It is HOT. Super hot. Like heat exhaustion hot

Nothing much new has happened this week. But it is HOT. Super hot. Like heat exhaustion hot. But it´s all good. 

Here´s a couple more photos from our trip to El Conde last week.

 

We also had a big service activity this week. We had a major problem with people dumping their trash right outside the church, so everyone pitched in and a garden was built! It´s great and everyone had such a good attitude to help. As well, we have men taking shifts guarding the garden everyday for the next month. Then it´ll go to every other day until they feel it´s safe enough that people won´t ruin the garden.

Also, I finish Jesus the Christ this week! Yahoo! Yes it´s taken this long.. but let´s keep in mind that I wasn't reading very consistently. But I found this a good one and interesting:

¨Have you some besting weakness, some sinful indulgence that you have vainly tried to overcome? Like the malignant demon that Christ rebuked in the boy, your sin may be of a kind that goeth out only through prayer and fasting.¨ -James E. Talmage 

Have a greeeeeat week!

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Zoe Visits Christopher Colombus'...House

Hola a todos! Today I have photos!!  We went to El Conde today as an activity. Our District got special permission to go to the East Mission to check out this fun touristy historical/shopping street:)

The picture of all of us is in front of the house of Christopher Columbus!

This past Thursday I had the WONDERFUL opportunity to do companion exchanges and go back to Quisqueya- my first area. It was soooo great!!!! I got to see 2 of my converts, Rosie and Ashley, and after one year they are still going strong! At the end of the day we had an activity and I got to see a lot of members from the ward and they were all happy to see me and I was so happy to see them. What a blessing!

Also let me tell you a little story. Once upon a time I felt like I was in the movie ¨the best two years¨. My compa and I got home the other night and the other girls we´re like ¨guess what happened!!¨ They then told us of their night..

President Nuckols was at our chapel to give and interview for the Elders. As he was leaving he ran into the other Hermanas who were walking to our appartment for the night. He asked them if they lived closed and when they answered yes he asked if he could see the appartment. They confidently said ¨of course!¨ even though they were trying to remember of what type of condition our house was in.

President Nuckols, and 2 Elders came in and the Elders jaws dropped at how clean our apartment was and President was please too:) Yea for us having a clean house! It´s usually clean, but it was particularly clean this day. All the dishes done, desks clean, shelves organized, all four of our beds made. Practically spotless  

I was pleased to hear of our great surpise and that our house was fit to greet some suprise guests. Which reminds me of a wonderful quotation that I love:

¨Your room can be a holy place that invites the Spirit. If the prophet were to see your room, would he view it as a holy place? Do you?¨ -President Elaine S. Dalton

Hasta Luego!

Hna Safeer

Nothing amazing, but good stuff is always happening!

Hola a todos!

This week has been good! Nothing amazing, but good stuff is always happening around here:) 

My companion´s chickinguya is pretty much gone, so that´s great! She luckily never got the body and joint pain, just the skin problems. But dumb chickinguya is EVERYWHERE. Seriously. Everyone´s got it. Supposedly it´s hit the southern parts of the US, but the mission doctor thinks it´ll get taken care of before it spreads.

So we´re working with these two girls, Manuela and Maria. They´re daughters of 2 ward members that were living in the campo but now are here and we´re teaching them and helping them prepare for baptism.  Manuela´s 10 and Maria´s 12. Probrecita Manuela was in the hospital for 4 days this week hooked to an IV. She had chickinguya, dengue and an infection. ALL 3! But we went to the hospital and just talked with the two girls for a while. She was happy to see us and told us about the entire movie of The Life of Pi. Ha. And then we shared a message of course and gave them stickers.

We had no food in the house this week and bought 50 mango. 50. And only for like $2.50 US dollars. Not too shabby!

Aaaand I got a letter from Hermana Courtney Cox in Argentina! She wrote me in Spanish and it was really good and sounds like she´s doing really well:)

¨We will all face fear, experience ridicule, and meet opposition. Let us- all of us- have the courage to defy the concensus, the courage to stand for principle... Courage becomes a living and an attractice virtue when it is regarded not only as a willingness to die manfully but also as the determination to decently.¨ -Thomas S. Monson

Adios!

