Sunday, December 15, 2013

"Doubt your fears before you doubt your faith."

David's Note: Zoe is doing very well. I'm behind in posting her letters... a lot more to come.
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This week was good, but kind of slow... However we had a couple of really good activities at the church. First off POLAR EXPRESS! I don´t know why they chose that movie, but they put in on a projector outside and watched it Wednesday night. I don´t know what the rules are for missionaries watching Polar Express for a branch activity, but I had no complaints being there for the support! Alot of people saw it playing as they walked by and just came in and joined us. The more the marrier!

The second activity was all about the missionary work. It was really awesome and we had a turn out of about 50 people! We´re just a small little branch, so it was really great! We also had a baptism that night in the branch of a little boy named Yeferson who was born into the church but had just turned 8. Also a guy in our ward just got his mission call and he open it at the activity and is going to the DR Santo Domingo East mission! Yahoo!!  Plus, the next day after the activity at church, we had an exceptionally high attendance number, and a few reference that I´m really excited about! We´ll visit them this week and I hope all goes well.

Sorry that that´s all I got for today. The works still going, maybe I´ll have more stuff next week. I was going to send photos today, but I couldn´t . Did you know you can email memes now?


Until next week remember always, ¨
¨Doubt your fears before you doubt your faith.¨  -Deiter F. Uchdorf

Have a good week!

Hna. Safeer

Sunday, October 27, 2013

Zoe's been in the DR for 6 months and her roommate has lice!

David's Notes: Zoe asked me to post a talk given by Elder Uchtdorf, an apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (also known as "the Mormons.") Here is the link to that talk...


Take about 5-10 minutes to read the talk, or about 18 minutes to watch. Either way, you will get something out of it and understand more about why Zoe is in the Dominican Republic for two years.
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Wow what a week! A couple of cool things happened that I´d particularly like to share.

One is interviews with the President of the mission. Every few months he has interviews with all 250 of us missionaries in this mission. This was my 2nd interview ever. At my first I had only been in the field for about 2 weeks. With 6 months under my belt now he commented on how wonderful my Spanish was and that he was pleased that I had no problem understanding him or communicating. YAHOO!

"Uh,oh! Someone has lice!"






The second thing was General Conference. WOWWWWW. So good! I feel like I really don´t have to expand on that, but I would like to share something. For anyone who wants to know why anyone would ever want to join our church, WATCH THIS!  (Dad please post the talk by Pres. Uchtdorf. gracias!) 

I've really had a great and exciting week, but don´t have too much time to expand more. But this work is amazing. I´m forever blessed for my opportunity to be here! And remember...

¨Life isn't about finding yourself, it´s about creating yourself¨´-Anonymous

Until next week, 
                                                                   Hermana Safeer




Zoe- Playing Volleyball and Making Contacts!

David's note: Zoe has moved to a new town. It's inland but she get's to the shore once a week.

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There´s been some fun stuff this week. One thing is we had exchanged this week, so I went out with Hna. Becar who´s our Hermana Leader in our area and we some good success! 

One thing is that we met an awesome family. We were just walking around and said hi to this family sitting outside and they instantly invited us in and had us sit down. We just introduced ourselves a bit and also gave them the invitation to church and scheduled a new appointment with them in a couple days. They were super nice and it was good. 
Then my companion and I went back two days later and first thing when we walk in the 15 year old girl Ruth says, ¨Church tomorrow at 9 right?!¨ We´re just like ¨Ya it is, glad you remembered¨. And we gave them a little lesson. 
Then Sunday she was at church promptly on time! It´s great! We only had met her 3 days ago but she was so excited to come and she said she really enjoyed Young Women´s and her other classes. I´m super excited to keep working with them!

OK, now for the other exciting part about exchanges with Hna. Becar. We were talking to one of our investigators that we had ran into in the streets. Then his friend comes up and reminds him about volleyball that night and invites us to come too. Hna. Becar´s from California and used to play also so we excepted the offer and at 7 we went and played super competitive volleyball in our skirts with a bunch of Dominican guys and it was SOOOOOOO fun! We both played super great and it was the best game of volleyball I´ve played in forever. This game was LEGIT! I had so much fun for real. And kicked some butt. Anyways we did use it as a good contacting opportunity. Now 35 more guys in this town know that church is Sunday at 9 and that the Mormon Missionaries can play some volleyball for real. It was a miracle to be a companion that day who could and would play that day! 

