Proud to Be an American- and a Missionary

Happy Memorial Day :) to start off the day I thought I'd share an
AMAZING scripture that I thought of this morning at our Ward's pancake
breakfast/Memorial Day celebration.
Alma 46: 12, 15-16
"And it came to pass that he rent his coat; and he took a piece
thereof, and wrote upon it--In memory of our God, our religion, and
freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children...
And those who did belong to the church were faithful; yea, all those
who were true believers in Christ took upon them, gladly, the name of
Christ, or Christians as they were called, because of their belief in
Christ who should come.
And therefore, at this time, Moroni prayed that the cause of the
Christians, and the freedom of the land might be favored."
I'm thankful for all those we have fought for our freedom, especially
that of religious freedom which makes spreading the gospel possible!

So this week we had zone conference woo! It was way down in Vero
Beach. It was AWESOME. I gave a training again which is always good
fun :) we have new pamphlets out! One about family history and the
temple and one about serving in the church. So that's what I trained
on. I love zone conference. It was President Berry's last time so I
cried... And he called me out on it from the podium haha ("sister
Woolley, don't look at me like that!" As he starts crying too, oops.)
I am so grateful for a wonderful mission president and his wife and I
won't ever forget them.

On Wednesday I was in Palm Bay for exchanges! I feel like I'm hardly
in my own area sometimes ha. I was with Sister Jarvis who took my
place in Belleview back in November so we had a great time talking
about that! Lots of adventures and found some awesome people in their
area :)

Then more exchanges on Saturday! I was with Sister Nielsen and we had
a blast! She and I were in the same district while we were in training
over a year ago so that was so fun to be together. She goes home at
the end of this transfer. I'm pretty sure we're related too because my
Nielsen ancestors are from Denmark and so is her family.. Hmm :)

We got to paint a house for a referral who moved in! That was a lot of
fun. We're going back Friday and hoping to teach her and her family.

Updates on people! Nicole is doing AMAZING!! She is soaking up the
gospel and loving every bit of it :) she came to church for the first
time yesterday and after taking the sacrament she said she felt 20
pounds lighter :) there's power in the Atonement of Jesus Christ and
His restored gospel!! She can't wait for her baptism. Please keep
praying for her!

Also the Ward officially split so we are now covering the Satellite
Beach Ward woohoo! Which means we had to steal one of the elders'
investigators who is on date for baptism. Super cute lady we get to
work with now.

I hope you all have a fantastic week. Thanks for all the support and
love. Don't forget to smile! God loves you more than you know ❤️

Sister Woolley

FTS - Follow the Spirit

Hello family and friends!!

Another glorious week has flown by. I hope you all are happy and well
:) I think I say it every week but we saw SO many miracles I don't
even know where to begin! This area is really picking up and we have
found so many people to teach we're praying hard to help them all
progress!

So on Tuesday we had exchanges with the Vero Beach sisters which was
awesome!! We drove down A1A, the highway right along the coast which
was beautiful. I spent the day there with Sister Evans who is in her
second transfer of training and is a boss. We had a ton of fun
together :) she just loves the people and we met a lot of cool people.
One even being a lady walking out of the restroom and I wasn't really
thinking but knew I wanted to talk to her so just called out "have you
heard about the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints!?" and
turns out she wants to come to church haha. D&C 33, all you gotta do
is open your mouth :) part of these events contained a tornado warning
text from our mission president in the middle of the day telling us to
get inside and basically hide in the closet till it passed. So we did
just that. The rain came down hard but nothing happened (don't worry
momma!). He gave us the okay so we went out proselyting again on the
beach side. We were riding bikes and lo and behold the rain came
POURING down again. So we got drenched... Which is so fun!

We did a lot of service this week and my testimony of service was
strengthen because of it. Heavenly Father pours down so many miracles
when we do service!

Fun fact. On Sunday we were ready to get a new bishop because the
current one is moving to Utah. Well, the stake president gets up there
and beings to read a letter from the First Presidency-- the Ward is
being SPLIT! So they called 2 new bishops, one of the Melbourne Ward
and one of the new Satellite Beach Ward (which I think will be our
area now) so that was crazy! Not sure what we're going to do but
that's alright, change is great!

So, biggest miracle this week. I love tracting and finding, not sure
if I've ever said that before. I've seen the coolest things happen
from tracting (especially tracting around less active members for some
cool reason). Well on Saturday we did a little tracting and went to a
clump of houses I felt inspired to knock, no one answered. Then as we
were walking back we almost walked by another house but we stopped and
went up to it. A woman, Nicole, answered. We told her what we do and
she said she's searching. She invited us back on Sunday. So Sunday
evening we walk in and she has the Restoration pamphlet we gave her
open on her table and her Bible AND THE RESTORATION HOUR LONG MOVIE
PLAYING ON HER TV. And she wasn't doing it just for show. We had one
of he most spiritual lessons of my mission and she accepted baptism
with no hesitation. Holy cow. Words can't even describe. SO COOL. So
please pray for her, because the adversary is going to work hard
against her.

