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!