Maria got baptised

Hi there :) 

This is the nicest keyboard I´ve worked with so far in Spain. It´s maginificient. 

So MARIA GOT BAPTIZED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Finally, finally. It was amazing.She´s been so nervous for it all week. It was crazy getting everything all set up. We live on the other side of the city from the church building so we have to take two busses to get there. Well, we were on our bus when it suddenly turns the wrong way. The street we were supposed to go down was blocked off and there were police officers everywhere. We get off and it turns out that all these main streets are blocked, so there is no way for us to ride a bus to the chruch. We called the ZL´s and hurried to walk to a place where we could meet. There were people selling candles and umbrellas (it was raining) all along the way. We figure there was some sort of procession or parade. We were worried we wouldn´t have time to fill the font but we managed to get it all ready. It was kind of funny that we had no idea about the parade thing. Shows how little missionary´s are part of the world. We were so lucky to be able to get a hold of the ZL´s and that they work in the same city so we could have someone with a car. It would have taken us hours to walk to the church, and not many members have cars here. 

 It was the biggest baptism we´ve had in this ward so far, so many members showed up to support her. Her son Francisco and Hna Brown gave talks. I played the piano and tried to not mess up too much. Some members sang Divina Luz (IDK The translation in English) and I played for them. I was completely sight reading so I messed up pretty bad at one point, but considering all the factors it went pretty well.  She cried during their performace apparently. Maria is such an amazing woman. She didn´t smoke for 4 days before her baptism. She was really jittery with shaky hands and all that before, but after she was baptized and recieved the Holy Ghost she was so much calmer. She was so happy, and so was her son. She´s going to be such a strength to the ward I think, she´s already made lots of friends. 

This last week I had some time where I was very frustrated with Spanish, as always. I prayed for help to see some progress because I felt like I was not improving at all. Later that day we were giving a lesson and randomly Hna Brown turns to me with a look on her face that says ´´your turn´´. I was caught off guard because in the past I´d never given that part of the Restoration lesson. But I said a few things and turned back to her. She did that for the rest of the lesson and I was able to keep up and give a good part of it. It was an answer to my prayer. It was so small, but I was able to practice my Spanish more and say things I wouldn´t have been able to a few weeks ago. And earlier that day I bore my testimony like usual, but I really felt the Spirit as I did. Later Hna Brown told me that it was the best Spanish I´ve ever used. The Gift of Tongues is real! I still have a really long ways to go, but that helped me make it through a few more days. 

On Tuesday we had a Multi Zone conference in Málaga. The Hermana´s from Jaen came and spent the night with us and then we left early the next morning on a bus. We had to take a taxi to the main bus station because no city buses run that early in the morning. It was a new experience, I felt so rich to ride in a taxi. It was awesome to see the Hermana´s too. Hna Lyons (the blonde in the pict) are both new and we´ve become pretty good friends. 

Also, met an old friend from BYU! She was in my FHE group my freshman year. I knew she was in the same mission and was so excited to hear she was in my multi-zone group. Hna Jess Israelsen. So of course we took a picture and caught up on everyone and what they were doing. So many people from that group are on missions, and the rest are doing such fun things. It was so fun to see her, we gave each other a huge hug. Hna Israelsen and my comp, Hna Brown were in the same MTC group so they´re really good friends too. It was fun to hang out with both of them. 

The actual conference was great too. President talked about teaching to find and about staying dilligent. He talked a lot about making every hour about Christ. Even p-day can be if we have the right mentality. It was really cool, and thankfully I was able to understand it all because we had translators. The whole conference was in Spanish, but President Deere said he wanted us to get the message more than learn spanish so those of us that were new were given these little headphone things and the office Elders took turns translating. I didn´t use the headphones the whole time, but it was really nice. I felt a bit dumb, but hey, I´m new. My Spanish isn´t that great yet and I get really tired after a lot of Spanish all at once. I´m always exhausted by the end of Sunday. 

