Feliz Pascoa!

Happy Easter!

Holy smokes, thank you so much for the pics and videos!  They are adorable and seriously just made my day!!  And it is reallyyyyy weird to see Cooper as like...a man... But anyway, thank you thank you thank you so much!!  

This week was really hectic, but really good.  We had a mission council on Tuesday, which means that all of the STL´s and ZL´s go over to Recife.  This means that we woke up at 4:30 to catch a bus over there to arrive by 9.  Then the bus got stuck in traffic for 2 hours. I was freaking out.  If you know me, you know how I get stressed about stuff like that!  But then we said a prayer and magically arrived at 9:05.  Look how I need to learn to trust Heavenly Father!  That guy knows what he is doing;  Anyway, the meeting was really good and we learned a lot about how to help out our areas more because our mission has been passing through a pretty "dry" season.  The assistents talked a lot about relating every single topic of the lesson to baptism so that people will know our purpose here.  Sister Rodrigues and I put it into practice this week and invited 19 people to be baptized!  Quite a few accepted...now we just have to get them married and away from the alcohol, which is the real trick.  But I know that the Lord will be helping us out soon.  We need it.

This week, we had a pretty funny story.  So Sister Rodrigues and I went over to a sister´s house to pick something up in the morning.  She lives pretty close by, so we didn´t take the phone or keys or anything because we thought it would be fast.  HA,  She decided to chat it up this time, which was fine because I love her and it was great!  Unfortunately, the other sisters went to lunch...and had locked the house by the time we got back.  So there we were.  Phoneless.  Keyless.  Sister Rodrigues literally freaked out.  She started laughing all high-pitched and was like, "Whatarewegoingtodo....ohmygoshwearenevergettinginside....howwillweeathhowwillweteach...WE ARE GOING TO DIE!"  Except it was all in Portuguese, so imagine that a million times faster.  Then I remembered that we can get in through the back, so we knocked on the neighbor´s door and went through their house to our back gate.  The back door was locked, but Sister Rodrigues was a woman with determination and didn´t think twice.  She busted open the shutters and literally launched herself into our kitchen.  Oh my goodness.  I couldn´t stop laughing!  I love my companion.  

Twas a rough night!

We had a really good night with Yoná too!  She made dinner for us this week, and she has the cutest kids in the world.  When we got there, her little son Felipe saw us all sitting down at the table, climbed on up in his chair, folded his arms and goes, "Pai Celestial..." and started saying a blessing!  Yoná started crying.  He is 2, and she had been so worried that he was growing up without God or knowing anything about the Gospel, and this was a direct answer to her prayers.  She called us again last night to tell us that he was asking when he could go to church and asking his dad to come to church with him too.  This is just so cool.  I love how the gospel effects everyone in the family, and that Yoná is receiving the blessings of her obedience.  Loveeee this family!

We planned our first Integration Night this week!  This does not mean that the Americans all hang out with the Brazilians, like I first thought.  That would be Integration Life.  Integration Night is when we put on an activity for all of our investigators to come meet the members and they all hang out together.  We had a great one!  Unfortunately...none of our investigators came.  BUT our recent converts did, so it wasn´t a total fail.  The members gave a really great message about baptism and related it to Easter, and then we played water balloon volleyball out on the basketball court outside.  So much fun!  We are trying to start up these things for every week to get the members more involved and excited.  Hopefully they´ll keep going!

This Easter weekend has been crazyyyy.  I have never eaten so much chocolate in my whole entire life.  And alllllll of Recife comes up to Gravatá for the weekend.  Don´t ask me why.  As far as I can see, there is literally nothing to do here, but the members tell me that everyone just comes to sleep.  Whatever floats your boat, Brazil.  So the city was full as heck!  But we had a great weekend too:)  Sister Fortes and Sister Bedke had their first baptism!  It was so sweet, and Sister Fortes was soooo happy.  She really deserves this, and I know that this will get her pumped to work even harder.

Maria's baptism!

