Zoe Finally Has Water!

David's (Zoe's Dad) Note: Zoe has been taking bucket showers for the last month or two. Now you will understand why she is so excited...!
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Hey everyone! 

So not much to share this week... except WE HAVE WATERRR!!!!! best week of our life!!! It´s great. REAL great. Thanks you Alberto Jr. and your working partner for saving our house! 

So that´s the big news for this week. There is now a very happy house of 4 hermanas in Sabana Yegua everyone. Watchout. Also, we got 3 cieling fans brand new from the mission. Pretty snazzy too eh? I´d maybe be more exciting about it if I wasn´t comparing it to recieving water right now haha.

Besides that´s it´s been a slow week and yet a fast week. We have an amazing pool of investigators right now, and water,so I really couldn´t ask for more!

Oh and today we went to the capital for my companion to take an English Certification test and we celebrated with Sweet Frog! Yum!

¨You must stand up for something or you will fall for everything¨

-anonymous  (sorry if i spelled that wrong. I´m learning Spanish ya´ll and don´t have english spell check¨ 

talk to you later!

Zoe

P.S. Oh and today we also celebrated with Krispy Kremes. Don´t judge us. The capital is a rare occasion for us!

Birthday Fireworks! Video of Zoe

David's (Zoe's dad) Note: Zoe's birthday is on December 23rd and she spent the day with her companion in the hospital. Her companion is doing really well and they are back together, working hard, and having fun.
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Hna Linares came to our house to do splits and gave me an early birthday gift! (This was before the hospital trip.) A snickers, earrings, and a suprise thing that we finally figured out that we needed to light it and it was so fun! I make reference about a picture of me smoking in this video. No I´m at not smoking here... but  I´ll send the picture and explain more later!

Zoe In the Hospital for Her Birthday and Christmas

David's (Zoe's dad) Notes: I have not done a great job of keeping up with Zoe's weekly letters SO.... I am starting with this week's e-mails and I'll keep up and work on adding the letters that I missed as I can.
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Wowie! Sorry it´s been soooo long since I´ve really written but things have been CRAZZZZZZZZZZY!!!!!! Let me try to catch you guys all up....  

First off an old Hanukkah photo from my old area. Yes we lit candles and yes we played dradel multiple times and made up our versions of the dradel song and it was super fun and everyone´s first Hanukkah! Well besides me of course!

So Hanukkah was from a very long time ago, but now I´m with a new companion (well it´s been 5 and a half weeks)

But starting on Sunday the 22 my companion, Hna Hernandez (from Chile) ended up being super sick, throwing up and a fever of 104.5 which landed us in a hospital by about 9 at night to the closet hospital which was about 30 minutes away. Luckily, we have a member of the church who lives next door and has a car, so he took us. 

This is my really sad picture of our hospital set up. I have better photos, but they´re on the camera

of Hna Rush, so I´ll send them next week. This is Hna Hernandez in a hospital bed, Hna Alcantara under a weird bed things, Hna Rush´s legs and our two mat beds. Sleepover! Yahoo!

Then Monday we were off to the capital to get surgery. Appendicitis! Ya! No idea how to spell it. But it´s already about a 3 hour bus ride to the capital and some angry workers decided to burn tires in the middle of the road and cause complete stand still traffic for who know how long. Our bus luckily was very close by when this happened, so it only took us about 40 minutes to get going again. We ended up taking a very long detour.

We should have been like this smart man and just ridden a donkey around the fire. It probably would have been faster. hahaha

This was my poor companion, but serious she has the BEST attitude!

We finally made it to the capital!

And after speaking to the mission doctor he landed us in definitely one of the nicest hospitals in the DR.

So some good news about our stay in the hospital we got some good food. The lovely Dr. Walker and his wife brought us gift baskets on Christmas morning from the Senior Missionary Couples at the MTC who had heard about our situation. It was so good and filled with AMERICAN food! It was my breakfast and lunch and it was great!

Then for dinner one the the Senior missionaries in the office made all the Elders that work in the office a good ol´ traditional AMERICAN Christmas dinner! And they brought it to me that night! Honey baked ham, mashed potatoes, rolls, green salad, pumpkin and banana cream pie!

"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

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...

Elder Uchtdorf's 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! 

I 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