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 

Our Conference from this week!  Look! It´s Sister Orr!!!!

Me and the Sisters :)

Us with Elder Millward and Elder Rodrigues

Elder Bassaco, Elder Millward, and Elder Rodrigues

Me and Sister Gomes!

Happy Birthday Sister Clarke!

Our Area

Our Area 

Brazilbrazilbrazilbrazil

So I have been here another week!  Hooray!  I can´t believe that you guys are done with the beach...ahhh I was thinking about it all week!  I missed the ocean and the cheesy Belmont rides and waking up all sunburned...well, kind of.  Because I have the ocean here, and we swim to lessons every day, so that´s pretty close, and the buses are definitely similar to rollercoasters and about seven times as scary!  And I do wake up sunburned everyday actually....so I guess it is basically the same, right??  

Ahhh I´m so glad that you had such a good time!  And ohmygosh Cooper will start HIGHSCHOOL next week and I will be replaced by some Brazilian rapaz...oh man.  Well, Parabéns!  Ok Mom, here are some answers to your questions.  We go to a little shop place to email every week and we have to pay for it, but it´s pretty cheap so that´s no big deal.  Plus they sell these chocolate things here too that Sister Seidmann loves and she is eating one right now next to me.  The food here...we eat a lot of rice and beans.  A LOT.  And a ton of pasta.  The members feed us every week for lunch, and for some reason all of the irmas decided that the American needed to try "paqueca" ...which are crepes.  But I pretend that it´s the first time every time, so they still get all excited.  I really like basically everything that Irma Fatima cooks.  That´s my favorite food.  She uses a lot of butter and I´m not sure what I´m eating most of the time. But it tastes amazing, so I really don´t ask!  

We speak about half and half English and Portuguese here now because I´m pretty comfortable with the language.  Sister Seidmann thinks that I´ll certainly train next transfer, so I think that´s a good sign that I´m improving!  She really wants to improve her English, so we speak more English in the house now.  Holyyyy goodness I have to tell you a funny story.  So we were doing a comp inventory after weekly planning and Sister Seidmann was trying to do it in English.  She is SO CUTE when she tries!  Anyway, I told her that she can´t be so snarky with the investigators or something like that and she goes (her exact words)... "I don´t...I don´t mean to...It is just...sometimes I say something bad...and then after I think...that was not good....damn it!"  Mom, you can edit out this story if you want, but I just have to tell you because I about pee my pants every time I think of it.  You can tell when Brazilians learn their English from the movies!

I have met with President Lanius likeee three times so far here, but we never go to the mission home because NO missionaries here drive.  It´s way too dangerous. I love all the missionaries in my district and zone, but to be honest, the elders need to work harder.  For the most part, they are good, but sometimes I think that they are wasting the Lord´s time!  We have an awesome zone though, and our leaders push us to baptize like crazy...so we do!

Ok here is this week!  We had so many miracles!  Remember Valesca?  

Well, we went to her house for dinner on Tuesday, and she had this guy over named José to work on a project.  Welp, Sister Seidmann and I don´t waste any time, so we taught it up right then and there and his little Baptist heart was softened!  He is freaking perfect...except for the fact that he tried to plant one on Valesca after he walked her and Sister Seidmann and I to the bus for a meeting!  Oh you should have seen her face...she is so innocent and cute!  She goes "Beijo Sister! BEIJO!!!" But now they are dating, so I guess it wasn´t that surprising.  Anyway, we taught him all the lessons this week and he will be baptized this week!  Hooray!

Glau...oh my precious Glau.  She is 13 and has such a testimony!  She wants to be a missionary when she grows up and serve in Paris.  I thought to myself...hey...I know peeps in Paris!  So I emailed one of my USU pals and he is sending a letter to her!  How cute is that!  But we are fairly certain that she will be baptized this week as well!  Cool, right?

We have like, 3 other people that we are hoping will be baptized this week, but I don´t have enough time to write about all of them. I will later.  The Lord is blessing us like CRAZY!!! We had an amazing sacrament meeting yesterday...NINE of our investigators showed up at church, which is basically unheard of.  We also had this guy, Fernando, show up too. Sister Seidmann introduced herself to him after the meetings, then we showed him the baptismal font and explained baptism to him, and then he started to cry and said that he needed to be baptized.  So we shall baptize him next week! That was crazy awesome, but honestly...not SUPER surprising.  I live in the land of miracles!

Ahh things are so good here!  I have the best tanline EVER and apparently it will only get worse, because "winter" is over now!  But I am so happy and so blessed!  I am praying for ya´ll out there...and what the heck, Tanner has a girlfriend??? Crap. If he gets married, I owe him El Charro.  Anyways, I love love love you!!  Have a great week!