Having fun after the baptism :)

I really thought a lot about the real meaning of Easter this week---about the Resurrection and what that all means to us.  We taught a family that lost their 5 year old son 5 months ago.  It is still very, very fresh.  We got to the house and the poor mom just broke down and had to leave the room.  As we taught the Plan of Salvation, I just felt the tears coming and it was a real testimony to me of the reality of our  message.  It isn´t just a pamphlet, or something that we memorize.  It is hope for this family that lost their child.  As I talked about Jesus Christ and the way he overcame death and sin, everyone in the room was just crying and this was the first time that it felt real.  I don´t quite know how to explain it, because this email isn´t doing it justice, but this week was one of my favorites of my mission.  It was so hard, but everything that is worth something takes work.

I love you guys so much, and I hope that you are still studying PMG!  Have a good week...Cooper...I really don´t have words still after watching that video, you beast of a child.  

Love,

Sister Dana

Sister CamaChave Has Arrived!

Ok, really her name is Sister Bedke, but that translates into CamaChave in portuguese and is more fun to say.  But Sister Fortes will be training the last American sister to arrive in our mission!  She is so much fun...I love her!  It is funny because she is in the same situation that I was and it has totally thrown me into retrograde to help her learn Portuguese and how we don´t put toiletpaper down the toilet and fun little things like that.  She is from Indiana and we get along really well, so it should be a great time in our house!

This week was a little difficult.  Sister Rodrigues and I are having a really hard time finding people to teach.  It used to be so easy, but now it is a whole lot of rejection every day.  I still love it, of course.  There are a few golden lessons that make everything else worth it.  Like, we had a family home evening this week with this one family that I LOVE and some members in our ward.  Jaci, our investigator, wants to get baptized soooo bad!  But she doesn´t want to without her husband, Gilmario.  Now, Gilmario is a solid 7 feet tall AT LEAST. He is enormous!  Therefore, it was really cool when we did that activity where you have to write down 3 things that you love about your family and why you want them to be with you for eternity, and he just broke down and started bawling.  I was kind of in shock.  But it was really great-- the Spirit was amazing.  I love this activity so much because it kind of puts eternity in perspective.  Everyone always says they want a forever family, but why exactly?  I will definitely do this with my fam in the future!

We also had a really cool thing happen yesterday in Sacrament meeting.  Tarcisio bore his testimony!!!  He was soooo nervous, but he just made me cry!  He talked about how he wants to serve a mission now because of the difference that the gospel made in his life--how he is so much happier being the new Tarcisio and how he loves the Book of Mormon and is trying to read it.  How do you not cry when your recent convert says that?  And Yoná told us how she loves the church and feels right at home here and Paula has a calling now...it just makes all of the hard days worth it to remember them.

We went to a missionary party for some of the guys in our ward that will be heading out on their missions this week, and were asked to bear our testimonies on our experiences here.  It was the first time that I thought long and hard about what I love and what I have learned in a while, and I now have a stronger testimony than I even thought.  It is sometimes hard to see the miracles when you get a door slammed in your face, but I can´t even remember the hard days anymore.  They just magically get erased by all the good things that happen.  I know that God loves His children so much...ALL of them.  And everyone needs to know that...that they can be forgiven, that they can make it through hard things, that their families really need to be the most important part of their lives.  I love being able to help people know that.

Anyway, sounds like you guys had a great concert, Mom!  I would love to have watched it, and please stay in EVMCO so that I can go watch you when I come home like you always watched my concerts!  And really, I have never appreciated good music like I do now...

Congratulations to Kaden!  And good luck to Kylie!!  She will do so well out there, and I wish i could have heard her talk!  Also, that is so cool for Jayze and Sarah!  I can´t wait to see the baby:)  Mom, please stop trying to set me up.  Wait like...another year.  I am a missionary for Pete´s sake.

I love you guys!  Give Dad a hug--I missed him extra this week.  Have a good one and tell everyone to go read Preach My Gospel!  How are your studies?? ;)

Love,

Sister Dana

At the Bishop's birthday party!

