So Much Happening!

Hermanas Castillo, Stewart, Lawrence, Jovel, and Jones

Hermana Lawrence's first four companions

Hello everyone! Can't believe it's already been another week!

Valentine's Day

Tuesday was Valentines day (and also my cumplemes!) So we celebrated with a super fancy dinner of tostadas, coke, ice cream, and heart suckers...It was super healthy too. haha 

So If you can remember weeks ago when I told you about Paulino! He has progressed SO much in the past two weeks. It is seriously so amazing! His story is a long one, but I don't have TONS of time...So here's my favorite parts: He was a man who liked his women, beer, smoking and coffee, but when we invited him to church and then he came, little did he know his life he liked was going to change for the better! He is giving up (or already has given up) all of these things so he can be baptized! He told us this week that when he wakes up at 2:00 in the morning and can't go back to sleep he reads his Book of Mormon (tear of happiness). Every time we pass him on the street he has a water in his hand (before it was always a beer). He has a really strong testimony! He is seriously a changed man and is continuing to change. He lives really close to the church and was telling us that for 30 years he has lived in this house and never vistited this church. He told us that the old bishop of this ward was one of his good friends but never talked to him about the gospel because he didn't seem like the kind of guy who would ever accept the gospel. This gave me a testimony to never judge someone by their cover and to never judge who will accept the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He had an interview with the bishop on friday night and then sunday he had his baptismal interview. There's a couple of things that still need to be worked out, so he has an interview with President Corbitt this week, but if all goes well he will be baptized on Saturday! :) 

We have been teaching a family, the Family Madrina, and they are the cutest ever! They are 5 little girls and ADORABLE. We found them and they told us that they had missionaries before, but one day they just stopped coming. They had a Book of Mormon and everything. They love the hymns (we sing everytime we go) so I gave them a hymn book and in the front, Suleikey, wrote "from hermana Lawrence" so cute! The only problem is they live really far from the church building and their parents won't go to church and no members live by them so It is going to be difficult to get them to church.

Raider is another investigator that had a baptismal interview yesterday. He is 21 years old. So he didn't really know that we were coming with the Elder's (oops) BUT he passed and said that he wants to get baptized! Yay! He is another that had missionaries a long time ago, but they stopped going. He

also has 5 brothers that can get baptized...and his mom and dad...so we have a lot of work to do :) They were showing us pictures that they had with the Hermanas before!

Today for P day we went to SWEET FROG! So when we went to visit Sierra's misison, we went to a Sweet Frog. So when I saw this here in the DR I freaked out! haha funny :)

I tried two new things this week: charamusca in form of a popsicle and chicharon. They are both really yummy! I realized today as I was eating my mangu how normal it is to just eat plantains and rice and beans. Like, I can't even remember what I ate before plantains and rice and beans. What else is there?

Love you all! -Hermana Lawrence

Feliz Lunes! (Happy Monday!)

Hermana Lawrence / a guineo (banana) tree

Feliz Lunes! I hope everyone is doing Splendid!

So last Monday night we were talking to Ambar and she told us that a little calle close to her house lives someone that she would always go visit with the missionaries before but never got baptized. So I wrote that down in my agenda and we went on with our night because we didn't have time to go contact it in that moment. The next morning was SLOW. I feel like it always is super slow when you're having to show a new companion your area and you feel pressure. But, we went to some streets that I haven't been to before to contact and try to find new investigators. We weren't having much luck, so we started heading back to go visit a menos activo. As we were passing Ambar's street, I saw a woman hanging her clothes out to dry. I had the distinct promping to go and help her. I was about to push aside the prompting, but I just couldn't. We helped her hang up her clothes and then started to talk to her about our church. She told us that she wasn't interested, that she had talked to missionaries antes but she wasn't really interested right now. We asked her if she knew anyone else that would like to hear our message and she told us about missionaries going down the SAME little calle that ambar told us about. So of course we went to go down the street. The first house we came to there was a woman taking clothes down from a line. We said "Hola!" and then she told us to wait a minute. She went into her house and came back out. She had been crying a LOT. We started talking to her and she told us that she lost her son 6 months ago. We shared with her a little message and invited her to the Relief Society activity the next day. She said she would come and so we put another cita with her. Fast forward to the day of the activity: we went to go remind Yorlina about the activity, but she wasn't home. Her neighbor, however, Christina, was sitting outside and told us to come talk to her. Yorlina had invited Christina to the activity too! So we shared lessson one with her and then later that night brought them to the activity! It was absolutely wonderful! All the hermanas in the ward were so welcoming and the two of them loved it! Friday we had another lesson with the two of them and a member, Delia. Yorlina and Christina were talking about how they have never gotten baptized because in all the churches they have visited in their life, they never felt that they wanted to get baptized in those churches. The spirit was WAY strong in this lesson. Delia bore her testimony and it was absolutely perfect! Yorlina commented in this lesson "How did you guys find me?" Because that day that we first talked to her she was super sad and then we showed up and made her feel much better. We told her that we were sent by God :) haha We then invited them to be baptized on the 28th of THIS MONTH and they BOTH ACCEPTED. Yorlina told us that she works sundays, but she was going to quit her job and look for a different job just so she could come to church! Her and Christina came and they LOVED IT. Christina told the little kids that were being noisy in sacrament meeting to be quiet because she wanted to listen. This is definitely a milagro and a testimony builder to SIEMPRE listen to the spirit!

