I Hope this Next Baptism Will Be Ise...

Pronounced "Easy".  Get it??  Probably not, because I haven´t told the story yet.  But I will right now!  Ready, go.  So Ise is this girl that is dating one of the less active guys here, Jonas.  Marilza, Jonas´s mom, is a recent convert that I adore.  I have NEVER met anyone with such a desire to share the gospel.  And that includes missionaries.  This lady is the best.  Seriously, you go into her house and you know who Joseph Smith is.  Her daughter, Jo, had a cold the other day and Marilza goes, "Jo!  Have more faith!  If you had more faith, you wouldn´t have a cold!"  Loveee her!  So anyway, she is so sad that her son, Jonas, is less active and wants to do everything that she possibly can to help him come back.  So when he got a girlfriend a few weeks ago, the first thing she did was call us over!  This week, we have been teaching Ise nonstop.  It is wonderful!  She feels the Spirit so strongly and says that she knows that God is listening when she prays.  When we taught her the Restoration with Marilza...oh man, it was so cool.  Marilza just was bawling the whole time and she said, "Every time I hear the story of this vision, I just cry!!"  Ise came to church with Marilza this week and we have her baptism marked for next week. Oh I am praying so hard that it happens!  I can only imagine what the work would be like if all members were like unto Marilza.  (BoM junkies will get that...) She is well known for saying, "These churches...everyone just doesn´t understand!  Why don´t they all just get baptized into the true church of Jesus Christ?!" I want to just carry her around with me in my pocket.  Also she makes WONDERFUL lasagna.

We invited our recent convert, Paula, to come teach a lesson with us this week too.  It was one of my favorite lessons of my mission, I think.  It wasn´t super profound, and the lady we taught doesn´t even want us to come back.  But Paula bore her testimony and I felt the Spirit SO STRONGLY in the room that I almost started to cry right there.  As we left, I just got this feeling of how much Heavenly Father loved Paula and how happy He was that she got baptized and got that much closer to coming home to Him.  She now has two callings and said the prayer in church yesterday:)  I think that we baptized an angel, I really do.

Unfortunately, we are going to have to stop teaching José Luis.  This makes me so so so sad, because he knows everything is true and has a desire to make changes.  The problem is that his natural man is stronger than his desire to change I guess.  He won´t come to church or anything anymore, which broke my heart.  We taught him the Plan of Salvation on Saturday night and I just couldn´t believe all of the deep insight that he had and the way that he understood everything so easily.  At the end of the lesson, he told us that he had a dream about us.  He said that in the dream, he walked into the church and we were there, but the inside of the church was different and everyone was all dressed in white.  He then proceeded to describe the inside of the Recife Temple and said thata guy in a suit came over to him and gave him a hug and said, "You are safe here."  I was pretty blown away by that one.  Another proof that this gospel is soooo true.  It just makes me sad when people are given testimony after testimony and...well, you know, now is just probably not his time.

In happier news, I WENT TO A WEDDING!!!!!  That´s right, first one of my life.  It was so great!  Gosh, I love weddings.  Nandara and Jadson got married!!  Oh goodness, I almost just cried.  They are so dang cute and I took a ton of pictures!  It was really simple, just us and their family in the Bishop´s office, but the Spirit was there and now they are preparing for sealing in a year and all will be dandy!  Have I mentioned how I love weddings?  One of the highlights of the mission, fo sho!

Amanda and Eduardo, the testimonies

Jadson and his mommy:)

Nandara and her mom

We got to walk too!

How precious...ohmygosh I am dying...

I <3 WEDDINGS.

I <3 WEDDINGS.

I <3 WEDDINGS.

Us with the newlyweds!!  Ahhh!!!!

Us with the newlyweds!!  Ahhh!!!!

