Letter from September 24, 2009

Dear Family,

All is going well here. Elder Rowe is good. He is really a country goat farmer from the south. He is really naive... i guess it is a Christ-like attribute to be child-like right? Please pray for him. He is really forgetful. On the way to transfers last week he lost his wallet which had every kind of card you could think of in it as well as a little bit of cash and other items of value. We have tried calling around to several places like the subway station lost and found, but nobody has seen it. On Saturday he lost his glasses, he thinks, at a park we were proselyting. He says his family will not be happy about replacing them.

So another transfer opens up the doors for more adventures. Here is a story you might find interesting in a weird way. On saturdays we teach an English class. All of the students started showing up for class and then a strange man came into the church building. I asked him if he came to study english and he said no and that he had questions about God. He then proceeded to tell me that he just attempted to commit suicide 30 minutes or so before. I told him we could talk for a few minutes. So we started to teach a little bit about God. The man then started to tell his entire life story- growing up as an orphan and all his bitter outlooks on people and life in general. I was afraid to interrupt him while he spoke...needless to say he talked for about 40 minutes straight and i knew people were waiting in English class. We were supposed to leave shortly after to a baptismal servicein another ward with our investigator in which i was asked to play the piano. He ended the story and left the room just as the bishop arrived. We apologized to the students and we drove with the bishop to the baptismal service. Later Bishop and his wife were asking me if I had actually seen the man try to kill himself and i said no. They were laughing because they said i looked scared after talking to him. (i was more stressed than scared for the record)I then asked isn't it kind of scary to talk to a suicidal man? and they laughed and said no not really. I wish i had a better ending to the story... I don't know what happened to the man after he left. But Hyung did get to go to the service with us and it was really good. Anyway, the gospel is so true. I love sharing it everyday. Sometimes you meet strange, confused people, but hey, maybe they will come to their senses someday and get baptized. I love you all and i love the gospel of Jesus Christ!

Love, Elder Brian Woodbury