2 John 1:12

Ha, just kidding.

I can´t believe that this is my last letter!  Weird.  But I won´t think about that yet.  So this week was great!  I had my Homeward-Bound interview with Presidente Bigelow and it was so weird.  He sat me down and we made a lot of goals about...life after the mission.  I have actually had a really hard time thinking about that to be honest!  It is not my fave topic.  But...what are ya gonna do?  We talked about college, social life, marriage...real life that I never thought would actually arrive.  I love Presidente Bigelow.  Remember how Les was obsessed with President Newell?  I am that way with Bigelow.  Holy cow.  It was so weird to go to the office and see Sister Butler,  Sister Orr, Sister McCleve, and Sister Seidmann all there for their interviews too.  Like...we did it!  Wow!

Anyway, the work was awesome this week.  We had a tapioca activity at the church on Friday and a ton of people came!  We just have to get that excitement to carry over to Sunday morning...oh dear.  But it was good!  And....we had a baptism!  Sister Piza´s very first!  Oh my gosh, it was so cute!  Julia looked just like an angel and she was glowing!  Her parents were so happy too, and now her mom is fully into the church again.  I loveeee completing families!!!  Speaking of, we were able to teach Renata and her family again too!  We marked her little brother, Jeán for baptism this next week.  I love this family so much.  Every time we go over there, I just feel like I was sent there to help them!  We all knelt together in prayer last night after the lesson, and I just got this glimpse of them all being sealed in the temple one day.  And I know that it will happen!!!!

Sister Dana, Julia and Sister Piza

Well...this is it!  I just want to end with my testimony of how amazing missions are.  If you are even THINKING, DREAMING, OR WISHING to go on a mission, GO.  I think about where I was a year and a half ago, and where I am now....wow.  It´s different.  But the thing that I have learned the most is how to trust Heavenly Father because He LOVES these people.  It doesn´t matter if we don´t feel qualified or ready...He won´t lose a child because of my weakness.  I know, without a doubt, that Jesus Christ lives and that repentance is REAL.  There is a tangible change that happens when people are baptized and live to gospel.  They just become full of light!  These last few nights, I have just stayed awake thinking about all of the people that I was able to meet and all the cool experiences we had...I am just so blessed.  

I love you all, and I love missionary work!  See you...Saturday!

Love,

Sister Dana

Stop Trunking Me Out, I Am Still a Missionary.

Really, you guys are the worst.  HA!  Ok this week was really great.  I did my last division!  Sad...I liked those!  I brought Sister Martins over to Ouro Preto on Thursday and we tore it up!  She is so cute..helped me out a lot over here!  i have so much respect for her.  It was really hard for her to come out on a mission, but she did it and she has so much love for the gospel.  I just more excited every time I do a division, especially with the younger sisters.  They are so strong!  I know that Heavenly Father will take care of my people here through them.  

We had a really cool experience together this week too.  We were trying to find a less-active family, and their address is soooo complicated.  And I forgot the map at home.  So we were in a tight spot.  We asked around for directions...nada.  Nobody knew where we even were!  So we said a prayer there on the street, and suddenly Lucas, the 15-year-old of the family, comes out and calls us over.  He had been watching from the window and saw us lost and praying...right in front of his house. Thanks, God. We went in and taught him and his sister, Renata.  While we were there, I just had the coolest feeling.  It was like...this family right here.  They are why I was sent here.  Renata is 18 and just had the feeling that she needed to start coming back to church the first week that we got here.  She has been inactive for 4 years. I feel so strongly that she´s going to serve a mission!  So we´re gonna call her out to teach with us a ton and I am so excited!  Lucas is amazing too.  He is the one who gets up early to get everyone to come to church.  He comes to all the activities and has a really strong ability to recognize the Spirit.  Guys...these kids completely blow me away,.