Something else President Deere talked about at conference was continuing to find as many people as we had time to. As missionary´s we often hear about the funnel of investigators. How you teach lots of people but not all of those people are ready to be baptised. So the more people you teach the more people you find who are ready. So this week Hna Brown and I set a goal of finding 5 new investigators. It´s a pretty big goal for our area. But we´ve already talked to more people today, we had people initiating conversations with us! Granted, they weren´t very interested. But planting seeds, always planting seeds. And I think it was a response to our faith. I´m positive we will be able to do it.

For P-day today the Elders and us Hermana´s went to Dominos Pizza. If you buy a certain deal you can get unlimited pizza (why doesn´t this exist in America!?), and so that´s exactly what we did. The pizza was so yummy, it was just like I like it. BBQ sauce, onions, ham, all the good stuff. There were different ones but that was my favorite. I meant to take pictures but totally forgot, sorry. I keep meaning to get pictures of the district. I´ve been blessed to be in a district of a really great set of Elders. They have fun but work hard too, which is always a good combination. And they have been so helpful with any of our questions. We make them brownies all the time to try and pay them back. Brownies are a big deal. Like, a BIG deal. Everyone, not just the Elders get excited about brownies. It cracks me up, because brownies are just an easy, catch all thing in America. But here people are obsessed with them.

I´ll let you know how our week of finding goes. I know there are hundreds of people in Granada who are searching for the gospel but just don´t know where to look. I´m determined to find as many as I can, bad spanish or no. I can feel it, this week is going to be busy. 

Love you all a lot!!! Have a great week. I know that if you read the Book of Mormon every day life will be better and happier. With obedience we can recieve so many blessings. Loves!!

h. woolley

p.s. we´re moving so don´t send any letters to the Zathuras address if you have it, I´ll give you the new one soon!

GOOD WEEK

Hi,

Here I am again, another p-day in the life of Hermana Woolley. I love p-day´s. I was looking forward to it all day yesterday. This week has been so, so crazy. We went over the mission goal for lessons taught and we were literally running to buses. It´s been insane, but it´s been good. So many miracles this week.

María came back! She´s the investigator who last week wanted nothing to do with the church then went to Barcelona. But this week when we went over to talk with her with the Zone Leaders (their spanish is much better than ours so we hoped they could help explain things better) she was fine.

The ZL´s helped answer her jospeh smith question and showed her a scripture that says we can´t understand everything God does, sometimes we need to move forward only on faith. because she always has lot sand lots of questions. its good that she asks them though, i take it as a sign that she is really trying to learn.It was such a relief, she should be getting baptized this next Sunday.

We met this other man who is so ready for the gospel. He is friends with a recent convert that is always going out with us. They grew up together but hadn´t seen each other for years. Our new investigator said he wanted the same change in his life that he saw in Manu´s. He´s already trying to stop smoking and he seems very earnest and humble. And it turns out his piso mate is an inactive member! He was no where in our records since he got baptized in a different part of spain, we had no idea he was there. Neither of these two men could come to church this week but I think they´ll both be there next week. Both seemed so ready to change, the less active man was asking for a copy of the BOM since he no longer has his old one. (! NEVER happens)

We met ANOTHER menosactivo this week at the home of one of other investigators. He has a baptism date set and we´ve been meeting with José pretty reguraly. He lives in a group piso and one of his piso mates came out and talked to us. Turns out he´s a member too! We promised to bring him a BOM and we´re meeting with him seperately from José. Wow!

AND THEN (the miracles just keep coming) we were refered to this Nigerian lady who said she´s wanted a BOM her whole life. So we went and met with her and her two daughters. They seemed receptive, but it was hard to tell because they are all such quiet people. They were out of our area so we handed them over to the Elders, but I´m excited to hear how things go with them. 

This week had been full of meeting people who are ready for the gospel. I know it´s because Hna Brown and I have been so dilligent in trying our hardest and we´ve had faith we were going to find people who were ready. The members here are so awesome, they help us out a lot. Most of them are converts themselves so the really appreciate what the gospel brings them. We have three men, Manu, Pablo, and Vincente that we can always count on to help us visit our men investigators. They´re so awesome, Manu wants his own missionary tag. He´s always going up to random people and talking to them about the gospel. I wish he could go on a mission of his own!

