Birds, Spring, and Transfers

I think Heavenly Father has a really great sense of humor. He has to. Earlier this week we were walking down the street, just like we always do. It was a sunny day, we were having a good time even though it we hadn´t had lots of sucess that morning. So i´m just walking along and then feel something on my shoulder. I reach up to brush it off, assuming its a leaf since there are lots of trees on this street... and feel something wet. 

Horrifed, I look at my hand. I have bird poop on my fingers. I was pooped on. POOPED ON BY A BIRD. What are the chances right? That I would walk under the tree at that exact moment. Even a split seconds difference and the bird would have missed me. 

I honestly couldn´t believe my eyes for a second. I had to have my comp check my shoulder. Yup. Bird poop. 

So, since we had nothing set for the next 40 minutes, we went to Burger King´s bathroom and cleaned off my shirt. Thankfully it came out all the way. We were laughing the whole time. We were kind of incredulous about the whole thing. 

That´s my funny story of the week. Kind of the wierdest thing ever. 

We had a tri-zone conference this week that was super fun! I got to see my first comp, Hna Brown one last time. She´s going home in a few months so we probably won´t see each other again soon. And Elder Reynolds who I haven´t seen since my first transfer here! He was in my MTC district and we ewre pretty good friends. It was super fun to see them. I´ve made so many amazing friends here in the mission, I love it. 

As far as work goes this week... we´re still searching. Having our own little safari, looking for people who are ready to listen to the gospel. We worked hard this week, but our faith is still being tested.  Refiners fire, right? I´m a lot more okay with it than I was at first. Because I know I´m doing my part, we just have to show our faith. And wait for the Lord to finish preparing this next person. 

Also, transfers. Hna Bangerter is leaving for Málaga (the golden valley of the mission. I´m excited for her!) And I am getting a new comp. She´s from Peru but has lived in Spain most of her life, Hna Cerna. Everyone that knows her says she is really nice, so I¨m excited. It´s my first native companion so I´m kind of nervous for that part, but I¨m sure she´ll be great. And my spanish will get the boost I´ve been needing! Just no more movie refrences for a while. Two elders from the district are leaving too, so that´ll be sad. But one of the new Zone Leaders was in my first district in Granada, so I¨m super excited to see him! Elder JOhnson if you remember me talking about him at all. So it´ll still be fun.

Okay, love you guys a lot. Gotta go if I´m going to answer all the individual emails. 

Loves,

Hna Woolley

Haberneros

HEllO,

Even though we had less eating citas than normal this week, we are still eating too much food. It´s inescapable as a missionary. I´m okay with it though, its just how the members show their love here.Karina invited us over to eat civiche one day this week with the elders. Chiviche is fish soaked in lime juice with onions and this potatoe root thing and rice. It´s pretty acidic, but yummy! And then she put habeñeros on top too- that was hot. I didn´t eat the actual peppers, but the oher missionarys did and it was hilarious. Everyone that did was crying, Karina was laughing at all of the baby americans. Its beacuse spainiards don´t eat spicy food so we aren´t used to it any more. Only south americans do. 

I felt bad that we didn´t eat more though because just before that we´d been working with the young adults and helping with an activity that we ate lunch at. Every year the JAS (young adults) of the Sevilla stake have an activity where they go on splits with the missionarys. I had two girls with me, Marina and Kate, both of who are from our ward. We went down into our area and toced a bunch of buildings. It was  a really different experience. I was put on the spot because although both girls were eager to help they didn´t have the practice. So I was forced to really take charge. Pushed me to talk  to more people on the street. :)

It was a miracle morning though.Because we got into EVERY building we tried! That never happens. And it was so easy to get in, it´s never that easy. I was so surprized. It was totally because of the faith of Marina and Kate. They both expected to get in, so we did. It was a good reminder to boost up my faith.  I was really greateful for their help. 

