Hermana Wood In The Hood

Ryenne Wood

Haha sooooo just to quiet the laughter from my family, NO WORRIES I’m doing justttttt finnneeee digesting my milk and ice cream.

On the other hand, we have recently “realized” that Hermana Wall has a bit of a “party” going on when theres too much leche going around Haha. The other day she looks up at me after a bit of milkshake eatn’ and says “so turns out… lactose intolerance is not a mindset”.
The next day after eating some nice pupusas from Hermana Perez she said for desert she had made us some Salvadranean quesadillas for us. When she brought it out they are more like the dense-st piece of corn bread you’ve ever seen in your life. It was about 5 lbs(no joke) and absolutely worth every ounce… well maybe for one of us at least.
I said “Hermana this is really good what’s in it??” After she named of 4 different cheeses and like 2 creams I looked at Hermana wall and said “pues… CHEERS!” she looked at me, muttered “mindset” under her breath and took a bite.

It satisfies me to say that we are both alive and now both happy!!
Ha this week was another good week here in east LA! Love you all and also since I haven’t done this in a while, your homework is to listen to the talk “Know yourself, control yourself, give thyself” by Paul H. Dunn in 1972! Hands down my favorite talk. Like legit. So .dang .good.
Love you all be safe!
Love rye

Wow okay this week has been one of a kind that’s for sure!! It was week 11 of bike troubles but this time one of them was actually from mine!! Literally I accidentally slashed my own tire lol but it’s okay cause that means my arms are not as flabby as they look😜
Jkjk anyway
This week was another rough week for Freddy Mercury and co. (That’s what Hermana Wall named her bike…. also I am 110% that thats the reason shes had so many problems with the sucker) anyway after fixing Freddy Mercury in the morning my bike finally gave into the temptation and went all flat on me….
But yeah anywho because of this for the next day or so we were stuck with the great and wonderful public transit system😍literally loml…. #not….anymore.
While riding home on a fairly empty bus, there was the usual high dude yelling something to the driver and of course the crazy mad black lady who was high on crack and thought he was yelling at her. Well she got pretty worked up about taht and started screaming lots of words that missionaries… well no one should probably repeat😂 I had turned my head and was talking to Hna wall while the yelling continued until I see in the reflection of the magazine holder that crazy mad black lady was looking right at me screaming. I turned to her and did my first “who? Me?” …..well yes, yes it was at me. I ignored it for a while again till again I seen her in the reflection but this time standing up and coming at me. She got all up in my face and before I could say anything she left me with a nice splash of crack-spit😂👍 because “that’s what I get” … ahhh dont do drugs kids:)
Anyway actually this was a good week and we had a lot of fun! Hope all is well at home! Love you all!
Love Ryenne

1. Not our baptism just the coolest 13 yr old gal ever

2. RIP my tire

3.quince invitations these days

4. In case any of you Park valleyans know Carlos ( a truck driver who has hauled there)!!!!!

Happyyyyyyy hollerscreammmmm everyone!! Well this week has been absolutely blazing hot! Like in the 100s but then it got super cold all the sudden and I’m not sure if I’m ready for the Winter….like I promise I’m not a Californian but 72 is actually starting to feel super cold…yikes lol pray for ya girl.

Anyway this week has been such and adventure because Hermana Walls bike has broke like almost everyday starting last Monday😂 but it’s been great cause now I am an expert in Bike repair and also we got our opportunity to figure out the bus system! -Which has been an adventure on its own!
The title for this email is actually from a song that 2 people have now sent to Hna. Wall and we just keep laughing cause people keep bringing it up! We have only had some mediocre stories this week but we for sure have had an interesting week since we’ve been in a mix between bike, walking and bus. But were getting her figured out!
When we cant use the bus or bikes we’ve started using something the Elders called un-intentional-opportunist-finding! What we do is go to stores and pretend like were shopping for something and stand next to someone and then ask them a question about what they’re shopping for and transition from there or wait till they ask us something cause they think we work there! It’s great! 😂

Everyone here is gearing up for Día de Los Muertos here and wow I’m so dang excited!! Im about to eat my weight of pan dulce if anyone would like to join! hahaha love you all and hope you’re all safe and have a good week!

