Dear family,
I'm glad y'all had such a great Spring break! It sure sounds like fun! One of the less-active members in our ward wants to take us fishing, so we'll have to see if I can pull a Blake on that one :) The Special Olympics sounds like it was a wonderful experience! I've met a couple mentally handicapped people on my mission and they are always so pure and so innocent. The have special spirits. They really do. I LOVE that you followed a spiritual prompting to help that man! What a powerful example you are to me, Mom!
I think it is great that you are hanging out with the boys so much, Pops! I get nervous for them, sometimes. So many young men fall away! We have a lot of less actives in our ward and many of them are young men. I have seen too many faithful wives with husbands that don't go to church. It is absolutely heart-breaking. Many are returned missionaries. My mission has really opened my eyes to the battle that we are fighting. Satan is fighting awfully hard and he has a plethora of strategies. Every less active has a unique story and different reasons for leaving, but with each one I have to fight the urge not to shake them into sanity! I think the Lord is teaching me the heavenly virtue of patience and understanding :) I really love being an instrument of God in helping them remember the truths they once knew and cherished. Michael, especially, has made such progress. Yesterday, he got a tithing slip for the first time in about 40 years! I feel like a proud parent!! I did good, too :)
We had a sister share an analogy in her talk that I really loved. She said that there are two ways to read the scriptures. We can water ski or we can scuba dive. When we ski, we read through the scriptures quickly. It is fun and exciting and we are able to get the thrill of the stories. We also have the immediate satisfaction in seeing how fast we have progressed. It is, however, a fairly superficial understanding--it barely grazes the surface. Then there is scuba diving. We can take it slow, reveling in the joys of discovery and unearthing new insights and novel ideas. I feel like I have done an awful lot of water skiing in my life! Luckily, my mission has taught me how to scuba dive into the scriptures. I finally am getting a grasp on just what it means to "ponder" the scriptures and I am making connections like never before!
I love you guys so much! I love your letters and read them over and over again. Thanks for all the support. As cliche as it sounds, it is nevertheless true: I couldn't be doing this without you!
Sister Daniels
P.S. I hear if I get my visa this Saturday. I think the chances I got it this time are next to nil, so hopefully I get to stay in Charleston this next transfer!!
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