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