Last Tri-Zone Conference

We switched pday to Tuesday this week because yesterday we had a Tri-zone conference. My last one. It was a very bitter sweet day. Because conferences are like family reunions out here, but more often! Its such a great blessing. But now I don´t get to do those any more. 

For the last one of the year we always have a talent show, and its always so great. This year a district got up and played chubby bunny. (You fill your mouth with giant marshmallows one at a time and you have to say chubby bunny after each one. the winner is the last person still standing.) It was hilarious. And some beautiful musical numbers too. 

My mission also has the tradition that in a missionaries last tri-zone they bear their testimony. It was quite the list, all Hermanas except for one elder. I´m in a pretty big group. :) I was so nervous though. I didn´t want to try to plan anything, because I really just wanted to say what Heavenly Father wanted me to say. When the Elder conducting the meeting said my name in the list, it made my stomach drop. I had sweaty hands and butterflies in the stomach, the whole thing. But when I actually got up there, I was relatively calm. I cried. Its sad, saying goodbye. But the Lord has blessed me with a wonderful mission experience and wonderful people to serve and serve with. And i still have a month. :) So no rush. It was just a very special and memorable moment. 

I love you all so much! Have a wonderful Christmas!

Hna Woolley

p.s. I'm excited as well to come home. and sad. but ive decided to try to just accept each day as it is. so not sit around waititn to go home, and when im home try to not long to be a missionary any more, to enjoy being a RM. easeir said than done, but im doing alright. this week will be good. 

Loving my ward

Wow, ok. We´re in the end of this journey together here in Spain, people. And we´re not talking about it. 

My new companion Hna Smith is so AMAZING! I´m really imressed by her desire to work and love and just improve daily. She´s always telling me about new goals she´s got and really does just have a fire to her. We´re at opposite ends of the mission- she has 4 months- but we work so well together. We´ve both been sick so we´ve had a few hours of stay in time this week, so we haven´t taught tons together. But what we have done, the Lord is definately working through us both. I think this will be a vey fun companionship. 

This week we had the ward Christmas dinner. It was lots of fun! I finally feel like I´m getting to know this ward now that I´m meeting people from another area, so thats very nice. I really love this ward. 

I play the piano in primary every sunday so I played for their little singnig program for the cena too. I´m not the best since I´ve not reallly ever played primary songs before, but I have improved so much from the beginning of the mission. Before, playing in public made me crumble. I really couldn´t do it, I just freaked myself out. Now, i just played one of those songs terribly ( right hand only) but I´m okay with where I am because I know I´m learning and doing my best. And thats all that matters. It does help that my piano skills have improved as well. :) 

But it really did show me another small thing that the mission has taught me. I´ve learned so, so much out here and I just keep going! The Lord is so wonderful to bless me so much, I am just filled with gratitude so often. There just aren´t words. 

So I hope you can enjoy this last week before Christmas, and remmber once again why we´re celebrating. We really do owe all to Christ. And I´m so grateful for that. I love him, and I´m trying to be at the point where I would do anything for Him. I can´t say I´m there yet, but I want to be. 

I love you all so much! This gospel is true!!!!

Loves,

Hna Woolley

Transfer Time

Ok, so we´ve gotten a big transfer surprize here in Málaga. I´m being transfered! What? Right? Just for my last transfer. Its because our area is being white washed. So it will now be Elders in our area and we are both leaving. It was a big surprize to us both. Hna Plummer is going up to a pueblo by Sevilla (badajoz) and I am going to be with Hna Smith! (She was in that picture i fwd to you- girl with teh curly blonde hair) She´s actually in my ward right now, so I´m just hopping one area over, just a short bus ride away. 

So, of course we´re scrambling to get the piso ready for the elders. Clean out all girl things, do those tidying tasks we just have never gotten to, write notes so they know who is who, bus routes, let our few investigators and less actives know, try to set up some citas for them....

We´re going pretty crazy around here. But its okay, because it feels right. I´m sad to leave and that Hna Plummer and I only got one transfer together, but if there is anything I´ve learned out here its to trust the Lord. This is his work, not mine, and he definately knows how to direct it better than I do. So I´ll just follow his lead the best I can and work my hardest. 

I love you all so much! thanks for all your love and prayers, they really do help. I´m praying for you all too :) Have a great week!

Hna Woolley

Thanksgiving Week

Wow! Ok, this week just blew right on by. We had an amazing Thanksgiving Feast as a zone here in málaga. There were about 50 of us there, we´re a really big zone! Everyone brought something, there were lots of chocolate chip cookies (its quite the treat out here, they´re hard to make without good brown sugar), of COURSE mashed potatoes and gravy, turkey, sweet potatoes, fruit salad, cranberry sauce (so good!) and even stuffing. My sweet potato casserole turned out good. I was pleased, and it relieved the stress I´d felt. For those taht don´t know, there are two thinks at thanksgiving dinner that are the most important to me. Sweet potatoe casserole and pumpkin pie. So my casserole had to be perfect. And it wasn´t as good as moms, but it worked :) Two elders made rolls that were fantastic. They´d been practicing for two weeks and they turned out fantastic. So the whole thing was yummy. I ate plenty. But, I didnt stuff like normally. I had to go out and work afterwards, didn´t want to be too sleepy. So I¨m already excited for next year :)

That day and the next three it just POURED rain on us. We were soaked through. Litterally my feet made that squishy cartoon water sound when we walked. A drain whole over flooded too so one street we wer trying to cross was basically a river. So we scooted along the side on the part of the sidewalk that wasn´t a river until we passed it and could cross to the other side. Quite the adventures. It only means lots of laundry, unfortunately. 

Today is warm and sunny though, so life is good. I´m so blessed to serve in such a sunny place, because its so important to me to have the sun. Makes all the difference some days. 

 I don´t have time to write much more, but I wanted to tell you about my studies. I´ll just say that I´m really coming to understand so much better that the gospel really is the only path to true happiness. Everything else leads to short term splurges and sadness. I see so many people who are making ok choices and are just miserable. I would just love to help them see what they need to change. We try, but you can´t make anyone act, they have to grow their own testimonies of what we teach. I think it must be how our Heavenly Father feels about us sometimes. We just don´ñt do it when we know better. And He does all He can to help us, but He can´t ever do it for us. Makes me so incredibly grateful for the knowledge I have and the steps I´m trying to take towards conversion. 

I love this work. Its hard and frustraiting sometimes, but I love it. This just is the true church of God.

Love you all!!!

Hna Woolley

we´re doing lots of looking this week. we´ve dropped almost all our investigators, no one is progressing, not even our less actives. makes it hard to go out sometimes, but we´re really helping each other stay animated to go and work. also never had an area where EVERYONE has such big problems. normally there was at least one or two ppl that were just fun to visit, even if they  had problems. here everyone just dumps all their sadness on us. helps me understand the saying that Christ was a ´´man of sorrows´´ more. its very heavy sometimes. but we have fun together as a companionship, so that makes is doable. 

love you lots!!!!! have a good week. :)

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.