Snow and Daffodils‏ E-mail - February 27, 2012

Hello Family,
 
Well, Virginia weather is crazy! This week started out with snow,
you'll remember my fun little adventure to the Atlantic, then by
Wednesday it was 80 degrees and the daffodils are blooming! Totally
nuts, and because of it, Sister Jones' allergies are going crazy. One
of the great benefits of our area is that we live in the area with the
mission president and every once in a while he has us over for dinner.
Last night was one of those occasions. Salad is slowly growing on me.
I've discovered I actually like spinach better that other lettuce and
vinaigrette is much nicer than ranch on a salad. Who knew? Sister
Perry made lasagna, which was fantastic I don't know if I'm a
different person or if I was just really hungry. I'm glad the Elders
in your ward finally made it to dinner.
 
One cool thing about being able to talk to your mission president a
lot is you get to ask him about your visa a lot. He said he keeps
hearing March, so hopefully in the next few weeks we'll be heading
out. He also says he hasn't heard anything in a while, but that's not
unusual. Being a visa waiter has taught me one thing, people are not
as funny as they think they are. Every time we go somewhere for dinner
it never fails that a member has a story about a visa waiter in their
mission who never left. THIS IS NOT FUNNY WHEN YOU'RE WAITING ON A
VISA. Sister Jones now cracks up every time it happens because she
knows it bugs me.
 
This week is going to be really fun because we get to go on exchanges!
Originally, Sister Jones and I were supposed to go to Farmville, but
after a careful suggestion, there will be two companionships in Bon
Air tomorrow. One of which will be speaking Ukrainian all day. They're
sending Sister Webb up here and she and I will be companions all day.
It's going to be super fun. We have a dinner appointment with her
boyfriend's sister and her family who happen to be in our ward.
 
Well, this week, like all weeks had its ups and downs. We contacted a
lot of people who seem interested and hopefully our investigator count
will slowly start to come up. Our ward is totally awesome and very
excited about missionary work, we're hoping to increase that
excitement for the work with a 21-day program. You've probably heard
of these where you think of a list of people that could hear the
missionary lessons and you pray about them everyday for 21 days. The
promise is that at least one person on the list will be ready to meet
the missionaries. Now when you're not a missionary, these programs
seem really hokey and annoying, but when you're a missionary, you live
for them because it means your ward will actually think about people
to share the gospel with.
 
One of the downs was that some our recent converts are going through a
hard time. One in particular has a psycho now ex-boyfriend, who was
our investigator a couple of weeks ago. Another is a 17 year old kid
who is getting shipped to Mexico to live with his dying grandmother
for 4 months. And you thought your life was bad.
 
On a funny note, our district leader's companion is hilarious. He's
from the Philippines and they have an investigator right now who is
turning into an eternal investigator because she doesn't want to
disappoint her daughters. So we were in the Relief Society room having
district meeting when they were telling us this. We asked them what
their plans were to help her overcome this and he pulls out a butter
knife out of no where and says "We must get rid of the daughters". It
was so funny.
 
This week was Stake Conference here and it was actually a broadcast to
some of the Eastern States from Salt Lake. Elder Pieper of the 70,
Sister Allred of the Relief Society Presidency, Bishop Burton the
presiding bishop and Elder Richard G Scott spoke. It was awesome.
Elder Pieper talked about the "Mormon Moment", I don't know if you've
heard that term but apparently there's a lot about us in the news
lately. Sister Allred spoke about strengthening families. Bishop
Burton taught on the importance of General Conference. Elder Scott
talked about women and how they're awesome!
 
Okay, well I don't have any time left. If you talk to grandma I got
her package and it was awesome!! Zach I got your letter, I'll write
you today.
 
LOVE YOU!
 
Sister Daniel

Meaghan found out later today that her VISA came through and she will be leaving for the 

Ukraine on Tuesday, March 6th.  She is so excited!!!