So I´ve been playing the piano in church. I´m always really grateful that no one else in the ward plays, because usually I´m sight reading so usually it doesn´t sound that great. My legs are always shaking as I walk back to my seat from the piano. But all the members are so kind and thank me for playing. And they seem to really mean it, which helps a lot. I¨m learning a lot more about the piano then I ever knew before my mission. I´ve had to amp up my sight reading skills a lot, I practice whenever we have a spare minute in the church before a meeting or english classes.

Now time for the food. I always have to talk about the food here. It´s the best part about Spain. Hna Brown and I got 2 loafs of bread for only one Euro from a bakery this week. The bread was still warm. And oh, so,so,so good. It´s the best bread I´ve ever had. Nothing compares. We also split a criossaint from the same bakery a few days earlier. I will never be able to go back to american store bought croissants. This one had honey on it or something. It was just a tad sweet and so flaky and ...yum. I wish you could all taste it. It was heaven. 

We also tried our first Tapas this week. A member was SOOOO kind and took us out to eat. Tapas are how people generally eat out here. You sit at a table outside the resturant and there are no menus, the waiter just tells you the menu. You order a couple little things. So it´s kind of like appetizers, except they´re bigger than American appetizers. We tried this traditional Barcelona dish that I have no idea what it was. Meat. And then these little sandwhiches that I´m pretty sure were lamb and fries with eggs on top. I really liked the fries, it´s like Dad´s rice and eggs thing with sauce. (Which we had a variation of for dinner on Sunday at a members house, but with red sauce. I was thinking of you Dad. It was so good and totally reminded me of home). Hna Brown showed me her favorite ice cream place for her 6 month mark. It´s helato made straight from whatever the flavor is. So actual Oreos, not oreo flavor. I got oreo and Dulce de leche. It was amazing. There are no words to describe it. 

We looked at a couple of piso´s this week and we think we found the one we´ll move in to. The office Elder is running it by President Deere today so we´ll find out in the next couple days. It´s the nicest piso I´ve ever seen, it looks like it belongs in America. We were so blessed to find it. So if we get the piso I´ll send home pictures!! And its only 2 streets from where we live now so it´ll be realatively easy to move into. It´ll take a whole p day of walking back and forth, but it´ll be worth it. 

I´ve been trying to think of a funny story to share and I´ve been having a hard time coming up with one! This week was more a miracle than a funny story. But I do have one. As anyone who´s been to Europe knows, public bathrooms don´t really exist. And when they do, they´re revolting. After a cita the other day Hna Brown and I were dying. We HAD to use a bathroom. So we run over to the Burger King that´s super close. First off, it´s the bigest BK I´ve ever seen in my life. It´s the size of a full on nice resturant, not a little fast food place. And then we realized that to use the bathroom you have to buy something. So we stood in line, both of us dancing on our toes to buy the cheapest thing we can. Off the dollar menu a little ice cream sunday. We didn´t even really care what it was, we just kind of pointed at the menu. We ended up with an ice cream sunday. On the reciept is a code that gets you in the door that leads back to the bathrooms. This door is right by the register so no one can slip in behind someone with a code or something like that. For a BK, this is some serious security for a bathroom. As expected, the place is gross. But we´re so relieved we don´t even care. I do wonder how much money that BK makes on desperate tourists, because it´s right down in the touristy part of town. We were kind of laughing at that. Not that funny, but it´s all I´ve got. 

Also, one of the members that we went to eat with this week had us  practice rolling our ´r´s. She told me I roll mine better than Hna Brown. :). I´m a bit pleased about this. 

I love you all so much! Keep reading your scriptures, it makes life so much better. Every single one of our investigators that reads regularly can testify to this. It opens the door for inspiration. I know God lives and loves us. He is so aware of us. He´s given me so many little blessings to help me through the rough days. LOVES!!

