March 2, 2011--SHE'S HOME!

NOT YET.....WAIT FOR IT, WAIT FOR IT........

HERE SHE COMES!!

LOOK AT THAT SMILE!

Mom got the first hug, but Dad was close behind!

All four kids together again.

Jeff, Beth, Jill, and Brian

Hermana Jill Daniels arrived at the Salt Lake City airport at about 4 p.m. on March 1, 2011.  She had a rocky trip home because of a delay in Lima, Peru, which made it impossible for her to catch her connecting flight in Los Angeles heading to SLC. In Los Angeles she had just enough time to go through customs and catch the next flight home. Tender mercies!  Her luggage, however, did not make it on that flight, but it arrived on our front porch today!

She met with President Donald Milne, first counselor in the Lone Peak Stake Presidency, at about 5:30 on March 1 and after a wonderful interview with him, she was honorably released as a full-time missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

February 21, 2011—Surprise

Well…..where do I begin? You’re probably all thinking this will be my final email from the mission field telling of some amazing stories or the things I have learned, but this week something happened….dun, dun, dun. I got flashed. What does that mean? They took me out of the area and put me in another area. This whole week I was in offices with the assistants, with President, and went to the airport twice. I stayed one of the nights with Hermana Urdapilleta, the girl I trained. A few crazy things happened and Hermana Scanlon was a little emotional when I had to leave. I was sad to leave her, too. I loved and love her. She is now with Hermana Duarte in Las Heras. They took me and the other sister missionary out of Las Heras and closed the other half where they were working. But Hermana Scanlon and Hermana Duarte had two baptisms this Saturday. I dunno who is was because I can’t communicate with them. I am now in a place called Billinghurst, which is the most villa area I’ve ever been in. We live with members. My new comp is named Hermana Svedin. She’s from Idaho, too, and she came with Hermana Scanlon. They were actually comps in the MTC. I can’t even tell you how crazy this week has been.

Oh, this girl named Eva is got baptized on Saturday and two other girls are getting baptized this Saturday, but I feel weird cuz I don’t even know them. We were taking pictures with them and I felt weird being in them. President told me they needed me here to help with the baptisms, so I am finishing my mission here in Billinghurst. I went to Hector and Vanesa’s house to say goodbye the day they told me I was leaving. I had no time and they were not happy. But I think they are coming to the airport, so that will be fun.

So that was what happened with me this week. But you know what, Family,…..I am happy. I don’t like goodbye’s anyway and I felt it was going to be a little dragged out in Las Heras. I am happy to be helping where it is needed. I feel at peace. I dunno if that sounds strange, but if I could explain any of the feelings that I feel being that it’s the last week of my mission, I feel at peace. I am happy.

I love you all and I will see you in a week

February 14, 2011—This past week…We met not Adam, but Eve

Last week flew by. We had something out of the normal schedule going on every single day. Let me tell you a little bit about it. Monday was P-day, Tuesday we traveled and had district meeting, Wednesday we had divisions with the assistants (as in they came and worked with my comp and me). It was fun. My whole mission I’ve wondered how it is for the elders…if it’s different, if people react differently. But it’s all just the same. They get rejected or accepted jus like any sister missionary. Wednesday night we rode back with the assistants to Ramos Mejia and had a sleep over with the hermanas there because Thursday morning we had a meeting all day with the new missionaries and their trainers. Then from the meeting we had other divisions with Hermana Lopez and Svedin. I was with Hermana Svedin back in capital and I had forgotten about the city. I am grateful for Las Heras. Saturday was our only normal working day and Sunday we had church. As of right now I am in Lujan with Hermana Lewis and her comp and we just went to the zoo where we were able to hold baby lions and touch real life huge tigers!!! Was it amazing? Yes! I have pictures. Then we went to Basilica again. I have a fettish with the Catholic church architecture.

Hermanas Daniels and Lewis with a really big cat!

 Hermana Jordan Scanlon

Hermanas Scanlon and  Daniels on alternative transportation.

