Hello Everyone!
Tomorrow is my three-month mission birthday! Weird! I can't believe I have been in Florida for four weeks already, and then at the same time, I can't believe I have ever been anywhere else! Mission life is the greatest thing in the world! We are working with a lot of people, but particularly members of our branch here. We are working with a Spanish branch here in the Largo area. They are the only Spanish option for people in the peninsula of St Petersburg. We have an incredible ward and wonderful people, but it is very small too. We struggle with having enough priesthood and people to fill all of the necessary callings. We are kind of stuck in a conundrum where we really need more people, but we don't have enough strong members to support the new ones when they come. Very interesting. Because this is the situation, Hermana Dollahite and I are currently trying to chase down and work with all of the inactive and part-member families. (Of course we have our investigators as well.)
I feel bad sometimes, we have twenty-four missionaries in our Zone and only two are Spanish speaking; they happen to be the sisters! Because we are the only Spanish missionaries, we literally go from one lesson to the next all day every single day. In the meantime, the English Elders go tracting. It is such a bummer! I mean, some of them love tracting but every missionary would rather be teaching. I am really lucky to be where I am; I have tracted for maybe twenty minutes in the entire four weeks I have been here.
Have I mentioned that I live in the most beautiful place on Earth? EVERYTHING is green, and if it isn't green then it is pink or purple or red or some other incredible hue. I see cranes and wild peacocks and every other kind of wild bird. There are really cool lizards everywhere just soaking up the sun, and of course I am right next to them saying GIVE ME THE SUN!!!! I love it. Still not a huge fan of the humidity, especially since my hair has decided it is a little bit curly here and I have no idea how to work with it! I just throw it in a bun or pony-tail and get to work.
Hermana Dollahite is awesome. We laugh all the time, even when it is not appropriate, i.e. during prayers and hymns (a lot actually). It is so funny and I literally love every second. The people here are amazing and you simply can't help but love them. They are so pure and kind and welcoming. I love the Hispanic culture and I love being a part of it everyday. It has gotten to the point now where we are almost afraid to run into white people because they are mean! Every Hispanic you ever meet is nice and welcoming and is able to recognize the light of Christ in people. Now don't get me wrong, it is still really hard to help people see the changes they need to make to follow Christ, but it is almost like they are remembering it, rather than learning it. So cool!
I might have incredibly exciting news next week, but I will keep the details to myself until then! I can't wait to hear from you all. Good luck this week, and remember who you are: sons and daughters of God.
Love,
Hermana Levanger
SIDENOTE: Because I don't actually live at my mailing address, anything sent to me has to be through the US Post Office, either first class or priority mail, because if it is delivered from a company or sent UPS or FedEx they can't forward it to me. Sorry for the inconvenience, but thank you for the packages!
Monday, April 25, 2011
Monday, April 18, 2011
April 18, 2011
Hello Everyone!
I hope everyone is having a wonderful week and enjoying life. Life is pretty great isn't it? Something I have realized lately is that you have to recognize the little things in life that make it great. I had a bit of a hard week this week, and I really came to appreciate the little blessings our Heavenly Father gives us each and every day (and how many more he is willing to give us if we would just ask!) Nothing about my week is anything to worry about. In fact, nothing that happened had anything to do with me. The short version is that there was a situation in another area and they needed one of my trainers, Hna Gallegos, to go there and take care of the area while we helped out the other sister. It was really hard. I won't go into detail, but as a result we have lost Hna Gallegos for the rest of this transfer and the other sister is going to a different area.
That being said, I think this week will be a lot calmer and more productive, and Hna Dollahite and I will power through until hopefully we can have Hna Gallegos back for next transfer. One blessing out of all of this is that I have gotten really close to Hna Dollahite and have been able to spend quite a bit of time with my mission President and his wife!
It is so hard to describe a mission to people who don't know and haven't experienced it. Imagine one of those line graphs we all saw in school that charts progress over time. Well, the line hitting the top of the graph and almost going out of the square is life on a mission. The one in the middle lower half of the graph is real life. The time passing is life. The middle line has little blips up and down but mostly stays pretty steady and any downward or upward movement is gradual over a period of time. The top line looks like the lines you see on a heart monitor, up down up down up down, constantly over and over and over, never stopping. It feels like it is going a million miles an hour and every little tiny thing affects it in some way every minute of every hour of every day. When you have that picture in your head and you look at the graph as a whole, you notice that even the lowest of lows on the mission are still much higher than ANYTHING that happens in real life, and the tops of the highs you can't even see, because they are somewhere off in space or something! So that is my life. Highs and lows and a cycle of them every day all day and an existence that is so incredibly rewarding and fun that it is literally impossible to describe.
Fun. That is another thing. Who knew how much fun a mission would be? I have SO much fun, and I laugh all the time all day long! Who knew? Just the other day my companions and I literally sat in our car and laughed for almost twenty minutes as we watched a guy trying to use a circular saw and a caulking gun outside his trailer while using his plastic garbage can as a balance AND leveler! Oh man, even now I am laughing about this, but maybe you just had to be there! Then we got out and met Sean and he is not only a very nice guy, but asked us to drop off some literature every time we are around. Can do Sean, can do.
