Find Your Holy Place

Hello lovelies! 

How has everyone's week been? 

This week was FULL of meetings! Woo! Despite almost all of Tuesday and Thursday being in Orlando, God sure blessed us with success and lots of new 'gators! such sweet people :) 

Tuesday was our Zone Conference (meaning half of the mission meets together for a big 'ole spiritual/training meeting that is wonderfully filled with inspiration/chastisement/fun and we all go home spiritually exhausted but pumped, juiced, and jazzed for the week!) (Sorry for that rant haha). And so I got to see the famous Sister Guynn (my MTC comp) and Sister Hannah Rowley (from BYU) and Sister Lindy Ludlow (from HOME!) so all in all it was a party, yay :) 

The meeting was basically on obedience and it was GREAT. One of my favorites talked about our attitude of obedience and I just loved that. If you have a bad attitude, what is obedience even doing? Hello, be HAPPY because God is going to bless you SO much for being obedient to His commandments! It's awesome!

Also, a quote I loved," Don't put the keys to your happiness into the pockets of someone else" :) (enough said)

Next meeting, Thursday, was trainer follow up. Woah, we're already on the fourth week on my baby's training! It was great and there were some funny comments I found humorous, you may not... One elder told us of his trainee who said "Elder, I want to talk more in lessons." to which the trainer thought "Well, that's because you don't know Spanish!" But was kind and they worked through it. Learning charity! 

Anyways, onto the actual work. 

Monday nights we go to FHE in the Villages with a lot of the older couples and our 'gators. so fun! But before we went we stopped by a Potential Investigator who is from Brazil. She hardly speaks English but she let us in and we sat down at her table. Then her husband (who is friends with one of our Former Investigators!!!!) came in as well as their 12 year old daughter and 4 year old son. Okay, cute. We showed them a pamphlet in Portuguese and communicated what we could and gave them a Portuguese Book of Mormon and they were so happy :))

On Wednesday nights we have Book of Mormon class at the church. Both Seaford and Jimmy came this time and they had the coolest insights! We were reading in 2 Nephi where the latter-days are prophesied of and they loved it. Also, Seaford made a comment about having to ask questions and learning about the gospel and then looked at Jimmy and they fist-bumped. I about died laughing. 

Seaford is doing really well! We taught him various commandments this last week and he just says "I know sisters. It's right." and then commits to living them. Cool. 

We got the address of a Less Active woman in the ward. Popped by to see her and she is the sweetest thing. She completely opened up to us and wants to start coming back. It'll be a process but we're excited to work with her. 

On Saturday a girl in the ward preparing to put in her mission papers came out with us for a couple of hours. Two of our lessons fell through but we had the coolest experiences finding new investigators! Very positive for her :) 

CHURCH! Seaford, Jimmy, Leroy (of course), and our new lovely Part Member couple came! Happy day. Also, Olga's (our returning member) records have FINALLY been found!! She's SO happy to finally get to the temple and it's the sweetest thing to see. 

Jimmy is excited for baptism but struggling quite a bit working up towards it. continued prayers for him! We had a sweet experience this weekend where he was feeling super low and down on himself. During the lesson he just dropped to his knees and prayed. When he finally sat back up he said "is that how it always feels when you ask for forgiveness?" He said he felt a dark cloud just leave. Trying to keep him going strong. 

Sorry this was an eternal email. I'm just SO excited about this area! I've already been here for what, 2 1/2 months now?? I just LOVE these people and the Belleview ward is AMAZING. 

D&C 46:32 --- Florida has become my holy place and I have learned so much in these past few months. I'm so grateful to be here serving a mission. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the world. Thank you for all the continued support! I love you all.

Love, 

Sister Woolley 

 Lindy Ludlow from back home! :)

I finally got my thumb print on the Florida Orlando Mission flag, yay!