Love Ryenne

1. Literally our whole week but we still smilin😬

2. Herro?

3. Mario and Romeo

4-5. My first trunk or treat!!!

6. I’m over in California and I still have to apologize for my family😉jkjk but go buy a trailer from them.

7. Kate asked for help with style, so she got it.

8. We love Hermana figueroa!!

Did this week even happen?
Who really knows.
Anyway, every passing day I am reminded more and more that “I was NOT born in east LAAAA” lol Haha its soooo different but its sooooo fun!
(you probably only understand that reference if you are from the Cheech and Chong era or have “cool parents”😉)jkjk haha
This week was monumental in like the most random ways for sure! This week we had a lesson with our friend Kevin and had such a good talk with him about trusting that Heavenly Father could take all of his sins off of him and help him and afterwards we invited him to come up to the Visitor’s Center in Santa Monica and walk around the temple grounds and he said “yeah but I cant go in right?” And Hermana Wall goes “well Kevin you could if you were baptized!” And he like sat there for a minute and then just starts rubbing his chest and stomach all over as if he had a bunch of fleas and giggling and goes “WOW!! wow wow I have goosebumps all over but I’m like hot inside! Baptism?? Da**!!!….. that sounds NICE!!” Hahaha we were laughing so hard but we ended up setting a date with him for December 29!! He then goes “Eternal Kevin 2020….well that sounds like my moms worst nightmare” hahahaha WE LOVE KEVIN!
I’m so excited! He still has soo much work to do but I’m so excited to really see the Atonement start changing his life! If you have a few seconds please send a few prayers his way and maybe mine too😉
Not much else happened this week other than I got to see my mission motha!! Sooo fun! I dont have much for this week sorry but I hope you’re all doing good and staying safe!! I love you all!
Love Ryenne

I’m on bike now. And I cant feel my legs.

“And tha’ts all I have to say about tha’at”
**said in Forest Gump voice**

Well believe it or not, not many crazy things happened this week, so unfortunately for you I think I might actually right something spiritual….

please dont quit reading haha!

I hope you all enjoyed conference as much as I did! But I doubt that’s possible ha! This conference was so special to me because it was a.) The first time I think I’ve ever-literally-heard every word caused there wasnt any screaming or laughing or anything and b.) Cause it was the first time I went in with personal questions.
I feel weird talking about this but idk I am just gonna send it ha. For a while now I have been feeling super discouraged and inadequate in the things I felt like I should be doing. You know, like those dreams when youre in a giant race of some sort, running as hard as you can and not going anywhere. Its absolutely terrible😂.
But anyway, I wanted to know this conference, how on earth am I supposed to help others progress if I dont even feel like I can??
Well what do ya know, that got answered in about every talk I think.
I dont know if anyone else in here has ever or is feeling like their “spiritual/personal rut” is a canal, if so, I’d like to invite you to read Ether chapters 2 and 3, and also to go back and listen to L. Todd Budge’s talk during the Saturday afternoon session.
It was so cool the way he talked about the Jaredites making their boats. For me, I felt like I had built my boat out of faith, it was going great and then, just like the brother of Jared, it hit me that I wouldn’t be able breath… or see. And it was kind of an “Um God, excuse me but I did everything right-just like you told me- and now I cant breath, I cant see and now what in the heck am I supposed to do??” moment.
And just like a good Father does, he let me decide. He let me decide whether I was going to think my way out of it and ask for help or sit and pout till the rains come and I find myself still stuck with the stupid “dish”.
So instead, like the brother of Jared, I started to look for some dirty rocks. And trust me, it wasnt hard. I feel like finding my own dirty rocks is pretty darn easy but it’s the cleaning them off I have a hard time with. So I picked a few and started to scrub.
The first rock being my heart. I do not know how many rocks I can get clean enough for the Lord to touch and purify for my benefit but I know that first one this past week has been my heart. I know with out a doubt that this conference I saw the finger of the Lord come and touch my heart.
It’s real and it’s pure and I hope that everyone of you will understand exactly how that feels.
So I want to encourage each one of you to go rock pickin. I promise if you will start cleaning and scrubbing, no matter how much dirt you still have left on there, the Lord knows your intentions and CAN clean them.