How I love you all back in the real world. I really do. I miss you and all thing things about regular life. I miss baseball games and cookouts on the deck. I miss my family and friends (even the ones who don't write me; you know who you are!) I miss kicking back and talking with my little brother and playing with my dog (man do I miss her). But you know what? I don't miss all those things one fraction to the degree that I love my mission. And that is the truth.
I really will start writing some stories about the people and the funny things that happen to me during the days and weeks. This week I was planning to, but I was feeling particularly introspective. I hope this helps someone out there. It helped me just to write it. I am so lucky. I want all of you to know that I love my life and I am so thankful for each and every one of your thoughts and prayers. I feel them every day.
Love you all,
Hermana Levanger
I hope everyone is having a wonderful week and enjoying life. Life is pretty great isn't it? Something I have realized lately is that you have to recognize the little things in life that make it great. I had a bit of a hard week this week, and I really came to appreciate the little blessings our Heavenly Father gives us each and every day (and how many more he is willing to give us if we would just ask!) Nothing about my week is anything to worry about. In fact, nothing that happened had anything to do with me. The short version is that there was a situation in another area and they needed one of my trainers, Hna Gallegos, to go there and take care of the area while we helped out the other sister. It was really hard. I won't go into detail, but as a result we have lost Hna Gallegos for the rest of this transfer and the other sister is going to a different area.
That being said, I think this week will be a lot calmer and more productive, and Hna Dollahite and I will power through until hopefully we can have Hna Gallegos back for next transfer. One blessing out of all of this is that I have gotten really close to Hna Dollahite and have been able to spend quite a bit of time with my mission President and his wife!
It is so hard to describe a mission to people who don't know and haven't experienced it. Imagine one of those line graphs we all saw in school that charts progress over time. Well, the line hitting the top of the graph and almost going out of the square is life on a mission. The one in the middle lower half of the graph is real life. The time passing is life. The middle line has little blips up and down but mostly stays pretty steady and any downward or upward movement is gradual over a period of time. The top line looks like the lines you see on a heart monitor, up down up down up down, constantly over and over and over, never stopping. It feels like it is going a million miles an hour and every little tiny thing affects it in some way every minute of every hour of every day. When you have that picture in your head and you look at the graph as a whole, you notice that even the lowest of lows on the mission are still much higher than ANYTHING that happens in real life, and the tops of the highs you can't even see, because they are somewhere off in space or something! So that is my life. Highs and lows and a cycle of them every day all day and an existence that is so incredibly rewarding and fun that it is literally impossible to describe.
Fun. That is another thing. Who knew how much fun a mission would be? I have SO much fun, and I laugh all the time all day long! Who knew? Just the other day my companions and I literally sat in our car and laughed for almost twenty minutes as we watched a guy trying to use a circular saw and a caulking gun outside his trailer while using his plastic garbage can as a balance AND leveler! Oh man, even now I am laughing about this, but maybe you just had to be there! Then we got out and met Sean and he is not only a very nice guy, but asked us to drop off some literature every time we are around. Can do Sean, can do.
How I love you all back in the real world. I really do. I miss you and all thing things about regular life. I miss baseball games and cookouts on the deck. I miss my family and friends (even the ones who don't write me; you know who you are!) I miss kicking back and talking with my little brother and playing with my dog (man do I miss her). But you know what? I don't miss all those things one fraction to the degree that I love my mission. And that is the truth.
I really will start writing some stories about the people and the funny things that happen to me during the days and weeks. This week I was planning to, but I was feeling particularly introspective. I hope this helps someone out there. It helped me just to write it. I am so lucky. I want all of you to know that I love my life and I am so thankful for each and every one of your thoughts and prayers. I feel them every day.
Love you all,
Hermana Levanger
Monday, April 11, 2011
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!
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!
Monday, April 4, 2011
April 4, 2011
Hello Everyone,
WOW!!! Where to begin? I guess I should start by saying I am in Florida! YAY!!!!!!! My first area is the St. Petersburg area and My companions and I serve in Pinellas Park County (yes, I still have companions (plural), more to come!) Just getting here was quite the adventure. I had some of my first experiences in contacting and sharing the gospel with other people right in the airport! It was really cool. Turns out the church is so incredible that it is pretty easy to talk about it with everyone I meet. We had turbulence flying into Tampa for the last 45 minutes. We almost had to fly to Ft Meyers for gas because our poor pilot couldn't land! All of us missionaries were shoved into the last two back rows and we were having a grand old time being thrown around! Apparently a lot of people were throwing up in the middle of the plane, but we were just laughing!
What can I say about my Mission President-President Summerhays? He is incredible. What an honor it will be to serve with and for him. I am so excited for the plans that he has for our mission. We had an incredible talk our first night and I know he is truly called of God. What we discussed was really personal, so I won't share, but rest-assured that I am in good hands and that there will be miracles that happen every day on my mission.
