Duct tape

So this week we had an AMAZING, once in a mission experience. We had Elder Kearon, from the first quorm of the 70 and in the european area presidency, came and talked to us. The mission was split into two different meetings, so i was able to see lots of missionaries. 

But even better than seeing friends were those messages. They were so uplifting. Hermana Deere (pres. wife) gave a talk where she just acknowledged that lots of us are feeling very weary. But then she read us a scripture ¨´be not weary in well doing´´ and reminded us why we are here. It was so perfect to have her acknowledge our weariness. Because its definately there, but that dosen´t mean we stop. 

But then we talked about attacking the day, and starting the day on the right foot. About being an energetic and excited missionary. And how we are doing very well, but we can always do better.

Elder Kearon and his wife both gave wonderful talks about the atonement and finding and teaching and baptizing. Honestly, so much wonderful stuff and inspiration. I´d love to share it with you all, but it was from 11- almost 5 pm so that would probably take up all my email time. :) But just know that the Spirit was so strong and I was lifted and I´m working my hardest. It was at perfect timing too, it really has helped me want to keep on it. Attack the day! :)

We have a new goal for this week of bringing 250 investigators to church this sunday. its a big goal. But we´re going to do it!!! (normally we bring around 120 max as a mission) Because no one gets baptized until they get to church. 

Also, all of you boy scouts would be proud of me. My bag has been slowly dying aka, one of my bag handles is so stretched out its twice as long as the other. But I duct taped the crazies out of it and now its all fixed! I figure, it only has to last 2 more months. And I´m determined to come home with the same bag I left with. its my miracle bag, it should have died like 5 months ago, but its just been holding out. Symbol of my mission haha. Duct taped all up. 

Love you guys a bunch!! Attack the day!!

Loves,

Hna Woolley 

2nd week in malaga

ok, I´m writing this family letter first after the disaster of last week. As we were finishing up we got a call from the other hermanas saying that our bus to go bowling was going to be there soon and that we needed to get to the stop. So i lost those five minutes I was going to write you guys. I hope at least part of the letter was legible. 

Málaga is awesome. Our piso is a little interesting... I´ve duct taped a shower curtain up in my shower because there is no rod or curtain, and im too poor to buy a rod. And we need to get some new lightbulbs. But its pretty and its big, so thats nice. i´m in the downtown area again, just like Granada. 

This weekend we actually even went to Granada for stake conference, which was a huge tender mercy for me. i was able to see all those old members and talk to them and take a few pictures. it was so great to see all of them again, now here in the end of my mission. And i was actually able to talk to them which I couldn´t do very well at the beginning of my mission. 

Yesterday we saw an awesome miracle. We couldn´t fast on fast sunday so we were fasting together this sunday, specifically to help our area grow because its kind of at a lower point right now. So we ended our fast after getting back from Granada and went out to visit this lady from Colombia named Guillermina (Gee-er-min-eeah). We had this really powerfull lesson where we talked about why we´re obedient to Gods commandments and how thats the only path to happiness. We hadn´t planned on it, but I felt impressed to really bring that to baptism and how thats the first step to getting our lives into order and in line with Gods plan for us. She´d been talking to us about the problems in her life beforehand and just saying how she´d made so many mistakes and her life was a mess. She was really responsive, but didnt´want to commit to baptism at all. But we told her to pray and think about it and she´d get an answer that its what she´s looking for. 

After her we were going to a baptism in our ward from the other hermanas. We´d invited her before the lesson but she´d told us she had to study and didnt have time. Afterwards as we were leaving we invited her one last time, and she was on teh verge of saying yes when her ex husband came up and they had to talk about a few things. So we went to the bus stop, kind of bummed she wasn´t going to come. 

The bus is late. One is out of service or something and we see on the sign that its not coming for 10 more minutes. We quickly called Guillermina and she rushed out the door and met us at the stop, just as the bus pulled up. Later, she told us that her husband had just stepped into the elevator as her phone rang. And she LOVED the baptism. It was a huge leap in spirituality for her, it was amazing.

So thats the big miralce of the week. My faith in fasting has grown so much on the miracle, becasue it truly seems that every time I fast a miracle happens. The Lord is trying to answer our prayers in every way He can.

Side note. Bowling was awesome. I won :)

Love you all! Don´t forget to talk to your Heavenly Father every day, He´s waiting to hear from you :)

Loves,

Hna Woolley

3rd week in Malaga

Wow, ok time is just slipping past. Because I´m positive i just wrote this letter.  I´m just going around, doing my job with my awesome comp Hna Plummer! 

We have had some very strong spiritual citas this week. I´ve reached the point where I don´t beat around the bush or try to make what i´m saying pretty so the person we´re teaching dosen´t feel bad. I just listen to the Spirit and say whatever comes to mind, whether its hard or not. 

