"I stiiiill love technology...noooot as much as you, you see..."

Family!!

You all are the best. And I'm impressed with your tech-savyness--a FHE over video conference, you're like the Jetsons! Mom and dad, sounds like you're in a whirlwind of conferences. We are too. This week is conference to the max because we have mission training conferences (something like what you all are doing I'm assuming) Tuesday-Thursday from 9-3, then on Saturday and Sunday it's General Conference. Woot. We're working with our converts and all the members and less actives inviting them to write at least three doubts, concerns, or questions, praying about them this week, and then coming to conference to be able to find the answer. So that goes for you all too! *gloik!* nerdy missionary moment....

Ok ok ok so this week.....herm. It went by way fast. My compita and I are continuing with our tender mercy/miracle identifying activity every night and love being able to see the hand of the Lord in our lives. Saturday's miracle was that the members had a reference for us of a guy that burst into the english class on Wednesday night holding a Book of Mormon and looking for missionaries.


Ok ok so basically what we learned from that is to look people in the eyes and listen to the Spirit to be able to tell what kind of people they are and to help us know how to be safe. And also to be warey (sp?) of "golden investigators" as wolves in sheep's clothing. Because that's the second time something like that has happened here.

ANYWAYS. Besides all that life is good, we're still seeing legit miracles every day. Yesterday as we walked by we heard someone playing The Star Spangled Banner on the sax so we contacted him and found a young awesome family. I love David, there are so many families and people are less obsessed with working.

We have also perfected the art of cooking any sort of baked good over the stove in a frying pan because we don't have ovens. So we've now successfully made cake mix cookies and banana bread and our next project is Never-On-Sundays (Sister Clark's recipe) as soon as we can smuggle in some brown sugar from the Costa Rican border. Mmmmm....

I hope you're all doing well and that you have a great conference weekend! Eat lots of waffles, french dipped sandwiches, and candy and play lots of ulitmate frisbee for me!

Love love loves

Hermana Dance
Mosiah 2:22 It's so simple....keep the commandments and you'll prosper

It's Cassie's Birthday!

Hey all!

I'm doin sooooo good! (Teen Girl Squad voice) Dad, I know that's grammatically incorrect but just go with it, I've been speaking straight up Spanish for a year now. Haha.

But yeah, I'm happy. I love love my compy and yes, she does know the assistant. Small mormon world, wooot! This week we decided in our nightly planning to identify a miracle that we saw during the day. It really helps us to see the hand of the Lord in our lives every day and it's good because then writing in my journal doesn't seem so overwhelming if I only have to record that every night. We've had some awesome experiences this week.

I'm so humbled by some of the people we get to teach and associate with here. They have nothing but what they do have they give away. There are poor people in the city, but they seem prouder, angrier, and more aggressive. The poor people here are so nice and generous and teachable. One of the women we're teaching has had such a hard life with economic situations, abusive fathers and husbands, and crazy kids and she deserves to so happy. She's come to church with us the last two weeks and yesterday she brought us a papaya and yogurt to church and told us we're like her daughters.

We've been praying that God will pour his Spirit out on Bolivar (my area) to prepare the people to receive the gospel and have been seeing the results. The other day we were walking by the river and as we passed a house we heard a little girl shout "Mom, the hermanas are coming!" So obviously we took advantage of that and went over to meet her mom and found out she'd met a couple hermanas a few months ago and her 4 year daughter who is normally really quiet and shy invited us in and started talking to us a ton. Her mom was impressed and let us teach her and now we have an appointment to teach her and her husband on Wednesday. Miracle! heh.

Life is good, the gospel is awesome, and I'm happy. Love you all!!

Hermana Dance
Alma 8:10 (I think)

I'm back I'm back!!

Hey family!!

So I got transferred to David! Yayyyy!! It's close to Volcan (my first area) and it's rural but civilized all at once-the perfect combo. I feel like I'm home again....! We have zone conferences with my first zone and we'd come here for Pdays when we reached our goals so I feel very happy here. Plus my area is teeny (no short buses, no diablos rojos, no traffic, no elevated bridges to cross the street, no traveling for an hour in between appointments) I feel like I can be so much more efficient because everything is so close.

Everybody says hi back, we can get into anyone's house, the members know we exist, the sisters actually come to relief society and everyone comes to the activities. It's amazing! I'm in a branch but this branch is stronger than the ward I'd been working in for 7 1/2 months. We already got invited to someone's house for dinner! Haha sorry if I'm getting too excited, I just forgot how awesome it is being out of the city. *sigh of relief*

Oh, and my companion is amazing. She's Hermana Graham from Birley (sp?) Idaho (the motherland! ok well, for mom and dad anyways....) and she's so sweet. The best part: she loves running, eating turkey sandwiches, and doing active things outside. Finally finally finally I have a companion who will work out with me!! So we've been going out in the mornings to run for 45 minutes and it's helping me learn our area a lot faster. We have lots of plans for this transfer and I'm excited.

