BYU/MY MOM/MISSIONARY LIFE

Good Luck on your season!! Sister Wood's team 

My excitement right now to email you all right now is almost as high as it was when I found out that Taylor Swift is coming out with a new album. I hope you all realize how much excitement that is. :) It has been such a fun week. Like one of those weeks that at the end of every entry in my journal this week is says, "I am so happy, and I am so blessed, I love Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ." And I am not joking when I say that. 

Alright, so it is that time of year when all the sports seasons are starting again. Yeah I will admit, it crosses my mind a lot, and of course I still miss it, but I just want to send the biggest GOOD LUCK to my team as they begin another season! I love all of those girls so much, and they played a big part in shaping me to who I am right now. I don't know if I ever mentioned this to you all, but my old zone leader in Aparri, Elder Williams, went to BYU. Haha he told me that when he was there, me and someone else on my team (probably Millie) went to their dorm room reminding them about our games. Haha because the freshman had to go around to all of the Helaman Halls giving out flyers hahaha. It made me laugh so hard that he was one of the people we went to. Ahhhh I miss it all. I can not wait to join you all again. Anways, GOOD LUCK! I will be cheering you on here, and I have also recruited some fans for us here in the Philippines haha. Oh, and there is a letter in the mail for all of you! 

There was a kind of cool thing that happened this week that is random that I wanted to share with you even thought it is not a big deal. There is a recent convert family named the Rivera family. All of them are baptized besides the dad. The elders are working on teaching him and he will be getting baptized on September 20th. This last week we went there to teach his wife, and the elders were there teaching. We saw their shoes outside the house so we didn't go in. We went around the back and grabbed the nanay and went and taught her on the other side of the house. I just loved this situation, because you know the lyrics, "we go forth elisted with helaman's army?" Yeah, well it is really happening. And in that instant it came to me that this is really the Lord's work. That Elders and Sisters together are bringing souls to Christ. I think there was a missionary this week that said that the elders couldn't do it without the sisters and the sisters couldn't do it without the elders. I was just overwhelmed with joy that I get to be apart of this work. So, in that same family there is an 18 year old girl that we are teaching because she is a recent convert. We had a pretty sweet lesson with her this week. She has been having a hard time getting along with her mom and she finally broke down and cried because we talked about the stripling warriors obeying their mothers. The Spirit was so strong, and my companion started testifying to her about the importance of mothers. My companion has never met her mother in her whole life. It is a really sad story, but she was telling this girl that she has never met her mother, and she wishes that she could go home every day to a mother, and she wishes that she could sit and talk to her mom about everything. Then she went on to say, look at Sister Wood, she spends an hour every monday pouring her whole heart into a letter to her mom. Her mom is her best friend. Yeah you can imagine I just wanted to burst out into tears because you all know how close I am to my mom, and i miss her so much. But I just thought to myself how blessed I am. How blessed I am to have a mother. I regret every time that I argued or disobeyed. Our parents literally are a blessing to have.I could go on forever and ever about how much I love my mom. I told this girl that her and I are too weak and we wouldn't be able to last without a mom! And Sister Servancia is so strong, that she doesn't need one. Mom, I can't wait to hug you again, and I hope you enjoy the 5 page letter I wrote you. :) Haha.

Sister Wood and her Mom

We had interviews this week! It was a blast. We did a little bit of emergency preparedness and had to do some scenarios and literally do what we would in an emergency. It was hilarious. And you all know how much I love my zone. President said I might have 1 more area, so we will see if that happens. During it Sister Barrientos explained to everyone why the sisters have to take calcium. The church is looking out for us that are going to go through child birth haha. She said that if you are low on calcium (must be REALLY LOW) that your teeth will fall out during labor. Anyways, we all kind of laughed about it, and take the calcium anyways. But we found this 35 year old lady this week who has 10 kids. And.... she had no teeth. We left the lesson and thought to ourselves, well, I guess it is true! Haha. Along with that, i brought SO MANY BANDAIDS ON MY MISSION! I remember packing and saying to my mom that I will laugh so hard if I use all of these. Well, I am down to just a small amount left. The ingrown toenails are back, and it is the worst thing ever. I can't wait not to wear RUBBER SHOES all the time. They are ruining my feet haha. My toenails are going to look like filipino toe nails when i get home haha. 

