Big Celebration - Big Sheep - Big Mountains

Tyrae's Baptism (see last post for more information)


The Home Where Apostle David B. Haight Grew Up (Brad passes it almost every day)

Pretty awesome week. Tyrae's baptism was great. Other than Elder Tanner and I both getting really sick. I had been up the whole night before being sick, and it hit him AT the baptism. Horrible timing. But I got a pretty good laugh out of it. He was so close to making it to the bathroom before he puked. haha. But it was a really good baptism. Work has been good. We've been visiting alot of families and doing some teaching. A lot of sevice too. Its been fun. Today for P-day, the whole zone went out to the City of Rocks. It was amazing. It actually looked alot like Lord of the Rings. I was very surprised. But we had a lot of fun. Check out that sheep though! It looks like it hasn't been sheared since birth! haha. Well, Oakley is a great place. I've grown to love it. This Sunday, Elder Tanner and I are going down to Grouse Creek (or Crik haha) for the 1st time. Its a town of about 16 people with 15 members. haha/ It should be awesome. Stake conference is the week after that, and Elder Quinton L Cook is going to be there. Awesome! So it should be really cool. Thanks so much for the love and support you all give.

Love ya tons. -Elder Woods>

I failed to mention some things in the last blog. 1st off, the Twin Falls temple was dedicated on Sunday. It was absolutely amazing. Plus President Monson is one of the funniest people in the world. The night before that, was the youth cultural temple celebration. It was amazing. The kids were so into it and it was great. There was even a pretty big part about Oakley in it. YES! haha. I don't remember if I mentioned this, but we had our Mission Tour. Elder Kukuchi came and talked to us from 10 am to 6 pm. It was absolutely amazing. I have over 7 1/2 pages of notes. If I missed anything else I'll try to get it next week. Love ya. -Elder Woods

Oakley - Dokley

Well, its been a pretty crazy week. But not near as crazy as this week is going to be. But anyways, this is a really cool story. So we were biking on Sat. and ended up riding 12 miles. Alot was on accident. The guy we went to see wasn't home. But! Blessings come from sacrifice. We were out looking for people (and since it was State Fair week NO ONE was home). So after alot of unsuccess (basically this whole week cause of the fair) we started to get a little discouraged. When all of a sudden, Brother Anhder (our ward mission leader in View 1st ward) calls us with the greatest news ever."Hey missionaries, I have some great news for ya""Awesome Brother Ahnder, that's my favorite kind of news. What's up?""Well, there's a girl here, who is getting adopted into an LDS family. She has already received the lessons and has been going to church for several months now. Well, she wants to be baptized before this Sat so she can go to the temple dedication with her family. I called your Mission President and we got permission to do it as early as Thursday"[this was the point were Elder Tanner and my heads exploded due to shear excitement and amazement]So we started teaching the next day. We went back yesterday and combined two lessons. It was crazy. Today she has her interview, and her baptism is Thursday. HOORAY! Well, I must be off. Stories like this really prove to me that D&C 4 is absolutely true. I love you all.
-Elder Woods
p.s. On the picture, "Look for flying airplanes", as opposed to those crawling or swimming airplanes. haha

Rain, Drums and Small-Town Living

I would 1st like to start with the most ironic story of my mission so far. In my area, we cover View, Pella, Oakley, and Grouse Creek. We live in Oakley. Grouse Creek is about 1000000000 miles away, so we never go down there. (We have plans to go down either this Sunday or next). Pella and View are too far to go because of our mile constrictions, so we go out there only a few days a week. Well we went out Tuesday and decided, "hey, we're gonna be back on Thursday, why don't we leave our car here, use bikes Wednesday, and save a ton of miles?" Sounded awesome. right? Now let me jump back a little farther. I have wanted it to rain so bad here because I'm missing monsoon season in AZ. So (of course) the one day we decide to bike, it rains BIG time. It was pretty sweet. Work is a little slow. But we are following the example of Ammon and serving EVERYONE. Its pretty awesome and we know it will bring results eventually. It's going great though. I'm still adjusting to this small town feel. We had an exchange today and my zone leader (Elder Mortenson also from AZ. ya, over 50% from AZ. crazy.) came here and said it was without a doubt the smallest town in the mission. haha. But I love it. The people are really nice and very friendly. Last p-day was incredibly fun. We played ultimate frisbee as a zone, then spun on the crazy spinny thing (see pic). After some more fun stuff, we went to a members home who has a bowling alley in his house. He hosts a bunch of parties like graduations and stuff and bands play there. So while all the Elders ran to take lanes and bowl, I made a B-line to the electric drumset. Man it was SWEET! Then he brought out a REAL SET and we set it up. Way way way fun! Well, hope everything is great for y'all. I love ya tons.
-Elder Woods

"Llama Face"

Hello again everyone from Oakley, Idaho. The work here is awesome, yet really slow. Since its a small town, the whole area has been tracked about 40 billion times. Twice in the last month alone. So Elder Tanner and I are having to go about the work differently. Right now were trying to focus on service, and working with the leadership. It's something different that we're praying will yield success. Luckily, Elder Tanner is awesome. I couldn't imagine doing a slow area like this with someone I didn't like. ugh! haha. But he's way cool. We have one person trying to get baptized, but his work schedule is chaos. <-- (ch-i-ous?) haha. But he's a really cool guy. We cover 8 wards (Oakley stake). I thought memorizing 3 wards in Middleton was hard. Man! But I'm gettin it. So yesterday was Elder Tanner's birthday. YAY! It was fun. The biggest thing happening in the area from Twin falls down to here, is "Suessical the Musical". Which is actually in Oakley. and half of the city is in it. So we went to that last night cause they wanted us to, and they sang him happy birthday and it was awesome. Then we got home and our land lady's family brought him over a cake. It was way cool. Coming up is two cool things, but there not for a while. The temple dedication, which we don't get to go to. But we get to watch in the stake center. and the mission tour, were Elder Yoshi-hiku Kakuchi (butchered that) is coming. Pretty awesome. Well thanks again. I love you all. -elder woods


Elder Tanner (Voyager Ward, Val Vista Stake)