Don't Worry! I Survived Hurricane Maria!

Monday a lot of things happened, so that´s why I wasn´t able to write. It just so happened to be after the hurricane (Maria) ..so I am sorry. I´m doing well, we had transfers and I am staying another transfer (my 4th) here in Gazcue with Hna Jensen to finish her training. I´m still assigned to be the Hna Lider also. I´m excited for a new transfer and new miracles! I love you all! Thanks for all the prayers and thoughts! We are still in a different house...haha. We were fine during the hurricane. A lot of wind, rain, lightning and thunder. But we baked cupcakes (the ones you sent me, mom) so obviously we were fine...There´s a member from our ward that has a son serving in Puerto Rico, and all the missionaries are being evacuated. Her son is going to Colorado. The mission President and his wife of Puerto Rico are probably going to be staying in the house we´re in right now....so I might be homeless the next time I write you on monday. haha I´m sure they´ll find us a place. But I´m doing well. The work is going well, and I love you all!

Transfers!

Waiting out Hurricane Maria

One Year!!!

I have one year of....

Living on a tropical island

Eating rice and beans for every meal

Being called Gringa, Rubia, Mi Amor, and Americana

Walking for endless hours in the hot sun

Preaching the Gospel

Being with someone 24/7

Speaking Spanish

Sweating profundly just for walking like a normal person

Being eaten by mosquitos (and sometimes bed bugs...)

Showing with dirty, cold water

Eating the best fresh fruit smoothies 

Waking up at 6:30

Being around the best people in the world

BEING A REPRESENTATIVE OF JESUS CHRIST!!

It´s been a great year! I wouldn´t change the time here for ANYTHING!

It´s been a decent week as well! We had a ward activity on tuesday night! Noche de Cine! We had quite a few investigators there! We watched Meet the Mormons.

We also found a family this week! They´re super great and Im exited to teach them more! WE also have a new investigator from Aruba, so she speaks 4 languages! Its super cool talking to her and learing about all the different cultures she knows! She has so much potential also, so things are looking up as far as new investigators go! The way we found her is a MIRACLE as well. We literally showed up at the perfect time!

 TIme is flying by! I can't believe Hna Jensen and I only have one more week as her first transfer! I am hoping and praying that we can stay together! Yesterday we got another companion as well! Hna Falcon. She´s from the DR, so we´re going to make her cook us yummy dominican food every day! It was a special transfer...Apparently things were going on, I don´t really know what...but apparently we´re supposed to be careful...haha. A lot of times I really think President has a LOT more trust in me than he should. 

We also had to move out of our apartment again!!! WHOOO! We still have bed bugs! Technically I think we´ve had them for the past weeks because we´ve all had bug bites, but we just barely told hna smith yesterday, so we had to pack up and move for the week to a different apartment. haha

I love the gospel! I love the time that I have here! I LOVE YOU ALLLL!!!

Hermana Lawrence

What Hurricane???

This week was interesting. We were going crazy buying tons of water, storing water in containers, preparing to evacuate our house even...Wednesday night we had to come into the house an hour early and Thrusday we weren't allowed to leave the house to proselyte. We had 8 hermanas in our house! The hermanas that are in the areas that were most going to get effected by the hurricane. We studied, planned, ate (some really good rice and beans...haha) and played a game with hymns...haha misson life. We were just waiting for the storm to come. It was overcast, windy, rainy and there were thunderstorms, but nothing that yelled "HURRICANE" When we were allowed to leave on Friday there were leaves and branches and a lot of trash in the streets, but that's actually quite normal in this country...so long story short, I didn't see any real impact from the hurricane (but now everyone is telling us that there's another coming?) All the Dominicans tell us that everyone in the country is so believing and pray so much that the natural disasters won't ever effect us here! Haha I am grateful for all the prayers that are said!

We have been contacting with the Book of Mormon a lot! It's been cool to see the reactions (this week we've gotten that we worship Joseph Smith, that we can marry more than one person, that we're wrong, that we're Jehova's witnesses....and so much more!) and we have been able to feel the spirit while contacting! We set a very high goal for the number of people we wanted to contact. Everyone in the zone was like "that many people just for your goal of baptisms?" but we showed them! We contacted 3 more people than our goal! We're praying that our efforts will eventually lead to progressing investigators. This week was hard for visting investigators because we had Consejo de Lideres and Interviews with president, but we made sure we still made contact with them through phone calls-made sure they were okay through the storm! 

Funny thing: we were walking in the street one day and something hit my face and it hurt really bad. I yelled at Hna Jensen: "Get it off! Get it off!" IT WAS A BEE AND WHEN THE BEE LEFT THE STINGER WAS STUCK IN MY NOSE. Luckily Hna Jensen remembered some first aid and she took the stinger out with a card instead of her hand...haha I think that's a thing. It hurt. I don't think a bee has ever stung my nose before that....

We've been doing cosechas in all the areas in the zone. We went to Villa Agricolas on saturday and it was refeshing to go to a "normal" area and work there. Then on Sunday everyone came to our area. We got some references and we hopefully will be able to see results! The ward was really supportive as well. Pretty much all the elders that came (there were like 10  elders) were able to do divisions and go out with members! 

I love being a missionary and I love being able to see change in people. I am grateful for every hard thing I have to go through. I am grateful I can learn patience in afflictions. I love you all and hope you all have the greatest week ever! 

We went bowling for P'Day with some of our besties!

Hermana Lawrence

The Book of Mormon has POWER!

It´s been a good week! We have been contacting A TON because we have had to drop (and all my investigators got cut in half when the area divided) a lot of investigators. It has been long, hot days, but I know that we are and will be rewarded and see the miracles from our obedience and diligence! We are continually striving to be more obedient, and I know we will be blessed from it! 

One cool experience we had from contacting is we were walking in a park and Hna Jensen said ¨lets contact her¨so we walked over and started talking to her. Her name is Brenda. She was telling us about her family and then how she had been having some difficulties in her life. We pulled out a book of Mormon and read Alma 7:11-12 but put her name in it. We then told her we wanted to give her the book so that she could find the peace and joy from it....and she started crying! She told us that she felt so blessed that we were giving her the book! It made me realize that I need to be so grateful for the book of mormon, even more than I am! And that the Book of Mormon has POWER. And as we can use the power of the book in any situation! There have been various other contacts that have really impacted me and really taught me to follow the promptings of the spirit and not to judge who to talk to and not. FOLLOW THE SPIRIT!

We had a noche de hogar in a less actives house last night. There were so many relief society sisters there! Sifrida (the less active) invited her neighbors, which is a Mom, Loren, and her two sons, Joel and Adriel and then her 3 nieces and nefew (wow...is that how you spell it??) Esther, Erene, and Ermes. They´re a great family and we have an appointment to go visit them this week! MILAGRO! Sifrida is excited to help us teach them as well! 

We got to eat sancocho 3 TIMES this week. The members in this area all made sancocho and then they all explained to hna Jensen that it was a typical dominican dish. I think hna jensen is almost ¨aplatanada¨ how they say it here haha She´s doing so great. I feel very blessed that she´s so easy! She´s teaching me soooooo much!

We had a zone activity today and the elders all suprised me with a cake with exploding candles! haha Happy birthday again! 

Love you all so much! have the absolute besst weeekkkk evvveerrrr!!!

Hermana Lawrence