It's my Birfweek!

Thats right everyone in ALL of the world, its my birthweek so you betterstop everything youre doing and think about me!....lol okay now you can allcontinue on with your daily lives :D haha no im pretty sure that today isSean Howards birthday if im not mistaken, and if i am mistaken that ishould at least be close and he should thank me for even trying ;) lolFeliz Cumpliaños Sean Howard! Thank you all so much for the Birthdaywishes! we will have to see how it goes...its a wednesday so it willprobably be wake up at 6:30, eat, study, tract, eat, study, tract, Englishclasses, eat, plan, sleep :) haha It will definitely be a birthday toremember. Still no word on my package yet...im not sure how she sent it?maybe she only sent the debit card straight to the mission home and theother one was just sent to a bus station? might wanna check on that one. Ormaybe it will just come tomorrow because they knew that i would open mypresents early if i got it early ;) on the bright side if it never comesthen I should get a small candy bar from President and Hna Chipman tomorrowwith a little card! yay! haha.
Lets see how did this week go? pretty good,  We got a good week of work inand then on Thursday we have a Zone conference with another zone and withpresident. It was pretty good, nothing out of the ordinary, there wereabout 60 missionaries there and that was lots of fun learning more. But acouple weeks ago i felt like i was getting a little bit comfortable withhow i taught my lessons so I prayed and asked for humility (which is alwaysa rookie mistake) lol jk jk. And then at the very end of the conferencePresident gets up and says that we are going to do a practice with aninvestigator in front of everyone. He looks out over all 60 missionariesand naturally chooses me and Elder Valladares. haha It was definitley ahumbling experience to say the least :) but it was good for me. I learned alot and I just hope i can find a way to put it into practice. well see:) but themoral of  the story is dont pray for humility unless youre ready for it tobe given to you ;) Then the rest of the week was normal, Ive been learninghow to play piano a little bit. So far ive learned the rugrats theme song(real useful on the mission i know) Bethoveen ( just a little part) and allof Come thou fount (thats my personal fav to play because its actuallyreally easy and i feel cool when i play it) but im definitely going to haveto learn more when i get back from the mission. The piano is fun.
On the investigators front Im pretty sure that we should have a baptismthis week. Hno Christian is looking good to go. We just have to teach him alittle bit more and interview him but he is ready. He has loved thechurch so far and said that the first time that he read the book of mormonthat he felt the spirit really really strong and that he has seen a changein his life. One of the coolest things that i was thinking about the otherday is that as a missionary we enter hundreds of house, and invite everyoneto read and pray with a sincere heart. I was wondering how many times ihave done that so far in these 8 months, then i was thinking back on all ofthe investigators and converts that have actually done it...and those arethe ones that i can count up. For some reason its incredibly hard toget people to  readthe Book of Mormon, but as one prophet said (whos name i dont remeber...justtrust me on this one ;))  "no one can read the Book of Mormon and pray withreal intent and NOT recieve a witness of its truthfulness, its just notpossible". Now helping someone to have that real intent is where it getstricky. But I have seen a lot of people, each with their own difficulty,trial, or problem, read the Book of Mormon and feel the Holy Ghost speak totheir soul. Its unlike anything ANYONE has ever felt before, its unlikeanything I have ever felt before (although when UCLA beat Gonzaga in theNCAA tournament it came close ;)) no no jk jk. Nothing comes close to it.Nothing will EVER come close to it. But thats why im here right? para queellos sepan lo que yo sé.
Hope everyone has a good week! Fingers crossed for a baptism! ;) Love youall and Miss you even more!

Hasta la próxima semana,
Elder Woodburn

Feliz Cumpleaños Elder Agular!

Hola Mi Familia y Amigos.

I will first have you all know that all is well down here in Bajo Piura or
La Unión. I got the small package with the debit card in it. Thank you very
much :) took out money today for P-Day so hopefully no one stole my
number....well see. But i will say that all of the other elders loved that
little notebook more than the fact that i got my debit card.lol it was
pretty funny. Still no word on the other package though. Im assuming they
came together but...we will have to see. If i dont get it tomorrow at zone
meetings then i will have a reason to worry. Ill let you know next week. Oh
and that must be the new thing with debit cards now because this one doesnt
have the numbers that "pop" off the card like the last one? yeah well it
doesnt matter anyways lol

