Óla de Gravatá!

So! I am currently serving in Gravatá!  This is the interior of Pernambuco, and we just got here about 2 hours ago.   My new companion is Sister Rodrigues and she is adorable.  I can tell we are going to be bff´s real quick!  It was super hard to leave Sister Patino, but guess what!  She is going to train!  AND Sister Souza is going to open up Candelária 2! All of my dreams for that area are coming true...it is a good day!

Basically this was one of the best weeks ever.  We went to Olinda last Pday, and it is beautiful there!  Olinda is one of the cultural cities of Pernambuco, and it is right on the beach.  They have this super cool elevator that takes you really high and you can see out forever!  I´ll send some pictures...it was so much fun!

Sisters in Olinda

Sister Souza, Sister Dana, Sister Patino

Olinda

Olinda

Olinda

Olinda

Olinda

Shelby in Olinda

"sweet church" in Olinda

Olinda

So anyway, basically everyone knew that I was going to bail hard this week.  Brazilians...they like to go out in style.  It was party and cake and crying allllll week! Whyyyy  do they do this...but I am lying, I loved it.  This ward really is my family and I love them!  It is incredible how things are different now.  They are working a ton with us and people are just appearing that want to be baptized and it is super fun!  I know that the sisters there are going to be way busy and that is a good thing, because you know...everyone needs to be baptized!

Familia Bonfin

Last day at the Candelaria ward

I have GOT to tell you guys what happened with Mariangela this week.  She is amazing.  Mariangela is a psychologist that Georges introduced to us and she has a daughter with Down´s Syndrome who is basically the sweetest little thing in the world!  Anyway, Mariangela is incredibly intelligent.  We met her about 3 weeks ago, and she was baptized this week.  Why?  Because the gospel is logical. It makes sense!  And she just knew that it was true!  Oh she is so cool though.  She knows how to analyze handwriting, right??  So of course we all brought stuff for her to analyze.  It was sweet!  She said that I am a leader but impatient, that I don´t like to change my mind, but that my spirituality is really well developed and I was nervous about something that would happen soon (transfers....) Cool, right??!  It is like having a psychic that we are allowed to believe in.  anyway, we baptized her yesterday and it was soooo special.  The WHOLE ENTIRE WARD was there!  Really, when I think of how different things were for my first baptism here...this place has changed a lot.  They had a cake and I played Sister Souza´s violin (haven´t lost anything yet! Miracle..) and it was so so perfect!  Then at the end, Cinthia and Felipe and all the other youth brought out this cake that said my name on it and everything....good grief, I have never felt so much love in my whole life!  I know that this church is true, if only by the love that people have for each other in that ward!  Oh it was so hard to say goodbye!  Transfers are terrible....seriously.

Shelby with Mariangela

Mariangele and Sofia

Shelby with Mariangelina

Mariangela's Baptism

It was way rough to say goodbye to Messias and Fatima and her family, all the people that I love so much and had the privilege to help find the gospel.  Oh how I hope that they will stay strong!  I know that sister  Patino will be incredible there though.  she is a wonderful example to me and I was able to learn so much from her.  She is patient and humble and really dedicated to the work.  That is exactly what the ward needs!

Saying Goodbye

Saying Goodbye

Sad Sisters

Thank you so much for the letters!  It is great to know that everyone is doing so well!  Also, guess what I got this week!  A Christmas package from Leslie from Sweden!!!!!  Do I have the best bestest friend in the world or what?!  Seriously....

Anyways, have a great week and HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDMA FLAKE!  Say your prayers and read your scriptures!

Love,

Sister Dana

Candelaria ZL's Elder Baldwin and Elder Maia

Sister Dana and Sister Martins

Zone Conference

I love Brazil!

First Week of 2014!

