Hey family,
It's week 6-eek! Soon our dream team is going to be broken up and I think I'll be in a new area...! That's what the president said in interviews but who knows what will actually happen...
Ahhh, Karen's fecha fell :( We've been trying so hard and doing all we can but she's just fallen backwards because her husband is negativeabout everything now that he found a job and doesn't need help anymore. She feels like it's too hard and has blown off so many appointments that we've set with them that we've decided we have toleave her for a while :( Gahhh! Me duele!
But on the bright side, part of one of our super cute families came tochurch on Sunday. They are familia Robles, and this Sunday Mariel (14)and her brother Mario (11) came by themselves even though their mom was sick and couldn't and their dad was out of town. We love them all so much! We love doing fun creative games and lessons with them andhave loved seeing them grow. We think that now that Mariel and Mario are getting into it, their mother and father are going to follow and come to church with them.
I will tellyou what I learned this week....if I have time. Sometimes Hermana Graham and I have felt discouraged and this "What is it all for?" feeling when we feel like we work so hard and then everything falls apart (like with Karen or with recent converts that don't stay active). I have been thinking about the analogy of working in the vineyard for a while and the other day I came across 1Corinthians 3:5-9 Some plant, some water, and God does the growing.
I imagine all of us out in this giant garden the size of the world in different stages of growth, decay, and wilderness. He sends us out to do what we can to help him. Except I imagine us all out there with little plastic spoons, planting, sowing, reaping, etc in this huuuuge garden. Sometimes we get tired, discouraged, lazy, and frustrated when it doesn't seem to grow or turn out how we want, and other times we are so happy and love what we're doing and want to take credit for it when it grows and flourished. But really when we go to bed at night, God sends his angels with the heavy-duty efficient machinery to do all the real work. And He's like the sun that makes it all grow. We can do all the actions, sow, water, prune, etc, but if the sun's not in it(aka God's not on our side for disobedience of X or Y reason) then it won't grow no matter what we do.
Yup yup, that's what I've been thinking. It came out a lot more eloquent in my journal but...I'm really tired right now after a day of exploring in Boquete and it's sort of a struggle to make it come out how I learned it. Lo sorry!
Welp, love you all and hope all is well. Mom and Dad, eat some turkey! And everyone else well, do the same I guess but eat lots more and play ulitmate frisbee!
Loves,
Hermana Dance
1 Corinth 1:25
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Monday, November 15, 2010
Take that, and THAT! Mmmhmmm
Hey family,
Hola! Hmmm, what to tell you all. I will start with a story of how we stuck it to the man, Don Satanas. Yesterday we went to go pick up Karen and Alexander for Stake Conference and for the 4th time in a row she came out and told us they couldn't come for X or Y excuse. Wompwahhh. So we left feeling like failures and showed up with one of our recent converts feeling yucky the whole time because all the other missionaries came with their cute families and investigators and we didn't have anyone :(
We went home after to drop off some things and wallowed for a little bit asking ourselves what we're doing wrong, deciding if we should have pushed more to get them to come, etc etc. I said that we were in need of Super Strong (umm, check out the videothe Wards posted on the blog or Facebook or somewhere to know what I'm talking about) and Hermana Graham laughed and said we weren't going to find him moping around. So we got our stuff and as I was in the bathroom before we left (the place of all true revelation and inspiration) I had the thought that Satan was using Karen and Alex not coming to make us feel icky and not want to work. Because this is now the third time we've felt like this and every time we just feel bad the whole day and lose our motivation and all the appointments seem to fall and we're just waiting for the day to be over. He puts something in Karen and Alex's way because he knows he can kill two birds with one stone-keep them from progressing and deter us for one of the most productive days of the week.
So I came out and told Hermana Graham and she agreed and then we left feeling more defiant out on our way to conquer the world (or at least Bolivar, David). As we left the house I heard a voice in my head say "I've begun to answer your prayers...."
Remember what I told you about the wars in the Book of Mormon and how Alma asked the Lord to know the enemy strategy to be able to defend themselves? Yeah. Strategy revealed, Satan's design thwarted, done and done.
We went out and contacted and got rejected a lot but then ended upfinding a sweet new family. They're married, are looking for a church but want to decide as a family, and the mom went to primary as a little girl. They seem pretty prepared.
Herrmmmmm what else. I don't have lots of time because I just spent alot of it trying to figure out picture stuff-for Christmas. They're making a giant slide show and have asked us to send in 5 picture seach. My camera is wacko and I've been having some issues but I think it's finally figured out.
Jamison-find Sarah Jayne in the next two days and give her the biggest biggest hug for me ok!!? She leaves on Wednesday and we'll miss eachother by three months but it's the best best decision she can makeright now. Boy howdy, New Zealand!
