Howdy folks!
I haven't written on my own blog in awhile. I just wanted to give an update to whom ever looks at this thing if anybody, and thank my awesome sister Amy for trying to keep this up todate. I've been home for about 2 weeks. I've seen a few doctors and a super nice neighbor of mine who happens to be a Physical Therapist has come over and has been helping me. I'm doing a bit better, and continue to work hard at getting my health back to where it needs to be. I wanted to give a shout out to my family who has been nothing but loving a supportive. I've come to realize that we have trials so that we can learn and grow. I'm learning a lot and plan on learning even more when I return to Texas. That's right... I haven't finished yet, and I'll headed back one day. Well Haste Luego for now.

Coming home:(

This is Dana's sister and I have been absolutely horrible at updating Dana's blog. Well, things have been really rough for her the last several months. She has been suffering from some health problems and we all thought things were on the upside with finding a new doctor but she isn't recovering as well as anyone was anticipating. There is no one more hurt and frustrated with this than Dana herself. But I believe that that the power of healing is still a possibility and she can return to teach the amazing people of Texas before too long.

Here is Dana's last email. We are all here to support and show our love for her during this time of trial.

Howdy Family!

Well what to say... I'll see you soon?!?!! Ha ha naw I won't leave it there. This week has been a trying one, but a good one. As you all probably know I'll be home this week :( Probably Wed. it is hard to deal with, but I feel a great peace, so does my companion and Pres. Saylin. I don't know what is going to happen in the future, but whatever it is I know the Lord is watching out for me.
My compainon had to go to the doctor Wed. cause we dont' know why she is alway so weak and what was up with her fainting spell. It is really a good thing she only has one more transfer. After we got back from that she was acting super weird so I had her take her tempature and well it was 101 so we stayed in. She was still with fever on Thur. as well so we did exchanges with Hna Collins (mtc friend) and Hna Greenberg, so that I could go to my doctor's appt.
Friday was a little more eventful. We actually got out of the apt. First Tuesday... We had an amazing lesson with Maria Chavez. She is so cute. We took Hna Portillo (Obispo's wife) out with us. She isn't ready to get baptised but she is praying about it. She feels she will get baptized one day though. That was pretty cool.
We also had a lesson with Jasser and committed him to being baptized again on the 15th. He even told his mom. That is a good sign. We know he's going to make the step sooner or later we are just hoping for sooner rather than later.
Friday was district meeting. I had to give a talk. I think it went ok haha. Definitely better than my trainings haha. It was a good day over all.
Saturday it was made definite that I was coming home after talking to the Parents. Pres. Saylin feels good about the decision as well. He is an amazing leader and definitely was called of God.

It isn't easy we have to close this area cause there are an odd number of sisters, but we feel that the Elders who are going to help take care of the area are up for the challenge and are going to do amazing things here. I'm sad, but calm. I can't explain it. I know Heavenly Father has a plan for me and is going to be with me every step of the way. The plan is to get better and come back. If that is what I"m supposed to do the Lord will make it happen.

Thank-you for your love and support. I'll see ya soon!

Love a missionary for eternity,
Hermana DanaAnne Burnham

Baptisms!!

It looks like they are so busy and having a lot of success!

Hola!

Ok wow this week has been crazy. We were supposed to have a baptism Sunday but Gabriel (the investigator) was really really sick, so we will have 3 this next Sunday and then 1 on Mother's day and one on the 17th of May... yes that makes 5! Crazy! I've been working hard and focusing. I love my companion she is really awesome and has a great spirit about her. We get along great. We are teaching a few other promising people who we hope to extend baptismal commitments to soon. Texas weather is weird. It can't decide whether or not to rain or be sunny, but it is always warm/hot. haha.
Spanish is still coming slowly I'm speaking a little more, but I still struggle with understanding anything haha. They speak fast here. Oh well it is coming.
Things really are good here. My district is amazing and they are super supportive of my comp and me.
Things are going good. I just ask that you all continue to pray especially for our investigator Jasser he knows the gospel is true he is just struggling with making the step of getting baptized so pray for him.

