Olympic: Traslado 7: Semana 6‏ / Nov. 22, 2010

Hola familia!

Happy Thanksgiving this week!

This week was also the last week of transfers. We'll find out tomorrow what is going to happen. I really hope that I get to stay in La Cienega ward. I can't believe its the last week of another transfer come and gone! It has been so good, I've learned so much and probably changed more in this transfer than in my whole mission so far. I have loved learning from my companion Sister Garza and her amazing example of true Christlike love for everyone. I feel like she has helped me to come out of my shell and be myself, and I feel a lot happier and am enjoying every day of my mission. I love it!

Considering this week is Thanksgiving, I wanted to write a little bit about the things in my life that I'm grateful for. Well, just a few of them:

I am so grateful for my Savior, that has always been beside me and loved me and understood me, and is helping me to change and grow into what he sees that I can be. I'm grateful to be a missionary and for all of the miraculous experiences I've had that have changed my life for forever, and the people that will always be close to my heart. I'm grateful for my family; my wonderful parents, my loving and supportive grandparents, my smart, crazy awesome siblings, and just everyone that has touched my life and been there for me. I feel like if I had time I could fill pages of all of the things that I've learned that I'm grateful for, like knowing that I will be with my family for all of eternity. I'm grateful for never having had to live on the street and dig through garbage cans just to survive, for having recieved a good education, for having felt what real love is and not getting so absorbed in the" happiness" that the world has to offer, for growing up knowing that God loves me, for everything beautiful in nature that busy city people miss out on, and just for the hope and faith that I have that God has a plan for me and is guiding my life. It is amazing how many people we meet that do not have any of these things, and it makes me think of how blessed I have been and how much I took it all for granted. I love you and am truly grateful for all of you!

This week I had a really neat experience with an inactive family from our ward. They went inactive when their daughter was murdered by her husband in front of their two year old little boy, and so now they are raising the little boy pretending like he is their own and hoping that he never finds out what happened. I decided to make pumpkin pie and bake it during our weekly planning session, and I felt like we really needed to take one of the pies to this family. They usually aren't home and are in a remote corner of our area, but we decided to go visit them. The Sister was there, and it ended up being a big miracle for her, because one of her baby grandsons is in the hospital right now so she hadn't had any time to clean the house and hadn't slept in days and just really needed help. We asked to help her clean her house, which she resisted because she was embarrassed, but finally I just asked her "Hermana, have you prayed for help?" She said "yes," so I replied, "Well, here we are! Let us help you. We cleaned her house for her and gave her the pie and she was so grateful. It was another testimony to me of how the spirit guides us, because she was only at home for that little bit of time and we could have completely missed her, but we were supposed to be there at that moment to help answer her prayers. I love the quote by elder Uchtdorf that says something like "Perhaps not so important as the answers we receive are the prayers that we help answer," or something along those lines.

I'm attaching some pictures of the beautiful Getty Villa museum in Malibu that we went to today for our P-day activity. It was so fun. Dad would have loved it. :)

Have a great week! Eat lots of turkey and pumpkin pie for me!

- Hermana Dansie

1. Me and Sister Garza
2. Us with Sisters Madison and Mortensen
3. The Getty!
4. Me and Medusa
5. Statue

Olympic: Traslado 7: Semana 5 / Nov. 17, 2010

Hola Familia!

Jimmy, Karina, and Melissa Reyna were all baptized this past Sunday! It was so amazing. When Jimmy came out of the water he gave a huge sigh of relief and looked so happy. Sister Garcia and I sang "I am a Child of God," because it was the first song we sang with them and is now their favorite hymn. Felix, one of my first recent converts from Maywood, gave a talk at the baptism. It was so good! He turns 19 next year and is going to be such an amazing missionary. It was so incredible seeing all of those seeds we planted come to fruition, and seeing how happy they are. It is days like that that make all of the hard days worth it. I love them all so much and feel like we have such a deep bond, especially because we were their first missionaries. We promised them that we are going to be there when they are all sealed in the temple.

As far as everything is going in Olympic, it has been kind of a struggle getting everyone to progress, but we're working on it. Leavin is doing really good, but just wants to do everything in his own way and his own time. He's a little bit stubborn about it, but he really loves the Book of Mormon and knows that its true and that he is going to join the church, so we are happy about that, and we're working with him towards being baptized, hopefully sooner rather than later so he can have the blessings of having the Holy Ghost help and guide him. A lot of people want to wait until they know everything until they are baptized, and they don't realize that baptism is the way we accept Heavenly Father's help and guidance to learn through our whole lives.

