2015 - a year of miracles

Hello everyone!!

I hope you each had a very merry Christmas!! Ours certainly was :)
Thank you family for the gifts and love and support and everything.
Y'all are the best!
There are going to be tears shed tomorrow as we found out that Sister
Arsenault will be transferred :( We thought for sure we were staying
together. But, she has some more lives to touch and she's going to do
a fantastic job. I have just LOVED serving with her. I have learned so
much from her this transfer and am very grateful for the time we had
together :)

We had a really great week- especially with Christmas and all!
Christmas Eve was actually a super successful day, and I attribute it
to the fact that the spirit is softening everyone's hearts for the
season :) We also went caroling to some nonmembers and less actives
with a family in the Ward and it was so fun!

We have been doing a 12 days of Christmas for a less active man and
his nonmember wife and their son. It has been SO great! We would go
early in the morning, right before getting home at night, and
sometimes in broad daylight (which was really scary) and they never
caught us. Christmas Eve we went by to give them a "treat" which was
their last gift, 12 candy canes, and completely pulled it off where
they didn't know it was us. UNTIL we walked outside, they opened our
note, and ran out to catch us! Oh well. It was amazing because their
hearts were definitely touched and the less active man even held up
his scriptures and told us he had been reading :) miracles!

Another service miracle happened on Saturday. We did some yard work
for a less active woman in the Ward and she just loved it. When we
went inside we shared with her Because of Him and asked her to pray
about how she can come closer to Christ this year. She kind of looked
at us funny and asked how can she pray? A little shocked, we taught
her how to pray  and she prayed out loud with us! It was very sweet.

Because you're probably wondering, Friday was Christmas and also our
weekly planning day so we spent most of the day just planning for next
week haha. But it was amazing! I got to skype the family which was
great. So amazing to see and hear each of you! I love you! And then a
member had us over for a delicious dinner with three nonmembers and it
was awesome. :) Merry Christmas!

And yesterday we got Ron, the less active we've been working with
since I got here, to come to church!!! Hallelujah. The talks in
sacrament meeting were perfect and he said he was so grateful he came
:)

It has just been such a good transfer. We have found some AMAZING
people who are very prepared, the Lord is blessing us and the area.
I'm excited for what this next transfer holds. The New Year is coming
up quickly and I've been pondering about how I've grown this last
year. One thing that is very dear to me is how close I've become to my
Savior. My love and faith in Him has grown immensely and I'm excited
to come even closer to Him this coming year :) My love for the Book of
Mormon has grown so strong as well and I am just so grateful for the
knowledge of this gospel. 2015 has been the greatest, a whole year
spent in the service of my Savior. I want to invite each of us to take
time to pray about how we can grow closer to Jesus Christ in 2016 and
how we can more fully serve Him. I'd love to hear your ideas and plans
:) I'm so thankful for each of you! Stay strong, always improve, and
have a Happy New Year!!

Sister Woolley

 Nielsen family 3 layer cookies 

the district 

Merry Christmas!!

Hey hey hey all! Thanks for all the birthday wishes! I really appreciate its It's been fantastic- my companion is the sweetest thing and made me breakfast this morning. I've been blessed to spend most all of 19 as a missionary and now half of 20 woohoo! Annnd Christmas is almost here! We had an awesome week here in Olympia. Some cool facts- I mowed a lawn for the first time on the temple grounds which was a ton of fun. A member took us to a restaurant called Texas de Brazil that has the most delicious food ever where they just bring meat to your table, we were in awe haha. Okay cool miracles! Brenda, the member referral from a couple of weeks ago, finally met with us early in the week and straight up asked what she needs to do to be baptized. Perfect! We had a timeline for her baptism all set up and she is SO prepared. We had amazing lessons with her in the church this week and the she most definitely felt the spirit. When we were studying to teach her the Plan of Salvation we thought we should focus on the pre earth life and when we taught it to her she told us her favorite thing was learning that she lived with God before. Oh it was great. I just love seeing the spirit work through us to teach :) Funny miracle- we're working with this young less active man who we taught and then he basically "dropped" us and didn't want us to teach him. Well we both kept thinking of him and decided to drop by one night with cookies for him. We pulled up unannounced and he was just getting home from work. He laughed and talked with us for a while and we showed him A Savior is Born which he loved. He basically said "I thought I blew you off?" But was absolutely happy we came. Sweet! Took Carl on a temple tour and the spirit was so strong. He loved it. He received an answer that he needs to read the Book of Mormon to know if all this is true... It's what we've been telling him over and over and he won't do it. We're not sure what will happen with him. Pray for him please! Okay then Friday we had the Mission Christmas Devotional!!! Probably my favorite thing ever!!! There were a bunch of different musical numbers and President and Sister Berry spoke. They told amazing stories about the reason for Christmas. The whole thing was just so uplifting and I was just all smiles :) then we had dinner and got to see all of our lovely missionary friends, yay! Only once a year does the whole mission get together so we were all super excited. I am just so excited for this Christmas season :) I am so grateful for my Savior, Jesus Christ and His birth. I am grateful for the Atonement and I know that, because He came to the earth we can literally be forgiven for all our sins if we but turn to Him. He beckons us to come. Head His call. He loves you. I love you all! Have an amazing week and Merry Christmas!!!  Sister Woolley

The most wonderful time of the year

Hello family and friends!!

