My area here in Rivera :)

We went back to Tropicana, the best buffet ever. Man I had missed this place!

Pics from Artigas: me and Gaby..........................Excuse my appearance, I was dying of a cold my last days in Artigas haha. Makeup just wouldn`t stay.

Bonuses of Uruguay: members EVERYWHERE to give you free haircuts! Me and Maribel

Some pics from Artigas: me and Florencia

I scream, you scream.........Grido sells dipped cones! Died of happiness.

A little different today..............August 18, 2014

Hey kiddos...Me here, in Montevideo! My comp had to sign papers for her Visa. Which I had to do like, 10 months ago. Except that it seems like last week...this week´s email is going to be a little different. We had another great week! We have this awesome teenager named Cintia. She´s 17 and on Friday she accepted fecha for the 6th of September! Keep her in your prayers! And Margot...funny story kids, Margot is moving. NO JOKE. Haha. She is moving to another ward. So, we figured either we could rush the baptism to be this week, or, better, we can let her go there and get baptized in that new ward once she gets to know it better. And we decided that that just makes more sense. But it´s cool, we are definitely invited to be there anyway. Keep praying for Margot! 

So since I´m getting so old and wise in the mission....haha no not even true. But as my year mark comes up (ah man), I´ve been thinking a lot about things I´ve learned here. The list goes ON. But I felt like sharing a few things:

