Leaving for Spain

This is it! My last p-day in the MTC! My whole district got our visa's this week so we're all heading out to Spain. It's actually a bit of a miracle. All of us got our visa's except for Elder Reynolds. He was pretty bummed but trying to be a sport about it and trying to stay positive. He got his reassignment Friday morning to Long Beach, Cali... and then that afternoon he got his visa! He's flying with all of us to NYC and then we split into separate planes to Spain. It was a miracle that he got his visa and made it onto the same flight as us. The Lord really keeps an eye out for us. 

So Tuesday- devotional night- was crazy. It was by Neil L. Anderson on love and sacrifice. He said that "The tings we sacrifice for we love, and we love the things we sacrifice for." I really like that thought. There's so much to think about in that one sentence. Just think about it. No wonder parents love theri childeren so much and missionary's their areas. 

After the devotional it was raining and security has us stay in the Marriot because of thunder and lighting. I'm sure it's the same storm that was in Moscow a few days earlier. I wish i could have seen it! We sang hymns to keep the reverence and Elder Andersn went around shaking hands with people for a few minutes before he left. He was within probably 20 ft of where we were sitting and you could just feel the Spirit so strongly. He really is an Apostle of the Lord. I could feel it, it made me tear up some actually. You could tell he wanted to meet everyone but there wasn't time. 

It was about 20 min. before we could leave the Marriot center. It was still raining so some of hte poor elders tried to bundle up thier suit coats and run. But most of us just laughed and enjoyed it. We spend lots of time in a classroom so it was really nice. It felt great and the rain was really pretty in the light. I had a couple notebooks stuffed under my cardigan so everyone's notes made it back to the MTC safely. We took a few pictures of our district all soaking wet. You probably can't tell, but we were all drenched. It felt great. H. Grover was frozen though, she's used to Florida's warm rain. All of us from Idaho thought it was a warm rain. Instead of having our Devotional Review like normal President Bradshaw sent us all back to our rooms so the Elders could take care of their suit coats. He is a man of the details. 

The coolest pat was that I'd been feeling a little down right before the meeting. I didn't want to, especially before a devotiona lbeccause those are such great opportunities for revelation and being reinspired. So I prayed for help to be able to be happy again and feel the spirit. Only a few minutes later we sang my favorite hymn "I know that My Redeemer Lives". It brought tears to my eyes as I really thought about what the words mean and I bore my testimony through song. It was such a simple way to bring the Spirit back, but it was so powerful. Another one of those little daily miracles. 

This week we Hosted again. They're sending a lot of missionaries to West Campus because they're going to start construction here to made the main campus big enough to hold everyone. It's made everything feel empty, comparatively. It was so much easier than normal to find a washer and dryer for laundry today! 

One of our Teachers, Hermano Ball, told us a bunch of stories about his mission one night after class.  He shared some very tender miracles from his mission with us that really invited the Spirit. His faith has been such a strong example for us. After he left we all knelt in prayer and then had another personal study time. We were supposed to be studying language, but we needed to have that time with the Lord. My testimony really grew that night. I was reassured that I am supposed to be on a mission and that I can do this. there are people waiting for me in Spain. It made me want to work harder and better and really push myself and not lose focus. I was struggling to focus this week and Satan was pushing my buttons. (On Sunday the devotional was about how Satan is pushing any buttons he can, so if it gets hard you know you're doing it right. He'd definatly been pushing mine and the devotional helped me notice how and become more aware.)

So here's my goal for my mission: Share the gospel with every ounce of strength I have. I want to be able to talk about the gospel with energy and excitement so that people can see how much I really love this church. Sometimes its hard to express that. 

This week has been so motivating. Writing this showed me that that was the theme of this week. Being remotivated and pushing myself. Going to Spain this next week is going to be crazy and super hard.  But I'm so excited to grow and start sharing the gospel. Starting in the airport.

I love you all! Remember, Music and the Spoken word. It's online and easy to find. Last week's the MOTAB sang "My Favorite things" from the SOund of Music. I was impressed by how well such a large choir sang that song. 

LOVES!

Hermana Woolley

District

Visas are in!

VISA is here. HOOT HOOT

Kelsey got her VISA!  YEAH  she leaves on Monday!

Last week in MTC

Hola! 

It's funny, because I know so many ways to say hello and goodbye now but my favorite is still hola. Funny how that works. 

I have to say, studying the scriptures here in the MTC is amazing. I have had the best personal study times of my life here! I've started over in the Book of Mormon and I'm seeingb things through a whole different light. Nephi's voice is so apparent in his writing. And it's so obvious how much teh Lord loves Lamen and Lemuel. He gives them so many chances to change and repent. The Lord never gives up on them, not ever. It's so reassuring to me and such a clear example of how the Lord loves all his children unconditionally. He still loves all of us, no matter what decisions or mistakes we make. He made be sad or dissapointed, but his love never ends. I can't even comprehend how much the Lord loves us, but I did get a little peek at it through my study. I feel His love all the time here, especially when singing hymns. I don't tear up very often here, but when I do it's usually during a song. I love the Lord so much. 