This sunday was such a special sunday for me. Not because of anything different happening, but because I was really intune with the spirit. The longer I´m out here the more I just LOVE going to church. Especially  now that I understand everything thats going on. But I just feel the Spirit so strongly in church and it really has become a place of renewal and recieving strenght. Its such a blessing to have the chance to go to church and take the sacrament every week. Even though I can´t go to the temple, at least I can do that. I can renew my covenants every week! How crazy is that? The sacrament is so much more than bread and water or even than remembering Christ. It´s recommitting to live according to the standards we agreeded to at baptism. Its the chance to start fresh over again and become just a little more refined. How blessed are we!

Okay, love you all!! Hope you have a really good week. Challange you all to really think about the sacrament and what you learned in church yesterday and just really think about our covenants. 

Hugs and Loves,

Hna Woolley

Mosque P-day

Well my sore throat from last week has turned into a giant sniffle. My poor comp was kept up one night last week as I coughed and sniffed my way through the night. But I´ve been able to work the whole time thankfully and I´m on the up road. It´s funny, I´ve been more sick on the mission than I ever was at home. It´s all the besos and handshakes and dirty buses. 

This week for pday we arranged with our district to go to Cordoba to see a mosque. Well, used to be a mosque and was converted into a cathederal. The elders were being super sweet about it too. They were being taken by a member that one of hte missionary´s is really close too, and there wasn´t space for us in the car. The train ticket was kind of expensive so we weren´t going to go. But the elder all chipped in a little for our tickets so we could afford to go. We brought them lunch, so it worked out well. 

Unfortunately we wre just a little too late getting to the cathederal-mosque to get in free. And it´s kind of expensive and we would have had to wait a long time to go in because its still in use. So instead we went with the missionary´s that work in Cordoba to see some other cool places. It was still a super fun pday. And I got to nap on the train, so that was really nice. At one point I was nodding off and did that head jerk thing. The man sitting across the aisle from me was laughing, but I carefully pretened to not notice. It happens to the best of us, especially as missionarys. :) 

This week was a very unusual week for us. We were in the pueblo from last sunday again talking to those family´s and we had zone conference. And because of zone conference we had some other hermanas in our piso the night before and picking them up took up most of our night.

 And we had interviews with President Deere this week. He interviews all the missionary´s about every 3- 4ish months. It´s one of my favorite things in the world because he´s the closet thing we have to a parent out here in the mission. I went in looking for some really specific help and he had jsut the right answers. Its amazing to see how close he is to the Spirit. Listening to him pray you just know he is talking to the Lord. And so nice to have a reminder of all the people who are thinking of me and praying for me. We spend so much time as missionarys taking care of other people that it was nice to have 20 minutes where someone else was taking care of me. It made me want to go out and work harder to give people the same type of comfort he gave me. And showed me that it doesn´t have to take a long time to comfort and help someone, it just needs to be with the Spirit. 

He talked to me a lot about the phase I am in the mission. He called it hte grind phase. I´m at the point where I feel comfortable more or less with Spanish and teaching, but I don´t have enough practice or skill under my belt just yet to get all the results I´d like. It´s really hard sometimes, gotta admit. But, as President Deere reminded me, right now is a time of dilligence. And pretty soon I´ll be soaring. :)

 So because of all these things, we actually didn´t work in the street a lot this week. It was kind of strange. Has us both ready to get to work and find some new investigators! We´re (always) in need of investigators. But when we start to get down about feeling like we don´t have much to do I just remind myself and my companion of the week I had in Granada with only 5 lessons. And then we feel a lot better. 

It´s a beautiful sunny day here in Spain. So funny though, because everyone is still wearing coats. Not just the old people either. On our way here we saw a girl about our age bundled up in a winter coat with a scarf wrapped all around her neck. So odd, seeing as how it´s probably close to 70 degrees. Makes me nervous for the summer if they think this is still cold. 

I asked Elder Bastien, one of the missionary´s in my district today if he had any advice for how to survive an Andalucía summer. He told me do a really good job at doing your job, because then you´ll be inside all day. Sounds like great advice to me. 

