Week 7 (4/24/17) - Aruba

Hola!

Okay so I have been counting the weeks wrong so I am actually on week seven this week! My bad! I love it here! Aruba is soooo awesome! It looks almost exactly like Arizona so that is weirding me out a tiny bit.. It looks soooo much like Guadalupe or some parts of Mesa!

Okay so my companion is Sister Petersen (from Utah) and she is super awesome! I have been wayyy lucky with my companions here in this mission. The Lord knows :)   Papiamentu is a super duper weird language, and some of the Spanish speakers here are hard to understand because of all of the different accents! There are just about every kind of Spanish speaker here that you could have! It is pretty cool.

So we are on bikes! I haven't even been on a bike in 5 years since I got hit by a car so i am pretty darn rusty but I am getting better each day! It is hardddd!!!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY KIM!!!!!!! I LOVE YOU AND MISS YOU!!!!

SEND MAIL TO THE FOLLOWING: 

Hermana Woodbury 11-28

Terpsichore

Willemstad, Curacao

Hopefully that will work... Not positive if it will. 

 

How is everybody's BOM reading??? 1 month left! You can do it!

SOOOOO we went to a baptism for someone who my companion has been teaching for a while and then a few hours after that he got deported (see pics). Crazy. He wasn't even able to get confirmed!! He got deported and so did one other member of the church. The entire branch was crying that wholeeee Sunday and pretty much half the branch went to the airport to say goodbye. So absolutely insane. The branch here is soooo incredible you would not believe!!!!!  This is the strongest branch in the mission and these are the best members in the world. most of them are illegals from Columbia and Venzuela.  Venezuelans are the best humans on the planet. The branch is a pretty good size... idk maybe around 100ish people? maybe? Idk. Its called Oranjestad or however you spell it.

We have been teaching an investigator named Christian. They contacted him with a super super brief little message a little over a week ago and then they invited him to church like they do with everyone, but no one ever comes! He came!! That was a pretty big shock. Sister Petersen and I have been back three times now and he is just eating up everything we have to tell him! He came to church again yesterday and he is just so excited to know everything about the gospel! Every lesson we have with him is just SO spiritual and incredible. It makes me feel bad for kind of taking the gospel for granted for so long. 

Okay well that's about it this week! I love and miss you all sooo much!

-Hermana Woodbury

 

Week 6/7 (4/18/17) - Curacao

Hi folks! 

Here's Allie's latest message (below) just received today!  She left the Dominican Republic last Monday after 5 weeks in the Mission Training Center there, and flew to the mission headquarters in Trinidad where she spent a week working and getting oriented before traveling to her first assignment on Aruba, via Curacao.  She was in Curacao today and then flies to Aruba tomorrow.  Because of her language assignment and visa problems in Trinidad it's possible she could spend her entire time in Aruba and Curacao, where the predominant languages are Dutch and Papiementu...which is a combination of Dutch, Portuguese, Creole, Spanish, and African.  Apparently her change in language from English to Spanish was to help prepare her.  Here's a little clip of someone speaking Papiementu:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQE0f-Yk9hc

Remember, you can see all her posts on: http://sisteralliewoodbury.blogspot.com/

Big:

Hello everyone!! I hope you are all reading the BOM (Book of Mormon)! 1 month and 1 1/2 weeks left in my challenge!! So this email is going to jump around all over the place and I have a bad keyboard.. Sorry!

Soooo we had another little devotional with Elder Gonzalez! That was fun! I also almost got robbed while on splits (exchanges)  with the missionaries in the Dominican Republic.. The guy was on a motorcycle, but was unsuccessful because my purse was slung across my body...so I am grateful! It could have been waayyyy worse. Let's just say I am grateful to be leaving, and heading to my first assignment in Aruba.

