Zoe - A giant Among the Sisters

Buenas dia!

So it´s been another good week here in La Esperanza. Just working hard and plugging away. The big news this week is about our Mission President and his family. They were about to finish their 3 years of service, and we had a specialy conference this Thursday to hear that they are finishing their service about a month early because they´re working on getting their citizenship in Canada and they have to go back this week. We were all super surprised.First off we didn´t even know they used to live in Canada! But they´re very sad to leave a month early, but it´s why they have to do. So we got to see them this one last time.

 But little to my surprise there was also a Conference with just make Stake Bishops, Ward Mission Leaders and missionaries and our Mission President so it was really nice that I got to see him one last time before he leaves on Wednesday.

Our new President and wife don´t come until late May so until then, the 1st counselor of our current President will take care of us. He´s really great so all should be good!

My Zone at the special conference with President and his wife.

My house together at the conference.

Also today we were at the CCM because my companion was getting checked out for migraines. While we were there we had a great surprise of the Grey´s (a senior missionary couple) asking us over for lunch! They know Hna Hamblin because her uncle is their bishop from back home and they know me because when I was in the CCM I got to practice Spanish with them. It was so great! They´re so sweet to have invited us over and they fed us stuffed pepper, salad, broccoli, zucchini bread and fruit smoothie. We´re so spoiled!

While we were in the Capital of course we had to make a stop at Krispy Kreme too:)

"Good timber does not grow with ease,

the stronger the wind, the stronger trees.

The further the sky, the greater length.

The more the storm, the more the strength.

By sun and cold, by rain and snow,

in trees and men good timbers grow.¨

-Douglas Malloch

Have a good week everyone!

Hna Safeer

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

___________________________________________

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.

Zoe's New Nicknames & Dora the Explorer

David/Dad's Notes: 

Zoe just finished her sign language certificate and that is the second language she refers to. Zoe is 21 and has looked she was in college since she was 14, but here aging process seems to have slowed down....

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Hola Familia!

Things are good here, but nothing to new is going on here. I'm at the half way point and that's exciting!

Thanks for sending me a package, even though I haven't gotten it yet.

My Spanish is getting better and better every day. I'm starting to really feel the advantage of already knowing a foreign language. I think it's really true that once you know one, it's easier to learn more. Even if the foreign language that I already know isn't spoken. I still have to do a lot of piecing together and picking out the words that I understand. It's a small victory every time I hear somebody talk and fully understand a sentence- but hey I'll take it!

Things are fun here with the new missionaries. It's weird, because on Tuesday morning everybody leaves except the 19 of us that came here together 3 weeks ago. It will be empty here for a day, but Thursday we'll get new people. I'm not sure where they'll be from. It's fun getting to know the different people from all over the place. Did you know St. Lucia only takes 1 hour to drive around? Crazy small! I talked to the Sister from there and she never left her island until she came here. She's awesome. She joined the church less than 2 years ago and decided to serve mission and teach other people, the way that she had been taught.

We got to go shopping. That was fun. We went to like a Wal- Mart type place. Nothing too exciting, but it was nice to just get out. The prices were interesting. Somethings were super cheap and somethings were super expensive. It's just different! I didn't really buy anything, mostly just hangers.

Oh some weird things. Everybody thinks I'm 19. It's weird. Nobody's thought I've been younger than I actually am. I guess I have a baby face now? Hahaha it's just weird, cause I"m the oldest one in my district. Everyone who enters our class room we make them guess how old we all are. I always get 19. Also, I still don't know too much Spanish, but I do know one thing, the Dominican's keep calling me Barbie. Grande, alta, or Barbie. 

People who I don't know just keep telling me that. The people here are not afraid to tell you what they're thinking.

Oh and Dora here is backwards. She teaches English. Weird.

It's good to hear from everyone!

Until next time!

Hermana Safeer

A Grand Week in the Dominican Republic

Zoe sent us this picture from the first day in the Dominican Republic. You can't see it, but she is wearing a blue skirt that Grandma Safeer gave her!

Just a reminder, I'm posting to this blog, not Zoe. If you want to contact her just write at:

zoe.safeer@myldsmail.net

Here is her e-mail from this week.

David (Zoe's Dad)

So this week's been grand. The Haitians all left back to Haiti and yesterday and today we got 40 new people! This place is overflowing! But it's great. We now have people from St.Lucia, Jamaica, Honduras, Panama, DR, USA, New Zealand, Guatemala, they're from all over the place! But most of them are Spanish speaking, which should be really nice for us to be able to practice. Because now there's a lot more Elders, we've switched rooms, so now I"m in a 8 person room, with 6 US girls from my district and 2 girls from Honduras. Also, this new group that came, I don't think anything of them are actually serving in the DR, I think they're all just training and then spreading out through the Caribbean and Central America.

It's crazy how many missionaries there are! We talked to a Senior Missionary Couple of the Santo Domingo East mission and they said right now they have 212 missionaries and about 10 of them are girls. The other 200 are Elders, so even though there is many Sisters here, there's still not very many out in the field. But we'll nearly double the Sister number once we get out there in 4 weeks! Also, the West mission has about 200 and so does the North. That's at least 600 missionaries and just in the Dominican Republic! Also, did you hear the missionary numbers at General Conference? There is 65,634 full-time missionaries currently serving, 20,000 people with their mission calls and 6,000 who have turned in their papers, but have yet to receive their calls. It's exciting!