Love,

Sister Dana

Stellar Week

So you guys are at the beach...well SO AM I! Every day. So there.  Except we aren´t allowed to go near it so I guess it isn´t really the same, but oh well.  I´m so glad that you guys had fun at the 24th and believe me, I was thinking about it!  Every time I saw a horse...which is a lot, since they are as common as stray dogs around here, I thought of the rodeo and I missed it a lot!  And the fireworks and everything...aw man.  But I´m really glad that Coop had a good time at the dance and that you all had fun with the family and now you are at the beach and where the heck has the summer gone?!  It´s super weird not to be there, and to think that I am on the other side of the world!  But I know that you guys are going to have a blast and just enjoy the heck out of this week for me, ok??

Thank you so much for your prayers this week.  Our ward pulled through in an amazing way.  These people are so strong and they absolutely love each other...and miracles are happening too.  I have never seen youth so motivated to serve the Lord.  Seriously, Heavenly Father has saved these spirits!!  They come out and spend the whole day teaching with us and are always, always doing something with the church.  I guess that´s probably because the lines are clearly drawn here between the good and the bad.  But they are amazing.  

We had a stellar week.  Seriously.  Thirty lessons, and a baptism that we didn´t think would happen!  This is a cool story.  So Maisa is 11 and remember Isabella?  She was the one that we had to convince her mom to allow baptism?  Anyway, when my zone leaders were at her house, Elder King pointed out a little girl to me and said, "This girl has never heard of the gospel before.  You need to talk to her!"  So I did, and we began to teach her and she started to come to church.  She never progressed very quickly, because she is super shy and doesn´t like to talk much.  We taught her everything, and we planned to have the baptism this week, but when we went over the baptismal questions with her on Friday night, she didn´t know anything and it was like she had never heard of the gospel before.  We were disappointed when we left, but decided it wasn´t a big deal and that we would just do the baptism next week after we taught her everything again.  But when we returned on Saturday to tell her this, she was really sad.  She had studied all day and read every pamphlet that we gave her and knew all the lessons by heart!  And she said that she had a testimony and really wanted to be baptized, so we through a baptism together last night and she was!  Oh mom, it was perfect.  The Spirit was so strong, and all the youth in the ward were in charge and a ton of people came...it was the best feeling!

I have another story that is kind of hilarious from this week too.  So Sister Seidmann and I visit this guy that is super old, and his mom that is even older. He doesn´t pay attention to a word we say, but he likes to have someone to talk at, so we continue to go over there.  Well the "lesson" was super long and boring and Sister Seidmann was FINALLY saying the closing prayer, when he began to pray along with her.  This is not unusual.  So she was just continuing on and started praying for his mom and I just couldn´t resist.... I said "Amen Sister" right along with him and Sister Seidmann stopped dead and started busting up.  Then she handled it like a true champion and pretended that she was crying instead.  I´m talking head in her lap, shoulders shaking, loud, noisy tears.  José thought that she was crying because she missed her own mother, so he began to pray for us and our mothers!  Sister Seidmann continued on in this manner for about 2 solid minutes, and I was dying, and then she finally finished the prayer and we bailed hard.  José was thrilled.  He said that the Spirit was so strong and that he wanted us to come back soon...I guess the Lord works in mysterious ways!

Well, I love you all a ton.  Things are going really well here and I can´t believe that I´ve already been in Brazil for a full transfer!  I love it here.  It is super hard because Sister Olivera was transferred, and she lives with us and has been a great example.  Sister Alancar, her companion, will train, so we´re getting a baby in here and I won´t be the noob anymore!  I am seriously praying for one of my MTC friends. That would be amazing.  But Brazil is fabulous and the Lord will always, always strengthen us in our trials.  I pray for you guys every single day...so be happy!  Loveee youuuu!

Love,

Sister Dana

Sister Alancar, Sister Seidmann, Sister Olivera, e Sister Dana

A Difficult Week

Mom!  Happy happy happy happy birthday!!  I told all of my sisters that it was your birthday on Saturday and we celebrated together.  I hope that your package made it to Celia!  Also, please don´t buy Crocs.  I may be a missionary, but I still have principles.  If you could make the shoes black, I´d appreciate it:)  But the stuff that works best is just rubber things....oh I don´t know, I will be happy with anything.  Use the Spirit!  