H. Woolley

Hermana Woolley and Hermana Brown eating Gelato

First full week in Spain

Hi,

So the person that runs the loc (the internet place) was gone for like 40 min so we´ve been waiting to email for forever. But its definitely worth the wait! I love you all so much :)

We had zone conference this week. Elder Chapple is in my zone, so thats awesome! we´ll see each other every once in a while. Zone conference is all in spanish so I didn´t get tons out of it, but it was still fun to hang out with everyone. We all went to McDonalds afterwards so i got to know a lot of missionary´s better. Super fun. 

hna brown took me to my first medio dia cita (the big meal of the day). HOLY COW. It was soooo much food! It felt like thanksgiving. I had a hard time eating as much as I did and it was barely enough to satisfy the mom that I liked her food. It was amazing food, she had fried eggplant and other stuff like that. YUM! Afterwards it was so hard to focus on my language study back in the piso, i just wanted to sleep it off. Definitely didn´t eat any snacks when we got home that night. We have another medio dia cita tomorrow and Hna Brown says she wants us to eat even more. I am not eating breakfast in preparation. My stomach is going to have to strech just to be polite. No wonder missionary´s gain weight here! I´m working out hard to try and not gain any

This week Hna Brown and I tried Neapolitans. It´s a crossaint with chocolate in it. SoooOO amazing. I´m definitely having more of those. I though of you Marissa when I ate mine. It was right up the alley of that little French bakery we went to, except better. 

This week has been kind of hard. Our main investigator started reading Anti-mormon stuff online and now doesn´t like Joseph Smith. She´s not very happy about things in the church right now. she´s been out of town since that day but we´ve been praying for her and think that we´ll be able to help her through her doubts. But we´ve had extra time so we´ve been checking up on menos activos and other people we know. Not everyone is receptive but we´ve found a couple people who might be interested in the gospel. One in particular is Alice. We found her when we went to visit a different person. He wasn´t there but she lives in the same piso (lots of people here live in group pisos to save money). We´ve only had one lesson with her but we´re visiting her again tonight. I´m helping out with the lessons more this week so I´m excited to talk with Alice. She seemed great last time we talked. she really seemed like she wanted to know the truth.

So funny story of the week. It wasn´t funny at the time, but thtat´s always how the best stories are. Our alarm clock is our phone and so every night we charge it and put it between our beds. Sunday morning Hna brown wakes up and goes into the other room only to discover it´s 10:30!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!That´s when church starts. We jumped up in a panic and got ready as fast as we could and ran to the bus. It was a miracle, because both busses we need to take to get to church came almost as son as we got to the bus station. Getting to church can take us up to an hour (it´s on the other side of the city opposite of our area) and this sunday we got there and ready in less than an hour. We still missed the majority of sacrament meeting but we were still relieved. I´m the pianist for the ward now that the only other pianist moved last week so they sang a cappella in sacrament meeting. but they´re used to that, so it wasn´t too bad. I played in relief society though and it went so much better than last week. Playing the piano with people singing always makes my legs shake so I could barely make it back to my seat afterwards. But the Lord had definately blessed me to be able to play decently. 

There have been so many blessings and tender mercy´s this week. Every day the Lord helps us through with some little (or big) blessing! It´s so comforting to know He is so aware of us and wants to help us so much. I don´t remember where I heard it, but someone said that the Lord is just waiting to bless us. Any time we do something good He tries to help us out a little bit. Our hardest day at the lowest point we found out that we will be able to move piso´s next transfer!! we´ve been hoping to but weren´t sure if we could. It was such a huge blessing. We talked with a realator earlier today (by we I mean Hna Brown. I don´t have the vocab for that sort of thing at all) and we´re going to check out a few tonight. So we should be moving! We´re soooo excited.

I finally finished Our Search for Happiness this week and started Jesus the Christ. Both are such good books. I think everyone should read our search, it explains the gospel so clearly. Very helpful. Hna brown was really sick one morning so I had lots of study time. We went out that afternoon but she was too dizzy to go out in the morning, she´d been fighting it for days and her body finally told her it was done. So I got lots of time to study. don´t worry mom, I´ve been drinking lots of water and staying healthy as possible :) I drink so much more water now than I ever have before in my life! We have these gian 2 L water bottles that we try to drink 2 of every day. So. Much. Water. But I feel great when I get the full 2 in. 

