Hermana Daly~November 30, 2009...feliz casi diciembre!

Hola familia!!
I´m glad everyone got stuffed up on turkey and stuffing...and that Sean gave a powerful and motivating talk about Christ and His perfect Gospel. This week was a bit of a long one as we walked and walked in the sun without very many lessons...but I did get a awesome blistery burn on my neck. Hna Urra says I´m the first in the mission to have such sensitive skin and that they are thinking of sending me to Antartica haha. But the sun is way strong here and my poor skin is weak haha. But with sacrifice comes blessings. The Bishop and us talked to the members the third hour sunday to wake them up a bit to their responsibility in visiting menos activos and being member missionaries. There have been some challenges, but we are all learning from them and trying to be better, to greet others more warmly, to care for those who don´t come, and to share what many of us continue to keep for ourselves...the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It´s so important, yet we are still afraid to open our mouths and serve with the love of Christ. I was one of those before my mission, but I have learned so much and really have begun to understand my responsibility as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ. If we truly understand the gospel, we would take every opportunity to share it, to help others, to just listen to others, and then give them the hope of the gospel. I hope to remain active in my missionary duties forever. I know it´s hard, but it´s the most important thing. We must always have someone in our mind that we can serve and share the gospel...and if we don´t have one, then we new to make new friends haha (the members always give us that excuse). Okay...the end of my sermon, it just has really hit me this week. So everyone get to the Lord´s work!! :)Love you all and have a fabulous week!!!
-Hermana Daly

Hermana Daly~November 23, 2009...HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!

Hola familia!!!
Happy Thanksgiving!!! You are all going to have a PAR—TAY!! I´m going to be partying it up in the streets of Iquique sharing the Gospel with all…don´t get too jealous Sean lol :) Just kidding. Enjoy all the yummy food!!This last week we had a conference with Elder Zeballos, a General Authority serving as counselor in the Chile Presidency. It was way good! Learned lots about how we can become better teachers of the gospel, focusing on the doctrine and “why” of the gospel instead of the outer applications stuff. So we are putting it to practice, so that people understand the importance of true doctrine and the importance of the Church of Jesus Christ restored in these days. This week gave us lots of tests and lots of rejections, but we were blessed the last hour of the week with someone who finally let us in. He had a grandma who was a member, so she was the key to letting us in…still helping in the missionary work although she has passed on to the next life! :) So we were happy to finally share with someone!Sunday was also the Primary program…because I´m the only blessed with a piano talent, I was the chosen to help with the Primary so they could sing beautifully, so it was fun to serve them. Learning the piano pays off in the mission…I´m finally getting a hang of playing the hymns haha. Well I love you all!! Enjoy Thanksgiving together and eat lots!!!
-Hermana Daly

Elder Daly arrives home!!!

 

Elder Daly~November 17, 2009.....signing off from Poland!

This week i had my last zone conference and sacrament meeting. Hopefully i got all the tears out i needed to so that you alls can understand me during my homecomming talk. Zone conference was SO good. Elder Kerr from Scotland of some 70 of some quoroum ... came and taught.. it was one of the best.. the next day we had interviews and i had mine with Elder Kerr himself.. i got to ask him some questions and he counseled me about life after the mission... i tried to get him to just prophesy it for me so i wouldnt have to freak out so much... but no go..

Bogdan came to church! He was there and he was getting some serious doses of the Spirit.. we had a meeting with him after church and he committed to read, pray, and come to church on a regular basis. He expressed his desire to find out for himself of the truthfulness of the message... we have one last meeting with him tonight.

see you on saturday :-)

elder daly

Hermana Daly~November 16, 2009...more tests, and more blessings!