1. Laugh, laugh, and laugh some more. Sometimes, you say a really stupid thing in spanish. Like saying "fideo" instead of "video" during a prayer, for instance. I mean, somebody go back and count how many stupid Hermana Dolan duh moment stories I have shared. Sometimes, your umbrella up and breaks and blows away on you in the middle of a pouring rain storm. Sometimes, you literally trip over nothing and fall on your face. Sometimes, you have an investigator with a baptismal date and then it turns out they´re moving. You have a lot of options of how to react, but let me suggest the most therapeutic: LAUGH YOUR STINKIN PANTS OFF. Life is funny. It´s meant to be enjoyed. Sometimes, I´ve had missionaries question whether it´s really okay to start laughing during a prayer if something funny happened. I answer them with the typical phrase in the Dolan family: God has a sense of humor! There are obviously the times to be serious and reverent, but most of the time,  life was meant to be laughed through, and it´s the only thing that will GET you through. Laugh at who you are. Laugh at who you were. Laugh at that stupid thing that you will mostly likely say or do in the future. 
2. "Beeeeee" yourself. That phrase has rung in my ears ever since the night before I left on my mission. My stake president asked each member of my family to share last minute counsel, and my sister shared the classic Genie line from Aladdin. In the mission, in life, you were created to be who you were. A typical phrase I´ve heard in the mission is "Hermana DOLAN was called to this mission (or Hermana Barrios, Hermana Zumeta, insert any name), not called to this mission to BE Hermana Barrios (or Hermana Zumeta, Hermana Goode, Hermana Paris, Hermana Sump) It´s the same in life. After all, we were called to this life on earth, weren´t we? We accepted our call, didn´t we? We were called to live OUR specific life. To BE our specific selves. It´s one of life´s great challenges for a lot of us, to be who we are, and to love it. 
3. "Just Keep Swimming." The only way to "find Nemo" is to KEEP swimming. The only way to find the light at the end of the tunnel is to walk THROUGH the tunnel. The only way to receive the blessings is to remain firm through the trial. Imagine if Dory and Marlin hadn´t "kept swimming?" The best way to get things done, is to pull a Nike and JUST DO IT. Keep going always. Just keep swimming. 
4. Lose yourself. The classic Gordon B. Hinckley story always helps me pick myself up and get back to work. After writing a discouraged letter to his dad during his mission, he received the following response: "Dear Gordon, I got your letter, and I only have one thing to say: forget yourself and go to work!" The mission is a mini model of life, which means this is a principle that can be applied to all. Discouraged? Disappointed? Going through a trial? The best antedote? Lose yourself in the service of others. That´s something I didn´t learn until being here in Uruguay. They are always worried about others. My Uruguayan grandma here in Rivera, who we call Vovo (it´s what they call their grandmas in Brazil), is blind, lives alone, and yet everytime we come over....she´s much more worried about whether she has something to give us to eat than that she just spilled car oil all down her front haha. The point is, lose yourself in trying to help someone else, and without even noticing, your situation will improve until it seems like nothing. 
5. Look for the best in people. I have found here in the mission that I can learn something from basically every single person I come in contact with, even if I only talk to them for 5 minutes. Everybody has something good about them to be shared and learned from. Some more from others, some maybe less. But everybody has those divine qualities, perhaps sometimes hidden, which were given directly to them by their loving Father in Heaven. They´re important to Him. They were all made to be good, so look for the good. Look for the best. You´ll be really surprised at what you can find. 
6. Learn to love correction. This is something President Smith has said he desires for every missionary in this mission to learn. Not only to accept correction, to tolerate it, but rather to seek it, and love it. No one is perfect. There is always something to improve. Sometimes, maybe it´s hard to hear it, but it will ALWAYS help us be better. Seek it from others. Seek it from God. And seek it, because you love it, because you know that thanks to correction, you can be better. Appreciate it. This is where a little thing called humility becomes really useful. Nobody likes to be told we have to change. And yet, we all want to be better, don`t we? The hardest part to be better is to accept that there are things to improve on. So ask for those things, and get to work on them with a big old smile on your face! 
7. Notice the little things. It`s the little things in life that bring the greatest joy. The beautiful sunsets of Uruguay have turned more days than I can count from a rough one into one rich with beauty, wonderment, and....joy. Enjoy the sunsets. If you`re in the mission, enjoy the little moments. Enjoy walking down the street and having little kids yell "hollllaaaaaa misionerrrrrrrasssss!" Enjoy sitting and chatting with someone who feels they can confide in you things that they can`t anyone else. Enjoy stopping for an ice cream with your comp. Drink it all in. The same with life. I am grateful to say that I have been able to take a minute in many small moments of my life and think "man, life is so great." I`mma go ahead and share a quote from one of my friends that he shared in this weeks email of his: "let things that don't matter make you happy, but don't let them matter." Good quote to live by. Let little things life you up, but also don`t let the little things get you down. 
8. It`s normal to get down sometimes. Life is to be enjoyed, but there are obviously also going to be those days when life gets us down. Maybe we`ve felt guilty for feeling that way. Maybe sometimes, we look at at others who are so happy, and know we should be too despite a challenge or difficulty, and yet  maybe we`re not. Why? WE`RE HUMAN. It`s nothing to be ashamed of. Let it out. Give yourself a good cry, because you know you need it. This life wasn`t meant to be perfect, and we weren`t meant to be perfect. Thanks to the Fall of Adam, everything has its opposite. Not even Adam and Eve were happy in paradise, because they had never experienced the opposite. To reach our own paradise of happiness, it`s necessary for us to experience first the shackles of disappointment, grief, guilt, and sadness. It is only then that we can understand the joy of being freed through the mercy of the Atonement. Which brings me to:
9. He`s all you got. Do your best in life to be successful. In the mission, work your hardest. But put everything you`ve got into the only THING you`ve got: your testimony. The Savior is all we have. Loved ones pass on, friends betray us, jobs come and go and so do relationships. But the one thing that will never go, is Him. Only we can make the choice to walk away, or to do everything we can to walk side by side with our Best Friend so that when we fall, He`s already standing right beside us to catch us before we hit the ground. Don`t let your self worth or sense of who you are depend on numbers, on money, on whether you`re married or single, on how big of a house you have. Let all of your being depend on your testimony. if it`s not quite there yet, that`s where the correction comes in and the need to get better. As a missionary from Utah, I`ve gotten the comment from people here that life was always easy for me because I was born in the church. My response to them is that I didn`t have a grown testimony until something bad had to happen in my life to make me realize what mattered in life. I had to lose someone important to me to realize that the most important Person is Him. Lean on the Savior, and let Him strengthen you. Everything else is just a bonus. 
10. The Lord has more. Never settle for what you`ve got. With who you are, with the amount of success you have. Don`t go indifferent because things are going well. Because the Lord ALWAYS has more for us. More blessings, more happiness, more conversion in our hearts, it`s all there. But ONLY if we seek it. (James 1:5.) Elder Bednar taught President Smith when he came to Uruguay that the best advice for missionaries is to "keep knocking." "Knock, and it shall be opened unto you." But there are more doors. Perhaps there`s more waiting behind the same door, if we will but keep knocking, waiting patiently. Never settle. There`s always more. 
11. Be grateful always. In the April General Conference of this year, I was having a rough week or two in Colonia. The talk by Elder Uchtdorf on gratitude completely changed my perspective, and it`s something I always keep in mind. We should not be grateful FOR things, but rather be grateful IN our circumstances. No matter our circumstance, there is always an abundance of things to be thankful for. If anything, you can be grateful that you`re alive on this earth to be experiencing this trial. you can be grateful for the better person you know you`re becoming thanks to the grace of God. 
12. It`s all about HIM. The mission isn`t about us. Life isn`t about us. It`s all about the SAVIOR. It`s all about striving to become more like Him. It`s all about striving to return to Him and our Father in Heaven. That`s where not letting little things in life matter: let HIM matter. Look outside yourself, and look for that person that`s right under your nose who needs your help. Yep, that person that the Savior is lookin`right at. Do you see them yet? Plead for His divine mercy and grace to help you bring yourself to Him. 
13. SMILLLLLLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE SIEMPRE. (siempre means always.) Charlie Chaplin had it figured out: "smile even if you`re heart is breaking." You can lift someone else up, and in turn, eventually yourself. Plus, everyone looks a heck of a lot prettier when they smile. So SMILE. SIEMPRE. 