Love you all and hope all the conferences, travels, work, and studies are going well!
Love,
Hermana Dance
Hola! Hmmm, what to tell you all. I will start with a story of how we stuck it to the man, Don Satanas. Yesterday we went to go pick up Karen and Alexander for Stake Conference and for the 4th time in a row she came out and told us they couldn't come for X or Y excuse. Wompwahhh. So we left feeling like failures and showed up with one of our recent converts feeling yucky the whole time because all the other missionaries came with their cute families and investigators and we didn't have anyone :(
We went home after to drop off some things and wallowed for a little bit asking ourselves what we're doing wrong, deciding if we should have pushed more to get them to come, etc etc. I said that we were in need of Super Strong (umm, check out the videothe Wards posted on the blog or Facebook or somewhere to know what I'm talking about) and Hermana Graham laughed and said we weren't going to find him moping around. So we got our stuff and as I was in the bathroom before we left (the place of all true revelation and inspiration) I had the thought that Satan was using Karen and Alex not coming to make us feel icky and not want to work. Because this is now the third time we've felt like this and every time we just feel bad the whole day and lose our motivation and all the appointments seem to fall and we're just waiting for the day to be over. He puts something in Karen and Alex's way because he knows he can kill two birds with one stone-keep them from progressing and deter us for one of the most productive days of the week.
So I came out and told Hermana Graham and she agreed and then we left feeling more defiant out on our way to conquer the world (or at least Bolivar, David). As we left the house I heard a voice in my head say "I've begun to answer your prayers...."
Remember what I told you about the wars in the Book of Mormon and how Alma asked the Lord to know the enemy strategy to be able to defend themselves? Yeah. Strategy revealed, Satan's design thwarted, done and done.
We went out and contacted and got rejected a lot but then ended upfinding a sweet new family. They're married, are looking for a church but want to decide as a family, and the mom went to primary as a little girl. They seem pretty prepared.
Herrmmmmm what else. I don't have lots of time because I just spent alot of it trying to figure out picture stuff-for Christmas. They're making a giant slide show and have asked us to send in 5 picture seach. My camera is wacko and I've been having some issues but I think it's finally figured out.
Jamison-find Sarah Jayne in the next two days and give her the biggest biggest hug for me ok!!? She leaves on Wednesday and we'll miss eachother by three months but it's the best best decision she can makeright now. Boy howdy, New Zealand!
Love you all and hope all the conferences, travels, work, and studies are going well!
Love,
Hermana Dance
Monday, November 8, 2010
a-sort-of-vacation
Hey family!!Como estan? We just go done having a zone cook-out. It wasn't exactly the vacation Hermana Graham and I had in mind but it was still fun. Things are going well in Bolivar but we've been having some challenges the last couple of weeks...everything we that was going so well has kind of faded off into the distance. Karen didn't get baptized because she hasn't come to church again-she's great and so prepared but lets little things get in the way and we haven't even been able to teach her in over a week because of all the holidays last week (in November Panama celebrates like 15 holidays all having to do with their Independence Day...). Blah.
But we're truckin on and not giving up on her because she's awesome. We've also been struggling to find new families. Or we find them but then they just want nice bible study classes and don't want to progress. We're going to reboot our looking for families at night plan again this week because last week a bunch of other appointments and activities got in the way so we're hoping to have more success now.
I love being with Hermana Graham! :) But I think the chances of us spending Christmas are pretty small...*sigh*
This week I have been studying conference talks from the last 2-3 years like mad and have been reminded again of how much I love conference and how lucky we are to have living prophets and apostles to guide us. Their talks are scripture, and every time we re-read them we understand something better or can apply something else in our lives.
This week I've also been thinking about Captain Moroni again. As I was reading in Alma a couple of weeks ago I read in Alma 40-something (right when the war first starts) about how Moroni went to the prophetAlma to ask him to pray to know the Lamanite strategy so they'd know how to defend and prepare themselves. I've been thinking about that alot lately and how we can apply it to us. Satan gets sneakier and sneakier every day with more and more experience. Every single one of us has different weak points, and sometimes he's so sneaky that we don't even realize he's working on us until we've fallen into his trap. So to help us identify his strategy so we can prepare ourselves, we can ask God and seek personal revelation. Then he can tell us so we can prepare for and not fall into his traps. Hmmm interesante verdad?
The answers come through scriptures, the words of the prophets, and thoughts and feelings. So then we can be prepared and strong and fortified.
