Week 80 - Aruba

First before anything....WELCOME TO THE WORLD MY NEW LITTLE NEPHEW BRIGHAM JENSEN!!! We have all been waiting for you for far too long! Congrats Brittney!!

Also,  well, happiest of anniversaries to Chase and Kim!!

Anywho.... we had another pretty average missionary week! Nothing crazy! We taught Michael about the first vision and a modern day prophet and once again he was just LOVING it. SO much. He was soooo excited about the whole thing. It was so funny, he asked us during the lesson, "wait, do we have a prophet today?" and we said "yes!" and he said "no but like today in our day." and we said "yes!" and then for a third time he said "no like TODAY!" and we said "YES!" and said "REALLY??" with the biggest smile on his face. it was awesome. he loves the idea of having a living prophet. he's doing great, just very very busy so its hard to see him even just once a week!

We also taught Nieves and her relative Veronica the first vision and it was SO SPIRITUAL. They are just so believing. They understand PERFECTLY and they feel like Joseph Smith would have had to be a prophet because Jesus Christ had to restore the church through someone! I love them.

We had an awesome lesson with Jairo last night! Oh my heck! We weren't able to see him for over a week because of problems on our part like a popped tire and all that fun stuff, and he doesn't have a phone so we had no idea how to communicate with him! Well, we passed by last night and had an awesome lesson.  He says he believes the BoM to be true scripture and that Joseph Smith was a prophet. Then we felt prompted to invite him to be baptized and he was totally on board! He is on date for October 20th!  Baptisms haven't been happening too terribly much in the islands and we don't really know why, all we know is that we are super duper excited for this one!

Unfortunately for me, i will not be at Jairo's baptism in October because I GO HOME THIS WEEK!  On Thursday!  I cannot believe my mission has come to an end. It has absolutely FLOWN by.  I will be leaving a big part of my heart here with all of these wonderful people. I am going home a new person and I am just so grateful God sent me out on my mission so i could really get my act together and my testimony growing. We will be finishing the BoM this week as well!  I have been loving it and i hope all of you have been loving it as well! 

I will see you in a few days!

Big hugs!

-Sister Woodbury

 

 

Week 79 - Aruba

That's 79 of 80!!! (Can you tell this father is excited?)

Thanks for reading!  Allie will be home in TEN days (September 20th!  She'll be speaking in church at 12:30 pm on Sunday, the 23rd, and she'd LOVE for all her friends to be there to hear her report!  Please join us!  The address is: 2955 E Frye Rd, Phoenix, AZ 85040.  EVERYONE is welcome!

HELLOOOO!!! :)

This week was actually pretty normal! No surprises! Before I get started though.... HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHASE!!!!!!!!! I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!! Hope you have a wonderful day!

Anyway.......... WOW! We have some awesome investigators! Super awesome! Lets see how many I will have time to write about.....

First we have Michael. MICHAEL IS SOOOO COOOOOL!!!!!!!! that sounds like the exact way I started talking about him last week, but seriously. This guy... We taught him about Jesus Christ's original church last lesson and he was LOVING it. He said "there just isn't a church like that today!"  He just understands so darn well. Its CRAZY.  He has soooo much potential!  He has just been waiting for this message for so long and we finally found him!

Then there is Jonathan. He is awesome too.  SO many awesome people.  We had a lesson with him more about the restoration and Christ's church and all that, and he had a friend over who sat with us! HE was literally teaching her everything. We would explain and then he would reexplain just to make sure she got it and he would teach her perfectly.  It was awesome.  He has a lot of potential as well and he is just really open to learn!

Leo (pic attached) is doing well, he is just very hard to see!  We taught him the BoM and he loved it! Hopefully he will actually read it... that is the problem we have with many people hahahaha.

Jairo and Nieves are doing awesome as well! They accepted the BoM with a big smile and they are both really just open and understanding!  We are hoping to get these people to church!!

Donny!!!!!!!!!!!! HE SURPRISED US BIGGGG TIME. We had previously tried to teach just the beginning portion of the restoration several times and it just wasn't quite reaching him, so we decided to just teach him the first vision and then drop him.  WELL... We taught it to him along with Jesus Christ's church, and it just totally clicked. He realized how important it would be and what it would mean if there was a prophet on the earth, and that Joseph Smith really was a prophet. He just got it. Like a little light switched on in his mind. We are hoping he is now open to the Holy Ghost to receive his answer about whether or not he was a prophet! That was a really big spiritual experience for me! So awesome! The message of the restoration just makes sense and it can change lives! I know its true!