Okay, that`s my shpeal for today. The list certainly does not end there, and i definitely know that i`ve got a lot more to learn both in these 6 months and in the rest of my life, but here`s a start. I love the mission so much. I am SO incredibly blessed. I can`t even believe it! 

I love you, I love you, I love you! 

Hermana Dolan 

are we human? or are we dancers?.............August 11, 2014

Are we less actives? Or are we investigators? 

That is a question I thought I would never ask in my mission. But you guys, the craziest thing has happened! Haha I`ll get to that in a second. 

So first of all, I hope everybody is doing great! Thank you all so much for your love and support. Don`t be afraid to throw an email or letter my way....cough cough. But seriously, thank you. I have the best fam and friends ever. 

Second of all, I LOVE RIVERA. I seriously do. My companion and I this week one night were walking down one of the gazillion big hills in our area, and she said "why is it that it`s so much easier to go back down the hill than it is to climb up?" and we talked about how it`s the reward for the hard work going up the hill, and how it`s also made easier because it`s getting to the top of the hill and walking down the other side that you get to enjoy the view (our area is BEAUTIFUL and has great views of all or Rivera). And I just kind of had a thought that I shared with her: Artigas was my walk up the hill. It was hard work. Sometimes I wanted to slow down, sometimes I wanted to stop. But the best way to finish the ascension of a hill is to just DO it. And now, Rivera is the beautiful view on the other side! I am not trying to say that Artigas wasn`t beautiful sometimes, it was just more that the views were to my back, and I had to turn around to see them. Here, they`re right in front of me. And I can`t even fathom why in the world the Lord loves me so much that he is giving me so many blessings. 

We had FORTY lessons this week! It was amazing! Toward the middle of the week, I noticed that maybe we could make it to 40 and so I told my comp that that should be our goal. In order to make it after Friday, we knew we for sure needed 6 on Saturday to make our goal. Well, it rained cats and dogs, and the activity for relief society that the bishop invited us to took longer than expected, and we had to go home early for the storm, at like 8:00...with only 5 lessons. But as we were getting home, we saw a cute little less active lady who lives right in front of us, sitting alone in her house by the fire. So, my comp had the great idea of going to see her! So then we had 2 more on Sunday, and made our goal. It`s so fulfilling to be able to see us meeting and even surpassing a lot of the goals we have made! 