We also had stake conference yesterday, which was super fun!  We got to see all of our Elder friends, and Patty and I were reunited!  And then the bad part, when we had to say goodbye...until I don´t know when.  THOSE THINGS KILL ME.  I hate them and I know that this is just the beginning, dadgumit!  Poor Piza, she´s going to have a lot of calming to do.  The conference was great though.  Presidente Bigelow and Sister Bigelow spoke and told the members to use the missionaries and Preach My Gospel more.  Mom, get ready because we are def studying this as a family when I get home.  And I hope the Elders in our ward are ready to work too, because Coop and I are going on lots of visits with them.

I have to tell the funniest thing that happened last night!  So, we are teaching Gabriel, right?  I was so afraid that he is going to have some problem that will stop him from getting baptized, so I was kinda nervous during the lesson. Anyway, Gabriel likes to go off on tangents a lot.  He started talking about how his friends were talking about things with "chifres" and he decided to look them up on the internet.  All this stuff popped up and he got all these bad images stuck in his head. What does that sound like to you?  Yeah, to me too.  So I whisper asked to Sister Piza, "What are chifres??"  And she goes, "Horn."  Only the word I heard was "porn."  Thus, I immediately launched into Law of Chastity and repentance mode...and taught the whole dang thing.  Piza just thought I was getting some impression and followed along, and poor Gabriel will now go repent...for not doing anything.  I didn´t even realize until Piza asked me about it at home.  Woops.

Other than that...all is well here!  I hope that you guys have a great week and don´t get too excited, we have a lot of work to do!  Also, one small favor.  Please pray that our baptism for this week, Julia, goes through!  And also that Gabriel´s will happen on the day we have marked...the 14th.  Are ya excited to see a baptism down here?  Me too:)   Love you!

Love,

Sister Dana 

Week from...well, not exactly heaven.

This week...it was great!  And awful, but mostly great!  Ok, the good part.  We went to Olinda for Pday!!!  I love that place.  Literally, one of the most beautiful things ever, and Mom and Dad, you guys should be excited because it´s right where your hotel is located.  We went with a few of the other missionaries in our zone and I got to see Sister Patino again!  AND her companion that she is training...my granddaughter!  Yes, I have posterity.  SUPER stoked on that one.  

My Posterity! Sister Cariola, me and Sister Patino

Olinda is so fun!

Olinda with Piza

Us in Olinda

We had a ton of ward activities this week, each one better than the last.  We went to Enrichment night where I learned to embroider...and was actually pretty good at it!  Who knew!  Then on Wednesday, we went to Mutual too with a bunch of less active youth.  Basically half of the ward is under 18 because of the child-baptism sprees that used to go down here with the Elders.  Soooo we have a lot of re-activation to do with little kids, which is soooo difficult!  But it´s ok!  And then on Saturday night, we had an AWESOME Integration night!  So many members came!  No investigators...yet.  But just the fact that the members are getting excited again is huge progress.  And this is just the beginning!  Ahhh love it love it love it!

 

Integration Night

Ok, now the hard part of the week.  I´ll sandwich it in between the good stuff.  So basically everything blew up in our faces.  Like, the night when the water came, I accidentally left a faucet on.  Woops.  How the heck do you even know if it´s on or off when the water doesn´t exist!  I don´t blame my self too much.  Only bummer was that when we woke up, all of the water had run out during the night, so we didn´t even get one day of normal showers!  Hooray for the buckets;)  Also, on Thursday night, someone stole our cell phone right out of Sister Piza´s bag!  I was pretty impressed with that one.  The sly fox was quick indeed!  So we had a scare there when we got back home at 9pm and it was gone.  We turned the house upside down looking for that sucker...to no avail.  Our poor District Leader, Elder Cuevas, calls us every night to see if we are alive. And he couldn´t reach us!  Luckily our angel neighbor, Vera, let us use her phone to call Presidente and he got it all sorted out.  So we had to got to Recife the next day to get a new phone.  We planned it all out, got ready and....the buses were on strike.  Yep.  BUT they got off strike after lunch, so we were able to head over there and get a new one after all.  Whew!  Saddest part of the week....our perfect Renan came to church with us yesterday.  He liked it!  But after Sacrament meeting, he told us that he saw the benefits of everything, thanked us for showing him a better path, then told us he would rather learn the hard way.  Heart=broken.  I was so sure that he would be our perfect baptism!  That was probs the very worst part of the week.