Hna Safeer

There´s always a silver lining!

Buenas dias! 

This week has been a another great week out here in the mission field. Nothing too special, but I´ll share a couple of things.

One, Heladio got baptized!! Remember Heladio from Sabana Yegua with one arm and quit smoking? I got to talk to one of the Hermanas out there this week and they told me he did get baptized and has not missed a week of church since. Yahoo! He´s such a good man. He always walked very slowly to church. It´s a struggle for him to walk, but he always was there.

Also my pobrecita companion (Hermana Paul) has Chickinguya.(I´m pretty sure I spell this virus different everytime). It´s finally hit someone in our house. So a week ago she had a fever for like 3 days. Then starting last night she started having what looked like a ton of giant hives. Then this morning she was up since 2 because she was so itchy and I woke up and it had gotten a LOT worse. So we made a trip to Dr Walker, the mission doctor, and recognized it real quick as a classic case of Chickinguya, but with some pretty extreme skin reactions. But he gave us medicine and instructions of what to do and all that good stuff. It will last for at least a few days... or week, but she´s always doing better with her medicine. 

I don´t know if you can see the splotches super well in this photo, but on the positive side, we got to eat at taco bell because it´s close to the doctor´s office. 

There´s always a silver lining! hahaha

On an ending note, "Happily every after is not a fairy tale. It is a choice!¨ -Fawn Weaver

Have a great week!

Bloody Thursday and the Dreaded "Chickengunya"

Buenos dias!

Alright here´s the top news stories for this week:

1. Chickengunya. A new mosquito virus that´s sweeping the nation. Apparently it somehow came here from Africa. It consists of full body pain and fever. We´ve been told 70% of the country has it. And we believe it! Seriously, everybody and their dog has it. I don´t know how nobody our home has gotten it yet. I guess the Lord needs us working and not in bed. 

2. Elder Jeffery R. Holland was here! So actually this was  a couple weeks ago but I forgot to write about it. One of our investigators told us about it, that he saw it on the news and was super excited to see somebody from our church. He didn't know he was an apostle, but we've heard that Elder Holland was in the country for a couple weeks and was working with Danilo, President of the country. Maybe you guys back home can look up photos or something. (Read article here.) And some news articles. I think he was talking to Danilo about social issues or something. I´m not to sure. If anybody find out more, let me know. And send me a photo of him with Danilo:)

3. Gladi got baptized!!! And her two oldest kids as well! 

OK, here we have Hna Paul and I with the whole family.

Cynthia and I. At first she hated when we came over. Now she loves us and she loves church!

Everyone right before the baptism.

Gladi right after she came out of the baptismal font. She didn't know I was there with my camera. That was her real face. So happy!

4. Bloody Thursday.

Once upon a time my companion had a bloody nose. For 3 hours. Which finally ended us up in the hospital. Luckily we live right across the street, so at midnight Friday night us 2 and the other 2 missionaries in our house made a midnight trip to the hospital. Her nose finally stopped bleeding (before anyone had actually helped us) but they took her blood pressure just to make sure everything was ok, then send us home around 1 am.

And one more picture of Arjeny. Gladi´s 2 year old boy :)

¨Work without vision is drudgery. Vision without work is daydreaming. Vision with hard work is exhilarating!¨

-President Nuckols. He said this to us, but I´m not sure if he made it up or heard it somewhere else.

Have a great week!

Photos - Baptisms, Teaching AND Some Play Time

Buenas!

Everything´s been grrrreat this week as usual! I´m going to start off this week with some photos.

We had an awesome multi-zone activity last p-day and we played all types of games and saw the dedicatory plaque for the church in this country. We had 3 zones from the Capital there and President and his wife showed up and played around with us as well:)

Another photo of us at the activity.

We also had our last district meeting together and here´s a photo

And this is Jose ( a member) and Wilker (almost to be baptized).

