Hey Fam! I love you guys.

I just felt like saying that.  I am in a super good mood today!  Not sure why, but I´m not complaining!  If someone prayed that for me, thank you.  This week was really great!  Sister Fortes and I were home alone for the first few days because Sister Bedke went to Recife to get the noob.  We had to stay inside a lot because of São João and the game, so we played hairdresser!  I, Sister Dana, put highlights in Sister Fortes hair. And it actually turned out really well! You know, you discover so many hidden talents when you are bored and too poor to pay for a salon.  But I was pretty pleased with myself!  She´s lookin´ foxy!

Sister Forte´s highlights...

Annnnddd we have a new sister in our house!  Sister Andrade is from São Paulo and I adore her!  She reminds me a lot of Sister Seidmann, which is probably why.  She looks just like a little doll and has cute clothes and she cooks really well and is a massuse ( idk how you spell that one).  I honestly do not know how we could have a better combination here.  I reallyyyyy hope I stay here for the rest of my mission!

Another wonderful thing--we went teaching with Tarcisio this week! I LOVE teaching with Recent Converts.  Tarcisio has this rock solid testimony!  We were teaching Felix, who is  16  and one of Tarcisio´s friends, and Tarcisio just took it away in the lesson!  He bore his testimony and good grief, I almost started crying right there.  Then as we were leaving, he saw one of his other friends in the street and goes, "Hey, listen up.  These girls are here to teach you the word of God, ok?  And it´s good for you, so don´t try to run away, ok?"  The poor kid took off running, but then Tarcisio goes, "It´s ok.  I´ll get him later for you guys."  Ha!!!  He is getting ready to go on a mission in a few years...I am going to send so many packages to that dang kid!  

And you guys reallyyyy need to know about Jeimes.  This guy is HILARIOUS.  We taught him a lot a few months ago, then his mom kicked us out, but then he said he still wanted to learn more, so he is back on the map!  We had a lesson with him at the church marked on Friday, but he forgot.  We are not exactly welcome in his house, so we made Felipe, a recently returned missionary, go get him.  After coming back various times to remember his name, Felipe brought Jeimes to the church.  We taught him all of the commandments and marked his baptism for Sunday!  Unfortunately, he forgot to come to church.  But he showed up at 5pm ready for the baptism anyway!  It was funny...but we just marked it for next week, so not a super big deal. He just makes me laugh so hard!  He only talks to us with his eyes closed, which is the best part.  But the gospel is for everyone!

And dadgumit, those Americans spoiled my surprise!  How fun to have Arizonans in our ward this week!  We walked into sacrament meeting and I was like, "These people are not normal."  Now I know how people feel when they see me and Sister Bedke walking down the street.  It´s weird!  But hey, it was a great surprise!  Got me a little trunky, but that´s ok.  I hope that they told Uncle Brandon and Aunt Jen hi for me!  And they have family in Snowflake....of course they do.  There is no escaping Snowflake.  Not even in Brasil!

Shelby with members from Uncle Brandon's ward who visited Gravata' after the World Cup (email at the end of this post)

They were here for the World Cup, just like a million other tourists.  This week, Sister Fortes saw some white people walking down the road and was like, "Sister Dana!  Americans!  Go talk to them!!"  Well this got me really excited, so we sneakily passed them about...3 times....so that I could be sure that they were.  I couldn´t hear them talking, but Sister Fortes goes, "I heard them and I didn´t understand anything!  They are Americans!!!  Go go go!"  So, we did!  I go up and say, "Hi!  I´m American too!  Where are you guys from?"  They looked at us for a while with their blue eyes and I felt like an idiot.  When they responded, lo and behold....Germans.  Whatever, it was a street contact!  Now they know the general direction of the church too:)

I will def pray for Katie´s mom!  Oh how sad! And congratulations to Laney for the baptism!!!  I am so so happy for her!  Really, being here has just shown me the HUGE difference that it makes. And wow, it feels like last week that Ryan was baptized!  Soooooo weird.  Tell Cooper congrats on the piano and I can´t wait to hear him sing.  Sounds like he is about ready to show off in sacrament meeting to me!  Also!  Mom, I totally play the Saturday´s Warrior soundtracks here on my iPod.  My sisters think that Americans are RIDICULOUS, thanks to this music.  But I still think that we are not the ordinary fearlessly extraordinary working righteous harey-carey in our humble way!

