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!