We also had the world´s craziest lesson with 8 teenage boys. We had a lesson planned with 2 boys, but one of them brought 5 of his friends and they've all been going to church regularly and all the activities so that´s good. And we had it in the house of a member who´s also a teenage boy. It was crazy, but now they all know the 10 commandments memorized!

Oh ya... WILKER was baptized this weekend!! Yahoo! He´s only 12, but he´s been going to church and all the activities every week for the last 6 months. He´s also really good friend with two of the families in our ward, so he has Family Home Evening with one of them every week. He was sooo happy to FINALLY be baptized.

Also, this week we´re particularly excited about a woman named Gladis. We've been teaching her about 3 months by now and she often came to church alone with her 5 children all under the age of 11, but wasn't progressing wonderfully. She was not a very happy person (she´s in a really rough situation with her husband right now), rarely in her house when we came for our scheduled lessons, she wasn't reading her Book of Mormon, we kinda had to drag her to church often... but now there´s SUCH A CHANGE! Something has clicked and she´s converting for real! She´s reading, coming early to church (still with all 5 kids), is on time to her appointments and we´re so happy for her! Her baptism is planned for the 28th this month and she´s finally ready and excited! It´s also not only her, but especially her 8 year old daughter who didn't like us too much before, now is excited when we come over and loves church! We´re soooo happy for them and so excited to just see things get better and better:)

 Well that´s all for this week. I hope everyone is having a wonderful summer. HAPPY FATHER´S DAY DAD!! 

Make good choices everyone and always be a good friend to all.

¨My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.¨-Henry Ford

Until next time,

Hna Safeer

Zoe and the "One Armed Man"

David's (Zoe's dad) notes:  Zoe continues to make friends and make people happy, young and old.
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Hola! Ok so this week, biggest things that happened is 1. General Conference! Super good, but it was my first time watching it in Spanish. As much as I love voice overs, I prefer it in English. But Conference never disapoints! It was great as always.

2. Transfers! Yikes! I'm the only one from my house who's leaving, but we don't know to where or with who. I'll find out tonight. It's probably fair to say I'm a tiny bit nervous. 

Besides that it's all just been a normal week.

So a couple last photos from this transfers.

First are the most GIANT coconuts in the world! We had to drink and eat them and they're actually gross. They may not look that giant but remember my hands are really big. 

One more photo from the temple that Hna Smith bombed.

Then like a week later we had more coco for district meeting, but they were smaller so I could handle it and now I like the coconut meat so that was nice.

And this is Heladio! I love him so much! He's just this cute old one armed man that usually doesn't smile but he smiled a little for the photo!

And remember, "Faith in God includes faith in his timing." -Neal A. Maxwell

Hasta Luego!

Hna Safeer

A Photo from the Dominican Republic

David's (Zoe's Dad) notes: We received this postcard this week from Zoe. A few things to note: 1. Zoe is writing fairly well in Spanish 2. She is able to communicate humor, which is quite difficult  3) She used the subjunctive which is a verb tense in Spanish that we really don't use in English. It indicates an uncertain future state, is difficult to use, and Zoe uses it quite well!

There are two translations 1) My interpretation of what I think Zoe was trying to communicate  2) Google translate's Spanish to English translation. (My translation is much better!)
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David's translation:

Hello, family! I hope that everything is good in Utah and I just want to say a quick "hello!" Do you like the picture of the girl? I think it's really artistic! Hahaha. This is my life - a day at the beach... not! But that's OK! Its not important, I don't need the water in the ocean now that I have running water at home! :-) Hahaha...my jokes are really stupid. 

Google Translate:

Greetings my family. Hopefully all is well in Utah and just want to say "hello" really fast. Like this photo of this girl? I think this is very Distinction lol. This is my life, a day at the beach-no! But it's okay. No matter to me, I need the sea when now I have water in the house. Hahaha that my stupid jokes.

Chilling on Gua Gua and Riding on a Tractor

My companion and I just chilling on a gua gua
waiting to leave to a meeting.

BUENAS!!!! Ok. This week. Normal and yet not normal. What is a normal day or week for a missionary? I don´t know. I don´t think it exists. Just about everyday when we come home my companions and I have always just been like, ¨Huh well today was weird.¨ Everyday is weird. 