The 4 sisters of Gravatá!

We love couscous...

It is a Good Thing My Companion is a Champ.

Otherwise, she would probably kill me.  This week, we decided to go hard on the diet and exercise stuff!  It is super hard over here, but Sister Rodrigues was having a few knee problems and decided that losing some weight is the best way to get rid of them.  So, this week and for always we are waking up at 6 to go run and basically eating the exact opposite of the Brazilian diet...vegetables...fruits...things completely foreign.  But she is such a good sport!  Mom, remember when we used to go running and you would be like, "Come on, you can do it!!"  and I would want to bop you in the nose?  Now I am doing the same thing to Sister Rodrigues, but she is a real champ and a Christlike person and so much better than me...she just glares.  But it has been a good week!

We are healthyyyyy (I don't know why I have half a picture - it shows up full in some places and half in another - She's holding the vegetables in the half you can't see.)

We are healthyyyyy

We had a few cool lessons this week.  One was with Cristiano, who is a friend of a member that we taught at the church on Tuesday.  We gave him a tour of the chapel before the lesson and he goes, "Yeah, I would like to get baptized here..."  Ok.  That is definitely ok with us.  The hard thing is that he works allll day on Sunday, so if ya´ll could pray that he gets a shift change or something, we would appreciate it!  We also met  a really cool guy named José Luis!!  He is 21 and the son of one of our investigators, but we had never met him before. We went over to have a lesson with Lindalva, his mom, but she wasn´t home.  He goes, "Oh!  My mom told me about you guys! Come in, teach me!"  Wow.  How often does that happen??  Like never.  Unfortunately his mom wasn´t there so we couldn´t come in, but we taught him in the doorway and he said that he felt a peace he had been looking for for a long time.  Oh I am super happy to hear that!  He accepted baptism too, so we will be working hard for that the next few weeks.

I also did a division with my pal Sister Fortes!  It does NOT seem like she has only been out for 2 transfers.  She is an incredible missionary and literally, I didn´t have ANYTHING to correct.  Her area is super hard...so hard, in fact, that she and Sister Hicken have to make Plans A, B, and C for every hour of the day.  Well, all three of the plans fell through around 4pm, and I could tell that she was getting nervous not knowing what to do.  So we  sat down and decided to say a prayer and asked that someone would let us in the door. When we finished up, this lady opens her door and goes, "What are you guys doing?  Do you want to come in?"  I love how Heavenly Father listens to prayers.

We had a scary experience this week too.  We were walking down the street in one of the poorer parts of our area and this lady just fell on the ground and started screaming.  She had an epileptic attack and hit her head on a rock, and no one even stopped to help her!  Sister Rodrigues and I ran over to help, and we called over a few of the other people that were just standing around watching, not doing anything!  I got so ticked off!  No one called anyone, they just sat there and let her go!  Finally she calmed down and got back to normal, but we were pretty shaken up.  This made me really sad, not just because she got hurt and it was scary, but because no one even did a thing.  Ridiculous.

In better news, Conference is basically the best thing ever.  Right up there with Christmas these days in my book!  I love love loved Elder Ballard´s talk!  How´s the Preach My Gospel study coming, my friends??  We will definitely be using that one a lot!  Another that I loved was President Uchtdorf.  I will try a lot harder to be grateful for the things that I have in my life and I have a new goal not to complain or whine about ANYTHING for the rest of my mission.  It seemed to me that this Conference was full of warnings, telling us to be ready because things are going to be getting a lot harder.  We are ready though.  And obedience--exact obedience-- is the only thing that will save our families.