Cooper, about the patriarchal blessing.  I have gained the biggest testimony of those things out here.  It isn´t some voodoo fortune teller garbage.  That stuff is not real.  Patriarchal blessings are given to help remind us of the potential that we have, not just in this life, but in eternity.  Our Heavenly Father knew us from the very beginning and knows our personalities and weaknesses.  He knows exactly how to help us and these blessings are a proof of that.  Many, many times, I have found so much comfort in knowing that when everything seems to be going wrong, I have a guide to keep me centered and focused on the real goal: the Celestial Kingdom.  Knowing my divine nature has given me a huge desire to help other people learn theirs.  Imagine how the world would be different if all of God´s children knew where they come from and what He has planned for them?  They wouldn´t make nearly as many mistakes, that´s for sure.  Also, Show Choir?  Oh man.  Well, we have to try out all sorts of stuff, don´t we?

Anyway, that´s my bit.  I hope that everything goes well with the trek and I can´t wait to hear about it!  I love you guys so much and hope you have a wonderful week.  Also. sooo glad that Cooper and Winn are better!

Love,

Sister Dana

At the Artesanatos Place!

Skyping on Mother's Day

So happy to stay with Sister Rodrigues!
(They found out neither of them would be transferred during our Skype visit on Mother's Day)

Promised Blessings :)

Hello hello!  Long time no see?  Not really!  Oh it was so great to talk to you guys last night!  I was way happy and it was good to see that everyone is doing relatively well.  Be sure to let me know how Winn is doing, ok?  And Cooper too!  I was worried about him!  Oh and those pictures of Reggie with Wynn and his family?  Love love love.  When is someone coming to Brazil to take cute pictures like that with me?  Jokes...kind of....

Anyway, I know that I told you guys this story last night, but I am going to tell it again just to get it out there in the world because it is so cool.  So this transfer was superrrr hard.  Like, definitely the hardest of my mission.  We have not been having ANYONE progress and it is just really rough stuff!  So I was getting pretty down on myself and wondering what I was doing wrong.  Was I sinning?  Did we not deserve having people come to church?  Did we need to work harder or fast more or what?  Sister Rodrigues is so much better about staying realistic in situations like this.  We decided to ask our District Leader, Elder Marlow, for a blessing to help us figure out what to do with our area.  He told Sister Rodrigues in her blessing that the Lord knew how hard we were working and this week, we would have people in the church with their hearts prepared to accept baptism.  I was beyond happy to hear that.  We went to work immediately, and tried to get in touch with all of our investigators and just teach as much as possible this week to help out with this blessing.  The whole week...nothing.  We found new people...that were not interested.  Taught old investigators...still not interested.  On Saturday night, we were pretty faithless, I hate to admit.  We were heading back home and decided to contact a referral on our street really fast with the little time that we had left.  As we searched for the house, we talked to a woman who was sitting out on her front steps.  Her name is Maria de Lourdes, and she had received the missionaries manyyyy times before, but never went to church.  My first thought was, "Oh great, an eternal investigator."  I am horrible.  We invited her to church, and she said that maybe, if she had time, she would pass by.  We told her that we would stop by her house on our way, and if she was ready, she could come with us.  Sunday morning, I was still pretty bummed.  I called all of our people....nothing.  Before we left the house, we said a prayer that the Lord would give us a miracle and Maria would come to church.  When we got to her house...she was waiting outside the door for us!  I almost cried right there.  I was basically skipping to church with her and Sister Rodrigues, and she adored the whole thing.  I caught her talking to Yoná after class, and she said that she had always passed by this church and loved it, but never had the desire to enter until we came to her house on Saturday.  She can´t wait to come back.  

Isn´t that so cool!  Ah, gives me the chills.  Anyway, other stuff that happened this week!  We had an FHE with a bunch of the members on Monday and I taught everyone how to do that one thing where you put a cookie on your forehead and try to use just your face to get it into your mouth.  I am basically a professional at this sport now.  It was so funny, and they loved it!  On Tuesday, I did a division with Sister Patiño! (look, I learned how to do that little squiggle thing over the n!  A million years later...) We had a great time.  She is an example of a missionary who really understands why she is here.  She has no reason to be out serving a mission, just because she loves the Lord.  She teaches so well, and I learned a ton from being with her.  My little duckling has turned into a swan!  

