Emails to mom & dad

Sent: Wednesday, August 18, 2010 12:48 PM
To: Wood, Suzi M
Hi Mommy! Happy anniversary. I love you guys. Entonces ¿Dondé está mi carta? Ask Jeff to translate. I hope all is well for you and I miss you lots. God needs me here, I think He's teaching me more than I will ever be able to teach others. Sorry if any of the letters have bad grammar. I have come to the conlusion that it's not worth fighting; I might as well just say good-bye to English if I'm ever to get the Spanish grammar right. Only two more weeks left at the CCM!! Wow it went by fast no? I'm gonna be a real missionary. Oh last week I got to see the ocean in Lima; that was way cool. But insead of sand it was big rocks and apparently there was a earthquake here last Friday? I don't know; I didn't feel it but some elders said they did. Ok I have to give up my computer. Love you lots. Love Hermana Wood!


August 18, 2010
To: Wood, Gary E
I think my (mission) area got smaller. We still have the temple and the CCM since they are in Molina but the rest of my mission, I dont know much. They just barely put a new map up, but it's not detailed; just a couple big cities that were in my area before.

Sent: Wednesday, August 18, 2010 12:39 PM
To: Wood, Gary E
Sorry this computer won't let me send pictures. I will look for another computer, but I might have to try next week. I love you guys. I got to go through the temple with my new companion. It was her first time so I got to be an escort again. My Spanish, I think, is getting better. If you guys are sending anything by dearelder.com I'm not getting anything. Remember to send it to the Perú CCM. Más letters please. Love you guys.


On 8/18/10, Elizabeth Wood wrote:
Today is going good. Wow Shaq is still playing - well I guess he can since he doesnt work much anyway. Yeah, the elders keep talking about college football around here, too. Im just glad I know a little something about it so I can understand. Today we got to go to the temple. Last week the North Americans got to go on a tour of Lima in the afternoon; it was pretty cool. I will be sending pictures. The elders here also keep talking about Pokemon. It reminds me of Bobby and then all the elders were trying to name all the Pokemons, so see if Bob can name all 150 Pokemon. Oh, so I found out this week that I'm allowed to play soccer with the elders; we just have to be careful with contact while playing, so another Hermana and I played it with elders. It was so much fun! I'm sorry to hear about grandma, I hope she feels better soon. I put her name on the prayer roll here in Perú today. I love you guys. Happy anniversary!! Love Hermana Wood.

From: Elizabeth Wood
Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2010 6:29 AM
To: Wood, Gary E
Sorry, I just realized that its 8:15 am here and is probably like 6 or 7am there. Oh well, I hope to hear from you soon. I hope all is well. Thanks for catching me up on sports news before the mission, because it gives me something to talk about with the elders sometimes. Llately they have been playing this silly game where they say we´re going to take a trip and for example: We're going to start in Sacramento, and we're going to buy 5 gallons of ice cream and then we are going to Nashville, and after I think we´ll go to Salt Lake City, where do end our trip? The answer would be Phoenix. Why? Because we just spelled out Suns. Sacramento, 5 = U, Nashville, Salt Lake City. Something tells me that you already know this game but if you don't you can have fun with it. You spell out team names with the first letter of a city and each vowel is a number. 1=A, 2=E, 3=I, 4=O, 5=U, and sometimes 6=Y. Then you end your trip whereever the team is from. It's great fun when you know what's going on and the elders didn't think I could keep up. It's good I'm secretly good with sports teams. Well, now you can have fun with Uncle Wayne. Although I think he knows it too. I have a vague memory of you two doing something like that before. OK I love you and I´ll talk to you later, Padre! Love, your hija, Hermana Wood!