Hope your new year was a happy one!  Mom, thank you for the proof that you have friends.  But now I want more pictures with new faces, because you always hang out with them.  It is time to expand your circle.  (Do you like how I stick this in the letters so that maybe the people who read them will talk to you more and invite you guys to do fun things?)  Really, make good use of our house.  It is excellent for parties.  Anyway, I can´t wait to try out the Maverick when I get home!  Will you let me drive it??  Yes.  This is because I have to brush up on my skills and be all impressive if I want to get married.  But, we don´t have to worry about that for like, another 5 years, right?? ;)

So, this week!  New Years´ was pretty funny.  EVERYONE goes to the beach on New Year´s Eve, and the beach happens to be right in front of our house.  So we taught all day on New Year´s Eve, then had to be home by 6 because that is when the partying begins.  Holy smokes.  Brazil knows how to party.  ALL NIGHT LONG.  They had a singer, Claudia Leite, come and do a performance there, and basically 3 cities worth of people were there to watch that and the fireworks.  Sister Patty and I, on the other hand, had a rollicking good time watching the fireworks from our balcony at midnight and doing our nails and catching up on all the million letters that I had to write.  Also, we did this one Colombian tradition where you have to eat 12 grapes in the first minute of the year, and every grape is a wish, and if you do, it will come true!  I did it!  So let´s just say that this year, we will be having many baptisms, and when I come home, I will lose all my mission weight and get a new car.  All because of some grapes!  Good grief, I should have done this sooner!  :)

Well, like Sister Patino said, I discovered that January 1st only exists in South America because they have to stick it in there or the calendar would be off.  Forget New Year´s resolutions...everyone is basically passed out the whole entire day.  Really, it is the day that no one plans on doing ANYTHING because they partied so hard the night before.  It was pretty rough trying to teach, that is for sure!  But we managed to get  a few lessons in there!

This week, we also had an AWESOME surprise!  President called, and told us to head over to the office on Friday, where we picked up Sister Souza, and now we are in trio! Sister Souza is learning the area for after transfers next week, when she and Sister Patino will receive new companions and open up Candelaria 2!!! Oh you have no idea how excited I am!  This was definitely one of my goals from the beginning, to get enough investigators and baptisms in here that President agrees we can send in 2 companionships in this area!  And here it is!  The ward is super happy too.  I just know that this will help them divide the ward and be really great for all the reactivations we are trying to do.  The only sad thing...this means that I will be bailing hard out of my first area in Brazil next Monday!  That is SUPER sad for me, because I love love love this ward so much!  The people here are my family and they have taken care of me so well...good grief, it´ll be so weird to be teaching somewhere else!  But I am excited too, because maybe I will get to know more of Brazil for the next 9 months of my mission!

We are praying hardcore for Olanda this week.  Sister Souza is SO perfect for her.  She was exactly what we were missing, and I know that she was sent here to help the work.  She will do really amazing things here with my people, and it´s a good thing I trust her to work hard!  Anyway, OIanda is having a lot of doubts about baptism still, and we have her marked for Saturday, so we are going to be praying hardcore and visiting her like, every day to help her feel the spirit better and recognize the answers when they come.  She is SO special and really smart, and I know that she would be an incredible missionary one day too!  We just have to help her recognize it!  

Well, we will be working super hard this week because I am determined to go out of Jab. Litoral in style!  We´re gonna get a huge teaching pool too, to help the other sisters start off well, and it will be super great!  Have  a great week, and I love you guys a ton!  Shout out to Leslie b/c she reads my letters and likes seeing her name in them. Love that girl!

Loveeee,

Sister Dana

Feliz Ano Novo!

Oh my goodness, it was so dang fun to talk to you guys!  Really, that was the absolute best part of Christmas!  You are all so very pretty. Did you know that?  Really though, my family is beautiful.  AND WHY IS COOPER HUGE?! I was still freaking out about his voice for like 3 hours after I signed off of Skype!  Completely ridiculous!  And Tiago, foi muito bom para te conhecer!  Espero que esta natal era uma que você não vai esquecer!  Também, espero que um dia posso realmente falar contigo!  Sounds like the dunes were great and you guys had a lot of fun, and I loved the pictures!  Thank you thank you thank you!

