Christmas Day!

We loved speaking to Hermana Lawrence!  She looks beautiful and is great!

Christmas Week!

I hope you all have the best NAVIDAD ever! This week was a week full of miracles! Our ward had a christmas dinner on wednesday. I´m not joking when I say that there were more non-members at the dinner than members. Practically every member brought a friend and we were able to meet all of them! Many of the people are already investigators. The program was really great, the food was yummy, and the spirit was strong! 

Transfers are this week...Hna Aleixo and I are staying together for another transfer in Higuey! (I can´t believe it´s already been 6 weeks in this

area...It literally flew by!)

I got bit by a dog on my foot this week.....haha....

Thursday we were with Ailyn. For a long time we´ve been trying to get her dad´s permission for her to be baptized. She had accepted to be baptized on the 23rd of this month. So when we went on thrusday in the middle of the lesson Ailyn asked us if there was a chruch in Barahona. We told her that there was. She told us that she was going to go there for a while. I got a little nervous in my mind. we finished the lesson and her step mom (ana) who is a member menos activo, asked Ailyn when she was going to get baptized because she was leaving on the 20th to go with her mom. Ailyn said she could get baptized before then. We then asked her dad if Ailyn could get baptized on the 16th (two days after...) and he said yes! He signed the baptism record and we got going on planning. She had her interview on saturday morning and was baptized satruday in the night. Her baptism

started at like 8:30 because everyone is out of town right now and we were searching crazy for one more priesthood holder. We found one and she was baptized! Her dad was at the baptism, which is a huge step! His heart is slowly softening :) Sunday she was confirmed and so HAPPY! She´s the cutest little girl! 

We had a meeting with the assistants as a zone and one of them shared the story of David and Goliath. David had faith that he could defeat Goliath with one stone, but he picked up 5 stones to be prepared. We can have faith that things are going to happen ¨como Dios quiere¨ (how god

want´s) but we still need to be prepared and expect opposition! 

Have the best Navidad of your life! Remember our Savior Jesus Christ! 

LOVE YOU ALL!

Hermana Lawrence

More Miracles!!!

So many miracles here in Higuey! We had consejo de lideres on wednesday, so Hna Lana and I traveled to Las Americas (again). It was amazing. During the whole meeting I kept recieving little slaps in the face on things I need to improve on! I am grateful for the opportunity I have each day to become better, to learn, and to feel the spirit as it tells me what I need to do better! After the meeting, we went with Hna and Pte Smith and the Zone leaders and had a meeting with the stake presidency to see how the work is going here in La Romana. The meeting was inspired to say the least. We planned a Noche Blanca for the 23rd of Diciembre! Instead of having a ¨white christmas¨ like the majority of you all are going to have, I´ll be witnessing a ¨white christmas¨with many people dressed in white entering the waters of Baptism! I am grateful for this time I have to serve as a missionary! I can´t imagine being anywhere else right now! After the meeting, I got to have my interview with Pte Smith! He is the greatest. And Hna Smith is the greatest! I am grateful for inspired leaders! And then Hna Lana and I stayed in Quisqueya to be able to go to our zone meeting the next day. We had 30 minutes left before it was 9o´clock so we contacted by singing christmas hymns! It was a lot of fun!

Thursday into friday we did our intercambio, I was with Hna Moura (also from brasil) in Higuey. We went to go visit someone that I had only been to their house once....so we got lost. But we contacted a bunch of people along the way asking for directions! One lady we ran into told us that she had just been left by her husband, who threw a pot of hot oil on her. She showed us her wound...it was bad. We read in the book of mormon for her about the atonement and she started crying. It´s amazing how powerful the book of mormon is! We then found the people and we invited Solene to be baptized. She´s Haitian and a member´s sister. The whole lesson had to be translated because she hardly understands spanish, but she accepted to be baptized, but she´s moving to Chile in less than a month, so we´ll have to see what we can do!