August 11 email

Hola familia,
This week's been kinda slow, just classes and classes. Not much more than that. Yesterday all the missionsaries went out on their missions so all that we have left here is the group I came in with. No Latinos and no "older" kids. We miss them, they were pretty cool. But today we will get new Latinos and sometime at 2 am we will get new North American missionaries. It´ll be fun to meet new people. That´s what we do - continue to get new people. In three weeks I will be out on my mission in my first area! Yikes! My Spanish better get better. Anyway, today we are also moving rooms to make room for the new people and so the cleaning people can clean the rooms really well. So how's grandma doing? I hope she's home now. How's life in CG? Today we get to go on a tour of Peru to go see the sights a little & learn about the history and go shopping! Yeah, it's a like a missionary field trip. LOL, we are a happy bunch of people. LOL. OK, love you guys lots.
Love, Hermana Wood

August 4, 2010

OK everyone, my eye is better! I'm in the clear now, I just have to dodge the colds that seem to be plaguing the CCM. The cold & humidity brings a lot of that. I just remember I've been blessed with health so I do what I can to avoid illness.
My Spanish is coming along. I'm still way nervous to talk to anyone outside of the CCM in Spanish but it's getting better. On Saturdays we go proselyting to less active members in different parts of Lima. So I get to walk around with my companion and a member of the ward to lead the way and go visiting teaching basically. It was cool to walk the streets of Perú. We went to a poor part of the city, it was so different from the U.S. I'm instantly very grateful for everything I had at home. But we got to talk to people, bear our testimony, and talk about the church with people. My understanding in Spanish is still not the best, but I could understand the jist of every conversation. Not enough to say much but it felt like someone was whispering to my mind about what was being said and what I needed to say. Never before when people spoke about the gift of tongues, or the gift of interpretaion, did I understand until then. The Lord knows his children and he knows how to use the missionaries as instruments.
Ok today we went to Immigration (dept), and I think now I'm an official citizen of Perú for 18 months!! Wow! Then after that we went shopping and we went to this store; it's like Walmart. It was so cool to feel like home here, and I've always wondered what it was like to be in a store and be speaking another language that wasn't the native language. Yup, it's weird and cool. People kinda give you weird looks like, "what are they saying?" But then we saw a teacher from the CCM and we're speaking Spanish cause she doesnt understand English.
OK, I love you guys, if I can get more time I will write more. Love you all so much, I hope you will email me pictures soon. Oh how's Grandma? Love you- Hermana Wood

Email #2 - July 27, 2010

Everything's A-OK!

These are pictures of me on the plane, the view from my window on the plane which I drove the flight attendent crazy cause I wouldn't keep my blind closed. Then there are pictures of my companion in pink, Hermana Avalose from Peru. This was her first time thru the temple and I got to be her escort as much as I could help in spanish. The others are my roommates Hermana Bringhurst from Alaska, and Hermana Nuñez from Columbia. The picture of food is our Peru Independence Day Fiesta! The food was good but a lot - I couldn't finish it all. There are pictures from the airport when we landed in Peru. The picture of the family is one of my teachers and his family, not the one that had a seizure. This teacher is so awesome he keeps encouraging me to trust in myself with my Spanish and trust in the Lord; he has great faith. The other teacher is really good, too. There is also a picture of the tallest and the shortest people here; it was comical. And the one picture is of Hermana Corrasca and I. She speaks English real well and wants to learn more so she won't let me speak Spanish to her. She is from Peru I think . I think that is it. I need to make a better list of everything I want to say to you guys as the week goes cause in a few hours I'll think of someting else to say. Oh I got to play soccer on that awesome field. It was fun; it was just all the Hermanas. We also got to teach some of the Peruvians volleyball. On Mondays we have a personal trainer and he is a fútbol coach for some of the national teams and member of the church. He works us pretty hard - wow I'm so sore from yesterday. Ok, well, I've extended my use longer than I was supposed to, so I´ll talk to you all again next week.