This week has been super busy, especially Wednesday! On Wed we hosted the incoming missionaries, helped with example teaching and talked with the newest district! We were hardly ever in class all day. Hosting was so much fun. I spent a few hours outside helping sisters find their residence hall, gather theri books and then taking them to thier classroom. There weren't enough hosting sisters so every time i came back to the curb there was another sister getting out of the car. I hosted like 6 sisters, which doesn't sound like a lot, but the elders all hosted like 2. The poor elders were so bored, almost none of them did much hosting. They spent most of their time helping sisters move the suitcases. I realiezed that i am a super light packer! Those sisters suitcases were all so heavy, most of them exactly 50 lbs each. So i was basically pulling my weight when I pulled both suitcases. (thankfully that wasn't for very long. But there is one point where the hosts pull the suitcases around the side of the building while the new missionary's go inside to get thier tags, etc.) It was s onice to be outisde! I was very tired by the time I was done though, we all collapsed in the classroom afterwards. 

The first night the new missionary's get into groups of about 50 and practice teaching an actyor predenting to be an investigator. To start things off a set of missionary's come in and start the lesson and help the newbies get a feel for what to ttalk about w/ the investiator. We were nominated by one of our teachers for our good teaching skills (what a compliment!) to do this. We were nervous, but our training helps us calm down a bit. We didn't even really teach, it was just getting to know the person and what their needs were. The coolest part though was that there was this elder we'd met last week in TRC in our group. He has only been a member for a year and we taught him last week as part of TRC. He's from Peru and we keep running into him everywhere! I dno't know his last name since we met him in TRC, but he's the coolest elder. You can tell he's got such a strong testimony. He was trying to hard to help the investigator, getting up there and reading scriptrues with him, even the more difficult one. 

Elder Merkley has a friend he met in Germany in the new district (both military kids). All our districts seem like they're full of super strong missionary's, we're so lucky to know so many cool people!

Dad, you'll love this. For our Sunday devotional Vai Sikahema spoke to us (USed to be a BYU football player and NFL). He told us to not take any notes and talked to us about his mission experience. He was trying to show us how natural it is and that missionary work doesn't need to be forced. As is often said, "just open your mouth". He had everyone laughing and pumped for missionary work. HE's a great speaker, he had one of his converts there with him, they're best friends and just went to visit the town in South Dakota where every thing happened a couple weeks ago. 

Cool random fact: Hermano Ball (a teacher)'s dad worked for Dreamworks for about 15 years! We talked art in our teacher/student interview pretty much the whole time. It was soooooooooooooo coool. That's my dream job, right there. 

After the Sunday devotional by Richard J Maynes we were walking back to our class to discuss it and share what we learned. It was just us sisters and somehow we ended up talking about pencil skirts and what it would be like to wear one without a slit. Almost in unison, we put our knees together and tried walking up the stairs like we were in too tight of  a skirt (of course, none of us were wearing skirts like this.) It was cracking us up, we looked like drunk penguins. Then Sister Adair suggested we try doing the same thing but with our knees locked. We had to swing our legs to go up the stairs. I was laughing so hard I had to stop walking and bend over so I wouldn't lose my balance and fall back down the stairs. Such a simple thing, but it was hilarious! Just as we climbed up the rest of the stairs we ran into a Branch president and his wife. Of course, they'd heard the whole thing. They were very amused. We felt mildly awkward. Fun stuff. 

So I have a challenge for everyone. It's really simple. You should listen to music and the spoken word on Sunday's when getting ready or look them up later in the day. They'd be so easy to find on the BYU tv website I'm sure. We sisters are lucky enough to listen to them before relief society every sunday. It's one of my favorite parts of sunday! The MOTAB sings a wider range of songs that are still totally spiritual but not necessarily from the hymn book. Last weeks was awesome, it has some soul choir songs.

Another thing everyone should do is read "Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ" By Gene R. Cook in Oct 1982. We read this in class together and I LOVED it. It taught me so much about faith. I wish I could share everything I learned but some things need to be learned on our own. I've definately learned that. No matter how many times someone tells you, it never sinks in until we understand and figure things out for ourselves. Especially in the gospel. But it was very thought provoking and deserves to be read slowly and discussed.

I love you all! I love hearing from you! I only have one more week in the MTC, crazy hu? Though if they think we'll get our visa's they'll hold us an extra week instead of shipping us out for reassignments. Though they told us that our district's  names have been put up for reassignment. I'll know by the next p-day where i'm going. 

Stay strong! Ponder the scriptures prayerfully. I promise you'll learn something if you start your scripture study asking for help to learn and be spiritually guided. It makes all the difference. I love this gospel, it's such an amazing thing. It brings out the best in people and really pushes us. This gospel is one of constantly pushing up hill to new and better things. It's always a struggle, but it's always more than worth it, especially since we have the Savior helping us every step of the way. I have felt his help and guidance every day since being a missionary. I know he loves me. I love him. I know Jesus Christ lives. He overcame death, he was the only one who could. He went lower than any of us ever could and then lower still, just so he could say "I understand. I know. Let me help you. Let me carry you." All we need to do is desire to believe and act on that belief consistently and dilligently and soon, that dust mote of a desire for faith will begin to grow. I'm praying for you. 

Loves!

Hermana Woolley

crazy