Todavía hace mucho calor

Buenas Tardes, My fan club!!!                                                                  October 27, 2014

Hahaha, Okay, maybe not, but I hope you all are doing awesome amidst the wonderful autumn that you have there because...well...it's still really hot here. More right now because I'm sitting in at this computer in a "ciber" with no air conditioning and it smells like dirty shoes :) haha but no big deal. 

This week was really good :) We found more people than usual that have real potential to progress. 

We have been teaching this guy named Fransisco off and on because we couldn't find him. But we found him the other day. We had a lesson with him and at the end invited him to be baptized, but with the influence of his mom he said no. But he said he'd come to a talent show the next night! And what'ya know...he actually came! 

I now know why missionaries should not attend such events...I seriously almost got up on the stage with the kids to dance swing! But it was a pretty good show. 

Anyway! Fransisco has a 3 year old daughter who isn't all that well behaved, and so he was worried about her the whole time, and I don't know how much he really enjoyed it. But what was even more surprising: He came to stake conference! By the way, we had stake conference this weekend...hahaha. He brought his daughter, Paula, again but we were prepared with coloring and cookies. That only worked for a little while and half-way through the conference she didn't even want cookies! What kind of kid is this? Anyway, we took her to the bathroom, and on the way back she ended up in the nursery...for about 10 minutes. And she came looking for her dad! And then left again. We went to look after her so Fransisco could listen to the speakers...I really hope he learned something knew. But it all turned out well. 

Stake Conference was really, really good. Elder Don R. Clarke came to speak to us. He talked about a lot of stuff, especially retention of members. 

There are 3 things that we need to be doing all the time:

Praying

Going to Church

Reading the Book of Mormon - you should never let a single day pass by that you don't read it. 

It's pretty simple...these 3 things lead to eternity...of course there's a bit more to it, but if we don't obey these simple commandments...well...we don't receive the blessings. 

Anyway...here comes another week! Thanks for your support and prayers :) 

And letters ;)

Love you!

Hermana Daniels

Time is like a Cheetah...it runs REALLY fast!

Hola a todos!!                                                                     October 20, 2014

Mom, Congrats on your new calling!!!  You will be an awesome Relief Society President! It's kinda funny, because this morning I was thinking about callings that you and Dad have had, and was wondering if you have ever been President of Primary or Relief Society...hahaha I can tell the future. Okay, no but you'll be good.  Dad, do you have a new calling or still the gospel doctrine teacher? The rolls came out Green!?!?!? hahahaha What did you do to your bike to make it look smashed?  

THIS week was really fast. I'm kind of scared...I don't know how to hold on to the time here. Ugh! 

We are trying really hard to contact families here, but man it's frustrating when they say "soy catolica." OR quite common "Soy testigo de Jehova." 

"Yeah, that's fine! Can we sweep your patio? Or clean your dishes?" Guess what, nobody wants to accept service! We're gonna have to start getting creative. 

But we did contact a young married woman last night! And when we told her about families, she looked pretty interested. There's hope there :)

A recent Convert received the Aaronic Priesthood Yesterday! And is now ready for the Melchezidek just in time because Stake Conference is next week! Woo! It's really awesome to see them enduring to the end because Eduardo, the convert, has had a really hard time, and now he and his daughter are doing really well. 

We are trying to work with the members more, and this week a recent convert, youth, came with us to a lesson. The investigator, Aida, wasn't acting all too interested, and so if the lesson didn't go well, we were going to let her go, but what do you know? She asked about a million questions!!!  It was REALLY good, and what's more, she saw the testimony of Ricardo, the youth that came with us. She is REALLY nice and really has faith in God, but is really busy because she cares for her whole family, and her Mom was just diagnosed with cancer. Hopefully we can progress with her.

One of the hardest things here is getting people to go to church at 8:00am. We have awesome lessons, and they really want to learn more, but when Sunday comes..."es que no me despertè!" or "I didn't wake up!" or It's just too early!" 

Just for those of you who have to sacrifice sleep or something else...Remember that sacrifice brings blessings :) Lots more than you can imagine! 

Here on the mission I am learning BASTANTE about the scriptures. I can't believe I read so little before my mission!! Agh! There's so much to learn! And while I'm reading the scriptures, I learn a lot from what I read, but then I feel like I forget what I just learned 30 chapters ago! And that's why we have to read them over and over and over and over again. 

Right now I'm in 3 Nephi where the Nephites defeated the Gadianton Robbers, but only because they put all of their strength in him. 

" 10 But in this thing they(the Gadianton robbers) were disappointed, for the Nephites did not fear them; but they did fear their God and did supplicate him for protection; therefore, when the armies of Giddianhi did rush upon them they were prepared to meet them; yea, in the strength of the Lord they did receive them."

I was thinking how much difference there would be if we put our strength in the Lord like that. I don't know how it is to go into battle. I think it would be pretty scary. But if we rely on the Lord...well..all things are possible! All things :) 

Thanks for everything! Love you guys! Have an awesome week! 

Hermana Daniels

Aand...Week number 2 is over? Ya?

Dear Family and friends,                                                                                   10/13/14

(Ya significa, "already")

And it came to pass...that there´s no way I can tell these experiences in scripture language. 