Alexander, my awesome convert from San Miguelito, called last night. He is so great and I love him so much. He turns 16 next year and he's so smart and has the craziest, most awful family but he's reading his scriptures every day now and praying and working so hard to be a missionary in his family. I'm so proud of him :) He told me that when I go home I have to tell you all about how I "rescued a future missionary in San Miguelito." I told him not to worry, that my family already knows all about him and about how he's my favorite, haha.
I worry about him a lot but I'm so happy to hear that the hermanas there are still helping him and that he's progressing. :)
I heard the daughter of a mission president who served in Columbia bear her testimony a couple of months ago and she said her dad always asked the missionaries in the farewell dinner to share an experience that had made the whole 2 years or the whole 1 1/2 years worth it. I think Alexander is mine.
Yikes, so many things I want to tell you all. Did I tell you about my cool experience applying what Elder Scott taught a couple of conferences ago about receiving spiritual guidance and personal revelation? It was pretty sweet, but to be continued because I'm almost out of time. I have to leave you with cliff hanger! haha.
Thanks for everything!!
Love,
Hermana Dance
But we're truckin on and not giving up on her because she's awesome. We've also been struggling to find new families. Or we find them but then they just want nice bible study classes and don't want to progress. We're going to reboot our looking for families at night plan again this week because last week a bunch of other appointments and activities got in the way so we're hoping to have more success now.
I love being with Hermana Graham! :) But I think the chances of us spending Christmas are pretty small...*sigh*
This week I have been studying conference talks from the last 2-3 years like mad and have been reminded again of how much I love conference and how lucky we are to have living prophets and apostles to guide us. Their talks are scripture, and every time we re-read them we understand something better or can apply something else in our lives.
This week I've also been thinking about Captain Moroni again. As I was reading in Alma a couple of weeks ago I read in Alma 40-something (right when the war first starts) about how Moroni went to the prophetAlma to ask him to pray to know the Lamanite strategy so they'd know how to defend and prepare themselves. I've been thinking about that alot lately and how we can apply it to us. Satan gets sneakier and sneakier every day with more and more experience. Every single one of us has different weak points, and sometimes he's so sneaky that we don't even realize he's working on us until we've fallen into his trap. So to help us identify his strategy so we can prepare ourselves, we can ask God and seek personal revelation. Then he can tell us so we can prepare for and not fall into his traps. Hmmm interesante verdad?
The answers come through scriptures, the words of the prophets, and thoughts and feelings. So then we can be prepared and strong and fortified.
Alexander, my awesome convert from San Miguelito, called last night. He is so great and I love him so much. He turns 16 next year and he's so smart and has the craziest, most awful family but he's reading his scriptures every day now and praying and working so hard to be a missionary in his family. I'm so proud of him :) He told me that when I go home I have to tell you all about how I "rescued a future missionary in San Miguelito." I told him not to worry, that my family already knows all about him and about how he's my favorite, haha.
I worry about him a lot but I'm so happy to hear that the hermanas there are still helping him and that he's progressing. :)
I heard the daughter of a mission president who served in Columbia bear her testimony a couple of months ago and she said her dad always asked the missionaries in the farewell dinner to share an experience that had made the whole 2 years or the whole 1 1/2 years worth it. I think Alexander is mine.
Yikes, so many things I want to tell you all. Did I tell you about my cool experience applying what Elder Scott taught a couple of conferences ago about receiving spiritual guidance and personal revelation? It was pretty sweet, but to be continued because I'm almost out of time. I have to leave you with cliff hanger! haha.
Thanks for everything!!
Love,
Hermana Dance
Monday, November 1, 2010
Today we're going to drink REAL TGIF milkshakes
Hey family,
Hermana Graham and I are going to eat real chocolate milkshakes at TGIFridays today because we sort of reached our goal of only speakingSpanish from lunch until 5:00 P.M. Haha, it's easier to speak in English and both of us have good Spanish but we decided we should probably keep trying to improve....so we're rewarding ourselves today.
Hermmm, this week as a zone we started a new secret mission to try to find more families called El Encontrón de Familiones." (It doesn'ttranslate well but it basically means "The Huge Finding of Millions of Famlies" in a more clever, Spanish way. Aren't you jealous that you can't make up words like that in English?) So anyways, it involves contacting every night for 1 1/2 plus hours, not going in the house if the father isn't home and instead setting up an appointment when he'll be there, and lots of other family-finding and teaching tactics. It's kind of difficult because most of the dads don't get home until late or are only there Sundays and even then they're drinking, but we have still found lots of new families. Hermana Graham and I like to play games and our tactic is basically share a short message, and do something fun and creative so they'll want us to come back. So far it's been working pretty well, and my Family Home Evening idea bank is growing steadily...