From Texas

This is part of a letter from Dana sent last week.
I'm in Texas! Crazy I know. It is really really green here, and apparently it rains frequently I experience that yesterday. I got soaked it was interesting. I got here and met my AP's both of whom are from Centerville and Elder Greg Whipple knows Eric. I was excited about that. My Trainer is a cute girl from Minnesota named Kimberly Torres. She is a hard worker which is good. Down fall she is a morning person and LOVES pink. haha o-well.
I'm struggling with the language and it frustrates me like no other, but the people are way nice and understanding. Most of them are trying to learn english so that they can get better jobs. We are teaching this one guy who got drunk friday so we had to push back is baptisimal date. I was so dissappointed in him he is such a great guy and you can tell he knows this is the true church, but he just slipped up, so hopefully we can help him understand the mistake he made later tonight. We have a golden investogator. Anthony... He loves to read the BOM and he came to church without hesitation on Sunday. I thought that was awesome. I just hate the fact that I can't really communicate with him. Other then that we have a few other people we are working with, and hopefully they will continue to progress.
My p-day is Mondays which is nice. I'm currently in an area just 20 mins north of Sugar Land. It is really pretty here.

And this is part of her email from this week.

It did rain a ton here and a few areas got hurricane warnings which means missionaries weren't allowed out of their houses, but that wasn't my area. I currently live in Harbor Town. It is really pretty and green. The people here are really nice and accepting. My spanish is coming slowly, but I get to bare my testimony alot which is good. My comp. is really strong and she is helping me as I'm struggling. She is a great influence and loves the work more than anything haha. She is the oldest of 4 and has a kid brother out like I do. He is in Colorado.
We have a baptism this week. His name is Gabriel and he is AMAZING. He has this great testimony and just loves the Church. We have another guy who accepted a baptismal commitement for the 2nd of May coolio. He is Golden. He is just soaking in all that we teach and all that he reads it is cool. We are super busy all the time. I'm exahusted by 8, but that is ok. I'm sleep walking by 9. I sleep well haha. I'm trying to stay focused and do the Lord's work.
I love you all. I miss you all.
The Gospel is true and no matter what God is our Father and He loves us. He is mindful of us and wants us to come unto Him.

Houston Bound

Dana left for Texas yesterday after 2 months in the MTC. I was able to speak with her on the phone for a few minutes and she sounded super excited and so happy. Hopefully, I can post some photos of her time in the MTC soon.
Mission Home address is:

Texas Houston South Mission

4627 Austin Pkwy

Sugar Land, Texas 77479-2146

Letter 3/10/09

Here is a bit of Dana's most recent letter.
This week has been pretty dull, but really good. For service on Thursday my comp and I got to put up all the flags that the MTC has up every day. That was fun, but I hurt my hand haha. I am seriously accident prone. Ha ha.
Lets see my back is doing tons better I'm learning how to breathe and let the Lord help me with my stress. I am also getting a little more sleep though not tons cause two of my roommates snore... UGH oh well. I have a cold now... the "zone cold" everyone is getting sick. I didn't have a voice on Saturday as a result. It was interesting cause my comp and I had to teach about the apostasy and the restoration in Spanish to my district. I did a ton of writing on the board. haha It made for one entertaining lesson especially since my comp doesn't really like to speak Spanish so I had to help her the best I could with no voice.

Sunday was a great day long though, but that happens every spring when we have daylight savings. It was funny the two new sisters in the district forgot their talks that we all have to write, and sister Erbe (HERB) plays the piano so I ran with shoes in hand with sister Minnetto to the class which has 4 flights of stairs up and then 4 back down it was crazy, and we barely made it to sacrament before the meeting started. They didn't even end up speaking. haha.
Relief Society was cool. We got taught by Sister Elaine Dalton the YW General President. She spoke on the Sunday theme which was Virtue. It was a really cool lesson. After lunch a few of us from the zone when to the temple and took some cool pictures I hope to get them sent to you either this week or next. After that the night went on as normal. My comp and I did get to go on our Sunday Movie "Date" which is every Sunday after the Fireside. We say The Joseph Smith movie. I love that movie.
The best part of this last week was yesterday I got to pop one of the bubbles I live in.... that is right I got to leave the MTC! haha My comp broke her retainer and so we had to go to the orthodontist I'll send pics it was way cool I got to read an I Spy book. I love those books. They had a chair massager thing and a foot massager it was nice to get out of the MTC for a bit. I'm getting a little sick the gray walls around here haha.