I got a couple letters from Mima and Jacque´s kids this week, and I spent the morning writing them letters back, so expect those soon!  I don´t know the address of our apartment...but I am in the Candelaria area, right next to the beach.  The area that we do the most work in is called Sovaco da Cobra.  Ask Sister DePaula what that means.  It´s the place that I sent pictures of.  I wish that you could see it.  In fact, I´m already planning all the places that I will take you when ya´ll come down here at the end of my mission because it´s unreal!  Also, I want to meet this Tiago kid!  We can stop by Fortaleza, right?  

 It sounds like Coop had a blast at football camp.  That´s a lie, football camp sounds horrible.  He´s just going to be all big and beastly when I get home, isn´t he?  Well crap.  Tell him that he´d better be the best of the best because that is basically what is expected in our family;)  Oh how humble I have become! bahahah.

 This week was really, really rough.  We barely taught at all...only 18 lessons the whole week.  But for good reason.  Sister Seidmann was sick on Tuesday and we had to stay in all day.  Then I got sick the rest of the week, but it was just a cold and wasn´t too bad so we went out and worked anyway.  But on Saturday....oh man.

 We called up Cinthia, a young woman in our ward to come team up with us that morning and she answered the phone just bawling.  She told us that her younger brother, Isaac, who is 15, was at an activity for the young men and there was an accident.  We headed over to her house and met them on the way over to another member´s house.  Cinthia and her two little sisters were crying and when we got to the house, the member came out and told Cinthia that Isaac had been under the water for 40 minutes and was gone.  She dropped to her knees and started screaming and crying and oh my goodness...I will never, ever forget that image.  

I guess here is what happened.  The young men were out on an island and Isaac went to go swimming and got caught in a whirlpool.  The bishop went in after him and got sucked in too, but was able to raise Isaac to the surface 3 times.  The last time he held Isaac up, the lifeguards grabbed the bishop and pulled him out and he lost his grip on Isaac.  The water was so dirty that they couldn´t find him...and it´s been three days.

 Church yesterday was really, really hard.  The look on the bishop´s face...it was like he had died inside.  He got up and asked forgiveness from the family and apologized that he wasn´t stronger.  My heart just broke...our youth are all super tight and they were devastated.  Sister Seidmann and I have spent the last few days visiting families in the ward and trying to comfort them. 

 I´ve been thinking a lot about you guys lately because of this, and especially about how Dad would feel if it was in our ward...oh geez.  And Isaac was about the same age as Cooper...I just want to give my family a hug so bad!  Please be careful and know that I love you SO MUCH.  Families are eternal...I know this for a fact. I pray for you guys every single night and I plead with Heavenly Father to keep you safe for me.  

 Sorry this letter is rough...it was a pretty difficult week. I love you all:)

Love,

Sister Dana

Hey Family!

Mom!  I got your package!! And your letters! Oh my gosh I loved them so very much!  Thank you!  And Swedish Fish...oh man, I almost cried with joy. Thank you thank you thank you!  And your letters were super sweet!  Those are the first ones I´ve gotten since I´ve been here and I forgot how great they were, so thank you!  I´m going to mail a package this week to Celia for your birthday..hopefully it can get to you soon!  I am so grateful for her!  Will you give her a giant hug or something for me when you see her next time?? And now that I have this blessed card reader, I will hopefully upload some pictures today! Hooray!

I'm such a dork (Shelby's words, not her Mom's)

I´m so glad that Cooper had so much fun at EFY!  I knew that he would, and I wish that I could talk to him about it!  Aw it breaks my heart that he is going to be so grown up by the time I get home! MAYBE by then I will be able to tell the difference between his voice and yours;) JOKES! I knew all the girls would love him. Dangit.  Tell him to always be a gentleman, please. And I can´t believe the summer is almost over there! Time is flying wayyyy fast...next week I will have been out for 4 months! What the heck!  Also, tell Hunter Musgrave I wish him the best of luck and I´m praying for him and that I´m super sorry I never wrote him back! But I just have total confidence that he will be amazing and change lives in the Philippines!  And good luck to Steven too! Aww remember when he was in carpool with us and Leslie and I wanted to hang him out the window sometimes? Good times!  But he will be great too and I am so proud of our ward!

Ok, on to this week!  It was reallyyyyy great!  We had some major miracles happen. Remember Maria Eduarda and Valesca?  Well their mom has wanted to get baptized too!  She has such a testimony and is fully supportive of her daughters and lovesssss us, but her boyfriend was living with her and so she couldn´t get baptized.  The house belongs to him, so there wasn´t really a way that she could end things.  We prayed sooo much for her!  Then on Wednesday we felt like we should go over to her house at night and invite her to come talk to the Bispo about what she should do.  As soon as we walked in, she just ran up to us and goes "We need to talk!"  So we started to walk over to the church and she told us that the day before, her boyfriend just decided that he needed to leave.  I think that he realized that he was holding her back from baptism, so he just bailed!  She was so happy and we set a baptism date for Saturday!  

