Week 34 - Bonaire

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!!!

They kind of celebrate Halloween in Bonaire (the best a small country can hahaha)! Lucky for me though, I am in Trinidad, where they don't celebrate it! Really good timing, but oh well haha! We are here for Zone Conference because Curacao doesn't like Peruvians, and my current companion (Sister Montenegro) is from Peru. Lame! I did just get my first warm shower since the last time i was here though! IT WAS SO AMAZING! Hehehehe!

But man this week was crazy! Unfortunately i don't have too much time so i will only be able to include some parts... First of all. We have two people with baptismal dates! Ronald and Nuris! they are both so amazing. They both know that these things are true. They both went to church yesterday! WOOHOOO!! 

We had some really cool experiences while teaching the restoration of the gospel this past week that have really grown my testimony.  Especially with this amazingly elect person from the Dominican Republic named Steven. Wow he is cool. Basically while we were teaching him about the first vision, his world changed.  After we taught the first vision, he took the pamphlet with the picture that we were holding up, stared at at, shook his head and just kept saying "wow." so amazing.  We had to teach the second part of the restoration in two lessons because he has a lot of really good questions. He is amazing. Then, the next lesson we had with him we asked if he had prayed about Joseph Smith again since our lesson (he prayed and asked if he was a prophet during our lesson the last time) and he told us that he did!  He said he believes that he was a prophet because when he prayed about it he felt good, something different, and took that as his answer.  We went back and taught him about the rest of the restoration, and WOW!  We hadn't talked about the restoration of the priesthood with him yet, so when we got there we asked him what Joseph Smith needed to be a true prophet, and he just immediately said, "the Priesthood!" we were blown away because our last lesson with him was about a week before that lesson. We explained the Priesthood to him and how Joseph received it, and he just kept on saying, "WOW." He asked us "wait, but did Joseph pass it on?" :-)  SO COOL. Steven is awesome and is really strengthening my testimony of the Church. Amazing.

Okay, so sister Montenegro's bike had SOOOOOOO MANY PROBLEMS THIS WEEK! SO many. we have been walking a lotttt. we had to walk alllll the way to an appointment that is a good distance away this last week, and when we got there the lady wouldn't even let us teach her.  She just had us clean her bar.  Swept. Mopped. All that. Go team. We were exhausted. We decided to eat out that day and man was that food yummy :) 

The next day, after fixing her bike, we were biking in an area reallyyyyy far from home. It was time to head home, when she got a flat. We walked to a members house and (with permission from the assistants), we road home in his trunk. Fun. honestly it was so nice. we have been soooo tired from how much we have been biking so that was a nice li'l tender mercy. 

Those were the highlights of the week, but it was a lot more crazy than i could even explain! funnnn!!!!!!!!! Have a great week! I love and miss all of you!

-Sister Woodbury

Week 33 - Bonaire

Hellooooo!!!! Great week over here!!!

I actually dont have too terribly much to share this week buuut i first just want to say, I LOVE BONAIRE SO MUCH. It is soooo cute. 20,000 people and about 289,045,794 donkeys and goats. its great. Also fun news, my companion and I will be in trinidad for almost a week, including next pday, for zone conference! craziness!!

Buuuuut the pictures this week are from someone named Boise in curacao. he is doing so awesome and progressing so much. I have high hopes for him :)

Soooo Bonaire. It is the cutest little place ever. Church is held in a little house. the missionaries teach gospel principles outside. There cant be more than about 40-50 members, that might be pushing it actually. The church is only about 30 years old here, super new! Most importantly: i LOVE it. Two of the main investigators that I have met: Ronald and Nuris. Ronald is more new, and he accepted a baptismal date yesterday for the 25th of november! he is really cool. Bonarian, maybe in his 50s or so? I dunno. He is really awesome though. And then there is Nuris! She has been taught for a little while now and she is DYING to be baptized. just has to figure out where to move out from her ex boyfriends house (it is actually her house but he wont leave). she is seriously dying to be baptized. shes amazing.

Also a new fun thing i am doing that i highly recommend: I now study out of the new and old testaments, Book of mormon and doctrine and covenants every single day! I have already learned so much! it is awesome. Highly recommend.

I am so sorry for the lame udpate, but just know that all is well and i am very happy here in bonaire! we are always really busy and we are biking  ALOT. life is good. I love you all and miss you all so much! Have a great week!

-Sister Woodbury

Week 32 - Curacao

Hellooooo everyone!

Not a super eventful week this week, but good none the less :) I received my transfer call! I will be headed to Bonaire on friday! I will definitely be there for at least 2-3 transfers! craziness. I only spent two months in Curacao but i absolutely LOVED it here with my entire heart. I really hope to come back! I am sure i will probably make it back here, I still have just over 10 months! But i am excited for the new adventures I will have in Bonaire.

