Certainty of Death. Small chance of Success. What are we waiting for? (6/23/13)

Dear Family and Friends,

This is the week before transfers and while I know that we will succeed, couldn't help but fire off a Lord of the Rings quote for what may end up to be the busiest week of my entire mission so far. I will be traveling everyday to deliver furnishings and what not as we prepare for the biggest transfer in the history of the Philippines Laoag Mission, 31 missionaries next week with 6 more in 4 weeks. And there are plenty more well on the way. I'm excited! Are you?

This week has been busy also, as every week is here in the office. I love being busy though. We did a bit of traveling around this week for apartment contracts in preparation for the transfer. I also got to go down to Candon zone for the first time and just in time since it will become part of the Baguio mission next week. We will be losing 20 missionaries to down south, but we will gain more than that back. I haven't yet seen the Special Broadcast about missionary work, but I am hoping to get to see it some time soon. I have heard great thing about it and I am excited to get to watch it at some point. It is a great time to be alive and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Later-Day Saints and it is our privilege and responsibility to take the gospel to all the world in preparation for the Savior's Second Coming.

Once again our teaching was limited this week and it will be for the next few weeks. But I got lucky, and have been able to go on exchanges with Elder VB since our companions have office work and we have finished everything we have to do. We were in the MTC together and he is a great missionary. He is from Missouri and is wanting to go to BYU after the mission. I may or may not have had a hand in that. I plead the fifth. 

We had mission tour this week and it was amazing. Elder Teh of the Seventy was the Presiding Authority and it was awesome. It was centered on obedience and how it effects our work as missionaries. Every missionary here in the mission feels more determined to be exactly obedient and to escape the PNC or Pwede NA Current, meaning that area between exact obedience and complete obedience. Elder Teh talked to us office Elders and thanked us for doing a great job in the office and helping the mission run smoothly. It was a great week overall.

Just a quick story before I close out the email. Last night Elder VB and I were our working and we went to go give the sacrament to a member. We stopped at the apartment to get bread and decided that it looked nice enough outside to leave our umbrellas at the apartment. Bad idea. During the closing prayer of our last lesson, it started to pour rain, so we walked to the office in the rain and then arrived in the middle of office meeting soaking wet. President let us go back and change. And by the time we got back to the office it was no longer raining. Typical.

Keep up the faith everyone and keep on praying for missionary opportunities. The Lord is preparing people for us to help enter the gate of baptism and he will lead us to them as we open our eyes and mouths to share the Gospel. Thank you all for your examples to me. Mahal Kita!

Elder Ryne Warren Wood

I'm singing, just sining in the rain!! (6/16/13)

Dear Family and Friends,

It would seem that the rainy season has begun. It has been raining every night for the past few weeks and then we have had a few storms over the past few nights. It has been great! It starts off every morning as a nice clear day in the morning and then around 4 or 5 o'clock the clouds roll in from the south and the rain starts. It gets nice and cool at night which is a bonus, though it is hotter than ever during the day.

We have been getting ready for transfer day which is now only 2 weeks away. There are going to be 37 new missionaries coming in the month of July. Elder B and I traveled up to Aparri on Thursday and Friday to look at apartments. We were actually supposed travel to Sta. Ana, the most northern point on Luzon, but we found out that the apartments that we were supposed to look at were already rented. Elder B's first area was Aparri, so we got dinner at a members home with the other missionaries. Connections rule!

I want to wish a happy Fathers Day to all of the fathers or soon to be fathers who will read this. I love getting to teach to families, and I have been trying to concentrate families. We actually just started teaching a family again, the R family. The children are members, but N is not, so we have been teaching her and preparing her for baptism. She wants to and is almost ready, but she wants her son who is currently serving a mission to baptize her when he gets back, but that isn't until next January. We are hoping that she will agree to be baptized by her younger son, who is preparing for his mission. On Saturday we started reviewing lesson 1, the Message of the Restoration and we started with God is our loving Heavenly Father. We downloaded and showed one of the Mormon Messages called Earthly Father, Heavenly Father. The Spirit was very strong during the lesson. I love testifying to others about God's love and that he literally is our Heavenly Father. I know that God is our Loving Heavenly Father and that he has a plan for His Children. I know that Jesus Christ and his Atonement are central to the plan of salvation and that Christ is the only way that we can return to live with our Heavenly Father after this life. I am very grateful to have been blessed with a loving father here on earth, who has taught  me to love God and keep his commandments. I want to encourage you all to call your father and say happy Fathers day to him and to remember also our Heavenly Father and all of the blessing he gives us.

We got to go to a couple of baptisms this week. Both were baptisms of Elder VB and Elder H, but we are in the same ward and we have all taught to both of the investigators. It is awesome to see others make the covenant of baptism and receive the  Holy Ghost. It really brings the work into a new perspective to see lives change.

Thank you all for your support of all the missionaries around the world. As the work of the Lord grows he needs everyone to put their shoulder to the wheel and push along. Keep on giving referrals, fellowshipping and preparing new missionaries for the work. Mahal kita! Kita Kits! Mabuhay!

