Wednesday, December 17, 2014 - Week 69

 

Hey! One week until Christmas!! I´m sure you guys are gonna have a great time together! So it´s been a good week. A woman we’re teaching is doing great. She´s still going strong without coffee. I´m so proud of her. I really think she´ll be ready to be baptized in a few weeks. We had 11 people in church on Sunday, including a family we’ve been teaching. I was so happy when they showed up. We´re going to teach them tonight so we´ll see what happens. I really hope they continue to progress. We also have this guy.. i can´t remember if I´ve told you about him, but he´s super awesome. He´s come to church the last 2 weeks and says he loves it. We left him an assignment to read 3 nephi 11 this past week and he read it several times and had it practically memorized and prayed about it. So we put a date for Jan 24. He´s really awesome. We have our branch Christmas party on Friday! I´m really excited! We´re having a feast and the primary kids are surprising everyone with a run way show.. they have to bring all sorts of clothes... church, beach. formal, etc. I´m sure it will be super cute. Yesterday we had a multi zone conference for Christmas! Each zone prepared something to present. It was super funny. There were midget dances, skits, songs, videos. It was hilarious. We did a skit that a new kid just got to the mission Dec 24 and didn´t want to be there and wanted to go home for Christmas. but his trainer told him he would have the best Christmas ever and then we broke into singing winter wonderland mixed with don´t worry be happy and then he was happy to be in the mission. It was really cute. After all the performances we got a huge feast from Pres and Sis Douglas: turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, stuffing, rolls, salad, and candy cane cake for dessert! It was SOOO good. Then we had the meeting and learned about how to know Christ and how to become like Peter and then had a testimony meeting, and a musical devotional at the end. It was a great day. We had to sleep over with some other sisters in Santiago cuz we were far from home and there weren´t any buses to get back. So then today we went to calle de sol where all the tourist shopping is and did some shopping. I wanted to buy a tshirt but I didn´t find one i liked. I just did some shopping for our zone Christmas party next Wednesday. We´re doing a gift exchange and having a Christmas lunch and watching Christmas movies. It will be so fun. And since we´re the ¨princesses¨ we just have to bring the rice and they will all be bringing something else and chipping in 100 pesos to buy chicken. :) I guess it´s pretty good being the only sisters now. Haha. I FINALLY got my journal back from Tamboril. It´s been there for 9 months. Now i´m super stressed out to get it to everyone in just 2 months but I´ve already gotten it to like 4 people in 4 days so I just gotta keep bugging people about it. lol. Thanks for signing me up for housing. I´m convincing more and more people to go to BYUI here. Haha. I´m excited though. But just one week til I get to talk to you guys! Well I guess i´ll talk to you Wednesday by email and then skype on Thursday. lol. Love you all!

 

Hermana Woolf

                             Went to McDonalds today.

                      The house we painted last week.

