I love being a missionary!

I finally played baseball in República Dominicana! We were walking in the street and 3 boys, Michael, Jaime and Alexnis were playing with make-shift baseballs and a broom handle. We went up to them and said "we want to play!"so they let us try and of course I hit it out of the park ;) haha they were impressed and we talked to them for a while about the church and everything and they have SO much potential. It's definitly the most fun way I've contacted yet! We have a cita with them tomorrow!

Last monday when we were out we were heading back to the house in a hurry and then a guy from his car yelled (in english) "hey! Where are you going?" We kept walking because we thought he was just another freco, but he was pretty persistent and in my mind I thought "hablar con todas"so we went over to him and started talking to him. He would only talk in broken english and I would respond in spanish because I wanted Hna Castillo to understand. He seemed pretty freco, so we just gave him a pass-along card with our names and the direction to the church and invited him to church. Didn't think much of it. Fast forward to Sunday. We were sitting in sacrament meeting and a guy walks in that isn't a member and none of us recognize him. He sits in the very front row and then starts looking around. He turned around and started waving at me. I had no clue who he was! So time went on and sunday was fast and testimony meeting. HE GOT UP TO THE PULPIT. He got up there and said "This is my first week here. I was invited by (and he holds up the card) Hermana Lawrence and Hermana Castillo. Thank you" and then he sat down. Hna castillo and I looked at each other in terror because we could not for the life of us remember who he was. After the meeting we were talking to him and asked him where we talked to him and he said he was the taxista! Ah. So embarassing. But so wierd. Anyway, milagro.We also had many more milagro investigators in the church on Sunday! I am so happy about all of them!

This morning we went and visited a contact and we sat down and started como comenzar ensenar (prepare to start teaching) and everything. I had the prompting to share el plan de salvación. She had no clue that we even existed before this life! I love being a missionary and teaching these amazing gospel principles to people! I love seeing their faces light up! And then when we got to after we die, she started crying. We were talking to her and she shared with us her story. About 3 months ago her husband went missing and then a while later they found him dead. She (obviously) is still really heartbroken. We shared our testimonies (with tears) that she will be able to see her husband again! It was actually difficult to talk through my tears haha The spirit was so strong! I love the message of hope this gospel brings! ❤   

I read a quote this week that I really liked: "That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do, not that the nature of the thing has changed, but that our power to DO is increased" -Ralph Waldo Emerson

I hope everyone has the best week ever! I love you all! 

Hermana Lawrence

Feliz Ano Nuevo!

I hope all of you had the happiest of New Years! Mine was incredible. On New years eve (saturday) we had a last minute meeting with President Corbitt and it was AMAZING. I learned so much and it was a great pump-up for us all. We have the promise that our mission will baptize 300 almas in the month of January, which is crazy, but it will happen with our fe excepcional! President Corbitt is really the best. Then in the night we went to a members house for dinner (weirdly enough, we had more invitations for new years eve dinner than we did christmas..) and we got to eat SANCOCHO!!!! AH! I have missed eating this wonderful soup! Then in the night, the other hnas came into our room at midnight and yelled FELIZ ANO NUEVO! and then they watched the crazy fireworks....I didn't hear any of this...so I didn't wake up. So my new years eve was spent sleeping..haha I guess I was tired.

One morning when Hna Castillo and I went out, we saw 7 (Thats right, SEVEN) Jehova's Witnesses within like 5 minutes. They are everywhere! Luckly we have a message that is true so we need not fear!

One thing that we are supposed to do is hablar con todas (talk to everyone). Saturday morning we were walking in the street and decided to talk to this guy because we're supposed to talk to everyone, right. Usually we wouldn't have talked to him because he looked pretty sketchy, but hablar con todas! We invited him to church on sunday. HE CAME! Aye mi madre. Seriously a miracle! He even walked with some members he found on the way! Us 4 hnas gave talks in sacrament meeting about the plan of salvación and after the meeting we talked to him and he said he wanted to learn more! He had never heard of this before and he loved it! MILAGROS!

Sunday Dinner! :-(

Well, LOVE YOU ALL! The picture with popcorn is really funny because we got to the night on

sunday and realized we didn't have any food but popcorn (and a couple of almonds) haha. Luckily we found more food in our cupboards and made a fancy dinner of rice, tuna and hard boiled eggs. Oh, the life of a missonary. It's grand! (But really, i love it) Don't worry though. We went grocery shopping today! :)

Love,
Hermana Lawrence

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

Templo, Accion de Gracias, y Jardin

Botanical Gardens on P-day

Aye mi MADRE! It has been a busy, really rewarding, crazy, amazing week! On Tuesday we got to go to the temple and do a session! It was so great to go back! My first session in spanish! We get to go to the temple every 3 months here! AH! :) While there I went into the CCM and saw Hermana Lynch! (Gabbie) We took pictures together, but (i am devistated about this) somehow all my pictures from the beginning of my mission got deleted! I let another hna look at the pictures on my camera, and when I got it back, they were ALL gone. I am sad, but it's okay. I'm making up for the lost ones by taking even more! haha 

Thursday was Accion de Gracias (thanksgiving) and they don't celebrate it here, but we celebrated with our zone! We ate chicken, rice, mashed potatoes, green bananas, rolls, and stuffing. Then for dessert we had brownies, arroz con leche (kind of like rice pudding....I think?) and cinnomon rolls (that I HOMEMADE because my mom sent me her recipie :)) It was really fun and yummy! I want to start a tradition of having green bananas every thanksgiving now! They're actually really yummy! 

Thanksgiving dinner

That night we went out proselyting like normal. I really forgot it was even a holiday! The night was absolutely AMAZING. WE HAD SO MANY MIRACLES! It started out that within 5 minutes ALL of our citas fell through. We were praying to know what we should do. We went to one of our investigators that we haven't really been able to teach yet (in the 5 weeks we have been here) and she was there and her mom and her brother AND her grandma! We were able to teach them and they want to get baptized! We taught another family that night that has so much potential also! It's really true that when you are serving other people you really forget about yourself. 

BUT that's not all! WE FOUND TWO MORE FAMILIES! Hna. Stewart and I are really seeing SO MANY miracles! We were told that we need to contact more, so we made a goal to contact 4 people a day. One night we had like 10 minutes before we had to go in for the night so we went up to a girl and shared a small message with her and she asked us to come back and teach her more, so on Sunday night we went back to teach her and it was her, her mom, and her two sisters! And the other family has three little girls, two old enough to get baptized and they want to get baptized! MIRACLES!

On sunday we went to a members house to eat lunch. The mom taught us how to cook really yummy food! We made pastelon which is mashed plantains and meat layered with cheese on top. And really yummy rice. I am excited to learn how to make many more yummy dominican dishes! 

Today for P-Day we went to the West mission....with permission, of course! The Hnas in our zone went to the Botanical Garden! IT IS amazing. I got to wear my chacos and I felt home being away from the city. Even though the plants were not like the plants in Utah, it really felt like being back! The gardens were amazing! There was a butterfly room we went into, and you know how usually it is super hot and humid when you go into butterfly rooms and they're indoors? Well this was outside and just kind of like a mesh tent because it is already hot and humid here :) haha We took a nice lunch of PB&J and chips, and banana, and Strawberry, Chinola juice! Side note: I just found out that chinola is acctually passion fruit...I love it.

Well, there's a lot of pictures and a lot of writing, but this dosn't even start to express how much goes on here. I love the work and I am so happy. Love y'all!

Hermana Lawrence

Preparing Thanksgiving Dinner

Thanksgiving dinner

At the botanical gardens