Really not much this week, but KIM CAME TO CHURCH! That was beyond exciting! She said she wants to bring her 2 boys next time :D she is doing so well! Boise (I think that's spell check for Guido) as well is doing really well! He basically told us without using the exact words that he believes the Book of Mormon is true. SO cool! He is doing SOOOO well! Something really fun about this last week was that Sister Cole and i were able to teach the plan of salvation Part one (where we cover pre-earth life, the creation, and the fall of adam and eve) 3 times this last week, which is quite a lot in one week. It has been so amazing. Once we explained the fall in each lesson, we could pretty much SEE  a light bulb go off in their heads. I always forget most people don't understand it! The coolest response we received after explaining was: "I have always wondered about that but no one has ever been able to answer that question!" So cool! I am so grateful we have that information so none of us are just mad at Adam and Eve all the time. I am so grateful for the decision that they made with the agency that they had so that we could all be here!

Also, something amazing after we taught Kim this lesson was that she told us at the end of the lesson :"you know, I feel like a lot of things that should be in the Bible aren't there, but they're in this book (referring to the BoM). SOOO amazing!!! She has such a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon already! I love it here in Curacao! Everyone is doing really well! Pray for Denitza and Rodolfo please!

That is honestly about it this week! I hope you all have a great week and i miss you all so much!

Love,

Sis Woodbury

 

 

Week 31 - Curacao

Helloooo!

First of all HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM AND JESSE!!!! I LOVE YOU BOTH SO MUCH! I hope you have a great one, dont party too hard without me haha!

Soooo i forgot to write about some amazing things last week. Fist of all, General Conference!  Amazing right???  My FAVORITE was Elder Owen's about repentance.  So good, but mainly what i forgot was an amazing spiritual experience with Kim, the Jamaican lady!  so she is pregnant right now and has been SUPER sick. like really bad. she hasnt been able to do anything. she has some kind of bacterial infection something in her stomach. soooo sick. we werent able to see her for a long time, like 2 weeks or something, until we were finally able to go see her! It was only like a 5 minute visit and she was not feeling well. We explained and offered to arrange for a priesthood blessing and she said yes immediately.  the next day we went back with two members from the branch and the Parrs and they gave her a blessing of health. wow. we talked to her afterwards and she said she felt a sense of relief run all through her and she was crying. it was really sweet. then, we checked up on her again a few days later and she was doing so well. SO well!  she is still doing amazingly well. she hadnt been to work in months, but now she feels well enough so she has been working. the last time we checked up on her she said the only problem she was having was a headache.  literally no nausea or anything. amazing!  Priesthood miracles. she is doing so great and has so much faith!

Dentiza and Rodolfo came to church on sunday AGAIN! they are so amazing! They want to bring their kids next time! I am so blown away. They had only been to church once before we started teaching them and they had been taught for 5 months, but now? they are coming and loving it!!! we are soooo happy and so blessed.

Also, fun fact - sister garcia and sister hardy were here from thursday to sunday night. This mission!  A lot of the missionaries had so fly out of aruba for emergency immigration stuff. craziness. it was fun to have them here and i love them so much! Also got an update on aruba. so fun. Dario was in colombia when i went to curacao but he brought me back a little bag! I forgot to take a picture of it but it is so cute and i loveee himmm!! Seriously he is amazing. apparently he is doing awesome. So is monchi, whose parents are active in the church and are back together (dont remember if i ever wrote about that), and Marlien and sebastian and eucary and everyone is just doing great! SO happy. so content!

Also Peter, a recent convert/less active. wow. craziness. soooo apparently he got beat up 4 weeks ago by this man who is actually wanted in jamaica! Anyway he has been okay, but then the past week he has just gone down hill. bad. we went by his house on thursday and he was in BAD shape. he could hardly breathe or walk or anything. we offered to arrange a priesthood blessing for him as well and he said he wanted one, so the next day the branch president here, president Browne, came to give him a blessing before he was supposed to head to work, but he saw the shape peter was in and sacrificed everything to take him straight to the hospital. peter was trying to sit up for 20 minutes before president brown got there. i have no words to describe the state he was in. just that it was really, really, bad. So president Browne took him to the hospital and sacrificed everything for peter that night. Then the next day Peter seemed SO much better. it was amazing. President Browne and President Jackson (elders quorum president here, american, REALLY REALLY good doctor.) came to give him a blessing. Pres. Jackson looked at him and he thinks he has a cracked collar bone on one side, and a dislocated shoulder on the other. so bad. he literally cant use either of his arms. they gave him a blessing and it was just really sweet. It was truly so beautiful to watch them take such good care of peter. he has never really had friends before in the church, no fellowshippers or anything. I am not sure if he has ever even felt cared about at church, and now after this experience he can see how much they care. President Browne and Jackson were so sweet to him. They were both so Christlike throughout all of this experience. it was amazing and i am so grateful for them.