Adventures in Richmond and Beyond‏ E-mail - February 20, 2012

Dear Family,
 
So I have pictures that I'm going to send on my email probably later
today because my camera doesn't want to cooperate right now. Okay so I
don't know why, but the library here is open so we get to email today.
Even if it wasn't open we'd just go to the office and email from
there. So we have snow here! We got about 4 inches last night, and it
will probably all be melted by tomorrow.
 
You may be wondering about the title of my email. Yesterday, I went on
an adventure, but not in Richmond, in Eastern Shore, VA about 3 1/2
hours away. When we finally get ready to go to Ukraine I'll have
bragging rights, because I got the closest to it! I saw the Atlantic
Ocean! So I'll give you the back story, Sister Reindeau, one of our
senior office sisters goes to Eastern Shore almost every Sunday to
help teach this Haitian family. They speak Creole and French and
Sister Reindeau is the only one in the mission who also speaks French,
so she translates. Well, her companion Sister Langford had her
daughter and grandson in town for the weekend and she couldn't go with
her. President Perry wanted her to have someone and since we're in a
trio, I was volunteered. So we drove across Virginia, through Hampton,
and Norfolk. We saw signs for West Point, Langley (CIA), and the
Jamestown/Williamburg/Yorktown settlements.
Then we hit the ocean. In that part of Virginia they have floating
bridges, then tunnels under the ocean! It's so the ships can pass
over. When we were near Norfolk we saw huge battleships! Then you get
to the Chesapeake Bridge/Tunnel for 17 miles you cross on a bridge and
in tunnels. It was so cool! We stopped to eat our lunch on the bridge
in the middle of the Bay. We fed seagulls and took pictures, it was
really fun. So we went and taught these men and then came back.
It started to rain really hard, and then we got messages from our
district leader saying that we needed to get home as soon as possible.
Right around Busch Gardens it started to snow. Now, if you're from
Utah or lived in Idaho...the roads were not bad. The problem is
however we are in Virginia, and no one knows how to drive in the snow
here! So literally in our last hour on the road we saw at least 30
cars that had ended up on the side of the road. It was ridiculous.
Despite the fact that Sister Reindeau is a senior sister, she drives
really well, there wasn't really a point where we got into any
trouble. She's a sweet lady with a heavy French accent.
So it was a fun adventure, and fun to get away from everyday work here
in Bon Air. Then we found out that we get to go on exchanges not this
week but next. Sister Jones and I will be going to Farmville, which
I've been told is exactly as it sounds, you actually get to see cows!
And Sisters Stromberg and Webb will come here with Sister Friden. The
only thing that is a little disappointing is that Sister Webb and I
won't be able to be together and talk in Ukrainian all the time.
Speaking of Ukrainian, it's difficult to keep up with sometimes, but
other times, when we're teaching a lesson, because I taught so much
in the MTC I'll just say something randomly in Ukrainian. It's really
funny.
So this week was a little difficult because we had a hard time getting
a hold of our investigators but if there is one thing I've learned
it's that the Lord responds to missionary fasts. We fasted and
everything worked out.
Zach- I love my DL! Don't be afraid to have fun with the sisters.
There is a boundary, but we're missionaries too. and we need our
leaders! I'm proud of you keep up the hard work. The best way to deal
with a difficult companion is love them even more. Sister Yamashita,
talked to us at the MTC, she's Elder Yamashita's wife and she said by
the time you're done with a companion you should be able to write 100
things you love about your companion. Try it I know it helps me!
 
Well, that's pretty much all the time I have. I love you all.
 
Sister Meaghan Daniel
 

E-Mail -- February 13, 2012

Hello Family,

Well, to answer some questions I did get the Ukrainian dictionary and all of the other visa waiters are really jealous. I was surprised it came so fast! I also got the Valentine's Day package, the chocolate was gone fast. I also got your card. Zach, I got your letter, will be writing you back today. I got a card from Grandma. Sister Friden was ticked because the whole time she was waiting for a package and I got three letters and and two packages when she finally got hers. I have heard that it is extremely cold in Ukraine. I've decided that that is why I'm not there yet. There is a lady in our ward, Sister Butz who informs me of what temperature it is in Ukraine every time I see her. She's a ward missionary, so I see her a lot.

