Feliz Navidad!

This week was definitley difficult! With having to go in at 6:00 every night and most of our investigators only have time after 6, we had trouble finding people in their houses. But, despite this, we still were able to see miracles! :) Everyone here goes to the Campo for Christmas too, so that was another trial this week. This forced us to contact more and we found more people to teach!

Zone Christmas Party!

We had a Christmas party with President Corbitt and like 6 other zones (the other zones were a different day) Each zone prepared a song to sing. My zone sang "O Noche Santa" (o holy night) and it was beautiful! Amazingly it came together at the last minute. Even the elders sounded pretty good. haha Then we had a good lunch and some other activities. One of the things was a slide show of us missionaries as babies or other pictures from before the mission. It was hilarious! 

For Christmas eve we went to Evangela's house. We helped them prepare the dinner for like 3 hours (Here, if you have a dinner/lunch appointment, people don't start cooking until you arrive, so then you have to scarf the food down really fast...) and then it was like 8:45 so we had to take the food to go and eat it at our apartment.

The family on Christmas!

It was so good to see and talk to my family yesterday! I SAW SNOW! Hermana Castillo was so amazed by the snow! haha

On Christmas night we went to Evangela's house again in the night and had an "angelito" which is like a secret gift exchange thingy. We could only spend 100 pesos. The way we gave the gift was we had to get up and imitate the person we were giving to. It was hilarious! Abuela (that's what we call her) had me and she got up and said "Yo no hablo mucho español" ahhhhh....
Love you all! 
Hermana Lawrence

Zone Christmas Party - Companions Hermanas Lawrence and Castillo

Hot chocolate for Christmas

Nomar, Our Christmas Miracle

Hermana Stewart, Hermana Lawrence, and Nomar

NOMAR IS BAPTIZED! It really is a miracle. Nomar is 17 years old and his mom Kirsey and his sister Amber are recent converts, but he never wanted to be baptized. Hna Stewart and I were working on him since the begining and he was always so solomn and not happy, but we continued to teach him. We extended the invitation to be baptized many times and he never accepted. But in Hna Stewart's and I last week together....HE ACCEPTED! We literally screamed for joy when he said yes! And after he accepted he was a TOTALLY different person. He was happy, he listened to us better, and I hardly recognized him as the same Nomar! His baptism was on Saturday at 5:30 but as time passed and time passed I was scared he wasn't going to show up! Finally he did and he put on his white jumper and was running up and down the halls of the church yelling "I'm going to be mormon!" haha It made me SO happy to see him so happy. When he finally went down into the water I wanted to cry. It was so beautiful....haha. After his baptism he was running up and down the halls again saing "SOY MORMÓN!" Literally the best thing ever. 

So here in República Dominicana instead of having spiders in your house...there's lizards. I don't know which is worse...ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

On Friday we got a call from our District Leader at like 5:55 and he said we had to be in our apartment at 6:00 from here on out until the new year...Because it is peligroso (dangerous). I don't really think it is that bad (don't worry mom) the president just wants to take care of his Hermanas. The elders don't have to go in at a special time....

Well, LOVE YOU ALL! Feliz Navidad! 

Hermana Lawrence

Just hangin' in the hammock

Hola!

!I forgot to write about this last week (it was a highlight of the week) but I guess it is good, because now I have even more to write about it! So last sunday "the Prophet" came to our ward. This random guy was in our class for investigators and recent converts. The lesson was about the second coming. The teacher started the lesson with asking what anyone knew about the second coming. THIS GUY WENT OFF. He started talking (yelling, really) about how he was the prophet and Jesus is is son and Mary is his wife....He was literally crazy. He called Hna Barreda and Hna Morgan lamanites and that when they left the room to find the bishop to do something about him, they were being controlled by satan. He was so crazy. He got on his feet and started preaching "his gospel" and everything. He even had handouts made about how he was God and asked us to make copies and hand them out to everyone. Uh, no. Luckily, all our investigators thought he was crazy too! He went to priesthood and preached the same thing and the bishop asked him to leave. BUT there's more. HE CAME BACK TO CHURCH YESTERDAY! The bishop escorted him out again. haha

I ate pigs feet this week...

The pictures: We were waiting in a street for an investigator to come to an activity with us and this random girl asked if she could braid my hair! haha. It actually looked really good!

The freezer in our fridge had so much ice in it, we made a snowman out of the ice! it was a miracle to see snow...hahaha

There was a ward  party and that is our family photo (with all the hnas)

Well, I love you all and remember that Heavenly Father loves you all too!

Hermana Lawrence

1st Transfer tomorrow!

We got the long awaited (and not really wanted) phone call on Saturday night about transfers...

So our house has been Me and Hna Stewart and the Hna Training leaders Hna Morgan and Hna Barreda. Now with this new transfer I am STAYING in my area, but with a new companion! Hna. Castillo. All I really know about her is she only speaks spanish :) ha... I am super nervous! This means that I have to show the person training me the WHOLE area and tell her about EVERYONE and pretty much have to know everything at the begining. I am super nervous! Hna. Stewart is now going to be a Hna training leader with Hna Morgan. So I will still live in the same house with them! I am excited to improve my spanish even MORE! :) haaaaa

We had a mission tour this week! The area 70, Elder Civic, spoke to us! It was so good! He talked about our purpose as a missonary and being obedient. It seems like we always learn about the same topics, but always learn something new...so it must be important ;) The zone leaders texted us and had us wear matching colors to the misson tour...pink. To my astonishment, the elders actually had pink ties. They also had us match for the temple a couple of weeks back..navy blue. We all made fun of them for making us match, but the pictures actually looked really good matching, so this time we

didn't question them. We also took pictures in our matching zone t-shirts! They say "Yo Tube en Santo Domingo East Mission" you pronounce the "tube" like Tubey. It's supposed to be yo estuve, but with dominican slang, dominicans say yo tube. Funny.. :) I'm still trying to learn Dominican!

We had a lesson with Ana Mercerdez on Friday night. She is SO ready for baptism. A lot of her family members  are members of the church. She just is scared to get baptized! She's been having lessons from the missionaries for like so long now. So many things led up to this lesson that I just knew it was going to be great. We watched "Together Forever" and then talked about how families can be together FOREVER! Her nephew is serving in our mission right now and he wrote a letter to her that we gave to her that talked about how he wanted her to be able to have this eternal family, so she needed to be baptized and eventually go through the temple! THE SPIRIT WAS SO STRONG. Let me tell ya! I cried in this lesson because the spritit was just like BAM! I am so so so grateful for my eternal family! She wouldn't accept a baptism date, BUT she accepted to fast with us this Sunday for an answer! Which is a HUGE step for her, because before now she hasn't even prayed to know if she should get baptized. I hope that she was able to recieve an answer...I guess we will see!

Something that I haven't told you all about yet is how we greet people. It isn't weird for me anymore, so I have forgoten that this isn't normal in Utah! I haven't shook a woman's hand this whole time I've been here! To greet someone you kind of side kiss their cheek! Its totally normal for me now! Guys do it too, but for obvious reasons...we just shake guys hands haha

Hermana Lawrence & Stewart making lunch

The pictures: Making lunch! Tostones are like my favorite! They're plantains that are smooshed and then fried. SO GOOD. And then there is the ward christmas party (The bishop is the guy on the right). 

I am excited to start my second transfer and learn even more! I love you all! The church is TRUE! Heavenly Father LOVES YOU ALL SO MUCH and so do I!

Hermana Lawrence 

Ward Christmas party