Skyping at Alana Canha's house - Alana, Shelby, Sister Patino

Alana's mom Leleu

Well, I told you a lot about what went on this year, but not all of it!  So on Tuesday, we had a Secret Santa/Deathday Party for Elder Firouzi, my LZ from Pittsburgh that went home this week.  It was super fun!  We had a like, $5 limit, so the presents were pretty dinky, but it was a really good Zone Meeting!  Then after, there was absolutely no one to teach, because it was Christmas Eve, and everyone stays out partying.  So we just went around to our members and investigators and sang Christmas songs to them.  That is about the extent of my music here in Brazil.  I never play the piano because we never need it, but now I sure sing a lot more than I ever did at home, and I am way more comfortable with it!  Oh how I miss playing the viola though!  Anyway, that night, we got a special invite from the Bonfin family to come over for a family home evening.  It was really, really special to be with them, because this is the first Christmas that they had without their son, Izac, who passed away last July, if you guys remember.  Yeah...I will never, ever forget this Christmas Eve.  We had a great dinner with them after, and I was truly touched how they did their best to make this year so special for us, being so far from home.  I really don´t know how to describe it...yeah, it was great.

Dinner with the Bonfin family - Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve dinner

Christmas Eve dinner

On Christmas morning, me and Pat woke up and opened our prezzys under the Christmas tree that we made out of a cardboard box!  Ok, I didn´t make it, Pat did.  But it was really cute!  Thanks so much again for the clothes and such Mom!  Me and Pat sure love them!   We went to lunch at Luzia´s, our Relief Society Presdent´s house, and then stayed there for a while because really, we had no where else to go.  She is awesome, we totally had a feast.  The people here take care of us SO WELL!!!!! I am totally going to do that for the missionaries when I´m home.  Anyway, we went to Leleu´s house at night to Skype.  Sister Pat is SO FUNNY when she gets excited...she has this really loud laugh and just is like a little kid!  It is so cute!  I could understand everything that her family was saying in Spanish, which is a cool trick I didn´t know I had, but they couldn´t understand me very well.  It was way good to talk to you guys though, and it is super weird to think that it´s like...5 months til Mother´s Day...then 4 til casa.  

Christmas Mornin:)

Speaking of, I hit the nine month mark this week!  Pictures included:) I can´t believe how fast everything has gone...ok, not thinking about this.  End of commentary.

9 months - as a missionary?

On Saturday, we had a ward pool party that Sister Patino and I watched!  Yayyyy:)  But really, it was super fun.  All the kids in our ward are so cute, and the members are awesome and we always have a blast with them.  It was kinda weird to have a pool party three days after Christmas though.  Year round summer baby!  After that, we had a lesson with Olanda.  She was all ready set go for baptism this Wednesday, but when we got to her house, she explained that she wasn´t ready and didn´t want to be baptized anymore.  I almost freaked out inside, but then remembered that this is what happens when the Catholic cuzzys come for Christmas.  So we asked her the questions for the baptismal interview, and she has a really strong testimony about all of it.  We  made her a deal that she will get baptized on the 11th of January if she reads the Book of Mormon and prays every single day and feels like it is what the Lord wants for her.  So if you guys could keep her in your prayers, that would really be appreciated.

Welp, I hope that you guys have a great New Year!  What are you going to do to celebrate?  What goals do you have?! Me and Pat are going to work on those this week when we have to be in our house at 6pm tomorrow before Brazil gets crazy...but I hope that you guys start off 2014 super well!  Wasn´t 2013 a blast?  

Love love love you!

Love,

Sister Dana

Sister's Dana and Patino "Aren't we cute?:)

Sister Dana and Elder Woodland - her DL

Sister Dana, Alexandra and Sister Patino

The walk to lunch

Random car left on the street on the walk to lunch

Feliz Natal!

I think that Mom is a little excited this year for Christmas!  But holy cow, I am too!  I am way stoked to talk to you guys, especially to see your faces!  Oh my lanta, it will be the best.  Especially since EVERYONE has been telling me how Coop is huge....yeah, that´ll be great!  First things first, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!!  I am so lucky to have the best dad in the world, not even kidding.  I hope that you have a great day tomorrow and that you get a new bike and a baptism.  Because those are some of the best things in the world.  Ahh it is way weird to know that Christmas is going on as usual back at home!  But you know what, the members are taking such good care of us down here.  Really, I am in the best area in the world.  Candelária really has become my family here in Brazil and I love them!!!  Mom, here is the info for Skype.  Please delete it out of my email for privacy stuff, ok? ….. deleted content….  [Seeeee…. I’m deleting it.  Now you’re probably all curious about what she says!] I am SO FREAKING STOKED TO TALK TO YOU GUYS!