But...here is the best part!  So there is a family in the ward that has recently started coming to church again.  They have a daughter named Julia who never got baptized.  Welp, that is our situation!  We went over to their house this week and marked her baptism.  She was feeling pretty unsure and didn´t want to do anything until after her birthday...in October.  Didn´t like that one, but it was what she wanted.  So we left it marked for Oct.25th.  I felt so bad about that situation the whole rest of the day.  What kind of missionaries are we, marking a baptism so far away!  This family needs to be together now!  So, the next day, we went back.  We told them how we were feeling badly and read a few scriptures with Julia.  We practiced the interview with her to show her that she really was ready, and challenged her to be baptized on the 6th of September.  And she accepted!  That´s more like it!

Hope that all is well there!  I´m NOT trunky (ask Piza!  I´m not!) But I am getting pretty stoked to show all this stuff to you guys!  Have a great week, and get ready because it is prettyyyy dang hot.  These days are flying.  Also tell Les that of course she´s suffering without me.  It´s like she´s trying to play jump rope with just one leg.  Things work much better when the two are together!  

Love love love you!

Sister Dana

High and Dry

So all of you who made jokes when I got my call about having to use a bucket to take care of all my needs....I blame this on you ALL *Clouse family*.  This week we discovered the joys of running water, and the way that life just stinks when you don´t have it!  We only get water twice a week here, and the rest of the days we have to take water from the tank in front of our house with a bucket to wash dishes, flush the toilets, take a shower, wash the clothes...yeah.  Life is not as easy as I one thought.  But we are surviving!  I feel like Bear Grilles sometimes...it´s a good story at least.  And now we have a stove again, which means that we can heat the water to take showers!!  Yay!

Things might be harder physically, but the Lord is definitely compensating.  People are just showing up and asking us to teach them.  One of these people being Samuel, who is 17.  He ran up to talk to us last week because he thought we were cute, but we pulled a fast one on him and taught him the Plan of Salvation!  Ha!  The Lord uses all sorts of ways to teach the gospel.  Anyway, he´s super intelligent and I know he´ll be such a good missionary!  He just has to understand the "Don´t touch the Sisters" rule first.

Another:  Gabriel.  He works at the grocery store and asked us to teach him more about the church.  So he showed up at the church on Thursday, and we did!  It was probably one of my fave Plan of Salvation lessons of my mission.  We had to teach him outside because there were no other women in the church, so we grabbed a chalkboard and drew the whole thing out.  He understood everything soooo fast and loved it.  He accepted baptism and asked a ton of questions about how to be a missionary... :)  Yesterday, he brought 2 other friends to come meet us too.  We taught them the Restoration with a bunch of members and it was so much fun!  I just LOVE being a missionary!!!!

Our case that is a bit more difficult is Renan.  He is very special.  When we were staying with Sister Fuoco in Recife, she had the feeling to go talk to him on the street one day.  They talked for a while and he´s an atheist but really a sad little feller, so she told him about the gospel and how it helped her.  She invited him to visit the church, but he goes, "Oh, I´m not from here."  She goes, totally by inspiration, "Nope.  You´re from Ouro Preto."  AND HE IS.  Poor guy was so freaked out that he gave her his number, which she passed to us.  We have taught him twice now and it´s really fun.  He thinks about everything so deeply, and it´s easy to see that he knows God exists.  We just have to get over the pride factor.  But once he can let that go, he will be AMAZING!!!! 