Sister Seidmann and Valesca

Saturday came, and it was CRAZY. Did you know that the devil hates baptisms?  He really does!  He was working so hard to make sure that everything that could go wrong did!  The font was clogged, people didn´t show, everything was a mess and I was so stressed!  But as soon as Fatima got into the water, everything was ok and I was so happy that I just started crying!  This family is so special to me and now they will be eternal! 

Fatima and family...All Baptized :)

Sister Dana, Fatima and Sister Seidmann

 

We had another baptism yesterday, for Gabriel!  He is 8 and is so cute.  His mom is going to be baptized next month after she gets married.  I get to help plan a wedding! Oh frick I was so excited when I figured that out.  But Gabriel was way adorable and I was blessed to have a lot of peace during his baptism too, even though it was stressful.

Gabriel and Irmao Francisco

 

We are teaching this girl, Julia, and she is amazing.  Her and her little primas (cousins) just adore Sister Seidmann and I and they write us letters and freak out every time we come over.  They are way smart too!  Like, after we taught the Plan of Salvation, they fully taught it back to us...and did a better job than I did.  I know that the kids here are super special.  We teach SO MANY teenage girls, and I love it because in the words of Sister Dalton, "When you save a girl, you save generations."  I hope that we can show these girls that they have an opportunity for a better life and they don´t have to follow the world down here!  They are really strong and I love them:)

Ahh a ton happened this week...mostly just rain and sloshing through water up to our knees.  Sister Seidmann makes sure to check me for leeches every time we go through it.  Isn´t that so cool?! I´m dead serious, every day is an adventure!  It´s great!  I fould some gel shoes here that I use because my poor little shoes just don´t have the willpower to survive this place, and we are going to go shopping today:) 

 

Our Area

Our Church

Mom, if you feel like sending a package again, can you please send peanutbutter, stevia, normal deoderant (they only have spray stuff here...) and maybe a little watch?  Mine is really big and flashy.  Anddd possibly some shoes that you think would be good in a swamp? Thanks:)

I love you so much and I pray for you guys every day! Mom! Be happy!  Just forget about me, ok?? I am in the Lord´s hands and all is well!  And happy birthday to Penny!  She`s a whole half dollar now!

Love,

Sister Dana

Oi Familia!

Hey!

So this week wasn´t super exciting....we just taught a lot and didn´t have any baptisms...so that was kind of a bummer :/ But we have 2 marked for next week, so hooray!  On Tuesday, President Lanius came to our district meeting because our zone had the most baptisms in the history of his presidency!  14!  And our mission had 216 last month, so we had a huge festa and it was so much fun!  I love my zone!  Brazilians know how to party.  It´s great!  Also, Coca-Cola is a thousand times better here than in the US, so we always have that because the American elders are obsessed with it.  That and Trelosos, these Oreo-things that everyone loves.  I can´t really see why, but whatever.

 Sister Seidmann and I worked so hard this week, but a lot of our plans seemed to fall through.  People weren´t home, or they weren´t interested anymore, stuff like that.  It would have been discouraging, but Sister Seidmann and I really started to click and enjoy each other, so it was fine!  She is so great...super patient with me and just obedient to a T.  

 Here´s a cool story.  So we were in the house of Cirlene, a woman that the missionaries have been teaching forever with few results.  Sister Seidmann started the lesson as usual, and I could tell that Cirlene wasn´t interested or anything.  I usually am so preoccupied with trying to figure out what people are saying that I don´t have time to listen to the Spirit, but this time I felt like I needed to stop trying and just...idk, exist.  So I tried to feel what the Spirit wanted to tell me and what was really on Cirlene´s mind, and I got the prompting to ask her about her family.  I did, and she said that everything was fine.  I knew she was lying, so I asked her again, and she started to cry and told us that her daughter´s husband was being unfaithful and she didn´t know what to do or how she could help.  All of a sudden I just knew what to say in Portuguese and I knew what scripture to give her in the Book of Mormon and after we marked it for her, she just held the book to her heart and thanked us so much.  I don´t know if anything will happen with her...she didn´t show for church yesterday...but I finally felt like a missionary again:) I love how the Spirit knows what to say when I do not!

