Thursday, December 4, 2014
He is the Gift...........December 2, 2014
Wellllll heeeeeyyyyyyy you guys! How was your week? How was THANKSGIVING?! Mine was great! We went with the Elders to Burger King. Elder Neilson`s comp is also from Guatemala. Luckily, our Guatemaltecos were willing to appease their gingo companions and agreed to go. Nothing like a burger and a chocolate shake to celebrate the American eating holiday. HAPPY THANKSGIVING! I^m thankful for all of you!
My week was....weird. Crazy. Wanna know why? Let`s talk about transfers.
So my converts in Colonia are going through a rough patch, so on Tuesday I called President for permission to give them a call because they said they wanted to talk to me and Hna Zumeta. So President goes "well, do you want to know your changes?" And I was like HECK YEAH. And he said "You`re going back to Colonia Centro."
I`m going back to Colonia Centro.
WHATTTTT!
I just have to say that President is absolutely without a doubt called of God. He said "you know, obviously without even knowing about what`s going on with your converts, I just felt like you needed to go back." Wow. Amazing. So he made me keep it a secret until Sunday and let me call them to tell them I`d be coming. I know that the Lord has more purpose for me there and I`m excited to go back and see all of my amazing family in Colonia. My mission has basically been Rivera, and Colonia haha.
I am so grateful to my Father in Heaven for having sent me here to Rivera. It is seriously so special. This ward, is so special. We had a goodbye Family Home Evening in the Valentti`s house and it was kind of just a bawl fest. I love all of these amazing people here who have taught me so much. They are all seriously my family and I will love them forever. I can`t even believe how much the Lord loves me. I`m grateful for how much I was able to learn from Hna Barrios. She is an incredible missionary and we had a lot of fun together and saw some serious miracles.
I`m hoping you`ve all heard by now of this new campaign the church is doing for the month of December. It`s called, HE IS THE GIFT.
In the rush and excitement of the Christmas season, there are a lot of people who forget the true meaning of this special holiday. There are a lot of people who don`t even know what it is: who don`t even know their Savior. Who don`t even know that HE is the first, and most important, gift ever received: given directly by a Father in Heaven who loves us SO much, that He gave us His Son. Just as John 3:16 says:
16 ¶For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begottenSon, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
The Lord truly is hastening His work! The Church has a billboard in TIMES SQUARE, where millions will have the opportunity to "discover the Gift" every day. It will have the main page of Youtube all day on December 7, so that everyone who enters that day in youtube, the first thing they will see is a link to the video that will help to discover the gift, embrace the gift.....and most importantly, share the gift.
So I hope this month, you can all do all you can to share the gift with everyone! Here is the link to the website that has a video that I promise will bring you to tears: http://www.mormon.org/christma
Share the link on Facebook. Ask everyone you know if they`ve heard about "the gift", and if they haven`t, share it with them, so that they can discover it (come to a knowledge of their Savior), embrace it (accept Him into their lives through faith, repentance, baptism, and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost), and then, share it, so that it spreads and spreads and spreads. Because THIS is what Christmas is all about!
I love my Savior. I love Rivera. I love this work. I love Uruguay. I love my Father who has given me, because He so loved ME, such a precious Gift.
Happy December and HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
I love you, I love you, i love you!
#ShareTheGift
Hermana Dolan
Happy Thanksgiving...........November 24, 2014
I spent all my cyber time writing to people personally, so I don`t really have time for a weekly email. Sorry. Just know that Mirna is a handful and always full of drama haha but we had an AWESOME lesson with her with the bishop on Friday. The Bishop is a capo and things have smoothed over...again. For now. Haha oh man, keep Mirna in your prayers ladies and gents. She is the definition of a rollercoaster.
Know that we have a lot of other great investigators that are progressing really well, we`re just trying to help them to go to church.
Know that I am so grateful, in this time of year, to be a missionary. Know that I am so grateful for the Gospel, for the Savior, for my Father in Heaven. I am thankful that They know so much more than I do. I am thankful that even though I don`t see the outcome, They know it perfectly, so if I can just pull a Carrie Underwood and yell "Jesus, take the wheel", I`ll be alright. I`m thankful for the love I feel surrounding me. I`m thankful for the Spirit. I am thankful for the miracles I see every day. I am thankful for the friends and family I have back home (aka every one of you) and for the friends and family I have here in my favorite little part of the universe. I`m thankful for so many things, but that would just take so long to write.
