Where are you, Dan?

 Léihdeih hóu!!

I hope everyone has had a blessed week this week! It's been another eventful week for me here as a Pavillion missionary! You won't believe what's all happened!

Well we got to start covering the Sunset Park ward starting on Wednesday! Its been busy but we found out that the best way to go about it is to divide the work up into days. So we're going to be in Pavillion on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and then in Riverton on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays and our Sundays will alternate. Currently we've just been trying to meet people in Riverton. We usually will look at the area around where we have lessons and see who lives there in area book and then we'll just stop by and see them. 4/5 times they haven't been home but we've met a few people! It's also just been nice to be in an actual neighborhood again with GRASS and TREES instead of dirt roads and cows and far spread houses. Of course we will still be seeing that too but it's a small tender mercy for me.

One of the people we've been able to meet is Sydnie (yes that's how you spell her name) and it was completely on accident! We went to her apartmet looking for a lady named Joy but when we knocked, Sydnie answered and didn't know anyone named Joy. We just chatted with her a bit though. This was one door that Sister Steiner told me to take so I had to start the conversation and such. I told her that we're the local missionaries, looking to spread messages of hope and do any acts of service in the area and introduced ourselves. I asked if she knew anything about our church or the Book of Mormon and she said she didn't. In my head was like, yes!, because  the day before, Sister Steiner and I had roleplayed giving a simple overview of the Book of Mormon to someone so I got to put into use what I practiced. I said, "the Book of Mormon is a book of scripture that works hand in hand with the Bible. A lot of people don't think we read the Bible, but we do! Like the Bible, the Book of Mormon contains the words of prophets who live hundreds of years ago. One difference is, though, that the prophets in this book lived in ancient America whereas the prophets in the Bible lived in Israel. The crowning event of this book is when Christ visited the people of America. He established the complete version of His gospel and through this book we can read all we need to know about what Jesus taught and what God's plan for us is." (that was a lot more eloquent than the actual thing but ya know). It was cool she was like "Huh, I didn't know that." She's Catholic herself but we offered to come over sometime and do some Bible study or share a message with her and she gave us her number! I know it was just a little thing, but it felt awesome!

We were also able to go over to a few people's houses for dinner this week! It's super nice being a missionary because you don't have to buy as much food as you do in college since members feed you all the time! It's honestly one of my favorite parts of missionary work though. After trying to spread the light of the gospel and seeing so much uncertainty, being able to step into a member family home and just immediately feeling the Spirit makes me so happy. One family we got to have dinner with is a family in Riverton named the Mcdonalds! Brother Mcdonald served his mission in Ventura, California so we got to talk about California stuff a bit and he said he's driven through Santa Clarita but never visited it. On the other hand, Sister Mcdonald served her mission in Frankfurt, Germany! I got to tell her my dad lived in Germany for a bit and she told us a really cool story. Apparently, when she was on her mission, Elder Uchtdorf was the stake president in the stake she served in! She said that when she and her friends from the mission found out he was called as a member of the 70 and then an apostle, they were so excited! She said that a few years ago he had visited their stake for a conference and he was just going down the aisle shaking peoples hands and saying quick hellos and when she told him she was a missionary in Frankfurt, he grabbed her by the shoulders and was like “It is SO good to see you” he talked with her and then said something in German and was like “and how is your German?”. She thought she wouldn’t remember anything but it just came out of her and they were able to talk a bit in German! I just thought that was so cool and amazing. It was definitely one of my favorite takeaways from the night, other than the AMAZING homemade garlic bread and cookies they sent us home with.

Stake conference was this past weekend and the mission president, President Palmer came up and spoke in it! It was in the adult session on Saturday night. Sister Steiner showed up and saw that the missionaries were wearing masks so we were like oh shoot should we be wearing them too. Luckily I found two smashed down in my bag! They were a little wrinkly but we got em. I'm glad we had them too because when President Palmer spake, he basically said thank you to the stake for letting us wear masks because we want to show the highest level of respect for all people which right now would be wearing a mask. Sister Steiner said that she was glad he said that because Brother Morgan (a very well known person in the Pavillion branch) always makes fun of us if we're wearing masks (not many people wear them in Wyoming). He might still poke fun but at least with President Palmer's address, people will see we have proper reason to be wearing them. In the same talk, President also made Sister Steiner and I come up to the pulpit. He had called us two nights ago (it was super nerve wracking seeing PRESIDENT PALMER across the phone screen) and asked us to share a Love, Share, Invite experience that we had had. I wasn't here in Pavillion when it happened, but Sister Steiner shared the experience and I just smiled and looked at all the people. After she shared, though, President Palmer made us stay up and introduce ourselves. He had us say our names, where we're from, how long we've been out, and our original assignments (he definitely just did that for me). The stake laughed when I said that I'd only been out for two weeks whereas Sister Steiner has been out almost 8 months. Then after I said my original assignment is Hong Kong, Cantonese speaking, President Palmer was like "We know Riverton is a great place to practice Cantonese." And everyone laughed again. 