We had a miracle this week. I kind of don’t want to explain it cuz I can’t do it justice, but I’m gunna try cuz I feel like it could be appreciated. Friday night after we had traveled five hours to switch back divisions. We were walking in the street and we felt genuinely inspired to do a contact with a woman who was sweeping her front porch. We began talking to her and she was extremely receptive. Her name is Eve. But in Spanish that’s Eva. We listened to her a lot and she told us some things going on in her life. Her husband moved back to Argentina to work in a Catholic school the same one where he was raised his whole life. So he’s super Catholic. Eve, on the other hand, is extremely spiritual and very open to listen to her sense of feeling. We shared wit her the plan of salvation because her mother had recently passed away and she didn’t know if there was a life after death. We ended teaching her in the street with a prayer and then I was thinking in my head, “She needs to go to church, but that means we have to pass by tomorrow and I don’t want to be too overwhelming, but…”. So I asked her if we could come back the next day and she excitedly said, “yes”. Saturday evening rolls around and it’s time to go to Eve’s house. She was waiting for us. We sat in her home and taught her basically the restoration, the plan of salvation, and the gospel of Jesus Christ. She had a lot of questions and things. At the end of the lesson we invited her to offer the prayer. Eve took her time and had the pamphlet open on her lap with the steps on how to pray, crossed her arms and took a deep breath and began to speak. When she ended we opened our eyes and Eve had tears streaming down her face. We testified to her that it was the Holy Ghost that she felt. We invited Eve to church. She came. Eve shared her experience in our gospel principles class and she is such a spiritual person. She had the whole room wet in the eyes. Including me. She told us after church that she has to speak with her husband because this is no small thing. She feels she has found her path and the truth. I LOVE EVE. I have been super bummed lately cuz we haven’t been having any success and I felt so bad—my companion not being able to see what a progressing investigator looks like. But we are helping the other hermanas in our area. We have several baptisms planned for the end of the transfer. Crazy how the people started progressing. Delia won’t quit smoking so I dunno if I’ll be able to see her bet baptized.

February 7, 2011--Sent from my iphone...ipad?

(Regarding the subject line:  We asked her if she knew what an ipad was.  I don't think she does!)

Delia came to churrrrrrrrrrrrch! She came all by her little self after being on vacation for a whole week. Tonight we have a family home evening with her and two members. It’s gunna be a success.

I got a call from Mission President. We haven’t had a lot of success in these first three weeks…..us or the other hermanas that are here with us and he called me basically asking why and what can I do to fix it. We have zero baptismal dates, but today, after I got off the phone with President Evrett Benton, we all got together in our little apartment and talked. We will now have more success. I think I have been focusing so much on finding an amazing family like Hector and his family, I forgot that not every convert will be like that.

It’s rainy today.  I like it.

Thank you, family, for fasting and praying for me.  I know it has helped.  Last week I forgot to tell you…..Hermana Jordan Scanlon and I were fed kidney and liver and tongue.  From the cow.

So something that has happened to us a lot lately is that people run away from us. I dunno why.

Thank you for writing me. I really appreciate your emails. I get so giddy to be able to communicate on Mondays. Family, I love you.

January 31--Re: Kato is Massive

(As for the subject, Kato is our cat that is on a diet. He really is massive.)

Mom, about the temple…The Argentine temple is not finished. It won’t be finished til October or November, but I went once already. I’m satisfied. I would LOVE to go to the temple when I get home.  That first week… I would really, really like that. I could go every day. I wanna go to the Oquirhh Hills temple, and Draper, and Salt Lake. Those three are goals of mine.

You mentioned Bishop Beecher. I have thought about him various times on the mission and Bishop Christensen, too. I am grateful for church leaders in Utah.

About the Scanlon family…I laughed so hard when you told me you had tried calling them and here’s why:  During the week I mentioned to my companion that I bet my parents have creeped on her and her parents to try to communicate with them. Haha. I like it though, Mom. And so does my comp.

My area…we are struggling a little bit to find progressing investigators. I was a little discouraged in Sunday when we didn’t have anybody at church and I feel like I’m working harder than I ever have in my mission. We will just keep going. We had some really intense lessons with members this week, though, that helped. I love working with the members. It’s so much easier. We don’t know if Delia is back yet cuz we can never find her or get hold of her, but today we are going again and I hope she’s there.

