The Fagerstens always give us a ride after zone meetings. Sisters get to sit in the truck, thank goodness!

The Ruta ride

"A picture I took today by the river near our apartment"

Outside the temple with my companion, Hermana Clove a few weeks ago.  The Fargestans took us.

When we went to Santo Domingo with the Fagerstens, they took us out to eat at a restaurant on the ocean. It was beautiful!

Lights in the park across the street from the temple and CCM

Saludos!

It´s been a wonderful week in the mountains of Jarabacoa. On Tuesday, we had a meeting in Santiago, and I realized just how blessed I am to be in Jarabacoa. It´s stinking hot in the big city!

The meeting was for the new missionaries. 2 Weeks Training. I had the same meeting after my first two weeks, but I got so much more out of it this go around. I felt a renewed love and energy for the work, and felt a new determintaion to change. We watched the video, The Butterfly Circus. I highly recommend that every watch it. It´s beautiful. I´m not a very symbolically-minded person, but here´s what I got out of it:

1."the greater the struggle, the greater the glory"

2. each of the characters used their weakness to become something beautiful

3. God sees the beauty in each of us

4. you are what you believe you are

5. don´t focus on the strengths of others, we were all created with different strengths to bless others. If my companion and I were both great teachers, then why would we have to work together. My companion has strengths, and I have strengths, and together can bless the lives of others in different ways

Our little Haitian family is doing so well. Last night we taught the law of chastity. It was such a relief to teach that to a family that is already married! Deli was still working, so she wasn´t able to translate for us, so we had Owends translate. He doesn´t have a very long attention span, so we had to repeat everything. haha He´s sweet. I don´t understand any Creyol, but I did notice that when we said "We´re going to talk about the law of chastity," he told them that we were going to talk about the law of castigo, or punishment. hahaha Glad we fixed that. :) We changed their baptismal date to the 7th of February. I´m so excited! They are going to be a great family, and I can hardly wait for the day that they become a family sealed in the temple for time and all eternity. I am so grateful for the chance that I have to teach them.

We finally found Yudi! We haven´t seen her in months! I thought she was hiding from us. We had a great lesson with her. She told us that she´s not keeping the Word of Wisdom, but that she´s still trying. So we talked about how she can do it with the help of the Lord. She told us that she still reads the Book of Mormon every night, and every time she sits down to read, she prays that the Lord will reveal to her what she needs to know. She told us that every night, she opens up to a random page, and she finds exactly what she needs to hear. She said she works on Sundays, but she told us that she´s going to talk to her boss about switching her free day to Wednesday so she can go to church. I love that lady.

So, last week, we got back to the apartment, and my comp couldn´t find the key to the house. Oops! We looked in the street and around the apartment, and we couldn´t find it. So, we called our elders and enlisted the help of our "mexican district leader." He takes pride in his heritage, and his ability to break into houses. haha They spent an hour and a half trying to break into the door and the window, and then the landlord and his buddy came over. After two hours, we were able to open the window and reach into the house and unlock the door from the inside. haha It was quite the adventure. :) 

A Day in the DR:

One form of public transportation here are the rutas. They each have a route that they take and they pick up people on the way. 20 pesos for a ride, and the commodations are oh-so-comfortable. Here are the elders in the back seat. Hermana Jimenez and I shared a seat in the front. :)

Have a wonderful week! Hermana Jorden

Saludos!
I sure am loving "training" Hermana Zegarra. And by training, I mean being trained by her. I love learning from her. She´s wonderful. She has such a strong desire to be a good missionary and to be obedient and to share the gospel. Every morning we do "12 week training," and it´s been a really great experience for me. I´ve learned so much and I feel like we´re learning together.

A couple of weeks ago, we had a meeting with all of the sisters in the mission. There were 61 of us. It was so fun to see all of the sisters in the mission. We got to hear talks from Hermana Douglas, President Douglas, and Hermana Clove. They were wonderful. We also watched Errand of Angels. It was fun to see what the mission is like in Europe. It´s so different from here, but the struggles are the same. I guess we´re all going through the same things. Missions are wonderful. They really help you learn and grow and become a better person. At the end of the conference, they gave each of us a pearl neckalce, harvested in the Philippines by poverty-stricken women, and then sent to India to be made into jewelry by leprous women. They´re beautiful. The Douglas´s sure  treat us well. It will be sad to see them leave in July, but I´m excited about the new couple that are coming.

Things are going well with Filomiz and her family. They are so wonderful. I´m not sure that they´ll be able to get baptized the 31st because they have so many questions, but I´m just so excited that they want to know everything! We love spending time with them. :)
Have a great week! Hermana Jorden

 Kelsea thinks this old man is adorable.

 Kelsea and her 17 year old mini missionary (the one who filled in for 2 weeks)

 with their family that is golden to them!

Kelsea and her mini- Hermana Jimenez

Buenas!

I had a great week with my mini, Hermana Jimenez. She has so much love and energy for missionary work. The first day she was here, she got lots of blisters on her feet and they got swollen, so she had a hard week, but she was determined to work hard. I learned a lot from this sweet little girl. She is fearless, and wanted to share the gospel with everyone. I´ll admit that contacting still scares me, but she understands the importance of our message and that she needs to share it with everyone. We contacted a lot of people this week and found quite a few new investigators. What a fun experience.

