Monday, July 30, 2018

Week 73 - Aruba

Hello Everyone!!

Well, just to start off I want to wish my lovely little Felicia a very happy birthday this week! Sending lots of love your way!

Sooooo we had a great week! Lots of wonderful spiritual experiences! Angelica is doing well! we are teaching her friend Consuelo now who is SOOO RIDICULOUSLY ELECT its not even funny. They didn't come to church yesterday which was sad and we don't know why but we still had one investigator there named Leo who is a friend of several members. He is really cool! from Venezuela...Anyway... squirrel hahaha!   Angelica! She is doing okay but we can tell its kind of eating away at her that she isn't obeying a commandment that she knows she needs to obey. We are really trying to work with her but she really needs your prayers!

We are teaching a cute little Arubian man named alex who loves us and always gives us Arubian treats called "frios". SO good! he is adorable. He is SOOOO healthy. He and my dad could be friends. No joke. He LOVES biking and running sooooo much and does it constantly. He is hardcore. He's 61, but way healthier than me. He is doing really well! He was raised catholic and really likes his church but we can see that he is slowly opening up his heart. He needs lots of prayers as well!

We were fed sooooo much this week and its truly a blessing and everyone loves us so much. We got to this one appointment which was just supposed to be a normal lesson but we got there and she started dishing out our plates. I wanted to die, because when we arrived there we were SOOO full already and then BOOM. We were literally just praying that we could finish it, but not only were we able to finish it, we felt okay after. We felt just as full as we did when we got there! It was insane! We realized that God totally helped us out through the atonement of His Son!!!!! So unbelievable. THEN! We were at a lesson about 35 minutes away from the church and we had a meeting right after!  Welllll we had to BOOK IT to the church right after that lesson to get there. The wind was so strong that day and if I have learned anything it is to not pray that the wind will stop, but that you can have the strength you need to face it! Well I was doing exactly that. Then a phrase popped into my head and I just started yelling it as I was biking. I was just yelling "THROUGH THE ATONEMENT I CAN DO ANYTHING" over and over again at the rhythm I was biking hahaha! It really did hit me that day that we can literally do ANYTHING through His Great Sacrifice. It was a really cool experience. Well we ended up getting to the church in 15-20 minutes. Even though I felt like dying, and even though we were sweating BUCKETS, we made it. GOD IS SO GOOD!

There was a baptism for the elders this last week for a lady named Nanny. She is a really neat lady! We had to opportunity to teach her a lesson about the gospel of Jesus Christ and the spirit taught us all something that day as we were teaching. We were just talking about the last step, which is enduring to the end, and I caught myself saying, "a lot of people that say this is the hardest step, but it isn't! It is just the Longest". Nanny LOVED that and so did I! it was a really cool experience! She has a little boy who LOVES me and will only sit by me in sacrament meeting. I feel like he is one of my nephews! So cute.

We have a pretty tough area in the sense that most of it is just rich. Looootttttts of rich people! We did finally find a more humble area that we have been contacting. We had the COOLEST experience there on Sunday! There was this huge group of 6 Venezuelan women sitting outside and we just had to have a "fear no man" moment and go talk to them! Before we went in sister Hardy said "they are waiting for us!" Well, every single one was super interested and super sweet and they all just really wanted to learn more. We walked away from that contact so uplifted and happy, and then we walked over to the next house, yelled in and met Jonathan! He has been to "every church in Aruba" and said he no longer believes in religion. He is very open though and says he has some interesting ideas and that he will be a bit of a headache, but we are open for the challenge and hoping the best! He talked to us for quite a while! Right after that we contacted a family that had just gotten home and we went up and talked to the young dad of 4 children. He was super interested and open and just really wanted to learn more. It was truly an incredible experience and I was just so grateful that we listened to the spirit as we were picking that area! God leads us to those who are ready!

KEEP READING THE BOM!  I love you all so much!

Have a great week!






Monday, July 23, 2018

Week 72 - Aruba

Hello!!!!

Well first of all....HAPPY BIRTHDAY BROOKS!!!! I love you!