Other than that life is pretty much same old same old. We have officially started our all Spanish portion of the MTC which is way hard for me the language still isn't coming, but I worked it out that I have a comp. exchange so I can work for 30+ min. with a sister who knows more Spanish and we can go over the things I just don't get. I'm hoping that will help.

I miss you all tons, but to tell you the truth I'm glad I'm where I am. Even if the walls are gray. I know God lives and Loves us. This is where He wants me to be and that my friends is a great honor. I'm grateful for all of you and the examples you are to me. Stay strong and when you are week kneel and pray and when you are strong again kneel once again and give a prayer of gratitude! I love you all

Love always
Hermana Dana Burnham!

Send letters

This is Dana's sister and she is a little homesick:( All the other kids in her district are getting loads of mail and I think we can show her the love by sending a lot of mail to her and making everyone else jealous.
The easiest way is to go to Dearelder.com
Just put your name in, her name and mail box #92, her estimated departure date is 4/7/09 and then send her the love.
There is nothing greater than receiving mail as a missionary. Let's show our support!

First email

Here is Dana's first email to the family. YAY! It is good to hear from her. I will continue to forward emails and letters when appropriate. She would love to hear from everyone. Missionaries love their mail.

We had to set up our e-mail and we are timed on how log we can be on here so we figured we needed a game plan. We would be my cute companion Hermana Meryl Call. She is from the Sandy area. She is way cute and way fun. We are always laughing and joking around; which we've learned is a necessity here. We are a ton alike which is great. I'm just loving being her companion and we are both nervous about other companions not matching up. haha.
I room with those two girls I was facebook friends with before Hna. Collins and Hna. Gibson. They are unique girls. They have totally opposite personalities from Hna. Call and myself. They are still way fun and pretty easy to get along with.
We did have a roommate Hna. Flores who left Sunday. She was supposed to leave before we got here but apparently her area had really bad ice storms and it wasn't safe to fly in or something. She was way cute, and we all miss her smiling face.
My Branch Pres. and his wife are way sweet. Pres. Ryskamp is his name they are from around the Provo area. My district consists of 1 boy 3 girls going to Texas (that is me included) and 4 boys and one girl going to Flordia (That includes my comp.) My district is just full of laughs. We are always laughing and building each other up it is great! There is Elder Barrington and Elder Holoway! They always have something to say and are way sweet. They make great kid brothers haha. Then there is our threesome; Elders Jones, Fish and Lowder. They are our more reserved ones, but that just makes it all that much funnier when they crack a joke haha. We do get a lot of work done. We've already taught lessons and just keep practicing. Which brings me to...
MY SPANISH SUCKS! Oh My! I would appreciate any material that you might think would help in that department. I am not doing too good, though starting next week I will be going to a tutor twice a week. I'm hoping that helps. I can kind of orar and give my testimonial, but that is still really rocky. I just keep praying for that gift of tongues haha.

Whoever said the CCM was great forgot to mention how hard it can be. The first couple days were trying for sure, though I will admit it is starting to get better. We have had some good meetings/devotionals.

I've seen Collin multiple times, and he just smiles at me and the lack of spanish I know. He is doing good and loves his letter that he got from Eric. Tyler is doing great too. His comp. is really nice and chatty haha. I see him most days at meal time. He looks way happy! Sam Christensen is also doing great. When I first saw him I yelled "Elder Sammy!" Then switched to Christensen haha I thought that was funny. It is nice seeing familiar faces around here I've seen some other people from back home as well.

Oh I have to tell you my comp and I lost our blue cards which is our key for meals, laundry and our residency. we lost them on the same day different meals. we were able to replace Hna Call's but mine was lost after the office closed for the weekend YIKES! haha don't worry they cafeteria found them and we got called down to the front desk at like 10pm the next night it was way funny. We took pictures at the big world map in our skirts and p.j. tops!

I'll hopefully be sending you some pictures this next week. Feel free to send my any pictures you guys want. I know I won't be there to take the pictures, but that doesn't mean you guys can't haha. I won't be on here again today, but if you send me something on Dearelder.com I'll get it tonight or tomorrow morning.