Ok, so this week....I don´t even know where to start.  The Lord has been incredibly good to us.  Sister Patino and I tried an experiment where we are completely obedient.  Like, down to the letter.  Every night, we are in bed by 10:30, which has been super hard to do, but we are doing it!  And the blessings are coming like nobody´s business!  But I am getting ahead of myself....I have  a million stories to tell this week!

So last week for Pday, Sister Pat and I did a watercolor painting that turned out pretty dang cool!  I´ll send a pic of it.  But yeah, look at Shel gettin artsy!  Who knew, right?  The creativity only continues. One of our investigators, Olanda, had a super snazzy graduation party this week, so she let me do her hair!  Oh how I have missed that!  It turned out super pretty because she has hair that is wayyyy long and pretty, and I was just happy as a clam to help out!  Don´t worry, we turned it into a lesson because we watched "Mundo Feliz"  while we were there:)  I forgot my camera though...dangit!

Shelby and Sister Patino gettin artsy!

We were out contacting later in the day and found these guys that are SO COOL!  Ok, they weren´t super into the message, but they work for this foundation called Shores of Grace and they were from the US!  So we talked in English, which was fun and hard, and then they told me about the foundation.  Basically they rescue kids from the streets and the girls that get into prostitution.  They find homes for them and families and everything, and teach them how to have self respect and that there is more to life than what has happened in the past.  It is so awesome, and I would absolutely LOVE to get involved with a foundation like that when I come home.  It´s really necessary here too.  There are so many kids without families...they really make a difference!  Super, super cool:)

Ok, here is the funny story for the week.  So Sis Pat and I went over to this family´s apartment this week to invite them  to come to a lesson with us.  They live on the sixth floor, so we get in the elevator to go on up there.  As soon as the doors shut, Sis Pat proceeds to tell me about this movie she watched where 8 people get stuck on an elevator and then they start dying one by one.  Cool story, Pat.  But then we realize that the elevator isn´t moving.  Uh-oh.  So I start almost hyperventilating because it is HOT and tiny and no one knows we are there!  We start pounding the alarm...nada.  15 minutes later, some guy finally heard us yelling and saved our lives.  Que horror!  But Sis Pat got a kick out of it.  Yay for her.

This week, we have been obedient, right?  So here are the blessings.  The members have been handing out referrals like it is Halloween and we are the trick-or-treaters.  When we contact them, they are PERFECT!   For example, we met this one guy named Dedo that is a friend of Messias.  He started talking to us and saying phrases that missionaries love to hear, such as, "Sure, there has to be a Spirit world.  Where else would everyone wait until the Resurrection?"  "Yes, I believe that the Church needs a prophet.  After the Apostasy though, I don´t know where he is!"  "You know, I had the feeling today that I need to get married.  So I called my mom and had her send over my birth certificate.  After I get married, can I get baptized?"  Do you know how much I love being a missionary in Brazil?  A wholeeee lot!  We found another woman who is awesome too!  Her name is Deise, and her phrases were a little different, but I smiled just as big when I heard them.  Here is what she said to us:  "You know, I had the feeling that I need to get baptized again.  Weird, right?  I was baptized when I was twelve, but I just had that the feeling that it didn´t mean anything.  I don´t think it was the baptism that was wrong, I just think it was the wrong church!  How can I know which is right?"  Oh my goodness.  The Lord is sending us Christmas presents.  And really, every day that we are obedient, things like this happen.  I almost don´t believe it!

