Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!! So fun fact about Spainards. The last 12 seconds of the year they eat a grape every second. And if you eat all the grapes in time you get your wish. Cool, right? 

I had a lot of fun this week. The work was rough with everyone gone for the holidays, but it was okay we just spend lots of time with members and less actives this week. Christmas Eve all the missionary´s went to the house of a member and partied with her family after  caroling at a home for disabled people with some other members. The dinner was a little awkward at first but once we got used to each other it was great. We left as best friends. 

Christmas day we opened lots of presents and had a REAL American breakfast of pancakes and eggs with MAPLE SYRUP.Such a treat. Hermana Roan´s mom sent it to us.  We ate lunch with a less active family and one other companionship of Elders. And of course I was able to skype home! The highlight of everything!!! We could have talked for so much longer, but it was okay. We´ll talk again in a few months :)

After all the holidays we really tried to get down to work. Not many people wanted us over for obvious reasons, but we spent time with some lady´s who are older and alone and that was so  much fun. I love visiting the older ladies, its one of my favorite things. They just radiate love.

So, Manuel (our investigator with a baptism date). This week had ups and downs. We weren´t able to see him except on Monday and Saturday and Sunday because of the holidays, which we didn´t like. With such a fragile and new testimony we really want to see investigators as much as possible. We were teaching him the Plan of Salvation this week and he had LOTS of questions. Totally understandable, it´s something really new and totally different if you grew up Catholic like he did. But he accepted things really well, which we were so grateful for. 

Unfortunately he didn´t feel like he could go to church because his legs were hurting him too much. He has a lot of pain in his legs that he´s going to doctors for right now, and church last week really hurt him. We tried to work out a way he could come, but he didn´t want to this week. We offered to have the Elders give him a blessing of health to help with his legs (after explaining what a blessing was), and he agreed. The district leader and his companion came and they helped us out SO much. They were able to explain things in a different way that helped Manuel understand faith better and the blessing was really powerful. The DL´s companion is really young in the mission, he´s still being trained. But he´s such an awesome missionary, it´s been so cool to see him grow so much in just two transferrs. He gave the blessing and mentioned things he didn´t know about that were hard in Manuel´s life. I´m so grateful they came with us, it was a pretty big sacrifice for those Elders, but it made a big difference in Manuel´s progression. We recommited him to be baptized and we´re going to try and see him everyday and make sure he comes to church this next week. I´m a little bummed we had to move his date though because its a lot more likely I won´t be here when he gets baptized with transfers.

I´m finding out about transferrs this Saturday, so we´ll see where I´m going or if I stay. It´s wierd because I´m ready to see somewhere new, but I also love Granada so, so much. I love the people here. Our bishop who is trying so hard to learn how to be a good bishop, the members who do so much, those who are struggling and need the gospel. Everyone. I feel so much love for this part of Granada. So I´m torn I never want to leave but I can tell I´m drawing to the end of my time in Granada, whether I leave this transfer or the next.

I love you all! Have a great New Years, stay safe!

Loves,

Hermana Woolley

Kelsey in Spain in December

My awesome companion

A church we pass all the time

Christmas Week-845

AAH!! It´s Christmas! It totally snuck up on me this year. It´s never happened before. I´m the type of person who has bought my  Christmas presents by Thanksgiving and starts listening to Christmas music before thanksgiving. So it´s weird. But good, because it means no homesickness :) I´m just working too hard to notice.

Last week I mentioned that we were going to have a week of finding new investigators with a goal of finding 800. Everyone worked really, really hard and prayed really hard and we found....

845!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can you believe it? I can! I´m part of the most amazing mission ever! Everyone worked really hard and had lots of faith. Unfortunately, we didn´t find the 8 we were hoping to find, only 5. But we know we´d done our best and we still have lots of people we can try to contact this next week. Even though we didn´t find our 8, we still saw miracles.

Manuel, the man who has a date to get baptized came to church yesterday! This is HUGE! It´s really hard to get people to church from our area because the church is really far away and there aren´t many members with cars on our side of town. But he was so eager to come and we worked something out at he came! And he loved it! He has so many questions, but good questions. Sometimes people with questions are looking to find holes or problems, but Manuel is earnestly trying to learn and understand. He asked in Sacrament Meeting if he was worthy to take the Sacrament (we´d just explained a little of what it was the night before, how it was a ´´´mini baptism´´). I assured him that he was. My heart was just singing, the thought ´´he understands! he understands!´´ kept running through my head. We´re seeing him again tonight and I´m really excited to see him.

Besides Manuel we have this other lady we´re working with from Nigeria named Violet. It was so weird teaching her about the Book of Mormon in english. She is going through some really hard times right now, trying to raise her son alone while her husband is in Germany. She doesn´t have any money to go join him and they´ve been seperated for 3 years. I can´t imagine! It must be so hard. But we left the lesson feeling like we´d given her some comfort and helped bring the Spirit into her home. I don´t know where things will go with her, but I have faith. 