We had a noche de hogar in a members house with two investigators, Yunior and Eliel. The member is leaving for her mission to panama in January, and has really been doing missionary work already! Eliel is her ¨boyfriend¨and Yunior is her neighbor. We helped her make carrot bread and then talked about the gospel. the two of them accepted to be baptized! They´ve already been to church suffiecient times to be able to be baptized, so we invited them for right before the member leaves! Cool experience for her and for us and them!

Campusano is a members boyfriend, who has been going to church for a while now. We went yesterday to try and find him to teach him. He lives in some campo far away, but milagro! He was in the members house! There were also a bunch of different members there. One of them said ¨General! When are you getting baptized?!¨ It caught me off guard because it was so sudden, but really the invitation to be baptized can be sudden! We put the fecha for the 30th of December! He said that he wants to have it a big party, so we are going to eat sancocho for his baptism too! YES! 

A couple of weeks ago Hna Smith gave us a reference from a lady that she contacted in the park while exercising. She told us all she remembered is that her name is Diana and she is the owner of a small grocery store in Higuey called Super _____ Higuey and that there used to be 3 but now there is only one that still exists. and thats it. I honestly thought we´d never find it.....higuey is HUGE. But I kept it in mind for a long time. This week we were walking in a random street....Honestly I don´t even know how we got there (obviously the spirit) and there was a small grocery store called Super Higueyano. We stopped outside and contemplated entering. We finally went in and talked to the cashier and told him the whole story. He said the owner isn´t named Diana but that there used to be three and now only this one existed. We asked when the owner would be coming in, and he replied that the owner never came in......but guess who walked in just when he said that....you guessed right! THE OWNER! His wife is named Daianira and it was her that hna smith contacted! MILAGRO! :)

Also a couple of weeks ago we were walking in the street and a lady called us over and asked us if we were the ¨mormons¨ we replied that yes, we are. She told us that she wanted us to teach her son and to come back in 2 sunday´s. so yesterday was the two sundays after. We went. We met Jesse, her son. He´s 20 years old. But we asked the mom and him how they had heard of the church. It turns out when Jesse was 5 or so years old, she took the lessons. She then continued to recite the whole story of Joseph Smith...even the scripture that Joseph read to recieve an answer, and when we were walking in the street she knew that her son needed to know this too! She said she almost got baptized, but for some reason she didn´t. But that is def un milagro also.

So many great things are happening here in Higuey! I´m excited to continue seeing the Lord´s hand in my life! I hope you´re all participating in the 25 days of christmas ¨light the world¨ from the church! This week is full of good things to do :) Look for miracles in every day! Pray every moring and night and in between, I know that Heavenly Father answers prayers and will answer specifically YOUR prayer...because you´re his child! 

Les QUIERO mucho!

Hermana Lawrence

The house we stayed at in Quisqueya was the Elders house three weeks ago and now is vacant...

but we were welcomed into a lot of cockroaches... dead and alive... and this wonderful bathtub.

Viajando! (Traveling!)

This past week was a week of TRAVELING. On Wednesday we had consejo de lideres so we had to go to Hato Mayor to do an intercambio and from there Hna Lana and I went to Gazcue. Thursday we had to go to La Romana for our zone meeting. Then we slept in Hato Mayor that night to be able to wake up at 4am and be in San Pedro at 6 to catch the guagua to go to Zone Conference in Las Americas. It kills me that we have to spend so much time traveling and not proselyting, but I know that Heavenly Father knows each one of our needs and so our investigators will be okay, we just have to be smarter with our time! We also get to have some interesting experiences contacting on the guaguas!

We traveled so much because we had a ¨misson tour¨with Elder Gonzales. We learned many, many valuable things that I know will change our proselyting and teaching!

On Tuesday I got to meet a family that had been to church before I got here but then stopped going. They´re not members. It´s a mom and her two kids. Leo is 10 years old and he participated in the primary program and everything! We found out that they stopped going to church because the kid´s dad who lives in Canada said that the Mormon church is bad and doesn´t want his kids going there. But as we interacted with the mom, Ana, she completly changed! She wants to go back to church and wants her kids to go to church! She told us that she was moving, so we offered to help her. Wednesday morning we only had a couple of minutes, but we arrived at her house and she was very grateful for the help we gave her. I´m excited to continue to teach them! 