Last night, we went to the Cantata de Natal, or the Stake Primary Christmas Program.  They did an AWESOME job.  All of the little kids were adorable and sang really well!  At the end, they did this super cool slideshow and tied everything in with The Living Christ and the Restoration.  I was super impressed, and really happy because we had a lot of recent-converts there.  It has really got me thinking about the message of Christmas and the Living Christ too.  I know that Jesus Christ lives and that He is our Savior, and that He will come again!  His true Church is here on the earth today, and we are privileged to be part of it.  As part of that church, we have the responsibility to open our mouths and talk about it with other people.  I am amazed by the desire that our recent converts have to share the gospel, especially Messias and Georges, but I really shouldn´t be.  We all should have the same excitement!  

Merry Christmas, gente!  I love you all and can´t wait to see you on Wednesday!

Love,

Sister Dana

Ólaaaa:)

Hey there famdamily, what´s crackin??  Sounds like things are going super well there...and I fully expect a tablet when I get home if all the girls in the office got one!  Ha, jokes, but really, that is super cool!  Maybe I will not go to college and just work for my parents forever...lies, I am totally going back to USU.  Have I told you guys that my Zone Leader, Elder Baldwin, was there the same time as me and lived right next to me?  We didn´t know each other or anything there, but it´s super fun to talk about it now!  He´s pretty legit, hopefully we´ll be friends!  

So glad that you guys are doing great.  I am getting a LOT of letters and I promise promise that I will respond, I just haven´t had time!  This week was crazy.  We had Mission Conference on Tuesday and it was super good!  Elder and Sister Granja, an Area Seventy and his wife, spoke to us about being happy and remembering how short our time here on the mission is...and how short our whole lives are!  And you know, that is defintely true.  I got to thinking about how on September 15th, 9 months from yesterday, I´ll be done.  WHAAATTT????  And so now I am trying to just live it up every day here!  They were super inspiring though, so it was a really good conference.  Also I got to see Sister Butler and Sister McCleve again, who I haven´t seen in a million years!  That was a fantastic reunion, to be sure!  They are doing super well and loving the mission.  I knew they would:)

The Sisters at Christmas Conference!

That night, guess who came to stay at my house!?  SISTER SEIDMANN!!! My darling treinadora returned and it was soooo good to talk to her again!  I really have missed her and it was awesome to remember everything that happened when she was here with me.  We sat up late talking and I just know that she will be one of my best friends forever.  Hope so anyway.  Don´t worry Les, your place is still safe.

So Reginaldo, the guy who manages our houses, told Sister Gomes and Sister Martins that they are going to move out because he has another house for them on Thursday.  SAD DAY!  I love those girls!  They were stoked though, because the house is way nice.  Well, Thursday rolled around...and he never showed.  Then Friday...still nothing.  So Friday afternoon, me and Pat get a call that they are going to pack up and walk all their stuff over to the new apartment and wanted some help.  Well, being the good Samaritans that we are, of course we went to help our sisters in need! STUPID IDEA.  Why they could not wait one more day, I have no idea, but it was hot and long and horrible!  I am sure that we looked ridiculous, all of us sisters carrying the worldly goods of Martins and Gomes a million miles to a new house!  It was so dumb.  The best was probably Pat and Sister Gomes, who had the 2 mattresses on their heads.  It was super windy too, and every time the wind blew they almost tipped over:)  Anyway, they are now living far away, and Pat and I are alone!  But it is super fun, because now we just mess around all the time and do whatever we want!  I kind of love it...don´t tell the others.

On Saturday we had another lesson with Messias´s kids, and Hillary said another gut-buster.  Here is the conversation:

Hillary(H): Sister Dana, how do you say my name in English?

Sister Dana (SD): Uh...Hillary...

H:  Oh, I thought it would be different.  Like, Hillary Cleenton.  How do you say Hillary Cleenton?

SD:  Hillary Clinton?

H:  Oh, right.  She has blonde hair...you have blonde hair.  Hey, is Hillary Clinton your mom?!

And this is where Sister Dana busts up laughing imagining the reaction of her grandparents if they heard this statement.  Sooooo funny!!  I love those girls!