Kirsey, Ambar, and Nomar - I love this family!

AYE MI MADRE! Yesterday we went to Kirsey, Ambar and Nomar's house. I had told Nomar that he was going to teach US the first lesson (because he is going to go on a MISSION! YAYYYYYYY!) He brought out five things of his deodorant and a math book and a llama. I was a little bit confused at first. But then he used the 5 things as columnas in the church of Jesus Christ and showed everything in that! and then when it came to the part with Joseph Smith, he used the llama as Joseph Smith and used his cell phone light as the columna de luz and recited the first vision! IT WAS THE BEST THING EVER. I wanted to cry. Nomar has come such a long

ways. I remember when he didn't even want to get baptized and now he can teach the first lesson and he wants to serve a mission. I want to cry tears of JOY! I almost did! Gosh, this kid.

There was a mission reunion in our church building of missionaries from like 30 years ago in this mission. For lunch we went and got food and there were SO MANY WHITE PEOPLE. It was so weird. Everyone spoke english and were from Utah....haha. The mission president came and talked to us and told us that Hermanas are so much better than Elders. He made two of his Hermanas Assistants! Thats how much he likes hermanaS! 

So many other milagros this week! I love missionary work! I LOVE THIS GOSPEL. SE QUE ES VERDADERO. 

LOVE YOU ALL! Hermana Lawrence :)

Investigators with a quote on their house -

"My father is the king of the world, and I am the son of Him"

Hermana Lawrence, Nuris, Samaria, and Isagenie

Ya Febrero?

Wow! I can't believe that it is February already! So we had our transfers this week and my new

companion is Hna Jovel from El Salvador. She has 5 months in the mission (one transfer before me). I am excited to work hard with her in this area and have even more baptisms and bring more almas unto Christ!

Hermana Lawrence & Hermana Jovel

So our misson didn't reach our goal of 300 baptisms in January. Our misson baptized 255 people in January, which is still an amazing number (and it's not all about numbers...). When the misson first opened in 1990, there were 250 baptisms in that month, and up to this point that was the most in one month. We broke a record! Also my zone baptized 19 which is a record breaker also! But we're not giving up! We have the promise from our Heavenly Father that we are going to baptize 300 people in a month and we are going to achieve this! Our things that we have to do are:

1. Have EXCEPTIONAL Faith

2. Be EXACTLY obedient

3. Repent

4. Talk with EVERYONE and ask reference from EVERYONE (even those who reject us)

5. Work with the goals of our wards

We are promised if we do all these five things perfectly, we will be blessed with these 300 almas! 

We had a zone meeting with President Corbitt this past Friday and we recieved good news! ELDER NEIL ANDERSON IS COMING TO OUR MISSION IN MARCH! I am so super excited! CAN'T WAIT! 

LOVE YOU ALL SOOOOOO MUCH! Heavenly Father loves you MUCHO MUCHO!

Hna Lawrence

(The one picture is Yolanda Urena and her kids. She had her baby this past week and I couldn't but help think about my sobrino that is coming THIS MONTH. I'm kind of freaking out that I'm going to be an aunt!)