So I arrived in Trinidad Monday of last week to spend a week near our mission headquarters before heading to my first area...in Aruba!  I got to spend the week here in Trinidad as a companion to Sister Kimball! She is seriously the best. I followed her blog about her mission before I came so it was pretty weird seeing her and all of the places she had taken pictures of in person! That was pretty cool. It was a really great week in Trinidad! We met some really awesome people while we were contacting. One guy we met was extra awesome! His name was Warren! He seemed pretty interested! We tried to set up an appointment with him but he works a lot so we couldn't really get a set day and time. We called him later in the week to try to set an appointment, but we still couldn't set one with him. While we were still on the phone with him though, we asked if he read the pamphlet we gave him and he said he did, and he said he had his girlfriend read it too! Then on Sunday we ran into him while we were in the contact area and Sister Kimball said that if it weren't for the spirit, she totally wouldn't have recognized him! We were able to set a day and time while we were talking to him which was awesome, and then we started talking about the pamphlet again. When we asked him about it he got happy and started smiling and he told us that he read it and he took it to work and everything. He also said he didn't want us to teach him if his girlfriend wasn't there because he wants his girlfriend to learn too! Then one of the other people we have been teaching started yelling down the street to us telling him to praise God and give his life to Jesus semi jokingly, and he just turned to us and said something like "She always takes this kind of stuff as a joke...I don't, I take this stuff seriously!" Warren is awesome. That was such a great experience.

I love Trinidad! I wish I could serve there longer than a week! I'm headed to Aruba tomorrow where I will meet my trainer for the next 12ish weeks- Sister Peterson! I have heard great things about her so I am pretty excited! I would say it has been nice to be in an English speaking country but I cant because THEY DO NOT SPEAK ENGLISH THERE!! Some people are easy to understand but some are actually impossible. It usually depends on how educated they are.

Aaggh...I never received any of your mail at the DR MTC.  They said if she gets any of my mail they will forward it over to Trinidad, but I am not hopeful about that.. The Egberts (mission president) said to give the address to my apartment in Aruba for mail but idk if that's correct so don't send anything until i can ask sister Peterson!

I got pretty sick when i got to Trinidad! I know- typical me. Oh well! I am feeling much better now! President gave me a Papiementu book... AHHH!! It isn't Spanish at all! It is a mix between spanish, creole, dutch, english, portugese, and african. That's gonna be rough. I may be coming home trilingual though!  Apparently they speak more Spanish in Aruba than they do in Curacao so I am really counting on that! So Pdays (preparation days) in the field are soooo much better than in the MTC. Way less stressful and much longer! Pdays will usually be on Mondays so that's when I should normally send emails- unless they have some crazy holiday which they do often. Sunday was fun in Trinidad! The wards (congregations) here are TINY!!

Fun information: I learned today that if they hadn't changed my mission to Spanish speaking at the last minute I probably wouldn't have ever actually made it here due to all the visa problems they're having in Trinidad...and would have visa-waited my entire mission in the states! Grateful.

Interesting side note.. I found out that President Monson's patriarch was a Woodbury! How crazy is that??

I had dinner with an insanely wealthy family last night and they invited Sister Payne over! Sister Payne was the first member of the Church in Trinidad so I thought that was pretty awesome! She is my favorite and I love her. She is soooo cute. Anyway, all is well here in The Trinidad mission! I love you and miss you all! Please be sure to send pictures- and that applies to everyone! Have an incredible week!

Allie Arrives in Port of Spain, Trinidad - 3/10/17

Dear Family,

We are happy to announce the safe arrival of your daughter to the Trinidad Port of Spain Mission.  She arrived happy and excited to serve. We will be in orientation tomorrow and then she will receive her companions and go to work. We are very happy to serve with her and promise we will take good care of her for you. Thank you for your support and prayers. She will be writing you next Monday on her preparation day.

Sincerely

President and Sister Egbert

Week 5 (3/6/17) - Santo Domingo

Hola amigos y familia!!

So I am super sorry but this isn't going to be a very long email! Also I am super sorry if I don't reply to an email you sent last week, I am not sure if I will have time this round but I will try next week!!

So I experienced my first earthquake!! It was a 4.7 and it was actually pretty scary even though it wasn't really that powerful... We were all in our beds when it happened and we were all pretty freaked out!

I went on splits (with the local missionaries) this last week and I am going again tomorrow!! It was pretty fun! It was super cool to get to go out into the field for a day! We took the metro and a bus which were both super cool! I didn't really talk much that whole day but I was asked to say the prayer once so that was kind of scary but fun at the same time haha!