” Behold, I am he who was prepared from the foundation of the world to redeem my people. Behold, I am Jesus Christ. I am the Father and the Son. In me shall all mankind have life, and that eternally, even they who shall believe on my name; and they shall become my sons and my daughters”

No doubt about it. God loves YOU.

Have the best week! Be safe!
Love, Ryenne

Not that any of you actually care but uh…. I come home in exactly one year from today😅 so that’s super weird! I feel like I just got here!!
Anyway we had zone conference this week and it was so fun to see a cute face from home! Rylee John is now in Los Angeles, so I guess you could say Tremonton is hitting the maps!
This week the biker gang life was pretty monumental I guess you could say cause I’m learning how to do all sorts of tricks😎 me and Hermana Wall were going through some neighborhoods one night and so I decided, you know what I’ve tried all my life to ride a bike with out hands and never done it! but also I don’t think I’ve ever spent 6 weeks straight trying it so it sounds like I have A GREAT OPPORTUNITY!” I announced my plan to Hermana Wall and lifted up my hands……
And I rode perfectly without hands for an entire block… first try. ….
Hahahahha apparently it’s easier than I originally thought so now I’m working on jumping the sidewalk heaves and avoiding homeless people which tbh is harder than you’d think.
Anyway this was a fun week! Spiritual homework for everyone this week is to watch COCO the movie!! I absolutely freaking love Halloween (mostly cause I know Grandma Jones has had her moon witch sign up on the barn since the day the fair ended 😂🧡) but also I freaking love coco cause it’s so real! Our family really does probably feel forgotten when we don’t try to remember them and also they NEED their temple work done! Eternal families only work if you do! So let’s start connecting!
Love you all and have a good week!
Love Ryenne

Okay so oh my… I’m not sure if you guys are getting sick of my stories about cholos and this weeks…. this one…it takes the cake.
So first off… AMBER IS GETTING BAPTIZED!!!! AHHH I’m so happy! We were at a park finding when I got the call from the Elders in my last area telling me the news when i seen a slightly shady gangster talking to Hermana Wall. So i hung up and went over, we sat down and he started to tell us that “he gots some questions…” we answered them the best we could and then he cut in and started telling us all about his baby momma, the bible, drugs, ya know the usual ect., ect., ect. Then he starts going into how he went to jail and got put “in the shoe.” Now, at this point I’m a little confused because in Tremonton, UT, those are one in the same, so I ask “wait sorry I’m confused, the shoe?” And this is how it went…
“Oh you dont know what the shoe is? Well I was in jail but then I got put in the shoe for taking him out”
“Him? You took him out?”
“I mean, yea, he messed up so ya know we went and took him out”
“Wait… did you kill him?”
Then he looks at me, and his eyes get all wide and he goes
“D@M*! I dont know!! Did I kill him???”
……….
Uhhhhh hahaha
………. well no worries he remembered a second later that they just stabbed him but he lived so it was all okay😅🙃
The rest of the conversation looked like a heart rate machine track, but initially concluded to a mutual agreement that maybe hes not quite ready for the gospel.
One day maybe…. one day very far away… with much less acid.😂
I swear I dont make this stuff up guys.