Love you, have a great week!

Love,

Sister Dana

Batismo de Nalva :)

Baptized!!!

Batismo de Nalva :)

Shelby didn't label this picture

Us and Waldomira!

Us and Yoná

With the Carneiro Family.  Almost Flake size.  Almost.

With Yoná and Claudio and their family:)

Brandon & Jennifer,

I am in Brasil with my boys for World Cup. Today we went to church in a small town in the interior of the state of pernambuco called Gravata'.  Well we met a couple of sister missionaries one was a sister Dana.  We got to talking after church & discovered she was from Mesa. Talked some more and discovered you were her uncle!  She said thank you for the recent letter & says hello & love you. 

She is doing great & is being blessed with a lot of success, baptisms 4 weeks in a row now. Members love her!  Seem

Be back soon 

Dave

I Have, Like, a Brazilian Things to Tell You.

Wow, haven´t used that joke in quite a while!  Hahaha still just as funny!  Ok, first things first.  A huge birthday shout out to my pal Jacob who turned 20 on the 20th, and to Anna Griffin who turns 20 on the 28th!  Hope it was/is a great day for you guys!  Anyway, this week was so much fun!  And really crazy.

To start, I did a division with Sister Butler!  She has had a super hard mission but is such a champ.  She gets sick so much!  I won´t even tell you all the problems that this sister has had, but if you can imagine a sickness, she has probably gotten a swipe of it during her time here in Brazil.  She has so much love for the mission though.  She loves to teach and she loves the people and is super creative!  It was really fun to be companions with her again.

Another cool thing that happened was that we had dinner with Yoná.  This is a rather normal occurrence, just that this time was different.  She opened up to us and bore her testimony about how the gospel changed her life.  She told us that before baptism she was suicidal and she didn´t want to be a mom anymore and basically just was lost...completely.  She said that the gospel of Jesus Christ is now the most important thing in her life and it literally saved her.  She was crying and crying as she said this, but this time it was because she was so happy.  She is one of the people that I will NEVER forget.  That was a night when we went home and I remembered how the mission is sooo worth all the sacrifice that we give.  We get so much more in return.

Anyway, along with the World Cup, now is the season of São João!  Basically Brazil goes country.  Everyone wears plaid and dances square dances and eats every type of food made of corn that you can imagine.  It is so much fun!!!  We had a huge ward party here on Friday night.  Basically the whole town showed up and the Bispo hired a troupe of dancers and all of the youth put on shows!  It didn´t even end until 1am!  We helped set up and such with all of the food, but we had to leave when it started because that is not really a missionary-appropriate activity.  But...that´s ok.  They brought us all of the corn food anyways:)

So, probably the biggest thing that happened this week was our baptism.  Nalva, our dear sweet Nalva, was baptized last night!  This was definitely one of the most special in my whole mission.  We were there at her house every day to help her out.  When we got there, she was so happy and prepared and ready for baptism, but then when we left, Satan crept in and told her that she wasn´t ready, that she had too many sins to be baptized...just made her feel horrible, basically.  Her family didn´t help either.  All of them are members, but they told us that we were wasting our time because she just wasn´t the type to be baptized.  Whaaat?  That made me pretty sad.  But she proved all of them wrong by having the interview with the elders on Saturday night and being baptized and confirmed last night.  She is so strong!  I love Nalva to death.  She has basically become our mother here on the mission.  This was a baptism that was about 25 years late.  But it happened:)

Last piece of news:  Transfers!  Andddd...I am still here in Gravatá.  My companion, Sister Rodrigues, was transferred to....Candelária!  Oh my gosh, I am dying.  She will love it there!  My old area!  So perfect.  It was really hard to say goodbye to her though.  We have had 4 solid transfers of glory together.  I learned a lot about patience and how to show love for people from her, and I know that we will be great friends for the rest of our lives.  And guess who my new companion is!  Sister Fortes!  Today will be spent changing rooms, because she already lives with us!  I am super excited, because she´s an awesome missionary and a lot of fun.  We are planning on highlighting her hair today, for example.  And I am going to do it.  Please pray that I don´t have a bald companion tomorrow.

Anyway, I love you all to death.  Glad that the week was great, I pray for you guys!  Stay strong, and root for Brazil.

