Week of Miracles

It´s been a week of miracles for us. And I´ve really been blessed to have my faith strengthened in fasting too. The ward is doing a 40 day fast and this weekend all the missionarys in the mission did one too. We´re having a special week this week where we are trying to be perfectly obedient, we´re calling it the week of consegration (or however you spell that in english). Sacrificing those things that we have a hard time giving up in a n effort to turn our missions over to the Lord even more. It´s barely started and we´ve had miracles!

We found a family from Romania and there´s a couple in the ward that speak Romanian and so we can teach them.

We got a hold of a less active that wasn´t answering her phone.

A less active we´ve been working with for months came to church this sunday, and a different woman the sunday before!

And the biggest miracle of all, Karina. She had decided earlier this last week that she didn´t really want to get baptized, that she wasn´t ready. We´d been talking about the 3rd of May as her goal and she in the end decided no.

This Sunday the principles of the gospel class was giving by the ward mission leader and was on covenants, specifically the Abrahamic covenant. The spirit was really strong as he talked and, not knowing Karina had dropped her baptism date, talked to her directly about getting baptized ont he 3rd. During the end of the class I had the impression that we couldn´t leave the classroom without talking about baptism again, that we needed to talk about the 3rd. Just as I turned to Karina Hna Cerna came over (she´d been sitting with someone else) and started the conversation I´d been promted to have too. I don´t even remember what was said. Except for Karina saying, ´´ I don´t know if its the right choice, but I´ll be baptized on the 3rd´´. 

I couldn´t stop the big grin from spreading across my face. I have never felt such excitement and joy for somone in my life. Turns out she´d woken up that morning thinking ´´why don´t I get baptized?´´ and the lesson by the ward mission leader helped give her the last push she needed. So, so amazing to see the Lords hand. I can´t believe I´m so blessed to be able to witness this special moment for Karina! We still have work to do, but she has lots of support and love of hte ward and the Lord. 

Talking to some other members in the ward, turns out that we weren´t the only ones that had been fasting for Karina over the last few months. I was touched to see that this family cared about her so much, I´m so glad she´ll have friends when the missionaries leave. It´s important! When we leave if the investigators and converts don´t have friends, they´ll feel alone and lsot and probablly leave the church. So please, if you see someone new or someone sitting with the missionarys, talk to them! The missionaries can´t do it all :)

Love you all! Thank you so much for all your prayers and love :)

hna woolley

p.s. mom, my memory card freaked out and i lost a bunch of photos. thankfully the majority were on my other card, but i don´t have any photos to send. I´ll try and buy a new card soon hopefully. 

Easter

Well, it´s raining again. Spanish springs are just as unpredictable as Utah ones. Because just a few days ago it was in the mid 80´s. This week with the Semana Santa it´s been interesting. But good! We´ve got some great people that could become investigators from this week. 

Monday last week when we came home one of the Semana Santa processions was going down our street! We went inside and watched it for a few minutes. It was the only procession we saw, but we could hear others sometimes as we were walking around. 

And Karina and her family are really progressing. The other day we taught her what a family home evening is and then the next day brought The Testaments to watch with her family. Her son Edward, who never talks to us very much and has only come to church once stayed to watch the whole movie! I expected him to stay for only the first few minutes, but he watched the whole thing with us. It had me really excited. And Karina is really trying to learn and do the things we ask her to. She really seems to understand what we´re teaching her, which is always a great feeling. 

As for strange things this week, teh birds are going crazy. Seriously. All the little sparrows just fly around in circles above the street we live on. In the morning as I´m eating I¨ll just watch them fly circles around eachother. Sometimes they swoop down into the street but normally they´re higher up. I´m pretty sure they´re twitter-pated.

Love you guys a lot! Hope you are still remembering what we learned in General Conference a few weekends ago and remembering why this last sunday was so special. All week we´ve been sharing 1 Nephi 21:15-16 with people. You should read it and really think about it, there´s lots to learn :)

Hugs and loves!

Hna Woolley

Rootbeer Floats!

Well, it´s going to be an interesting week. This week is Semana Santa, or the Holy Week. It´s a big Catholic celebration of the last week of Christ´s life. And the biggest place for the parades and everything is Sevilla, so pretty much everyone in Spain (not really, but close) will be here. 

My leaders told us to set as many member citas as we could and be in the street as little as possible.

It´ll be an interesting week.