We had one of those experiences with an investigator this week. She´s known missionaries for YEARS and has been taught for a long time, but never really progressed. But she loves the church, she is just very devoted to her catholic traditions. 

So we invited the spirit by watching the Joseph Smith movie. We´d been prepping for this video, talking about obedience and sacrifice in our previous citas. So after the video we start talking about how there is really only one church and one path. She kept saying (as she has said before) that she likes our beliefs and believes them, but she can´t abandon the Catholic church (the catholic churches are much emptier than they were when she was young). 

She´s heard about authority 100s of times, so when we started talking about the need for the priestood I could see her nodding in that ´´yea, yeah, i´ve heard this before´´ way. So i said a little prayer and just talked strongly about how there really is only one way. One baptism. That she has to be baptized the right way or it dosen´t count towards salvation. Earlier in my mission, telling someone that their catholic baptism dosen´t count terrified me. But I´ve come to understand the need more and truly believe that the correct baptism is the only way to open the door to eternal happiness.

And, you know, I don´t know if she understood completely. But I did see a change in her eyes and it seemed to hit her differently. Not because of anythign I did, but the Spirit. I´ve just finally started to learn how to step out of the way and let the Spirit testify. Its been happening more and more lately. It really is true, that as soon as you start to figure things out, you´re on your way home. Its sad, but i think thats how life is. You get one challange under control and then its on to the next one. :)

Love you all so much! Have a good week.

Hna Woolley

p.s. we get along great, which is so, so nice. i always got along with my comps, but sometimes it takes more effort, so its nice to have it just fall easily into friendship. especially since i want to put my efforts into other things. its true what the miss pres wife said, it does make a difference, i feel like thats when we really start to be bold.

Transfer to Malaga

So I´ve developed this probably terrible habit of writing this letter last. Not the best idea I think, but I just get excited a bout all  my other emails!

Its been my most interesting transfer yet I think. Normally we travel on wednesdays for tranfers, but becasue my companion was training, she had to go early to pick up her new comp, which meant I had to go early. So we traveled to Málaga together and then she was going to keep going to the pueblo wehre the mission home is. 

We got there and.... no one knew i was comming. So after calling lots of missionaries we finally got me hooked up with some hermanas in this area, but not my comp. so i worked with them for a day nd then met my comp. and we have to leave for emergbency thing, not a big deal, so ill have to finisdh this next weeek. love ou all!

haha your list of questions makes me laugh. for the address, Hna Plummer cant remmeber the building number so remind me next week and ill give it to you. or send a letter before then or something. 

so glad eveyone had a fun halloween. we had an interesting day, we did lots of walking around but we had 2 citas to end the night which was perfect, because spaniards have taken all the creepy of halloween and none of hte little kid cute. even the littlest kids are dressed up as vampires with blood, etc. really sad. we found cream puffs in this bakery and bought those for our treat, so that was really yummy. 

i like our area so far. its a rough area, but i havne´t ever had an area that isn´t. we have some area thats right on the beach basically (we can´t go near the beach obviously) and then the downtown. so like the best parts of málaga. theres 2 other companionships in the ward, one of elders and one of herms. so 2 comps of herms! first time ever. 

i haven´t met much of the ward yet, but theyre all nice. big mix of countries. the lady who plays the piano is british and theres nigerians here again! haven´t seen any nigerians in a while. they´re very nice, humble, happy people. i don´t play the piano in sacrament meeting but they pulled me out to play for priamary singing time, thats a first. i played terribly becaues they had a terrible set up fo the piano (No piano bgench, just a chair. thats my LEAST favorite thing. so hard to play well. ) and another herm played in relief society. so i think ill still be playing but not as often. im okay with that, i was sad thik ill still be playing but not as often. im okay with that, i was sad thinking i wasn´t going to play. 

i think im good on potassium. i eat lots of bannanas. its a cheap fruit and i fry it with rice and beans like a regular south american. its really good. :) im feeling good energy wise, ive got one more round of iron before i come home. stinks shes so sick still. before i took the iron i started taking a general viatamins and minerals pill and it acutally helped a little. maybe jenna should take something like that, she gets sick so often she probably is missing some key vitamins. glad annicas doing okay, the 3 weeks is impressive of no sugar. 

teaching wise.... not a lot of people. we have this investigator that is kind of not progressing but were trying to get some refrences from her from colombia. she gave us this colombian sugar that i love yesterday, im very excited about it. makes the best lemonade! not really lemonade season, but im determined to teach hna plummer some south american tricks. we´ve got lots of less actives, but no one is progressing. we found a few new investigators this week, those were miracles, but you can´t really tell how its going to go until the next cita. so we´ll see. we´ve done lots of walkimng and looking. hna plummer only has 1 transfer here, 6 weeks, so shes still pretty new in the area and is trying to rember where everyone lives, etc. 

love you lots!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!