Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!! So fun fact about Spainards. The last 12 seconds of the year they eat a grape every second. And if you eat all the grapes in time you get your wish. Cool, right? 

I had a lot of fun this week. The work was rough with everyone gone for the holidays, but it was okay we just spend lots of time with members and less actives this week. Christmas Eve all the missionary´s went to the house of a member and partied with her family after  caroling at a home for disabled people with some other members. The dinner was a little awkward at first but once we got used to each other it was great. We left as best friends. 

Christmas day we opened lots of presents and had a REAL American breakfast of pancakes and eggs with MAPLE SYRUP.Such a treat. Hermana Roan´s mom sent it to us.  We ate lunch with a less active family and one other companionship of Elders. And of course I was able to skype home! The highlight of everything!!! We could have talked for so much longer, but it was okay. We´ll talk again in a few months :)

After all the holidays we really tried to get down to work. Not many people wanted us over for obvious reasons, but we spent time with some lady´s who are older and alone and that was so  much fun. I love visiting the older ladies, its one of my favorite things. They just radiate love.

So, Manuel (our investigator with a baptism date). This week had ups and downs. We weren´t able to see him except on Monday and Saturday and Sunday because of the holidays, which we didn´t like. With such a fragile and new testimony we really want to see investigators as much as possible. We were teaching him the Plan of Salvation this week and he had LOTS of questions. Totally understandable, it´s something really new and totally different if you grew up Catholic like he did. But he accepted things really well, which we were so grateful for. 

Unfortunately he didn´t feel like he could go to church because his legs were hurting him too much. He has a lot of pain in his legs that he´s going to doctors for right now, and church last week really hurt him. We tried to work out a way he could come, but he didn´t want to this week. We offered to have the Elders give him a blessing of health to help with his legs (after explaining what a blessing was), and he agreed. The district leader and his companion came and they helped us out SO much. They were able to explain things in a different way that helped Manuel understand faith better and the blessing was really powerful. The DL´s companion is really young in the mission, he´s still being trained. But he´s such an awesome missionary, it´s been so cool to see him grow so much in just two transferrs. He gave the blessing and mentioned things he didn´t know about that were hard in Manuel´s life. I´m so grateful they came with us, it was a pretty big sacrifice for those Elders, but it made a big difference in Manuel´s progression. We recommited him to be baptized and we´re going to try and see him everyday and make sure he comes to church this next week. I´m a little bummed we had to move his date though because its a lot more likely I won´t be here when he gets baptized with transfers.

I´m finding out about transferrs this Saturday, so we´ll see where I´m going or if I stay. It´s wierd because I´m ready to see somewhere new, but I also love Granada so, so much. I love the people here. Our bishop who is trying so hard to learn how to be a good bishop, the members who do so much, those who are struggling and need the gospel. Everyone. I feel so much love for this part of Granada. So I´m torn I never want to leave but I can tell I´m drawing to the end of my time in Granada, whether I leave this transfer or the next.

I love you all! Have a great New Years, stay safe!

Loves,

Hermana Woolley