Week 68 - Bonaire

Wow...we had a great week over here! Felt like the end of a movie where everything just works out. It was so awesome. We got transfer calls and I am headed to Aruba for the 3rd time!!!! I will be companions with sister Hardy! Craziness!

We went to zone conference (our last one with the Egberts) in Curacao last week! We flew there in a TEENY TINY 8 passenger plane. I have literally been in buses bigger than that thing. It was soooo fun and i got to see sister Cole and sister Davidson! I love them both! It was awesome!

Saturday we had a baptism! That day was NUTS. Buuut i will go into that later! 

Bonaire is doing so awesome!! Mainly I just wanted to let you know about how wonderful the Relief Society is doing here! My heart was sooo warm after this last Sunday. Sister Burrup and I taught relief society two weeks in a row, and this last week the President herself taught it. It was such a success!! We talked about ministering and during the lesson she even said "wow, these classes are a lot more interesting than what we used to do". Hearing that just filled my heart. Before, they would just read through something random in a random Liahona and now they are having excellent classes with lots of participation. It is now very spiritually uplifting! Also, Sister Burrup and I had a baptism on Saturday and it went very well. Luis is so converted! Bonaire is really starting to thrive. 

Wow has my testimony grown this week! We have seen so many miracles this week, mostly on Saturday. So our investigator Luis was supposed to get to the church at 3:30 because the baptismal service started at 4 and he knew to be there early. Well, at 3:15 we received a call from a random phone number (because he doesn't have a phone) and it was Luis! He was borrowing someones phone to ask us for help! He was stuck at work about 15 minutes away by car! He was SO stressed out and just begging us for ideas. Well, the person who owned that phone needed to leave and we lost communication with him. We hopped right down onto our knees and begged for help. We didn't know what else to do so we just went over to where he lives about 15-20 minutes after we had talked with him thinking that there was no way he would be home, BUT HE WAS! It was a miracle. Later on he told us that some dutch lady saw him completely stressed out and frazzled and offered to take him home. He just dropped everything and left work without permission from his boss or anything. He said he just yelled "BYE BYE" to his boss and his boss was so confused as to what was happening. Well, he got home, got ready and everything, and then a member picked him up. He ran back to his work with the member to explain what had happened and the member had actually known his boss and was totally calm and okay with it! He even congratulated Luis even though he isn't really very religious himself. Then he made it to the chapel right at 4. It was amazing. He said he was praying the whole time and just wanted to cry because it was so stressful. He kept saying over and over again that he wouldn't have missed that baptism for anything in the world. It was a beautiful and flawless experience! God truly answers our prayers! And Luis is SO converted!!!

That is all i can really think of, but life it good and I am happy! Have a great week and don't forget to read your BOM!

-Sister Woodbury

 

 

Week 67 - Bonaire

HELLO!!!!!!

Great week over here in Bonaire! Buuuut before i begin I totally forgot to wish my dad and all of my brothers and everyone else a happy fathers day last week, but it is never too late to party right?? Much love and hugs sending your way!!! As well, Happiest of Birthday's to my lovely sister Brittney! I love you and Hope it's a great one!

This week was wonderful! We will officially be having a baptism on Saturday with our AMAZING investigator Luis Fernando!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOHOOOOOO!!!!!! This man is already sooo converted. He is so cool. Everything he says is just soooo quotable you have no idea. Like for example, just last night he after lesson that didnt talk about prophets or anything, he closed our lesson with the prayer and prayed for the missionary out right now from Bonaire, Aury, and for the prophet. He is SO cool. He reads the BoM every day and is just a little spiritual powerhouse. He also gives us food. A LOT. every day. His baptism will be on the 23rd at 4 pm if you wanted to know what i was doing that day that time! :)

We had a wonderful Sunday yesterday as well! The Egberts (Mission President) were there! We did (the sister missionaries) a special musical number and it was a little mix of the songs I love to see the temple and Families Can Be Together Forever and it was soooo spiritually powerful holy cow!!! When we got up the room just went completely silent and everyone was sooo fixated. The spirit was like hitting you in the face and enveloping the entire room! It was awesome. SO peaceful and beautiful. We had interviews with president that day as well! That is always too fun. We love the Egberts and when they leave it will be like a little piece of my heart is leaving with them, but as well i am very excited to meet the Bairds! (new mission president) They sound awesome! We got to go teaching with the Egberts and had some great experiences!

Well, as you can see I have attached the BoM challenge! PLEASE DO IT WITH ME!!! Satan was trying so hard to make this not work out and i had to redo it several times so for that reason i know that the blessings are going to be SOOO great when you are doing this challenge! This book is life time, please read it with me! Set aside all of the wordly things that are going on and just take time to read the words that God's prophets have written for you. I love and miss you all so much! I hope you have a great week!!

-Sister Woodbury

 

 

Week 66 - Bonaire

Hello Everyone!!!