We had a really great Zone conference this past week where we talked about living the spirit of the law and giving our whole hearts to the Lord. It was really great, because I feel like as a mission we were getting so caught up in defining all of the rules that we were missing the whole purpose in a lot of cases. Its just like with the gospel, we can pray, fast, go to church, pay our tithing, and do everything right, but really it doesn't mean anything if your whole heart isn't in it, and if you are just trying to scrape by with the bare minimum than you are missing the point, because Heavenly Father wants us to be "anxiously engaged" in doing good and be "agents unto ourselves," (D&C 58) which means we are going to be proactive and do what we know is right and for the right reasons, not just because someone told you you had to do it. On the flip side it also means not doing what we know is wrong just because we weren't told not to do it. Does that make sense? I was really happy about the conference because it was something that had been bothering me and I had been really praying to try to figure out for a long time, so I felt like it was an answer to my prayers.

I hope everything is going well at home. I can't believe its almost Thanksgiving! I hope you all have fun getting ready for the holidays. I am so excited for the lights they are putting up here at the temple, and I think that we might get to be up at the Visitor's Center next transfer which would be fun. We'll see though. I'll find out about transfers on Tuesday. Well, have a great week! I love you all!

Hermana Dansie

I'm attaching some pictures from this week of the baptism, and also of my new haircut. :)

1. The Reyna family baptism!

2. Zone conference this past week (notice my hair before the hair cut- it was super long, ugly, and out of control)

3. Me in the "Birthday dress," its a tradition now for all of the sisters to take a picture in this really ugly dress when its their birthday. I missed it on my birthday, so I just barely took a picture in it this past Monday, which was the day I got my hair cut. Its still kind of long, but she cut off a lot. I really like it though.

4. On splits with Sister Nef in down town LA

Olympic: Traslado 7: Semana 4 / Nov. 8, 2010

Hola familia!

This week has been so crazy but really good! Norma went back to Mexico, which was sad, but she was so cute- we took pictures with her and she really wants us to visit her in Mexico. We told her that we'd send her information to the missionaries there, and she told us that even if they don't come by she's going to church on Sunday, because she already knows where it is and when it starts and has been wanting to go for a long time and just never had anyone to go with. We were also helping teach two brothers, Andres and Gilberto, but we ended up transferring them over to the elders so that they can help them better. The little brother is kind of shy when it comes to talking with girls. They were planning on getting baptized the end of October, but they will probably be baptized the end of this month. It was kind of sad turning them over, especially when they were the only people we've been working with towards baptism, but like I said last week we had that amazing miracle with Norma and then with Leavin, so it was kind of like Heavenly Father was preparing us for having to stop teaching Gilberto and Andres.

The miracles continued this week too. Sister Garza and I were about to get in our car and leave when I answered a phone call which made us stop, and while I was on the phone Sister Garza felt impressed to talk to a woman passing by with her cute little boy. Her name is Nora, and as they talked Sister Garza found out that she had just gone through some really hard depression because her husband had cheated on her and left her, and she ended up letting us in. She told us that she really wants to change her life, so we felt impressed to invite her to be baptized, and she said yes! She is so amazing, and she recognized that the hard experience she had helped her turn to God for help, and so even though it was hard it was worth it because it has changed her life and humbled her.

We also got to go to the temple this week, and it was so good! It was one of the best experiences I've had in the temple so far. I was super awake and alert, which is usually a challenge for me, and especially considering our session started at six thirty, which meant we had to be up by four thirty, but I was able to get so much out of it. I was praying and thinking in the Celestial room about what I need to do to really reach my full potential as a missionary, and I felt impressed to pick up a bible and open it up, and I opened up to Ephesians 4, and it was exactly what i needed. It talks about the importance of having charity, or Christlike love, and it made me think of Moroni 7:48, which has become my favorite scripture on the mission because it talks about praying with all of the energy of your heart to be filled with that charity, and then in the last days Jesus Christ will be able to recognize us because we will have become like him. i love it because it helps us to see the bigger picture and that goal of truly becoming more Christlike. Its not about just doing good things and doing everything you are supposed to, it is about literally changing who you are to become more like Jesus Christ, because that is what will make us the happiest in the end. I realized as i was sitting there that I had never truly prayed with all my heart to have that charity, and so I did and I felt different. I felt good, and I realized that I was missing out on what the atonement does for us, because i wasn't applying it to myself. I was teaching everyone around me how to use it and seeing them change their lives, but i wasn't changing my own, because I was still beating myself up over things and expecting myself to be perfect and trying to do everything on my own, and not really loving myself. Anyways, so that was my personal epiphany of the week. It helped me to realize how much i am learning and growing, and I just felt like finally! I'm finally getting it! I don't just understand it logically, but I'm actually feeling it in my heart, and because I was so hard and stubborn it took a lot of very difficult and humbling experiences to get me to that point. I still have a lot of things to figure out, but its finally all starting to click.