Well, seriously it has been such a masaya week. I am just thinking that every week from here on out is just going to get more and more masaya! Aren't I lucky? Ah, so blessed. By the way, I was super blessed with mail this week too. Mostly from my family. More specifically Stetson. And I wouldn't want it any other way! :) It is weird how throughout your mission it changes and all you want is to hear from your family. I love you all so much! And as you can all see, stetson is trying to "talk me up and hook me up." Haha I miss him so much! 

Mahal ko kayo!

Sister Wood
xoxox

#85days
#1989

#LordsTEAM

Sister Webb going home

The chapel in San Nicholas

Letter from Baloogy - Elder Wood

Kilala at minahal ninyo siya, at kilala at minahal niya kayo

Sister Wood didn't send any pictures this week so I chose one of my favorites to add to the blog. This was the picture she put on her mission papers

Alright, P-Days are usually pretty awesome when we have a zone activity, and we did have a zone activity earlier, so it has been a pretty awesome p-day. We all went to Batac and had a combines activity with the Batac 1 zone. We are Batac 2. We just had it at the church and played basketball and football and stuff. It was super fun though because got to spend time with sister willson and other cool missionaries that i love so much!

The elders are so dumb and came up with a new way to measure heighth. They call it "wood" so instead of feet or meters or yards, they say oh it is about 2 wood's high. Which is 2 of me tall. Haha they are so lame. I miss being at BYU where I am just an average heighth amongst all of the athletes. I literally am a giant here, even amongst the missionaries as you can see haha.

We had a good week this week when it comes to the work. We went and visited Sister Jonalyn who is supposed to be baptized on the 30th and she told us that the reason they didn't go to church was because they were trying to find a way to pay for her son CJ's testing that they were doing that week at school. They told us all about the education and how they have to pay all of these fees. Which clearly most of these people can't afford to pay. And if they don't pay to take an exam, they can't get a grade, which means they can't move on to the next grade. I could talk about the education system for a while, but I won't cause it isn't important. What is important is that they aren't able to go to church because they don't have the money to ride. But I thought it was interesting because she told us that the US government actually give the struggling people here a budget every month. But her issue is, she doesn't have an ATM card to withdraw it. So thank you USA for helping so many people here! We need to figure out our plan to help her, because they need the gospel and are ready. 

We have been teaching a lady name Cherry Asuzano. Oh my heavens she is so awesome. She is not shy, super outgoing and just loves me and my tallness and laughs at everything i do. Basta, she loves the gospel more. She is getting so many questions answered, and things the "mormon church" is so maganda. But my favorite lesson with here was this last week when we were teaching the Plan of Salvation, just about where we came from. She couldn't believe it! We had her read in the pamphlet, and she just kept repeating these words after she was done... "kilala at minahal ninyo siya, at kilala at minahal niya kayo." He knows and loves you and you knew and loved him. She didn't know that. She didn't know that she knew Heavenly Father. More importantly, she didn't know that he loved her. It kind of hurt me because I just thought to myself, there are so many people in this world that do not know that they have a loving Heavenly Father. Isn't that so sad? We are all God's children and he loves us all. But some have no idea. It was a really cool lesson with her. She now knows that she came from a loving Heavenly Father. She knows that she has a purpose here on earth. This is the joy of being a missionary. Her only problem is church. She hasn't come yet. Oh but when she does, she is going to go crazy for the gospel even more than she already is. :)

So do you all know about weekly planning? It is the 3 hour planning we have every friday morning. We plan all our appointments for the upcoming week. Anyways, it is really long, and some people don't like it. It has never been a big deal to me because it goes by way quick. But at the end you have companionship inventory which is the time where you and your companion talk about how you are doing and it is basically the dreaded time where you vent your complaints if you have any. But I just wanted to share that i love companionship inventory. Or at least I have grown to love it. Not because you get to blast each other about stuff, cause that isn't how it should be done, but this week I really felt the Spirit as we talked to each other about our strengths and weaknesses, and more importantly how we can help each other! Sister Servancia is a great person. Very humble, and just like us all imperfect. I admire her, because she is willing to ask for help to be better! And it is something I am working on as well! I have come to understand the power in a companionship if you are willing to humble yourself and be united in the one purpose you have as a missionary. I am blessed to have the companions i do. I am learning so much. 

Last but not least, i am still trying to master this language. I went around and labeled our whole house with sticky notes haha with everything that i now. I could do more than i thought actually! Man, still far far from where i want to be though. the gift of tongues is real though. My favorite thing in the world that i just laugh so hard at is when I wake up in the morning and the first words out of my mouth are tagalog. I just laugh at myself. I never thought I would know a different language! 