General Conference was soooo awesome!!!! Please watch it even if you aren't a member of the LDS church! ( https://www.lds.org/general-conference?cp=eng-nz&lang=eng )   Totally amazing. That's all I really have time to say about it but I really didn't have a favorite talk because they were alllll sooooo gooooood!!!!!!

I have heard that several people have sent me things but I have not received anything yet and I am not sure if I will... I am hoping that if they do end up receiving anything that they will forward it over to Trinidad!!  We had another INCREDIBLE lesson with "Carlos"!!! It was seriously so amazing. Somehow it was even better than the one I told you about last week! Hermano Jimenez said he has been wanting to tell my companionship something for a while and he said he is finally going to tell us tomorrow so I am absolutely thrilled to find out what it is! I don't feel very ready to leave the MTC but our Hermano Jimenez says we are ready soooo hopefully he is right! I am not sure why but every time we have a lesson with him I can talk pretty much fluent Spanish, but when I am not in a lesson with him i have a pretty hard time. It is sooo odd! In lessons I totally have it but outside of lessons I totally don't.

Also found out that in Curacoa they speak Papamiento. Not Spanish. AHHHHH!!! I know nothing about Papamiento other than that it is a dialect of Spanish. I am terrified. Please send help. Welp thats all I have this week!

I love and miss you alllll!!!!

Week 4 (3/30/17) - Santo Domingo

Big HOLAAAA!!!!!

I am going to kick this email off with a challenge! I challenge every single one of you on this email list, even the people who aren't members of the church to start reading the Book of Mormon right now and try to finish it in 2 months! I don't know what the breakdown is but I finished it in 14 days once so I know you can do it! That book is so incredible and it blesses my life more than I could ever imagine. I love it!! Read it! Just give it a shot!!

Okay so to be honest this week didn't start off that great but it got so incredible so its okay. The Haitians speak french so we have 3 different languages here during sacrament meeting and while eating at the table! It is so cool and we all still laugh together because we have figured out ways to communicate. It is really quite amazing! There are always 2-3 translators everywhere. Its so crazy! The Haitians are so freaking cute hahaha! They are CRAZY. Its amazing. I love them. I love it here soooooo much guys! I love it i love it i love it.

The Gulbrandsen's are incredible. I aspire to have the incredible faith and testimonies they both have. They are perfect for this MTC and all the missionaries here. I love it here. I also love being STL (Sisters Training Leader)! it has been such a great learning experience and all the sisters are so amazing so it's just super fun! I HAVE MY FLIGHT INFO!!!! They are sending me to Trinidad for a week and then I am headed to Curacao! So crazy. SO EXCITED!!! It has also been one month!! It has flown by. I love it. I am so grateful that our loving Heavenly Father prompted me to serve. I wouldn't be here if I wasn't sure He wanted me to be so I am so grateful for the clear answer He gave me! Great quote about faith: "Faith is something greater than ourselves, enables us to do what we have said we will do, to press forward when we are tired or hurt or afraid, to keep going when the challenge seems overwhelming and the course is  entirely uncertain."- Gordon B. Hinckley. I am soooo incredibly grateful for my district. They are the people who have made me truly love it here. They are all always so uplifting and loving and we are all here for each other at every moment. I am so lucky for them. I am also lucky to have the companions that i have! They are both sooooo great and I love them so much.

We definitely had the best lesson I may ever have in my entire mission. It was with our fake investigator "Carlos"- who is really our teacher Hermano Jimenez. That lesson was entirely guided by the spirit. I was so pumped to go into the lesson and I had no idea why but I think it was because I somehow knew it would be good. Our last lesson with him was good but I could not get 1 Nephi 15 out of my head even though it totally didn't apply! As soon as we left that lesson I told my companions about it and even though it didn't make any sense at all to talk about that they both immediately okayed it. Then this last lesson we had with him he flipped open to 1 Nephi 8 and said that he was super confused and that the vision didn't make any sense, and he basically just wanted to learn how to understand the scriptures more. The scripture I was prompted to share was the one that explains the scripture he was confused about. That was seriously sooo amazing. Totally guided by the spirit.