This week was a good week work wise. Elder Chichia is now the district
leader here of La Union because Elder Gonzalez left so hes in charge of
reporting how many lessons we teach and such. But we did a great job of
getting to work here. Had a lot better numbers that usually and felt great.
Since Elder Gonzalez left, Elder Agular got a new companion named Elder
Valladares. Hes a really cool Elder. He was born In Honduras, but moved to
the states when he was 12 and left from Wisconsin on his mission hes a
really funny guy and he and i have about the same sense of humor so we get
along. He knows both spanish and english perfectly so im a little jealous
there. Unlike Elder Chichia my companion who knows spanish a lot better
than me, but still says a lot of stuff wrong and doesnt have the vocabulary
of a natural, but hes still better than me so i cant complain. Today we
went to Piura for our P Day which is about an hour away and went to the
giant Mercado or Market which is basically what you see on Amazing Race
when you see them run through the giant markets in India and stuff. Its
awesome. I think Elder Valladares said it best when he said its basically
like a Wal Mart blew up and then everything fell back down to earth and
everyone started grabbing stuff and was like, This is mine, i will sell it.
lol They have everything you could ever need. I bought a nice Soccer Jersey
today. If you all want a soccer jersey that is ALMOST real, i can get it
for you for like 20 bucks instead of 100 lol. Let me know ;)

Last P day the mission office sent us a talk by Tad R Callister called
Misionero Consagrado (Consecrated Missionary....or something like that) and
it was really really good. He talked about how there are a lot of really
really good missionaries in every mission, but that there are only about 5
consecrated missionaries. These are the missionaries that know how to put
it all on the line and work hard. It really helped me to realize what else
i need to do. Ive come a long long way and learned tons but that doesnt
mean its time to stop right? ;) gotta keep on keeping on.

Sounds like everyone is doing great up there. Hopefully the package comes
tomorrow, or actually if it doesnt come tomorrow thats okay but just
hopefully it comes at all right? ;) haha oh and btw tell alecs mom to tell
him that im mad at him because he never wrote me back...either that or it
never got to me...which could be possible too considering that person from
the ward that was supposedly going to write me...yeah that never got here
either ;) haha but thats okay. Im not worried about getting more letters, i
just hope that people arent dissapointed cuz i never got them :s oh well.

I love you all a ton and I thank you very very much for your love and
support. Keep on keeping on up there in the US of A. I love this work and
there is nothing more true than this.

Les amo mucho. Algún día yo voy a poder hablar en Español. Pero hasta
entonces....todo esta bien ;)

Love

Elder Woodburn

Happy Easter!

Hope Everyone had a great Easter! It was actually a little bit of an unusual Easter here....unusual in the fact that i forgot until we got to church that it was easter...probably not the best thing i suppose but dont worry i repented ;) but other than that we just went to work and taught as usual. But before all of that, this week we had two baptisms! yay! it was pretty awesome, President Chipman and Hna. Chipman were able to come to the baptismal service and congratulate them both. The first was a Hna. Rosario whos daughter is already a member and really really wanted to be baptized. The second was the little boy that we found who had just turned 8. Needless to say, they were both gifts like i said before. We didnt really have to do much except teach them both the lessons and ready the baptismal font :) They were both really big blessing for us becuase this area has been really difficult in finding people that are prepared to progress. the hardest part of this area is that the people dont have much of an education, so they dont understand what we are teaching them even when we spell it out to them. Im pretty sure it doesnt help that im a gringo though...haha oh well. Like Presidente Chipman told me, its a good opportunity to learn how to teach more clearly and better. Just gotta keep working.

Lets see what else is new...oh yes we had changes today and.....ill be staying another 6 weeks here in La Union with Elder Chichia! :) Hes a great Elder so hopefully we will have a lot of success. What that means that we are both staying here for a second change is that they usually dont take both Elders out of the area at the same time so that one of them can stay there and know where everything is in the area. So that means that next change one of us is most likely going to stay here for another change. so i might be here for a while well see! One thing that Elder Chichia and I have recommited us to do this last week is be more dilligent. We studied in DnC 58 26 and 27 And we came to the conclusion that we still have some work to do in our dilligence. Even though we just had two baptisms we have a long way to go in this. so hopefully this next change we will feel a lot better about the effort we put into it.

Speaking of Elder Chichia, last night we got home from prosyliting and he went into the bathroom to take care of his business and then when he was done tried to leave and....he got locked in there...hahaha the lock somehow broke and we couldnt open it from the inside or the outside. He was stuck in there for a good 20 minutes or so while we tried to get him out. dont worry, i got a great video of it too. in the end we ended up breaking off the door knob....hope that is okay with the landlord....haha

But im glad to hear that everyone at home is doing well! Oh yeah i havent gotten that package yet because the zone leaders werent able to go and pick it up but im sure this thursday they will have it and be able to give it to me :) so no worries, im sure everything is fine Thanks for sending it to me!