Last bit of info...today is transfer day!  Sister Rodrigues and I are staying together again, but Sister Hicken was transferred.  I am so sad!  She has been a wonderful pal with me for the last 3 months and I know that we will keep being friends after the mish too!  But....Sister Fortes is going to train!  So we will be having a greenie in our house!  It´s gonna be great:)

Shoutout to my cuzzy Kyle who is heading out to Japan!  That is super cool and he will LOVE being a missionary.  It is the best job in the whole wide world!  Good to know that Cooper is doing well...mom.  Please stop embarrassing him.  It is not funny, nor will it be.  You are not the one who will have to suffer the shame of a crazy mom.  Highschool is hard enough already...the poor kid.  I appreciate the efforts though;)  Just be a tad more discreet.  

Love you guys all so much, have a great week!

Love,

Sister Dana

Sisters in our zone!

With Elder Benitez and Elder Marlow

With Elder Pereira and Elder Woodland

Zone meeting with Elder Benitez!

I Need to Learn to Cook.

I knew that that was a fact, but it didn´t hit quite so hard until this week.  We had a lesson with Yoná and Claudio where we watched the movie about President Monson to get her all pumped for Conference next week.  (BTW, I am so dang stoked for that!)  Anyway, we made popcorn and everyone was all like, "Sister Dana!  Make carmel for the popcorn! "  And I was like  "Ok!"  and then I melted a spoon in the pan and was stupid enough to pour the hot carmel in the plastic bowl and it melted that too.  So maybe it isn´t the actual cooking that I need to improve, but just the logistics.  Who knows.  All I know is that I will need to improve my time here in Brazil!  Alma 34:32, yo.

Movie night with Yoná and Claudio!

Yoná is amazing.  She is really learning to turn to the Lord and she opened up to us in a major way this week.  Gosh, I am gaining a testimony about the reality of the enemy, because every time that she tried to read her scriptures of pray or something, he gave her this monster headache.  She goes, "I know that it is because I am doing what´s right, and I am learning more about God...he doesn´t like that, does he, Sister?"  Nope.  But she will get past this.  I have never seen anyone work harder to overcome personal demons.  Maybe my pal over in PA....but yeah, it is some serious stuff.  Please just keep Yoná in your prayers this week, ok?

In other news, I went on a division with Sister Butler this week!  My MTC companion!  Reunited and it feels so goooood...no, Gentile music.  Sorry.  Anyway, she is awesome and it was super fun to be able to actually teach with her! I thought of all of our lessons together in the MTC and how they were total train wrecks, and it just made me happy to be together again, one year later!  I love her and we had a blast.  She has grown a ton this year and is a really powerful missionary.  This is one of those friendships that I know will last after the mish!

Our Zone!

My one year mark was also this Thursday!  Weirrrrrd.  It was almost a mental breakdown day, because I was stressing if I met all the goalst that I made when I started out and such, but Sister Rodrigues, Sister Hicken, and Sister Fortes made it a super fun day!  I woke up and the house was all decorated with balloons and streamers and a sign that said happy one year and everything.  They also made a boyfriend for me out of a broomstick and a balloon so I wouldn´t be lonely...he´s pretty cute you know.  But they are just the best.  I did in fact burn a skirt, but not for a ceremony or anything, mostly because Leslie sent me these really cool matches and I like burning stuff and it was an ugly skirt.  Super fun though!  We finished up the day with milkshakes  and had a lot of great lessons and it just made me so happy to be a missionary!

Cheiro...it´s a Pernambuco thing.

I got to dance with my boyfriend on my mission birthday!

We are adorable.  He needs to gain some weight.

I love my sisters!!!!

1 Year!!!

One year kills me...

Another funny story.  So there is this lady that lives next door to us that is 86 and was baptized in December.  She is HILARIOUS and has the mind of a 30 year old.  We visited her on Saturday night and laughedddddd at all her stories!  Anyway, when we were leaving, we had to help her walk out to the door to lock up with us.  She had me on one arm and Sister Rodrigues on the others, and was shuffling along when all of a sudden, her pants hit the floor.  She just busted up laughing and I couldn´t hold it in--we did too!  She goes, "Ah, again!  Sister, could you grab those for me?"  with a lot of super funny stuff in Portuguese that I don´t know how to translate.  Ohhhh my life.  She is the best.