We have this old guy, Raul. He had baptismal date back in May, and the DAY of his baptism, his daughter in law chased away the missionaries when they went by to get him. Crazy! and then after that, they had a hard time helping him understand the difference between the restored priesthood authory and the authority of other churches to baptize. Well I don`t know what happened on Tuesday, but it was my first time meeting him, and I so was expecting an argument like apparently had always happened. But the two of us taught really clearly, and he accepted right away that he needed to be baptized! So he had a date for the 23 of August, but he didn`t go to church yesterday, so we`ll have to push it back. But he gets it now, that`s the important thing! So pray for Raul! 

Marcos and Lucas are still the most capo kids ever! They are progressing really well. 

So as for the crazy thing that happened.....so yesterday, my comp and I were a little disappointed because we had gone to go by our investigators houses to help them go to sacrament meeting, and nobody could go. So we were a little bummed that we weren`t going to have any investigators in church. But walking back to the church, I still said "somebody that we don`t know is going to show up or something, I just know it." So we get there, and the 1st and 2nd counselors of the bishopric come up to talk to us. We had this less active member, Margot, who we visit, who goes to church on her own. But....turns out her member record isn`t found ANYWHERE. And she`s an older lady who "supposedly" got baptized a century ago in the campo, and she doesn`t remember anything about it: not even the missionaries who taught her. Weird, because she doesn`t have a memory problem. But anyway, the point is, the second counselors told us that she`s going to need to get baptized again! CRAZY! And they already talked to her to explain it to her, and she said "yeah, of course I want to be baptized." MIRACLE. So pray for Margot, she`s getting baptized on the 23! haha oh man. I love the mission. Less active, or investigator? Hahaha never thought that would happen. 

We have a lot of really great investigators, and a bunch of our less actives came to church yesterday! It was so amazing! It is the best to see people make those decisions that will literally save them. As a missionary, I have come to understand a little bit of how Heavenly Father must feel when we obey. And, how sad he must feel when I disobey. And when I give an excuse. Like, when people here say "oh, i didn`t have time to read." OF COURSE YOU HAD TIME. And then I remember how many times I did that before the mission. But what joy He must feel when we DO do those things, because He knows how much happier it will make us! Just like how i know how much happier it will make the people here. 

My comp is seriously so rad! She was BORN to be a missionary, she is just so good at it. It absolutely is not noted at all that she is such a new missionary. She`s just a pro! I have been really blessed with companions and every single one of them has taught me something different. 

I seriously love the mission. One of the Elders from my MTC group is in my zone, and this morning during soccer he and I were talking about how different we are from when we got the MTC in Argentina, terrified new little missionaries. And we talked about why: and it`s because the mission is just so special. It is so hard that we know the Atonement now. It is so joyful that we recognize how blessed we are. I am so blessed to be here and to be able to have a loving Father in Heaven who has let it change me and make me a better person! 

I am ultra happy! I was telling Hermana Barrios that this isn`t my "mission" anymore. It`s become my life. And I am so in love with it. 

I love you, I love you, I love you! 

Hermana Dolan 

I am on Cloud 9...............August 4, 2014

Dear family and friends, 

I´M BACK IN RIVERA AND I AM SO HAPPY. 

So I bawled my eyes out when i left Artigas. i mean, it`s me....not really a shocker. Especially saying goodbye to the Buenos. Man oh man, that killed me. And Flor, Bruno, Gabs. But I have made everybody commit themselves to go to Disneyland when I`m home, so call Disneyland and tell them to prepare themselves; Uruguay`s comin`. 

But you guys, I AM SO HAPPY  HERE. 

It`s like a blast to the past! I have only seen one member so far from the other ward that I started in. She recognized me at the bank my second day here, and just said "you came back?!" Haha. Everything about it is like a blast to the past, except that I actually speak Spanish now! So that`s a nice bonus. 

My area! I seriously fell in love the first day. We have SO much to do! It`s amazing! We have a gazillion people to teach, my first sunday in the ward was one of the best Sundays I`ve had in my mission, and the members here are seriously fantastic. We are finding ALL the time! 