Also this week I hit 6 months- what the what?! I´m getting old! 

attached a couple of pictures, but nothing excited. I´ll try to do better next week!

Hope all is well!

Hermana Safeer
 P.S. Don´t forget about General Conference everybody! You don´t have to be a member to watch and you´ll be able to hear from some amazing people, some great messages!  If you don´t know where to watch it on TV, you can watch online at lds.org this Saturday and Sunday. 

Our rama is broadcasting it in the church in Spanish, English (primarily for Hna. Glauser and I), and for the first time in the area, CREOLE! Such a blessing for all the Haitians to have the opportunity to hear it in their native tongue! So excited!

And remember,

¨The size of your faith or the degree of your knowledge is not the issue- it is the integrity you demonstrate toward the faith you do have and the truth you already know.¨ - Jeffery R. Holland

Zoe Moves to the Countryside & Hna. Moreno

David's Note: I have fallen way behind on posting Zoe's e-mails so I am going to try to get caught up.... lot's of postings in the next day or two...!

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Hola! This week has been good, yet a little crazy a
gain. It was transfers! I{m out of Quisqueya and it{s weird but good! I{m sad to have left, especially because I know Quisqueya is going to have a lot of work this month and a lot of baptisms, and Juan Carlo{s mom is going to progress so much in these upcoming week, she wants to get baptized so badly! 

But on to Vicente Noble which is my new area. It{s about 4 hours worth of driving away from the capital and my old area. It{s as far out towards Haiti as Hermana{s go and me and the other American Hermana that came with me are the first American Hermana{s to be in this area. I have my first only speaks Spanish companion, Hna. Moreno and she{s from here and super nice and outgoing! It{s a weird switch to ALL Spanish, but good because i{m going to learn a TON this transfer. So in my house it{s me, Hna. Moreno (from Santo Domingo), Hna. Linares (from Mexico) and Hna. Glauser (from Syracuse UT) and it{s super fun! We've got a good house! And the literal house is really nice too and has 2 bathrooms and a big kitchen and a big main room! We have more space than we did in our last house! No hot water this time, but it{s hot outside anyways so it{s not a big deal!

The area is BEAUTIFUL! There{s actually trees and plants and isn't just all cement! There{s a ton a fruit and we have cherries, guavas, limes and i don{t even know what other fruit just growing at our house and i can eat cherries right of the tress from my bed window! The weather is really dry because we{re in a desert, but I've always liked the dry heat. Plus we actually get a breeze here yay! The people here are soooo nice! People aren't this nice, but they are! We teach a lot more families and adults here, which is a nice change. The ward is small (maybe 30 people) but with time it will grow. 

That{s all I have for today! I have some pictures from Quisqueya, I don{t know how to load my pictures from my new area, but I{ll work on it more next week, so keep your eyes peeled!

Hna. Safeer

Saturday, September 28, 2013

A Weekend of Miracles! "Hope on. Journey on."

David's Note: Hermana means "sister" in Spanish. Hna is "hermana" abbreviated. "Comp" is short for companion.

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This week has been CRAZY. Let me tell you about it...


Let´s start with Wednesday. WE had just had district meeting and my house was making lunch for the Elders. Hna. Hurlburt was putting garlic bread in the oven and she realized that the oven was off, so she lit a match to restart it and was reaching into the oven to restart it and BOOM! A huge ball of fire pushes back everyone who was working in the kitchen, but especially Hna. Hurlburt, who ended up on her butt. 

First thing I do is look at Hna. Hurlburt to see if she still has a face. I see that se does and then feel my face to make sure I still have my eyebrows and eyelashes and I do. Then I hear Hna. Hurlburt say, ¨my hands!¨. She kept fairly calm, but then realized her hands had been burned. We put them under water and waited for the Elders to come over.

Once they came over they looked at her hands and helped us to know what to do to relieve the pain and luckily the Assistants to the President are in our district so they put her and her companion in the car and they go to the emergency room. After that she went to the mission Dr. and he gave her ointment and gauze and helped her know how to continue treating her hands.

She came home with wrapped hands and eyelashes with the tips singed off, but she was OK  That fire was HUGE. It should have burned her face, but it only got her eyelashes, hands and some of her arms. Someone was definitely watching over her. Miracle number 1 this weekend. 