The Lord is so sweet. I try every day to act on the promptings that
come from the Spirit and it's amazing because the Lord has PROMISED
that He will be right here with us. I know He is. He loves us dearly.
Never forget that!

I think one of my favorite things is knowing that by following the
spirit I can be an instrument in the Lord's hands. I saw that a lot
this week. He led us to people who are needing healing and peace, the
healing that comes only through the Atonement of our dear Savior,
Jesus Christ. We have this to offer. We have this to promise people,
if they will open their hearts to it, it's their's.

I love you all. Thanks for the support and love. I'd love to hear from
each of you on how everything is going!

Love,
Sister Woolley

Sister Quist and I :)

dolphins!

goats lol :)

Sister Evans and I on exchanges... soaked! 

and with Sister Quist :) 

Beachside Missionaries

Hi everyone!!

I hope you've all had a fantastic week :) well, I'm over here in
Melbourne, literally right on the coast! So far I've gotten to see
jumping dish and dolphins in a "river" that connects with the ocean
woah! That was cool. Our area is TINY and all the houses are walking
distance to the beach. How crazy!

Last Monday night we spent saying goodbye to all those in Olympia.
Holy cow that Ward is amazing and I'll miss them! Then Tuesday morning
a member drove me to Melbourne! Over an hour of a drive but it was
beautiful. This week was kind of a blur getting all situated haha. I
haven't been transferred in 6 months so woah what a change! I'm
beginning to love the members and people here :)

My companion is sister Quist from South Jordan, UT. She came out with
my trainee Sister Rytting! She's new at being an STL so it's fun to
show her how it goes. She's super talented musically and has a
powerful testimony :) We went to Cocoa ZTM on Wednesday Vero Beach ZTM
on Thursday to give trainings so that was fun! It was a super long
drive to Vero beach but it's also beautiful down there!

Some cool things that happened...
We have this awesome investigator Venita who just had her first baby
on Wednesday! So we went to see her in the hospital. What a sweet
heart :) the little baby was 11 days overdue! Venita is amazing. She's
already read the Book of Mormon through and she's on her second time,
already in Mosiah! (Reminds me of Gary Gallup actually :) I miss
them!). Her baptism will be next month, so that's exciting!!

We spent a lot of time finding this week and talked to some amazing
people. I'm excited to work with the Ward here to get them sharing the
gospel with their friends! Two high councilmen came on Sunday to speak
and gave awesome talks on missionary work. Woohoo!

I want to invite you all to invite a friend to church this week.
There's no greater joy than in sharing the gospel :)
Also, I was reading this morning in Helaman 3 and I just love verse
35, "Nevertheless they did fast and pray oft, and did wax stronger and
stronger in their humility, and firmer and firmer in the faith of
Christ, unto the filling their souls with joy and consolation, yea,
even to the purifying and the sanctification of their hearts, which
sanctification cometh because of their yielding their hearts unto
God."

I love you all! I'm praying for you and I know that the Lord loves
you. Keep going strong!!

Sister Woolley

Farewell Olympia

Hey there!!

I hope y'all had an awesome week and a super special Mothers' Day :)
just a shoutout to my fantastic mother. I am so grateful to her for
her hard work and love. Thank you momma for raising me in this
wonderful gospel and teaching me all I know. I love you!!
And a thank you to all the other amazing women out there. Your
influence has shaped me to become who I am today. Thank you!!

And as Elder Holland stated, "Be peaceful. Believe in God and
yourself. You are doing better than you think you are. In fact, you
are saviors on Mount Zion, and like the Master you follow, your love
‘never faileth" ️

So. What a fantastic week. What an amazing transfer. What a wonderful
past 6 months. Holy cow. I've learned so so much here in Olympia. As
you may have guessed, tomorrow is transfer day and yes, I am sadly
being transferred. I have LOVED my time here on Olympia with my whole
heart and I am extremely grateful for the many opportunities I had to
hear my testimony with power and authority and to influence and be
influenced by the amazing people here in Orlando. They truly are
remarkable. I adore this Ward and everything about it! I'll miss being
by the temple every single day. I'm thankful for the companions I've
had in this area and all they taught me. I'm especially grateful for
sister O'Hara for making this transfer a phenomenal one! We have had
SO much fun. I just can't even begin to describe all of our adventures
together.. But I can try!!

