7/29/15- Group Email

Hola hola!! This week was so good! Every week here is just so amazing, I love it so much!  Highlights of the week.... Last Friday I was feeling sooooo sick.  This stinkin cold that I have had FOR EVER. I finally felt sick enough to go to the Doctor. Of course, the Doctor was going to be gone for three days so I called him and he said for me to go to the instacare.  Field trip, woot woot.  We got to go out into the real world.. and it was HORRIBLE.  Nobody was nice - I'm used to every person I see every day to be so overly nice.  But we got to listen to music while we waited in Rite Aid for my meds.. which is always a good time.  After a few hours we made our way back and I've been taking these wonderful meds and I am feeling SO MUCH better! #blessed.  Another highlight is that our district came up with the goal to have "sing alongs" .. it's where we go for the last twenty or so minutes of the day and sing with just the ten of us while I play the piano.  We just pick whatever himnos.. and oh my goodness it has been the best decision we've ever made! In the past few days we've gone three nights and it's soooo cool from my perspective.  I can't really see any of them, however they are all just gathered right behind me and our voices are so strong and the words are so powerful. Gosh it's the best! The spirit is SO strong after we finish. I love it!  We got to skype an investigador who was in Argentina yesterday! It was so cool!! We bore a solid testimony.. well I did.. my companion froze while we were teaching because she didn't like seeing herself.. hahaha so I completely took over the lesson and ah it was awesome! I loved talking to real life people, espeically in another country. Such a cool expierence!  

We've been teaching this lady named Mercedes and she was not having it with us.. she never gave us what we wanted and after four lessons I was so tired of teaching her! But i decided I would give it one more try. We decided we would go into our lesson with no notes. No idea of what we were going to teach, and that we would ask inspired questions in order to find out what topic we should teach.   ummmm SCARY. We were nervous. We don't speak Spanish, haha.  but oh my gosh, the lesson was incredible.  so incredible!  We asked her completely inspired questions, I looked inspired scriptures, and then I had the impression to ask her to bear her testimony. And man she looked like she was saw a ghost when I asked her that! Haha, but Hermana Knudson bore her testimony than I bore mine, which was such a cool experience, and then she bore hers... AHHHH boom the spirit was insane! All three of us were crying, I felt like I could've literally reached out and touched the spirit! IT WAS AWESOME and then at the end she was crying and said that she had one of the hardest days of her life on Saturday and that our lesson was exactly what she needed to hear.  Man, el espiritu santo es verdadera!!!! It was so cool - Gift of tongues!  Well I love life right now! Being a missionary is soooo amazing! So many amazing experiences.  Thanks for all the prayers and love and letters.. much appreciated!

Con mucho amor

Hermana Dean 

7/29/15 MTC Pictures

Mmmm Swig cookies

 

 Elder Kaelber from Olympus

 Temple walks are the bomb

 Roomies

 