Now it’s Thursday. My companion is really sick and tired and throwing up and we don´t know why. Hna. Hurlburt can´t work because she can´t let her burns be out in the sun. Hna. Buhrley is also feeling a bit sick and freezing even though it´s like 90 degrees outside and is wearing a hoodie and sweats in the middle of the day. So us 4 are home. However Hna. Dominguez and I have 2 baptisms this Saturday and need ot get things done and paper work filled out because their interviews are the tomorrow.

So later in the day Hna. Buhrley feels up to going out and goes out with me to get stuff done. First, we stop at Ashley´s house. She´s not home because it´s her birthday, she just turned 17. We can´t give her our gifts and we can´t get the paperwork filled out. But we keep on going and go to Juan Carlo´s house. We share a brief message with him and his mom and then ask her if she can fill out the paper work tonight and we could pick it up the next day, because by this point it´s late and we need to get home. She gladly agrees.

Now it’s Friday. Hna. Hurlburt still has her burns. Hna. Buhrley feel sick again and companion´s even worse. At this point she has not eaten in 24 hours but has only been drinking and is still throwing up these liquids. I´m REALLY concerned about her. I´m also concerned about the baptisms because we haven´t talked to our Ward Mission Leader to make sure everything´s set up and ready and see what still needs to be done and what we need to do. We also don´t have the paperwork and without that there´s no baptisms. 

My comp is so sick but luckily that day we had splits with the missionaries from the MTC who are still in training so they can get a taste of what´s it going to be like for a day, so now at least I´m going to have a companion to work with and get things done.

Time comes along to go get our girls and my comp is super sick and asleep. I tell the other hermanas to call me if anything happens to her. My MTC girl is Hna. Guiyombal ( I´m 100 percent sure I spelled that wrong) and she's 22 and from the Philippines and super cute and we´re off running around like crazy people trying to get these baptisms put together. I cool go into detail about how crazy our day was, but it´s just too much so I´m going to skip that part. But our day was crazy and we ran around like crazy, but miraculously everything got done that day that needed to get done and Hna. Guiyombal was super awesome and friendly and wasn't shy to speak the Spanish she does know.

So finally the day is over and I find out that the Assistants and the President´s wife think that Hna. Dominguez has Dengue Fever. I´m livid that nobody called me to tell me even though I had asked them to if anything happened, but they said that I sounded too overly stressed on the phone and decided it´d be best to just tell me when I got home. My poor comp was miserable.

Now it’s Friday. It all started at 230 a.m. when I woke up. I woke up just feeling crazy thinking about everything I needed to do. All I wanted to do was to wake someone up and tell them that, but that was a stupid idea so after an hour I decided to shower instead. We have to flip a switch to turn on our water heater and then wait a while for it to heat, but I didn't have the patience and decided a cold shower would do and didn't even flip the switch for the hot water heater. I turned on the water and it was HOT. Hot as if the hot water heater had been on for a long time, but it wasn't on at all. So I ended up taking a steaming hot shower unexpectedly. Miracle number 2.

Then I get out of the shower still wishing someone else was up cause I knew I still wouldn't be able to fall asleep and I hear someone else. It´s Hna. Buhrley. It´s now 3:30 a.m. and she had also been up since 2:30 a.m. because she had been freezing and had been laying there for an hour wanting to wake me, specifically, up to tell me she was cold, but realized that was a dumb idea. We didn't know that the other one was awake and couldn't sleep and just wanted to talk, but here we were accidentally running into each other in the hall at 3:30 a.m. in the morning. Miracle number 3. 

We were so glad to be with each other and both felt like we wouldn't be able to sleep, so we both went out to the front room and just chilled with each other, until we both were able to fall asleep at 6 am, until we woke up to our alarms at 630 am.

Now our Saturday morning is really beginning. My comp we let sleep in, but she´s up by 7 throwing up water and is in a ton of pain. I get back on the phone with the assistants again and they try to figure stuff out. By 830 we´re told to pack enough stuff and clothes to last us 2 days, we´re going to the hospital. That means we´re not going to these baptisms, very sadly, and we quickly put the other Hnas in charge of it.