Church yesterday was awesome as well! Lots of great talks! Marlien (my Surinamese convert from a year ago) spoke and did AWESOME! She has been busy busy in the church! Teaching relief society and now has a new calling in the YW! She is cleaning the church building and doing all sorts of stuff! Makes my heart sing! :)

THE BOOK OF MORMON CHALLENGE! Sorry about the confusion this last week! It was just a big mix up haha! Hopefully you are all still caught up and its changing your heart more and more everyday!  Well, that is actually all I have for you all this week! Have a wonderful week and keep reading the Book Of Mormon! :)

-Sister Woodbury

 

 

Week 78 - Aruba

Helloooo!!!!!!!!!!

We had a great week over here, as usual!  Filled of fun and preaching and meetings!  Most of the lessons we had were over three days because we had lots of meetings and stuff that needed to get done!  I'll go backwards...it's easier to remember that way hahaha..  Sooo today was so fun!  We had a district activity where we went on a half day island tour!  We went to a lot of the same sights that I went to at the beginning of my mission when I was a little awkward and trying to figure out my new surroundings, but this tour was a lot more organized and I was able to enjoy it a lot more!  The Thackery's (senior missionary couple) usually serve in Guyana but they were here for a week helping with some things here.

Sunday was great! Lots of meetings and a good branch council. The branch is really whipping itself back into shape! It got a little rough there for a while, but prayer really works and its doing so much better! Not 100% but with a little more effort and prayers they are going to be back stronger than ever! After Branch council yesterday we went out teaching with a member named Victor who is the 2nd councilor in the branch presidency.  We went and taught Gyro  (i dont know what i have mentioned about him but he is Margarita's friend) and it was awesome! Victor is such a great teacher and such a great support for Gyro! We taught the first vision and it was very spiritual! Gyro understands everything really well! Now he has a friend in the church as well as a support system! WOOHOO!  We love teaching when members come along!

Saturday was INCREDIBLE!!!!!!! President Nelson felt inspired a week and a half ago to go to the Dominican Republic and do a broadcast for the Caribbean saints. He did a broadcast in the morning for ALL of the missionaries and it was SO fun! A ton of people spoke. Elder and Sister Alfonso couple, Elder and Sister Gonzales, the MTC president and his wife, the Renlunds, two others.  Then President Nelson spoke!  He gave an apostolic blessing to all of the missionaries and tagain in the  later address to all of the Caribbean members. He spoke some VERY inspired words and It was wonderful!  Then in the later one for the members he spoke SPANISH!  He gave his talk in Spanish! Soooo crazy! He did a great job and was simply adorable.

Other than that our week was pretty occupied by the same old same old.  We are teaching a man named Juancarlos who is AWESOME!!! Basically our whole contact area is just GREAT!  We are loving it. Every time we ask a member to come with us they are terrified because its not the safest area...sooo funny.  One member said she was scared to leave her car!!  But we haven't ever been in any danger and the only people who say we shouldn't be there are the members..  Somebody did get shot there a couple of nights ago though... i promise we will be careful and listen to the Spirit!   Crazy....missionary life!

Anywayyyyy....... This week I wanted to share a testimony building experience.  We were teaching this sweet elderly man of another faith and he basically just asked us a series of questions about why we don't do certain things in our church. Why we don't memorize and repeat prayers, why we don't pray to the Virgin Mary, etc.  And I just kept repeating "because that's not taught in the bible." During that lesson it occurred to me how real the apostasy was. People have filled churches with man-made doctrine and it is just heart breaking! There are so many people who are true seekers of Christ but they are just so blinded by doctrine taught by man. I  am sooo grateful for living prophets and for the revelations they have received. There just isn't anything in the scriptures that is contrary to what we live and practice. The world is still in apostasy and that is why we are here! To proclaim the truth! To help get people out of the deep, deep effects of the apostasy! I love the gospel so much.

We also are teaching this new investigator named Michael! MICHAEL IS SOOOO COOL! He literally says the doctrine before we even teach anything. We were teaching him about how prophets receive power and authority from God, and then he jumped in and started talking about how there is no way all churches have that. He said he has always wanted to talk to pastors about this but they always get mad at him so he can't. He went on for a good five minutes talking about how there are just so many churches and he just doesn't think they are all of God. It doesn't make sense to him. He doesn't trust pastors anymore because all they do is go to school and "become" pastors and priests. He says they can't be called of God.  He just went off about all of this craziness for like 5 minutes at least and we just sat there with our jaws dropped.  Insane. He is soooo cool. 

I hope you are all doing well with your Book Of Mormon challenge! My love for that book grows so much faster when I am doing challenges so this is really helping me! I have LOVED this challenge SO much!  PLEASE KEEP GOING!!!! 

Well, that is all i have for all of you this week, I hope you all have a great week! Big Hugs! 

-Sister Woodbury