That was about it this week! Great week of craziness! I hope you are all doing well and  i love you all so much!

Have a great week!

-Sister Woodbury

Week 30 - Curacao

Hallowwwwwww!!!! How are youuuu???!!!

Guess who hit her 7 monthaversary yesterday. Bleh! Time is flying!

Honestly this week wasn't super duper eventful...but it was still really good! Fun fact, i don't feel tired but i think my body is....my eye has been twitching all day everyday for the past week and a half.  its been fun.  Luckily i dont actually feel very tired!  Hollaaaa haha! 

But so anyway, this week was good! A couple of Highlights (i don't remember what i have already emailed about so i am sorry if i give any repeat explanations!)  Buuuuut so last week we contacted this guy named Wylie. He's awesome. when we contacted him he was just sitting on the side of the road with two different kinds of alcohol and monster drinks, and he was with a really really bad friend.  Well we decided to contact them and we scared the friend away (who was honestly ruining the contact) and then we started talking to Wylie. it was a super average contact but i just looked into his sad little eyes and i could just SEE his searching and his desire for a change. it was really cool. Then we had a lesson with him and he said he knew God sent us to him. we asked if God has ever answered one of his prayers and he said "He has, by sending you".  it was SO cool.

As well, we went to go teach Guido and he hasn't kept up with his reading, but we showed up and he had read two chapters in the BOM and he had been praying about it! That was sooo cool!  He loves the Book and feels that God wants him to keep reading it. Fine by me! :)

Then we visited with Dentiza and Rodolfo and we had given them two verses to read every day from the Book of Mormon. Denitza did a really good job about that and so she was telling us that she shared the verses with someone at work who really needed help and guidance. that was SO awesome!!! That moment when your investigator is already being a missionary! she is so cool. I was so happy when she told us that.

We also taught Niran this week! He was a contact we made a while ago and we had an awesome lesson with him. we taught him the restoration this week and he totally got it. He understood everything. when we asked him what it would mean in his life if these things were true and he told us that that would mean that this is the correct church. We also discovered that he had been contacted once before a while ago but he told us he just didn't have time for it then, but he does now. I was soooo excited about that!!!!!

One last fun little thing that happened,... we were just contacting in our contact area and some guy passed us and we were going to go talk to him until we saw that he was literally just doing cocaine as he was walking down the street. I died. Gotta love Curacao! hahaha!  Well that is just about all that happened this week but I just love missionary work sooo much! I love and miss each and every one of you and I hope you have a great week!

-Sister Woodbury

Week 29 - Curacao

Hellooooo!

Great week over here in Curacao!!!

A couple of fun things about the area that we work in: it is by far the hardest area in all of the ABC islands, and we contact (try to introduce themselves to strangers) all day every day, which basically means that we stand out in the HOT HOT sun all day and yell into peoples houses. How we are not discouraged? I have no idea, but we have been able to have lots of amazing experiences like you all read about last week. But it has been an amazing week. biggest thing of all i think is that ALBERT FINALLY CALLED US THIS MORNING!!!! we were smiling like IDIOTS. it was so exciting. I looked at the phone and I was like, "who's Albert?" and looked at Sister Cole, and then we both realized, and Sister Cole was like, "ANSWER IT." hahahaha it was awesome. He is sooooo cool!!!!!!!!!!!! God is good, people!

Anyway so first off i just want to say a happy happy birthday to Deb V.!!! I love you!!! Thank you for being such an amazing primary teacher and an incredible member of the Woodbury clan! 

So one of the coolest things that happened this week was with an investigator named Guido. I honestly haven't been too sure about him up until our last lesson with him. We pretty much implored him to pray about Joseph Smith in the last lesson that we had with him and he did it! He knows he's a prophet! But not only that, his girlfriend doesn't really love that he is meeting with us. He told us that he explained to her that he knew Joseph Smith was a prophet!!! WOWWW! so cool. She was telling him that we use a different bible but he explained to her that we use the bible, but we also use another book called the Book of Mormon. we hadn't even taught him about the Book of Mormon yet but somehow he explained to her perfectly. that was just so cool.

As well this week, Romeo fed us! It was soooooo good. He is one of the most firm recent converts I have ever met. He received the Melchizedek Priesthood yesterday and he is just soooo happy.  just got called as a missionary work leader in the branch which is awesome because he is a great missionary and is really good with missionary work. he helps us SO much.