They come and pick us up by 9 and we´re at the hospital by 930 or 10.  We get there and oh boy we are not in the United States. Only the bottom floor is built. All the other upper stories are under major construction and don´t have any walls. The first thing I see is a nurse with bright blue nails. Nurses in the US aren't even allowed to wear nail polish. Our second nurse had her long hair down and had an all-white suit on instead of scrubs. It´s just weird stuff like that and that nothing looks like it´s new. They had type writers!

Hna. Dominguez with an IV
Anyways, they give Hna. Dominguez an IV, first thing and draw her blood. She still is feeling really sick. She also has some ore shots and more tests and it´s not very pleasant for her, but we learn she doesn't have Dengue! Miracle number 4 and by the time the first IV is gone she´s starting to feel better. So now we´re just chilling. She´s getting better and we´re wondering if any test results will show what´s wrong. We’re relaxing and the nurse on the other side of the curtain is watching Glee, so we´re enjoying the music from that  and the Elders are in and out of our ¨room¨ (of curtains) and are helping to keep us entertained and her mind off of things. After a few hours, for the first time in days my comp has color, isn't extremely sleepy, her head and eyes and stomach and body don´t hurt. She never got diagnosed, but we were able to surprisingly get back in time for the baptisms. Miracle number 5.

The baptisms went well. I´ll post pics but next week because I’m about out of time. Afterword’s, Xiomara (Juan Carlos´ mom) and Pablo (His cousin who lives with them) tell us that they´re next, that they want to get baptized. We´re already teaching them and they´re already progressing, but we´re happy to hear that!

Things all seemed to be well and calm at last, but Hna. Burhley still isn't doing well so even though we had been taking her temperature before, she asks to take it again and has a fever of 103 now. I don´t know how to fix it, so we call the assistants again and they help us talk us through it. It takes a few phone calls and about 1.5 hours, but finally her temperature goes down. It´s now 11 pm, everyone in the house is relatively healthy and I can finally go to sleep. Miracle number 6.

Longest blog email ever! It´s super long and crazy, just like this weekend, but I hope you enjoy it! 

¨Hope on. Journey on.¨ - Jeffery R. Holland

Until next week,


Hermana Safeer 

Sunday, September 22, 2013

A Really Good Week! Nothing in particular....

David's Note: Zoe uses Hermanas instead of "Sisters" throughout her note. I am sure that she has other Spanish words that she substitutes for English regularly.

This week has been really good! Nothing particular I´m dying to talk about, but we´re teaching some AWESOME people which is always great! 

Things were a little crazy. We had a conference for all the Hermanas this week and did splits 3 days this week. Which is CRAZY a lot. Also we had other Hermanas sleeping over at our house this week, so it´s been hectic, but good! One of the days of my splits I was able to go with an Hermana from Mexico, and she doesn't speak any English so it was good to be forced to speak ONLY Spanish for an entire day. It´s still not completely natural for me but it went really well and we did a good job working that day! Also, another day my companion and I took out an Hermana who´s still in the MTC and we got to take her with us to our lessons that day. She did awesome! She´s learned a lot of Spanish already since she´s been here and she´s going to be so great once she actually gets out here in the field. 


This is Hermana Buhrley, Hermana Jorgensen and I. We´ve been super lucky to live together for 5 months on the mission! Not very many missionaries get to be together for that long, but we´ve been able to and it´s been so great!






This is our full district at the temple. It was sooo nice to be able to go!


These are all the Hermana´s in our mission. We had an Hermana Conference this week. It was good.


¨As we press forward along the straight and narrow path, we build progressive spiritual strength- strength in using our agency to act for ourselves.¨ -Robert D. Hales

Monday, September 2, 2013

Zoe Dance Battles in her Dominican Nightgown & Human Frailty

David's Note (Zoe's Dad): Zoe makes reference to a bad keyboard and weird writing. I correct spelling and typo's so she doesn't have to worry about it.

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Hello everyone! Sorry I'm on a funky keyboard right now, so my writing is a little weird today... but everything is well here in the DR! 

It's been a good week! It's gone by very quickly and we've just been nice and busy. A couple cool things is that we got to go to the temple this week with our zone and another zone and the mission president and his wife. It was really nice.