The suitcases. I don't know what happened but the pull handle at the top broke. And I did not pick up the suitcase by it so it should not have broke. I keep forgetting to send you pictures but it happened the night before we left the MTC. As for money. We were reimbursed the $60 for luggage, but I just have it in cash and will keep it that way so I can just pay for luggage with it when we go to Ukraine. I'll send the password to my itunes in a separate email.

What color did you paint my room? Are you putting the furniture back in?

Okay so for my week in the mission. The mission field moves at a rapid pace and I realized very early on that I was going to be tired all of the time. We have several investigators at the moment. A few of them I wish I could take their agency away because they just need to do the right thing! None came to church this week, but I think the Lord knew that was going to happen because he gave us four new investigators. 

One of which we found on the best day of our month. Car fast. Yeah, they actually make us walk around here. Which is interesting because I find that Virginia is even less pedestrian friendly than Kentucky. Well, our part of Richmond isn't as easy to walk around in. So we went full on tracting which we really haven't done since I've been here. It was really intimidating and I've found that about 90% of the population here is Baptist. But at one of my doors we found one of our new investigators. It really bolstered my confidence. There wasn't anyone really rude either, which helped a lot. The one guy who shut the door on us was really weird. We've also been continuously warned about not speaking to the press. Apparently Virginia's primary is coming up and in several other places reporters have sought out missionaries to ask them the opinion of the "Mormons". They told us if someone tries to talk to us, invite them to learn more about Jesus Christ.

There are several investigators and families that I feel like I'm really connecting with and I'm learning a lot here. President Perry told us that they're still expecting our visas around March. Our ward is really active especially the Elders Quorum, they're completely on top of it. We go to Ward Council here. Zach, do you go to ward council in your ward? I find that it is a little frustrating. You really see things you don't really want to know. Mainly like how the auxiliaries really work together. Most of the time it's just funny to see them interact. The first time I saw them all they totally fit the stereotypes. I could tell you exactly who everyone was without being introduced.

Our district is fun, it's us, the district leader and his companion, and the zone leaders. I think the Senior Office sisters might be included as well. 

Well, I have to go. Everything is good. Life of a missionary there are ups and downs. Hopefully I'll have time to write a letter today. Love you!