The next morning in the general session, there was a girl who played violin with the stake youth choir and after the meeting, President Palmer was talking to Sister Steiner and I and said "The violin was right behind me and it was like Sister DelHoyo was playing, even though I haven't even heard you before." He then asked if I was playing in zone conference this coming Friday and when I said I hadn't heard anything yet, he said "you can't leave without us hearing you once, even if that means we have to have two musical numbers." I said I would do it but would prefer to do it with piano and then he waved over all the Elders who were putting away chairs. He commented "it's nice just being able to wave and they'll all come over". He asked the ZLs if anyone played piano and an elder named Elder Danielson did. He asked if we could figure something out and Elder Danielson said he's game if I am so I said we could. President Palmer was excited and said "great, we'll do that then". Now I just had to figure out what I'd play. Later that day though, I remembered that I was going to play an arrangement of How Great Thou Art for violin and piano in church on the 12th and was like, I can just do that for zone conference too! So that's the plan currently. We talked to the ZLs about how Elder Danielson and I will get together to practice and they said that they're going to do mini exchanges with that companionship on Thursday afternoon and so we can just get together and practice during that. I hope it turns out well! I'll have to let you guys know next week after conference.

One thing Sister Steiner and I have been worrying about is Dan. We've been messaging him since this past Thursday and he hasn't read or replied to any of them! It's like, Dan!!! You're baptism is this Saturday!! We need to get your baptismal interview and last lesson done!! We're just a little bit stressed but we fasted for him on Sunday and we're just praying that things will work out. At times like these, I just have to remind myself that no matter what happens, everything is in God's timing so he'll take care of it. We also haven't been able to have a lesson with Roland for the past while. We've been talking to him a bit over text but he's been busy packing so we couldn't meet for a lesson. Hopefully soon! I have hope for him!

My Hong Kong district got out of quarantine finally! They've only been out for 3 days but based on their emails it sounds like they're loving it. Seeing their pictures and stories makes me wonder what it'd be like to be in Hong Kong right now, but I'm still so grateful to be here. If I wasn't here I couldn't have met Sister Steiner and my awesome district and ZLs and all the members here (or pet a horse and wrangle goats)! It's been an adventure and it's only been three weeks! I can't believe I've already almost been here for a month :') time flies. 

I hope that you are all doing well! I would love to hear from you if you have time. The scripture I wanted to share this week is from Alma 49:14, a verse that Sister Steiner actually introduced me to! In this chapter, a bunch of Lamanites are on their way to fight these Nephites and they're just like, "yeah this is gonna be a piece of cake. Their city's got weak sauce defenses." and then it says,

14 But behold, to their astonishment, the city of Noah, which had hitherto been a weak place, had now, by the means of Moroni, become strong, yea, even to exceed the strength of the city Ammonihah.

I invite you guys this week to think of what you have in your life that you can make strong! Because just like captain Moroni, if we can strengthen ourselves spiritually, we will be prepared to face even the greatest opposition!

I love you all!

Gāa yáu! 

丁姊妹

(Sister DelHoyo)

Sister Steiner and I found some rad eye masks under the sink

The aftermath of playing spider ball last pday

 Our weightlifting equipment 😎 (the elders gave us new ones because our old ones leaked haha)

Me and the district last pday playing some Catan! (from left to right: Elder Hedquist {the DL}, Elder Nichols {his comp}, Elder Keenan, Elder Nicholls {his comp and yes there are two Nicholses}, Sister Steiner, and me!)

Made peach cobbler right before bedtime 😎

Cow selfie!!

Dinner time at the park!