Two girls wandering around Spain hoping they understand enough to know whats going on

Hello there! Last weeks letter was super long, I don´t think it´ll be quite as long this week. It´s finally warming up! The last few days have been so much warmer, basically spring. I´m not getting my hopes up though, Im sure it will rain and get cold again before we´re done. But I´m enjoying the nice weather while I can. We´re going to the Plaza España again, but we´re taking some investigators with us that are about our age and need some friends. One of ours and one of the Elder´s. It should be lots of fun!

This week started out kind of rough. We were having a hard time having motivation to work as hard as we could. But we buckled down and really tried to work, even though neither of us really had any motivation for a few days. And holy guacamole, we were blessed. 

The lesson in Relief Society yesterday was all for me. Just for me. It was Pres. Uchdorf´s talk on ´´you can do it´´ or whatever it´s translated to in english. But it was a really nice boost and reminder that I could keep going. 

And then Sunday we talked to so many people! I´ve never talked to that many people in one day. We´d just chosen some streets the night before during planning to work, either tocing or talking to people in the street. So we went to the first street and at the first door a girl on her bike rides up and says she lives there. She´s a college student from France that we talked to. And as we were talking to her 5 of her friends drive up and start talking to us too. We invited them all to english class and I honestly think they´ll go. All of them wanted a card and perked up at the word ´´gratis´´ (Free). 

After them we wandered into another street and got into this super great building with some really great people to visit again. We were talking to this one lady in the door when her granddaughter started singing us OneDirection songs. She basically sang us a whole concert, it was the cutest thing ever. But the best part was once we found the name of the street (Sometimes this is complicated here in Spain. The street names aren´t always in the most obvious places) we realized it was our 2nd street that we´d planned. We hadn´t even realized that it was the street we were planning on, but the Lord totally led us there. 

It was really nice to see the Lords hand in his work. It´s nice to have my animo back too. I´m ready to go to work and have fun and help people!  Love you all a bunch! I hope you have a great week and can recognize the hand of the Lord in your life this week. The Lord is in the details, I promise. 

Loves,

Hermana Woolley

Elevator

HELLO,

We had a night this week where our plan and all our backups failed us, so we had this awkward hour where we weren´t entirely sure what to do. So we started walking towards this members house in the hopes that she would be home and we could follow up on a reference she had given us. 

We were blessed to run into another member )Kettu) and her daughter  (Camilia) on our way.  So we get in the elevator to go down to the metro so she can put money on thier bus card. We get in and the elevator doesn´t move at first so we push the button a couple more times. Then we decide to just take the stairs since the elevator is being silly and not moving. So we push the button for the doors to open and it m akes this sound and the doors jiggle but won´t open. We try a few more times, not really believing what is happening. 

We are actually trapped in an elevator. Just like the movies. So we push the emergency button. Lo and behold, the button sets off a siren that rings all across the square. An important fact is that this is a clear elevator. So everyone is staring. Someone tries to come help us but it doesn´t work from the outside either. When we push the button again the emergency help line guy (or whatever you want to call him) comes on and in a very bored voice tells us we can only call if its an emergency. Kettu explains the situation (we´re all laughing in disbelief this whole time) and the guy comes and helps us get out. 

Quite the adventure. We did go to her house still with Camilia and spent a few minutes cleaning her kitchen to say thank you for all the help she´s given us over the last few weeks. Definately a memorable night!

And then this week we ran out of butane, and since we don´t have an oven that meant no cooking. We didn´t have any food that didn´t need to be cooked. So we ate cereal that day and thankfully another member let us come over to eat lunch the next day (yummy seafood from Argentina!) and then we were able to get butane today. So we can cook our pasta and rice again. 

For sunday dinner we were invited over by this other family from Ecuador in teh ward to eat. They made this special dish that they normally only make during the Semana Santa to say goodbye to Hna Greenwood. Yep, she´s leaving this week. Can´t believe it!

But this stew... kind of. It´s thicker than a stew, more of a paste like soup. And full of beans and corn and chicken and fish and another type of beans and all sorts of things. And then you put slices of cheese and hard boiled eggs and fried platano in it. And I have to say, it´s my new favortie thing I´ve eaten here. It was absolutely fantastic. I felt like I was going to die I was so full. The eggs and cheese wierded me out at first but the flavors worked so, so well. And the platano. Oh, the platano. I love that stuff. It was beautiful. 