We had another medio dia cita with an American family that lives in the ward. They´re from Colorado and are living in Spain for 2 years so that their kids will be bilingual. They´re an amazing family, so nice. They fed us taco salad too, and it was nice to have something traditonally American. But with good Spanish ingredients. It was a good combonation. They live in an actual house which is really unusual. It´s beautiful and had the best view! I wish I´d had my camera, I would have taken pictures. I was really bad at remembering it all week and so I don´t have any pictures for you, sorry about that. I need to take some pictures of hte cool grafitti too. There´s the ugly stuff and then there´s the beautiful art work. We see a lot of both. I´m getting good at ignoring the ugly stuff and keep my eyes out for the actual art. It´s so cool to see. 

so this letter is probably very unorganized and crazy. I´m not very good at organizing my thoughts as I write. I love you all very much! I promise that if you read the scriptures with the intent of learning something new you will. God knows our heart and our intent. He´ll give us answers when He knows we´ll act on them. We all experience miracles every day, not just when we´re missionary´s. Keep your spiritual eyes open, it´s amazing. 

I love you so much! I´m praying for you. Stay strong and have fun. Have a good week! Big hug. 

Jamie Brown Hermana Brown's mother called this morning and told me all about her daughter. Sweet girl from Utah super excited that they get to be together. She knows Mission President Deere and speaks very highly of him. So happy for Kelsey!

Hermana Brown-Kelsey's trainer

Drum Roll!!

Are you just dying to know where I am? I was! It waas killing me. And there will be more typo´s because keyboards in Spain are differen.t <it takes some getting used to. 

GRANADA!

I am so blessed. <it´s the most beautiful place ever! <its pretty much the only part of southern Spain that gets snow and has mountains. <the <mission pres´s wife, sis. Deere, loves it because the country side looks like Utah. If you switched out the olive trees for sage bush then it would be exactly like Utah. 

<so back to the beginning of the week. We had an overnight flight from NYC to Paris before the one down to Málaga. It was kinda of cool actually. The plane was HUGE. And first class truly was first class.Everyone was fed dinne and I had raviolli filled with goats cheese. YUM! They served cold rice that had all sorts of different kinds of grainn, it was pretty good. E. Chapple was sitting next to me and didn´t like it much, but I thought it was kind of fun. 

We flew in to Málaga that next morning and were picked up by sister deere and one of hte elders from the office. they were so nice! I love everyone to death. <they took us to the chapple in Malaga and we met up with all the other newbies from the Madrit MTC. There were a lot of us, we were the biggest group of newbies they´d seen so far. <32 or something huge like that. With our group the mission has doubled since last year. <wow! There were so many of us that there weren´t enough beds in the mission hoe for us that night so all the elders were sent to a hostel for the night. The mission home has an amazing view. It´s not actually in Málaga, it´s in a little town nearby. It´s the most picturesque town on the coast. The house looks out from the top of a hill over the town to all the beautiful white houses and you can see the mederterranian from their backyard. Next time i´m down there I´ll try and get a picture. 

that second day i met my companion, Hermana brown. She´s from Utah and is absolutely perfect. she´s starting her 4th transfer and has spent most of her time in Granada. We get along so well, we´re already close. It probably helops that we´ve already had some crazy adventures.

That first day after being put together we go on a bus back to our area. Everyone rides the bus here for everything. We went to our piso to drop my things off and she wanted to show e the area book until our first apointment. <when we left and went to the bus stop <h. brown realized she didn´t have her wallet! we searched and searched but couldn´t find it. We had to cancel our apointment because we can´t go anywhere without the bus. Our area is really big, its about half the city. We have the downtown area and 3 sets of elders split the rest of it. So we find out where the main bus station is and go there, hoping someone has turned in her wallet. As we walk she´s calling hte office Elders and letting them know and we´re both praying that some kind soul turned in her wallet. It wasn´t just money, her card that shows she´s here leagally was in there too. We get to the office and they say one of hte busses reported a silver wallet. They give us the bus number and we hurry back to the bus stop by our piso. We then spend the rest of the night waiting for hte right bus, running back and forth across the street for the bus stops going different ways. the whole time I´m fighting off jet lag (awful stuff) and starving because my body´s all out of wack. We probably bus hunt for an hour or two. Thankfully both people we missed were oka and we set up other apointments with them. We´d been hunting for forever and finally it was time to go in for the night. We decided to try one more bus. And it was the right bus! It was a miracle. All her cards were in there, all she lost was some cash and her bus card (she got a new one easily). Such a miracle. Whoever the thief was, they were a decent one. 