Bonaire is hopi bon! We are working really really hard with our investigator Luis and he is just progressing so much. He has been to church twice and loves it and we are working to getting him baptized very soon! We are going through old investigators and contacting whoever we feel prompted by the spirit to see, so we are starting to see lots of success from that! We also taught in Relief Society yesterday and that was a big success! Things are really moving along here in Bonaire! 

Sister Burrup is doing awesome! We actually just had an idea recently to teach the restoration and other lessons using the gospel art book and it is seriously helping our teaching so much! Our investigators, less actives and recent converts are paying very close attention and the spirit is stronger and everything is better! They are also understanding better. We are seeing so much success with that. Other than that though Sister Burrup is doing really well and is constantly teaching me how to be better! I really look up to her.

This week we taught the temple prep class at church and we were talking about the Word of Wisdom and it was soooo funny because I asked the class, as an example,  “would I be able to feel the spirit if i were drunk?”... and Sonia, one of the members (recent convert actually) said "yeah........the spirit of satan".  We all died laughing. We love her! 

We were able to do a lot of service this week! We have been able to do that a lotttt recently and it was so awesome! It has been wonderful and i just love getting to help! 

OH Also, We have all been thinking that I would end my mission here in Bonaire, but we were working out transferschedules, and due to the immigration status of other sisters, I will most likely be ending my mission in Aruba!!!  You never know, but that is just what seems to be the only option! crazyyy!!! 

Luis came to church and he LOVES it. There is a mentally handicapped man that goes named Andres and everyone kind of ignores him at church but Luis said he wants to go every sunday so that he can help him and also just because he likes church! We asked Luis if i believed if these things were true and he said "my heart says it is”. You would have to be crazy to not believe its true!" He is so awesomeeeeee!!!! So true though. 

We have had soooo many spiritual experiences with Luis this week. We had a really good and powerful lesson with him when we taught him about someone who he has been curious about in the BoM - Abinidi. We were able to put together a lesson where we just read about him and Luis just loved it so much. He testified that he knew these things are true. We compared him to Abinidi because of the changes he is making and the strength he has to say no to bad things from close friends and family. So amazing to see people change like this! I love this gospel sooo much and i know it is true!

I will be sending all of you a 90 day Book of Mormon challenge calendar next week and I just really really REALLY want to invite all of you to read with me!! I know it will strengthen and help you in your lives!

I love and miss you all and i hope you are having a great day and that you have a wonderful week!! BIIIG HUGS!

-Sister Woodbury

Week 65 - Bonaire

Hello Everyone!!!!

SOooooo last week i totally forgot to include something sooo awesome that happened! We contacted this man named Segundo one night and he seemed pretty cool and pretty open to the message. We had actually contacted someone at that same house already named Keiler, and so Segundo told us that he would just come to the appointment that we had with Keiler! Well, we went to the appointment and he was actually there! Keiler was busy at the beginning so we ended up just talking to Segundo for a while and we were just asking him about this beliefs and stuff, and he started the lesson by saying that he wanted to keep his religion a secret... RED FLAG. I whispered to sister Burrup in English that that either means he is a less active member or part of some cult. Well, we continued on with the lesson and everything he was saying just like such sound church doctrine. I kept asking sister Burrup if she thought he was a less active member!! It got to the point that we finally just asked him if he had been baptized in our church......and he said YES! We found out that he is from Peru and that he has lived here for 8 years, meaning that he has not been active for at least that amount of time. We also found out that he served a mission in Colombia and is even sealed to his wife in the temple AND that he has a son born in the covenant who is 16. Our jaws DROPPED! Such a cool experience. The Lord totally guided us there because we literally had no reason to have that kind of conversation the day we met him. 

Anywayyyy this week was great! LUIS CAME TO CHURCH!!! Such a wonderful day! Fasting works people! As well we had dinner with Sister Scott (former senior missionary couple from last year) and it was just soooo fun to see her and be with her! I love her soooo much! She also came out teaching with us which was soooo fun! We went and visited a young man, Aury, who is about to leave on his mission...TOMORROW, and it was so awesome (see picture)! Aury's mom is Pilar and that lady is something. Her memory is like a steal trap and she is just so funny. She is married to a man named Pedro who is a returning member (see picture)! Last time i was here he was TOTALLY less active and now he is just so firm! His dad is Andres who you have all seen some pictures of. Andres kept falling asleep during our lesson this last week and we were just trying sooooo hard not to laugh but we failed. We died hahaha!

This week we also taught a newly found less active named Vinicio and he has soooo much potential to come back! He kept telling us that there is NO valid excuse for not going to church! It was so awesome to hear him say that! He really does want to come back. 

We hiked a little hill, I'm sorry - i mean the highest point of Bonaire today as a district activity as well! So fun! it was SOOOO WINDY AT THE TOP HOLY COW!!! 

Wellll that is all I have from this last week! I hope you all have a wonderful week!!! I love and miss you all!

-Sister Woodbury