Beautiful clouds seen from airplane

Email - July 27, 2010

Hola familia,
Life here is good so far. Today was Independence Day in Peru so we had P-Day moved to today and so I get to write to you all. Next week will go back to normal. Let's see, so far on Friday was the first day of normal classes and in the middle of class in the afternoon our teacher suffered a seizure. It was so crazy! I think he has that as a common enough occurance or something because no medical personnel was called and he returned after dinner to continue to teach! It was crazy! This week that same teacher is completely fine. Today was the first time I got to go to the temple in a month and I had to wear headphones and a translater to understand, but I did the other part in Spanish without much help. The food here is crazy but good, But I don't like the drinks becuase there is a bunch of pulp stuff in it. So far I have no problems going to the bathroom, but I have heard of some elders and sisters having problems. Actually the other night the sisters had a Milk of Magnesia party. I didn't participate because I didn't need to. Let's see. So I may have an obstructed eye duct. The bottom right side of my left eyelid has been swollen and red and just bad. So I talked to the mission president's wife and she talked to the doctor who gave me eye drops because we thought it might be a sty, but then nothing happened. So then the doctor looked at my eye and he thought maybe just an infection and precriped me Cipro. Well today he looked at it again and he thinks it's an obstructed eye duct becuse my eye looks like an infection has lessened but there's still somehting going on with my eyelid. The doctor wants me to go to the eye doctor to have it checked. Oh goodie. Anyway pray my eye gets better as well as my Spanish. I love you all!! I wish I had been able to talk to you all on the phone. You guys better write me soon!!! I'm dying to hear from you all.

Email - July 22, 2010

Hola familia!

Volleyball Court

Well we made it down to Peru; we are alive! So far the food has been good, different but very good. We arrived this morning about 2am- yeah so much fun! But actually for me it was really cool on the plane because they bumped four in our party to the business elite section of the plane and my seat was one of the four somehow! It was so awesome! I´ll never be able to fly coach again. It was very nice though; I could lay my whole seat down and sleep if I wanted to. The food on the plane was terrible though. Im so glad to be off the plane after a whole day of it. Let's see, the CCM is so much smaller than the MTC in Provo. My companion is from Ariquipa Peru, so she doesn't speak English, but she is very nice and helps me with Spanish and tries to understand me even when I speak english. We dont spend much time with our companions though since our languages are different. We don't have class together; we eat meals together and have gym together, and I think we have companion study together, that should go well. We get to go to the temple on Tuesday and on Wed there is a big Peru Independence Day celebration, so we get to try all sorts of different Peruvian foods that day. The mission president is from the US and he holds some meetings for us in English so we wont be completely lost. The learning curve to learn Spanish it so steep that it is hard to keep up. But it's worth the effort. Oh, Steph should see the soccer field they have here. First off there are two little basketball courts, a little place to play football, a sand volleyball court, and one very pampered soccer field! I will have to take a picture for you all. Ok well, I love you all and was happy to talk to all I got to talk to yesterday on the phone. I wish I culd have talked longer and to more people. I hope all this made sense. Again, I love you lots and I'll talk to you soon. Dear Elder still works out here too, so done't forget to write me. Love, Hermana Wood

July 17, 2010 - handwritten letter

Familia!
Como estan? Estoy bien? Let me tell you about today! So once a week we teach "investigators" or rather volunteers that come and act as investigators for us. The volunteers we get are people that speak Spanish because we have language tasks. Last week we contacted people in the "park" then we teach in English. This week we went contacting "door to door" or rather classroom to classroom. Anyway, we have to contact in Spanish only and today that went okay. My companions and I have to work on it, but the people we got to teach today were from Peru, but now live in Utah. So like last week we were allowed to teach a lesson in English. Like I said, our "investigators" in real life and the characters they were playing are from Peru. Although in real life they didn't speak English well. Yikes! (Well, it was a father/son team, but the son who spoke English didn't speak much to us.) So it was a good thing they were members already, but let me tell you about the gift of tongues! I never understood it quite, but today, talking to the two men I know my mind was open and my tongue was loose to be able to understand most of what was said to me and my companions and then a good portion of the words I needed (if I knew them in Spanish already) came to mind! So I partially taught the first lesson in Spanish! Two and a half weeks in the MTC! Just imagine how good my Spanish will be in six weeks when I'm completely out of the MTC & CCM!
So I've been thinking maybe I should share with you what a day in the MTC is like for me. So I wake up about 6 or 6:30am depending on what is going on & time needed to get ready. This morning I had early morning gym where my companions and other hermanas & elders (from our zone) played volleyball outside. It was good weather and was very fun. After that we grabbed a sack breakfast and went to our residence halls to eat & shower. A sack breakfast is usually juice, cereal, milk, bagels, doughnuts, soda; you can only choose 4, but those are the main options. Then we sit in class foreevvver! Especially if we had gym in the morning! Well, there's class and there's times where we have 5 hours to decide as a companionship what we need to get done, but we have to be studying. No going to our beds to sleep! (Unless you've been here for 14 weeks and you're waiting on visas; it happened to a couple of elders that were here when we got here, but now have finally made it to their missions.) After breakfast and class is lunch, then another four hours of class or study, then dinner and then another 2 - 3 hours of study class. It's actually sometimes more busy than that or more interesting than that, but that's the jist. Sometimes we have large group meetings where we learn as a big class with lots of other classes, and sometimes we have devotionals. I'm afraid I've scared anyone else from going on a mission, but don't worry, it's fun & awesome! The food isn't amazing, but it's good. The rest of the time we mess around. If you don't think there is time to mess around, then you underestimate the talents of missionaries. One elder spent his time learning how to say "will you be my wife" in Spanish. Another elder managed to get his lips stuck to a popsicle stick during lunch. It was because the popsicle was really frozen, but it reminded us of "A Christmas Story". (The elder was ok.) And we make/play games to learn Spanish.
Oh, I met an Elder Wood. He is going to serve in Equador and is also going to the Peru CCM. He's really dorky! (Don't get any ideas!) So we went to an in-field language study class (and that's where I met said Elder Wood). Well, I see some elders that told me earlier I needed to meet Elder Wood. So they point him out, he's sitting right in front of me & he introduces himself & finds out we will both be going to the Peru CCM and then says this crazy line, "Looks like we were destined to work together." I think my face said, "You dork!" and then all the elders around him started laughing at him. It was so awkward and now he's going to Peru! Oh well, he'll be with the Equadorian missionaries.
Ok, so that's all I have for now. I love you all & I hope you understood this letter! Next letter will be from Peru!
Love, Hermanda Wood