The ward is really starting to come alive.  This week, we had ward council and when we gave the bispo our Progress Record, he goes, "Wow!  It´s been years since I saw one of these!!"  Oh dear.  But we have a bunch of activities planned for this week and the people are excited!  They´re going to take us around to meet their friends and all the less-actives in the ward...I can´t wait.  Sister Piza is great too.  We get along super well and it impresses me how quickly she learns things.  I´m glad she´ll be the one to kill me.  It´s never been so easy to be obedient, and I have never seen the Lord´s hand so clearly in our work.  Hmmm....maybe the two are related?;)  

In response to your question, I think it´s fine with Prez if you guys come to church with me on Sunday.  Hope so!  Also I am the ward organist.  Yeah, surprised me too.  I have a few requests from companions if you guys could maybe bring from the States....

Those chocolate açai balls from Costco for Sis Rodrigues

Blueberry balls (same thing), Jesus the Christ in English, and Caranessa garments for Sister Fortes (xs)

Swedish Fish and footie socks for Sister Piza :)

Thank you!  Hope ya´ll have a good week!  Good luck with school Cooper!  Maybe now you´ll have time to write me an email or something...How fun that Tyler is living with you!  Everyone be nice to her.  Also give Leslie a hug from me and tell her to just wait a little bit longer!  Love love love you guys!

Love,

Sister Dana

President Bigelow to the Rescue!!!!

So I am thinking that I probably scared a lot of people with my last letter.  Probably...definitely...yes.  So I will explain a little better everything that happened this week, ok?  We finished emailing and went to try to clean the house...not even possible.  We decided to forget it for a while and go find the Bishop´s house.  After getting lost, we finally got there and they were so excited to have us!  We learned a bit about the ward and everything here, then headed home.  President called us at like 9:30 to see how everything was going, and I spilled about the house.  He asked if we could sleep in it, and I said "No way José."  There are some things that you just don´t do.  We couldn´t even sit down, much less sleep in that place.  Thus, he and Sister Bigelow put on their capes and hopped in their mission-mobile and arrived here in Ouro Preto at 11pm.  As soon as Sis Bigelow walked in, she gasped and goes, "Girls!  Pack your bags NOW!!!"  It was bad....really bad.  There was a lot of bad stuff that went down there too, so President took a bunch of pictures and then we drove over to the Sisters´ house in Recife.  It was DEFINITELY a relief!!!  President was thinking about sending us to another area, but Sister Piza (from Franca, São Paulo) and I really felt like this area was the right place for us to go.  So he called up the handyman, Reginaldo, and planned to do a cleanup there and send us back in a few days.

Sister Fuoco and Sister Dickson, a newbie, and the sisters there and they were angels to us.  The house in Recife is a TINY apartment, so we were all pretty cozy for a few days, but it was fun!  We just went out in their area and found a bunch of new people for them to teach the whole week.  It was great!  No appointments, nothing, just going out and teaching anyone and everyone in the city.  I´ve never served in the city before, so I really liked it.  A few highlights:  Since I´m an STL, I went to my last leadership meeting this week.  It was really good to learn a lot about how the mish is going to change and how things will improve.  I´m so sad that I won´t be able to see too much of it!  Also, Sister Fuoco and I are now great pals!  She taught me this delish way to cook eggs, and I taught her to tease her hair.  She thought it was the best thing of her life.  See, I´m not crazy!

On Friday night, Prez called saying that our house was ready!  12 hours of a cleaning crew in there.  Not even kidding.  So he took us over that night and it was perfect :)  Spotless, beautiful, ready to be worked!  Presidente dedicated it for us, and then the next day we got to work!  This area....I love it.  I have no idea how they haven´t been having baptisms here!  We are able to get lessons pretty easily and there are SO MANY HOUSES!  Honestly, I adore this place.  The Bishop, (who served in the same mish as dad, just came home in ´91) is thrilled to have sisters.  He and his family took us around in their car on Saturday night to see the area and introduce us to the members, then they brought us to their house for tapioca after :)  His wife, Dirô, told us how she has been praying and praying for a miracle to save this ward, and when she saw us at the door on Saturday, she knew that things were about to change and the Lord had listened to her.  It felt so GREAT!  At church yesterday, everyone was super welcoming and excited.  This is going to be an AWESOME experience.  

