Hello my family!!
Oh man Mom, those pictures from Snowflake just made
me miss it up there so badly! I can't believe how long it will be
before I get to go back!! Super weird. I hope you guys all had a great
time though, and I loved Ryan's joke:) Hooray for Levi going on his
mission! Missions are fun and the farewell talk is the worst part, so now
he only has good things to look forward to! That's a lie, missions
are way hard, but they are worth it:) He will do so well and best of
luck with that Spanish! Lucky sonofagun gets to actually go to his
mission...where is the justice in this world?!
So you know how there are people from Snowflake
everywhere in the entire planet? Pittsburgh is no exception. My
Zone Leader is Elder McDowell, who is from there! I could not believe it
when he told me where he was from! I was so excited to talk to him about
all my family and pals up there, but I got a death look from his companion, so
I shut up real quick. Apparently he gets all sorts of trunky when he
talks about home. I don't know what his first name is. He only
says, "My name is Elder, Sister Dana," when I ask him. I'm
betting on Bart though. He looks like a Bart McDowell from
Snowflake.
I can't believe all the weddings and such going on up
there! Congratulations Louis!! I'm so excited for you and I am bummed to
miss your wedding, because weddings are my favorite! After being a
missionary of course. And Congrats to Naomi too!! Oh goodness, I remember
her at girls camp dressed up like a giant penguin...and now she is all grown up
and married...this is so weird but so happy! And Ray is dating
Skye...bahahaha. NEVER saw that one coming. That is all that I
shall say!
This week was good! I had some interesting experiences
that I've been super excited to share with you guys. So it just kinda hit
this week that I was soooo not as prepared as I thought that I was to be a
missionary. The Lord requires a LOT of His servants, and it is very hard
to be up to the challenge! My poor companions....they have had to deal with
some Sister Dana freakouts that are extremely out of character! But
all is well, Sister Romero assures me that sister
missionaries all go crazy when they are being trained. Good to
know!
Anyway, the other day I was just feeling like a worthless excuse
for a missionary. Whenever we taught, I couldn't think of the right
things to say, and I was kinda yearning for Brazil and just in a bad
state. Not conducive to the Spirit at all. All of a sudden we get a
text from our District Leader, Elder Iwertz, that says "Do any of you
three need a blessing?" Sister Romero and Sister Hill were
like...uh, what the heck? and I was like "YES. Oh
my stars my Lord knows me!" And it was just way cool.
So the next day, the elders met up with us at the church and Elder
Connors, a visa-waiter for Argentina, gave me a blessing that was exactly what
I needed to hear. I felt so much peace after and I knew that
the Lord was looking out for me and giving these experiences to make me
into the missionary I have potential to become.
Another! So this one was rough. We teach a ton
of Chinese people, and have been teaching this couple, Jinlong
and Liz, for a few weeks. Yesterday we got an email from them
telling us that they did not want to meet anymore and that they didn't want to
hear anything else because they didn't believe it. Oh my heart
just dropped Then we emailed this thug we met on
the street who seemed super interested, only to find out
that his address was fake. That happens a whole lot. We
face a lot of rejection every day, and that gets pretty hard to deal with after
a while, you know? So I asked Sister Romero to tell me some stories
about her amazing stories on the mission, and she had quite a few that lifted
my spirits right up. The Lord is teaching me patience here in
Pittsburgh, and that is what it is going to take to get me to Brazil! If
I can deal with the lil Pitt stop, I can deal with anything:)
Ok, I have to tell you about some of the people here.
They LOVE the missionaries! Even people who don't want to hear our
message have so much respect for us, simply because of our calling.
There's a guy, Brother Chaz, who sells Pitt sweatshirts and such on the
side of the road, who gave us all free sweatshirts because we are missionaries.
And all the people at the grocery store are so friendly, and old people
just love 3 young girls out preaching the good word! It's really
cool! The members are awesome too, and they treat us
so well! One less-active, George, is hilarious. To thank us
for getting him to come back to church, he brought us fried chicken
and ice cream and taught us how to make sweet potato pie and then
taught us a really good lesson! It was so sweet! OH! and another of
our less actives who was very adamant that we do not change her bad habits
is letting us get rid of all of her wine this week! So that was an
amazing miracle.
I can't even remember all the great stuff that happens
every week....it's so much fun. Sister Romero and I had a wrestling match
after daily planning. We ran to service at the library through
pouring rain. We went shopping and 4 people thought we were sales
associates because of our tags. People think we're crazy, but
that's ok. We signed up to be a peculiar people.
This work is true. Trust me, I would not be here if I
didn't believe it and know what it can do for people. Have a
great week and I love you so much! Sorry there are no pictures...I walked
out the door without my camera today!
Love,
Sister Dana
Oh PS!
I am bound and determined to work on my
Portuguese. We found a Mexican guy sitting on a bench the other day who
spoke Spanish and a little English, and I figured it was close enough so I
basically just talked at him in Portuguese for 10 minutes. I don't think
he knew what to do, because I'm sure I was more than a little terrifying (I
might've gotten a bit bossy)...so I gave him a Book of Mormon
and about 5 passalong cards and then he gave us his number and we
gave that to the Spanish elders so it was good! Hooray for
Portuguese!
