Dear Family,
How is everyone there doing? I'm not sure what's going on there because I haven't read the e-mail yet and its only 6:00 AM here, but if I put everything together right it sounds like the opening day of the deer hunt is passed, today might even be the harvest holiday on Monday and Zack's senior football season could be over? Holy smokes the time really passed didn't it, before we know it I'll be writing a letter saying congratulations, Zack you made it through high school; and then I'll be at my one year mark, it is unreal! Well, this week has been a good one, just packed with lessons and walking. The sun is still deciding to beat me more and more every day, but slowly I'm getting used to it. This Saturday we have a baptism with 2 candidates. One's name is Sister Adarna Taylor and Brother Sylvester Larimide. Brother Sylvester really is a converted person. The day I came I was told he was taught every single lesson and even made it to the baptismal interview where he ended up confessing a few things; he had not repented of or mentioned earlier so they postponed his baptism. In a situation like that people will do one of 2 things, they will either think on this one; it's too hard I cannot possibly keep all these commandments any longer and they give up, or they buckle down and realize this is what they want. They realize this will bring them happiness. This is what this Sylvester man chose. Every week this man comes to church and is on time even if we didn't see him for 2 weeks. The guy is there and one thing I respect about him is he's always happy, always! He doesn't have a job and things are tough, but still he's happy, such an inspiration for us who have everything, but yet finding it easy to be unhappy. The purpose of the gospel is happiness. Anyway, something else happened yesterday, we were at church standing up on the balcony because our church is in a building on the 3rd floor. We were catching some breeze, and all the sudden one of our investigators made me and my companion's day by coming. We see her on a motorbike; her small less than 1 year old child tied in a lapa around her back and then her other little child on the drivers lap holding the handle bars. They pull up with big smiles on their faces and it just made my heart melt to see such great faith. This woman just got left by her man after he beats her, plus the land lord kicked them out of their house which is about the size of Karlee's room; it was for the 4 of them. So, they had to move down to somewhere even worse apparently, and we haven't been able to see her for some 2 weeks. Still, she is able to dress up 2 children and pay to take a motorbike to church by 9 in the morning. I was so happy; she has the cutest little girls. I have a picture with the older one and me, which is on my camera, you will see soon. She's a tiny little girl with a huge rice belly, haha. I love her! Her name is Zinab (Zie-nab). Anyway, in her new area something like creepy and wicked is happening, like every night children in that area are just dying out of nowhere. So, after church we blessed her and her 2 children to be out of harm's way and to have safety, it was a great experience. I know they will be safe and fine. All in all this week was a good one though; it seemed to go by pretty fast actually. Time is interesting, but a consistent thing I'll tell you what. Well, I just got home from town; oh it's a headache to go there sometimes. We went first to get our money out of the bank for this month. Let me tell you about how we got a car to go there. At 9:30 A.M. we were standing there with about 100 other people waiting so, as soon as a poda poda comes you have to position yourself in the right spot or you will never ever get to town. The bus comes and is turning around , people are running across the road to get to it but, they don't open the doors yet, it drives down a little bit, my companion and I had given up by now because really there's maybe 20 seats and about 50 people wanting in badly. So, it keeps driving and finally both of us just take off after this thing, we are running with everyone else in our full priesthood attire and all pushing people out of the way, I just muscled my way near the door and stuck my had in there and grabbed the bus to cut people off from getting in before me, people are pushing, shouting, and yelling, haha! I just started shoving back and somehow made my way inside the bus, they grabbed me and my companion and threw us in the very front so, I rode shotgun all the way to town!! If you want anything around here you must fight for it, there's no such thing as respect because of who you are, whether you are a woman, child, missionary or thug, you pay your dues and fight your way inside. So, we went and got the money, then I bought some things at the supermarket and I took my companion to a restaurant to eat because he just turned "one year" on mission so, we went and had rice and stew there, imagine that….more rice, haha. This has been a good week, slowly I'm feeling like I'm apart of these people, I'm beginning to think like them and act too, I know I will sob the day I have to leave them because I know I'll never see some of them ever again in my life on earth.
Love your son,
Elder Wood