Mar Vista: Transfer 9: Week 5 / Jan. 31, 2011

Hello Family!
 
How have you all been lately? I am really sorry that I am so bad at writing personal letters. So, if you haven't heard from me personally lately, don't feel bad, because no one has. P-days are our most stressful, crazy day, and so first off I don't want to write letters rushed, and secondly I am usually grumpy and stressed from having to do everything so fast, and I don't want to write a letter while I'm grumpy. So just know that I love you all! Aunt Natalie, thank you for your family Christmas card and for that really inspiring talk that you included. I loved it! And everyone else that has written me as well. I think that I have started writing some letters to Dave and Paula Thomas, but never quite finished them and sent them off. I love you! thank you for your encouragement and letters! And everyone in the ward that wrote me over Christmas. Falcon Park is such a great ward. I love you all! Alright, so I know that doesn't completely clear me from not writing, but I will try and do better. So yes, I have recieved your letters and I love and appreciate them a lot!
 
Miracles have been happening this week both in and out of the Visitors' Center. The other day there were two guys that came in to the VC named Edgar and David. They were both from Guatemala, but Edgar moved here about five years ago and David just arrived. Edgar is a member of the church but fell away when he moved here, and David is his lifelong friend of another faith. (They don't want us to use the term "non-member" anymore.) They walked in and I showed them the Christus presentation, and I felt a strong prompting that I just needed to wait for awhile after the message was over. I sat there for probably about three minutes without saying anything, and I could see them thinking and really feeling the peace that comes from listening to the words of Christ and looking at the beautiful statue representation. When we finally started to talk I found out that they have been going through some really hard things, and so Edgar told David that he knew of a place they could go where just walking there would make them feel better. When they walked up to the temple, David told Edgar that he had dreamt of this building and this walkway. They told me that they could feel peace and comfort being there. i told them "Do you realize that this is a miracle? Can you feel how much Heavenly Father loves you?" It was such a cool experience and I loved seeing them realize how much of a blessing it was that they came to the Visitors' Center and felt the spirit, and they agreed to meet with the missionaries.
 
We also met a great guy in our area named Conrad. We were about a block away from the church, so we left our car there and spent the afternoon walking around the area, visiting and contacting a lot of great people. We were leaving our dinner appointment that we had with some members in a nearby apartment complex and Conrad was out sweeping his porch in his apartment that is about ten feet away and ten feet up from the sidewalk. We saw him and I called up to him and asked "Hey, have you ever been to that church down the street? Well you're invited!" Sometimes my companions are taken aback by my bold ventures of talking to everyone. I feel like especially when we are that close to church, why not just invite everyone to church? He was really nice and he told us that he has been looking for a church to go to with his fiance. He was raised Baptist and she was raised Lutheran, and so he said that they wanted to find some common ground. We found a way over the foliage that separated us from his balcony and handed him up a pass along card with our number and the church's address on it. A couple days later we came back to his apartment and he was there and we had a chance to talk to him about the restoration and Joseph Smith, and he told us that he has met with missionaries in the past and that three of his friends from high school served missions. He still has a copy of the Book of Mormon and he committed to read the introduction. He was so friendly and just a really great guy. We are hoping he will want to keep investigating. The only problem is that he is an EMT and is really busy, which is why he couldn't come to church yesterday. That seems to be the most common problem in LA, everyone is just too busy! I really don't want to get so caught up in being busy that I just miss everything that is most important. Maybe Heavenly Father needed to teach me that, because for those of you that really know me, its like I am almost addicted to being busy. I was in about five different groups and clubs and everything in High School, and looking back, it was great, but I wish that I would have spent more time with my family, and more time serving others.
 
Also this week Elder Clayton came and gave a really amazing mission conference. He is in the presidency of the seventy. He also came to the Visitors' Center, and I got to give him a tour. Well, kind of just tag along while the mission president and Director gave him a tour because he only had about half and hour to be there and it was all really rushed. It was still cool though.
 
Well, I love you all! Have a great week!
 
- Sister Dansie

Mar Vista: Transfer 9: Week 4 / Jan. 25, 2011

Hi family!