Now I know why Heavenly Father sent us here.  I was soooo happy in Gravatá, but Gravatá is a strong ward, you know?  It doesn´t need the missionaries like this ward does.  We are going to make a real difference here and help this ward come alive again.  Goal: by the end of this transfer, we´ll have enough work going to bring in another set of sisters.  It´s gonna happen, just wait.

Ok, congrats to my best friend in the whole world for a great homecoming talk.  Know that I was def praying for her this week!  But I knew that she would do such a great job...she is just like, my fave person in the world.  AND Cooper is going to sing and dance...what?  Wow.  Things really do change in a year and a half!  But there is no way in heck that I would let him bail out of this trip to Brasil!!!  I have so much stuff to show him!  Ahhhh time is passing really fast...I hate it.  Anyway, good luck with school and work, and congratulations to Shiloh and Danika!!  Love you guys!

Love,

Sister Dana

There are times when the Lord tests our faith.

And this is one of them.

This week was absolutely crazy.  We had our interviews with Presidente Bigelow, and I love that man.  He says that he his going to do everything absolutely possible to make sure that my next few weeks are the best of my whole mission.  He and I talked a lot about the areas, about my mission, about everything!  He is so cool and genuine and really has the Spirit to direct this work.  I talked to him about what would happen my last transfer, and he told me not to worry, that I would finish up in Gravatá, and life would be golden.  I left floating on a cloud!

Sister Fortes, on the other hand, had the feeling that she would be transferred because otherwise she would have to stay there a longgg time.  She was so sad, and she told everyone goodbye all day yesterday.  I went out on a division with Sister Andrade so that she could go to Boa Vista, her old area, and see everyone for the last time.  I just stood there taking pictures and helping her feel better, promising that it would all be ok and thinking the opposite.  "Bummer for her, I don´t have to go through this for a longggg time!"

Oh little did I know.

That night, the ZLs called.  Who got transferred....not Sister Fortes.  Sister Dana.

We just got back from the transfer meeting and my head is spinning.  I am now serving in a place called Ouro Preto, in the city of Recife.  We're taking over an area that was elders for a long time, but things were so bad there that the area closed a few weeks ago and the elders were sent home.  We just got to the house...I don't know if you could even call it a house.  There will have to be a few days of intense cleaning before we can manage living in this place.  There is no area map, area book, numbers in the cell phone...nothing.  And I am the LTS.  My companion is Sister Piza, and thankfully she is adorable and loves a challenge, just like I do.  But she only has 4 months on her mission, so I am the solo LTS for now.  

I have NEVER had a challenge like this before, but I know that Heavenly Father loves me.  He loves His children, and I KNOW that He does not give us ANYTHING that we can't overcome.  Nothing.  

Congratulations, Les!!!!  You are so, so beautiful!  I'm sorry that my head isn't as pretty as it once was, but hey, we all make some sacrifices.  Thanks for the update, and please send us some prayers here in the land of Black Gold.  This name perfectly describes what we found in the toilet when we got to our new house, btw.

Love you, have a great week!!

Love,

Sister Dana

No Illegal Drugs Were Involved in the Teaching of these People.

Wow.  There was so much good stuff in that email that I am just sitting here smiling like a dweeb.  Or crying, because Leslie sent me pics of when her parents came to pick her up.  She is not a missionary...wow, things go by quickly!  Ah please give her the biggest hug on Friday!  Please please please!!!!!!!

Thanks a million for the pics of San Diego and Snowflake!  I must say that I have one good-looking family!  Bummer that the mission has definitely taken its toll on me....yikes.  Anyways, speaking of good-looking, please tell Ray to give me his email address because I have found his wife.  I was just walking home from the store the other day and had the revalation that he needs to marry Sister Bedke.  Like, I am not even kidding.  Match of the year.  I started jumping up and down when I thought of that because I was so excited!  Her email is malyssa.bedke@myldsmail.net.  GO.

