Zone Meetin's

Heyo!

This week has been good, a little diferente! We had Zone Meeting and that was great. I have some great leaders! I did divisions with Sister Cardoso, one of the Sister Training Leaders, right after the meeting and it was way cool because I got to stay in her área- a city called Coimbra. It was awesome! Sister Cardoso is Angolan and the sweetest person alive. Also she doesn´t really speak English like at all so it was a good solid 24 hours of Portuguese. It was good to put my skills to the test haha! Needless to say, I have lots to learn. But it was a great experience!

This week we also put on an activity for our ward! It was called "Enfrente Teus Medos", which means Face Your Fears! We had a bunch of little games about facing our fears of speaking in public, the dark, bugs and spiders and things, and sharing the gospel! The last part was suuuuper cool because we did a pratica with our recent convert, Isabel, about how she could share the gospel with her friends. She´s already a cute little member missionary! I love this ward and all the things they are teaching me about charity, member missionary work, and courage! And of course at the end of the activity we ate cake. Portugueses love their cake! I do too haha. One of the Elders in our ward, Elder Almeida, teases me about food SO MUCH haha. I like to eat! There is this cereal here called My Time and it is basically granola with little chocolate bars in it. Elder Almeida and I love it and we talk about it all the time. When I eat My Time, it truly is My Time. So yeah!

I hope you all have a WONDERFUL week! Can´t believe it is already November!

Love, Sister Wood

I Live in the Midst of the Portuguese Hogwarts

Olá meus amors!!

   So in Leiria there is a beautiful castle up on the hill in the middle of the city. There is also a catholic university here and they straight up wear Hogwarts uniforms. Except sometimes the girls wear bowler hats. The students are EVERYWHERE so we feel like just a couple of missionaries stuck in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Not sad about it! Anywho.

  

   This week has been great!! For lots of reasons! I will touch on one. So my friend Gabriel was baptized on Saturday!! We taught him for about nine weeks, since i first got here. Then a couple weeks ago he moved to the Elder´s área and they finished teaching him. So on Saturday it was a party for all of us!! We all got to be a part of this step in his life and see the change in him, and it has truly been a blessing! I know that this is the Lord´s work and i feel so blessed to be a small part of it. The opportunity to help people come unto Christ is an incredible blessing in my life! The gospel is the way to true eternal happiness, a happiness that will last! Jesus Christ is leading His work on the earth. He is our Savior and He lives! I have seen the power of the Atonement change people´s natures. Through the Atonement anything is possible!! I´m so grateful to be a missionary!!

Love you all!! Have a wonderful week and a Happy Halloween! Eat a Reeses for me.

Sister Wood

I am the Lord's Investigator!

HELLO FAM AND FRIENDS!! How are you all doing? I hope you all had a great week!! :)

Mosiah 23:21

Mosiah 24:13-16

Sometimes in life we feel like Alma and his people in these scriptures! Haha. This week was cray, and all I gotta say is that HEAVENLY FATHER ANSWERS OUR PRAYERS! He knows exactly what we need! This week we were able to see that every day. In lots of diferente ways. Here´s a little taste: So my comp has been having lots of health issues, and it´s hard to do missionary work and have lots of health issues! About a week ago when we got home for the night she was reaaaallly sick. She just kept getting more and more sick and we didn´t know what to do! She had had priesthood blessings, medicine, more rest, everything we could think of doing besides going to the hospital (She DID NOT want to go to the hospital). So we were at a loss of what more we could do. So we knelt down in prayer and asked Heavenly Father for help. Actually, I knelt by her bed and she layed down and tried not to pass out or throw up or something. She asked me to say the prayer. We put ALL our faith into that prayer. We poured out our hearts and asked for His help and guidance. Then we went to bed and kept praying in our hearts for our prayers to be answered. AND THEY WERE! Seriously it has been a miracle. Sister Correa has been perfectly fine this week! Not sick, not week, just healthy and strong! This experience has taught us that if we put all our faith in the Lord, He will answer our prayers. I know that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love us! This week I´ve really been learning to trust in the Lord and expect miracles according to my faith. I am the Lord´s investigator!!