Mahal ko kayo. At, namimiss ko kayo. 

Sister Wood

xoxox

A Lot Of Little Things!!

Sister Shrack and Sister Wood

 

Rainy season!!

 

Alrighty everyone, so lots of little things happened this week that are pretty worth telling, so just bear with me here okay?

First off, last monday was a really good day. Do you remember me talking about Elder Naulu? Well, he is Miller's cousin. I hadn't seen him since we heard about Miller's passing and last week in Laoag I saw him. Oh my heavens everyone, Alright, so he is as close to looking like Miller as anyone could be. His body, build, his face, smile, voice, just EVERYTHING! His slight australian accent. It was rough. But at the same time I needed to talk to him about it all, and it was awesome. He is a stud of a missionary! WE BOTH LOVE AND MISS YOU MILLER. :)

Next, it has been super stormy this week. There had to have been a typhoon because the rain was crazy! So loud. The outside of our house as you can see was flooded. Colder weather makes for great sleeping at night though! Except for when you are me and your bed happens to be right under where there is a big leak in the ceiling! My bed was wet. And I wasn't happy haha. But you see how small our room is, there is no other way to arrange the beds! Just gotta deal with it and put a bowl there for it to drip into. And just so you are all aware, i lost my amazing red 72 hour kit during transfers. I think what happened is that one of the elders didn't put it on the bus, so it was left. I was way sad about it because i was completely prepared. And as of right now if something were to happen I would be dead meat cause i have nothing. I gotta put something together today thought because president and sister will be checking them at interviews on the 20th. 

We had ZTM this week and it was so good. I love Zone Meetings so much. The trainings were solid, but Elder Castillo gave a good training on pushing it harder than ever the last seconds of the game. Most of our zone is old in the mission and going home this year, so it was perfect and what we all needed to hear. We didn't come this far just to give up and stop now! I loved it. :)

So about that Canada referral... Stet, we went back and the people were gone, but we got their name. There was no information given, but I emailed you the name and you can look them up in the phonebook if those still exist anymore haha. Give it a try! I will try and find more for you. 

The saddest thing happened this week, and I didn't know what to do. Some younger kids carrying a young toddler came up to me asking for shoes or something and food, (it was hard to understand cause it was in ilocano), so I gave them the food I had and then the set the baby down on the ground and told me to take it! I looked at my companion like AH I CAN'T take the baby! Luckily the kid started crying and ran back to the kids. Geez it was the saddest thing! 

As far as the work goes, this week wasn't as successful when it came to the investigators. We got a lot of work done with the RC's but we only had 1 investigator at church. It was a bit of a bummer. We will still have the baptism on August 30th though as of now. Jonalyn and CJ and super good. They do everything. Except they drank coffee one time because that is all they had at their house for breakfast. Gotta work harder this week!

Haha so, I think I am starting to get used to living with all Filipinos. It has been a lot of adjusting, but it is helping me tons. I think I am picking up the language a lot quicker now. Haha there are still some little things that happen that I remember I am the only American though. Just example, the other day we were eating at the table and we had like hot soup and then something that was frozen. I mean of course that would be a little sensitive on your teeth going from one to the other, but the filipinos were laughing saying sister wood is the only one that can feel it on her teeth because we all have falsies! Fake teeth. Hahaha we all laughed our heads off. Cause I am the only one that has all their front teeth to feel it. They all have a pretty good sense of humor. I also found out that my companion wears size 4 shoes. nakakahiya ako.

Well, I think that is it from San Nicolas 2c. We have a zone activity next monday so I will be telling you all about that. I am stoked. 

Have an amazing week. Stay safe!

Sister Wood

xoxox

 

One of these things is not like the other......hahaha

Saving goats lives one at a time

Sister Wood said, "This little girl reminded me of me".

Elder Stetson Wood's letter to Sister Courtnee Wood - I sure love my missionaries

 

Miracles Happen

A Happy day with Sister Shrack

I love this picture of Sister Wood - she looks so happy!!

Her caption for this photo was - MUD!!

