Bob, and it was so so cool. Comparable to sitting on an oven because the spirit was so strong! As we taught, Bob testified about his baptism and how esential it is for everyone, and even shared scriptures all on his own that helped him make this change in his life and Pedro was really touched. Also, yesterday at church Bob received the Aaronic Preisthood! It was really an honor to be able to participate in ordaining him. Me and Elder Turley bought him a sweet tie as a gift too. Also last night we found a bunch of people! We had planned to go to somewhere specific to find people, but we felt as though we needed to go back to the place we had already been earlier. So, we went back and found an appartment building and felt like we should knock the doors inside, but it was locked. Just as we approached the doors however, someone came down and let us in! So we started at the top and knocked our way down. We ended up getting to pray with 3 people in the building in about an hour! It was so evident that we needed to be there. All the people said to us that they don't usually let people in, but when they saw us they decided to let us in and listen to what we had to say. It was a great night and a huge learning opportunity for me because when the spirit tells us to go somewhere or do something, it is always the same feeling, and it always brings great results. Where else could I have learned this had I not been here on a mission? I love serving! 

Also we totally met a Portuguese guy this week that we're going to teach. Woop! 

We are running a little late so I've got to get out of here! But, I love you guys a ton. For real. Be safe! 

Love,

Elder Wood

*MOM NOTE - Josh sent home his journal from the first 9 months of his mission.  It is absolute GOLD, and I think if the house burned down, it is probably the only material thing I would save.  Here is a little nugget of wisdom from Elder Wood.  9/10/13 "Today was really great! Most days I just say they were good just because I ENJOY LIVING, but today was especially good"  How cool to have the attitude that life is good and enjoyable just because?  He inspires me every day!


Howdy Family! 

I'll tell you what, this week was great. I will tell you why!  

We went to Versailles to have a mission conference with Elder Patrick Kearon on the Seventy and it was really awesome! Before the conference started he asked all the mission leaders to go up into a different room to tell us something. I was half way expecting some sort of stern rebuking, the other half I just wasn't sure, but when he walked into the room we were all standing waiting for him, and he just started to thank us for all the work and sacrifices we make and that he loved us and our mission. I have not seen another person ever be so naturally happy and full of the light of the gospel as he was! During the conference we talked about finding, and the power of the Spirit in conversion and it was very cool to be taught by him. That was on Wednesday, then Thursday we worked in Rennes, then Friday we headed back to Paris to have a mission council lead by Elder Kearon again. The Wednesday meeting was with half of our mission, so about 140 missionaries, then the Friday meeting was with just the zone leaders and sister training leaders, so about 35 of us! It was really personal and interactive and we all got to report on how our zones were doing and then talk a lot with him about what we leaned on Wednesday and how we were going to apply it in our zones. Totally got to shake his hand after as well. Awesome. I was going to take a picture but my camera was dead. Rats. What I really took away from it though was how much he sincerely cared and about each of us individually and how he really wanted to help us and see us improve. Thats what I'm going to try to apply more in my missionary work. I honestly love the people the people that I get to work with here, but it's taking that care to the next level and making it a more natural thing that's the trick. That's the goal for this week! Love everybody more! 

Then last night we had an awesome miracle! We had had a lot of people to go see, but none of them were home. This has not happened for a while, and we didnt have a plan. We went to finish out the night with some porting, and we both had the thought to go to a specific neighborhood where we have been working for a while. We got there and started walking up the road, and I felt a very familiar prompting to turn around and knock on some doors that we had already passed. The first two doors did not let us in but the third door was a young couple that wanted to know more! They let us in, and we got to teach them about the Restoration. The Spirit was really strong and they asked us if we could come back to teach them more. I'm super grateful for the guidance of the Spirit! He always tells us where to go and it's cool to see how familiar the feeling is every time. It's easy to know when he is talking to us and we get to know him really quick as we follow what he asks us. 

We've got a big week planned! I'm stoked to get to work! Thanks a lot for all your letters and know that I will respond as soon as I can! I love you guys! 

Elder Wood

New comp, New Ami

Hello everyone! 

So I realized that I forgot to tell you, last week was transfer week! My great companion Elder S headed out to train in Namur, a little city in the south of Belgium, and I received Elder T as my new companion! He is a super cool guy from Tremonton, Utah. He likes soccer, wood working and serving the Lord. He's just one transfer younger that I am so, we've got a lot of learning to do, but we are gonna rock it here. This week went really well!  One of the coolest things that happened was that we were able to fix a baptismal date with one of our amis! He is an old investigator from 2012, but he came to church on his own last week and we got to talking. We taught him with a family from our ward this week, then yesterday he accepted the invitation to be baptised on the 15th. The really cool thing that I noticed was the visible change in him. He was more and more prepared by the Lord each time to accept this invitaion so when it came, he was ready. It's so cool to be able to help people make these eternity changing steps in their lives and I'm super grateful to be a missionary! Sometimes it surprises me that the Lord would entrust a bunch of young kids with such a sacred responsibility, but He really knows what He's doing, because it works! Lately we've been getting back in contact with lots of old investigators too and it's been going really well. We've been focusing a lot on really working for the right reasons and inviting people to come unto Christ and it's cool to see the difference. Often, it's easy to get caught up in the "numbers" aspect of things but when you really work out of love for others and leave the numbers aside, the work goes so much better. Not only do you feel better about all your efforts but you also do see your numbers get better! We've been teaching a lot lately and it's a huge blessing to work here at this time right now. Our ward is so awesome that they chose to use basically the whole month of January to teach about missionary work in church, and yesterday at Ward Conference, they talked about missionary work as well. Europe is so ready for the gospel! 

I am pretty short on time for this week so I've got to go, but thank you for all that you do and keep praying for the missionary work to progress! I love ya a lot, and I love being a missionary. Talk to you soon! 

Elder Wood