We've worked so hard this last transfer and have seen SO many miracles!!
I'll jump to Friday night real quick. Friday night everything seemed
to fall about down to the member bailing last minute for our lesson
with Alaila. Argh. But we knew the adversary was trying to get us down
so instead we used our time well and marched around that neighborhood
knocking on almost every door and talking to every person we could
see. In return, we found a single mother who seems like she's going
through a hard time and she invited us back. The Lord has His ways!
Then on Saturday we were ready to work as hard as every and heck yes
we did. We taught everyone we saw and the Lord placed some amazing
people into our paths. Random side track: the Lord trusts His
missionaries so much and it's incredible! I'm very grateful for that
too :)

On to the people I get so excited about...
Bill is doing fantastic. He scared us so bad at the beginning of the
week though! He disappeared for 48 hours and we couldn't get in
contact with him (which is very unlike him!). Turns out he had gone to
the hospital, yikes. But all is well and he's good to go. He just
needs to take it easy. We're hoping to get him to the temple this
week!!

Alaila just makes me so happy :) she came to church yesterday again!
And she's already planning on going to girls camp with the young women
:) Her mom came too!!! Her mom hasn't been in months because of a bad
car accident BUT SHE CAME. That was really exciting. Alaila is a doll
and I will miss her so much when I go.

Jaime also is just amazing! She went out of town for the week for work
but we got to have lessons over Skype which has been awesome! We had a
cool experience when we taught her the Gospel of Jesus Christ and
taught her how to repent. That's always a really spiritual experience.
We invited her to begin repenting daily because we ALL need to be
doing that. And she did! The next lesson she shared her experience and
how she felt so good when she repented, just of the small things too.
I know the Savior can and will help us through any trial no matter how
big or small it is. So, I invite each of you to begin repenting daily
if you are not already! The best way to draw near Jesus Christ and
come to know Him is by using His Atonement daily.

Really we continue to have miraculous experiences each and every day 

and I'm pumped for what this new transfer holds!! 

Thanks for all of your support and love. I love each and every one of you!!

Sister Woolley

Pictures:

Bill! of course. He picked flowers for us :)

And Alaila... she wouldn't look at the camera. She's adorable 

the gospel does change lives

Howdy do!

Happy May y'all!! I thank each of you for your prayers and support, I
hope you all are doing well.

The excitement of the week: BILL GOT BAPTIZED! Leading up to it we had
some of the sweetest experiences :) For instance, the night before we
brought over his new home teacher and his wife, the Scotts (Who, no
big deal, is the brother of THE Richard G. Scott, apostle of the
Lord!!!) to meet him and have a short lesson. We read from 3 Nephi 11
about the coming of Jesus Christ and Bill just kept saying how excited
he was to be baptized and how grateful he was that he has found the
gospel. Brother Scott gave him a priesthood blessing and I couldn't
stop crying, the spirit was so so strong. Saturday evening was his
baptism. He showed up a little late but got suited up in no time but
then the font wasn't all the way filled! (The plug wasn't all the way
in... Oops) So the first man giving a talk took a veryy long time to
speak so as to stall so the font could fill. Haha. Sister O'Hara and I
sang "Nearer, My God to Thee" which was one of Bill's favorites. And
then the baptism was perfect :) How cool, to see an 83 year old man
change his life and join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day
Saints. Wow. He felt the spirit testify to him that Joseph Smith was a
prophet and the Book of Mormon is the word of God. "What greater
witness can you have than from God" (D&C 6:23). The Ward completely
embraced him and will take good care of him. How grateful I am that
the Lord allowed me to be a part of this brother's conversion :)

I could just stop here after that. But on to further news:
We had interviews with President Berry on Tuesday :) I just love him
so much! He's finishing his mission in 7 weeks and that just breaks my
heart. I'm so grateful to have such an amazing mission president! He
has helped me so much over the course of my mission.

Alaila, the 15 year old investigator, is doing fantastic. She already
has a testimony and is so smart! She and her family are from Jamaica
so she's got a cute accent. But we found out this week that the first
time she met us, apparently she had almost no idea what we were
saying! She laughs and shakes her head and says "Americans..." Haha!
So funny cause we're thinking the same about their accents :)

Jamie is also doing amazing!! She came to church again. She's doing
out of town but she said "I will only have to miss one Sunday and
that's it!" Wow. We had her over at a member's for lunch and the
member helped answer tons of questions and basically taught her the
whole Plan of Salvation plus deep doctrine haha. She is loving all of
it though :)

While at lunch with this member he pulled out a guitar and started playing 

a rock version of "popcorn poppin" haha! We laughed so hard.

Sorry this one is so short. I am so so grateful for the marvelous 

opportunity Heavenly Father has given me to serve this mission. I 

am so grateful for the amazing people I've met and the experiences 

I've had. I know without a doubt that Jesus Christ is our Savior and it is 

ONLY through Him and obedience to His gospel that we can and will be saved.

I hope you have a wonderful week!


Sister Woolley

Pictures:

Bill at his baptism! <3

our district. fun fun