Last email

So I can´t believe this is the last email I will be sending from Brazil. Time has flown by way too fast this last transfer. The week I was a little sad because I felt like time was slipping through my hands, but I´m very excited to see the family. It has been a short and long 18 months, but I´m ready to come home. President H talked with me and said the Lord is pleased with my work here in Joao Pessoa and with my mission and that I did what I came here to do...and now it is time to go home. Hard words to hear, but Brazil will always be here and I can visit the people I´ve come to respect and love for the rest of my life. A mission is an experience that few people get to have...and it is the best experience. I feel so blessed for the opportunity I had to serve in this wonderful mission with these wonderful people.t President and Sister H are literally angels. They have made such an impact in my life because of their wonderful examples and their willingness to serve the Lord. I´ll never to be able to thank them for the help they´ve given me on the mission. The other day I tried to think about how my life would be without my mission and it was impossible. I was meant to serve a mission. I knew it on the day I received my patriarchal blessing. It was something I had to do before being a wife, mom, etc. It will be hard to leave Brazil, but I´ll get all my crying out before coming home. I love Brazil, I´ll always love Brazil, but I´m accepting the fact that my time as a fulltime missionary is over for now. I´m hoping that one day I´ll serve here with my husband. who knows! This past week was pretty good. I got a call on Monday saying that I had to be in Joao Pessoa on Tuesday for a training...so we picked up a bus at 5 am on Tuesday heading for Joao Pessoa. It was worth it though. I got to see Sister G, my daughter (who I trained), and Sister De Oliveira who is just one of my favorite people in the world. The training was amazing. President H and Sister H bring the spirit into whatever meeting they attend. We got a special treat this week. One of our investigators was baptized by President H. Sister H is a good friend of this lady and when we marked her baptism she said she wanted Pres. H to baptize her. He is a pretty busy man, but we called him and he accepted the invitation. I have to tell you it was an AWESOME experience watching President H enter the baptismal font with Neide. The Spirit was super strong and it definitely isn´t everyday that you see your mission president baptizing one of your investigators. Awesome. But yeah.. the week was good. This week is my last full week as a missionary. Sad. Next week I´ll be home. Next monday isn´t p-day so you won´t receive an email from me...this is officially the last. Tchau, sister wood

Oii!

Oi! Well this week FLEW by! Today I woke up and couldn´t believe it was Pday again! Crazy! My week was pretty good though. We have zone conference in João Pessoa and it was exciting to travel to a big city for the first time in a while. The conference was awesome! I felt the spirit so strong during the entire thing and I was just so happy that I have such a wonderful mission president. President H and Sister H are amazing and are doing miracles in this mission! What a blessing it is to be working her with them. Since it was my last conference I got to bear my testimony in front of everyone. It was good. My goal was to not cry, so I had to make them laugh a little. As we sang the mission hymn I began to feel the reality of the fact that I´m going home soon. It is a good and bad feeling....but as Elder Wirthlin said....Come what may and love it! That is just what I will have to do. I´m nervous about coming home, but I have to do it. I´m hoping to stay here a few more days before going home. The chapel here is Guarabira will be dedicated April 10th. The night before the dedication we are doing a big theatrical performance with the youth. We started practicing the skits last night and it is going to be a great show! ALL the VIPs from Guarabira will hopefully be there and it will be a chance to show the community what me believe and also show how fun it is to be a member of the church. All the skits have to do with the topics from `For the Strength of Youth``` and each skit has a music. I´m in charge of all the musical numbers (if i stay) and it is quite a chore but I´m excited for start putting everything together. I asked President H to stay on a little while longer, but he still hasn´t approved anything. He got excited though when I asked him if I could stay, so we will see how everything works out. At conference President H took us four missionaries aside and told us how proud he was of our work here in Guarabira. He said we are doing miracles. That felt good to hear. I don´t know if we are doing miracles, but we are trying our best. Our attendence was awesome yesterday (again, whooohooo!) and the members are helping out so much. Last night I was talking with Elder Siquiera and he said....``it is amazing the difference huh? the members are so much happier now than when we arrived.`` I agreed with him. The Lord has really been preparing these members to be able to receive their new chapel! The missionary work is going a long great. THe members are giving us so many references that it is hard to visit all of them. Yesterday a member came up to us and said---we have 4 families for you to teach this afternoon´´´.....we felt a little overwhelmed because of our other appointments and said that the elders would have to teach some of them. After lunch we headed out to the countryside where these people were living. It was a lot of fun. One family had so many animals walking around that it was a little hard to know get distracted. During the lesson chickens, pigs, and goats kept passing by and I beginning to think i was on Noah´s ark, and not in Brazil. The families were cool though. One family told us that crocodiles live in their lake. Every once in a while when one of them kills a pig the family gets all riled up and goes on a crocodile hunting spree. It was a lot of fun to hear all their stories! Well I have to go! I love you all and hope you are safe and in good health! See you all soon!


Love ya,
Sister Wood

oii!!