 I love having my best friend here

 El Mundo map

We love to play volleyball

7/22/15 - Group Email

Hola familia y amigos! Ah it has been a beautiful week! I am so so so so triste that I'm halfway done here.  The time has gone by soooooo fast I want it to slow down! I love my district.  we get closer y closer every day and we have tons of fun together.  we all get along like we've known each other forever and it's so sad to think we have to leave in three weeks and then will probably never see each other again! so weird! I was playing the piano, we go and Hermana studies while I play the piano every day, muiltiples time a day, it's so awesome i loove it.  But I was playing one of my pieces and heard the door open.. I just kept on playing, not thinking much about it.  I finish my piece and turn around to see TWENTY ELDERS in my zone y district standing there clapping and cheering me on.  Good thing i love being the center of attention, my face was just bright red.. but it was super cool and it just felt like they are all my brothers cheering me on! it was really cool and definitely made me feel super loved by them all! On Sunday we had a Relief Socity  meeting with all the Hermanas in the ccm and wow this motivational speaker pumped us up, it was suuuch a good talk!! She said us being here for only these three weeks, we've written 20 pages out of our 1,000 pages we have to write while we are on our missions. such a cool thought! i have learned sooo much and have made so many memories and friends, and I am nowhere near close to all the things I still have to learn! it got me super pumped to be here and I'm so excited to learn more and create more memories! So I decided I was going to read el libro de mormon in espanol and then translate it.. as in I read them side by side.  It has been SO cool! Oh man it has been the coolest experience ever! I have learned sooo much about el libro de mormon y it has strenghed my testimony and my knowledge in espanol! it's so cool! spanish is coming along great.  It's rough at times, but our lessons have been really good lately! i freaking love my companion! she is amazing!!!!! she is so mcuh fun to be around and we get along so well and we plan and feel the spirit so strongly.  it's amazing, i know I was put with her for a reason!  Serving a mission is supposed to be considered the most self-less thing you can do, because for eighteen months I'm serving the Lord and serving all these other people and stuff... but this week I've learned that these next eighteen months will be the most SELFISH thing I could ever be doing.  Ever.  I have learned sooooooooooo much.  So much just in three weeks and It's only making me a mejor y mejor persona! It's seriously incredible and I know with 100 % surety this is exactly where I need to be, learning spanish, with these peoeple, preparing for Canada.  It's amazing and if any of you are even slightly considering serving a mission... SERVE A FREAKING MISSION.  I'm learning soooo much more here than I could be leraning anywhere else! it's crazy and it makes me so happy.  and ah man life is just so amazing right now! I love it and I'm growing and leraning so much, it's insane!  So yep there's my week. Pretty much just an incredible week and I love it here and I feel the spirit allll the time and it's just so good! AH     

Amo ustedes

Hermana Dean

7/22/15 MTC Pictures

My companion- Hermana Knudson

I love Sister Hall...Canada sisters forever

I LOVED Sadie's laughing jokes. So freakin cute :)

I love my District...AMAZING people

Elder Bassett left for Madagascar

Missy Howell (Olympus High friend going to California, Anaheim)

Temple walk with my District

7/15/15 - Group Email

Okay this has been such a good week! i love it here sooo much.  this week flew by.. it's so crazy. it's going to go by so fast.  First off, s/o to my dad for sending us KRISPY KREME DOUGHNUTS cuz we had the best doughnut party!!!! so much fun! thank you thank you :) we had the opporunity to watch Elder Packer's funeral on Friday.. super cool.  the talk by the prophet was amazing.  On friday my heramana y yo got to clean 32 toilets.. EACH for our service project.  that would be 64 in total.  so please make jake will and sadie clean toliets at home, just because i had to clean 32 of them. hahah.  so of course, after playing volleyball in the pouring rain last week... we started to have a cold go throughout our district.  annnd i was the lucky one to get it.  I was terrified I would get strep... I woke up on Saturday with the WROST sore throat. it was bad.  SO on sunday, I asked two elders in my district to give me a blessing.. bless their hearts, they were nervous haha.  but wow, after sacrement meeting, the four of us went in a room and literally the second the first elder poured the oil on my head, i felt better.  IT WAS INCREDIBLE. and then the next elder came and gave me a blessing.. coolest. thing. ever. it was so amazing.  it's so cool how his tone of voice, reminded me EXACTLY of dad's tone of voice whenever he would give me blessings.  it was incredible and the spirit was in that tiny room soooooo strongly.  They just kept thanking me over and over for the opporunity I gave them and how we'll forever share that amazing experience.  so cool :) we've had Ben Banks, who used to be in the 70 and another elder who is in the 70.. can't remember his name haha. but no 12's yet :( the speakers are all soooo amazing and it's the coolest thing ever to be in the room with thousands of missionaries as we all sing called to serve and other hymns.  so amazing.  spanish is coming along great. we had our first lesson where we didn't use any notes.. not a single note.  it was VERY well.  i locked eyes with the "investigator" aka my teacher who was prenteding to be an investigator haha, but i locked eyes with the sucker and just LAID down the first vision about Jose Smith that I had just barely finished memorizing. it was SO COOL.  the spirit was killer and I was fairly able to understand him.  we also talked to a lady from Chile and i understood almost everything she said! it was awesome! el don de languas es verdereda!  yeah so today we get four more sisters to move in with us.. SIX GIRLS IN A FOUR PERSON ROOM. ah crazy sauce! it'll be fun tho.. very tight, but i'm sure i'll love them! i seriousyl love my companion sooo much.  we are always laughing and our weaknesses definitely are polar opposites.  we work so well together, i love it! but yeah, it's been an awesome week! got to go to the temple today, pretty amazing seeing all of our elders and my companion in the celestial room! so cool! well yeah I love it here! it's awesome, everyone is soooo friendly and nice and i just love getting to know so many new people; hearing their stories and where they're going.  i love being a missionary!  
Amo ustedes con toda mi corazon.  xoxo  Hermana Dean