But, this last week was good too! Saw a bunch of little miracles, like all the crosswalk lights turning green just as we walked up so we could get home in time. And love from the ward and lots of people.

We had zone conference this week and I got to see Elder Sykes who was in my district when I left Granada and now is in my zone here. Super fun to see him! There´s a married couple set of missionarys who are in our zone as well, and they were given root beer as a gift (from the military base near by) and shared it with us as root beer floats! So yummy! So american! My comp doesn´t like soda at all so she didn´t like hers. I drank it for her :) It was such a treat and so very kind of the couple. They´re some of the nicest people I´ve ever met, so sweet and trying so hard to learn spanish. 

Karina is progressing decently. She came to church and made it earlier than normal so that was good. We had some pretty spiritual lessons with her, we watched Elder Bednar´s three videos on revelation and the light of Christ with her. I always feel the Spirit so strong when I watch the church´s videos. The people that make those really know what they´re doing, I´m very grateful for them. 

We´re trying to help Karina resolve a few of her doubts about the church and strengthen her testimony. But, as I´ve been learning my whole time here in Sevilla, it really is between Karina and the Lord. We teach her what we can and try to help her recognize the Spirit. But it´s up to Karina (and each one of us) to build our own faith and testimonys.  

You´d think that as a missionary I would have a rock solid testimony. And in some things, I do. But I´m also learning how to build my testimony while I¨m out here. And it´s been a great experience. I am so much stronger in the gospel than ever before! It´s like a tree- I have the trunk and the main branches strong and sturdy. But I´m building the little branches right now and strengthening the foundation I already have. It´s how we build that seed of faith into a tree, one little branch at a time. I´m so grateful for the opportunity I have to build up this foundation and all the new growth too.

Hope you all have a good week! You are in my prayers and thank you for all of your prayers and support. I really appreciate it and can feel all the love from back in the States :)

Loves!
Hna Woolley



Last Week:

Ok, strangest week this week. First off, we had this random giant rain storm. Just like 2 days, but it just rained, and raijned, and rained. Unfortuantely, I was outside a lot one of these mornings so my feet got very, very wet. But hey! I´ve got my new comp, Hermana Cerna. And she´s great! And I´ve already learned tons of spanish. Seriously though, I´ve had people telling me my spanish is better, and its only been a few days. I think that means my spanish wasn´t very good before. Gives me lots of room for improvement.

But saying goodbye to this last district was really hard. We had a goodbye testimony meeting the tuesday before everyone left for district meeting and it was rough. I´m really close to everyone in that group, and 3 of them left, including my companion. I´m still getting used to not having them here. I realized that my heart has grown bigger and more open. Which is great! It´s what I´ve been asking for working towards. But loving people more also means being more heart broken when they (or you) leave.

But like was said in conference (I forget whose talk it was), goodbyes aren´t for forever with the Plan of Salvation. They´re just interruptions. Gotta say, that was for me. So much of this conference was awesome! I was writing investigators names next to my notes and staring things left and right. I think tomorrow for personal study I´m just going to be studying my notes. 

We watched the womans conference session and the first Saturday one on Saturday. The womens conference was so awesome, right! I loved the videos. All the missionarys from Sevilla and the pueblos really close by came to watch it together. In the chaple it was shown in spanish but upstairs in the institute room they havae a TV and we watched it in english. I went on splits with some other hermanas so our comps could watch in spanish and us in english, so it worked out well. with the two streams sometimes it cut off or got weird, but it was worth it. Most left after two sessions, but a few of us stayed to watch the last session at 10 pm. (We´d gotten permission from president) So at midnight when it ended we slept over at the hermanas of the other ward´s piso because its much closer than ours. 

Karina didn´t come to any of the sessions, which worries me. She didn´t come to church last week either. But we´ll see her tomorrow and figure things out :) We had another investigator in church though, named Nayeli. She´s friends with a member in the ward and we´ve had a couple FHE´s together. 

Yup. That´s my week. Super wierd. Spend all day wednesday in a train station with other missionarys waiting for our comps (had to be comps  with an herm from another city and the station was too far away to go work. Long story), watched more TV in two days than I have in 6 months, ate lots of sweets (so many chu ches!!) and slept in a rickety bunk bed. Good stuff. 

Love you all a bunch. Hope you got something out of conference and got a few questions answered. I love being able to listen to the Prophet and the Lord´s apostles. Such amazing men of faith.

Loves!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hna Woolley