Saludos!

It´s been a pretty normal week here in the Dominican Republic. Not much to report.

Unfortunately, we had another week of no investigators attending church. But, after talking to Yesenia, we found of that the first time someone had died that day, and the second week her son was sick. So still is still able to go 3 more weeks and then be baptized October 18! She´s so great! We got to talk to her fionse on the phone this week while we were teaching her. He works in the temple in Manhattan, and he´s been a member of a mission presidency, although he´s never served a mission. When I was talking to him on the phone, he asked ¨The important question is, is she someone that I should be with in the celestial kingdom?¨I said Äbsolutely! Well, I mean, that´s your decision. But we think she´s great! haha We´re excited for their wedding in November! The cool thing is, members can go through the temple a year after their baptism, so next year I could be able to go with them to the temple for there sealing. That would be such an amazing experience!

Everything has been going well with Yudi, other than the fact that she isn´t going to church! She told us this week that she was all ready to go at 8 30, but then her father came and needed her help. So I really hope that she can go this week. We´ve almost taught her all of the discussions, she just needs to go to church! When we taught her on Monday, she told us about this experience that she had where she felt prompted to visit her ex husband´s sister, and she did and it turns out that she was locked out of her house, so Yudi was able to help her. It was cool for her to see the power of the Holy Ghost and to have that experience. We sure love that lady!

A Day in the DR:

Last week, somebody that lived on a street we walk on daily died, and I learned a lot about Dominican funerals. After someone dies, they prepare the body and have a viewing in the house. They put up a white flag with a black cross. I´m not sure how long the body is in the house, but people sit outside and mourn for 7 days! Every time we passed, there were tons of people just sitting outside wearing dark colors. Last year, Hermana Hunsaker had an investigator that died, so she told me that the people just scream and cry and yell. She said it was a terrible experience. Luckily, every time we passed by the funeral, they were all just sitting there. So I´m not sure when they bury the body, but the cemetaries are just like big out of the ground shelves. So they put the bodies in there, and after 7 years they take them out. But nobody knows what they do with the bones after that. It was really interesting to learn, and I sure hope I never have to attend one here. But it´s really fun to learn about the culture here.

I hope you all have a great week! I love you all so much! 

Love, Hermana Jorden

Pictures from a Zone Activity today.

Hola amigos y familia!

It´s been a pretty great week here! 

This week was district conference and our mission conference with President Douglas. So that means we went to La Vega four times this week! La Vega is where the rest of our zone is, so we take a bus down the mountain to get there. But the conference we had with the Douglas was so great. I have the best mission president in the world. I respect President Douglas so much. He´s so wise and he always knows exactly what his missionaries need. He always gives the missionaries chances to prove themselves. And his wife is an amazing lady. She´s so persistent and motivated, and I really look up to her. She started a charity called Rising Star Outreach, that helps people with leprosy in India. She told us a few stories at the conference, and they were incredible. She´s amazing. I feel so blessed to have such wonderful leaders and to know that they can help me with anything. 

I forgot to mention this last week, but I finished my first transfer with Hermana Hunsaker last week! Training lasts for two transfers, so I´ll be with her for at least another transfer (6 weeks), but then I might be transferred to another area. If I do, there´s a good chance that I won´t be able to write because I´ll be traveling. But I´ve really enjoyed working with Hermana Hunsaker. We´ve become great friends, and we have a lot of fun together.

Today we had a zone activity here in Jarabacoa. We went to Dajaos (I just figured out that that´s the real name. We all thought it was called The House haha). But it´s a couple who live up in the mountains who are trying to teach about reforestation. They live in a beautiful forest, so we got to walk around and go to a small waterfall and pick raspberries, and then they fed us a delicious lunch. And then all 18 of us rode 40 minutes down the mountain in a tiny tiny truck. I´m so surpised we actually fit! But that´s how we roll here in the Dominican Republic. The pictures I sent are pictures we took today while we were up there. 

Sadly, Yudi and Yesenia didn´t come to church this week. Which means we have to start all over with them! Which is such a bummer, because if I get transferred in 5 weeks, I won´t be able to go to their baptism. And every time we´ve gone to their houses for appointments, they aren´t home. We haven´t visited either of them in over a week. It´s really sad, and I hope that tomorrow they will both be home.

I just want you to all know how much I appreciate and love you. But more importantly, I want each of you to know just how much your Heavenly Father loves you. He loves you so much. You are literally His child. And He cares about you. He wants to hear from you. Talk to Him. The power of prayer is real. He is listening, and if you come unto Him in prayer, He will bless you. He will always love you. No matter what you´ve done in your life. And if you pray and repent of your sins, through the power of the Atonement, you can be forgiven of your sins. What a blessing! I hope that all of you will use the Atonement in your lives to become clean through the blood of the Lamb, because Jesus Christ suffered for you. You can always go to Him, because He loves you with an infinite and unwavering love. When you feel alone, He is there. Always remember that you are never alone. 