Other than that the work goes on. I think now is about the time of the mission where i need to step my game up ;) haha I feel like there is a lot more i can do and a lot more i could learn so i need to work a lot harder to accomplish it all. But at the same time i understand that i need to look back on all that i have accomplished so far. I remmeber being a Ward Missionary and teaching gospel essentials to a bunch of people older than me and i felt stupid becuase i didnt know what i was doing and the lessons were subpar at best. But then just last week I gave a 25 30 min Lesson in our district meeting with a bunch of Elders that know a ton too like it was a piece of cake...oh yeah and it was in Spanish. I really have accomplished a ton with the help of my Heavenly Father. That last part is probably the most important though, with His help, because withOUT his help...oh man who knows where i would be at or what i would be doing. All that ive learned and accomplished here is thanks too him, including those last two gifts we recieved this saturday. The work goes on here. and I thorugh all of the lessons that are unbearable hot, all of the Investigators that dont read, dont pray, are two busy or just dont want to listen, through all of that, I am constantly reminded of why im here when I bear witness of how loving our Heavenly Father is, How much he wants us to have his love in our lives and that through this wonderful wonderful Book of Mormon we can find it. Oh man I love that Book of Mormon with all my heart. "We can draw closer to God through that book than through anyother on the face of the earth. I bear Witness of that.

Love you all tons and i hope you have the best week ever!

Until next Monday

Elder Woodburn

Feliz Abril

Why hello there everyone! Oh man do i love conference. I come away feeling so "edified" idk i cant explain it any other way. Saturday we were able to go to Castilla and watch it in the stake center. Even though anyone and everyone can come to watch saturday everyone was working or busy so it was basically just all of the missionaries in our zone and a few members there watching all day. It was awesome. We watched all 3 sessions on saturday in spanish which just wasnt the same. I understood basically all of it but even if spanish was my first language i would rather watch it in English! For example we were watching Elder Hollands talk and naturally hes just going off and burning everyone like i love and what happens with the translation is that you can very very very quietly hear him speak in english when the translator stops or pauses. So hes talking and all i hear in english was "Step up! do it yourself"! haha thats something that gets lost in translation for sure. Its just not the same. Part of the reason that i love conference so much is because the pure pure love that the profets and apostles speak with. It cant be matched. I still learned a ton but it made me realize just how thankful i should be to know english, the language of the restoration. But after the morning session on saturday we managed to get a member from our branch that was there to go to piura for us and buy us Pizza Hut! yum. we couldnt go because it was outside of our zone but he brought it back and we ate it all :) Then on sunday it was a little interesting. We ended up staying here in La Unión to watch conference on the internet. It was cool because i got to watch the morning session in english but the only problem was that the internet was so slow that we couldnt watch it...lol just audio. but that was alright too because Elder Uchdorfs talk was written just for me haha, so true so true and something that i really want to work on. Oh and i cant forget how beautiful come thou fount was sunday morning. Then in the afternoon we ended up watchin it in this house of a member with a big flat screen tv, but he also lets kids pay to play his playstation so the kids were there screaming and playing throughout the whole session AND it was in spanish so to be honest with you i didnt learn anything from that conference session...lol except that one of the apostles told james to get married....haha but thats okay cuz itll be something good to read when the conference ensign comes.

Thats really really funny that you mention David Archuleta because Elder Chichia my comp always says that i look like him (even though i know i dont) and so he was joking around again and said that he saw me in the choir that was singing because someone looked like David. I cant believe it was actually him! nuts! That would be so awesome! hes gonna come Piura Peru and im gonna train him haha. does he already know spanish then? I always thought he wasnt allowed to go on a mission because he would be a distraction but i guess that solves the problem, dont tell anyone where hes going and send him to a country where he isnt famous.

So hopefully ill get those packages tomorrow, we´ll see. but im sure its all okay. oh and thanks a lot for the pictures, tell james he looks like a nerd with his V-neck and that hoodie. oh and take off my hat fool! oh yeah and thats a good looking cup that he was drinking out of at dinner, he must have finally come around, looks like that family really does get blessed while there is a missionary in the field ;) oh yeah and tell james that i recieved revelation the other night in the form of a dream. i dreamt that he came on a mission and that he got called to Piura Peru. Thatd be so awesome, hed get here when i had about a year and then when he ended his mission I could come back and go tracting with him for the last week of the mish. and i would know the president still.

Oh and our new president that will come in June or July is named President Rowley from just south of Provo. I think they are apple farmers or something like that haha. But yeah they sent us a picture. Lets see what else is going on? not a whole lot. If you wanna send me a present i would love a burned CD with a bunch of EFY songs. right now we have EFY 2010 and they are pretty good songs. But other than that not much. We should have a couple baptisms this week before the next transfers so we´ll see. next monday are transfers and i dont think either of us elder chichia and i are leaving but i really dont know do i?

I love and miss you all. Cant believe that 6 months have gone by since the last conference. Cant wait to get the ensign and read them all over again. There is something very specail about the words that the prophets speak with us. They cant be found anywhere else. Love you all tons!

Elder Woodburn