I guess this week, we've mostly been searching for new people to work with, and we´re having successes. But let me tell you about a few people with potential. 

Max, is 19 and a girl in the ward invited him to church. He´s been 3 times, but we have only been able to teach him once since he´s int he capital all week at the University. 

David, is maybe like 30 ish and is our neighbor two doors down. He´s super good friends with the neighbor that lives in between us and is a member. We actually have taught him here and there for the last couple months, but we had  a super good lesson with him on Saturday and for the first time HE WAS AT CHURCH on Sunday! YAHOO! He´s SUPER educated and knows what he´s talking about. And check this out. He´s already read the Teachings of Lorenzo Snow book and is working on Teachings of George Albert Smith now. That´s what our neighbor gave him. Now we´re just trying to get him going on the Book of Mormon! We´ll see how that goes.

The Familia Nueces Fidel. They´re this awesome family that lives pretty far away but it´s worth the travel. It´s a mom, dad, daughter who´s 13 and son who´s 14. The dad has a niece who´s Mormon and married and lives in Utah and in December him and his kids went to visit and visited the Salt Lake Temple and he showed us pictures. Weird right? But also super cool. So they´re super friendly and inviting, but they´re in a tough situation right now because things are crazy for them. The dad´s having kidney failure and is in the process of trying to get a transplant. We´re just hoping that all goes alright!

So those are just a few people. It´s always hard to say how well or quick or lasting people will progress but only time will tell!

Ok picture time!

My new district. Oh and I don´t know if I mentioned already but Hna Peck is in our house! Together again! So it total we now have 3 Dominicans, 3 Americans, 1 Chilean, and 1 Guatemalan. We´re a good group.

I wan´t to check out this eye doctor to see how expensive glasses are here. We tried to go check it out. Turns out it´s a church. haha. We thought it was a very deceiving sign.

Our favorite little girls
wanting to take a silly picture.

Then it was our turn.

Also this week, weird story. We´re walking to this new area that we've never been to before trying to try something new. It´s a SUPER long walk to get there with no civilization, just a few motors and cars. So we walk forever there try to work a bit and then are walking back and we´re pretty tired. We see this HUGE blue tractor roll by on the street. I say to my companion ϨThat´d be a fun ride¨.Or something like that. But by then the tractor had already passed. 

Right after I made that comment my companion´s like ¨Are they backing up?¨ Sure enough they are! They back up for a while and then ask if we want a ride! SCORE! We of course said yes and there´s just like this piece of wood as a back seat and this guy takes off his jacket and lays it down for us on this seat (like a gentleman of course haha) And we jumped up and started cruising! Definitely on the funnest and scariest rides I´ve ever taken but it was a good time! And people were definitely surprised and gave people a good laugh as they saw two white girls taking this ride as they were passing by. But hey it sure saved us a long walking trip and we were real grateful! 

And as a side note,  as we were taking these pictures this guy we didn't even know pulled out his phone and took pictures too. It was definitely not something people see everyday haha.

OK, well that´s all for now! Miss you all!!!!

¨If men do not comprehend the character of God, they do no comprehend themselves.¨ - President Joseph Smith

Hasta luego!

Hna Safeer

Zoe Goes to the Temple in the Dominican Republic

David's Note (Zoe's Dad): Temples are special places and there are only about 125 in the whole world, so going on a trip to the temple is a special treat.
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Another week has come and gone. Let me tell you some things. Nothing big has happened, but I have photos, so here we go.

This is Daniel and his friend. They´re not members, but were invited to a baptism. We ran into them at their neighbor´s house all ready to go in socks with flip flops, jeans, polo shirts and ties. Fancy!  

I told two of our investigator girls that are sisters they could give me Dominican hair. Here´s how it went.

 We got special permission to go on a temple trip with our branch in the captial on Saturday! We were up bright and early to leave at 530 am. This is me with Cesarina, who was SOOO excited for her first time in the temple.

Also a perk of a temple trip in the capital is PIZZARELLI!

This is us on our super long bus rides to the temple.