Sister Daniel

WHAT A WEEK! E-mail - February 6, 2012

Well hello Family,
 
Just to let you know first off, I don't know if I'll have enough time
to write letters every p-day like I could at the MTC. I find that
p-day in the mission field is a little bit different in the sense that
by the time it rolls around, all you want to do is sleep.
So I'll just do a rundown of my week. On Monday, after I emailed, we
went grocery shopping and took about a 3 hour nap. We also went to a
recent convert's house. One of our investigators is living there with
her. She has two kids, and is a single mom. She actually reminds me so
much of us when it was just Mom, Zach, and I. It's kind of a little
scary. She has nearly the same relationship that Mom and I have. We
went there, she feeds us at least once a week and gave a lesson, and
had FHE with them.
Then Tuesday. When we first wake up we're supposed to do 30 minutes of
exercise. I'm so proud of myself because I'm totally in a routine. I
do yoga every morning. The alarm rings promptly at 6:30am, we turn on
the light, pray, and then I get into the bathroom first because
Sisters Friden and Jones both take an extraordinary amount of time in
the bathroom. Then I do my yoga (on dvd, on the small dvd player we're
given for training), Sister Friden does physical therapy for her back,
and I don't know what Sister Jones does. We then have an hour for
breakfast and getting ready. We have 3 hours of study in the morning.
The first hour is personal study (I study the scriptures for a while
and I always read out of Jesus the Christ, which has me totally sucked
in it's so interesting). The second hour is companion study, we do a
lot of role plays. Then the final hour is my language study, so I'm
usually on the phone for half of it. By then it's 11am and we are off
to the races. On Tuesdays we do service at the local old folks home.
We go and sing with them for an hour and play bingo for the second
hour. It's really funny because there is this one guy who is very fond
of the sisters. (we go with the District leader and his companions)
Then it's a few hours of contacting and then dinner at a member's
house (on Tuesday it was this great young couple who have passed out a
Book of Mormon to just about everyone in the neighborhood) and then we
usually have a lesson with an investigator. This Tuesday we taught
Jackie. She's keeping so many commitments and even gave up coffee and
tea, but we can't get her to church, she finally came to Relief
Society yesterday!
Well, I don't have time to go through everyday, but that's the basic
layout. We've met some really interesting people here. Sister Friden
has to go to physical therapy here and it's always super awkward
because it's a guy, and he has to do this hug thing to finally get her
back in line. He finally started calling her "sister" this week
instead of her first name and I think she became much more
comfortable. We work a lot with single-mom households. I really think
that this might be one of the reasons I'm here. I wish there had been
missionaries around to understand and help us in the time when we were
just the 3 of us. Now I can help from experience with it. It's been a
great blessing to me to help the mothers find peace in the gospel and
help the kids find reassurance in the Savior. We've had some great
lessons. One that comes to mind is of a less-active family. She's a
single mom with two kids. The daughter is about 11 and her dad died.
The son is about 5 and his dad and the mom are divorced. We went in to
teach the Plan of Salvation, and come to find out the daughter was
terrified of death and was really scared for her dad. It was so cool
to tell her that she has a loving Heavenly Father, and her dad is okay
in the Spirit World.
We had a district meeting on Thursday, it was really great to see
Sister Webb and Elder Ward. We got to bear our testimonies in
Ukrainian and after the meeting talked for a while in Ukrainian.
Tomorrow we have mission conference so I'll get to see most of us
going to Ukraine.
Some sad news that I did not see coming. Our district leader and his
companion who were companions with Elder Ward told us on Saturday that
he left to go home. I don't know the circumstances. I let you know if
I know more next week.
We had a baptism on Saturday! Norma was baptized. It was a really
spiritual experience. She's from the Philippines and works as a live-in
nanny here. She's great. The whole service was really spiritual and
well done.
We have a lot of new converts looking forward to the temple. This is
like music in a missionary's ear, and we've talked to the bishop about
starting a temple prep class in the ward. We had the opportunity on
Thursday to go to the ward's visiting and home teaching summit. Turns
out we have about 20 something extra families to visit! Yay! We got to
a point where it was like, we already have a full area book and a huge
list of less actives. It was kind of hard to keep a positive attitude
about the whole thing, but it will all work out.
Funny stories of the week:1.Yesterday was fast Sunday and we had
several colorful members bear their testimonies. You have to remember
that the wards here are in the Washington DC temple district. So one
particular old timer got up to bear his testimony and said "I know
that prayers are answered and therefore, I will go to the temple and
see my President of the US there." 2. We went and visited formers
yesterday, we didn't even know it was Super Bowl Sunday. We show up at
one door and a really nice woman who we're meeting with in a few weeks
answered the door. Here brother was also there, and he was wasted. (it
wasn't even noon) He talked to us for a while and finally she shoved
him back in the apartment and talked to us. All of the sudden, the
vacuum in her house started to go. She opens the door and here is this
huge drunk guy in a pink shirt using a tiny purple vacuum, he looks up
and gives us the goofiest smile. It was hilarious!
 
Well, that's life in Virginia. Until next week.
 