Also, I`m thankful for turkey and mashed potatoes and gravy. Everybody eat an extra helping of those for me, please.
I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU!
Hermana Dolan
Thursday, November 20, 2014
God is good..............November 17, 2014
Hey
hey hey boys and girls! I hope everybody is well and enjoying the first falls
of snow that I´m sure are starting to come. Before you complain, take a moment
to remember yours truly in 115 degrees who will go 3 years without seeing snow.
You´ll feel a lot better. But good thing I love Rivera anyway!
We
went as a zone today to this AWESOME park camping ground thing in the outskirts
of Rivera. One of my zone leaders has three BASEBALL mitts and a baseball.
Playing catch never felt so good! also, fun fact: Latinos are SUPER amazing at
soccer. Baseball...they play about as well as I play soccer. Haha to each his
own.
This
week was super great! Full of miracles. Every week is full of miracles.
So the
first is Mirna. Her progression is incredible! On Tuesday we went with a member
to her house and taught the first part of the Plan of Salvation (in our mission
the lesson is split in 2). She shared the same doubts with the member, Mirta
Cal, as she had shared with us. Mirta was a big help because she has also been
in other religions but said she never felt so right as she has in her years as
a member. My companion and I decided that instead of beating a dead horse
constantly talking to her about the priesthood authority that makes the church
different from others, which really just brings us around in circles with her,
we were just going to keep teaching her the doctrine and continue encouraging
her to keep reading and praying and the Spirit would take over.
She
said another amazing prayer at the end, saying "Help me God, because I
don´t want to get it wrong this time. I want to be sure. Help me be sure."
And then at the end of the prayer she said "While I was praying, I saw
a light. It lit up my whole being." She recognized it as an answer,
but still wants to keep learning more because she really does want to be sure.
But her sincere desire to know is incredible! It´s fun to teach her because
it´s amazing to see the way the Spirit always manages to touch her.
But
yet another amazing tender mercy from God was when we went back on Saturday.
She said that the night before she went to her church, and the priest took out
some herb saying that if they blessed it it would heal them. And so she told us
"that´s not from God. I didn´t like that. So I´m going to have to Pastor
Nelson." WHAT. Yet ANOTHER way in which the Lord touched her heart! We
invited her to church and said we would pass by her house to walk with her. But
we were running late, so right at 9 we called her to ask if she was ready, and
she said "i´m already here in the church talking with some people!"
INCREDIBLE. And the fellowshipping in this ward was phenomenal. We did have
much time to talk to her afterwards, but we´re hoping she was able to receive
even more of an answer to her prayers. It´s been so awesome to see her
progression from the very first time we taught her. Keep praying for
Mirna!
The
other thing was José. José is Belén and Valentina´s dad. He´s the only member
of his family that isn´t baptized. The mom and their little brother all are.
José is someone who requires really sloooowwww warming up to to win his
confidence. Before, he would actually drive around the block to avoid seeing
the missionaries if he saw them walking on the same street of his house. With
the other Hna Barrios, we decided to start to go inside for a glass of water or
something every time we went to pick up Belen or Valentina to go out with us,
so that we´d at least have an excuse to say hi and shake his hand. From there,
he is still slowly warming up, but he will come up and talk to us, he´ll make
jokes, he´s a lot less serious. He has NEVER, and I mean EVER, been to church.
He has only ever come to an activity or two. Well their little brother Franco
turned 12 a little bit ago and was receiving the priesthood yesterday. So we
walk out of Sunday school and who do we see? JOSÉ. With his family,
waiting to go into sacrament meeting. WHAT. I hugged Belén and Valentina and
literally started crying and they just laughed at me. But it´s because I love
this family so incredibly much and I want them so badly to be able to be an
eternal family. There is still a loooooong way to go, but this was a huge
step.
Long
story short: God is good. So, so good.
I love
you, I love you, I love you!
Hermana
Dolan
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