Ahhh this week was so not as exciting as the last one!  We did another division, this time with Sister Hirz and Sister Peñailillo.  I have a good story from that one!  We asked this lady if we could leave a blessing on her house (how we do contacts these days) and she turned out to be completely crazy!  Like, really.  She asked us if we would curse her son-in-law and break his little heart for wanting more money and then she told us about how she was on heavy meds but knew God sent the angels (us) to help her...I still have a reallyyyyy hard time not cracking up over stuff like this.

I had a lovely surprise too!  One of the kids in the other ward has a violin and he let me take it home!!!  It feels sooo good to play again.  I´m not really good anymore, but it´s a nice stress reliever to be sure.  I think that the Lord has blessed me a lot because now it´s so much easier to sing and play in public.  Probably because everyone loves it even if it´s pretty bad.  But I´m not complaining.  Sister Fortes got really excited with my hidden talent, so she insisted on showing up to Yoná´s house at night and serenading her from the street...so we did!  It was really fun and her kids came out and danced and everything!  

We had a great experience with an investigator this week, Graziela.  I love her!!!! She came to us wanting to learn more about the church, just that she lives in another city (still in our area), so it´s really hard to teach her.  We only could about once a week after church, when she came to Gravatá.  I guess the story is that the Elders were literally expelled from Chã Grande, her city, because the other churches started telling their people that the men in dark pants with nametags were sent by Satan.  This happened a while ago though, but no one has entered since.  Well, Sister Fortes was determined to go back and see what we could do there, so she called Presidente and we got permission to go see how it was.  I was a little bit...cowardly, to be honest.  I was pretty nervous to go because the stories were rough!  But she made me go pray about it for a long time, and when I did, I knew it was the right thing to do.  Sister Fortes had the right idea.  We got to Graziela´s house, and she had 3 other friends there waiting for us to teach.  They LOVED the lesson, said they´d never heard of the church before, and came to church yesterday!  Wow!!!!  They have a lot of people there who would also probably be pretty interested in the gospel, so I´m really excited to see where all of this goes.  We go back on Thursday:)

A few other good stories to finish up.  On Friday, Boa Vista ward had an Integration night because it´s reallyyyyy suffering.  They´re trying to get the members organized to stop it from turning into a branch, but the sisters are really having a rough go of it.  They´re trying though, and we are helping too.  Anyway, that night they decided to play this frog game that Sister Bedke knows after the message.  It was mostly adults there, and they got into it like I have never seen before.  The bishop started fighting with his counselor about who was winning and then they all got mad at each other and ran out of the room and then everyone wouldn´t get in order...all adults.  Sister Bedke, the poor girl, just looks at me and goes, "Sister Dana...this is like herding cats."  I just busted up laughing.  It´s Gravatá!

Last story:  We were teaching Felix, who was confirmed yesterday (!) on Saturday.  As we were doing some follow-up, this was the conversation:

Sister Dana: Felix, how´s it going with the coffee?  Are you still having cravings or what?

Felix:  Ah Sister, it´s great!  I don´t even want it anymore!  Completely off!

SD: Ahhh that´s so good to hear!  Congratulations!  Andddd how about those illegal drugs?  Are ya off those too?

Felix´s Mom: WHAAT?!  I AM GOING TO KILL HIM!  FELIX %$#@ #$¨& *¨&$%!!!!!

Sister Dana: Uhh...ha...haha...just kidding Luiza!

Awkwarde.  Funny afterwards though!

Well, that´s all I´ve got for this week.  Have a great one, enjoy summer, and I have no idea about anything as far as college and transcripts are concerned...sorry Mom :/ It can´t wait one more transfer?  I love love love you!!!

Love,

Sister Dana