Anyway, so good to hear that Cooper is doing well in volleyball and that he has friends.  That was always a worry for me.  Jokes.  It ticks me off thought that he is tall.  Ah well.  Tell him to write me a dang letter!  Mom, be thankful for your callings.  They are the most important thing that you can ever do here on the earth.  So...idk.  When I go home, I am definitely going to be looking at church responsability a lot differently because now I know how absolutely necessary it is, and the difference that it makes in peoples´ lives.  Dad, I know that you are doing a great job as bispo.  Send my love to Brother Shumway.  It makes me really sad to hear that-- he was an AWESOME home teacher when I was growing up!

I love you all lots and thank you so much for your letters and prayers!  Have a good week!

Love,

Sister Dana

Making lunch at homeeee...

Out to lunch!

Some of the members!  Sister Dana=Pillar of light...

"I Can´t Come to the Door, My Leg is Broken!"

This was one of the excuses we got the other day knocking doors.  It was pretty funny, actually, because we got a few good ones all on the same street.  The first went like this:

"Hey, we are representatives of Jesus Christ!  Can we say a prayer with you?"

"No!  I mean, my dog is loose, and he is huge and really mean and I am too afraid to come to the door!  Sorry!"

.....

"Hey, we are representatives of Jesus Christ! Can we say a prayer with you?"

"Who is it?  Missionaries?  Oh, nobody´s home!  Oh wait, actually I can´t come to the door, my leg is broken!"

"Wow, that is sad.  Can we help you?"

"No!  Nobody´s home!"

.....

*we see a woman standing behind a gate through the cracks*

"Hey, we are representatives of Jesus Christ! Can we say a prayer with you?"

"Oh, sorry, I am locked in here without a key!  I would let you in, but I can´t!"

*man working on the roof comes down, knocks on the gate, and asks for water.  woman sheepishly opens the gate.  Caught ya, liarpants.*

 

Needless to say, we did a lot of finding this week.  It was pretty hard, because our area is really small and has passed through a lot of missionaries, so everyone knows who we are and what we want: their souls.  Thus, we have been doing sooooo much door-knocking.  This is lame, because it has never been hard for me to get people to teach before, but I guess there is a time when we have to learn all the lessons of missionary work!

 

This week we also went to the temple!!!  It was WONDERFUL!  I love how as soon as you enter, you can just forget all the stress in your area and concentrate on how the Lord loves his children and the beautiful plan that he has for us.  It was sooooo cool to be in the Celestial room with all of my old companions too!  Sister Seidmann said something cool to me there.  She said that this is how it will be like after this life too.  We will not all get there at the same time, but imagine the joy we will have as each of our old friends walks into the presence of God and we are there to greet them.  I am so glad that I met her here. We have a bond that is super special--it is easy to tell that we were good pals before this life too.

 

We stayed the night with Sister Remy in Recife, then had Mission Conference the next day.  That was so cool!  Almost all of my MTC district was there!  It was really fun to talk to them and think about all that has happened since we showed up at the MTC almost a year ago!  The Conference was great.  The Sisters in our zone sang, and it was really bad.  It got better, but I am still pretty embarrassed over that one.  After the conference, Sister Rodrigues and I had an adventure.  She forgot the cell phone at the other sisters´ house where we stayed, so we had to go allllll the way back there and take an extra bus ride to get it!  So we were traveling about 5-6 hours on 4 different buses and the metro....I know Recife really well now.  At least by the nasty bus system.

 

We also had an amazing lesson with Yoná and her husband, Claudio on Friday.  We want to baptize Claudio soooo badly, because he just looks like a bishop!  So I was praying a lot for them in the temple, then I got a really cool idea of what we could do that would touch him.  He is a total softy for the fam, so we did the thing that my mom always did when Cooper and I were ticked at each other.  "Say 10 nice things about your brother or you can´t leave the house!"  So...this is what we did with Yoná and Claudio.  We went around the room, and each of us said 3 things we love about each member of our family, then 2 reasons why we want to stay with them for eternity, then what we would do to achieve that.  It was really, really special.  It was putting in practice the reality of eternal families and reminding them why this is something that is so desirable.  Yoná said that she had never done anything like that before and she loved it.  Claudio loved it too and was really touched.  We are prayin that this will be a turning point for him.