This week has been good. I'm attaching some pictures of our adventure to the Getty museum this past Wednesday during our temple P-day. It was really fun, but we only had about forty minutes to be there and it is a place that you could spend all day exploring.

Well, I got a big slice of "Humble pie" this week. We were scheduled to be at the Visitors' Center Sunday morning, and we wanted to come in just an hour later so that we could go to our sacrament meeting, and Elder Macdonald, the director of the Visitor's Center, told us that if we wanted to come late we would just have to switch. I couldn't understand why because Sunday mornings are our slowest time there and we've always been able to go to our sacrament, so I thought that it would be no big deal for us to come in a little late just like we always had. I felt like we really needed to go because a less active woman named Bonnie promised us that she was going and I didn't want her to feel uncomfortable coming without anyone to be there with her. I even asked Elder Macdonald why we needed to be there, because I just wanted to know. I told him that I understand how important it is to be obedient, but I really don't like having to do it blindly- I like knowing the logic behind it so that I can fulfil the purpose of it and maybe even do it better, but I felt like this just didn't make any sense. He said that he needed all three of the companionships there and that I would see why Sunday morning. We decided to go on splits so at least one of us would be at church and we did rock-paper-scissors to see who out of the three of us would go with the other companionship of sisters in our ward to be there with Bonnie. I won so I got to go to church.

To my disappointment first of all, Bonnie didn't come, and secondly, when I returned to the Visitors' Center the director and his wife told me, very kindly but with a little bit of a well deserved "I'm sorry but I told you so" aire, that President Uchtdorf had come to tour the center that morning, and because I had switched I had missed it. I was pretty bummed, but that's what I get for being prideful. I had even told myself "Heavenly Father doesn't really expect blind obedience." But in actuality, he does, and that is where our faith comes in. To give myself a little credit, I have been doing really good at following the spirit in every little thing that I can, like talking to everyone that I see, or going back to the car to get something random that I feel like I might need but don't know why, or going back down the street to a house I feel we need to go to even if my companions are going to think that I'm crazy. I guess that I just needed that experience to remind me that when I'm not exactingly obedient, even to all of the small things, that I am going to miss out on some pretty awesome experiences that Heavenly Father has for me. And its ok that I'm not perfect, because I am learning and growing every day. Well, I hope that you don't think that I'm a horrible and prideful missionary for admitting that experience that happened, but I've realized that at least I am recognizing my weaknesses and working on them. I actually think that it was kind of funny. I think that it was best for me have missed out though, because I was the one that thought it was so important for us to be at church, and I would have felt really bad to have been the cause of one of my companions missing out on that experience. Its alright though, I'll have other chances to meet cool people, and we'll all meet the apostles in the next life, right? Anyways, moral of the story is, "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In ALL thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy path." Proverbs 3:4-5

In other news, we are still searching for people to teach, but its going really well. We have met some great hopefuls, and we just need to keep having faith that we'll be led to those people that are prepared. "When you are down to nothing, God is up to something!" :D

I love you all so much, and again am grateful for your prayers and your great examples. Take care!

- Sister Dansie

Mar Vista: Transfer 9: Week 3‏ / Jan. 18, 2011

Hello family!
 
First of all, I'm e-mailing on Wednesday because we had temple P-day. It was wonderful. I think that it was the perfect spiritual boost to help me finish the fight and make it through to the end of the fourth quarter. :D It has been quite a week. We have had some amazing miracles and also some intense opposition; more than I have experienced in my whole mission up to this point.
 
