Life is good

Pues, another week has passed in the CCM. Thanks for the emails and letters and especially for the missionary advice mom and dad. Haha I'll try my hardest not to be a frumpy missionary mom. Dad it sounds like you had a really cool experience with the scriptures on Sunday. It's funny you said the verse you were thinking of was 1 Nephi 2:15 because in one of our meetings with the president this week someone asked a question about that verse and we ended up talking about it for a while and thinking of some interesting things we can learn from it even though it's so short and simple. I'm excited to hear your thoughts.

I can't remember if I've mentioned this before, but I right before I left to go into the MTC one of my hometeachers told me about a PRP (Personal Revelation Program) that he did for a while on his mission. He said he and his companion would get up 30 minutes early and do 10 minutes of singing or reading the Book of Mormon to invite the Spirit, then say personal prayers for ten minutes, and then write down all their thoughts and the impressions they received for ten minutes.

I've thought about that a lot while I've been here and I've tried it a couple times but I haven't gotten up early enough to finish it. We already have to be in our classrooms for personal study by 6:15 so it seems hard to get up earlier but I know I need to do it. A few days ago I read an article from the August Ensign that talked about the same sort of thing (a PRP) and I felt like I needed to try it again but I haven't done it yet. I think I need to learn how to be faster at responding to the Spirit because Dad's experiences were another huge prompting that this is something I need to do in my life, even if it means I have to get up at 5:30 am.
Other things from this week...Ahh there's so much I want to tell you all but I know there's not enough time.

I'm not sure if I told you much about this earlier but one of the first meetings we had with President Christensen (our MTC president) was this awesome lesson about the Restoration. We looked at the 18 centuries that passed from Christ to the Restoration and how all these things contributed to the apostasy but then all these people lead the way and made the Restoration possible. I don't have time to explain it but I want to mail you the notes from it because it's so cool. It really helped open my eyes up to how the Restoration fits into the big picture of the history of the world, and how awesome it was/is and how much time and preparation went into it.

Ok, so this week were reviewing the ¨18 Centuries at a Glance¨ lesson as an activity Sunday night and I starting thinking about the Restoration and this idea that's been running through my head lately of how perfectly-crafted God's plan is. There were years of planning and preparation that went into the Restoration-it didn't just start with Joseph Smith. So as we were talking about all these things Elder Davis (an elder from my district who reminds me so much of Dad or at least how I think Dad might have been as a missionary) said something about how it's cool that you can see the hand of the Lord with us even when the gospel wasn't on the earth. Even when it seems like he wasn't there, the Lord was there with us the whole time helping to prepare people and places that would lead up to the restoration of his gospel.

After Elder Davis said that I started thinking about my own life, and how even though I didn't always realize it, the Lord's hand was in my life too, and years of preparation went into my own personal ¨restoration¨ or conversion. The Lord sent me so many people, experiences, and resources to help me.

Then I started thinking about how amazing it is that I get to be a part of someone else's restoration process in Panama. I get to help restore then to what they already knew and accepted before this life, to the gospel of Christ. And maybe for some people I will just be a Martin Luther or a Deist and they won't fully accept the truth, but it will help pave the way for them to experience their own full ¨restoration¨ some day. And that will be awesome.

Well, I'm pretty much out of time but I hope these thoughts make sense...I thought they were cool. I don't have time to tell you about how awesome my experience at the temple today was, but I'll try to write you a paper letter about it :) I know this is the church of Christ and that it was restored through Joseph Smith. I know God loves us and he always will and that we can always come to him.
I hope all is well with you all. Love and miss you!

Love,
Hermana Dance

Ooops, I'll send a scripture next week I promise!