Week 79 (Kern Valley)

Elder Wood celebrated a birthday this week! He's 21 years old, and a kind member family got a cake and invited the elders over to celebrate. He reports that he doesn't really feel any older.

The elders kept themselves busy this week meeting with people and looking for new friends to teach. They did find someone he described as promising, who  met with missionaries in the past, but hasn't connected with them for a long while. This time she is interested, although she's busy enough that they weren't able to make another appointment for a couple of weeks. They also had one friend who agreed to watch some of General Conference, which took place over Saturday and Sunday.

During General Conference, the missionaries spent a lot of time at the church watching the various sessions. They apparently are not supposed to watch with members of the ward, so the 3 of them got to watch at the church together. Elder Wood shared the candy from his Easter package from his grandparents, and he says he really enjoyed General Conference. He didn't have a favorite talk, or at least wanted a chance to read through them again before choosing a favorite. But he liked the jokes that both President Holland and Elder Renlund told! He also said that he liked the sentiment (I'm not totally sure whether it was just said in this conference or something from a previous one) that the church and the gospel are happy to accept all truth; anything that is true is part of our religion.

Today for their Preparation Day activity, the 3 elders in Kern Valley went for a hike. They were also able to borrow a dog (named Ruby) from a member of the ward, and said that she enjoyed the exercise. Elder Wood didn't appreciate all the uphill parts of the hike, but as long as you end up where you started, at least the uphill and downhill elevation changes have to be the same!

Elder Wood with his birthday cake

I thought there might be more of a story to this photo, but apparently they just came across a tank in a local park

Missionaries (and Ruby!) during their hike

A pretty stream that they hiked to

Bird photo #1: A red-tailed hawk

Bird photo #2: Two birds on a telephone wire

One more animal photo; a snake they saw on their hike

A puzzle they worked on in their apartment - he didn't like the irregular piece shapes