Yesterday Hna Aleixo and I sung ¨regocijad! Jesus Nacio¨in sacrament meeting with a couple other members. It really got me thinking about Christmas time. The song talks about how we REJOICE because Jesus was born and the bad things of the world are taken away because we have a salvador! I am grateful for Jesus Christ and His atonement. I know that through Him we can be better people. I´m changing and have changed because of Him and I´ll forever be grateful! LOVE YOU ALL! You should all do the 25 days of christmas of the church. Light the World

Les Quiero MUCHO!

Hermana Lawrence

Only in the DR

Only in the DR will you be traveling on public transportation and people will be having arguments about who has more sins than the other....So we were traveling to another part of our area (its so big it would take over an hour and a half to walk to some parts of our area!) in a guagua and it was  FULL. We were sitting in the back and because the guagua was so weighed down when it went into gutters or lower parts the back would scratch on the cement. The guagua driver yelled ¨the people in the back must have a lot of sins!¨ Then the two other women sitting in the back got REALLY mad. They started yelling that he was the one who had a lot of sins and that everyone in the back was christian ¨gracias a Dios¨ haha. 

Another weird thing...we were walking in the street and we passed in front of another church and they were singing ¨when there´s love at home¨ but to like a different tune...

So Cleopatra had her baptismal interview this week,, but long story short she didn´t pass, so we´re still working with her. She´s a little frustrated that she can´t get baptized, but we´re hoping it can be in this week.

Washing the family dog

We´ve been working a lot with Ailyn. She´s 10 years old and is READING the book of mormon. She´s in 1 nefi 10 and told us the entire story of what had been happening since the begining of the book. Even what each person said. She had her interview this week as well and passed, but she says that she wants to recieve a confirmation before being baptized, but she also told us that she isn´t praying to recieve a confirmation, so we invited her to do so. We also did service for her family by washing their dog....haha

We had a fun thanksgiving lunch for our zone meeting (our meeting is on friday, soo...) with really yummy food! Hna Aleixo and I made a yummy brazilian dessert to take. We went around and said all the things we are grateful for. It was a cool experienceª

We´ve been seeing opposition, but also a lot of opportunity and we are going to see SO much success in december and january and the months that are coming!

I love you all so much and hope you have the holliest, jolliest week ever!

Hermana Lawrence

Thanksgiving lunch with our zone!

Christmas countdown!

Lluvia! (Rain!)

This week was great! It was a week of some really long days, but those ones are always the best...It´s been a week of a lot of rain too....I don´t think I´ve stayed dry. haha

Angelica is a cute little girl that is really interested. She´s 12 years old. When we arrived at her house (we were a little late) she was there reading her book of mormon! We stayed outside her house just watching her (probably a little creepily...oops) because we were amazed at how diligently she was reading! She then told us the whole story about Nefi and his famliy. When we went back later in the week she had written us the story and drawn pictures of ¨hermana Aleixo and Hna Laura¨ (I´m hermana laura...lawrence is not a thing here) and it is adorable! Unfortunatly she lives really far from the church and doesn´t have money to get there, so we are working with members so she can get to church because she really wants to be baptized.

We also visited Cleopatra this week! She´s amazing! She is 51 years old and has been investigating for a while now, but she accepted to be baptized this saturday! She loves the gospel!

A HUGE miracle we had this week was that we had 9 investigators at church, and the majority of them are people that we´ve never even visited before! This week we´re going to be super busy visiting all of them! I am so excited to start this new week!

I read a talk this week that I really loved. It is for missionaries, but I think it can apply to everyone! It says that we should always be ready to talk about the Savior and have his name on our lips, always testify of Him. It doesn´t matter how much we talk about the Savior, it´s never too much! I am grateful for the atonement of Jesus Christ and that we have a savior!