As far as this weeks miracles go, the ward is finally starting to warm up to us a little more and recognize and appreciate the efforts we are making. We have been putting together a ward mission plan to help the ward refocus on missionary work and get excited about it. The bishop is backing us up and we are seeing things change for the better, which we are really happy about. We have also found some amazing people to teach! On Saturday we decided to go to a community clean-up project down in Venice cleaning one of the main streets close to the beach, so we went there all dressed in our work clothes and ready to go, and we couldn't find the project anywhere. We had seen flyers about it all over town, but no one seemed to have heard about it. We ended up walking up and down the boardwalk from city rec center, to the county rec center, all over searching for this non-existent service project. We kept trying to contact people as we went, which was interesting, because I can't even describe to you what Venice beach is like. There was a big boardwalk with street-venders and a ton of "doctors" that are trying to get you to get a license for "medical marijuana," people heading to and from the beach, and kind of just chaos. So, needless to say, not the most ideal situation for a missionary, especially when we were dressed in our normal clothes and looked like just another street vendor. It turned out being a miracle though because we picked this one man out of the crowd and started talking to him, and he said, "you know, you are going to think that I'm crazy, but I just try to live my life doing whatever God tells me to do, and for some reason I felt compelled that I needed to come to California because there was something great waiting for me there." We told him that it wasn't a coincidence that we met him, and I know it wasn't, because there was no way under normal circumstances that we would have been there in that area, and we just happened to find this man who is truly seeking what God has for him in his life. He called us later that day and was asking all of these incredible questions, and telling us what he had learned to be true in his life and it was all things that we teach, like that God still speaks to us and continues to reveal his word, and those that try to follow Christ will be persecuted, and earning money isn't the most important thing in life. It was crazy how everything he said it was like he was teaching us. I know that the church is true, and it was just another testimony to me that we teach a truth that anyone who is truly searching can recognize and probably has already recognized as the truth before we even teach them.
 
I also had an experience in the Visitor's Center where the elders brought in an investigator that was having a hard time setting a date to be baptized, and after watching one of the presentations and talking with him for a little while, he recognized that he does want to be baptized and was willing to be baptized by the end of the month. It was a really great experience, especially because sometime in the Visitor's Center we feel like we miss out on seeing the end result, but it is so amazing to see when people have a spiritual experience here that motivates them to take that leap of faith and be baptized. I can't even really tell you or explain all of the cool experiences and miracles I've seen this week with spirit-guided lessons and awesome people that I've met, and plus I'm running out of time. But it was a great week.
 
On the other hand we had some crazy opposition as well. I was backing the car (Someone has to stand behind the car while it is being backed to double check that it isn't going to hit anything), so i was out of the car and my companions were inside, but I saw a teenage girl sitting on the side of the road across the street with her computer, so I decided I would run over and give her one of the cool new mormon.org pass along cards, and I was talking to her for a second when her mom came out of the house and said "Um, you are mormons and we are Cristians, so we really are not interested." To which I simply replied "But we are Christian." And she pointedly responded "No you are NOT! We believe in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and not some Joseph Smith and some other man-made book that you have that tries to taint the word of God. Honey, give her back her card!" I have never heard anyone use the Lord's name in such a spiteful and angry way. Shocked, all I could manage to say was "ok, goodnight" and hop into the car. Then the very next place we went we were trying to contact a less active woman that was on our ward list, and so we approached he house and heard three ferocious dogs inside, which alerted their owner to come to the door without us even knocking. From behind the metal screen door a lady simply said "sorry, we are not interested." So we asked her if she was Lisa, and when she realized that we weren't just doing the normal neighborhood rounds, but actually had a target in mind, she forcefully responded "Lisa, my LOVER, is not interested and does not want to be involved in your church. Please take her off your list." It was so crazy to have two of those experiences right in a row. I actually hadn't had that happen to me in my entire mission, so it was quite the experience. I think it just goes to show that there is opposition in all things, and that the truth will always be persecuted by people with closed hearts and minds that don't understand. I know that Heavenly Father has an amazing work for us to do here and that Satan is just doing everything he can to try and stop us, but he can't, because we have Jesus Christ there to back us up. Someone shared a quote in their talk on Sunday that said, "When Satan comes knockin', just say, 'Jesus, can you get that for me?'" I know that Heavenly Father hears our prayers and that Jesus Christ is always there for us.
 
Have a great week!
 
Sister Dansie

Mar Vista: Transfer 9: Week 2‏ / Jan. 10, 2011

Hey family.
 
Well, this week was kind of rough. I'm pushing through it though. We are just working and trying so hard to get people around here excited about doing missionary work, and it takes a lot of energy and faith. I'm kind of exhausted, but I'll be alright.
 
