May 7, 2012

Hello Everyone!    Well, once again I made the mistake of responding to individual e-mails, writing my president's letter, and looking at a couple of things on lds.org before writing my family letter...and now I am exhausted from typing, and have almost zero time to write anything of substance! We have been working hard this week to get everyone ready for the ward-wide fast we had yesterday for the Family Mission Plan. I'm not sure how well it went, or how many actually did it, but I hope everyone was involved and has a new fire for missionary work. With all of the families moving out, unless we get going this ward could become a branch, and I would hate to see that happen.     In looking through my pictures I realized there was a very funny story from last week that I forgot to tell you. One evening last week we had a joint dinner with the elders and one of the Cuban families in our ward. This family lives in the estates, which is a nice word for the middle of nowhere, and really far away. When we got there we felt like we had walked into the setting for one of those scary campfire stories (which actually led to the telling of some such stories later on!) but we mustered up our courage and carried on. The family, of course, is awesome and I love spending time with them. They have incredible testimonies. They also have almost every kind of animal a person in the United States can own: cats, dogs, birds, ducks, chickens, turkeys, fish, and even a couple of peacocks! When I heard they had peacocks, I asked if we could see them...big mistake! To get to the peacocks, you had to traverse a miniature farm jungle and avoid the big, ugly, mean turkey! Luckily, we had a tiny Cuban lady, who happened to have a shovel. She mostly protected us! I'm not going to lie. I did not get through the experience without injury, but they were minor scratches and I'm not sure I have laughed so much in my life!

   I hope all of you are safe, happy and well. I love each of you and pray for you every day. I hope that wherever this letter finds you it brings a smile to your face. I would even be okay with it if you had a few chuckles at my expense. (I am sure, at the very least, my dad will!) I live to entertain you! I am so grateful for the love and support I feel from each of you. Thank you for being such a big part of my life. Please take the opportunity today to look for someone who needs a laugh, and do everything you can to be that for them. We all need a good laugh sometimes! Love you all! Hermana Levanger