 

It sounds like you guys are seriously living it up over there!  Tell Cooper that he is blessed.  My childhood was not this fun.  But what the heck, he is so cute!  When did that happen!?  I think that the Lord is sending all the awkwardness of 15-year-olds over here to me, because he is definitely not receiving his fair share.  And Amy has a BEAUTIFUL baby!  Oh my gosh, I love that she named her Sally Ann.  That just warms my heart right up.  You know that Grandpa Flake probably already named her that up in heaven before he sent her off. 

 

Anyway, I love you all and thank you so much for writing me!  Mom, I got your Valentine this week!  Loved it!  Also the Brazilian mail service has been on strike for like a month, so this could explain why I haven´t been getting letters.  Or...no one loves me.  But I prefer the former option.

 

Have a lovely week and help the missionaries!

 

Love,

Sister Dana

Graváta Means Tie....but Gravida Means Pregnant.

Is your portuguese any better yet?  I hope that the Rosetta Stone stuff is helping!  Hey, I just want to send out a formal letter of complaint and tell you all that Crystal has an IPad, Leslie has an IPhone, and Sister Dana has a Nao-Pode.  Ask Tiago what that means.  I think it is kind of ridiculous how behind we are back here, but whatever.  We get our 90 minutes to use the phone every month and that is great:) Also maybe the Church was not fully restored in Brazil yet.

Anyway, this week was cool!  We did a division with some of the sisters in the zone.  Sister Rodrigues stayed with Sister Seidmann in Caruarú, and I brought Sister Penailillo back here to Gravatá.  She is Chilean and super cool!  Poor thing...if people have a hard time saying MY name, she has got it pretty bad! (Pen-ya-i-lee-jo).  It´s a rough life. But anyway, she only has 3 weeks out in the field and is a real champ.  She speaks really good portuguese, and so we got a long well!  We had a really cool lesson with this one family, Severino e Doralice, that we found in this little alley in the middle of basically a labyrinth of houses.  We left a blessing on their house, and it was really one of the most spiritual lessons that I have ever had.  Like, after I said the prayer asking for the Lord to bless their family individually, we all got up from our knees and sat on the couch and you could literally almost see the Spirit there.  No one wanted to even breathe.  Doralice started crying and everything...it was way cool.  I am so excited to see where it goes with this family.  I think that they are really special.

We had to stay home a few days because Sister Rodrigues got sick.  I think she picked up a bug in Caruarú.  Pretty much everything that she ate came right back up.  She hates barfing so much and was pretty sad, so I made light of things by stealing the other sisters´ cameras from their desks and taking secret videos of Sister Rodrigues throwing up...then leaving them for the other sisters to find.  Anyway, she is way better now, thanks for asking!  I have been really blessed by having a super strong immune system this whole mission, thank heavens.  As I told Sister Hicken the other day, "I have the immune system of a whale."  And the tiny brain of one too, apparently.  

We are working really hard on renovating our teaching pool right now, because after all of our efforts with Paula and Yoná, it is looking pretty sad.  But, we had an amazing lesson with Yoná this week.  I have never in my whole life seen someone so changed by the gospel.  She is full of light!  And she is laughing and happy all the time! The best part of the lesson was when she goes,  "Sister, I could blame this change on a million human things, like medicine or the weather or the kids.  But I KNOW that I am different because I made the right choice and God is happy with me.  I am happy!"  I cried.  It was so so cool guys!  Gosh...I never want to come home. Sorry mom.

