Reports from the Mission Field

Now that Daniel is actually serving in an area, his time is limited. As people write to Daniel, he tries to answer them on a personal basis. But, he is sending me a "mission update" each week that I will try to get on the blog for everyone. So, I'll be doing several of them today cause I've gotten behind. Daniel is of the "text generation" so I have to do a little editorial work before posting them.

So here's his first one:

For three days straight, it has rained. Let’s just say you multiply the most rain we have ever gotten in Idaho by two, and that is what it was like for three days straight. Our house started to leak all over and flood. But we pushed through it. I prayed to have the water stop leaking because I knew the rain wasn’t stopping and after that, the water wasn’t so bad in the house. I know that Heavenly Father loves and answers our prayers. Oh and my backpack is rain proof for a little but not for a long time. So it soaked everything in my backpack. Not good but I dried it. Also I had to buy an umbrella. I got a small one that I could put in my backpack. It didn’t work -- too small for rain here so I had to get a big one -- pretty frustrated about that.

So I am in America as far as clothes and music go. Everyone listens to American music even though they have no clue what is going on. They all know about Michael Jackson and ask me regularly about him. I also know why they are good at soccer here. They learn balance from the buses -- they are insane. And the hills give them leg strength -- I feel like I am always going uphill. We had huge spiders in our apartment but I killed them. The ward is amazing, and I love them. My comp is strange but I’m getting used to him. He has a great testimony and strength when he teaches. I took some worm meds we got at our zone conference we have to take them every six weeks. They give you diarrhea to get all the creatures out of you. Great….

I gave my first blessing in Portuguese a day ago. It was great but really hard. I still felt the spirit. I am doing a baptism for a little girl this week. She chose me! She is ten. We also have two others with her that are getting baptized and five scheduled for next week. We will see if these ones actually get baptized. We are teaching about 29 lessons per week. So the work is good. Investigators are great. it is so neat to see the change in them. That is the only thing that is keeping me going. I love this work but I really miss you all so very much but I guess I will get over it. I miss sports and other things too, but I miss the family and Idaho the most. Love you all. This is the true church. The Book of Mormon is true. Joseph Smith saw God and Jesus Christ. Love you all. The work must go on!