Like you know on Halloween how we would all dress up like funny gangsters, walk around with “swag” and talking like we didnt graduate the 5th grade? Yeah all of that is for real hahaha. Everything. Chains, baggy shorts, sway from side to side, talking with your hands waving all over the place and sounding like every sentence should be a rap lyric… yeah it’s not a joke.
But it’s also interesting because whenever we ask people how they are and they always somehow respond saying something about how glad they are to have another day and be alive. For a while I was just kind of like, yeah okay of course were all grateful for another day like cant you give me something less basic? But multiple times this week me and Hermana Wall have been told CRAZY stories about people’s lives and we decided that it’s really not such a “basic” thing here to have another day. These people are genuinely grateful for the day they have today and to them it IS a gift. Which is super cool!
Dont worry, I’m safe and I am going to continue to have more days to be grateful for, haha I’m not saying I’m probably going to die here- I’m definitely safe- but like, it really made me realize how grateful I am, or should be, for my life. Ther’es so much good!
Have the best week and be safe! Love life and be grateful for it!
Love Ryenne

(Pictures:)

1. FINALLY RAINED
2. For my girl B💙
3. We LOVE mariachi!!
4. La familia alamillos! You wouldn’t guess it but they actually dont speak any English haha!

Oh my goodness this week has been so nuts and so fun! I have seriously been thinking about starting a journal that is solely filled with things I never thought I would hear people say with a straight face….and to be honest, I think my favorite ones will be coming from Kevin (our friend who just got out of jail). We had probably the best phone call ever with him on Saturday, because ya know when you have a warrant and get arrested there a lot to catch up on with the sister missionaries! 😂legit hope I never forget it hahahaha. It started off with him explaining how now a days when he gets put in time out he is in the big house with the gangbangers and crackheads but not to be alarmed cause “Ya know we runnin’ dat south side wit da homies”. 😂
Here’s just a few other nice little sayings I’ve enjoyed hearing from the sunny side of east LA:
• **googles “How to start your own insurance company” and calls friend*** “Bro, when were rich imma buy you the purest brick of cocaine!”
• how do you know Jesus isn’t black??
• you know after a while you learn to let little things like that go (…..while talking about inmates putting their drugs in… very uncomfortable places and then trading) …..😅
• okay bye honey!
• “vamanos pues! Él va a morir solo!!” (Well let’s get outta here, hes dyin alone!!)
• yeah i spent 3 years in the Mexico desert looking for dead people who had died of thirst

I’m not sure how familiar most of you are with “Cheech & Chong” but if anyone of you are curious as to what me area is like at the moment go look up ” I was Born in East LA”…. I cant explain how accurate it is hahahahaha
All in all it’s been a super good week! Full of lots and lots of comida!
My spiritual thought for this week is A.) My Facebook post so go check it out
And B.) The Come Follow Me section from this week that’s called “Christ’s Grace is Sufficient to help me find strength in my weekness”.  This passage is really cool to me because in it Paul talks about having a “thorn in the skin” that he can remove and is asking Christ to remove it. But its especially cool because in Spanish the word used is “aguijón en la carne”. A aguijón in English translates to a stinger. Much like a bee stinger that once is in the skin releases a type of venom that stings until it is taken out. Then it is expounded to how we have problems like this that hurt and hurt for so long and all we want is for them to be taken out but Paul talks about how through Christs grace we can overcome the sting and become strong! Really you guys just need to read it cause its really cool!!💙
God is good all the time and all the time God is good. Hope everyone is doing good and being safe! Have a fun week!
Love, Ryenne

Well this week was another good one for the books!! I attended my first Hispanic ward party and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I was absolutely dead scared heading into it because, latinas and their food….! I dont know which scent was stronger, the smell of tamales and pupusas or the pride of Mexico😅