And THEN, to top it off, she made us arroz con leche (rice pudding) and I´ve been wanting to try it since I got here. So good! Before my mission when dad told me about it I thought it sounded gross, but it´s amazing! So yeah, food yesterday was amazing.

Sorry this isn´t a very spiritual email. Lots of other great things happened this week. We had a very honest lesson with Cristofer and Luis where they opened up with us a lot. Luis said he wants to be baptized, but not yet, that he doesn´t feel ready. But he said he wants to be baptized before we leave, so we´ll see. I have a lot of faith that both of them will get baptized. Not faith in them, but faith in Christ and his gospel and hope in Cristofer and Luis. 

We´ve been trying really hard to invite members to lessons, but it hasn´t worked super well lately. We have a usual guy named Tonino that goes with us a lot, he´s a RM and seved in Utah and is just awesome. But we´re really trying to branch out and use all the members, especially those in our area. We have some, but other times they can´t and a couple times the cita´s failed on us. That´s always hard because we don´t want to drag a member aroudn with us to our backups because usually thats knocking since our area is really new, and we don´t want to just tell them to go home. From a members point of view, what would you like best in that situation? 

Also, I´m sure that if you told the missionary´s in the ward that you would love to have investigators come meet at your house that would be a blessing for them. I know that when we teach other ppl of the other gender its really hard sometimes to teach them if you don´t have someone who can come with you all the time. We´ll have a hard time with that when Hna Greenwood leaves on wed because now we have to find a girl or two men to go with us, and all the people who´ve helped us a lot so far have been men. 

Alright, I´m out of time. I love you all a lot! Big hugs and kisses from Spain

Hna Woolley

Sis in the Sevilla ward

More dresses

Spanish Dresses

What I'd do for a bowl of Clam Chowder...

...or Cheese and potato soup! Guys, I love American soup. I love Spanish soup too. I just love hot food. We´ve been getting soaked every day for half a week and I´m just craving some hearty, yummy soup. 

Thankfully, we were fed a soup after this manner once this week. It was delicious. It had pumkin in it, it was a garbanzo bean stew thing. No idea what its called. So, so good. At that same members house we also tried on flamenco dresses and took lots of pictures. So fun! I felt like a Spanish princess. :) She couldn´t quite figure out how to use my camera so a lot of them are pretty fuzzy, but they´ve still got the great memories attached. 

That same day that we were taking pictures with her was the first day of the rainy weather. Leaving her house we were kind of late for correlacíon so we were running for the bus. It was pouring and windy so the rain was  coming down sideways. Thus, we were completely and utterly soaked. And .... we lost our phone. Yep. Awful. We realized it in correlation. And thanks to our wonderful, loving zone leaders we are able to borrow one of their phones while we wait for our new one. We tried calling our phone but it was off, aka ruined. It was a real pain to lose all our numbers, but thankfully we had some written down and got the most important ones from other people. 

But the BEST news of this week is that we had lots of people in church! We had THREE investigators in church (and her son that´s 7) and TWO less actives. I´ve never had so many people come to church before. It was such a huge blessing, it made us all just want to sing and dance or do somethign else equally redicioulous. And everyone seemed to enjoy it. One of them was Christofer, our investigator who is wanting to be baptized. His friend, Luis, came with us too. We picked them up before church and brought them with us because Christofer didn´t want to ride his moto in the possible rain (it did, in fact, end up raining. A lot.).  Cristofer was awesome, because he was the one  who got Luis to come. Whenever we´ve invited Luis he really hasn´t wanted to come to church. I don´t know what Cristofer did,  but he got Luis to come. And Luis said he liked it. I was able to talk to him on the bus and he´s a really cool guy, I´m excited to keep teaching him.

Carena and her son, Greco came too. We have church backwards here so Greco came with teh bishops wife so he could go to primary while Carena was at work. She came at the end of the first hour and is seriously already part of the ward. She stayed even longer than us at the church. I was so excited to see all of them like church so much. 

I have a lot of appreciation for hte Lord and his work. Because honestly, I didn´t do anything. All we did was pay for the bus ride and say here´s the church. The Lord has done everythign else. I feel so privlidged to be able to see him at work.

I love you guys a lot! I hope you all have a good week and stay warm and dry! Eat some soup for me, will ya?

