Sister Shelby Lynn Dana: Letter Time!

MOM. This WEEK!!! I have to tell you about all of the miracles that went down! And I can´t even wait, I am so excited! First off, have I mentioned that I love being a missionary? Like...I think I don´t want to get married. I just want to stay in Brazil and baptize for my whole life because it is the most amazingly fun thing ever. Ok so here is why this week was so great.

We worked HARD. We were praying and praying and fasting for our baptisms this week and were at their houses every single day! So I will explain a little bit about each one of them.

Vanessa...my precious Vanessa. She is friends with Fatima´s family and started coming to church with them and listening to our lessons and she just felt the Spirit super strong! She is only 13 and is super shy, so she´s always afraid to talk. Once during a lesson, I asked her if she got a confirmation that the gospel was true, etc., and she was too embarrassed to reply. So we changed the subject and then a few minutes later when everyone was busy talking, I sat with her and she described her experience with the Livro de Mormon and the Spirit and I seriously almost started crying. Then we sat together and I explained all of the pictures in the front of the Livro and it was so precious!! Her baptism was beautiful <3

My precious José, Manuel, and Vanessa! Profile pic please Mom?

Glau. Ok this girl is fantastic. She wants to be a missionary in Paris, you know? So we had a lesson with her this week like, 2 days before her baptism was scheduled, and she was sooooo excited, because she had to work really hard to convince her parents to let her be baptized. But anyways, we asked her all of the interview questions and she basically had verbal diarrhea about every single aspect of the gospel we had ever mentioned. I think she was def prepared! After the lesson, she took my tag and pinned it to her rather scandalous dress and started dancing around the room yelling "Sister Glau, I´m Sister Glau, here to baptize the world! When it is hot, and when it is cold, I will always be like this <huge cheesy grin with her tag held up to her face> and all the world will know Sister Glau!" And then all of her 37 brothers and sisters (not really) started running after her yelling "Praise Jesus! Gloria, Gloria!" Oh my gosh...I love her so much!!! But alas...we went to fetch her for church on Sunday morning, and she was sick as death. So she shall be baptized next Sunday :)

José. He is seriously...perfect. He knows everything and, bless his heart, he can´t wait to serve his mission! He was baptized by Filipe, one of the rapazes in our ward. Filipe is amazing too. He´s only 16, and he comes to all of our lessons with us to help us teach. He is a huge example for me, especially because he doesn´t have a very supportive home...like, at all...But he´s awesome. Anyway, he baptized José and it was so precious that I almost started crying! Gah, I love my job!

Filipe baptized José!

Manuel was a MIRACLE. He had some serious problems with the Word of Wisdom, but he stopped EVERYTHING in one week and was baptized yesterday. We worked so hard with him! We were at his house every day with his member friend, Daniel, and we def made sure that he didn´t even have the opportunity to slip up! Which he didn´t :) But when I saw him in white, all baptized...there is no feeling in the world to describe it.

Our members are amazing. Almost the whole ward shows up for our baptisms. The make cakes, help set up chairs, sing...basically do everything. It wasn´t always like this. We were talking to one of them last night, and he said that things really changed with Sister Seidmann, and then a lot when I came too. So that was cool! Sister Seidmann is an amazing example to me. She works so hard and she is always thinking about how we can improve and help more people. I love her to pieces!

People at our baptism :)

Anyways, hooray for Tiago! Tell him that I say Bem-vindo! Espero que ele vai amar minha familia...eles são otimo, e ele tem muito sorte ;) Also, you know who I haven´t heard from in like a million years? Cooper. You know who should tell him to write me a letter? Everyone. I want to know about his life dadgumit! I don´t know if I have any good stories this week...mostly we just goof off all the time in our house and I scare my poor Brazilians to death and they are terrified that all Americans are like me. But guess what! I got a ton of letters today! From Page Nelson, Jake Flake, Mima, my pal Patty, and LESLIE!! And I will def write them back...thank you!

Ok I love you all so much! Have a great time with a Brazilian! They are lots of fun!

Love,
Sister Dana