I have heard from some of you that you are loving the Book of Mormon challenge and my heart is just so full of joy to hear that! I am loving it to!!!!!!!! We are almost 200 pages in! I'm loving it and I encourage everyone to keep going!! Please!!! 

Things are doing pretty well over here! We are really trying to find more people and build up our teaching pool. This area is mostly a rich area so the people aren't as open as in other areas, but we are still seeing success. We have one really solid investigator who even comes to church! We just started a new contact area and so we are hoping to find more people and we are feeling very optimistic about it! 

We went on exchanges this week so I worked in my old area, Seroe Blanco, with sister Robertson! She is adorable! We had fun and visited some people I used to visit! We taught Juandavid and his little sister and brother Terrones!  He had no idea i was coming so when he saw me he freaked out. It was adorable. 

Angelica is doing SOOOOO awesome. She is really pondering her life decisions and wants to change. She just needs prayers so that she can have the strength to do what Heavenly Father wants her to do. Pray for her! 

This week we were able to have many testimony building experiences. We went out with the members yesterday and went and visited a family who went slightly less active not too long ago. We only visited with the mom, Sister Montero. During the lesson while someone was talking and I could just feel a small portion of the love that Heavenly Father has for her. She is such a kind person with a very loving heart. I just kind of blurted out that I felt like she had a very beautiful spirit and that God loves her and we all started talking and testifying of that. It was such a tender moment and I know she just felt so loved. This branch is struggling and in 4 Nephi it says that if we are filled with God's love we will have love for others and there will be no contention! I know that is true! I am so grateful for this gospel and for the chance that I have to help others feel of God's love.
 
-Sister Woodbury
 
 

Monday, July 16, 2018

Week 71 - Aruba

HELLOOOO!!!
How is everyone doing?? Good I hope! And reading the Book of Mormon with the challenge I hope! Just to kick this email off I just want to say a big happy birthday to my lil niece aby! LOVE YOU! 
We had a wonderful week this week and we FINALLY GOT TO MEET THE BAIRDS! I love them more than I could have ever imagined. They are AMAZING. They have such big hearts and they are just so sweet and so cute and so excited to be here! We had a wonderful zone conference with them and we just got to know them a little better! They left four weeks after their son got home from his mission! So many sacrifices. They are incredible and indescribable. I feel soooo much love from them. such lil cuties. President Baird has a "rule" where he gets to hug every sister when he first meets them and when they go home. My heart was so happy :') he encourages us to be ourselves but be obedient and he is just sooo amazing! So is sister baird! I am so excited to serve with them! 

This week, like always, we had very many experiences that helped me grown in my testimony. I actually had a pretty cool one yesterday. It was very simple but strengthened my testimony still! I was doing my personal study with lots of things on my desk like my scriptures, planner, study books, notebooks, etc. and I accidentally knocked over a cup full of water! I was sooo scared that it was going to get everything all wet because I had stuff all over my desk and the cup spilled water right onto the middle of the desk. The water went everywhere, but it didn't touch any of my stuff. The things that it did kind of touch were things that I could just wipe off without a problem. The water fell right on top of my planner but not a single page got a drop of water, just the cover which I wiped off and it was fine. It was seriously such a little miracle! Unimaginable! Through that experience I realized that as we live the commandments of the Lord, He will bless us! As well I was reminded of the fact that He is always watching over us and that He loves and knows each of us personally! 
We taught some cool lessons this week! We taught Angelica like everyday again and we kept pushing baptism. Then right after teaching her the plan of salvation she just told us and said she had prayed about it and felt she does want to be baptized but not right now because she is not keeping one big commandment. We were so happy, yes I know that sounds weird, but we were. We were happy because we hadn't taught her ANYTHING about commandments at all yet and she was just able to feel it! she is sooooo cool and is totally going to get baptized at some point. Hopefully soon :)
We also taught this lady named Rosalba. We taught her about the book of Mormon, and the way we do it in our mission is we wait to talk about the book of Mormon or read any verses from it or anything until after the resto lesson when we teach lesson about the book of Mormon by itself so they can actually understand what it is! Anywho, we taught her the BOM and WOW. She LOVED IT. She was just so excited and knew it was true right away. It was crazy. She embraced it and had such great questions. This lady just really wants to change, and she said she knows that the book can help her with that! She is SOOO prepared!!! 
Well, that is it from me this week! PLEASE keep reading your Book of Mormon and keeping up with the challenge! I am and I am LOVING it!!! Keep it up and have a great week!!
-Sister Woodbury





Monday, July 9, 2018

Week 70 - Aruba

HELLO EVERYONE!!!!