Sister Daniel

Out here in Virginia!! E-mail January 30, 2012

Wow, it has been a long week. It feels like forever since I emailed.
Well, we left the MTC on Tuesday morning (we had to be at the office
at 4am) needless to say we didn't get much sleep. It was great to be
able to talk to mom. While I was talking to you, Sister Moore was
right next to me, talking really loud to her baby sister. It was
really funny and I had to plug my ears. The first flight to Detroit
was your typical cross country flight on an Airbus, so no movie was
playing to distract us anyway. I sat next to Sister Ebeling. She can
small talk like nobody's business. I had the window, she had the
middle, and the woman sitting in the aisle had no idea what hit her,
sitting next to two greenies. She had a pass-a-long card by the time
we landed. Elder Schraedel and Sister Moore ended up sitting next to
his brother's boss, or something like that, they said it was really
fun. We got to Detroit, which is big, but it's more long than anything
else, but really cool. They have a separate terminal like Cincy used
to have but you go in a tunnel under the runway to get to it instead
of a bus! We got to our flight to Richmond with time to spare. We got
on the plane, I sat in the very last seat, next to a real life cowboy,
he was fun, but by the time we were in the air, his hat was over his
face and he was out. Not as much of an opportunity on this flight. But
that wasn't the same for Elder Sweeten. He sat next to a young woman
who was in the military. She expressed that she felt that sitting next
to a missionary was a right place - right time sort of experience. By
the end of his flight he had placed a Book of Mormon, we were all so
proud. We landed in Richmond which is a smaller airport and the group
of us set off. The first person we saw, a tall young man in a suit
with a black name tag. He was Elder Beus, and was heading home from
his mission in Richmond. Then an older couple from another gate called
out and waved (they turned out to be Bro. and Sis Edens and they're in
my ward!). We continued out of the terminal and met the assistants,
and President and Sister Perry. They're awesome and were so excited to
have new missionaries. They told us immediately that we would be
placed with a companionship so all of us visa waiters are in trios,
and have two companions. President Perry is very used to having visa
waiters so he has a system down. We went to the mission office after
the scenic route in Richmond, had pizza, took pictures, they called
you, and then we met our companions and were off to our areas that
night. By 8pm I was in my apartment with two new companions and an
extra sister who was waiting for a greenie she received on Thursday.
President Perry informed our companions that we are to have a full
hour of language study everyday and we can call each other and speak
in Ukrainian whenever we need to. He's been really supportive and so
have my companions. Every time we have a dinner appointment, the family
always asks me to pray in Ukrainian which is great! They also
compliment me, it's sincere but I find it funny because no one knows
if I'm even saying the language correctly. I chuckle every time. They separated the
8 of us pretty far apart, across the whole mission really. Elder Ward
is with my district leader, so I see him a lot, his ward is in my
building and it's really fun to just breakout in Ukrainian for a
while. Sister Webb is in my zone so we'll see her for Zone Meeting
this week.
Okay, so for my area. I'm in Bon Air which is basically a suburb of
Richmond, so we're right in the center of the mission. President and
Sister Perry live in our ward and the office is in our area. So we're
always in the center of things. Our ward is fantastic, it's a nice mix
of old and young. The make up is actually pretty similar to our ward
at home. You've got the older couples that you just love, the younger
couples that are just really cool. We also have brand new ward
missionaries. Sister Jones and Sister Friden my companions say there
haven't been ward missionaries here in years and they had to beg to
have them. It will be a cool experience to jump start a ward in
missionary work. One thing that is really bizarre about being here in
Virginia is all the Southern accents. Mine is coming back because
everyone here has one. That and nearly everyone we run into is a
baptist. Brother Williams (older guy in the ward, totally awesome)
said that there are so many different baptists that they don't even
know what they believe anymore. He also says Methodists are just
Baptists that can read, he cracks me up. He's going to move to Utah
soon with his wife so he can be with "his people". We have a baptism
this week!!! Her name is Norma, and she's Filipino. I don't have a
lot more time so I'll let you know more about her in the future. We
could possibly have a baptism every week in February! This area is
booming.
Before I forget, my address:
2030 Timbers Hill Rd. Apt F
Richmond, VA 23235
We have a lot of part-member families we're working with too. There's
not really any street contacting or tracting in this area, they work a
lot through referrals. The church is also pretty established here.
Kind of a different environment that I'm assuming I'm going to get in
Ukraine.
Okay, so I have some time so I'll tell you a funny story and more
about my companions. Selma and Alberto are an older couple we're
teaching. They're from the Philippines and they were a HQ referral.
They had some contact with the church in their home country. We were
teaching the Plan of Salvation (which is much easier in English by the
way) and we were talking about some of the things Christ did while he
was on the Earth. Alberto mentioned that he turned water into wine.
Then he says..."I don't think it was wine though...it makes more sense
that he turned the water into...into...VODKA!!" We cracked up. He's
hilarious.
So my companions. Sister Friden is from somewhere in Utah, she went to
and graduated from BYU Hawaii. She's been out for a year and is a
talker all the time. She also has a huge laugh! Sister Jones is tiny,
she's also from somewhere in Utah, and she's super quiet. They're
quite the combination. Most of the time you can't get a word in
edgewise with Sister Friden, but she's always telling Sister Jones to
talk more. I like to think I'm a happy medium between the two of them,
most of the time I have no idea what's going on. They're both jokers
and have a really fun time wherever they are. I'll send a picture next
week. Believe it or not, Sister Jones was in the MTC for three weeks
and she left the week I came in in November, so she's only been out
for about 3 weeks longer than me. Sister Friden was her trainer.
Sister Moore got put with a sister who is training this transfer, so
her companion gets two greenies although we're not officially being
trained. It's kind of weird.
I'm not sure if I've found the reason that I'm supposed to be here
yet. To be honest I don't know if I'll figure it out before I leave,
but through all the people I've met I know there is a reason. I'm
looking forward to serving here.