Love,

Sister Dana

It´s Been a Cup-le of Rough Days

Going to Church :)

First things first, I am so sad to hear about Tawna!  Oh my gosh, that just breaks my heart!  I always loved to hear her play and I had so much admiration for her.  She has been a wonderful example to me...since always.  

Also, congrats to Cooper on the permit!  I know that he is a better driver than I was.  But you know what?  I can speak Portuguese better than he can. So we all win some battles.

So this week.  I read my cuzzy Chad´s letter about the World Cup over there in Argentina, and my dear cousin, you have no idea what it really is.  My world has been painted yellow and green.  When Brasil plays, like how they will play today, we can´t leave the house one hour before it starts and for the rest of the night.  Brasil won last week, which was super cool!  We all got out our Brasil futebol jerseys and had a party watching all of the fireworks going off.   Also we are making the most of our time in the house!  Like...I learned to samba this week!  Something good will come of this mission after all, right?  Ok and please please please everyone pray that Brasil will win the Cup this year, because if they don´t, it literally will be WWIII.  Please.  For all that is good and holy and all the potential baptisms we have waiting...pray that Brasil gets the Cup.

World Cup!

Wow, we look nasty.  oh well.

In other news, I did a division with Sister Hirz this week!  Poor thing, she is an American that had to waith 10 MONTHS in the United States for her visa!  She was serving in Sister Hicken´s home ward though, so that is cool.  She´s great and is progressing really fast.  It is easy to get frustrated about the language, so I told her a ton about all of the stupid things that I said when  I was learning.  Those stories could make anyone feel better.

 

Division with Sister Peñailillo and Sister Hirz

Also.  WE HAD A BAPTISM!  Wilson was baptized this Sunday, and it was possibly one of my favorites that I have had during my mission.  I have never had an investigator that was working so hard to be baptized.  He worked harder than we did for this thing, which is saying something.  We taught him a few times during the week, and he was amazing.  Just knew and had testimony of everything immediately. So we marked his interview for Saturday night.  He called us while we were waiting at the church to tell us that his friend just got stabbed in the neck by his wife, so he had to run him to the hospital real quick, but then he´d go home, take a shower and be back in a jif.  Wow.  So...he did!  He arrived at the church and was interviewed and passed without a problem because he is amazing.  He was sad, but said that this was more important.  We got a call later that night saying that his friend died, and that he couldn´t come to church the next day because he would be at the funeral, but that he would come in the afternoon for the baptism. And he did.  Right as he was getting into his jumpsuit, his mom sent a text saying that his sister, Ise, (our last baptism) had just been bitten by a snake and that he needed to take her to the hospital.  He looked at us and goes, "Wow, Sisters, this really is hard."  He told her to go take a cab and he would pay for it later because this baptism was the most important thing that he could do at the moment. I couldn´t believe it.  He was baptized and it was beautiful.  A ton of members showed up and threw a party...it was great.  I am so honored that I got to teach Wilson and see him be baptized because I know that he will be an awesome leader in the church one day.  Heck, he overcame the serpent himself...that still creeps me out.  But Ise is fine, don´t worry.

 

Wilson's Baptism:)

Wilson with the Bishop

And then there was Natecia.  She is an old investigator that we had to drop because she didn´t want to keep the commandments.  I love her!  It was hard to leave her, but we had to, you know?  Anyway, she saw us on the street this week and told us to come back because she had news.  We returned yesterday and she told us that she broke up with her boyfriend and had gone 2 months, ever since we left her, without drinking alcohol or coffee.  What the heck?! She promised that she would come to church too, and that she wanted to be baptized.  So...we marked her date for July 5th!  That was something I was not expecting, but I am so grateful for it!  She is amazing!  Oh I just love her to death.  Also she is friends with Nalva, who will be baptized this week!  Loveeeee unexpected connections:)  They came to an FHE last night and were just tickled pink talking about their baptisms together.  Those are my favorite conversations:)

Anyway, HAPPY HAPPY FATHER´S DAY TO MY DAD!  I sent a letter today, so expect it in...about a month.  Sorry:/  Hope you had a great one though!

Shout out to my BFF Syster Clouse who is on her last transfer.  Make it the best!

Love you all, have a good week, and Cooper, please don´t kill my parents.

Love,

Sister Dana

FHE with the members:)

Us and Marcos!  He is so cute!

And I Thought I Would Have Nothing to Write About...

The circus is in town!

Don't worry, we didn't go.