5 things I'm grateful for:
1. My famiy
2. Gospel
3. Holy Ghost
4. My District
5. Gift of Tongues!

July 14 email

Hola Familia!!
Well they're in! Travel plans that is.  We got our travel itinerary this week.  We leave Salt Lake at 8:25 am and have a 3 hour lay over in Atlanta, GA.  We get there at about 2:10 pm, then we leave GA for Lima, Peru at 5:05 and land at 10:50 pm.  Wow, what a long day!  I'm excited and nervous at the same time.  I met a teacher here that went to the Peru CCM on her mission and she said it was awesome and the food is great Peruvian food, so I'm excitedfor that.  This week we had Dallin H Oaks and his wife at our Sunday night fireside.  He was there actually to watch his daughter perform.  She is an accomplished violinist and she put on a musical fireside for us.  It was very nice. Last night we had a member of the Quorum of the Seventy talk to us for our devotional.  It was Ronald T Halverson, he talked about following the spirit and being committed to the work.  I got your letters and am excited to get a package!  I hope it comes in Monday.  Everything here is good.  My Spanish still isn't great, but tell Jeff Reynolds thanks for the letter in Spanish.  I had to laugh, then get my dictionary, but I was grateful for the challenge.  Tell Cathy & Bobby that I miss them lots.  You should send me pictures of you guys!  Well, I have like 2 mins left on this computer before I'm timed out, so I'll write to you soon if I think of more to say when I'm not rushed.

Love, Hermanda Wood!

July 7 hand-written letter

Life here is going good.  I have two companions, Sister Roberts and Sister Penovich.  We get along good, but it is sometimes difficult to work in a trio.  The Spanish seems to be coming along.  Still not fluent, but the strength of the spirit combined with what I do know seems to be a good combination.  Well, today is my first P-day and it has been a welcomed day.  I can get laundry done, write to you people, and rest from the run-around of the MTC.  It never stops here! Which is good, it'll kick the laziness right out of me.  Actually I feel more refreshed having a 10:30 bedtime cause then I have to go to sleep when I'm tired.

So how was your fourth of July?  Here at the MTC we had a freedom celebration show on the 3rd.  Its focus was more on the freedom of religion and how God paved the way through many men so we can have the gospel here in the Americas.  After that we were allowed to break curfew to watch the fireworks from BYU's football stadium.  It was nice.  A few hundred missionaries out on the south lawn, laughing, talking, and singing patriotic songs or church hymns,and somehow a group started singing a Christmas song.  Life at the MTC might be getting to them.  I like it here, people are nice and they always keep you busy, but I"m excited to go to the CCM in Peru.  On Sunday it was nice, we had a mission conference, then sacrament, and after another lengthy review of the rules of the MTC (not because we are breaking them, but just so everyone is still clear on the rules and standards), we were able to go on a temple walk.  Nothing too major, but we got to go to the temple and walk around.  I actually saw Elder Crockett (Justin) there.  We said hi and found out that he leaves on Tuesday, which was yesterday.