But as far as my headline goes if you know me at all you know I’m not one for preparing much. Ya know, more of the fly by ,the seat of your pants kinda gal. Well yesterday as we were greeting people into sacrament meeting Obispo Flores came up to us and asked us where the elders were, we didn’t know but he said he needed a big favor and I said “well were here!!” Turns out the speaker cancelled last minute and he needed someone to give a tall on obedience….within the next 15 minutes…
So you can bet your bottom dollar I kept the congregation awake this Sunday!!! I went up there with nothing but a story I didn’t know how to tell in Spanish and a scripture. I tried to tell the story about 2 years ago when we flipped the jeep and how that is a bad example of obedience because we weren’t wearing seatbelts. But because I didn’t know the words I would try to say it, then ask the congregation what the word I was looking for was and they would all shout back “centurion!!!” Hahahahahaha it was a blast! And they definitely were all awake….actually now that I think about it there was one old man who was sleeping on the 2nd row but would grumble out the words I was thinking of for me still!
To make this even better it was the Sunday that our stake president decided to join us. Later that night we ran into him at the Face2Face and I said ” hey thanks for helping me with my talk today!! It was…” and before I could finish he goes “terrible?” Hahahahahhahaha well yes… I guess it was that too 😂🤷‍♀️ I just had to laugh, all the members seemed to like it so at least we broke the rhythm right?:)
Also my spiritual thought for the week is about patience and it’s a little story I’ll send a picture of that you’ll have to read, but I thought it was SOSO good! Patience requires faith and humility and that’s something I’m really trying to work on right now. Especially being patient with Gods timing, sometimes it just down right stinks. But being patient can show our faith to God and our love for His plan. So try a little harder to be a little better this week and it’ll all come out in the wash! Hope you all have a good week ! Be safe and have fun!
Love rye

1.) The back fence
2.) 5 Month Mark!!!!!
3.) What you cant see is the food stretches across the back fence too:)

Right now I am on a hunt for a little old man.
Requirements:
• rancher
• mas o menos rich
• old
• preferably speaks Spanish

DONT WORRY THIS IS NOT FOR ME!!!!!!!!!
Hahahahahaha to all of you who are super concerned by this point, this is for my friend Rene. She is the cutest little old abuelita who came from a small ranch in Jalisco Mexico and I’m pretty sure were soul sisters from different generations hahaha. She has 8 children and said she would’ve had 20 but God only gave her 8.
She tells us theres no way God will let her in heaven Haha so while teaching her about the atonement last week I used an example with her because she likes to talk to me about the ranches (as if I know anything lol) .
The example is this; Theres a nice man who has a BEAUTIFUL ranch. I told Rene how she wanted this so bad and made a contract with the man to make payments on it so one day it could be hers. The deal is made and she gets to work. Pretty soon though the payments are too high and impossible for her to pay. Because of the contract they made, the man HAS to take it back from her. Butttttt I have lots of money. So what i can do is come in and buy ALL of the ranch from the man in full and the remake a new contract with Rene so that she can still earn her Ranch-just at a more attainable price.
This is the same as God, us and Jesus Christ. We made a contract with God at an unattainable price, but because he and Christ love us there is a merciful mediator who payed the price in full and reset the boundaries. AND WE CAN ALL MAKE THE PAYMENT! It was designed for us!!
But yeah I explained all this to her and she sat there and thought for a second, looked at me and was like ” what about the viejito” (little old man)🙄😂 she kills me. But yes, she asked me to find one for her so that when o go back home to Utah she can come with and live with a little old man on a ranch, she said that it was no importa if he speaks Spanish or not hahaha but the gal cant speak a syllable in English so I guess shes not too picky hahaha. Just as long as hes old. So keep that in mind and let me know how it goes! I’ll try and get a picture with her so you can put a face to a name😂😉
Anyway, lifes good here and I’m fat’s happy! Hope you all have a hood week! Be safe!
Love Ryenne

Pictures since I got in trouble for not sending any lol
1. I thought Bop came to LA for a sec before I realized it was just Hno. Alamillo😂😉
2&4. Team effort cutting my hair in the bathroom! I’m not exactly black fin salon yet but almost😉
3. I for sure ❤ Jesus
5. Elder and Sister Malcom for president 2020
6. Ay Carumba Sista. Sometimes I forget I’m in the US Haha I love it.