We had a super experience yesterday that I will tell ya´ll just to finish up.  So we invited Olanda to Stake Conference yesterday, and she came and it was great!  A lady spoke, can´t remember who, who told the story of her conversion that was soooo similar to Olanda´s.  After the conference, we showed her the chapel and ended at the baptismal font.  We started talking about baptism and the answers that she has had and what she needs to do now, and she was still pretty hestitant about committing to anything.  So I had her read Alma 7:14-15, which is PERFECT for this situation, and then we said a prayer right then and there to know if she needed to get baptized.  We knelt down, and she said the coolest prayer!  It was super sincere and made me so happy!  Then she just stayed there for a while, got up and told us that she needed to be baptized, just didn´t know when yet because she wanted more time.  I knew exactly when she would be baptized right then and there, but I pulled out the calendar on the phone for her to pick a day.  She chose the date I was thinking: January 1st, 2014.  What a way to start the year, right??  I was so happy!  It was awesome and I am super proud of her!

Well, that is about it for this week!  I will send our Christmas Photo to you guys...hope ya like it:)  Have a lovely week!  Oh, I almost forgot.  We have a family that will let us use their computers on Christmas, I just don´t know what time it will be yet so I will talk with them this week.  Love you all to bits, have  a good one!

Feliz Natal e Ano Novo!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Love, 

Sisteres de Candelária

Sister Dana and Sister Patino

(from Mom - I know this is a bit irreverant, but it's also really funny!)

Love,

Sister Dana

The Hottest December of my Life

Not even joking, that is what it is.  We are sweaty and nasty women preaching the word up in here...it is great.  Good to know that you guys are doing well though!   Haha I do miss the Christmas decorations a lot....it was always like, the best thing ever to put all of them up!  Here, it´s cute.  They try, but the people down here really just don´t do Christmas like we do in the States.  Some people have a few strands of lights and almost everyone has a little bitty tree, but it is so weird to see a Christmas tree while I am roasting in the house!  Ah well, it is all good.  I hope that Cooper´s basketball games are going well and that he is playing like a champ!  I know he is...because he is awesome.  Also, I miss the dunes.  Bet you never thought you would hear me say that, eh?  But really, it is true.  So have fun down there!  I am so happy that the ward Christmas party was a success!  Probably all thanks to my toca picture.  But whatevs, I´m over being embarrassed.  Gotta just embrace the culture, right?

Welp, this week was awesome.  We went to the temple on Wednesday, yay!!  Ohmygoodness, it was perfect and exactly what I needed.  It was so cool to just sit in the Celestial Room and know that everything would be ok and I didn´t need to stress anymore and my Heavenly Father was happy with my work...yeah that was definitely great.  The temple here in Recife is incredible.  It is sooooo pretty!  We only get to go every three months, so it really is a treat to head into the city.  I know that a lot of missionaries never get to go to the temple during their missions, so we are extra blessed too!

The Nativity in  front of the Recife Temple

Good news...the Lord answers prayers!  Would you believe that Alexandra stopped smoking, and the day she quit, she found a new job that pays really well!?  So well, in fact, that she might be able to move out and get baptized sooner?!  AND Messias found another job that pays like, double the pay he was getting at the other one where he had to work on Sundays.  He is SO COOL.  We had a lesson with him this week where he basically gave an Institute-worthy lesson on the end of 2 Nephi.  I love love love it when our investigators progress enough that they just teach us and we all learn together...super fun!  Oh, AND Georges is having business out the wazoo now too.  All sorts of people are buying from his shop and he is so happy!  I love that the blessings of obedience are real!  Holy smokes, this is way cool.

Sooo now our mission (well, the Church in general) is doing a program called "Resgate"  or, "Rescue".  This is when the members and missionaries start working with less-actives.  This is soooo important, becauswe we have seriously a million members in our ward, but only about a hundred that come to church every week.   So Sister Patino and I have been praying to find more less-actives, and they have just started introducing themselves on the street and telling us that they want help coming to church again!  Ok!  We can definitely do that:)  It is really cool, and ever since Pittsburgh, I have learned to LOVE rescue work.  It is so good to help these people remember what they once knew and come back to the church.

