I get my reassignment this Friday! I am so excited. Almost as excited as I was for my first mission call :) They let us email our family and tell them so expect an email on Friday from me! We also get to talk to our family before boarding the plane, but I will give you more details when we get our travel plans! Oh and technically I did send one picture last week. I sent a picture to Ginger of me and my package so maybe she could send it to you? Anyway I plan on taking quite a bit more pictures in the field, but right now I spend about 99.99% of the time in a classroom. Which is important, but not exactly "picture-worthy" :) I absolutely loved the pictures you send me though. It means a lot. I was able to print them off, so I can look at them anytime I get homesick! It made me realize how important pictures are so I will be sure to take more in the future! I hope you are having fun with Little Lou! I bet you two are having a blast with all that girl time!
We had TRC again! I love it so much. We were able to talk to a returned missionary who went to Brazil and who is currently attending BYU. His name is Blake. Just found that a little interesting :) We also taught an older woman named Sister Rice who was actually called to be a TRC missionary and help other missionaries prepare for their mission. She had to learn to speak Portuguese and everything! She was born in Mexico and speaks Portuguese, Spanish, and English! What was so amazing is that although we had planned the same topic for volunteers, the lessons turned out completely different! Hopefully that means the Spirit was prompting us! With Blake, I felt prompted to share an experience-about how the Book of Mormon had given me confidence because I could feel the love that Christ and that God had for me. I invited him to share any experiences he had during his life and he shared some really touching ones about his mission. I really felt like we connected and at the end of the lesson his comment card said that he felt the Spirit really strong when we both shared our experiences! YES! I am improving each day when it comes to recognizing and acting on the Spirit! When we taught Sister Rice, I felt the prompting to just share a simple testimony. She was so sweet that I just never wanted to stop talking to her! At the end of our message, our teacher said that Sister Rice was very touched by our message and that she wanted to be more like us! She also said that she had really felt the Holy Ghost as we testified of the Book of Mormon. I just love teaching real people! I am getting more excited and more nervous to go out into the field every day!
This week one of our teachers, Irmão Buttars, taught us a lesson that has really stuck with me this week. He said that 60% of returned missionaries go inactive within six years after coming home! I couldn't believe it. I have already had such faith promoting experiences here and I haven't even gotten into the field yet! Irmão Buttars said it was because those missionaries have never been truly converted. They may have had strong testimonies and amazing experiences, but it was not enough. Having a testimony is not enough. As I was evaluating my own life to see if I had been truly converted, I read in the Bible Dictionary that conversion is "a conscious acceptance of the will of God." It is a conscious decision! This last week I made the conscious decision to change. I want to be someone who has diligence and charity. This last week I prayed morning and night and all during the day for these Christ-like qualities. I am really striving to develop them. Some days are better than others and I make a lot of mistakes, but I have faith and I have hope that Christ will help me develop these qualities as I earnestly seek for them. It helps to repent daily and evaluate my efforts daily. I know that it is going to be a long process. I want so much to be a different person than the one I was when I came here. I want to change and become more Christ-like. I want to be truly converted. I think if I work as hard as I did this week for these goals, then God will bless me. I can become the missionary and the person I want to be! It says in the Bible Dictionary that "To labor for the conversion of one's self and others is a noble task." Wish me luck on this noble task! I'm going to need it!
AHHH! I'm so glad that Rachel got such an amazing job! I am sure it was an answer to prayers! We went to the temple today and I put Dean's and Shane's names in the prayer box. Those are some powerful prayers so hopefully it helps!
Caden! Congrats on your awesome STARR scores! Who knew little "pokey-puppy" would be the one to come in first for the ACT?? :) How was your first day of 7th grade? And good luck with basketball tryouts1
Blake! How was your first day of 7th grade? You sounded a little nervous in your letter. I don't know why! You are going to do so good, especially in reading :) "You is smart. You is kind. You is important." You should also read "The Help" :) Your career class sounds like fun. I wish I had taken it since I have almost 20 and STILL have no idea what I want to be when I "grow up." Congrats on the new fish! Hopefully she lasts a little longer than your first one ;)
Lexi! Sorry I didn't get to send you a separate email this week. I don't know where the time went! But I think you definitely should open up an ETSY shop. Feel free to treat me as a walking advertisement. I live with a lot of girls who I am sure would love some personalized art work! That and I wouldn't mind to have some personalized art from my dear irmã! Mom sent me some pictures of you and Taylor and you guys are of course adorable. As always! Also sent some pictures of that thing with Christian.How was that? It looked like fun hanging out with the old ward! Oh, and what classes are you taking for fall? You know I'm dying to know. Some things never change :)
Pops! It sounds like you are having fun with the boys! Sorry it took so long for you to get that "boy time!" I love how you talk about Mom. So sweet! I also loved your advice--as always :) I think I have been truly blessed with the language and I think it is coming along pretty well. Our teacher challenged us to speak only Portuguese for the remainder of our stay here. Today was our first day and it was hard. Most of our vocabulary deals with teaching the gospel. I am afraid that our every day language is severely limited, so I have to walk around with my dictionary and am forced to look up words like "to print" and other words that are not included in Preach my Gospel or the scriptures! It makes for some very choppy conversations, but it is definitely giving me the opportunity to work on verb conjugations!
Mom! I really appreciate all the letters. I look forward to them every day. I love that we have a family motto. I think that is a great scripture to chose! I want you to know that I think of you every day. We had someone suggest that we be "the missionary you're mom thinks you are." So I am really trying to be the missionary you deserve for your daughter to be!
I love you guys so much! I love every letter and I'm sorry if I can't respond as well and as detailed as I want to, but I hope you know that I would if I could!
Love Sister Daniels
 |
| Ginger sent Morgan a package "full of sunshine" that she adored and was so grateful for! |
No comments:
Post a Comment