Mission Miracle from Sora Elizabeth Lovell

Mission Miracle from Sora Elizabeth Lovell
November 3, 2008

Oh my goodness! Alina and Mariana are absolutely amazing!!! I am going to brag a bit about Mariana today. Mariana loves to wear pants, t-shirt, and pony tail. She is tough, but quite, smart, but shy, and once you get to know her she cracks jokes left and right. We have such a hoot together! Our P-day is kind of...none existent today (we have two appointments and we are putting up fliers around town for English) So Mariana is going to be chillin' with us hanging up English Posters. Anyways, on Tuesday we had her teach us the lesson on the restoration. Her instructions were:
Use the pamphlet on the restoration and the Joseph Smith Brochure
Use at least two scriptures
Needs to be about 10-15 minutes long.
Oh and answer all the questions in the back of the pamphlet
This girl went above and beyond. Not only did she use plenty of scriptures, she also asked questions, bore testimony, and had a GAME at the end to help with understanding. OH MY GOODNESS! It was amazing. She was bummed after because she looked at her notes and she said she forgot to mention things but I explained how that is "the story of my LIFE" and how we as missionaries often change the lesson a bit in the time we are teaching. Anyways, we assigned her for this week to do the plan of salvation and she asked to have a couple days to prepare before Tuesday but she let me know on Sunday that she is already done because it’s her favorite part of the gospel and so she got excited preparing it. She has also read from the beginning of the Book of Mormon up to Jacob! Oh, and to top it all off....I called her on Saturday night to recommended coming in a skirt from now on since after her confirmation she would be a membra intreaga (a full member) and she told me that she has not worn a skirt since 4th grade....she is 20 now...but I told her that that s what the modern day prophets have asked that we wear on Sundays. Bless her heart, on Sunday she came in pants and went to the rest room and changed into a really....interesting skirt! She was so uncomfortable being in a skirt but she knew that she was doing the right thing. The skirt was really funny...I would not have liked it either. I really want to get her a better one. After sacrament meeting she said, "Yes! I can change now right?" I said "no, not till after all three meetings" man, her face fell so fast but then a smile was back on her face as we went to Sunday School but right after Relief Society she was changed in two seconds but she said she will bring a skirt to change into every week. She also helped with a discussion with an investigator who came to church and she did amazing...of course.
Oh, and about the confirmations...they were beautiful and Mariana just continues to get the confirmation from Heavenly Father that what she is doing is right. Her tear filled eyes were glittering when she came and sat next to Janyela and me after her confirmation and then totally out of character she just turned and hugged me so tightly and said "thank you". Thank me??? I didn't do anything. These girls are all just amazing. The branch is too. We have wonderful members that are doing so good at fellowshipping these new converts.