 I KNOW that the Savior loves us and that he wants us to be happy, and that he suffered for all of us so that we can overcome the challenges in our lives and eventually become like him and live with him and Heavenly Father. I am so grateful for this mission and for everything I've been able to learn, and am so excited to keep working hard and enjoy all of it as much as I can.

Have a great week!

Hermana Dansie

Olympic: Traslado 7: Semana 3‏ / Nov. 1, 2010

Hola Familia!

This week was amazing! We had some incredible miracles that came out of nowhere!

Our mission President issued a challenge to commit at least one more person to set a baptismal date in this next week, and right after our training we headed over to an appointment with a woman named Norma. The day before Sister Garza and Sister Williamson tracted into her while I was on splits in Echo Park with Sister Nef. Even though it had only been one day she had read the entire pamphlet about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She told us that she especially liked the part on baptism, and that she really wants to be baptized so she can overcome her past sins, and even though she was baptized in the Catholic church, now that she's an adult she wants a baptism that is "stronger." She just said that she wants a little more knowledge, but she loves and believes everything she read. She believes that we are the answer to her prayers, because Sister Garza and Sister Williamson knocked literally right after she had prayed for guidance. The only problem is that she is only in town for a little bit visiting her niece, but she said that she has always been tempted to go to the Mormon church by her house in Mexico, but she just couldn't get anyone to go with her. She is so amazing! We are hoping she will find a way to stay here a little longer, but if not we are going to teach her and get her ready in the meantime, because she is so excited.

The next day we went over to meet with Leavin. We met him a while ago but have had a really hard time getting a hold of him because of his schedule with work and school. I saw him in the Visitor's Center last Sunday and talked to him about coming to church and meeting with us, and he was able to change things with his work so that he can come to church on Sundays from now on. When we went over for the lesson he told us about how he wants to change his life and get rid of all of his heavy metal music and black clothes and just start fresh. We asked him a lot of inspired questions (that's part of the new method- it involves truly listening and waiting to be prompted with questions from the spirit to find out their real concerns.) We taught him about baptism, and before we could even finish giving the commitment he said yes. His only concern is that he wants to be prepared to really commit and "live the rules." He also feels like we are the answer to his sincere prayers for guidance, and that he wants to have the peace and happiness that he can see that we have. He's been to the Visitor's Center a few times and says that he feels the people there are "mas puro y tranquilo," (more pure and calm) and he wants that in his life.

We feel blessed to be able to teach these amazing people! Heavenly Father has been really good to us.

For Halloween we didn't do anything too exciting. I dressed up as Sister Garza and she dressed up as me, aka, we just switched our tags. :D We went to church and the sacrament program was all about missionary work, so some missionaries gave the talks and we all sang a musical number "Nearer my God to Thee." All of the missionaries had to be in there apartments or in an activity with their zone by six, because it can be pretty dangerous to be out and about, especially with all of the drinking and crazy people in LA. Speaking of which, I went to splits in Down town LA! It was my first time down town and I'm sure I looked like a little podunk Utah girl walking around with all of these fashionable people. I don't think i could handle living in the City. Everything is man-made- even the nature. Its sad because the people just seem so empty. Money is not fulfilling and not worth it! What are these people really living for? A member took us out for dinner at a nice restaurant and everyone was drinking, and it was just really sad for me to think of them and their unfulfilled lives. I'm really glad that this mission is helping to teach me what really matters.

Well, I love you all! I have the best family and friends ever. :) Have a good week! I'll keep enjoying sunny, beautiful LA. I heard there's snow there. Is it really winter already?

Hermana Dansie