Hola familia!!
Woot woot---Sean comes home!!! So exciting...I can´t believe it...have lots of parties and fun!! Don´t get too trunky this last week Sean :)Well another week of work, more tests, and more blessings. We found lots of new investigadors and had lots of lesson. However, our baptismal dates are a little rocky. So we will see..lots of prayers.We are working and walking tons, that at night when we lay down to sleep...it takes like 2 seconds to fall asleep. The other night there was an almost earthquake, very strong, that everyone talked about. It happened at midnight and everyone asked us how we were when it happened. We were surprised and had no idea...we didn´t feel a thing nor wake up. Everyone didn´t believe us, but we told them in the mission you work hard and then sleep hard. Just goes to show we are working lots and are very very tired at night haha :)
Well, I love you all!! Have a great week!!! -Hermana Daly

Elder Daly~November 10, 2009....ONE MORE WEEK LEFT IN POLAND!

this week was weird.

i headed back to my roots for the first time since i left elder dutys nest ... elder hughes and i drove down first to katowice and went on exchanges with elder brown and anderton. Elder anderton and i contacted all day and had a blast and a lot of success... set up with a few way cool people, had an interesting encounter with a drunk girl and to top off the day we got let in trakting and taught a way cool couple.

then we drove the next morning to my wroclaw ... it was so trippy, like driving down flashback avenue. But it reconfirmed what ive told everyone my whole mission.. wroclaw is far and away my favorite city in poland, and probably the best in the universe ... i went with elder brewster and it was another day of contacting but way miraculous...at one point we were ladder contacting and talking to different people at the same time... i finished my conversation and headed to pass him by and talk to the next person until i recognized the woman he was talking to! her name is krystyna and i vaguely recalled her face from the one meeting elder duty and i had with her almost 2 years ago.. she had a baptisimal date when elder duty and i entered the area but was having concerns and moved to the states shortly after we met her and we lost contact completely. Now she has just recently moved back to Poland and she set up with us and is excited to meet with missionaries again! just another strength to my firm conviction that God leads and guides us and His work.

elder stohel and i met with bogdan last night... our member flaked us unfortunately but the lesson was still great. We think he's received the answer to get baptized but he still needs a llittle time to think things over and pray.. friday is our next meeting so pray for him :-)

Well the whole mission missionaries come and leave and it doesnt really seem like the day will ever come but now with one full week of work left im starting to freak out a little bit, ...alright a lot a bit... i feel bad for my companion ive been a emotional mess of mood swings lately. but thank you family for your support and love for the past couple years... and thank you even more for the previous 19 years of preparation its made all the difference out here for me....as you all know too well i dont usually like to get too spiritual or emotional in these emails so i hope that sufficeth for now.. i love you guys

elder daly

Hermana Daly~November 9, 2009........listening to the spirit

Hola familia!!Hope all is well!! We are happy here in Iquique because we were able to have our two baptismal dates by yesterday to meet the goal of Presidente Urra and not ship us off to another sector. It was a week of lots of walking, looking, and testing. But we were able to pull through and keep the faith through our scripture study each morning. Our studies were all centered on faith in Christ, the importance of the Spirit, and being diligent and PATIENT. After a week of lots of working in the sun and with lots of patience, we were blesed with weekend miracles!We were able to work saturday afternoon with one of our zone leaders to help us put a baptismal date. We had lots of success in finding new investigadors and then the last lesson of the day Elder Novoa set a baptismal date with our investigador Yahaira. It was great!!! She only needed to attend church the next day to keep the date. But then sunday morning brought more tests with our other jovencita with a baptismal date having doubts and then Yahaira couldn´t come to Church. We were a little desperate. But we talked to Nadia, the jovencita, who had doubts because of her family and told her to pray that night. Our last hope was that Douglas, an investigador that we had stopped visiting to see if he really wanted to commit and make the change. He showed up to Church and we were so happy!! He said that he has felt good about everything and has been reading and praying and wants to get baptized. Miracle!!! We set a baptismal date with him right after church. The only thing is that he moved out of our sector last week and needs to move back if he wants to stay in our ward, which is does. So we are praying lots and will be looking for a place for him to live this week.So that was our sunday miracle!! We know that there are more tests to come and Satan doesn´t want us to bring four people into the gospel by the end of this year, but we have the faith!! Love you all!! Lots of faith and lots of sharing the gospel this christmas season!!! Have a great week!!! -Hermana Daly