General Conference was awesome here. It's like the Super Bowl for missionaries. All we did was eat and watch conference. Our mission President's wife made us home made cinnamon rolls one day and they were really good!

My Spanish is still slowly coming along. I had a full conversation in Spanish with my companion the other day. I was excited about it, even though it was a pretty rough conversation. She's a lot better at Spanish than me. Her name is Hermana Williams and she's from Provo, UT. She's really nice and cool. She's 20 and breeds reptiles and like rodents back home to sell to pet stores and zoos and things like that. It's different, but I think it's pretty cool. And she loves all the weird critters here. We get along really well and always motivate each other to work hard.

Also I would love some US stamps! If I send a letter here with US stamps it will get there significantly faster than if I send with Dominican stamps. Also, supposedly if you send packages with Jesus, or the Virgin Mary, or other Catholic/  Christian stamps the postal people are all Catholic and kinda superstitious, so I've heard they're less likely to mess with your packages.

Well I better go!

Talk to you soon and hopefully I can send pictures sometime soon!

Love,

Hermana Safeer

Week One: Zoe's Schedule in the CCM Dominican Republic

We weren't sure when Zoe's preparation day was- the day she has access to the internet to write to us. So, we waited all day Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday with no e-mail. Then late Thursday, driving back from Las Vegas (where we saw Bernie and Linda)  and St. George (where we visited the Kiser's) I happened to check my e-mail and there it was! An e-mail from Zoe! Here is what she wrote:

Hola mi familia! 

Things are very great! I'm really enjoying the CCM (El Centro de Capacitacion Misional)aka MTC (Missionary Training Center). It's super fun, like a language bootcamp. I got my numbers wrong last time, there's actually another group of North Americans, so really there's about 20 Elders here and 30 sisters. However, I talked to a Senior Missionary couple from the East mission and they said they have about 210 missionaries right now and only about 12 are girls. I'm assuming the West mission is about the same. So we may outnumber the guys for now, but not for long. Also, that means there's about 600+ missionaries right now in the DR!

This building is awesome. There's 4 floors. The training center and our housing is on the top floor. The two middle floors house families who want to go to the temple. The bottom floor has like a gym and the kitchen. Because it was Easter week, we housed a lot of families. It only costs like $3 a night! What a blessing for these families!  

OK, I've had a request for knowing what my scedule's like. Here it goes:

6:30             Wake up
7                 Breakfast
7:30-8:30     Personal Study
8:30- 9:30    Companion Study
9:30- 12:30  Language Study
12:30          Lunch
1:30-3:30     Language Study
3:45- 4:40    Gym
5                 Dinner
6-9              Language/ Doctorine (but mostly Language)
9- 9:30         Plan for the next day
9:30-            Family prayer (MTC prayer)

9:30-10:30     Prep for bed and sleep. 

There is a ton of language study as you can see. We study by district. Our district has 9 girls, so it's super nice that we have such a small class and can get a lot of time with the teacher. Also, it's awesome actually being in the DR, because we still practice our Spanish all day, even outside of the classroom. We practice with ourselves, the workers and we can go outside and practice with the people that are outside the temple. I still can't understand much, but I always understand "Mucho grande!" which I hear a lot. 

I know it seems like there's a lot of language study, cause there is. I thought there would be more doctrine study, but there's really not. Mostly just on Sundays. Sundays we go to Church and watch a Devotional, or someone will come in and talk to us. 

On Mondays we do service projects. This week, we walked to the University that's about a 10 minute walk. We picked up garbage, and it was really awesome, cause the people are super friendly and kept coming up and talking to us! Luckily, my companion and a lot of the others know Spanish a lot better than I do! 

Outside is BEAUTIFUL! It's really and has a nice warm breeze. I think it's going to get really REALLY hot during the summer, but it's OK! 

Also, Thursday are our Prep days, so that's when I'll really be emailing. We go to the temple in the morning, and then the afternoon we can just get done what we need to. I like P-days.

Besides that we have a very strict routine, but I really like it! I'm getting a lot of work done! 

I'd love more email/ letter/ packages/ whatever! Also there's an awesome sight called dearelder.com that sends letters for free and is really quick! Just remember I'm in the Santo Domingo West mission.  

Also, I realized that for the next 5 weeks, I gave you the wrong address! Both mail and packages can be sent to:

Sister Zoe Danielle Safeer
Dominican Republic Santo Domingo West Mission
C/ Hatuey #73
Urb. Los Cacicazgos
Santo Domingo
Dominican Republic

I'm sorry my email's all over the place, I just don't have the time to draft it out or anything!

Well, I wish I could say more, but I've got to go! If you have any questions, let me know! I'd love to hear from you guys! FYI, dearelder.com is probably the fastest for me to recieve things, but I'll most likely email back. 

Talk to you soon! 

Love, 

Hermana Safeer