Herrow family! I lub you!

Thanks so much for all the birthday wishes! It`s weird to have a day where people focus on you after being trained to think about other people all the time. It was kind of awkward but nice of everyone at the same time. My district sang to me and said happy birthday probably every 10 minutes and for sure every time they saw me, my teacher in the morning, Hermana Chacon, made me a cute homemade card and bought us all Twix bars because she heard it was my favorite candy, and the CCM president`s wife brought me a cupcake holder full of skittles. People were very sweet.

This week we got to do contacts at the temple. We ended up talking to only members, but it was still great to practice our Spanish-we have a lot to learn. Everyone is so patient with us.

Tomorrow we have divisions with the Guatemala City missionaries so we get to go out on splits into the big world outside and do grown-up missionary things. I´m stoked and terrified at the same time.

I´m not exactly sure how much time I have so I want to make sure my testimony is in here before I write anything else. I realized today that the two over-arching themes I´ve been learning the most about are how much Heavenly Father loves us, and the importance of strong families. Everything I´ve been learning seems to go back to those two things. Last week I forgot to include scriptures at the end so I´m going to write two this week:

Romans 8:35-39 Nothing can separate us from the love of God
Gen 18:19 God made great promises to Abraham because he knew Abraham would teach his children and family to follow the Lord

I`ve been so blessed to have such a great family. As I meet more and more missionaries from the U.S. who come from abusive, broken, or inactive families I am realizing more and more how lucky I am to come from such a loving, strong family. I´m so amazed by the missionaries I meet here who were able to work through such hard things and still come on a mission and be faithful in the gospel.

I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior. I know that through him and his Atonement we can overcome everything. I know God loves us and he is always waiting for us to come to him. He is always there for us and the moment we take the first step towards him he is already sending legions to our aid.

I love you all and I hope you all are doing well. Thanks again for all the birthday wishes and emails. I love to read them and to hear from you. Have a great week!

Love,

Hermana Dance