Alright, so just in case any of you care, I put my other memory card in my pocket, and it fell out when i was riding the tricey over here,  so i was really sad just about 10 minutes ago, but now I am fine and realize that it is just a memory card, not a huge deal. And now I am totally fine, and totally excited to tell you all about our week that was full of some awesome miracles. :)

So the most amazing thing happened this week when we were up in our furthest area. In Sarrat. When we go we usually spend the whole morning there. We had taught some lessons and then were walking out of the huge barangay. There was this big nice house that I have always had my eye on because I am always anxious to go and try and teach the rich people. Haha. So I tell my companion to stop so that we could ask the people who were at the store next door to the house. So when I do finding, I usually just make up a name and usually use the name of some of my friends, then just pair it with a Filipino last name. So literally on the spot I was just like hey do you know ________ and then the last name that just flew into my head was "ROMERO". So I asked them. And I kid you not, "ROMERO" is the name of all of the people that live in the compound of this big house. I just looked at my companion like what the? Is this really happening? I just made that up! I had to just play it cool like it was nothing, That was miracle #1. But just wait... so the girl takes us to the house and we go behind it and we meet these pretty women sitting there. We start talking to them and the lady says, I have seen you before.. Listen. The lady living here had seen SISTER FUCHS AND I IN LAOAG at the fabric store when we were getting stuff for our skirts. She completely remembered me. Seriously what are the chances of that? We ended up having an awesome lesson with them. It was pushing 12 o'clock and that is when we should be home for lunch, and we were worried after the lesson, because it is really hard to get a jeepney going back to San Nicolas. As we were walking to the main road I said a prayer in my heart that we would have a jeep ASAP. Literally we walk up to the road, and a jeep is already on its way towards us. Stops, picks us up, and we were home in no time. I just sat in AWWWW telling my companion all of that was such a miracle. Brought to us by Heavenly Father, but we were lucky enough to be the instruments. :) Like come on, out of all the names in the world, and I happen to pick the right one that was living where we wanted to visit? Yeah that is not a coincidence.

So that same morning we passed by this jeepney and I was dying and had to stop and take photos of it! Isn't it so cool! Canada Edmonton. I tried to BRT them. I found out that the owner of the jeep is living in Alberta. Me knowing that my brother is there and struggling to have lessons hahaha I tried to get him a referral! But the dang people wouldn't give me the address. Baka magagalit sila! Maybe they will be angry! Anyways, we told them to ask the people living there if it is okay that missionaries visit them. So we are following up with that this week Stet, and I will let you know what they say. 

There were many  instances with animals this week... I found out that it is really hard to kill a duck... and I had never seen  a live duck plucked haha that is how they do it here. they pluck it when it is alive. The thing would not die! They cut it's throat, stabbed its eyes and brains, and finally after forever it died. I would never eat the duck here though. And one sound that will never leave my ears is the sound of the pigs here screaming when they are being pulled to take to the slaughter..... ugh it is the most wretched thing. And also I found out this week that it is illegal to eat dog here, and if you are caught killing a dog and eating it, you will go to jail. One of the Recent convert families here has no money, so they sold their dog to a drinker who wanted to eat it. Gross right? They were so sad about it, but they said they had to sell it so they could have money. And then the same family, (the dad) got on the topic of guns and was so thrilled to tell me that he had a gun because he used to be a body guard. He pulled it out "it even had ammunition" hahaha. Guns are so rare here, so he thought i had never seen one, and i told them that our Dad gives us a gun when we are 8 years old hahaha. It was a hand gun. I told him that I have shot one like it. 

Another miracle is a less active family that came to church on Sunday. This family has been suppposedly having baptist services at their house and having the baptist missionaries over. It is kind of annoying, but we have just kept visiting them and becoming their friend. I ordered some things from her to take home to my sisters and mom. But anyways, this family came to church on Sunday. We kind of looked at each other like wait, really? Why are they here? Haha because we thought they were completely gonners. Just goes to show that there is hope no matter how far from the right path you go. It was a good sunday. Sister Jonalyn and her family came to church again, so they are pretty set for August 30th. They are the only ones progressing right now. And she is way good at washing my clothes. :) Haha. 

Oh, and we also had exchanges this week. Sister Shrack and I got to go. IT WAS SO MUCH FUN. It is so amazing to see how far we have both come from the MTC. Our knowledge, our Tagalog, our maturity. Man, I look back and I was like a child in the MTC haha oh my gosh. It was such a fun exchange. We are dorks. 

I finished my 4th journal this week! So I started a new one. :) Those things are like my pride and joy.

Well, that is all for now. Miss you all. Love you all. 

Sister Wood

xoxox

Shoutout to little brother Elder Stetson Wood serving in Edmonton Canada

If its ok to have favorite Elder's in a mission, then these are Sister Wood's faves. Elder Van Bruunt and Elder Castillo

This duck looks non-edible to me.....