Oh, also we are teaching Messias´s little daughters and they are ADORABLE!  Sara, Yasmin, and Hilary are 12, 8, and 6.  We had the cutest lesson with them  yesterday!  Hilary is a crack up.  I was teaching about how God loves his children, and she was staring at me all weird.  So I was like, "Hilary...are you ok?"  And she goes, "Wait...you´re speaking Portuguese!  Whoa!"  She was super surprised that I wasn´t speaking English with her, it was so funny!  And then we were teaching them how to pray, and Yasmin goes, "Why do you fold your arms like this?"  And Hilary says, "Yasmin.  It´s because they are holding baby Jesus by their hearts!"  Yes, yes it is, you precious little thing!  I can´t wait til Messias can baptize them!

I will find out about Skyping you guys this week and let you know what time to be ready...ah, can´t wait!  Also, my address is ... (I'll add that back in when she gets home).  Hope that helps you googlemap it!

Have a great week, love you all to bits, and I´ll send a letter soon!

Love,

Sister Dana

Me and Ducky (Sister Patino) in front of the temple

Our Zone in front of the temple

Sister Dana and Elder Hanna! MTC, bonded for life :)

Sister Marques, Sister Patino, Sister Dana and Sister White

We went to Burger King!  And it really wasn´t that good.  Guess some things are the same in all parts of the world.
Me and Sister Patino

Sister Dana, Sister Martins, Sister Marques, Sister Gomes, Sister Patino and Sister White

Sister Gomes tried to rescue a baby bird.  It was gross, but touching at the same time...

Better Late than Never (letter from December 4th)

Hello!  So I am really sorry that I didn´t write on Monday, but this week we are going to the temple!  Like, in a few hours, actually.  Therefore, we don´t get Pday here. So that bites, but oh well.  Holy smokes, it sounded like you guys had an incredible week!  Sad day that I missed out, but it sounds like it was super fun!  I love the picture and I can´t wait to get more!  Thanks for all the details, Mom:)  

This week was really good for us. If ya´ll could say a prayer for our investigator, Alexandra, that would be really cool.  She is making a LOT of changes right now to get baptized.  I am amazed at this woman and the faith that she has.  She is giving up smoking, which is SUPER hard for her because she has smoked for thirty years.  We decided that this would be the week that she gave it all up, so last week Sister Patino and I went over there and talked to her a lot about faith.  I guess it was a really good lesson, because we were getting into it and at the end, I was like, "Alexandra, do you have faith?"  And she goes, "Yeah...I think so."  And I said, "No, Alexandra, DO YOU HAVE FAITH?!"  and I think I got way to excited because she yells to her boyfriend, "Bertinho!  Dana is getting nervous!"  But yeah, she did have faith!  It was super funny, and we all started laughing after and apparently I am now the Baptist Sister.  Oh gloria!

I was super relieved that I will stay here for this next transfer!  I was ready to head out at first, but then I realized how much it would stink to go to a new area with completely new people just in time for Christmas. I love the people here in Candelária...seriously, they are like my family.  But I guess after 6 months in one area, that is bound to happen, eh?  Seriously though, the members are amazing and help us out so much and I just love them to death.  Also, I reallyyyyyy hate having to pack up and leave, so that was a blessed relief.

In other news, we had a wonderful surprise on Sunday!  After he was confirmed, both Georges and Messias received the priesthood!  It was so so cool!  And then Messias was called to be the Young Men´s secretary and he was pretty much giddy with excitement.  YAY!!!  And he brought his three daughters to church with him.  They loved it, and they will start taking lessons from us this next week I think. When we told him that he can baptize them now, he almost started crying.  I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY.

We did an FHE on Monday with some of the families in the ward, and the sisters are always in charge of the games.  So this week, I taught them all how to play sister missionary tag, and that was great.  I love how ALL they youth get into it and are not afraid to mess around and be silly!  And I´m pretty sure they got a kick out of seeing the sisters running around with their dresses flying everywhere, so that was real cute.

Well, have a great week guys, and I hope that ya´ll are absolutely intoxicated with the Christmas spirit!  It doesn´t feel like Christmas a bit down here, but that is ok, I have a pine tree candle:)  I love you all so much!!!

Love,

Sister Dana