                   Huge fruit that looks like a pickle


Wednesday, December 10, 2014 - Week 68

Hey! Wow December is going really fast! We´re almost in Christmas already! So in the mission we´re doing something really awesome. Have you guys seen the video the church put out for Christmas? I don´t know what it´s called in English. In Spanish it´s El es la Dadiva. He is the Gift or something? It´s really great about the meaning of Christmas. We´re giving out cards with information to watch it online to everyone and we have a DVD of it to bring to people´s houses. If you haven´t seen it, go watch it. And share it on FB if you want! They gave us permission to get on to post the link, but I feel too weird about that. And too much temptation. Haha. But go watch it! So it´s been a good week. Emily and Johan are doing so awesome! They are super active. They go to all the activities and come to church every week. Emily will be giving her talk this week in church so that means her mom and stepdad will come again! Another lady we’re teaching is doing really great too! Last week we talked about the word of wisdom and she told us she was drinking coffee every day. We put a goal with her to only drink 5 times this week. We went back again yesterday and she gave it up completely!!! She hasn´t even had it once in the whole week! She says her head hurts a lot but when she decides to do something, she does it. I am so happy. I was worried she wouldn´t be able to give it up before her date, but she is awesome. She has changed completely. She comes to church every single week and is progressing perfectly for January! More good news... We went to teach another man and his family on Saturday. We talked about the law of chastity. He needs to get divorced and then get married to his current wife. Well he said he has a goal to do it. Here to get divorced it´s 15,000 pesos which is like a million dollars for a poor Dominican. Well I made some calls and found a lady that is a member that does them practically for free. Like only 2,000 pesos!!! I´m so excited to tell him. He´s gonna be so happy! AND he said he will take another man (who needs a ride) to church every week!! The good news just keeps coming and coming. I feel so blessed. On Monday we had exchanges and I went to visit another family. They haven´t been progressing for some time now and I went with the plan to drop them. But I felt the spirit really strong to just explain everything very frankly and I put a goal with them for 2 weeks. They have to put in their effort for just 2 weeks to read the BOM every day, pray about what we´ve taught, and come to church. If in 2 weeks, they don´t have an answer, or we feel they haven´t put in their effort, we´re not going back. It was really hard. I really love that family. But that´s about it for the week. So for Christmas, I found someone with a webcam to be able to skype. I haven´t asked him yet about hangout so we´ll see if we can get it to work, but what time works best for you guys? I also need to talk to the elders and my companion to see what time they are going to talk to see when I can. But I promise on Wednesday I´ll have an answer. I didn´t know so many will be going there for Christmas! I´m sure it will be lots of fun! Haha yeah our zone is treating us really good. I gotta say though, it was weird in our meeting on Monday, just the two of us girls. Haha. But it´s good. We have a lot of cool people in the zone. And we´re already planning lots of fun things for Christmas together... gift exchange, Christmas movie and lunch, singing at a hospital. I´m excited! I hope you all have a great week! Can´t wait to talk to you soon! Love you!

Hermana Woolf

                       A girl in the branch did Hermana Woolf's hair...pretty!

                    The children who were in the Sacrament Meeting Program

                       Hermana Woolf's Thanksgiving feast!

                         Hermana Woolf's zone

Wednesday, December 3, 2014 - Week 67

Happy December everyone! Wow it´s almost Christmas! It so doesn´t feel like it! I still gotta figure out how I´m going to skype you guys. But now 3 of the 4 of us in this area are Americans so I´m sure we´ll be able to figure something out. So yeah as you know today was transfers, but as you also know training is 3 months so I´m still with my daughter. I´m pretty positive I´ll just finish with her here. I CANNOT BELIEVE I´M ON MY SECOND TO LAST TRANSFER! :((((( And Christmas always goes by super fast so these last couple months are gonna fly. I´m excited to see all of you again, but I wish I could stay too. And I´m a little scared to go back to real life. Ha. Our zone like I told you is now, just us two sisters and 14 elders.. it will be interesting... my zone leader told me we would be the ¨princesses of the zone¨ but I´m pretty sure they´re just gonna wanna play football every week. Haha. But this has been a good week. We´ve done a lot of service. We helped build a house and we painted a house. (everyone I mean EVERYONE paints their houses in December.) It looks awesome though! When I can take a pic I´ll send it to you. Things are good with our investigators. We´re mostly focusing on Ivelice right now. I really think she´ll be ready in January. She told us yesterday that she feels she´s progressing toward her date. She´s come the last 5 weeks in a row to church. It´s awesome. Her husband is really happy. On Sunday we had the primary program! It was sooo cute!! There are only like 15 kids but they all did so great! Each one had to memorize an article of faith.. it was amazing. Even 6 year olds got up there and had their whole AOF memorized! And almost all of them had little talks, including Johan. He did awesome! His mom and stepdad came! It was really special. Yesterday was my daughter´s bday. I tried to make it special. I had the house decorated when she woke up with her favorite stuff... chips, twix, and soda. Haha. Then at night I surprised her in the church with a bunch of members. We ate sandwiches and had a cake and we sang. I think she had a good time. But sounds like everything went great for Thanksgiving and surprising Maureah!! Wish I could have been there! And you´ve got lots of activities coming up! I´m really excited for the Christmas Devotional! Well I love you all! I hope you have a great week!

Hermana Woolf