The next day we were doing our weekly planning when we get a call that I´m supposed to hop on a bus in an hour to take me back to Málaga to start my residency stuff. We scramble to print out our tickets and get to the bus stop in time. We´re going up north to Jaen first so H. brown will be with the sister training there and both of us newbies will ride together. Well somehow we only printed out half our tickets, the ones for jaen to Málaga. Thankfully we found out that in Spain they print a list of everyone with tickets for each bus, so we just showed ID to the bus driver and he let us on.

It doesn´t end there. :) When H. Lyons (other newbie) and I get to Málaga there isn´t anyone there waiting for us. We don´t have tickets to get to Fuengirola (where the mission home is) so we´re not sure what to do. It was kind of scary and we were both fighting off some panic since our spanish is close to nothing. We actually found a pay phone and called Sis Deere to find out if we needed to by train ticket. The elders had missed us by just a couple minutes, we´d been walking around each other i think. ´So the Elders found us a few minutes later and helped us get on the train to Fuen. Sister Deere greeted us both with giant hugs and yummy food. 

That whole day was full of traveling and residency stuff and I didn´t get home until it was tie to go in. <two days into my mission and I hadn´t met any of our investigators yet. i was getting kind of ansy. <i was so excited for Saturday. It was nice to meet everyone! They are all so kind and patient with the fact that I can´t understand much and my Spanish is awful. They all say ¨ a poco a poco´´ which means little by little. It´s true! I´m just glad everyone´s so patient with me. 

 The theta (the lisp) throws me off a lot when I try to understand people. All my teachers in the MTC went to Mexico so my whole district learned that accent. But I´m starting to hear the individual words a little better and I often get the general gist of what people are saying. I just need to expand my vocabulary enough to be able to respond more :).

It´s crazy, our church building here is an actual church! Most places have only a little rented space but our building is the stake center so it´s more like what you´d see in utah. totally caught me by surprise. I was asked to play the piano for the baptizm that night and totally bombed it. I haven´t played much in the last few years and i was nervous. But no one seemed to mind, especially not the two girls getting baptized. There parents are less active and the girls started taking lessons with the missionary´s a little while ago. they´re awesome girls. I´ll love them even more when I can understand them better :)

We have this one investigator who is a miracle in herself. I know this all second hand since i wasn´t here for most of her conversion, but it still amazes me. She´s decided to get baptized but smokes, like most Spaniards. She was smoking about 15 cigaretts a day. <but she set up a plan with the hermanas and in only two weeks she´s down to 4 a day. And for such a quick change she looks great. it´s definately been hard, but she is still functioning. I got to meet her the other day and i was touched by her Spirit. You can feel her aching desire to be baptized and be better. María´s son, Fillipe, was inactive but he passed the sacrament on sunday and is going on the ward temple trip this week! They´re such an amazing family.

Dad, I have tried my first Hellato. Oh. My. Gosh. That stuff is addicting. I´m going to have to be really careful to not eat too much. when H. Brown pulled out hte tub and we started eating we ate WAY too much for one sitting. And María crackers! they´re kind of like Ritz crackers except a million ties better. And I love that ranch doesn´t exist here. 

Apparently the hermanas eat at members houses a lot here. we already went over to a members house for a Noche de Hogar (FHE) with an investigator family the other day. Luz, the member mom, made these yummy pancake things that you open up and fill with cheese and butter. it´s a venisuallian food. No idea what its called, but delicious. 

So my first impressions of Spain: Everyone owns a dog. There´s grafitti everywhere. It smells different, but I have no idea how to describe the smell. Everyone rides the bus or a motorcycle or moped. And Spain Spanish sounds like gibberish. 

But the people are nice and I´m working hard. I love you all! Write me :)

Hermana Woolley