Elder Daly~November 3, 2009....polish cemetaries, surprise visit & rockin' open house

holy molies november came out of nowhere! i dunno if that means that christmas music if officially legal??? but for the sake of not having to listen to efy look and live for the bjillionth time im throwing in some motab christmas...

how was your guys' halloween?? ours was pretty uneventful.. we took a journey into the polish cemetaries and froze to death... i wasnt as into it as last year but the respect the polish people show for their departed loved ones is unmatched for atleast one weekend of the year. A trillion candles, flowers, and prayers being muttered by families huddled around endless fields of graves... its a cool sight... buuuut ...trick or treating is way better.

the week was way tough for meetings for some reason. Lots of no-shows coupled with too much ineffective contacting. We are trying to limit the hours we spend on the streets cuz it reallly is the most ineffective thing ever... we visited some members and had a way good fireside on friday.. and guess who showed up! my brother Lukasz came down from szczecin.. he went with elder stohel and I for a day, ah i love him so much. we spent a couple hours working an open house we had at the chapel.. the chapel sits right in between 2 of the biggest cemetaries in warsaw so we had a good flow of people coming in to check us out and have some 'mormon' fruit tea and crumpets.. then we went out and contacted and showed lukasz around a little bit. He rocked one of my name tags and was lighting the streets up with his testimony, it was the coolest experience. Brother wilkinson from CES came and did a fireside for all the youth also a wonderful shin dig.

Greg.. our brotha from sunset blvd. is sick and injured ... so no updates there.

Bogdan.. this guy is getting cooler and cooler with each meeting. we invited him to be baptized yesterday, he was hesitant, but said he'd pray about it. he's mid 30's and studied catholic theology for a decade so he's naturally kinda takenaback about the whole deal... but we watched the testaments with him 2 meetings ago and he was rocked by the Spirit... and this last meeting was also full of it so we really feel he's going to accept it in the near future.

thanks for the letter ness :-) laners thanks again for scoring me those great classes

have a great week! love you guys so much

elder sean

Hermana Daly~Nov 2, 2009....the pressure is up

Hola familia!!!How are the preparations for Christmas?! I´ve started to see some stores start selling Christmas stuff…and so tempted to buy it all…but a missionary doesn´t have the time, money, or need (not much) for Christmas decorations. I´ll just have to wait until next year to buy all the cute snowmen with mom…and of course all the chocolate :) We bought some chocolate for Halloween, but truly it´s just brown-colored plastic and the few gringo candies like a small bag of M&Ms is like five dollars…ridiculous, but oh well haha.We are cracking down on putting baptismal dates for everyone. We need two by the end of this week, and have one. If we don´t have it, President Urra will make changes and everything betweens sectors so that everyone has four baptisms by the end of the year!!! So lots of pressure and work…but we are trying to increase our faith!! A family of four from our ward showed up at the other ward in the morning, and our bishop happened to be in the chapel to see them and told us in the afternoon. The mom was a former investigador that has no time because everyone works too much here. But she showed up with her two kids and sister because she has the desperate need to save her son from being sucked into the “world” that many teens are following today in Iquique…lets just say they don´t follow the commandments. So we were able to have a lesson the last hour of the night with the family – menos the mom because she was working – and it went great. So that was our little miracle!!We are really trying to humble ourselves and plead for the Lord´s spirit to guide us and guide those who are prepared to us. My new companion, Hermana Chavez is great! She is from Honduras and has almost 8 months in the mission. She is way funny…so we are going to get along great. Lots of prayers!!! Have a great week!!! -Hermana Daly