Also, a funny story. The other night my housemate and I were being goofy and laughing and kind of dancing weird and one of the girls in the room tells us that they think these 2 girls are watching us. We look up out of our huge window and see two girls that are about our age across the street on their balcony and they are watching us.  We're on the second story, and so are they, so nobody below us can see us, but we can see each other.  Then they start dancing back at us. Next thing we know me and my housemate are in a dance battle with our cross the street neighbors and we just have this dance off for like 20 minutes in our Dominican night gowns and it was super funny and we're all just laughing. It was intense, but I'm pretty sure we won. Ha, ha, ha.. and the great thing too is that they're doing their Dominican Latina booty shaking dancing, but we're missionaries so we're just doing things like the Charleston and interpretive dance and things like that on our side. I'd like to think that we're friends now with those girls.

We're working with 2 people for baptism and a group of 3 boys that are Juan-Carlos' friends and they're great and all go to church together and all the lessons together and the are awesome! 


Before I forget. One of the girls also has a blog incase you want to check it out it's hermanacaitlynbuhrley.blogspot.com 

And heres a lovely message - I can't do quotation marks. Sorry! 
"Be kind regarding human frailty... Except in the case of His only perfect Begotten Son, imperfect people are all God has ever had to work with. This must be terribly frustrating to Him, but he deals with it. So should we."
  -Jerffery R. Holland

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Rosie Got Baptized & Zoe Would Love Mail!

David's Notes: Zoe make's references to "boyfriends" in her first line. Perhaps it makes more sense when you understand that Robin (Zoe's younger sister) LOVES One Direction- a boy band from the U.K. and then you will see the picture of One Direction!

Here is the link to find Zoe's e-mail address: Zoe's Address Information
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So, I´m sitting in an internet cafe listen to the Dominican owner singing Maroon 5 at the top of his lungs. This is my life and I love it!
Things are great. My companion and I are SUPER busy. Nothing specific happened, but we´re just working with a lot of people.
I have so much I want to say, but so little time!
Rosie got baptized! YAHOOOO!!!! She´s so awesome and so happy! Her friend, Ashley who´s also planning to get baptized by the end of this month came to the baptism as well.
Juan Carlos came to the baptism too, and also brought 2 friends to church and now we´re teaching them too. The youth here are so awesome and are so supportive of eachother and share the good things that they´re doing. Juan Carlos is super animated about his baptism and wants us to come over to his house everyday to teach him, but we have to tell him we can´t go EVERY day, but we try to as much as we can. We also gave his mother a Book of Mormon this week and she was so happy to recieve it and is now reading it with her husband. We´ll see how they keep progressing... She´s only come to church once, but she loves to have us over and we also have great and very interactive lessons with them.
Also, we ran into a HUGE group of Americans this week very close to our house at an icecream shop. They´re here for a humanitarian type work. They were super nice and we chatted for a bit. It was awesome to speak with them and meet them. They´re all from the East Coast. Also, it made me chuckle because they seemed sooo American. I didn´t realize how different we were, until we saw the first Americans we´ve seen in a long time and just realized that somehow Americans and Dominicans are just different! Hard to explain, but it made me realize I must have been here for a while.
Well sorry I´m out of time! I´m also sorry my words are always so jumbled in my emails- I write REALLY quick. I´ll end with a quotation for this week,

¨In an extremely challenging world, this is what I see young women and women of the Chruch doing. They are an influence for good. They are virtuous and exemplary, intelligent and industrious. They are making a difference because they are different.¨ -President Elaine S. Dalton
Things are great and I hope they´re great back home! Remember, missionaries love mail!
Make good choices!

Hermana Safeer




First off, we ran into our boyfriends at LaSirena (the Dominican Walmart) last Monday. (ROBIN R-O-C-K me again!)











This is Rosie and Perla! Rosie´s such a good sport. We ran out of normal baptism clothes (we had 3 baptism in 1 night!) So we wore the ugliest thing. We knew it was ugly, she knew it was ugly, but she just laughed about it and was such a good sport. Especially being a 16 year old girl, she just put in on and thought it was funny and wanted us to take this picture of her.












Us with just Rosie


















This is Rosie and her whole family. Oscar (The other one in white) is the one who baptized her. It´s awesome that she had the opportunity to be baptized by her brother. He joined the church maybe like a year or two ago. The rest of her family aren´t members, but they were awesome and supportive and showed up to see her be baptized. 