Herm, what else to talk about...I'm a little sad because now that I'm 8 hours aways from the city I won't be able to come to the baptisms of Geraldine or Amin and Jennifer :( But I'm definitely going to keep tabs on them to see how they're doing. I was also sad to leave some of the coolest members I've ever met buttttt I definitely needed a change of scenery. Ahh your poor missionaries who only speak the language of the country and only have like 4 areas they can go to their whole mission....! I don't know how they do it.

Welp I don't really have any updates on people we're teaching yet because I just got here, but I'm excited because it's so easy to find people here. We just found 3 families in these last 4 days....jes. Next week I'll send sweet spiritual experiences :)

:) Oh and now that I'm thinking of it, be prepared for packages and letters to arrive after 3ish months (probably 4 from mom and dad) because our inter-mission mail system is NOT very efficient. Arg. So don't worry if I haven't gotten stuff, it's just that the mission mail system is very slow. I don't think I've actually had any lost packages yet. Or maybe I just don't know...eek!

Ok welp love you all, thanks for everything!!

Love,
Hermana Dance

I have fire in my eyes. . . cough, cough

Hey family,
Thanks for all the birthday wishes! So far we've been invited to like 3 different going-away/birthday parties. The members were nice yesterday and some of them said that they'd miss me but usually it's the investigators and less active people that love us the most and invite us to things.
Wednesday was officially the best day ever :) We called the President and his wife to go out with us to visit some of our most positive investigators. We got there kind of late but we taught Geraldine (an awesome 19-year-old girl) the plan of salvation and she told us about how she'd received her answer that these things are true. We set a baptismal date for this saturday and she accepted and the president told me that if I'm close by next transfer I can go :). Then we went to visit our big famly, la famlia Martinez. The Spirit was really strong and they got all quiet when he talked-they all loved him because he's so sweet and happy. Hermana Ward didn't speak any Spanish when she came out here but now she can bear her testimony. It's awesome. It was so great to have them with us and fun to get to know them better. After he also bought us Blizzards from DQ and I felt like I was hanging out with my own parents.... :)

This week I realize that I'm finally starting to be able to be more confident in my abilities to recognize and follow the Spirit. A couple of nights ago we ended up in another unplanned lesson with recent convert and her 21 year old son who'll come to church on and off sometimes. I had no idea what to teach because what we had planned wasn't right for the situation so as we sang the opening song I just said a quick prayer to know what to say and BAM the perfect idea came to my head. The Spirit is awesome.
This guy is obsessed with his body and working out because he does field events (as in long jump, discus, etc). So I started by asking him what he does to take care of himself and stay in shape and he got all excited telling me about it (I think he got the wrong idea for a second, haha) and then I asked him how much time he spends doing all that and he said "pretty much all day" After that I said ok and asked him "So since you're spending that much time taking care of your body, what're you doing to take care of your spirit?" shazam. He didn't know what to say and got kind of bashful because he knows it's stuff he should be doing. We proceeded to teach a lesson about prayer, reading the scriptures, and going to church to take care of your spirit. So in summary I'm just really happy that the Spirit tells us what to do and say and I'm finally confident that we can end up in whatever random lesson and if I trust in the Lord, take it easy and don't freak out about what I'm going to say, the words will come. Being a missionary is the coolest.
Welp, love you guys a ton! Thanks so much for all the support.

Love,
Hermana Dance
Alma 26:21-22

Vote for Pedro

Hey all!
It's campaign week! Next Sunday we're fasting as a ward for "those who know not God" (Alma 6:6 I think that's the translation in English anyways) so to help remind them and get them pumped we're campaigning. We're visiting all the members, teaching them, giving them flyers and door hangs, doing service projects, and getting references. Yayyyy!

It's working out well so far. More of the Relief Society sisters are going out with us and it's fun to be with them and learn from all their different perspectives and life stories. It's a huuuuge hassle because we have to figure out how to meet them and where and if they'll have a car (if not we have to set up appointments close by their houses because they don't want to walk far) and then we have to call them a hundred times to remind them during the week or to see where they're at if they're running late, and then we have to train them to not say anything wierd in the lessons or freak our investigators out etc etc. BUT once we get all that figured out they are a great asset for us and it's a big help for them and for the ward. It helps them remember that God and religion aren't just Sunday things and we can see that it's helping to raise the enthusiasm in the ward for missionary work bit by bit...! Yayyyyy!

Now when things are finally starting to work out I'm getting transfered, womp wahhhh. But that's ok, a new adventure. The people here are so loving once we're friends with them. We have like 5 different invitations for cook-outs and going away celebrations and birthday parties (my birthday is the day before the transfer) and I'm going to be sad to leave these people. So it goes. (name the book! mmm I haven't completely lost all my nerdiness...hehe).

