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