Hermana Barrios is a CAPA! Like I said last week, she`s from Argentina. I`m her second companion, but it doesn`t even seem like it because of what a great missionary she is. And no one else believes me, but she also talks like Jennifer Lopez. I mean, if I heard J Lo speak Spanish, that`s how she would talk. Or in other words, if I heard Hermana Barrios speak English, that`s how she would talk. Apparently, everybody told her before I got here that she`s the "Latina version of me" so we were going to get along just fine. Also, Hermana Zumeta is the Hermana Leader Trainer here, and so we`re going to get to do divisions together! It was so good to see her. She also told me she has plans to go to BYU, which means she`ll be living in Utah! I don`t know what came over me you guys....but I LITERALLY cried tears of joy when she told me. And everybody thought I was crazy. But I just love her! And Hermana Barrios and I are going to get along REALLY well. She has a ton of excitement and animo for the work, and she works really hard. So it`s gonna be a good change! 

So the AREA! The whole area is hills. Hills, hills, hills. I might die in summertime. But on the plus side, my legs are going to be reaaaaally pretty. But there are so many prepared people here! 

There are two little boys, Marcos and Lucas, who are 10 and 11. Normally, President Smith tells us to be really careful with baptizing kids, because a bunch of less actives in Uruguay were baptized as children and then went inactive as soon as their missionaries left. But THESE boys, they`re capos. Marcos started going to church with his friend Alejandra who got baptized last month. He`s gone 6 times now, but the hermanas just found out last week that he wasn`t a member haha they always thought he was. And through Marcos, the past 2 or 3 weeks Lucas has gone. We just had our first lesson with them together yesterday. We asked them if they liked church, and they said yes. So we asked them why, and Lucas goes "because it`s important." and we said "why do you think so?" And he said "because that`s where we can look for God." YOU GUYS HE IS ELEVEN YEARS OLD. Capo. We`re planning on both of them for the 23 of August. We`ll be giving them the invitation for that date today. 

Yesterday, while we were visiting a member, Brenda, and her boyfriend Antony, who just got baptized last week, Brenda`s neighbor Rodrigo (13) was there, so we asked him if he wanted to join. We taught the story of Enos to keep animating Antony with prayer, but we also taught Rodrigo at the same time. Turns out he had listened to the missionaries before almost two years ago when Brendo got baptized, and even went to church a few times. But as we`re teaching and asked him if he feels that prayers are answered, he said "sometimes when I`ve prayed, I don`t really know, but I feel like God is giving me more faith." And then he started ripping out the most profound questions I`ve ever heard a teenage boy ask about the Plan of Salvation. So, we set up an appointment with him for this week and we REALLY hope things go well, because he seriously seems so prepared. 

There are two teenage girls, Valentina and Belen, who got baptized with their mom and little brother 2 years ago. Only their dad isn`t baptized. They LOVE going out with the missionaries, and we had an actual lesson with them this week, apparently the first they`ve had since they got baptized, and we talked about their desires and what they need to do to get them. Somehow, we started talking about fasting. Turns out, they`ve never really done a REAL full fast before. So we told them that for fast Sunday we could all fast together for their dad, so that he can open his heart to the Gospel so that they can be an eternal family. In testimony meeting yesterday, Valentina got up and bore a really powerful testimony about fasting. She said "I don`t know what`s going to happen with my dad, but I do know that now I know about the power of fasting, because I felt closer to God today than I ever have: even in the temple." And then she and Belen came up and hugged me afterwards and said "hermana dolan thanks for supporting us!" I seriously fell in love with them the moment I met them. They are capas! And we are going to do everything we can to help their dad. But I too have a really powerful testimony of fasting, and some of the most rewarding experiences of my mission have been to fast with somebody else for something they need. Maybe something didn`t happen right away, but just like Valentina said, it`s something that can fill us with a real peace. 

So long this week, I know. I just have so much to say! This ward is amazing, this area is amazing, RIVERA IS AMAZING. 

It is so true that while we`re in tribulation, it almost always means that Heavenly Father has got something GREAT waiting for us, if we can just stay obedient and endure. I have seen the truth of it here on the mission! This ward, it seriously is the best I`ve been in. We`re finding literally EVERY day, and the members always want to go out with us. 

I am back in the fatherland and I couldn`t be more excited! The work goes well here and there is a lot to do. 

I love you, I love you, I love you! 

Hermana Dolan