Last Wednesday night, I got a call from President Douglas, asking if I was willing to train. I was so excited! The next day we had our training meeting in Santiago, and I felt so good. I felt like I knew everything I needed to know and I was ready. Then I remembered that I only have 6 months in the field and I starting to get nervous. I thought ¨What if I can´t understand her? What if I make a mistake? What if I´m a bad example to her? What if I´m not perfect?¨ I imagine that it´s a little bit like becoming a mother. You have so many doubts about whether or not you are able to raise this child. About whether or not you are going to be a perfect mother. Her first 3 months in the transfer are going to impact the rest of her mission. It´s a big undertaking. And I´m so nervous. I spent the whole week reading all of the rules and manuals to make sure I know what I´m doing, because I feel a little clueless. But, I´m putting my trust in the Lord and hoping that I can be a good influence on this new sister missionary.

Today we went to Santiago for transfers, and I picked up my brand new companion from Peru! Sweet little Hermana Zegarra. She is so cute and an amazing teacher. I am so excited to be her companion and to learn from her. She´s seriously so adorable. We´re going to have a great time together. 

We´ve been trying to spend a lot of time with the Valnor family.  Monday monring, we were at Deli´s house and she told us that Dieslifort had been having bad dreams and was a little nervous about getting baptized. She said that he had told him thad it was Satan trying to prevent him from joining the church. I believe it. I think Satan realizes how incredible this family is. But I was nervous. I wasn´t sure how were going to help him defeat the attacks of the adversary. When we arrived at their house that evening, Hermana Jimenez started talking about receiving answers to our prayers, and he started going off in Creyole. I was so nervous to hear what he was saying, but when he finished, Deli told us that he had had a dream that he was at the church listening to someone speaking, and that he received his answer. Then Jeff, the sweet 10 year old boy told us that he had had a dream that he was playing basketball and that he was all hot and sweaty and so he went to the river and bathed himself and then followed a long narrow path. I can´t believe it. These people are so incredible. And know they´re all ready to be baptized. I´m so grateful for the opportunity to teach these amazing people. 

Have a wonderful week! Love,  Hermana Jorden

Jan 5, 2015

Buenas!

It´s been quite the week here in the Jarabacoa. My dear companion, Hermana Clove, got a call from Hermana Douglas last week asking her to be her assistant in the mission home. We figured that we´d finish the transfer together and then she would go live with them in the mission home, but we got a call two days later from the assistants saying "We found you a mini. We´ll be here at 4 to pick up your companion and to drop off your mini." She was gone so fast! But my new companion is Hermana Jimenez, from San Fransisco (Dominican Republic, not California). She´s 17, and she loves preaching the gospel. She´s been such an example to me, and I think I´ve learned more from her this past week than I have my entire mission. She´s pretty amazing. She´s only here one more week until the end of transfers. I only have a short time with her, but it´s been so fun. And I´ve really had to use my Spanish. It´s been great practice. Every morning when we wake up, I always say something to her in English. haha



The week of Christmas, President Douglas asked us to pray and fast in order to find a family to teach. We´d been teaching Filomiz, a friend of Deli´s, and that week we started teaching her whole family. We realized that they were our golden family. They´re been coming to church, and Deli brings them to all of the activities, and they love it. I think it´s so amazing because Filomiz doesn´t even speak Spanish, but she loves going to church. It´s because she feels the Spirit while she´s there. And I love teaching them. Whenever we teach, we squeeze their family of five, Deli´s family of 3, and us into their tiny little one-room house. But the Spirit is always so strong. This Monday, we invited them to baptism. Filomiz told us that a few nights ago, she had a dream that she was bathing in a river and felt so happy and clean, and then she saw a path in the forest, so she followed it. She said it was straight and narrow. She told us that she had received her answer, and that she was ready to be baptized. Her husband said that he wants to, but he´s still waiting to receive his answer. Then came the daunting question. Here in the Dominican Republic, few people are married. In fact, other than the members of the church, I think I may have met 5 couples the whole time I´ve been here. I was so nervous to ask them, because I was sure there weren´t, and I knew it was going to be really difficult for them to go back to Haiti and get their papers and get married. So, I took a deep breath and said "So.....are you guys married?" AND THEY SAID YES! I couldn´t believe it. I almost cried. They are such an amazing family, and they´re getting baptized! We set the date for January 31st!



A Day in the DR:

Here, the people love to decorate for Christmas, but they don´t celebrate with presents. They just put up lights and get together with their families and eat. But on the 6th of January (the date changes all the time), they have the Night of the Kings, where they celebrate the arrival of the wise men. The kings bring the kids gifts, and they celebrate their arrival. I really like it because it´s easier for them to focus on the true meaning of Christmas on the 25th, and then they celebrate the arrival of the wise men with gifts. I thought it was a cool tradition. My companion made us Dominican food to celebrate.



I hope you all have a wonderful week. I am so grateful for every single one of you in my life, and your support here on the mission. God be with you til we meet again.

Love, Hermana Jorden