We also have seen a huge change in Tarcisio.  Before his baptism, he was nervous and didn´t like to talk to people and really just didn´t have a direction in life.  But in this short month, he has become an example.  He calls all his friends to go to church, shows up in a suit, and is preparing for a mission following the examples of his brothers.  He went to the youth camp for carnaval too, and said it was the most fun that he ever had....all thanks to us.  I know that isn´t true, because he was prepared from the beginning, but still.  It was nice to hear:)

I love my mission.  Really.  The more time that I have here, the more I just want to thank Heavenly Father for pulling me out of my own life and sending me to help others.  Someone asked us this week what is the most important thing that we will take with us from our missions;.  I had to think a while, but I know that it will be the memory of watching the people I love leave the baptismal font.  That is the very best part of it all.

I love you lots, and thanks for the videos and pictures!  They are so fun!  Have a great week, and I love that the Lord is taking care of ya´ll for me!

Love,

Sister Dana

Today...Caruaru!

Just another day...ya know....

I hate the area book

We went running!  Miracles.

Hey famdamily!  Today I am in a cute little giant city called Caruarú.  Sister Rodrigues and I are here going shopping...so yes Mom, it is a wayyyy better idea to just put money on my card than send a package. One of my friends told me that he sent me a Christmas package...I still haven´t seen it.  But we went to this GIANT fair that they have here and I got a lot of clothes...so that is very happy!  Some things NEVER change:)

This week was possibly the most stressful of my life.  We had very little teaching time because of Carnavál, so every minute was spent chasing after our 3 ladies marked for baptism,  Yona, Paula, and Lourdinha.  We had some really cool lessons with them, and especially with Yona.  She was soooooo nervous!!!  She called us like, 3 times during the week and told us that she didn´t want to do this whole baptism thing anymore....trust me.  If you ever want to make a missionary freak out do that.  They will love it, promise.  I think that I put new callouses on my knees from so many prayers!  But we had a super cool lesson at her house with her family where she bore her testimony to her friend, and her husband Claudio, who is always pretty closed off from us, taught another friend of their´s how to pray.  It was great.

Yona's Baptism :)

Paula also was kind of apprehensive, but we ended up having a wonderful lesson with her, and she decided that the time really was right too!  So she was all happy and perfect. 

Paula with her mom and son!  She is Pocahontas

Lourdinha on the other hand...she was not so easy.  We went over to her house and she was crying and crying, just wanting to change so badly!  So, we marked the interview for Friday and assured her that baptism would definitely be the way to make this change.  She agreed, but then on Friday when the elders came, she ran away.  She picked up extra hours at work so that she wouldn´t be available and we haven´t been able to get in contact with her since.  When her family went to pick her up for church yesterday, there was a sign on the door that said "I will NOT go to church today."  So....we aren´t really sure what to do yet.  But that is ok, the Lord loves her more than we do, and He will take care of her.

The baptism on Saturday was perfect.  Of course everyone was an hour late and nobody had anything planned very well, but it´s like...this is life.  I will never forget how happy Yoná and Paula were after they came out of the water.  All of the stress, all of the prayers, all of the fasts...totally, totally worth it.  Just for the look on their faces.  

Paula and Yana at their baptism

We also did a division with the sisters of Boa Vista this week!  One of the perks/responsabilities of being a STL I guess.  I went out to her area with Sister Camille Hicken, who lives with us and is from Michigan.  Mom.  You should be friends with her mom.  I have a feeling that you guys would get along very well!  Anyways, she is an awesome missionary and we had a good time together.  Gosh, I just learn so much every time that we go out with them!  Poor thing, her area is ALLLL MOUNTAINS!  I have no idea how her tiny little legs can handle it.
Hats off to Sister Chicken.

Anyway, I am so happy to know that you are doing well!  Well, not really that well.    Because Mom is sick.  Oh well.  But eat some chicken soup and read your scriptures!  D&C 101:37-38.  Cooper is pretty much the coolest volleyballer that I know.  Props to him.  Have a lovely week, and know that I adore you, ok??   

Love,

Sister Dana