Beth mentioned something about the Holy Ghost in her email which was so true…that the people who aren’t members don’t have the gift of the Holy Ghost all of the time and that is something so distinct that I have seen between members and non members. I can actually see a large difference when before, I didn’t really self actualize the difference or realize. I feel like I never really paid attention to anything before the mission, or I’ve just forgotten my life before. You decide. 

January 24, 2011--Hermana Jordan Scanlon

Hermana Daniels (third from left) and her new companion,

Hermana Jordan Scanlon (fourth from left)

Mom, that heading is for you. That is my companion’s name and she is American and amazing. I love her. My comp is from Hailey, Idaho. “It’s by Sun Valley,” says Hermana Scanlon. She is a very pretty sister missionary. I’ll send you a picture if I buy a camera. I still haven’t be able to do that. She went to BYU for the last three years in the nursing program and we know some of the same people. She actually has been out on a few dates with Jake Cutler. Ha!

Today we tried to take a nap because we worked so so hard all week. I was dying and I didn’t sleep last night cuz all the mosquitoes and the heat. And today while we were trying to take a nap, I couldn’t sleep either. It reminded me of that one time when we went to Lake Powell with the Boardmans and it was 100 degrees at midnight and we were all still awake. Then it started raining and Brad and Matt were so hot they just stayed under the rain and let it pour down on them. Anyway….

We are truggling (I’ve not heard this word before….) along and practicing the language a lot in the street, but I’m a bad trainer cuz I like talking to her in English, but I’m working on it. Four new sisters got here and three were from Idaho, one from Utah, and they all come from big families, minimum of six kids. I thought that was interesting.

Delia dropped a bomb on us and had to go on a trip so she won’t be getting baptized til the 12^th of February. It is stressing me out cuz it is super hard to get hold of her. When I split the area, I gave all of the progressing investigators minus Delia to the other hermanas so we could focus on finding new people. This week was a little rocky. On Saturday we entered into only one house all day and it was about 100 degrees, but we found a lot of real good people that day. I told my comp at about 7 p.m. that we could sit on the curb for a five-minute break. That felt nice. We chatted and ate some pepas.

This week in Las Heras we had ward conference and there was a shopping 64 people in attendance. That’s the largest number I’ve seen since being here so that was good. Everybody was sweating and having to go get drinks of water from the kitchen during church. Oh, I wish you all could experience some of these things. We ate pizza four days out of the week this week so Hermana Scanlon has a real good idea of what Argentine pizza is like…bread, cheese, boiled eggs, and tomatoes. That’s your average Argentine pizza.

January 17, 2011--Transfers

I have a lot of things to tell you.  1. My camera broke today. Don’t ask me how or why, but it is broken and I had a few elders who are handy try to fix it and there’s no hope. I won’t have any pictures of the last of my mission, but that’s okay.  I’ll get some from other missionaries.  2. We had transfers today and I am training yet again.  All the new missionaries are from the states so I’ll be with an American.  3. President is sending two more sister missionaries to my area until I leave so he asked me to split the area in two and make a new area book and everything. Hermana Duarte, my old comp from Paraguay and another American are coming to live with me and my new girl. As of right now, this very moment, I am with Hermana Hulen, my MTC comp in Hurlingham!!! We are going to go see my old converts here. I’m excited! Hulen is training, too.  4. They are playing techno in the cyber right now and I might be dancing a little bit in my seat right now, you decide. 

Dad, thanks for sending the flight plans. Wow, I have a LOT of layover time—three hours in Peru and four in LA. I dunno if any of you remember, but once upon a time I lived in LAX for three days—sleeping in the airport. We have a past together.

Our investigators are doing super well.  Delia is the sister of a recent convert and she told us she wants to get baptized. The two little model girls that I love are supposed to get baptized this Saturday, but I split the area so now the new hermanas will be visiting the little girls.

I’ll probably have more details next week about who my new comp is and here she’s from and the investigators and how we are balancing my area with four hermanas. It’s only until I leave, then they are going back to two. We will see if we can find a lot of good people in Las Heras. I love my area. I am happy Hermana Duarte is coming.