Jared Wood's Missionary Blog: Week 23 (Lone Pine)

A lot of driving happened this week! If you look at the photos below, you'll see quite a few of them taken from the window of a car. And no bird videos, that's a first!

This week they had a zone conference, where the mission president and other leadership from the mission talk to them. In addition to lots of inspiration, he says he was interested to hear that they may start doing more Facebook finding. This doesn't exactly thrill Elder Wood, who is not a social media fan, but if that's how they find people, then he'll give it a try. It would be up to an hour a day for everyone involved, so they'll see whether that happens or not.

Their zone conference was about 2.5 hours away from them, in a city whose name I have now forgotten. After driving there for the conference, on the way home it turned out that the highway (395) was closed due to flooding. (There's been a lot of flooding in California recently.) So, they went back to Ridgecrest and got permission to say with the zone leaders who live there for the night. The next day they met with their branch's president (who lives in Ridgecrest) and eventually were able to head home to Lone Pine. This coming week, they get to drive even further, to a city called Palmdale, where they have an appointment for a car repair estimate (one of the previous companionships apparently dinged up the doors).

In other news, Elder Wood's parents got the photo this week (they upload to the cloud) of him wearing an eye patch (see below) and had multiple questions. Today we finally got answers; apparently he managed to scratch his eye while sleeping, and since it was painful he wore the eyepatch to protect it from further damage until he could get to a doctor. Which I believe was later that day, although he didn't specifically say. The doctor was able to confirm the scratch and prescribe some eye drops/antibiotics to help it heal, and he says it's all good now. In that same picture, the elder next to him is holding up a prosthetic leg, which belongs to the next elder over (Elder Watts) who has apparently needed one since he was a child. Anyway, a picture with all sorts of interesting medical notes.

Spiritual thought for the week: All that Jesus Christ asks of us is that at least once each week we truly remember Him. That we take upon ourselves His name and do our best to be worthy of it. That we remember the blood He shed for us, not only on the cross at Calvary but also in the garden of Gethsemane. If we do this, we have access to the full power of what He has accomplished. The full power of His Atoning sacrifice.