Love you all! Have the best week ever! (Especially with Thanksgiving...I´ll be here in the DR eating green bananas and chicken :))

Hermana Lawrence

In my zone we´re 4 hermanas...and the other three are from Brasil!

I´ve got my gang of brasileñas! 

Estoy en Higuey!

Sorry about the crazy email last week! But right now I have been working in Higüey for almost a week now! It is very beautiful here! My companion, Hermana Aleixo, is from Brasil and has about 4 months in her mission! We get along really well and she´s teaching me portuges! I´m pretty pummped to be here! It was SO bittersweet leaving Gazcue, but I know that I´m here where I am for a reason! The area is SOOOOOOOOO big. I don´t think I´m ever going to be able to learn all the streets and places. 

My first day here we were able to but a baptismal date for a 13 year old boy named Jefferson. He lives with his aunt because his mom lives in the US. He is haitian, so speaks French, Creole, Spanish and even some English! They have a hymn book in french, so we sang some christmas songs in french. Let´s just say I´m forever grateful I´m learning spanish and NOT french. That is very difficult! And yes, it is christmas here. It starts on October 15th and ends in January....everyone already has their christmas trees and lights everywhere! And we have been singing christmas hymns for a couple of weeks now! haha

On Saturday we had a conference with ELDER COOK! Technically he was in Santiago and broadcast to us here, but still. He spoke to the three missions that are here in the DR. IT WAS AMAZING. One thing that really stood out to me is the apostolic promise he gave to us. It was that one day, every single one of us will realize that our mission was not for us. It was and is for someone else. I know that my mission has and IS changing me. I am closer to our Savior Jesus Christ, I have a stronger testimony of the restauration, and there are so many changes I can´t even count them. But to know that someday I´ll realize that this mission isn´t for me, is incredible to me. I don´t know...it just hit me. After the conference, we went as a zone to El Seibo to do a cosecha. It is a beautiful area in the mountains! I helped push a giant truck to help it start and then we contacted the people there using the book of mormon. Then we played leap frog with a bunch of kids and contacted them and their parents with the book of mormon. Being a missionary is just plain fun! 

Well, I´ll try to write a better email next week...haha LOVE YOU ALL!

Hermana Lawrence

A beautiful Catholic Cathedral in our area

Standing on the roof of our house

This area is beautiful!

Dirt roads in our area

Hola!

Today is a holiday and all the internet sites are closed, so i am quickly writing in the office so thats

Raiza's Baptism

why everything is so loco!

First things first... TRANSFERS!!!  I'm leaving my lovely Gazcue after six months of being here... It's bittersweet!  I really love this crazy area.:-)  I'm going to HIGUEY! The furthest area of hermanas from the office.  I'm going to be with Hna. Alexio from Brasil who just finished her training and I'm going to be the Hermana Leader.  Hna. Jensen is staying here in Guzcue... AND TRAINING! Whoo! I'm so excited for her.  She will be AMAZING!  But I'll miss her a

TON!!!  She's the best!

This week was crazy!  Tuesday Raiza got baptized! It was a really awesome experience for Hna. Jensen and me to be able to help out Maria Aviliadora... and something that I've learned lately is that "converts" are not "ours", they're the Lord's.  Raiza was really happy.  :-)  (what a better way to spend Halloween)

Wednesday... Consejo de Lideres was amazing!  Learn a lot!  I

don't remember much of this week.. Haha!

Saturday we sent to Familia Acosta's to do service.  The ward has been planning for a while to fix up their house because they have very humble circumstances.  The ward brought them beds, food, painted their house and fixed it up A LOT!  The family  basically every single member shared their testimonies on Sunday crying saying how grateful they were and it was an awesome experience!

Summer was baptized on Saturday.  He's been investigating on andoff for a long time and it really is a miracle how
easily he accepted to be baptized. His service was great!  The spirit was strong!

...okay... I don't remember a ton right now...

LOVE you all!
Hermana Lawrence

For Halloween we carved a papaya.  It works incredibly well!