Herrmmmm what else can I tell you. Amin and Jennifer are getting married but they have economic difficulties in getting enough money ($50) to pay for the medical tests. We're going to help them out but it's going a little slower than planned. But they're progressing and it's amazing to see how much Jenny has already changed. Yesterday she came to church and she dressed modestly (yayyy!) and was waaay more loving and patient with her 1 1/2 year old daughter. The gospel is the best.

We're also teaching a 19-year-old girl named Geraldine. She's very sweet and very positive. Last week when she couldn't come to church because he grandma had surgery she asked me which chapter we studied in the Principles of the Gospel class and she said she thought that was the one and that she'd read it at home along with a bunch of other things. She always knows when we're coming over and is excited, and she's already invited three different friends to come with here. We're going to put a baptismal date with her on Wednesday. Woot.

Ok welp those are my updates for now. Mission Panama is chuggin along. Oh and we reached our goal for August so I think we're going to Causeway again. Life is good. :) I feel like I'm finally getting a full grasp on all this missionary stuff. It only took a year....haha. I know there's lots more to learn all the time but I guess I feel like I'm finally....more confident in what I'm doing.
Love you all!!
Hermana Dance

my life be like:
Alma 21:16-17

oops i don't have any time. story of my life...!

Hey family,
Yayyyy I'm happy.
Brief updates:After a week of rejection (english spelling?) we've had a flood of success this week in finding new investigators, working with members, getting people to come to church, etc etc etc. God is the best. It almost makes we want to spend another whole week contacting under the sun without success to be able to get more blessings the week after. Hee. :)

We had interviews on Thursday and it was waaay different than interviews with Presidente Madrigal. Hermana Ward made us lunch (pita sandwiches and baby carrots, apples, and chips-the most American meal I've had in a year) and we all ate together after. They are super sweet and funny-it felt like a little family meal.
President Ward said "dude" in my interview and it made me so happy. They gave us a ride to our area afterwards and it was fun to get to know them more and hear about their experiences. I felt like I was hanging out with you two again when we first got to Latvia.
Oh random side note-yesterday at lunch a member told me that Russia lost all their wheat crops due to flooding and that everything is going to get more expensive and there will probably be a famine there. Is that true/going to affect you all over there? I feel so unplugged from the world, ahh!! But I guess it's better that way.
Also this week we got to go the temple with Hermano Miguel, the guy we baptized in March. Since the whole ward was there they needed more people in the session so we got to do a session and it was the best-I didn't even get sleepy! (sometimes the temple spirit has that effect on me...oops).
No but really, I love being in there. Plus Miguel was super happy when we left-he's progressed a ton and will take out his endowment next year.
Mmmbop beep I don't know what else to tell you all. I'm happy, that's the summary I guess. I'm getting transfered in Sept (the day after my birfday) but I'm going to do everything I can to leave the area up and running. Yayyy.
Ok gotsta go love you all bye!!!
Love,
Natalie

drop it like it's hot

Hey family,

Thanks for the emails....! Life is good but this week has been kind of lame because we just contact and knock doors all the time but no one wants to listen to us or won't accept a second appointment after we teach them. I think part of it is that we're both American so they kind of have their guard up...because it's never been this hard to find new investigators here. So yesterday we fasted to find new people who are actually positive and the last lesson we taught last night was to a super positive guy named Gorge. He had tons of really good questions and the spirit was so strong. We were teaching with a member who's getting pumped to go on her own mission and when we left she told us that she felt the authority that we had as missionaries. Cool huh? So yeah, I'm a fan of fasting because everytime I do it I get extra blessings :)

Hermmmmm what else to tell you all....Alexander came to church yesterday, yay!! He's awesome but is going through some famliy/economic issues. His mom kicked out the elders when they tried to come visit him in the area where he lives now and he got really sad. But he decided to come stay in our area saturday at his grandma's house so he could come to church because his mom won't let him there...he's a good kid. My compy told me that it looked like a mother and a son when we were talking on sunday, haha.

The big family (Famlia Vasquez/Familia Martinez) is progressing slowly because of marriage issues..some of them are waiting for divorces, others are struggling because one of the two doesn't want to get married, and others know they need to but are having difficulties with taking the step to do it. We're working more with members and are happy because one family came to have an FHE with them on Sunday and then came to help celebrate one of the daughter's birthdays on Saturday. They're good people.

I feel like I don't really have anything else interesting to say...some interesting encounters with drunk people, a few dog threats, a giant rain storm that made the drains in the street flood, a lady who told us that she baptized herself three times by dunking her head in a bucket when she was 16....not too much else. Oh yeah, and Tuesday we get to go to the temple!! The rules are changing soon but for now we get to go when one of our converts goes for the first time. Miguel (who we baptized in March) is going on Tuesday with the ward for the 2 year anniversary of the dedication of the temple so we get to go too. I'm stoked.

Ok well I'm out of time but I love you all, thanks for always writing and making me feel all warm and fuzzy inside..! Family is the best :)

Love,
Hermana Dance

P.S. I know i've been slacking on putting references on the end of my emails....next week!