Elder Ryne Warren Wood

Photos 6/9/13

Elder B, Al & Family

Sisters, Elder B, Elder RWood and Al's family

If you do a u-turn, I will catch you.(6/9/13)

Dear Family and Friends,

Don't you hate that moment where you go to start writing something, but then don't know ho to start. Yeah I just had that. So it has been a week. I always feel like there is so much to write about yet when I get to the computer I don't know what to say. So I'll just start off with the best part, the Ilayat Family baptism! Alex Ilayat, the mission home security guard and his family were baptized in Batac on Saturday. That is about a 30 minute drive south of Laoag and President Barrientos let Elder B, Elder VB, Elder H and I drive down. Elder B was the baptizer so it was important. I attached a few pictures. It was great. There were 10 missionaries there due to exchanges that the Batac sisters were having, and there were lots of ward members. It all went smoothly until....

The font! It turns out that Al's 8 year old son is scared of water. So it took about 20 minutes to get him baptized. He would not let go of Al or the hand rail, but it all worked out. Elder B finally just picked him up and they both went under.  Al and his wife Cl have very strong testimonies which they shared after the ordinance. Then the Bishop of the Batac ward talked. I have met him before. He works as a Land Traffic Office Traffic Enforcer. Not some one you mess with. He talked about enduring to the end. He said " Now that you are in the path that leads to eternal life, go straight. Don't turn left, don't turn right and if you do a u-turn I will catch you." Everyone grinned at that, and we all got to see his teeth. His front top six teeth are all gold, silver or have some sort of shiny metal inlaid  in them. 

It is very true what he said though. There can be no turning once we are on the path that leads back to Heavenly Father. After we have entered the gate at baptism, it is a direct path back to out Heavenly Father if we will just continue to press forward. WE are given the gift of the Holy Ghost to help us on the path, as well as prophets, apostles, family, friends, teachers and so many more. Heavenly Father knows exactly what each of his children need to get back to him and he has and will give it to us. He loves us so much and if we remember that, and all that he has done for us, nothing matters more than getting home. 

The baptism was the biggest event of the week. We finished off Mission Leader Council, and had lots of errands to run later in the week. Always on the move as an office elder, though never in the way that we expect. I love being able to serve other missionaries though. I know that the Lord blesses all of his servants, no matter what their responsibilities are. I know that he will bless all of you as you do what he asks of you. I gotta run again. Mahal Kita! Mabuhay kayo lahat!

Elder RWood

Great Mexican food in Laoag. No joke. (6/2/13)

Dear Family and Friends,

I don't even know where to start with this week. It was one of those packed and crazy yet completely awesome and mind blowing weeks. Those are the best kind of weeks by far. 

We had interviews with President Barrientos on Thursday which took the whole day for us office Elders. Interviews were combined with District Meeting, which was great. Our district is huge with ten missionaries. It's because we have the four office Elders, the assistants and four sisters. Elder B is our district leader and he had a great training about using questions to help others and serve. That only went till about 11, and then it was personal study and errands with Sister Barrientos time. We were ate the chapel until 8, and interviews started at 8. We then went to Ineq's BBQ which is really good and then finally got home around 9:30. It was a long day, but I have had longer. Much, much longer.

Stake Conference was this weekend and Elder Teh of the First Quorum of the Seventy was presiding. He is the President of the Philippines area. We got to here from him, Sister Teh and President and Sister Barrientos, though we had a power outage in the middle of Sister Barrientos's talk, so we missed about half of it. We were in the overflow in the Relief Society room. It was such an awesome conference and we will get to see Elder Teh again in two weeks when he comes for the mission tour. 

There was one part of stake conference that really made the entire day perfect. When I was in Bacarra I told you all a bit about F, one of our investigators who did a 180 turn our first lesson and loves the Book of Mormon. We could never get him to come to Church since he always had work.  Last week Elder L was here to get his trainee and I asked him about Bacarra and he told me that F had attended church. This Sunday though, he was there are stake conference. And I could see the difference in his face. The change was amazing. He had this new light about him and he looked so happy. Although he is pure Ilokano, so it is a bit hard to communicate, when I shook his hand before I could see in his eyes the change that is being wrought in him by the Savior. And he stopped me again after conference to shake my hand again. It was such a powerful experience for me and a testimony builder of how this gospel changes lives and how each of person we talk to about the gospel has the seed of faith planted. We may not be able to see the fruit of our efforts in this life, but for sure we will see them in the next and we will have joy. In D&C 18, we are promised that if we bring one soul unto Christ great shall be our joy, but if we bring more souls our joy will be even greater. And I testify that every person that we share the gospel with is some one that we will help bring unto Christ. I have seen it for my self and I want everyone to feel that joy.

I love you all and I hope that all is going well for you. Keep up the faith and works and always remember that the Lord is with us. He has walked our path and now is is helping us walk it if we will but reach out for his help. Mahal Kita! Mabuhay kayo lahat!

Elder RWood