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