I hope you all have a happy week! Love you all! BEIJINHOS!! <3

Sister Wood

HELLO!!

 

How is everyone? I´m doing good over here in Portugal! The rain has begun and I´m probably gonna be a popsicle here in a couple days. I´m way stoked about it!

Something funny from this week: We had Zone Conference this week and it was way good! I seriously love President and Sister Fluckiger. They are great. After lunch me, two other Sisters, and two Elders were asked to do a little musical number for everyone. Nbd, right? So we practiced once before and it was great cause everyone was singing really loud so I just thought I´d be able to sing normal and not worry about anyone hearing my awful voice. Boy was I wrong. When we were singing in front of everyone all the other missionaries singing with me sang SO QUIET. It was basically like i was doing a solo and they were my back up singers. But it was terrible because my voice is NOT GOOD! Needless to say it was hilar.  I feel like a freaking superstar over here.

So the work this week has been a little diferente! Sorry for the Portuguese words, the computer just autocorrects them and i don´t do anything about it. ANYWHO, yeah. Sometimes literally no one wants to talk to us! I had a little experience this week with feeling inadequate, frustrated, and just kind of lousy. It happens to all of us! I read a talk called something like "It´s Always Better to Look Up." I can´t remembre who wrote it, but he tells a story about when he was first called as a Seventy and he was feeling completely overwhelmed and inadequate to carry out his calling. He was in the elevator on his way down to go home, hanging his head and thinking about all he had to do, when the elevator stopped on the next floor and none other than President Monson got in with him! President Monson said to him, "What are you looking at down there?" Then they chatted for a bit and stuff as they went down, and when President Monson was saying goodbye he said something like, "Remember, it´s always better to look up." I love this story! I love our Prophet!! This story really helped me out this week, it truly is better to look up and put our trust in God. If we put our trust in God and pray always, Heavenly Father will hear our prayers. We will be able to go forth in His might and He will deliver us (Mosiah 9:17-18). I know that we have a loving Heavenly Father who wants us to succeed. He and our Savior will do all they can to help us if we put our strength in them and continually look up! Ah man, I love Them. This gospel is the best!

Have a great week all! LOVE YOU!!

Sister Wood  

Alien Voices

 Hello family and friends!! How are you all? How was Conference? IN ENGLISH? Haha. We got to watch two sessions, in Portugese, in the chapel with the ward. It was great because I love our ward soooo much. It was also quite hilarious because, due to some sort of technical mishap, the voice of the translation sounded like an alien. Like imagine the most alien-esque voice you can and that´s what we heard as we were trying to listen to the Prophet. Needless to say, I´m quite excited to get my Conference Ensign in English in a month or two. Also... did President Uchtdorf look really tan to anyone else? Ah man, I´m so grateful for our leaders.

   This week was good, kinda nuts, but everything always ends up okay! My comp´s wallet got stolen, so therefore she lost all her money and important documents (ie residency card, medical card, etc). Don´t ask my why she was carrying all that around. SO yeah, crazy stuff. But everything always works out! Tudo bem!

   So because I´m still a super noob missionary and have a ton to learn, we do little practice lessons every day to help me out. Other missionaries do them too, but we do A LOT OF PRATICAS. And I kind of hate it haha. But this week I had a really cool experience! I was teaching Sister Correa about the Book of Mormon and why it is important. Pretty basic, not all that exciting, or so I thought! As I was sitting there trying to explain, I was OVERCOME with my testimony of the Book of Mormon. The Spirit was so strong and we both started crying! And laughing haha.  It just goes to show that sharing testimony, even if it´s just a practice lesson with your companion, can/WILL strengthen you! It seems so silly, but I won´t forget the way I felt as I testified of the truthfulness of this book. Heavenly Father gave me this experience to help me see my testimony of the Book of Mormon, and i know that it is true! Tender mercies all day erry day.