Okay, love you all a lot. Enjoy today, cause it´s going to be awesome! Stay close to Heavenly Father through prayer and everything will work out better. Hugs and beseos (unless you´re a boy, and then just a handshake. Because boys are icky.). 

Loves,

Hna Woolley

yummy cinnamon bread and the elders

Oh, Spain

First things first. Maria Weber, I´ve been told to let you know that Luisa en El Puerto makes pancakes with the missionary´s every week. I was on intercambios with an hermana that served in El Puerto a few months ago. She loves Luisa! 

We´ve had an interesting week. We had intercabios this week with Hermanas from another city. I was here in Sevilla this time and... lets just say it didn´t go as well as it could of. I know our area pretty well, but some areas better than others. We had this cita to visit an older lady in our ward and our cita right before that failed, so I figured we would walk instead of taking hte bus and talk to people on the way. 

Well, it was further than I thought. And we got totally lost. We were on the right main street but it´s a really long street and I couldn´t figure out for the life of me where we were on the long street, even with the map. We eventually did find the members house, but I felt bad for dragging my temporay comp around everywhere. And then the next mornign every single one of our plans failed, including our back ups. BUT, we got chu ches (have I explained these yet? They´re little chewy candies in all sorts of flavors and shapes, you buy them individualy for .05) and that always makes things  better.

 Our  three main investigators Cristofer, Luis, and Karina have been struggling some. Karina still comes to church every week, but  we´re struggling to know what to share with her. And when we invited her to baptism again this week it didn´t go as we hoped. It´s always kind of difficult to keep the spirit strong in her home because people are always coming and going in her home. She told us she doesn´t feel ready yet, which is always hard to hear. Especially when we are so sure she IS ready. We know it, she just doesn´t know it yet. The other two men are really struggling right now. Cristofer had a day set to get baptized a few weeks ago, but life got hard and now we´re struggling to help him stay close to the spirit. His friend, Luis, is really trying to be a better person he just has a ways to go. But I have faith that one day soon they will be ready! 

This weekend was Andalucia day and a teacher work day, so with teh long weekend everyone went out of town. So we had two days where we competed to see who could step on the crunchiest leaf. We would literally go 20 or 30 minutes without seeing ANYONE in the street. Thats just how Spainish holidays are. Everyone just.... dissapears. No idea where they all go.

 But Sunday we went to a pueblo to look up some ladies that a lady in Hna Bangerter´s home ward had taught. We went witht he elders that work in that area and it was a miracle we found the ladies. One her daughter drove up just as we were about to leave. It´s a miracle we even found the streets because neither companionship knew the pueblo very well (these elders have like 4 towns they work and haven´t worked this one before). But we met a lady walking her dog who said she lived on the first street, after asking 3 or 4 other people that had no idea. And then on the bus ride back to Sevilla we met this man our age who is from Toronto and is here teaching english. And HE asked US for our number! This NEVER happens. And he lives in the same pueblo as the elders, so that was a huge miracle. 

It´s been a good week. I´ve had to really keep learning how to hand over this work to the Lord. It´s hard sometimes to know how to do that. But i´ve really worked to try and hand it all over to him this week. I´ve really realized hwo little we do. Because we can teach and teach and try really hard to relate to the people and teach them thingws we think will help. But there comes a point where it´s all between them and the Lord. We can do our best, and we should. But ultimately, we´re just here to give these people information and show them how to find their answer. It´s not much, honestly. The scripure Alma 36:3 has been one we´ve been sharing lately and has come to mean a lot more to me this week than ever before. 

Love you all a lot!!! Random food of the week: a sugar covered dougnut filled with nutella. Dougnuts here are SO soft!!! And we were fed pasta that had all the parts of a chicken in it, heart and all. Chicken insides are grey once cooked, in case you were wondering. 

Loves,

Hna Woolley