Well I don't have much time, so here's the quick update!

I got to go on exchanges again in a Spanish area and eat delicious
food and pick up on most of what is said yet not be able to
communicate much haha. But 'twas fun!
We had zone training meeting on Thursday and because we're over two
zones we went to both! Basically an almost all day event. We did a
training on recognizing how our investigators need to feel and it was
legit. Lots of fun too!
Oh! I got my splint taken off of my hand now, the finger is almost healed up :)

We had an AWESOME day on Saturday where we found three new
investigators. We were walking in an apartment complex and saw a
father and daughter moving in so we went up. Wow one of the first
people who actually let us help them! We moved stuff in for them and
got talking. Showed them the new Christmas video and while I was
showing it I was thinking over and over, how can I introduce the Book
of Mormon to them?? Lo and behold right as the video ended the dad
says, "I've always wanted to read the Book of Mormon." Really!? So
we're going back tomorrow :) miracles!!

Friday night was the Ward Christmas party. Woohoo so fun! We were
asked to perform something with the elders at which we procrastinated
until the morning of to practice... Simply put the first song we tried
was a train wreck, at which one point one of the elders sang out "we
are lost!!!" Haha. We ended up singing a medley of three songs from
the hymn book and it was a success. Anette, one of our investigators,
came with her granddaughter and loved it :) yay!

Sunday I got to give a talk in sacrament meeting about strengthening
our testimonies. One thing that never ceases to amaze me is how much
the little things contribute to our testimonies. Pray. Scripture
study. Going to church. Those three simple things make ALL the
difference in our testimonies. Never loose those. I have a HUGE
testimony that by doing the small and simple things our faith can grow
so much :)

One last thing. I got a letter from the mission office extended my
mission by a week because of the new MTC time period.. So my death
date is now August 3rd haha! Weird. Today marks 11 months of being a
missionary and the happiest 11 months it has been!

I love you all! Have an amazing week :)

Sister Woolley

Seasons greetings!

Happy December and Christmas time!!! I hope everyone is doing well and loving life! 

This week just FLEW by but we've had a great time showing everyone A Savior is Born. If you still have't watched it, do it now!

First exciting thing of the week was on Tuesday for temple service... a few of us got to go on the ROOF of the temple and bleach it! what a view. It was so fun. :) even with the hurt hand I just worked around it. also the weather is so cool now and I'm just loving it. feels like christmastime!

We had a cool miracle on Thursday. It was the end of the night and the last stop we made was not home so we decided to knock a house next door where we had just seen a couple walk inside. They opened the door right up and were SO sweet. They're from Brazil and are just adorable. They have a 7 year old who turns 8 in a few weeks and they all want to learn more about Jesus Christ. I just feel so good about them. It was an amazing experience too because we were most definitely led by the Spirit to meet them. AH it never ceases to amaze me how much the Lord loves us and will lead us if we but ask :) 

So on Thursday we had this big ole meeting for the mission leaders that basically lasted all day... but it was really inspiring and I just adore President Berry so much. Happy day!

I got to go on an exchange to Valencia with the Spanish sisters and wow I got a headache from lack of water and trying to discern spanish. I felt useless but it was fun :) 

So two weeks ago I talked about a less active man, Brother Machado, that we're working with and found stellar fellowship for-- Brother Santos! Well last night Brother Santos brought us dinner to the church and we had a picnic with him then went to Brother Machado's for the lesson with his other home teacher, Brother Fabbi! I know this is all over the place but the point is, the sisters have been working with Brother Machado for a while and trying to find fellowship and THEN both Fabbi and Santos moved into the ward two months ago. They are both definitely here for Brother Machado! It was cool. Sorry for the rant. 

Last night was the First Presidency Christmas Devotional and HOLY COW it was fantastic. We had our less active, Ron, come and he loved it. It was just AMAZING. I just loved Elder Bednar's talk on Christ being the light. I'm so thankful for my Savior, Jesus Christ and His coming. The reason for Christmas is our loving Savior and we are to share that message with the world! Ah, I love it.

Well, I just want to thank you all for the support and prayers and love. Always remember how much the Lord loves you. This week I've been working on making my prayers more meaningful and it has been a really a neat experience. I'd challenge ya'll to do the same! 

Sister Woolley

Merry Christmas!!

us on the roof of the temple :)