Another picture of the circus

This week was INSANE.  First things first though, Tiago is gone!  Mom, I just imagined you dancing around the house singing that song from the Wizard of Oz, "Ding Dong, Tiago´s gone...." and cleaning up his room with a happy little grin on your face and merrily whistling along.  That probably isn´t happening, but it would be funny.  Also, I LOVED THE PICTURES OF COOPER ON THE TREK!!  Oh my goodness, he is so cute!  What a darling little pioneer he would make!  That really just made my day.

Ok, so this week.  Up until about Thursday, I was thinking to myself...what the heck am I going to write about to my familyt this week?  Because nothing has happened yet!  But then I did a division with Sister Fortes, and she is hilarious, so I thought, "Hmm, will this be all that I will talk about?"  And the Lord was like, "Um, NOPE." 

On Friday night, we had an appointment with Wilson.  It was the first one of the week because he travels for work and it is super hard to get in touch with him.  We were planning on teaching him the Plan of Salvation...but then I asked him what he thought of church last week, and he goes, "I liked it!  I am going to keep coming and learning and I´m going to get baptized and it´ll be great!"  And then my mouth just kind of dropped open for a while and I was like...what?!  Ok!  So we did the baptismal interview right then and there!  He passed, and has the strongest testimony!  He reminds me a lot of Messias, actually.  We called up the Elders to come do the interview the next day, and it was all working out perfectly.  The Elders came on Saturday and interviewed him at the church.  He passed, and everything was great.  Until Sunday morning.  We went to go pick him up for church with Ise, his sister, and his mom was out front.  As he was getting ready, I started small talking her, inviting her to church and such.  She said that she would go to her church and wouldn´t have time.  So then I was an IDIOT and invited her to the baptism that afternoon.  She exploded.  "What!  Wilson is getting baptized?!  No, he is so not ready for this, he is a horrible person, he was already baptized, there is no way that this can happen!  This is so so wrong!" Woops. Wilson is 22, so he does´t need her permission, and I did not know that this would be a secret baptism!  Yikes.  So then we went to church, and in the middle of the meeting, he gets a call from her saying that if he gets baptized, he can never come home.  I thought this kind of stuff only happened to the pioneers...but it is real.  So he bailed, and when we called him later that night, he told us that he wants to wait until things smooth over with his mom and will be baptized next week.  We will be praying so much for this poor guy!

And that is not all that happened this week!  You know Nalva, who was marked for this Saturday?  Well, she was in Recife the whole week and we could not talk to her either.  Sister Rodrigues and I were in a real stupor of thought about the situation.  She knows everything...do we call the Elders to do the interview or will she be mad?  This was a really tough cookie.  So then the Lord happened to place the Elders in our area on Saturday night for the interview with Wilson...and we had an appointment marked with Nalva that week.  Well, that is an answer to me.  After Wilson´s interview, we ran over to her house.  She was so excited to see us!  She sat us down on the couch and told us a dream that she had had the day after our last lesson.  Here it is:

She was super upset about something, and someone was trying to hurt her.  She called out to her son, Nataniel, to go get her other son, Mikael, who is a missionary in Campinas.  She knew that he was an elder of the Lord and would have the power to help her.  Mikael entered the room, all dressed in white, put his hands on her head, and called her by her full name.  Then he called her by her full name and said some beautiful things that she couldn´t remember.  She was able to sleep in peace the rest of the night.

When we all heard this dream...wow.  Mikael gave her a blessing!  That was answer enough.  Elder da Silva took her in for an interview, and they marked her baptism for this Sunday too.  She was so happy!  We went to visit her yesterday again and she told us that we are the missionaries she has been waiting for and that we were sent here to baptize her.

I was wondering why Sister Rodrigues and I have stayed together so long.  It is strange for us to be together in the same area for such a long time...and now I know.  I love when things like this happen.  Gosh, I never want to go home.

Good luck on your permit test, Cooper!  Stay in the lines when you drive.  That was always a tough one for me.  Have a good week, and I love you guys!

Love,

Sister Dana

Uhh, we had to borrow a blender and when we brought it back, no one was home.  That was an awkward situation

June 2nd, 2014

There is no escaping Snowflake.