Yesterday was kind of a flop and a trial of faith sort of day. None of our investigators came to church even though we left at 7:30 to go pick up 3 of them. Francisco was drunk and was just getting home as we were walking away from finding his house empty. He is a such a good person when he's sober but when he's drunk he's very....disagreeable. Harumph. The other one was asleep and didn't come to the door, and Karen left with her sister to go to her mom's grave because Nov 2 is a holiday where they honor the dead here. All of our appointments with families in the afternoon fell and there aren't many people in town because this whole upcoming week is pretty much full of holidays. So....we were pretty tired after contacting pretty much two whole days in a row and sad that no one came to church, but everything is ok and we're going to drink milkshakes and go running and keep on keepin on.
Karen's baptism date got moved to the 20th now because she still needs to cometo church at least one more time and we want to make sure they're really committed and understand that this is a big change and a lifelong thing.
On the bright side, Indira Isabel got baptized on Friday!! Besides everyone coming an hour late everything went smoothly and it was the most spiritual baptism I've been in yet. Her whole family came (even the sort of crazy negative step dad) and the Spirit was really strong during the ordinance and while she changed as we watched Reflections of Christ (an awesome 5 minute photo slideshow of events in Christ's life that Hna Graham has). Her mom was super happy and in the closing prayer she thanked that we were able to witness and feel so many wonderful and beautiful things that night. :)
Saturday we went around with a bunch of members giving away old Liahonas and setting up appointments. It was crazy hot because summer is rolling in. The young women and primary girls had fun contacting with us and we got 5ish positive references out of it. It was cute to see how they got all excited when someone reacted positively or even just nicely, and they talked about how they had to get ready to be missionaries.
Okk welp I'm almost outta time but I love you all!! Thanks for all thelove and support.
Love,
Hermana Dance
Hermana Graham and I are going to eat real chocolate milkshakes at TGIFridays today because we sort of reached our goal of only speakingSpanish from lunch until 5:00 P.M. Haha, it's easier to speak in English and both of us have good Spanish but we decided we should probably keep trying to improve....so we're rewarding ourselves today.
Hermmm, this week as a zone we started a new secret mission to try to find more families called El Encontrón de Familiones." (It doesn'ttranslate well but it basically means "The Huge Finding of Millions of Famlies" in a more clever, Spanish way. Aren't you jealous that you can't make up words like that in English?) So anyways, it involves contacting every night for 1 1/2 plus hours, not going in the house if the father isn't home and instead setting up an appointment when he'll be there, and lots of other family-finding and teaching tactics. It's kind of difficult because most of the dads don't get home until late or are only there Sundays and even then they're drinking, but we have still found lots of new families. Hermana Graham and I like to play games and our tactic is basically share a short message, and do something fun and creative so they'll want us to come back. So far it's been working pretty well, and my Family Home Evening idea bank is growing steadily...
Yesterday was kind of a flop and a trial of faith sort of day. None of our investigators came to church even though we left at 7:30 to go pick up 3 of them. Francisco was drunk and was just getting home as we were walking away from finding his house empty. He is a such a good person when he's sober but when he's drunk he's very....disagreeable. Harumph. The other one was asleep and didn't come to the door, and Karen left with her sister to go to her mom's grave because Nov 2 is a holiday where they honor the dead here. All of our appointments with families in the afternoon fell and there aren't many people in town because this whole upcoming week is pretty much full of holidays. So....we were pretty tired after contacting pretty much two whole days in a row and sad that no one came to church, but everything is ok and we're going to drink milkshakes and go running and keep on keepin on.
Karen's baptism date got moved to the 20th now because she still needs to cometo church at least one more time and we want to make sure they're really committed and understand that this is a big change and a lifelong thing.
On the bright side, Indira Isabel got baptized on Friday!! Besides everyone coming an hour late everything went smoothly and it was the most spiritual baptism I've been in yet. Her whole family came (even the sort of crazy negative step dad) and the Spirit was really strong during the ordinance and while she changed as we watched Reflections of Christ (an awesome 5 minute photo slideshow of events in Christ's life that Hna Graham has). Her mom was super happy and in the closing prayer she thanked that we were able to witness and feel so many wonderful and beautiful things that night. :)
Saturday we went around with a bunch of members giving away old Liahonas and setting up appointments. It was crazy hot because summer is rolling in. The young women and primary girls had fun contacting with us and we got 5ish positive references out of it. It was cute to see how they got all excited when someone reacted positively or even just nicely, and they talked about how they had to get ready to be missionaries.
Okk welp I'm almost outta time but I love you all!! Thanks for all thelove and support.
Love,
Hermana Dance
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