My companions: About three weeks ago I had a thought that I would have a native companion. I told my Teacher, Hermana Rex about it and she said that would be REALLY good for me. So I started to pray for a native, and I fasted this last week that I could have a companion that was kind, excited for the work, and patient with me.
The day after I arrived (I slept on the floor of a closet my first night! Oh also, we had five new sisters to the mission and four new elders, first time in our mission history that there are more new sisters than elders!), I met my companions. It was so cool because each trainer got up and told a little about him or herself, the time they had been in the mission and then, which missionary they were to train. I knew the second they read their names that they were going to be my companions, when they said my name all I could think was, yeah, I know. So my new and INCREDIBLE companions are Hermana Gallegos (my native) of Chile (and more recently Miami) and Hermana Dollahite of Orem Utah. Both are amazing missionaries and are so excited to shake things up here in St. Pete.
We have quite a few investigators and less-active members that we are working with. In fact we have so many people we do and can visit we don't really have time for tracting like missionaries of old! That is ok though; that is the direction the Church wants missionary work to go. This area hasn't had a baptism since December, but the three of us will be changing that really soon. We mostly drive a car because we are responsible for the entire county as we are not only the only sister missionaries in the zone, but also the only Spanish missionaries in the zone! So even though it is a predominantly Non-Hispanic area, every lesson and person we teach is speaking Spanish.
I wish I had more time to tell you just how incredible it is to be a missionary. I LOVE the field. It is ten thousand times better than the MTC, and I loved the MTC. My Spanish is coming along, I can usually understand at least the topic of conversation, and I can almost always add something meaningful. It is amazing how much you can love someone you have barely met. The people I teach are of the humblest circumstances and face incredible hardships. I am so honored to have been chosen to serve them on behalf of my Father.
Like I said, I wish I had time to write more, but I will write about my work every Monday, so I guess all I can say is , "Tune in next week!" I would love to stick around and write all day, but I would rather be out doing the work, so that is what I am going to do!
Love you, stay true and stay strong,
Hermana Levanger
WOW!!! Where to begin? I guess I should start by saying I am in Florida! YAY!!!!!!! My first area is the St. Petersburg area and My companions and I serve in Pinellas Park County (yes, I still have companions (plural), more to come!) Just getting here was quite the adventure. I had some of my first experiences in contacting and sharing the gospel with other people right in the airport! It was really cool. Turns out the church is so incredible that it is pretty easy to talk about it with everyone I meet. We had turbulence flying into Tampa for the last 45 minutes. We almost had to fly to Ft Meyers for gas because our poor pilot couldn't land! All of us missionaries were shoved into the last two back rows and we were having a grand old time being thrown around! Apparently a lot of people were throwing up in the middle of the plane, but we were just laughing!
What can I say about my Mission President-President Summerhays? He is incredible. What an honor it will be to serve with and for him. I am so excited for the plans that he has for our mission. We had an incredible talk our first night and I know he is truly called of God. What we discussed was really personal, so I won't share, but rest-assured that I am in good hands and that there will be miracles that happen every day on my mission.
My companions: About three weeks ago I had a thought that I would have a native companion. I told my Teacher, Hermana Rex about it and she said that would be REALLY good for me. So I started to pray for a native, and I fasted this last week that I could have a companion that was kind, excited for the work, and patient with me.
The day after I arrived (I slept on the floor of a closet my first night! Oh also, we had five new sisters to the mission and four new elders, first time in our mission history that there are more new sisters than elders!), I met my companions. It was so cool because each trainer got up and told a little about him or herself, the time they had been in the mission and then, which missionary they were to train. I knew the second they read their names that they were going to be my companions, when they said my name all I could think was, yeah, I know. So my new and INCREDIBLE companions are Hermana Gallegos (my native) of Chile (and more recently Miami) and Hermana Dollahite of Orem Utah. Both are amazing missionaries and are so excited to shake things up here in St. Pete.
We have quite a few investigators and less-active members that we are working with. In fact we have so many people we do and can visit we don't really have time for tracting like missionaries of old! That is ok though; that is the direction the Church wants missionary work to go. This area hasn't had a baptism since December, but the three of us will be changing that really soon. We mostly drive a car because we are responsible for the entire county as we are not only the only sister missionaries in the zone, but also the only Spanish missionaries in the zone! So even though it is a predominantly Non-Hispanic area, every lesson and person we teach is speaking Spanish.
I wish I had more time to tell you just how incredible it is to be a missionary. I LOVE the field. It is ten thousand times better than the MTC, and I loved the MTC. My Spanish is coming along, I can usually understand at least the topic of conversation, and I can almost always add something meaningful. It is amazing how much you can love someone you have barely met. The people I teach are of the humblest circumstances and face incredible hardships. I am so honored to have been chosen to serve them on behalf of my Father.
Like I said, I wish I had time to write more, but I will write about my work every Monday, so I guess all I can say is , "Tune in next week!" I would love to stick around and write all day, but I would rather be out doing the work, so that is what I am going to do!
Love you, stay true and stay strong,
Hermana Levanger
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