 So it´s been raining this week. No seriously, RAINING.  As in, we are soaked 78% of the time.  The streets flood and it is too dangerous to get to our appointments because of the alligators that come out. HOW COOL IS THAT?! Alligators and cobras come out in the streets when they are flooded!  We can see them from the bus when we ride out there....I feel so legit:)

It sounds like you guys had a blast at Glenn Beck!  Cool beans!  Tell Cooper that all his cheeseburgers are disgusting and not to eat himself sick and that I hope that his ankle gets better!  But he can totally use it to his advantage because the little girls at EFY will take pity on him and just adore the little gimp.  Tell them I will pray for baldness upon them all if they go near my brother...and the prayers of a missionary are very forceful!  I will try to send a present to ya soon for your birthday mom! It probably won´t get there in time...but I´ll do my best!  I love you so much and I think about you guys a lot lately.  Seeing these people...it makes me VERY aware just how blessed I am.  I thank my Heavenly Father every day for my blessings at home, and here as well!  How I got so incredibly lucky, I´ll never know.

 Have a good week and HELP OUT THE MISSIONARIES!!!!

Love,

Sister Dana

 

 

P.S.  I can´t send pictures here dadgumit!!! I am so bummed!

 

 

The First Full Week

Let me start off by apologizing to all of everyone that I haven´t replied to.  I can explain.  I have 1 hour a week to email...and 36 email in my inbox.  It just isn`t possible and I´m sorry!  Know that I love you still ok??  And I am so very grateful for the letters too!  

Congrats to Maddi!!! And Crystal and Haley and Hayden and everyone...holy cow!  Crystal, I have been thinking about you a lot lately and I hope you are so so excited!  I`ve been praying for you a ton too!

This week...ok.  So it was nuts.  I think I might have dropped ten pounds since I`ve been here because we fast all the time and walk everywhere.  But you know what?  It´s cool because we see so many results!  We had 3 more baptisms yesterday:)  Not two weeks in Brazil...and 4 baptisms:)  Oh I am so happy!!  There were definitely miracles involved in each.  Cirley is 17 and stopped us on the street on my 4th day here.  She asked if we were Mormons and wanted to take the lessons.  Uhhh...OK!  She went to church for the first time last week and told us after the baptism that she wanted to be baptized too.  She gave up coffee and all sorts of stuff and has such a strong desire to be good.  She jumped right into YW and she loves it and I love her!!  She´s really patient with my Portuguese too, which is nice because a lot of people aren`t...

Isabella was another miracle.  She is 12 and has been attending church for a long time, but her mom wouldn`t let her be baptized.  We told our Zone Leaders about this and they decided to come with us to the lesson.  Elder King explained to her mom about baptism and how it was so good and the Elder Dias gave Isabella an interview to prove to her mom that she was ready.  The Spirit was so strong!!! Her mom agreed and now we have appointments to teach her brothers and sisters as well :)

Marie Eduarda is adorable and 10.  She is the sister of Valesca, who was baptized last week and she was so excited!  She is just the cutest ever...oh my gosh.  Her mom LOVES us but can`t get married because the father of the family, Bill, is married to another woman....yikes.  It`s super messy.  Holy cow, NO ONE in  Brazil is married!  It´s kind of a problem!  But yeah, anyway, Fatima (the mom) has us over every night and cooks for us and no one cares that I don`t really say much, so I just sit back and watch everyone be loud and learn about the gospel while I eat my delicious Brazilian food and get eaten alive by mosquitos.  It`s a good life!

Sometimes I get frustrated with the language here, but I can`t believe how fast it is really coming.  I love learning and I teach a few lessons here and there with the help of Sister Seidmann.  She is literally sent straight from God.  I have never met ANYONE with more patience and reverence for this work.  She inspires me to do better every single day and I love her!  

I love the kids here in Brazil.  They think it´s such a neat trick when I speak English.  They want me to start teaching classes here, and I´m more than happy to!  That´s a great way to get more investigators!  Although we already have 37.  

I am very happy here.  It´s a life different from anything that I´ve ever known, but it is teaching me so much about humility and what is really the most important things. People care about each other and are willing to help each other and support each other with anything, and it´s cool to see how the gospel can change families.  We see miracles literally on a weekly basis...and our mission reached its goal of 200 baptisms this month:) Glory hallelujah to Brazil!!  

So we´re getting a foreign exchange student?!  What the heck!?  Well cool!  Parabens familia!  Tell him I say "Bom dia e espero que voce gosta minha familia!  Eles sao MUITO especial! "  With more little accent things over the letters, but I have no clue how to do those on here.  Have fun with him!  And have a good time at EFY Cooper!  Get lots of numbers and be sure to text your cow because that`s always super fun to do.  Ok I love you all so much and I pray for you always!  This church is true and MIRACLES HAPPEN and please help out the missionaries!

Love, 

Sister Dana