I think that right now I'm in a challenge period where Heavenly Father is testing my faith and trying to push me so that I will grow. He is definitely teaching me how to be patient, and humble. This area is very different from my spanish areas, but I still came in with all of the faith and hope in the world, and I'm just realizing that it is more of a challenge than I expected. We work and try so hard without getting any sort of result; not yet at least. It is like going to a different mission. It makes me appreciate a lot more what missions are like in Europe or other parts of the world. Los Angeles really is like Babylon, and the worldliness, obsession with fashion, money, and sleazy movies affects everyone, even the members of the church if they're not careful. There are so many things that people spend so much time working to buy that are so worthless. It is not making them happy, so why are they doing it?!
 
Well, on the bright side, we have been seeing a lot of little miracle as we have tried to talk with everyone that we meet. We met a really nice older couple named Marge and Norm that let right in their house and said that we can stop by whenever we are in the neighborhood, because his brother is mormon. Norm is a Catholic principle, but he was interested as we talked to him a little bit about the restoration. It is always really neat to see the way that people treat us differently when they have a mormon as a close friend and example for them in their lives. Norm has a Book of Mormon, and we invited him to look at the mormon.org website, so we are going to stop by again and follow up with them.
 
We have also still been seeing a lot of miracles in the Visitors' Center. They showed us some statistics of our work here and how it is affecting referrals throughout the mission, and they are seeing some incredible results. It really is an incredible missionary resource, and I get the chance to meet amazing people every day that come in wanting to talk to us, so I really can't complain. I have been trying to pick up some Korean, Japanese, Tongan, and Samoan. Oh, and I even had a chance to put some of my German to practice. A couple came in from Austria, and the wife spoke some spanish but mostly German, and the husband only spoke German. Some other sisters had shown them through the center and given them copies of the Book of Mormon, but I had a chance to show them a scripture that I liked in the Book of Mormon and attempt to read it them in German. I think that they felt my sincerity in my love for the Book of Mormon, and I hope that they read it.
 
Well, Have a great Week family!
 
Hermana Dansie

Mar Vista: Transfer 9: Week 1‏ / Jan. 3, 2011

Happy New Years family!

I can't believe that my entire year of serving the Lord is over and its already 2011!
 
So . . . What do you get when you have a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead? The best trio ever!!! AkA, my new companionship. :D
 
We just had transfers and Sister Dickson and I got the addition of Sister Thurston. She was also trained by Sister Salazar, so we already have a close connection. Sister Salazar went home this last transfer and so we were lucky enough to have Sister Thurston come on over to join us. I love her so much. She is really funny, and she also loves basketball. She is from Idaho, and she has beautiful flaming red hair. I think that being in a trio is a lot of fun, so I'm really happy about it. Its good because Sister Dickson and I both are the kind of people that need someone to help us just laugh at life and lighten up, and Sister Thurston is that for both of us. We were taking pictures the other night and laughing so hard we were laying on the floor crying. It was so much much fun. We are also all really hard working and obedient, so it works out really nicely.

Our mission president gave us a challenge to read the entire Book of Mormon between thanksgiving and before the New Year and mark all of the references to Christ, and it was so amazing! My testimony of the Book of Mormon has grown so much. At first it was hard for me feeling like I wasn't going to be able to absorb anything reading it so fast, partly because I decided to read it in spanish, which i understand it all, it just takes a little longer. After a while I finally realized that you get an entirely different look of the Book of Mormon as a whole when you read it so fast, and when you are focused on reading it multiple times throughout the day. I had been dealing with some issues with stress and anxiety, and I really felt a very real sense of spiritual and emotional healing as I read the Book of Mormon and strengthened my relationship with the Savior and realized how much he is taking care of me. It was really incredible. i know that the Book of Mormon is true, and like President Benson says "there is a power in the book that will flow into your lives the moment you begin a serious study of it." It is so true! It gives you the strength to overcome temptation and helps you feel the love of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, and see their perfect and beautiful plan for each one of us.