I'll start out with the highlight - We had a baptism this week for Jorge Schmidt! But in Spanish they say it like "Smith" and so when we filled out his baptism papers, we spelled his name, and THEN he told us that it wasn't spelled like the American Smith, but from German! How, convenient! Good thing we have lots of extra registries :D 

Also, something pretty important is that Jorge only has one leg! So, he uses a wheelchair, but he lives next door to the chapel, which is pretty great, I think! So we had a fun time trying to find a bench or a chair that we could use for him. And making sure the font was full enough, so that when he laid down on the bench, there would enough water to cover his stomach. 

But we found a bench :)

 

 And then in the middle of everything, we promised two investigators that we would come by for them so they could go to the baptism! But, obviously we can't be in two places at once...But we can we have Elderly sisters in our zone!! Whoot! They did splits with us, but in the end...neither of the investigators were home :( 

But! Juan came to the Baptism!! And I really thought he would not come. He has an interesting story. We had a lesson with him the other night about prayer, and he told us that the next morning he was going to the doctor's for some studies. They next day we found him in the street, and he said he said a prayer, and the studies came back really good. That was really good for him, but he still needs to take hold of the Word of Wisdom a bit more. He smokes and eats a lot of meat. He's a good guy, really nice, but hopefully we will see some progression because we put a baptismal date, but we don't know if he'll really be ready... 

Anyway!!! Baptism of Jorge! Everything turned out great. And I got to exercise (I don't know how to spell anymore) my arms!! Wanna know why? Because the drain in the baptismal font doesn't work!!! Whoot!! Bucket for bucket, man!!! We thought we would have to empty it alone, but our ward mission leader and his wife helped us out :) 

 

 And today we went to the Zoo! We actually have the Mission President and his wife in our ward, so they took us and some other sisters to the Zoo! It was really nice. They are a really laid back, funny, fun couple. And I almost felt at home with all the goats and chickens :D 

Funny story: (I don't remember if I already told this one) 

We had a lesson with a less-active, and she was saying the closing prayer, and at the end of the prayer when she said, "Amen" my companion said, "Gracias!...Amen! I mean Amen! Gracias!" 

I just want to share one thing that I like from General Conference from Jeffrey R, Holland:

What we do is like a drop in the bucket, but if we didn't do it, there would be one drop less." I don't know if that's exactly the quote because I heard it in Spanish....but...really...I really like that quote. Because, I haven't had the most success in the world on my mission. Sometimes I feel REALLY inadequate, but do try. But it's good to know that what do makes a difference...even if it's one drop. And to think that...if each one of us represents a drop of blood that Christ shed for us...and there was one drop less than there should be...How would it be to be the "one drop less." But...I know that he really did suffer for ALL of us. Not ONE of us can say that nobody understands because he literally understands everything. Don't reject what he has done for you!

Love, Hermana Daniels 

The view of the city when we ran up the stairs of the Catholic Church 

Here we gooooo!!!!

Here we gooooo!!!!                                                 October 6, 2014

Dear Important people in my life,

I'm glad you all enjoyed the previous letter, because there won't be another one like it for a while :D 

This week...I basically followed my companion around, because I knew nothing about anything! It was like starting all over again, only this time I actually knew what most of the poeple were saying. And I knew how to reply. That's a good thing, I think. :) 

But really, It's pretty weird being in a city like this! There's nice, big houses and then down the road a few blocks and there's really small houses. Stores on every corner and there are no fields. Nope, this is not  Mazatlán! But it's still a good place with good people. 

Turns out this is an area where you tell other missionaries where you are and they say "oh, I'm so sorry!" hahaha! Oh, thanks for your uh...help... It's not a very mission minded ward. My companion that was already here has been slowly getting it better. Poco a poco we're working with the members, etc. 

Also, this is one of the oldest wards in Culiacan and so there's a LOT of old people. And so it's kind of funny trying to teach the less actives or investigators that just tell us they can't go because they can't walk, but my companion has found them on the other side of the colonia(or colony - the cities are big, but are divided into colonies or subdivisions).

We have a baptism this Saturday for a man named Jorge Smith. hahaha you don't normally find a Smith here in Mexico. But he has one leg because he fought in a war (I don't know which) and his leg got infected somehow and the doctors told him they would cut half his leg off. And he woke up and they had taken off a lot more!! Anyway, he uses a wheelchair, and this will be an interesting baptism. 

General Conference was pretty dang good!! Again...hahaha I watched it in Spanish until the last session on Sunday, when apparently they decided to put it in English for us Americans in another room. They didn't get it working until almost half the session was over...so I need to go back and watch that part again :)

You should all be grateful to know and speak the English language. The talks are more powerful when you hear them in English. Or if the speaker speaks Spanish, or Chinese or Portuguese...it's just better when you understand the speaker without a translator. Not to say that I'm not grateful for them! I'm SOOOO grateful for the translators! 

But everyone wants to learn English...so...be grateful for you have :) 

I learned a lot from the conference, but you don't get notes because they're in the house. But hopefully I can really learn and apply them to this magnificent thing called missionary work. 

Have an awesome week! Always share the gospel :) 

Love, 

Hermana Daniels

       

                                     

This was a hilarious meeting because we forced the Elders to sit like Ladies and we tried to stand like boys.