Last piece of huge news, Denitza and Rodolfo came to church!!!! wow they are awesome. they have been taught for suchhhh a long time and have only been to church once so that was a huge step for them. they are so awesome and they are progressing so much. I love them so much. I love all of these people so much!!!! other than that not too much has happened around here. we have been blessed with lots of spiritual experiences while contacting so that has been amazing. Major tender mercy from the Lord, because we do that  A LOT. I hope you are all doing well and i love you all soooo much!!!! Please be a missionary this week and share your testimony like Guido did!! :)

love,

Sister Woodbury

 

 

Week 28 - Curacao

HIIIIIII!!!!!! WE HAD A GREAT WEEK!

How is everyone doing??? Life if soooo good over here, or just as a missionary in general. So good. This week was FULL of amazing spiritual experiences. Bur first of allllll... HAPPY ANNIVERSARY CHASE AND KIM!!!! I LOVE YOUUUUUUU!!! You're amazing!

So this week we had so many cool experiences. We first had one really really cool and spiritual lesson with a couple named Denitza and Rodolfo. That was truly amazing. The lesson was about faith and it was just amazing. The spirit pretty much enveloped that place. I really don't have any other words to describe that experience. Just know that it was incredible. We were all on the verge of tears. I walked away with such a strong testimony that Jesus Christ is always there for us and we just have to have faith in Him.

We also had an AMAZINGGGGG contacting experience! So, normally when we contact, we stand out on the street. Everyone here has fences around their houses and they don't usually have doorbells, so you have to yell in. Well we were contacting during the day and we really didn't contact anyone interested at all. The only person who we were actually able to contact for a little bit was this woman from the Jehovah's Witness faith who REALLY wanted to contend with us. that was fun. honestly we felt like we kind of wasted our time because we didn't meet anyone even remotely interested. We went back in for studies and lunch and then went back out in the evening. We went contacting again on the same street. We were yelling into an apartment complex but nobody came out! We walked over to the mail boxes to try to figure out how many apartments were included. Where we were standing, you could see the parking area. There was a man standing in the parking area talking with someone. He waved us back, which is definitely not a thing here. We were so confused haha! We went back to talk to him though, and he began introducing himself. He said "yeah I know. i saw you talking to someone else on this street this morning". He honestly didn't sound too happy with us to be completely honest, but then he said "I was on my knees this morning asking for health, guidance, and knowledge. God sent you to me. Do you have a message for me?"  We. died. I was smiling SO big. We had tried contacting that apartment complex exactly one week earlier but just received a huge rejection. then we came back a week later to recontact it, and little did we know we found someone totally being prepared.  It was so amazing. He plans on coming to church next sunday. His name is Albert! He also actually read the entire pamphlet, which is another thing that never happens! It was so incredible.

Then later that night we street contacted a lady named Evelyn! I told her my niece has the same name haha! (Love you little Evy!)  She didn't end up living in our area but contacting her was still so amazing. When we told her we were missionaries, everything changed. She had to catch the bus so we just started walking with her to the bus stop but we were talking to her along the way and she told us that she is going through a really hard time right now in her life and she has been looking to know God more. She really wants to come to church as well! She knew God sent us to her and she is soooo excited to learn more! That was amazing.

And then just yesterday we had one more really cool experience. We had only been contacting (again re-contacting road) for like 5 minutes when we yelled into a little apartment behind a house (there are a lot of people here who own really nice houses and then just have one or two apartments in the back). The door was open so we were really excited because that meant someone was home! We yelled in and the lady immediately started waving us back. Super weird. Then we walked back there and start talking to her.  We said we have a beautiful message for her that will bless her life and she let us into her house and cleared off her couch so we could sit down! we were all standing around her table and just asked if there was anything we could help her with and she started bawling, cupped her face and said "Dios te mandó hoy" which means "God sent you today".  Wow! Turns out she has been going through a really hard time. She said she has been praying and praying. This lady, Sandra, has SO much faith. So much. But she even showed us a message she sent to someone on facebook THAT morning asking to be in their prayers. Truly it was an amazing experience. She had gotten home from the store like 10 minutes before we got there. Everything was just so perfectly lined up. We were able to be in the right place at the right time  A LOT this week. The other cool thing about that experience with Sandra was that before we left home, we asked that we could contact into a lesson, which is something we never ever ask for and is also something that has never happened. I KNOW God answers our prayers. He wants to help us and all we need to do is ask Him!  Truly an amazing week full of amazing experiences.

Also the Parr's came, the new senior couple here in Curacao! They are awesome and so kind! We cant wait to serve with them! But anyway, that is about it this week! I love and miss you all so much and i hope you have a great week!

Sister Woodbury

***As you can see, she received our Halloween package...early!***