Oh goodness, it sounds like you guys just had the best time this week!  Sister Rodrigues keeps asking me what is wrong because I am totally sitting here crying reading about all of the stuff that happened on the trek.  Those are so cool... congratulations for a job well done.  I think that except for my mission, the trek was one of the experiences that changed my life more than anything else.  I love that the Church makes us do hard things to discover better all of the things we are capable of doing.  The Lord gives us trials not to break us, but to make us stronger.  He really does send angels to help us all the time too...I have definitely seen that here.  Awesome job with that theme, I love it!  Oh I am so happy that all of it turned out well!  Mom, you should probably go take a nap now though.  That is quite a lot of effort.

This week was amazing.  So much stuff happened!  We will have to see if I remember it all.

First off, Wilson.  Our volleyball.  Jokes, he is basically the most perfect investigator ever!  He is Ise´s brother and is AMAZING.  Recently left another church because he saw a lot of bad stuff going on there.  Looking for the truth. He understands EVERYTHING that we say and was like, "Oh, Apostasy?  Wow, that totally makes sense!  Hey, can I have a Book of Mormon?  I love that thing so much!"  Basically everything that he does makes my mouth drop open in surprise.  My fave was when he came up to us and goes, "Hello, my blessed sisters.  I have decided to join your ministry."  Yesssss!  He just isn´t baptized yet because he wants to be absolutely sure that it is all true, so...we hope to get that marked for Sunday tonight.  Prayers please!  Oh, and another good story...he was traveling on Friday night and was at some restaurant in another state when two sisters came up to him and started talking to him about the church!  He was like, "Wait, I already have two of you at home!"  So then one of the sisters told him that this was a sign from God telling him that he was on the right path and needed to join up ASAP.  He agreed!  Wow, I really owe that chick.

We also have another person we are hoping and praying to baptize this weekend.   Her name is Nalva, and all 4 of her kids are baptized and 3 are super active in the church.  One is on a mission in Campinas and the other two are preparing to go.  She loves the church so much, defends it, and goes whenever she feels the need.  She has just never been baptized!  I asked her a pretty straight up question in our lesson on Friday:  "Nalva.  If we all died right now, what would it be like for your family?"  She goes, "Well, my kids would all be in the Celestial Kingdom and God knows how I love the church and defend it, so He would let me in too!"  Nope.  We had to clarify that, and she got real quiet.  I was super afraid that I ruined everything at that point when we left.  Basically I am the one who sticks a knife in the excuses of our investigators and then Sister Rodrigues puts some Neosporin and a Bandaid on it to help it heal over.  We are a good team.  But she was at church yesterday, so I don´t think that she got mad. Whew.

Sister Bedke also had a REALLY funny experience this week that I am not allowed to publicate, but if you want to know what it was, shoot me and email and I´ll spill.

We had a lovely surprise this week and got to go to the temple!  Love that place.  Heavenly Father just knows every time that I need to re-charge.  New Rule:  (idk if this is just in Brasil or in the whole church)  Kids can´t just go do baptisms for temple names anymore, it has to be family.  So get on it!  We got to spend the night in...Candeias!  Which is just a hop skip and a jump away from Candelaria!  When we arrived in Jaboatão Litoral that night, we ran over to the church there in Candelaria because I knew they would be having activities there.  And they were!  It was so great!  I got to see all of my old friends and the kids that I loveeee there!  Oh man, I almost cried.  Little blessings.  We ran back to Candeias through some rain that I forgot existed.  Wow.  Don´t miss that part.  Who should be the sisters of Candeias, but Sister McCleve, my MTC pal!  It was so good to see her and catch up!  We talked and talked and talked and she is doing so well.  

Look who is a photographer now....

Our Zone at the temple

Sister Butler!

With the Sisters!

We were up early the next morning to go to Mission Conference.  This was the last time that we will see Pres. and Sister Lanius!  It was so sad to say goodbye to them!  They have been excellent and I am so grateful for all of the things that I was able to learn from this couple.  I got called up to sing in a quartet when we were there and I sang one of the parts as a solo, which was so scary!  But it turned out ok I guess.  Tchau Tchau Presidente!

Our zone:)

With Presidente and Sister Lanius!

The sisters from Boa Vista that live with us also had a baptism yesterday, which was really fun.  I love that things are going so much better for them.  They work so hard and love the people like crazy!  All of the sisters here are amazing examples to me.

At the Sisters´baptism

Welp, that is about it from this week.  I love you guys and hope that you enjoy your summer!  write me lots...with more time on the mish, the inbox gets pretty sad.  Have a good one!

Love,

Sister Dana