Much Love,
Sister Meaghan Daniel

A Gift of Email Time! E-mail - January 19, 2012

They gave us this email time to let you know that we won't be calling. Apparently our reassignments have to be approved by Elder Nelson and he's in South America and they're having a hard time getting ahold of him. The travel office has our plans but they're not allowed to tell us until they're approved. They said we should definitely get them tomorrow, so I'll be able to call then, but I don't know what time. We have our in-field training all day. So keep your phone close by. Sorry, but we asked for email time so you wouldn't freak out when you didn't hear from us.

 

Meaghan

Temporary Reassignments... but all is well! E-mail - January 18, 2012

So some bad news. No visas for anyone going to Ukraine this transfer. That means we´re all awaiting temporary reassignments, which we´ll get tomorrow. You might think this would be really depressing for a bunch of missionaries who have been in the MTC for 12 weeks learning a really hard language, and you would be right. For the first few days, we were throwing sarcastic comments around, there were tears shed, and fasting and prayer abounded. But after what seemed like an eternity it came time for p-day. Now you should know that while I fasted and prayed for my visa, more often I fasted and prayed for a better attitude. That blessing came today in the temple. After our session I walked out and I was just so happy and excited to be going anywhere that I'm just over the moon.

 

It's a little stressful because we don't know where or when we'll be going, but I'm confident we're going where the Lord wants us to go. We have a brand new brother in our Branch Presidency, he's even brand new to the MTC. He was just the mission president of the Tennessee Nashville mission and he was telling us that he would tell Salt Lake to send any extra missionaries they had, anyone waiting for visas. When they would come to his mission, he would challenge them to find the reason they were there. So that's what I'm going to do, find the reason behind my temporary assignment.

 

Well I don't have much time left and I want to leave some time for later so I know when to call so I'll write you a nice long letter today.

 

I'll check a couple of times today, just let me know when it would be best for me to call you.

 

Love you,

 

Sister Daniel