On Friday, we helped out with a presentation by the Primary for Mother´s day.  We sang for all the mommies in the ward, and holy cow, these guys go all out.  They had dances by the kids, ballet, poems, picture slideshows...it was a real tearjerker!  So cute!  Gosh, I love little Brazilian kids. They are so dang cute!

I am trying to think of other stuff that happened....and that is basically it.  We are happy, and Sister Rodrigues and I will be staying together another transfer!  4 transfers with this girl...the most I have ever had with someone!  Good thing that I love her!  

I love you guys too, and it is so good to know that Heavenly Father is taking care of all of you for me!

Love,

Sister Dana

Vai Para Igreja? Eh...Se Não Estiver Chovendo...

Estava chovendo.  MUITO.  I totally forgot what it is like to work in the rain, but this week brought that memory home real quick!  I am just glad that I am not working around in Sovaco da Cobra anymore where we had to swim to every lesson!  But I loveeee that place.  Anyway.  This week it raiiinnneeeddd.  And that only was a bummer because our house is not waterproof!  So we may not be swimming to our lessons, but we are swimming to our beds!  This week we will find a way to waterproof the windows, fo sho.

Even when it's been a cloudy week...God can still send a rainbow.

Ummm this week was kind of a bummer, and I´m sorry that I don´t have many cool things to relate!  Our baptism, José Luis, fell through, which made me super sad.  He should get baptized soon, because he is allllmost ready.  We just have a few little commandment issues to work out, and then we should be good to go.  

I also did a division with Sister Bedke this week!  I love her...she reminds me of myself;)  Jokes, just that it is so cool to watch someone learning a language. I had no idea how great it is when I was learning Portuguese, but just watching her trusting in the Lord, opening her mouth, and being surprised when the right words come out is a daily reminder of how involved Heavenly Father is in this work, and how He helps us so much!  Anyway, we had a great  day together and I love living with her!

Basically...that is all that happened this week.  I am sorry.  We are trying super hard, but the main problem is that no one wants to go to church.  We are planning activities and Family Home Evenings and doing all sorts of stuff, but the main problem really is getting them to make the commitmentes.  I got kind of down about the whole situation, but then I read about Alma and Amulek in the Book of Mormon this week.  I LOVE THEM. The way they work together and teach is so powerful and really helped me out.  And I was thinking about them a lot, and like....no one is coming to church, but at least they aren´t burning all of our recent-converts.  And think about this.  When Amulek was watching this, it was probably a lot of his friends, and the people he loved.  Can you even imagine?  But Alma had so much faith that he knew that all those people were pure in the eyes of God and they would receive glory when they returned home.  Then the chapter goes on to say how Alma comforted Amulek, and they went to another city.  There they found all of the people who had accepted their message and wanted to be baptized.  They were able to organize the church and help a ton of people repent and take that first step in returning home to Heavenly Father.  So, even though they were so sad, that sadness was replaced by joy knowing that all of their efforts were not in vain.  I also never picked up on the fact that Ammonihah, the city that didn´t accept them and burned the believers, was completely destroyed like, a week after they left.  God is a just fellow.

Anyway, that is my little scripture study of the week.  Love you guys so much, and I am so excited to talk on Sunday!  Also, that is some weird ward gossip.  But I knew that one was coming.  Tell Beau I say hi tomorrow!  And tell Cooper to step it up, because he will def regret those bad grades in about 2 years when he has to start prepping for college.  SERIOUSLY.

AND.  Mother.  Just because I send you a picture does NOT mean that it goes on Facebook!  Amanda, a member here, showed me my page this week!  What the....don´t do that anymore! Thank you:)

Us and Tarcisio :)

Love you lots!  Can´t wait til Sunday!