Bom Dia. Now that I´m getting close to coming home I´m feeling lazy while writing emails.... This week was good though. We worked super hard and I have to say it was difficult because of the sun this week. The sun was literally frying our skin this week. I never knew how hot the sun could be until I came to Northeast Brazil! It is ridiculous! We taught a ton of lessons this week, with few results....at the same time we were kind of expecting this because this week is CARNAVAL! Officially the wickedest holiday that exists on the face of the earth (that I know of) is Carnaval. It is 1000X worse than any other holiday! Luckily almost everyone goes to the beach, but a few people still stayed in Guarabira to party. Despite Carnaval, we still had a good amount of people in church. We are really doing great though. I´m crying more than usual these days because I´m quickly realizing that my time as a fulltime missionary is coming to an end. BUT I´m excited to see my dear family! I´ve learned so much on the mission. I´ve feel like I´ve learned more here than I could in a million lifetimes. I´m excited to apply all these things in my post-mission life. It should be great! Continue to be member missionaries and help this work go forward! Pray for missionary opportunities and the Lord will bless you all with the ability to touch someone´s life! That is one of the coolest think i learned on the mission....that being a missionary does not end! of course I won´t be able to teach lessons like the missionaries, but I will be able to give references and share my testimony with everyone! I have lots of missionary goals for when I return. Well, I gotta go! I hope you are all doing great and in good health! I love you all! Love, Sister Wood

February 28th, 2011

I´m writing this to you all while drinking an agua de coco in the Lan House here in Guarabira. Too bad I can´t bring it back with me to the U.S.! ..anyway...It is a beautiful, but hot day. This transfer started off well. I´m really excited that I stayed with Sister Vênia. I really don´t have that much to say today. We worked hard this week and are ready to work even harder this week. I stopped losing weight, which is a good and bad thing. I want to get skinny. It is starting to sink in that I´m leaving Brasil soon. Yesterday in church I started crying a little just thinking about how I am going to be able to say goodbye to these people. A few people came up to me afterwards and told me how much they would miss me. I really do love the members of the branch....such sweet, special people. I´m trying to use my time wisely because soon I will be headed home. I really don´t know what more to say. I´ll be home soon and be able to talk with you all....so the whole email thing is losing its shine. Just know that i´m doing well...I´m in good health. I hope everyone is doing great. I´m excited to see you all! Have a great week. Love you, Sister Wood

Last transfer-same place

TODAY officially I officially start my last transfer on the mission! Crazy! I´m not ready to come home and the closer April 6th comes, the more I want time to slow down....but like it or not I´ll be home in 6 weeks. Last night the branch had a small party for us because we were POSITIVE that one of us 4 missionaries would be transferred out of the area. Well we got the call and none of us were transferred! I was overjoyed and in shock....I asked President H about 5,000,000 times to stay in Guarabira this transfer with Sister Vênia and I just can´t believe I got my wish! Usually it just doesn´t happen that way on the mission. When you are loving your area and your companion, they switch you to a hard area with a dificult companion. I lucked out this time. I´m really grateful that the Lord and President H granted me this wish! Another big blessing was that we stayed with Elder Siquiera and Elder Jay. They are awesome missionaries and I definitely consider them as my brothers from another mother. They take such good care of us and really know how to help out the branch. It will be an awesome last transfer!

Well the transfer was about the only exciting news I have about this week except for the fact that I lost 7 pounds. yeah.....I got sick with a HORRIBLE case of the flu last Tuesday night and ended up sick in bed for 4 days. It was horrible, horrible, horrible. Needless to say, by the end of the week I wanted to die. Sunday morning I luckily had enough strength to get to church and to work afterwards, but by nighttime I was feeling sick again and running a high fever so I went to bed as soon as we got home. Unfortunately because of the fever being so high and uncomfortable I wasn´t able to sleep and just kept feeling sicker and sicker until about 2 am when I started crying and woke up Sister Vênia. I was dying of thirst but felt completely incapable of moving so I asked Sister Vênia to get water for me. After she went back to bed I just continued to get worse until I suddenly felt like I was going to throw up. I ran to the bathroom just in time and then.....I started throwing up. Anyway to make a long story short. I continued to throw up a lot until about noon when I was finally about to keep liquid down. The Elders brought me agua de coco and it took me 4 hours to drink it all, but by the end of the day I had finished the coco and eaten 4 crackers. The entire week was pretty rotten because I was sick...also 3 of our baptisms fell through! FRUSTRATION! BUT.... today I am feeling much better and skinnier. I´m taking lots of medicine to restore my digestive system and pretty soon I´ll be 100% healthy so no need to worry about me! Sister H took such good care of me! She is an angel. She called me all the time to check up on me and really helped me out a ton! The Elders as well were angels! They never got tired of picking up agua de coco, medicine, food, giving blessings, etc. Also my companion never got tired of my requests and was always ready to help me! Also several branch members called me, visited me, stayed with me and brought me food during the week! Being sick isn´t too bad when you are surrounded by angels!
Well I hope you all are in good health and safe and HAPPY! I´m happy! I´ve got my side-kick Sister Vênia with me until I end my mission in this beautiful area! We will see the chapel dedicated and hopefully watch the first general conference transmitted to Guarabira! Sister H put me in charge of organizing a choir for the dedication and it will just be an awesome experience to see all this coming together! I love Love LOVE you all and hope you are working hard to establish the Lord´s kingdom on the earth. The church is true. It is a fact that Christ lives and directs this church. The Book of Mormon is true and it was written for us. I feel so special when I read the Book of Mormon knowing that all those ancients prophets labored tirelessly to engrave these beautiful gospel truths so that we could be happy. As they saw their people being destroyed because of their iniquities, we were their hope.....that one day people would come to earth who wouldn´t reject the Book of Mormon and the Man of whom it testifies. I feel so honored that we were born in these latter days....that we have the promise that the work of the Lord will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished, and the Great Jehovah shall say the work is done." Remember who you guys are and what your potential is and what the Lord expects of you! I like a quote once told me, ```Jesus is coming, look busy``

Love, Sister Wood