April 11, 2011

Hello Everyone!,
WOW!!!! What can I say about missionary work....IT IS AWESOME!!!!! I love every second, even the hard and frustrating ones. I have the greatest companions ever, and the strengths the three of us have together are incredible. Yesterday was my first time going to our branch (since last week was General Conference). Lets just leave it at small but awesome for a description! The women are amazing and we have a few new converts who add great testimonies. Still, we only have about twenty to thirty people coming on a regular basis. I would like to see that double or triple by the time I leave. I know that baptisms are important, but right now my mission is really focusing on bringing those lost members back to the fold. A good portion of my visits are to less-active and part-member families. I know that there is SO much potential here, I just have to figure out how to help my branch catch fire with missionary work. I know it is possible. I still haven't met my branch president as he has been in Peru visiting family. We will meet him this week and hopefully develop a branch mission plan.
Because the branch is so small and spread out it is hard to unify the people. (Also, it is hard to get fed!) But the people here are INCREDIBLE! It is hard to imagine how I can love a huge group of people so much, with hardly any time spent with them at all! I love it here in Florida. It is still a little weird being out in the real world, but working with real people makes up for it. The light that we missionaries bring into a home is palpable. I've talked before about the powers of discernment and other gifts given to missionaries. Sometimes when I talk to people I can't help but see them as I know they will be...dressed in white. There is one family we are working with right now, the Dad is a member, the Mom isn't and they have a little two year-old. When we talk to this family it is so cool. Whenever I look at the mom I can't even see her getting baptized, I just see her and her family in front of the Orlando temple being sealed together! What a view! It is SOOOOO COOOL being a missionary!
I am getting some awesome tan lines, and re-discovering a love of tuna fish sandwiches and ramen noodles. You learn to live without things that used to matter more than anything, and take pure joy and pleasure in the small things. One of my favorite things on earth is singing and praying with my companions, not because we are any good, but because we usually end up laughing the ENTIRE time! I also love driving in the car trying to figure out where we are going. One of the few things I would change, or wish for, is a GPS. I hate wasting the Lord's time trying to find something off of the horrible photo-copied maps we have. Oh, well, we always get there eventually!
I love you all so much. I hope this was a good week for all of you. I will write what I wrote in my Journal almost every day this week: I have never been so tired and so happy in my entire life! And that is how I feel every day!
Love you all!
Hermana Levanger
 
PS If any of you have specific questions about what I am doing or anything about missionary work, just e-mail my Dad at j.levanger@comcast.net and I can include them in my next letter!