Sunday, May 26, 2013

"I guess when you´re a missionary weird things just happen sometimes!"

(From David, Zoe's dad: Zoe seems to be settling into a routine. Remember, you can write to her directly at zoe.safeer@myldsmail.net and she will write back on Monday's.)
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!Hola Hola!
So things are good here as usual. It´s getting hotter and hotter, but I´m really starting to get the hang of things. Let me give you an outline of a typical day here,

6.30  wake up
6.35  morning devotional with all the girls in our house
         breakfast, and excercise
8       personal study
9       companion study
10     12 weeks, which is a training program for new missionaries
11     language study
12     lunch
2       leave the house
2-8    work with people or do whatever is needed for that day
8       return home and start planning for the next day
8.30   dinner
10.30 sleep

It´s a pretty good schedule I think. And actually even though that´s our normal schedule, it only happens probably half the days of the week, because we end up having meetings or something else that we need to do in the morning. But I like my study time.

Not much time to write today, again, but I´ll share a quick story.

One day this week, me and my companion are walking somewhere in this neighborhood packed with houses and this lady yells at us to come over. She´s sitting in her house with the gate in front of the door closed, but the actual door open. So we walk over and she tell us to tell her the word of God. We don´t know what she actually wants us to do, but we ask her if we can sing a song for her. She says yes, so we sing Í Am a Child of God outside of her house. People are gathering around and listening and then this guy pulls up on his motorcycle and starts yelling at us how beautiful we sound singing this primary song. He´s just yelling at us ¨Que linda!¨The whole time. My companion and I are trying super hard not to laugh, but we finish the song and share a quick scripture with her and then walked over to the group of people listening to us and invited them to church if they wanted to come. It was really weird. But hey, I guess when you´re a missionary weird things just happen sometimes! Actually, a lot of weird things happen a lot, but I just think it´s adventurous and usually we get a good laugh out of it afterwards.  

That´s was just an odd story, but things are going very well with the people that we´re working with. We have two young boys (11 and 12) getting baptized soon and they and their mom are very excited. They love church and also love all the church activities that we have in our ward. Also, they love Thomas S. Monson. They´re determined to meet him one day. I love their enthusiam!

Well sorry this was a weird email, but got to go!

Hermana Safeer

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Quisqueya- Zoe's first area


From David (Zoe's Dad)- We talked to Zoe on mother's day and she sounded absolutely fantastic. She is really enjoying what she is doing and it was good to hear the sparkle in her voice.

Take a look at the e-mail she sent us this week and you'll get a good idea of what I am talking about.
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I´m sorry I don´t have a lot of time to email this week and that things got a bit of schedule, because of the P Day change. So sorry if I don´t respond to everyone this week, but I will try my best and anything I don´t get to this week I will respond to next week for sure! Also, sorry but no pictures this week. Things are a little crazy so I can´t find a way to send them yet.

But as a very quick update, I am out in the field with my new companion Hermana Peck. She´s from Logan, UT. She´s also really tall and has short hair  (I think that somebody thought it would be funny to put us together) but she´s great! I live in a house with 6 of us girls total. Oddly enough we´re all American, which is nice because my Spanish is still struggling so much, but hopefully by the time I live with Latins it will be a nice push for me to really speak in just Spanish. I don´t think I could do that quite yet!  

We live in the nicest house in the mission here. That being said, I´ve also been to the crappiest Hermana house in the mission and there´s not too big of a difference. Our house is pretty big for here and it has a hot water heater which is really why it´s the nicest. I like it!

I´m currently serving in the City. Our area has some richer areas, but also has some very poor parts. A lot of our area is very urban and I call it the hood of Santo Domingo. This area is called Quisqueya. I don´t know if you can google map it or anything. (David's note: Click on the link and you can see the map.)

The work is great! We teach a lot of different people. We teach families who want to know more about our church, but usually it´s the mom who´s more interested. It´s kind of a tricky situation here because people don´t get married. They just have kids together and live together, but it´s expensive and difficult to get legally married and often times the ¨husbands¨ don´t want to commit themselves to actually get married. I don´t really understand it, but I guess it´s just a cultural thing. 

We teach a lot of children or youth. Often times they have friends in the Church and they like to share it with each other. Or sometimes the parents are inactive or not members, but they like our church so they want their kids in it. I like teaching kids and I´m less nervous to speak Spanish to them.

Also we teach a lot of English. I was suprised by that, but I like it because I know English! We teach at the church for free for anyone who wants to come every Wendsday. Another companionship teaches every Saturday at the church. We also just go to member, or non'member houses and teach them English personally at their home if they ask us to. I´m glad we teach so much English.

Well I better wrap it up, but thanks to everyone I heard from this week and I swear I will write back! Sorry it´s just taking me a little while.


I´ll also try to tell you more about the culture and my schedule and food and things like that and hopefully I´ll have some pictures!


Hasta luego!

Hermana Safeer

Monday, May 6, 2013

Zoe gets a new look...

From David, Zoe's father: I always wondered how Zoe would take care of her long, beautiful hair while she was in the Dominican Republic. Well, she doesn't have to worry about it any more!
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                   Zoe before she cuts her hair...                           Zoe getting her hair cut...



                                                                           Reactions!


                           
                                                            Zoe's New Look

Sunday, May 5, 2013

4 Days Left- I'm excited to get going!


(David's notes: Zoe sent a lot of pictures this week. I'll post some of them. Here is the first. Take a good look... it's the last time you'll see Zoe with long hair for a while!
Don't forget that you can "follow" Zoe's blog by clicking on the follow button on the right side of the page and down a little bit.
Look for Zoe's "after" picture coming soon!)

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Hola Hola!

4 days left in the MTC. Crazy!! We have training all of Monday and then we leave on Tuesday morning. I'm really excited to get going!
We've had a lot of fun experiences this week. We got to go to a HUGE book fair. Apparently they do this huge book fair every year and the Church had a Family Values booth. So we went and just walked around and told people to go to our booth. It was fun and really huge. They said over the course of the few days that it was up 300,000 people attend this book fair.
We have a lot of new missionaries and I've gotten to know some of them. One of them is from Laie, HI (the same place as BYUH) and so we got to talking. He's actually from Samoa and him and his family are converts. When he was young his dad was a Catholic Pastor. They met missionaries and his dad said he would listen to them if they could answer his questions. Long story short, his whole family is members of the Church now and he's serving a mission and is just a super happy guy! It's cool how so many people here have awesome stories.
Some other fun stuff I did this week was learn acro-yoga. One new Sister here knows how to do it, so she teaches some of us during gym time. It's really cool and I'll try to get some pictures and send it next week.
Also, don't forget I am changing locations, so send my mail to the mission home address.

EXPRESS POUCH- About 10 Days
Elder Zoe Safeer
Dominican Republic West Mission
P.O. Box 30150
Salt Lake City UT 84130-0150


OK, I know it says "Elder", but this is THE best way to address it so it gets to me.

VERY IMPORTANT: To send via express pouch, you MUST follow these directions:
  1. Use ONE SHEET of paper
  2. Fold paper into thirds
  3. Seal with scotch tape
  4. Apply US Postage and send to the address above
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INTERNATIONAL MAIL- About 10 days
Elder Zoe Safeer 
c/Hatuey #73, Urb. Los Cacicazgos
Santo Domingo, Republica Dominicana

Again, I know it says "Elder" but just trust me, it's the way to go!

For letters in an envelope with pictures, etc. Regular international postage rates apply.