Sunday, August 18, 2013

A New Friend Named Abish & Little Things Lead to Big Things

David's (Zoe's Dad's) notes: Last week I was working on e-mail when Zoe's e-mail came in. She was "on-line" so we were able to send e-mail back and forth. It was great but it made me miss her a little be more!
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This is a little girl in my ward named Abish. We're pals now. She can't talk, but she thinks she can so we just like to have some casual conversation every once in a while.  




I forgot to talk about Ashlee! She's awesome and 16 and a friend of Rosie. She's been coming to church and loves all of our discussions and is super cute and she has a goal to get baptized at the end of this month! Yahooo! Also, Rosie's been super awesome doing missionary work with us and with her friend, she comes to the lessons with us and helps us teach and share's her experiences even though she's not even a member yet! (but she will be this Saturday:)

And a quotation for the week:
"Don't rationalize away future happiness by taking shortcuts instead of applying sound gospel principles. Remember: little things lead to big things. Semming insignificant indiscretions or neglect can lead to big problems. More importantly, simple, consistent, good habits lead to a life full of bountiful blessings."

-Richard G. Scott

Our new house has too much fun together sometimes!

Besides just getting adjusted to this new transfer everything is well. Just working as usual, and nothing too out of the ordinary. Oh and I definately jynxed myself about it not raining anymore. It's still raining a lot!  

Until next week,

Hermana Safeer

Monday, August 12, 2013

Kindness and Zoe's Making Progress in Spanish

David's (Zoe's dad) note: Zoe's Spanish is getting better. I will try to translate it literally so you can get an idea of where she is at.)
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Hola mi familia y amigaos! Yo quiero escribir en español mas, pero yo estoy muchísimas mas rápido cuando yo escribir en inglés, pero yo puedo escribir un poco en español ahora y ustedes pueden usar GoogleTranslate. Yo tengo mi compañera nueva. Su nombre es Hermana Dominguez y ella es de la Puerto Rico. Ella es muy chevere y tiene muchas paciencia para mi español. Pero todo esta bien especialmente porque mi español esta progresando todos los días...... y ella sabe ingles también, entonces no necesita hablar en TODO español. Pero tratamos especialmente en los calles.  

(David's translation: Hello my family and friends! I want to write in Spanish more, but I am a whole lot faster when I to write in English, but I can write a little in Spanish now and you can use Google Translate. I have my new companion. Her name is Sister Dominguez and she is from the Puerto Rico. She is very cool and has lots of patience with my Spanish. But every is well especially because my Spanish is progressing every day...and she know English also therefore no need to speak in ALL Spanish. But we try especially in the streets.) 

(To save you time, here is the Google Translate version: Hi my family and AmigaOS! Spanish I want to write more, but I'm plenty faster when I write in English, but I can write a little in Spanish now and you can use GoogleTranslate. I have my new companion. Her name is Sister Dominguez and she is from Puerto Rico. She is so cool and has lots of patience for my Spanish. But all good especially because my Spanish is progressing every day ...... and she knows English well, so no need to speak in Spanish ALL. But try especially in the streets.)

Entonces... now for the English. Everything is great! I´m really excited for the work that is happening here. A couple quick updates with some progressing investigators:

Rosie is still just super excited for her baptism. Last time we went over to her house with some other girls in the ward and she was sitting outside her house with her other friend in the ward with their scriptures open and working on Personal Progress Award and she´s not even a member yet! She also has invited her friend, Ashley to church and she´s come 2 weeks in a row now! She´s also 16 and is super cute! We´ve started teaching her and she´s super awesome and I think good things may happen with her.

Carla´s baptism is going to have to be moved. She hasn´t been going to church or anything, and we´ve talked to her but we just need to figure stuff out. We´re not sure if she just doesn´t want this anymore, or if she´s just being 17 and doesn´t feel like going to church just cause or what. Her friends in the ward don´t know either, but we´ll figure it out! 

Juan Carlos (age 12) is still coming to church has a lot of excitement and has a baptism date for the 31st. He´s so excited! We meet with his mom too and she´s working with us and hoping to get baptized, but she´s probably going to take a little bit more time. But she´s enjoying church and is reading the things we´ve asked her and told us that she´s really excited for Juan Carlos. She said that he´s used to go to different churches just by himself, but this is the first church that he actually does anything with and since we´ve taught him how to pray he prays every morning and every night. It´s so great!