Again, life at the MTC is good. The spirit here is so strong and elders and sisters walk around speaking so many different languages!  I've heard Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Samoan, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, Marshalees, German, Tagalo, and of course Spanish!  I'm sure I've heard more, but I don't know the difference.  Here in Utah, the weather has been good, but they keep the air conditioning going all the time in the residence halls, so inside I freeze.  I don't believe it's hot enough to justify so much air conditioning, but don't tell that to someone from Utah.  Right now I'm wearing my sweater in my room because it's 70 degrees with air blowing on us in the room.

I love you all and miss you lots.  Don't worry, they are over-feeding me and keeping us over-protected.  Today I think we get to walk around the temple later.  So if I didn't say it before, one week accomplished!  Today new missionaries also came in today as old ones left for their fields yesterday.  Yeah, we aren't the newbies anymore!  Ok, well, again, I love you and hope to hear from you soon.

Love, Hermana Wood

5 things I'm grateful for:

1) My family
2) The gospel
3) The Book of Mormon
4) To live in America
5) Surving the first week here!
( 6) Finding vending machines; here, we eat dinner so early I'm hungry again before I go to bed.)

July 2 Letter

Hola Familia!  This week has been physically exhausting!  Let's see, let's start with what happened after I was stolen by the missionaries.  First I was taken to my room by my host sister, then I was quickly wisked away to "check in", I confirmed I was here, got my pic taken, got my name tag, books, then taken straight to class!  It was crazy!  Then we had a big meeeting with the MTC mission president.  There they discussed obedience! obedience! obedience!  These last couple of days we have been focused on learning how to pray in Spanish and how to bear my testimoy. It is amazing how the spirit works in learning a language!  I have taken spanish classes, but I feel like some of what I have learned before is being brought back to some remembrance, but clearly my spelling is terrible in English.  (That's okay, Beth, Mom will take care of that!)We are also learning to recognize, with the spirit's help, what people need, or recognize what a person is looking for in their lives.  It's amazing and the spirit is so strong here, but it is not easy.  I feel I have so much to learn so fast, once we are in Peru I hope I have picked up enough Spanish to understand and communicate in espanol to my companion.  Yike!  Pray for me!
Okay, something I need from you guys is mucho letters!!! I feel lonely out here and would like support.  I know I am here for a reason and I feel like I know I am supposed to be here. I know God loves you and is mindful of you all.  I love you and miss ya!  Love, Hermana Wood
P.S. My estimated departure is July 21st (for Peru).

I've survived my first week at the MTC!

Received by email on July 7, 2010 -

Hey familia! How are you all doing?  I've survived my first week of the mtc!  I love it here.  Today is my p-day.  How was 4th of July for you guys?  It was good here.  I sent a long letter home today so you can raed about that there. I'm sorry to hear about mittens, well for Jenni, but that cat was old haha.  Is it sad I'm more sad about Stodomier than the cat?  Hey you guys can send me letters through dearelder.com its like an email for you guys but it gets printed out and put in our mail box so it's like getting mail for real lol.  Tell Jenni about it too cause I don't have her email.  So far all we do is sing, pray, study, try to learn spanish and eat.  It's the perfect world if I weren't in a dress for most of it lol.  How's grandma and grandpa?  I hope grandma is home now.  I can't believe its ony been a week.  In a couple of more weeks I'll be in Peru! Crazy!  I'm getting better at learning to comprehend spanish, I think, although we all usually hear the same words over and over so maybe I shouldn't say that yet.  So any other big news in the sports world?  Its hard to know what to say since I wrote an actual letter today.  I only have 30 min of email time on wed while I am here, I don't know about what it'll be like in Peru.  Ok I love you all and miss you!  Dad make sure everyone gets to read this please. :) love you all, love Hermanda Wood!