Love,

Sister Dana

April 28, 2014

Hellooooo:)  So glad to hear that things are going well at home!  This week was awesome.  Super, super fun.  On Tuesday, I got to do my last division with Sister Seidmann, since she will probably be transferred soon.  This makes me sad, but we had a great time together.  I love teaching with that woman.  She really has become one of my best friends and I just can´t help but be happy whenever I am around her!  I am pretty worried though, because she has been getting super sick and such...for like, a month solid.  So if you guys could pray for her, that would be cool.  But anyway, we just taught a ton and stayed up talking and it was a really great day:)

We have a few investigators that I am super excited about!  One is José Luis, who I told you about a few weeks ago, I think?  He went to church this week and is wayyy excited about baptism on Sunday!  I am praying praying praying that everything goes well with him and he will be  all ready.  I know that something will happen, because NO BAPTISM IS EASY.  But we will do everything possible to make sure he is ok!  He just looks like a missionary, dadgumit.  Also, we are teaching Josilene, who is a mom that we found the other day.  She is married, and pregnant, which means no Word of Wisdom problems...thank heavens!  She LOVES the gospel, and gets so excited every time that we come over!  The only trick is getting her to church.  Something always seems to come up...but we will work that out with the members.

Speaking of members, we are doing some awesome activities up in here.  The traditional ways of getting investigators are just not working anymore.  So, we are having Integration Night every Friday, and it is turning out really well!  This week, we taught about the Book of Mormon.  When the activity was supposed to start, we only had a few people.  So Sister Fortes and I ran outside and found a huge group of guys who were all playing soccer and told them to come.  And they did!  We had like, 60 people there!  Sister Fortes and Sister Rodrigues dressed up as Moses and Mormon and explained all about the Book of Mormon and the Bible and how the work together, then we played BoM Jeopardy.  It got really competitive...a bit more than I thought, actually.  But we had a ton of people who had never even held a Bible studying the scriptures and figuring out how to apply them to different situations, so it was pretty effective!

Sister Rodrigues as Mormon

Sister Fortes as Moses

Sister Rodrigues and I are also starting a ward choir.  This is an adventure.  We are trying basically anything to get more referrals, and Brazilians love to sing, so like...why not?  We had our first practice yesterday.  We will need many, many more practices.  But they have the desire, and we have faith, so things will work out!  Mom...please pray for angels to sing with our choir too.  Please pray that they will sing louder than the members.

Oh, last adventure for the week.  Sister Fortes got sick, so I had to take Sister Bedke to Recife on Thursday to get some stuff cleared up with her visa.  We got there and everything fine, stayed the night with Sister Kron and Sister Loureiro, which was way fun, and then went to the Aeroporto in the morning.  Welp, coming home from the airport, I got us lost on the metro.  3 times.  Embarrassing, especially since I told Sister Bedke to pay close attention so that she could get there and back too alone.  But you know, I think she can just learn from my mistakes.

Ok I lied, one more story.  Sister Bedke and I were out looking for an address the other day, right?  I had no idea where it was, but we were close to our buddy Tarcisio´s house, so we decided to stop by and ask him for directions.  I knocked on the door...no answer.  So I called him, and he said that he wasn´t at home, he was at school.  This made me super happy, because Tarcisio does not make his education a very big priority.  So as I was talking to him and congratulating him for going and everything, I start to hear his voice coming from somewhere other than the phone...inside the house actually.  So I hung up and yelled, "Tarcisio!  You are LYING to me!!!" Then I hear his little voice go, "AAAHHH!"  and he opens the door and goes, "Heyyyy Dana....what are you doing here?  Looks like you caught me..."  Awkward.  But the poor kid was bright red and so embarrassed, and it was so funny that I just had to laugh and couldn´t even be mad!

So.  I would love it if you could call up USU and get everything straightened out with my scholarship and stuff so that I will know just what I have to do when I go back.  I am still fully planning on going back...and dragging Leslie with me:)  And as far as Skype goes, are you guys good for about 2 in the afternoon?  What is your skype address again?  

CONGRATULATIONS TO MISS SADIE CAMPBELL!!!! I am so happy for you!  You will love Chamber, and tell Dr. Temme that I say hello!  Oh you will love it.  Have a great time and enjoy it...I really miss orchestra.

Love ya´ll.

Sister Dana

Sister Dana Morphed with Sister Rodrigues

Sister Rodrigues morphed with Sister Dana
"Sister Rodrigues and I are basically the same person."

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!