   Well, that´s about it! I love you all and am so grateful for your examples. Have a great week!

Peace&Blessins,

Sister Wood

Pretty flowers with Sister Correa, 

The Cure to learn English, and Portuguese AdventureTime, and Francisco´s Baptism

Olá! How is everyone doing? I hope you all had a great week! 

   So my title for this email probably makes me sound like a really disobedient missionary haha, but let me explain. On Saturdays we teach an English class and it´s way fun! Usually only like three people come, but it´s all good. We have this recent convert in our ward named Paulo and he comes to English class every week. He´s bem fixe. Anywho, it´s real hard to learn a new language so we have to use the way that helps the most. And for Paulo, that´s music! He has good taste haha. So this past week we were learning the days of the week, and Paulo loves The Cure, so naturally we sang Friday, I´m In Love. It was HILAR. Just us, sitting out front of the church singing, "I don´t care if Monday´s blue, Tuesday´s gray and Wednesday too. Thursday I don´t care about you, it´s Friday, I´m in love" haha. We also sing the Beatles and Prince sometimes. It´s a party! 

   The other night we were at a member´s house having dinner and they´re daughter was watching AdventureTime. All I have to say is that AdventureTime is still hilarious in Portuguese. 

   And most importantly, FRANCISCO WAS BAPTISED!! Wooo! I talked about him a couple weeks ago, he´s the son of our recent convert Isabel. He is actually one of the coolest people i know. The Atonement has completely changed his life and he glows with his testimony of the Savior. It´s truly incredible to see! He´s eighteen, so mission age!! The other night after his baptismal interview he comes out and says, "Sisters, you forgot to tell me something really important!" and we ask him what he means, then he said, "You didn´t tell me that there are people waiting for me share my testimony and how i feel now that i have the gospel!" Haha it was awesome! Truly a blessing for me to know Francisco, Isabel, and this whole ward in Leiria. They teach me so so much every day and I am so grateful to be here! Mission rocks. 

   So yeah, that´s about it! Today is the first day of second transfer and we´re staying here. Totes excited. I hope you all have a great week, and ENJOY GENERAL CONFERENCE!! So jelly, I wish I got to watch it in English haha. Tudo Bem! 

Loves and hugs to all yall, 

Sister Wood 

Running

  Heyo family and friends! How are you all?

 

   This week has been great! Getting more into the swing of things with mission life, so that´s good. This is the last week of the transfer and so yeah that´s weird! I feel like i got here like two days ago. I was gonna say I feel like I got here yesterday, but everyone says that. I wanted to be unique. #hipster

 

   So the reason for my title is this: we had to literally run home, as fast as we could, to get home on time this week. Almost every night we made it home with just seconds to spare haha. Usually we´re carrying stuff (like a huge casserole thing a member gave us that i was carrying like a football) and it is mayhem. People laugh and dumb boys start running with us and we know we look ridiculous, but it´s fun! When we get home and we´re breathing hard and all sweaty, we just laugh because we know that we´re doing our work until the last minute of the day. It´s a great feeling! But also i like a nice leisurely walk home sometimes too haha :)

 

   Anywho, this week we´ve been really trying to work with recent converts in our ward.  They´re testimonies are so strong and it is SO UPLIFTING. There´s this one lady, Elisabete, and she is the sweetest. Her testimony is solid and she loves to read the Book of Mormon, so we read with her and all feel the Spirit together. We also have another RC that we teach, Paulo, and he is actually the nicest guy I´ve ever met. They don´t know a lot about the gospel yet, just the basics. But what they do know they love to talk about and share. I think sometimes we, as life long members, get caught up in the deeper doctrines of the gospel, and we tend to forget how simple and clear it really is. These recent converts are really teaching me the importance of focusing on the basic principles of the gospel like prayer, scripture study, and going to church. The examples of the people in this ward in Leiria are truly giving me strength and helping my testimony grow. I love being a missionary!

 

Beijinhos to all of you, have a great week! Love you!

 

Sister Wood