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