7/15/15 MTC Pictures

Doughnut Party in the MTC...Thanks to my AWESOME Dad :)

 

 

Played the piano for my district last night

 Goodbye to Sister Moore...She is in Cali now

 Two best places in the world.  This shirt was only 10 bucks...woot, woot

7/8/15- Group Email

Hola hola mi familia! ahh the mtc is the best thing ever!! i love it here so so much! it's amazing.  it's taken a little adjusting, but we're in the swing of things and it's going good! my district is AWESOME.  two hermanas y ocho elders.  the elders are waaay nice and super fun to be with.  We are with each other 14 hours a day, in the classroom.  and then we eat together, go to devotionals together, play volleyball together.  it's so fun! one of our elders is from Auckland and has a killer accent.. it's the best, we always make him pray.  saturday, the fourth of july, was SO MUCH FUN.  we had a devotional dedicated to the fourth and companions walked around the entire auditorium holding the flags of everywhere throughout the world, while all the missionaries sang high on a mountaiin top.  it was amazing! spanish is hard... really hard! but it's coming.. really humbling having to learn how to teach through the spirit, rather than words! yeah, we've taught three lessons in spanish already... one hundred percent spanish.  it's rough, but practice makes perfect!  it's sooo spiritual here! everyone is just amazing and you can walk up to anyone, anywhere and get to know their entire life story! it's really so fun, I love talking to people! it's amazing.  we had a testimony meeting with our district and branch president and it was incredible.  all of the people in my district have incredible backgrounds.. one of the elders has only been a convert for one year and said he had no family members at his farewell.. CRAZY! funny stories of the week... there's this one elder that knows absolutely nothing about spanish.. it's sad but also really funny.  i was trying to explain feminine and masculine to him, and he said 'it's feminine because you said it right.. it's when girls speaK??' hahah we all died laughing.. any of you that know spanish, that is definiteyl not what makes something feminine! last night we had a member of the branch presidency in our room and by the end of the testimony meeting, he was talking about how we have to email our brach president.. but kept on calling computers, machines! "you're going to go to the machine... then you're going to wait for him to respond on the machine... etc. etc." oh my gosh me and the elder next to me HAD THE GIGGLES SO BAD. ohhh man it was so bad. we could not control our laughter.  one of those moments where i just prayed and prayed that I wouldn't burst out laughing. it was bad, but so funny!  yeah it's awesome here, i love the people, love the spirit, love the lessons, love spanish.. well not always, but i'ts coming. i love love love loooove seeing all my friends! i see so many people I know, lexi, grace hux, syd tanner, rachel jones, haley moore, richie, it's so awesome and i think it's really helped me not be homesick!  we just barely came in from playing volleyball in the pouring rain, and i think it was probably the funnest thing i've ever done. it was our entire district and we were soaked. ah it's the best! missionary life is the best! i love you all and feel like i haven't seen you in 6 years.. but it's okay! dont' worry about me, i'm having so much fun and love all the people here! have a great week.   All my love, Hermana Dean

7/8/15 MTC Pictures

Utah State Friends

 Grace Huxtable (Olympus High friend going to Philippines)

 
 Lexi Smith (Utah State friend going to Hungary)

 
MTC district

 
Temple walk

 
Haley Moore (Utah State roommate going to California, Anaheim)

 
Dad - I'm jump roping the way you taught me! :)

The 4th of July in the MTC

 

7/1/15 - MTC Goodbye

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

6/30/15 - Setting Apart