Another miracle. We ate mediodia with a family we know. They´re son is baptized (he´s like 30) but they aren´t yet. They aren´t super interested but they are very Christian and love that we are trying to help people and friends with their son (he helps us out with investigators a lot). As we were leaving she gave us a big bag of oranges and this other fruit. We call it alien fruit, but I have no idea what it´s actually called. We didn´t need the fruit, but we´d been looking for a way to help serve people this week. So we´re going to go hand out the oranges and alien fruit tomorrow to the people who beg in our area. Its such a little miracle, but it really means a lot to me to be able to afford to do that. 

I´ve really been learning this week how the Lord changes our hearts. He´s been helping me so much. First he changed my heart so I would be okay with coming out on a mission. And now that I´m out here he´s been changing my heart to love Spain and Spanish and serving a mission. I finally noticed it this week, but I´m really falling in love with being a missionary. I was so dissapointed that we didn´t find our 8 people, not because of the number but because I want to help those people find the gospel. I get so excited for Manuel and love seeing how much he´s changed in just a few visits. I´m really coming to love the people here and want to serve them. Even if they don´t want the gospel, I want to help them be happier. It´s such a miracle, the Lord is really changing how I view things. Of course I still have a really far ways to go. But I love the glimpse I was given this week of how I´ve grown. 

Last thing. I saw this quote on another missionary´s planner earlier this week. I´d heard it before but it´s made such an impact on me this week. 

¨Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of hte day taht says, I´ll try again tomorrow.¨ --Thomas S. Monson.

That really hit me. It´s so true, especially out here. It made me feel better about my efforts and really helped me be more at peace with not reaching our goal. Sometimes it takes all I have to even keep walking and knock on that next door. To wear a smile even when all I want to do is sit down and cry. 

 And the Lord knows that. Lately I´ve been asked to really, truly give my all. I´ve given everything I have to this work. And I´m going to keep doing so, because I love the Lord and I love his gospel. I know this gospel is the truth. There´s nothing more beautiful than this gospel, not even Spain. ;) I´m going to keep trying, and the Lord knows that. He understands that we tried our best, and thats all he asks for. 

Love you all a lot! Have a very Merry Christmas!

Loves,

Hna Woolley

Our Christmas piso

Christmas miracle

We really have seen a miracle this week. Its the thing we´ve been working to find all this time. We have someone with a baptismal date!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! His name is Manuel Jose. We´re really excited, he´s a pretty solid baptism. We´ve even got a member who will go with us to all his lessons and they´re already friends. Manuel couldn´t come to church this sunday for personal reasons, but he really wants to come. He WANTS to learn from us!! This is amazing, people. No one ever wants to learn from us. 

It´s in perfect timing that we found him actually. Because this week our mission set a really high goal for finding new investigators this week. 800! That means every companionship needs to find 8 investigators this week. We´ve been prepping all week by working with the members and trying to find references, fasting and praying and studying specifically for this. I know we can do it. I´m really excited for this week of miracles. It´ll be really hard and we´ll have to pray a lot, but I know that the Lord will lead us to those 8 people that are ready in our area, because this is His goal more than it is ours. 

Preparing for this week has really shown me how VITAL the members are to missionary work. We can knock and knock and talk to everyone on the street, but one member referral is gold. Gold. We treat our member references so well and try to really do our best to contact them. 

This weekend we got to do something really fun for Christmas. Every year the Granada ward puts together a big concert with the Granada city band. This year us missionary´s sang in a chior with the band. We had missionary´s from several cities (2 zones) come together and spend the afternoon practicing. It was so fun to see the everyone. It was a bit stressful because we never practiced all together. We had hymnns we sang just as a choir and they played songs and then we ended with 2 songs together. It was... interesting. The choir had a hard time knowing when to come in since we never saw music and the director just practiced with us. In spanish. So it was okay. But the thing was a hit and everyone said it was wonderful.

 Hna Roan sang a solo that was FANTASTIC! She really brought the spirit, it was so awesome. We weren´t allowed to proselyte at all since the city was involved too, but hopefully we´ll see some results. Manuel came to the concert and while we practiced a few Elders from Granada showed him around the church, including the baptismal font and from what the Elders said he was really excited about it. We´re so excited for him!!! 

This week Hna Roan got a couple packages from her mom that were full of christmas decorations and hot chocolate!!!! SO excited about the hot chocolate. The stuff they have here just isn´t the same. So we decorated our little tree we bought a few weeks ago today. Our apartment finally feels like it´s Christmas!!

This last week really has been such a huge blessing. We have someone to teach and he is so ready for the gospel.