We go on splits tomorrow with the missionaries here! I am TERRIFIED. I think it was be a really cool experience but I am super scared hahaha! Apparently the Gulbrandsen's got after salt lake about my travel experience here. She said that pretty much all of salt lake knows my story. I thought that was soooo funny! She thinks they knew she was mad so they sent her my next flight plans early- well before anyone else! I am the only plans she has haha! I died when I heard about that. No pictures this week again, sorry!! I have yet to have the ability to connect my camera to the computer.I love you and miss you all! Have a great week AND READ THE BOM!!!

-Hermana Woodbury

Week 3 (3/23/17) - Santo Domingo

HOLA!!!!!!

Friendly reminder that I absolutely love it here with all my heart, might, mind and strength!!!!!! Shout-out to my cousin Aaron for rocking it in the field (Thailand)! I look up to him and hope to be half as good as he is!! Soooo to answer some of your questions really quickly: each companionship rooms together and sometimes they have more than one companionship in a room. They are kind of like apartment-y but smaller! It was just the three of us in one room but we just got another companion and she is strictly Spanish speaking so that's pretty cool! She is companions with my companion Hermana Martineau whenever we are outside of class :)

Please send me lots and lots of pictures whether it be via email or an actual letter! I didnt bring nearly enough! Just make sure you send anything and everything to my Mission address in Trinidad because odds are I won't receive them here. We just got some mail here that was for an elder who was here in December!

I accidentally spaced last week, it was elder Gonzáles, not Elder Gomez who came! We went contacting last week and that was an AWESOME experience! We went to the university that is super close by and we talked to some pretty awesome people. My love for all of these people is insane and they aren't even technically my people yet! The day we went we gave 4 copies of the BOM (Book of Mormon) and 3 restoration pamphlets when we only had like 20ish minutes left....  We were too scared to approach people for the first 40 minutes haha! I still love my district so much! One elder just went home from our district which was super sad but we are all glad he is home and that he got there safely!Everybody else left this last Tuesday besides our district of 7! There were only the 7 of us in the entire MTC for over 24 hours! That was SO weird!

All the new missionaries came in yesterday and it was sooooo freaking fun you would not believe!!!!! They are all so cute and I am so excited to get to know them and to learn from them! EXCITING NEWS!!! I AM THE SISTER TRAINING LEADER!!! I am over all of the Hermanas and it is soooo fun oh my heck! I have been secretly praying to be the STL so when I became that I was so happy.  There have been countless experiences lately that have made me absolutely certain that God loves us and knows each and every one of us!!!

We are getting a new night teacher- Hermano Gomez. I am pretty excited but I will definitely miss Hermano Puello! Spanish is going pretty well! I keep catching myself unintentionally thinking in spanish hahaha! There have also been these random blackouts where the power to the whole mtc shut down for a minute or so and then turn back on. We have gotten so used to it that it doesn't phase us at all haha. The first time it happened it made a super loud sound that sounded like a gun shot, so our teacher (Hermano Jimenez who is from the DR) froze, and then said "somebody died, it happens all the time" in the most casual voice ever. It was SO funny and HE is SOOOO funny. We all love him haha! Ask me more questions when you send me emails! I love answering anything, whether it be about the gospel or just about what its like! Also some of you are holding back on writing long emails because you don't want to take up all of my emailing time but I rarely read them during the hour, I always print them out and read them later, so send emails that are as long as you would like! Seriously! I loveeee reading them throughout the week!

No pictures this week because I kept borrowing this one missionary's sd card converter and he just left so I don't have one to use anymore, sorry! That's about it this week! I love and miss you all! ALSO- HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY SWEET LIL NEPHEW SPENCER! MISS YOU. Please give him a big hug from his favorite auntie!

Allie's Address

Allie doesn't think she'll get anything sent to her in the Dominican Republic at this point.

She'd prefer that we all send any mail or packages to her actual mission address in Trinidad...as follows:

Sister Allison Marie Woodbury

Trinidad Port of Spain Mission
1 Morequito Ave. Valpark Shopping Mall Plaza Building #10

Valsayn, Trinidad and Tobago