We had a mission conference on New Years day where we talked about the mission's goals for the year, and a lot about www.mormon.org, the church's new website that is dedicated to helping people learn and understand more about who we are and what our beliefs are. We keep seeing huge billboards for "Big Love," and it is no wonder there are so many misconceptions of who we are and what we believe. They encouraged us to help every member put a profile on mormon.org. Your profile basically just has your picture and then you answer questions like why you are mormon, which gives you the opportunity to share your story and your testimony so others can see it. You can also link it to your facebook page so your facebook friends can read about why you are mormon and what you love about the church, and while they are at the site stop and look at our beliefs. it is really cool. They have an awesome article about it in the ensign this month that I would encourage you all to read, and also I would strongly encourage you to create a mormon.org profile! And then I can look at it and read your testimony and show it to the people that I'm teaching!

Well, I hope you are all having a wonderful New Year and setting lots of great resolutions that will bring you even closer to Christ. Have a great week!

Love,
Hermana Dansie

Mar Vista: Transfer 8: Week 5‏ / Dec. 28, 2010

Merry few days after Christmas!

I hope you all really enjoyed Christmas. I had one of the best Christmases ever. I did miss being away from all of you, but Heavenly Father really made up for it with some incredible miracles. We were able to be the "angels" for a cute little old lady named Dagmar. She is from the Czech Republic and is about eighty five. Her husband passed away fifteen years ago and her two boys weren't going to be able to come home for Christmas, so it was going to be her first Christmas completely alone, but then we showed up the day before Christmas Eve and watched "Joy to the World" with her and invited her to our Christmas Eve concert at the Visitor's Center. She was so happy and excited to come! She is friends with a member in our ward, which is how we met her in the first place, but it was so neat to be able to help her have a good Christmas. In the Czech Republic they celebrate everything on Christmas Eve and exchange presents, so when she came to the concert we gave her a present of a cute little red scarf and hat, which she wore for the rest of the evening. It was so good to see her so happy. Then we ran into our ward mission leader's family, and found out that he just happens to speak Czech, so we spent time with them and Dagmar got to hold their cute little baby. It was such a wonderful Christmas Eve, and it felt good to see her so happy. She called us her "angels," and she was so sweet. We are hoping to start teaching her more about the church so that she can have the peace and happiness in her life from the gospel, and so Heavenly Father gave us a way to help her and be there for her and hopefully soften her heart and prepare her to receive the gospel.

Christmas Eve morning we had a big musical fireside with the whole mission. I got to sing in the choir, plus I was involved in two other special musical numbers, a group of sisters that sang Breath of Heaven which I sang in and organized, and also a duet of "O Holy Night" that I sang with Sister Salazar, my trainer. It was so much fun! It turned out really well. My companion and I were also in charge of organizing the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day concerts in the Visitor's Center. All of the Sisters sang and equally participated in the concerts, and they turned out really great. We were surprised that we had a full house come to the concerts. We had the congregation sing along with us as well, and it was really great. The spirit was so strong with all of us sisters singing together and focusing on the birth of Christ.

Christmas Day we played Ultimate Frisbee during exercise in the morning and then opened presents, and then I got to talk to my family! It was so great to hear from everyone.Then we had a service activity as a zone where we made cookies to go caroling and take around as a district to some investigators. It was really fun. That night at the Visitor's Center I got the wonderful surprise of seeing the Reyna family and the Marquez family that both came to the concert. It was so good to see them! We got a picture of all of us together, and it made me think a little bit about what the reunion in Heaven is going to feel like, with that great joy that it talks about in Doctrine and Covenants 18 that comes from bringing your friends with you into the kingdom of God. it was so amazing to see some of the blessings and the fruits of serving my mission all at once, on Christmas.

I hope that you all got to see some wonderful Christmas miracles too. I feel like miracles are Heavenly Father's gifts to us that show us how much he loves and cares for us, and we just need to be open to seeing them all around us. I was also really touched by the love my family has for me, and for the beautiful gift that my Daddy here gave me. It's a picture journal of all of our hiking adventures together. Overall it was such a wonderful Christmas. I know that every time we sacrifice something good that we love, like time with our family for Christmas, that Heavenly Father makes it up to us and blesses us even more, so no matter what we do he is just so good and so merciful to us, and we can never deserve it. We just have to do our best to keep his commandments and follow his Son.

I love you! Have a wonderful, exciting, fun filled, New Year!

Hermana Dansie

1. Basketball!
2-3 Christmas Eve with Dagmar
4 Ultimate Frisbee
5-6 Christmas morning- Opening Presents!