Hna Woolley

Stake Conference in Sevilla

It was raining so, so hard this morning. And our piso was so, so cold. We bundled up today. But it stopped raining, so its okay :)

This weekend we had Stake Conference so we had some other hermanas sleeping over. Four to be exact, making it 7 people in our little tiny piso. So we moved all our matresses into the main room and shoved them all together to make one giant bed. It was a party. And its a good thing today is p day because know we have no food. :) But seriously, it was a blast. I got to know everyone better and we had some time waiting around in the morning until it was time to go to conference and we just sat and had one giant Companionship study time. 

The conference was absolutely fantastic too. We had an investigator named Christofer and then another investigator and her two boys come! I´ve almost never had investigators come to church. And both people were sitting with members and befriended by pretty much the whole ward. The members that sat with them went around introducing them to people and helping them feel welcome. It was so wonderful to watch the members at work.

 One of the members who is friends with the woman had only been to one lesson with us. But she was amazing, I´ve never seen anything like it. Not only did she really help comfort our investigator, but she tried to really befriend her kids. As we had to leave she said ´´lets go on a walk´´ to the mom and got the whole family out on a walk. This is amazing because the investigator´s oldest son has really been struggling and is not very social. He didn´t really like meeting us the first time. 

And then, and THEN when we go to visit the member, the investigator and her kids are over at the members house!!! She´d invited them over for lunch after conference and they´d been there all afternoon. It floored me. It was such an example of member missionary work. If every member was a friend like that, then everyone would get baptized. I´m not joking. I can already tell what a difference this member has made in the investigators life, and they´ve only known each other for a few days. Us missionary´s aren´t joking when we say the members make all the difference. So please, please help out your missionarys. Just be friends with people! And welcome the less active´s back into your circles with open arms. It makes such a difference in peoples lives. 

You know the saying where you never realize how much you love something until its gone? Yeah, totally feel that way about American food. Spanish food is awesome, but there´s nothing like mom´s home made pancakes and waffles. Tonino and his sister Maria Jesus know of this 50´s style diner that´s pretty close to our house. So we went there with them for lunch one day, and I have to say, it was AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!! We had milkshakes. REAL milkshakes. And the whole menu just made my mouth water. I had this sweet pulled pork sandwhich that was to dye for. It felt like I was home. So, so, so good. 

 The piso doen´st have a heater, they ¡don´t have centeral heating very often here in spain. we have little space heater type thigns. except spanish version. and the water pressure is just generally awful here in spain, even in the mission home. the good water pressure in our last piso was a miracle and really unusual. its not an unusual living situation, its just spain.

food this week was the 50´s diner. food isn´t as good here, there aren´t as many pastry shops and we only eat spagehtti at home. they never want to eat anything else. so today i finally said no more spagethi for a week. It helps that i do most of the cooking, i just need them to help me buy other foods. 

Charles is super sweet, he´s a retired american who worked at hte military base near by. he´s kind of lkie our grandpa, he often gives us soda and some sweet cracker or mini donugts and if we dont finish them in his house he makes us take them. we currently have 2 bottles of half finished fanta in our fridge haha. he´s been baptist his whole life and its hard for him to change. but slowly he´s accepting our message a little more. he says he feels different and happier than before and remembers thigns betteer, which is awesome. 

Carena and her sons are doing well. its hard to say so far since we´ve only known them for a week. she talks A LOT so its hard to teach her much at a time and have visits under one hour. but she´s really nice and really needs some love, she´s been through a lot. i think if she get baptized her sons will follow, but slowly, the 15 year old is atheist because he´s mad at God right now. but i think he´ll come around.k. 

Just realized I probably haven´t explained who those people are before. Tonino is a really strong member that goes out with us a lot, he´s been off his mission (to Utah. He served in Layton for like 9 months) for a couple years. His sister Maria Jesus is super cool too, but she hasn´t been coming to church for a while. And they´re always wanting to practice there english (Which we love). 

Okay, thats it for today. I love this work. It´s so great, I love seeing people be loved and befriended. I love seeing people want to change their lives for the better! It´s the most beautiful thing when someone decides they want to be better and then works to make a change. I love you all a ton and hope you are having a great week. Help your missionary´s!! They need all the hlep they can get :) 

Loves,

Hna Woolley