Oh and we hadn´t been able to find Cazy in a while. It´s because he moved out of nowhere. People do that here. Oh well, there´s nothing we can do now, but I hope he finds new missionaries where ever he is!

The weather here is just HOT. And humid. One of my old housemates who finished and went back to Utah came back to visit us this week in the DR with her family and she said she´s been freezing in UT, even though it´s been so hot. Here it´s just so hot AND humid! Also it hasn't rained for a while, but I´m started to miss it just since it´d cool things down. El sol esta que no perdona. (The sun is unforgiving.)  I learned that phrase this morning y esta verdad! (It's true!)

I have been teaching piano to some of he youth and they have a lot of excitement to learn! They don´t really have music education here, so they´re so excited for this opportunity and I´m glad I can help.

Una mas cosa, yo tengo una otra quotacion (I don´t don´t know if that´s a real word) que me gusta: 

"What a joy, what a comfort, what a satisfaction can be added to the lives of our neighbors and friends through kindness. How I would like to write that word in capital letters and emblazon it in the air. Kindness is the power that God has given us to unlock hard hearts and subdue stubborn souls."   - President George Alber Smith

Alright, got to go, but maybe next week I can try to send pictures??

Great to hear from everyone! Until next time,

Hermana Safeer

Sunday, August 4, 2013

Zoe's First Latin Companion- Hermana Dominguez from Puerto Rico



From David (Zoe's Dad)- We get other, personal e-mails from Zoe and they all sound great. Some weeks Zoe sends a dozen pictures and some weeks she doesn't send any. This week she didn't send any! I found this picture of Zoe in the middle of a haircut on another blog. It is low resolution, but better than nothing!

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Hello everybody!

Transfers are tomorrow and I´m staying in my same area, but getting my first Latin companion! Her name is Hermana Dominguez and is from Puerto Rico. She speaks both Spanish and English, but I think I´ll ask her to force me to speak in more Spanish. It´s hard to always force yourselve with two Americans , because it´s just easier to speak in English! 

Everything is great here! Still working with people... the usual. But we do have a very cute family we´ve more recently started working with. The boy´s name is Juan' Carlos and he is 9 years old. There´s also his mom, Ciomara, and they have a little baby brother too. We met them through people in our ward who are their friends. Juan Carlos is very excited about all the new stuff he´s learning. We ran into him the other day in the street and he asked us when we could come teach him again, and not the other way around! (We´re usually the ones who do the asking). Then when we went to visit his family his mom had read her whole reading assignment and Juan Carlos had worked on praying like we had taught him the week before. His mom said he prays every morning and night. He also said the closing prayer to our lesson and then after said, ¨Look my prayers are getting better!¨ He´s been to church 2 weeks in a row now, and his mom came for the first time yesterday. I´m very excited to see how things keep progressing and I love how their enthusiasm!

Another enthusiastic one is Rosie. I think I talked a little bit about her before. She has a brother who´s a convert and joined the church a couple years ago and is 17. She´s 16 and has been coming to church and all the activities for a year now, but just very recently (since I´ve been here) has decided that she believes in the church and loves it and really wants to be baptized. For the first time she´s reading the Book of Mormon and reads about 2 chapters every couple of days. Last time we went to see her and we asked how her reading was doing and she shared 2 verses that she liked that she had read, even though we hadn´t even asked her! She excited for her baptism coming up this month and she´s asked that her older brother be the one to do it! It´s so excited and there´s been such a positive change her, even in the short amount of time that I´ve been here, she´s become so much more happy and has been doing good things and it´s awesome! I´m so excited for all the great things she´s going to do!

Those are just a couple investigators for this week, but I´ll make sure to talk about more some other time.

Also, I found a quotation that I really liked this week and thought I´d like to share it. It´s from Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin who was an apostle not to long ago, but now he´s passed away. 
He says, ¨We´re all busy. It´s easy to find excuses for not reaching out to others, but I imagine they will sound as hollow to our Heavenly Father as the elementary school boy who gave his teacher a note asking that he be excused from school March 30th through the 34th.¨ 

It made me chuckle, and it was good, so I thought I would share.

Don´t forget to reach out to others! It´s something you won´t regret!

Until next time,

Hermana Safeer