Sooooo sorry about my email last week! I just totally ran out of time! Hopefully I can write a better one this week..... We had a really good week! 
So we have this investigator named Angelica and she is AMAZING. I truly don't know if I have EVER taught ANYONE so prepared in my mission. She understands everything perfectly the first time you explain it and immediately applies it to her life. So amazing. She came to church last sunday! AND she is already reactivating a less active member. SUCH A COOL TIME OVER HERE. 
The branch here is really really struggling and I just want to ask all of you to pray for everyone here! It is really shrinking and just needs some love and prayers! Many are going less active for so many different reasons and everyone else who is staying active is really really struggling as well. Work, health, etc. Please pray for them!

My testimony was really strengthened this week about our Savior Jesus Christ. We went contacting and met this lady named Baby. Baby is an atheist and is honestly kind of an anti Christ. The contact started out normal and we even thought she was softening up to let us come by! We almost had a Lesson 1 (when we just figure out their background) right then and there. Towards the middle of the contact she really just started to harden her heart but we kept trying. Near the end though she was being SO disrespectful to Christ to the point where Sister Hardy had to say very kindly but firmly "do not talk about Him like that". It was so powerful. Well we ended up leaving that contact just feeling so bad for her and feeling terrible inside. We were sharing thoughts about that experience and decided that we felt exactly like Alma and Amulek! I really just gained such a stronger respect and appreciation for them. So amazing. It was hard but we felt like we were living through a BOM story. We then no more that 10 seconds later started talking to a lady who was just SO strong in her beliefs of the Savior. She shared spiritual experiences about Him with us and just really strengthened us. My testimony really just grew so much about two things. One, that Jesus Christ really is our Savior and Redeemer, and two, that God knows us and loves us. He knows what we need and He hears our prayers. I love Them!

I love being a missionary! I got my flight itinerary today (September 20th) and my jaw completely dropped. I WAS NOT EXPECTING THAT YET! I cannot believe it!  Sooooo sad! I wanna be a missionary forever. hahahaha.  That said though, i love and miss you all sooo much!  I am keeping up with the BOM challenge! How are all of you doing?  I hope you all have a wonderful week! I love and miss you all so much and i am so grateful for this time I have to be a missionary and defend my Savior and Redeemer!
-Sister Woodbury







Monday, July 2, 2018

Week 69 - Aruba

WOW! What a great week!

Time FLEW by this week! all is sooo well here!  I really dont have too much to say because i just forgot everything right as we were biking here but i will do my best!
First of alllll.... Sister Hardy (new companion) is so awesome! I love being with her! We have had a great week full of lots of laughs! This week we had a baptism with a man named Robert and he is really cool! Very converted to the gospel! He is special and everyone can f Sel that he is going to do great things for the branch! 
We had some pretty crazy experiences! We were biking to the baptism and everything was fine and good, when a dog started coming at us!!! I nailed him right in the face with our dog repellent spray BUT HE KEPT COMING AT US!  So rude. Well, sister hardy was trying to spray him too and she was looking behind her but still pedaling... welllll she crashed right into me, fell down in the middle of the street, and ripped a huge hole in one of my really old dresses!  It was SOOOO FUNNY!  We were both dying!  God totally protected us because neither of us are injured at all!!!!

I hope you are all keeping up with your BoM challenge! It is already changing my life, let it change yours!  I love you all so much and I am already out of time! so sorry this is so short! Big hugs!
-Sister Woodbury