Tell me how things are going with all of you! I miss you all, and really hope to hear from you soon. Stay safe and keep smiling! I'll probably write more via old school mail when I get a chance. I Love you all tons and tons. Send me lots of letters they will make your misionara smile! :)

I miss you all and Love you tons!!

Love, DanaAnne

Buenos Tardes!

MTC

Alright, our Dana is officially residing in Provo. She will be there for 2 months, her anticipated departure date for Texas is April 7th.
I wish I could give ya'll a play by play on her day entering the MTC but I was home in Idaho and only my parents took her in. I do, however, have two pictures my dad was nice enough to send on to me.
With Mom, first companion!

Here is the cutest sista, with the classic MTC pose.

With the parents.


Look, she has her name tag! Yes that is her "dork dot" letting everyone there know that she is new to the MTC.

If you want to let Dana know that you love her and support her, I am sure she would be thrilled to hear from you. Her address in Provo is:
Hermana DanaAnne Burnham
MTC Mailbox #92
TX-HOUS 0407
2005 N. 900 E.
Provo, UT 84604-1793

Mission Going

Ok since I left all ya'll hanging on my last post I figured it is time to continue the story. I met with my bishop in September shortly after Eric left for Brazil. We talked about me going on a mission. Well it was all fine and dandy except for one thing I didn't want anyone to know. See I thought it would be funny for everyone to find out when I got my call. :) Well the bishop thought that was fine though he felt I should tell my parents considering that they are paying for most of my mission. I agreed and told my parents, but I swore them to secrecy. ;) All was going well. I had to let my boss know so he had an idea as to whether or not he needed to hire a replacement for me. The problem with saying anything at Dairy Queen is that is doesn't stay a secret for very long... soon everyone at work knew I was planning on serving a mission. Luckily no one from my family had found out. I finally sent in my paper work at the end of October beginning of November. Now I just had to wait. Well while I was waiting my co-workers thought it would be fun to have everyone at work guess where I'd go, so they made a list and everyone put their guess on the list. (Who ever got the closest was supposed to get a prize) Well my manager/friend Tiia didn't realize no one in my family knew about my mission plans and showed my brother Brian and sister in law Amy the list of guesses as to where I'll go when they came in to visit me. I was so bummed, but I had to move forward, so B.J. and Amy Lou where now apart of my secret, and were asked not to say anything! That Sunday the 16th of Nov. (I believe that is the right date) Happened to be family dinner, so with all my siblings there minus Eric I casually informed everyone that I had put my papers in. I thought my sister Amy was going to kill me when she found out I hadn't told her right away. ha ha lucky for me she loves me too much to kill me! As expected they were all excited for me, and now all we had to do was wait for my call to come. On Nov. 19th I was woken up at about 6AM to be informed that my call had come. My Dad went and got it, and I went back to bed. See I wasn't going to open my call until after work and when my siblings and grandparents could be around. I did have to call my grandparents and inform them that my papers were here, and they were pretty shocked at the news considering they didn't know I put them in :) My family came over (Amy, Trav, and Livy where there via phone) we had dinner and then... well I opened my call...

If you missed that I've been called to serve in the: TEXAS HOUSTON SO. MISSION SPANISH SPEAKING! Woot Woot!! I enter the MTC on 4 Feb. 2009. Which is in under a weeks time. Well there you go. I've updated everyone as to whats been going on with me. For the durations of my mission my sister Amy will be taking over my blog and updating you as to how things are going on the mission. Hope you all are doing great! Adios for 18 months!

Prologue

It is always weird to me playing the "about me" game, but I guess it is helpful in updating people as to what's been going on up until the point of starting a your blog! ;) OK here it goes...

Up until recently I've been attending Utah State University, in Logan, as an Art major in Graphic Design. I love Logan even though it is crazy cold! I also love the friends I've made in Logan; some of the best people I know I met in Logan. In April of 2008 I became an AUNT to the cutest little girl Olivia Judith Barney she was born on the 10th and 3 days later I turned 21. Then a month later moved back home for the summer. College is expensive and I thought free food and housing sounded great. I've been working at the Centerville Dairy Queen. It has litterally become my second home and family! I decided to stay home for fall semester and take online classes. Which was crazy fyi... I learned how not motivated I am haha. In September my family sent my kid brother Eric off on his mission to Brazil, and shortly after that I started my paper work...