Week 49 - Aruba

Bon Tardi, Buenas Tardes, Good afternoon!!!!!

It was a very nice week over here in Aruba! We have SEVEN new investigators!!!! Craziness!!!!! We have been working hard to build back up our teaching pool! The 3 we had to give to the elders are still doing really well and progressing lots!  We were SOOO happy to hear about that! Huge relief!

So many awesome things happened this week!!!!  Marlien, my cute little Surinamese recent convert? She is now the secretary in the Relief Society!  She is going to do so great. Also, Winston, her husband, had a baptismal date for this week, but he has been hard for the elders to schedule with this week, so the elders changed his date to March. Still doing well though!  I am so happy for that cute family!  Up next are her daughters....but that is going to take lots of prayers and lots of time.. One day!

We had Zone Conference, with President Egbert this week and it was SOOOOOO GOOOOOOD! I learned so much. Zone conferences just keep getting better and better. Seriously. We learned many wonderful things and we are now working on applying those things to our teachings! President Egbert is so inspired. We are going to miss him soooo much when he goes home
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Juandavid got baptized by his father David!!!!!!! That was a very spiritual experience for all who was there....  Bbuuuuut that DAY was NUTS. Our Branch Mission Leader accidentally left the water on while filling the baptismal font..and forgot to turn it off and left the building. It had been filling the font AND BUILDING for TWO HOURS! The WHOLE branch came to clean up the flooded church!  It was crazy. That was honestly the most united I have ever seen the members though..they were all there cleaning the church and getting rid of the water. Everything was dry and ready to go in just over an hour - two hours after discovering the flood! It was so crazy!  Everything was dry for the baptism, and WOW was that baptism amazing!  I would never be able explain how his baptism and confirmation was..  All I can say is that it was a very special experience. Everyone who can be baptized in that family is! They are so happy. David said he was feeling weird the day of Juandavid's baptism but he did it anyway and totally nailed it! It was just so amazing. On Sunday Juandavid was confirmed in sacrament meeting, and afterward he walked up and bore his testimony. The whole time we have been teaching him he always just acted like a normal 11 year old, which is fine. BUT when he bore his testimony right after receiving the spirit, he just started bawling up there. He could barely get the words out. He just kept thanking us for teaching him everything over and over again. It was so tender. So sweet. When he sat down he just laid his head on his mothers lap and kept crying as she was comforting him. That little 11 year old felt the spirit so strongly. It was amazing. He already has a goal to baptize Naomi, the littlest girl in their family someday AND to go on a mission. We love Juandavid!

To end this email i just wanted to share something very short but crazy that happened on Monday! God protects his missionaries!!!! S o we get chased by dogs a LOT. My feet have been bitten by them as we ride and they have made missionaries get into some bad accidents. Well, we were just biking to a lesson on Monday last week and a dog just started tearing after us. He looked pretty evil and angry. Well, there was a car behind us and I guess he didn't see the dog because he started to pass us at a pretty fast speed.. the next thing we hear is a pretty soft boom...and then a dog SCREAMING running away from the car with his back left leg up. God was watching after us! We have seen the dog since and he is fine. That was honestly such a crazy experience! Haha!

Well...that is it from me this week! Sorry for the long email, so much happened! I hope you are all doing well! I love and miss you all!

Sister Woodbury