A Day in the DR:

This week, our apartment flooded. At first it was just a little bit, so we would mop it up, leave, and then come back to a little more. But the past couple of days, we´ve had a lake in our house! haha So yesterday we talked to the man who lives downstairs, and he replaced our water heater today. So hopefully that ends that! 

Kelsea said, "Terrible picture, but this was at Ismael, President Buret´s son´s birthday party"

Some pretty scenery in the Dominican Republic

Yoli- President Buret's daughter

Kelsea's zone.  They have a senior couple on their zone- The Fagerstens.  She says she loves them so much!

Ishmael and the nasty cockroach

Nasty Cockroach

Hola!

Things are going pretty well down here in the Dominican Republic! It´s starting to cool down here in the mountains, which is so awesome! It´s definitely not cold enough to wear a coat, like a lot of the Dominicans think, but it´s nice and cool. 

Our little investigators are doing awesome! Yesenia has gone to church 3 times in a row, which is awesome! Investigators have to attend church 6 weeks in a row to get baptized. During our lesson on Sunday, we invited her to be baptized on October 4, and she said she would! Yudi hasn´t been able to attend the past two Sundays, so she can´t baptized as soon, but she really wants to. We taught tithing yesterday, and we told her that after she gets baptized that she has the blessing of paying tithing, and she asked if she could start paying it now! haha We love her so much!

This week we visited a cute litle lady named Moma. She was talking about making sacrifices, and she taught me something really important. Turns out, that´s not actually what she was saying, but I still learned it from her, right? haha She ¨said¨ that when we have lived our whole lives abstaining from alcohol or coffee or things like that, it´s not a sacrifice, it´s obedience. It´s not something difficult for us, because we´ve done it our whole lifes. That got me thinking, living the gospel isn´t a sacrifice for me because I´ ve done it my whole life. It´s just obedience to the things I´ve always been taught. And I realized that I haven´t had to make very many sacrifices for my Savior. But how else am I supposed to go through the refiner´s fire and become all that He has intended for me? It´s my personal opinion that we should always be making sacrifices to better ourselves and to purify ourselves through Christ. It´s how we become ¨clay in the potter´s hands.¨ Everyone has different sacrifices that they can make, because we´re all different. For some people, the Word of Wisdom is a huge sacrifice. For others, it could be something like humility or charity. But we can all make sacrifices and better ourselves. So my challenge is for each of your to find some way to sacrifice for your beliefs and your Savior, because when you are giving yourself to Him, He will raise you up and you will become everything that He has in store for you. 

A Day in the Dominican Repulic

There are so many cockroaches in the church building. We clean it every week, but they all find their way into the church. And the kids love to play with them! It´s disgusting! But what they love to do even more is throw them at us! They think it´s so funny because we scream and run away! haha Here´s a picture of the cockroach Ismael found outside last night. They´re not all that big, but now you know why I hate them. haha 

Hello hello!

Things are going pretty well here! Yesenia and Yudi are still absolutely wonderful! We taught Yesenia for the second time on Saturday. She´s so funny because she LOVES talking about families and how important they are to hear. And we love hearing it. But it´s hard to get in a lesson because that´s all she talks about. haha she´s so cute. But we talked about families on Saturday and left her The Family A Proclamation to the World. She also talked about how important flowers are to her and how she loves the positive energy they bring. She says she always has flowers in her home. And when she left, she let us pick out two roses to keep. I felt so loved. It was so nice to get that from her, because right now I haven´t really been able to connect with the members because I can´t really communicate with them, so it was nice to get that special love from someone. She´s so great. Sunday night, we brought a family with us to talk about the importance of families in the church and to talk about the proclamation. She spent most of the time talking about her family, but I know that she loved having us and the Abreu family there too. Tomorrow we´re going to teach her the rest of the Restoration and ask her to be baptized. 

And Yudi is amazing. The last time we visited her, we left the Word of Wisdom pamphlet for her to read. Before, she had mentioned that she knows that we don´t drink alcohol, and that she wants to quit and change her life. But when we got there to teach it, she didn´t understand why we don´t drink coffe. So we explained that it contains caffeine and can become addicting, and God doesn´t want us to be tied to things like that and it prevents us from having the Spirit. She totally understood and told us that she drinks coffee with her friends every morning, and a few days ago, when they came over, she told them that she wasn´t going to drink it anymore. And that´s before we even taught it to her! she´s so wonderful. She had a huge headache that day because she had quit, but she knew that it´s what she needs to do. 

A Day in the DR

Today we went to Santiago to go to the mission home and the office for P day. After Hermana Hunsaker talked with the doctor about her heat rash, we went to the National supermarket so the elders could buy food. When we walked in, I felt like we were in Disneyland! There was happy music playing, all of the employees were smiling, and it was so nice. haha It was just like Walmart, which doesn´t seem that exciting, but it felt like a palace. haha Most of the buildings here aren´t quite that nice. But it was fun to go and have a fun day in Santiago!