Me voy de Yamasa! Transfers!

Me voy de Yamasa Familia y amigos!

My time in Yamasa has come to an end.  I have thoroughly enjoyed my time here.  What a pleasure it has been.  the people here are amazing and it is just beautiful.  It has been an amazing 4 months in Yamasa!  I am being transferred to the province La Romana which is close to the ocean and more in the east part of the country.  I have heard it is beautiful and the people are great so I am excited to be going.  It is sad to leave Yamasa, but it is a part of the mission and I know the Lord needs me in a different place at this time.

But this week went well.  We are having some troubles receiving permission for Franchesca to be baptized but the missionaries and the branch president are going to keep working with her on that.  She has a desire to be baptized and I know in the future she will be.  She is amazing, goes to church every Sunday, goes to seminary and mutual.  She is so prepared!

But not a lot of time today.  But I hope you are all doing well and great.  I will talk to you next week from La Romana!

Love,

Hermana Steed

Time is flying!

Wow time just continues to get faster and faster. It feels like I just wrote to you all yesterday but yet so much has happened! We got fed so much yesterday it wasn’t even funny. Everyone was just giving us food. I probably ate one pound of rice. I felt so sick, but here it is really rude to turn down food so somehow we just keep eating. But we are feeling better today.

Franchesca is doing well! She participated in new beginnings with the young women this week and we are going to talk with her dad tonight for permission to be baptized this Sunday. So we are excited about this!

We are trying to find more opportunities to serve and find investigators that way, because service really does work.  People just invite you right into their house and let you serve them and then we just talk to them and ask if we can return and share our message with them.

In one of our lessons this week it was a little strange. Her mother in law is having some mental problems and runs away so this older lady was literally chained to a table by her foot. It was actually really sad. But an interesting story in the mission.

 

We also see many very large pigs in the countryside. They are also very dirty as pigs usually are!

Things are going well. I really do think I will be transferred. Our branch president had me speak in church with 10 minute warning. He said usually when he has these impressions it means I am leaving. So lots of people think i will be leaving. I will be sad to leave Yamasa, but I know that it means I am meant to be somewhere else!

I hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Hermana Steed

I love getting letters!

Me at our zone activity after flour was
thrown into my face a few times

5 months!!

Today we were going to go on a hike but the bridge was
flooded. It rained all day yesterday so lots of water, dirty
water at that!

I am hitting 5 months in the mission tomorrow!  How crazy is that??  

Well not too much to report this week and not a lot of time to write so I will make things quick.

We found out that Elder Andersen will be coming in March so that is exciting for the mission.  When an apostle is coming that is all people talk about!  We implemented our new schedule this week.  Basically we just have a little more time in the morning and we plan in the morning and then we have more liberty to choose when we do our other studies in the afternoon so that is nice!

One awesome thing this week was with one of our investigators Franchesca.  She has been a little hesistant with baptism.  When we invited her last Monday evening to be baptized she was a little on the edge but accepted.  On Thursday when we went we were going to see what her doubts were.  The Spirit guided us on the questions to ask and we thought she was going to start expressing her concerns, but instead she said that she really enjoys what the church teaches and the Gospel and she would like to get baptized.  One of the happiest moments in my mission!  I just felt this happiness fill the room; it truly was amazing!  So in the next week or 2 she will be getting baptized!

Toda esta bien con la obra misional aqui en Yamasa!  Espero que todo esta bien alla!  Love and miss you all and oh Happy Valentines Day!

Love,

Hermana Steed

See yourself the way God sees you!

Hello Family and Friends!

This week went well.  As you know we as a mission had the goal for 300 souls that entered the waters of baptism in January. Unfortunately we did not reach our goal as we had some disobedience in our mission, but nonetheless the Lord blessed us for those who were obedient. We had 255 children of our Heavenly Father enter the waters of baptisms in January! This is a mission record!  It was sad, but amazing news all at the same time. Also our zone broke our previous record so that was exciting!

We had zone conference this week and our mission President talked a lot about faith and seeing yourself how God sees you. In Doctrine and Covenants Section 76:94 it talks about how when we stand before God we will see ourselves how he sees us, but we can start to do that now by asking, studying our patriarchal blessings, and studying the scriptures.

In the zone conference many people talked about the many miracles they saw in January. This really is the Lords work and He is a God of miracles!

Right now we are teaching a young women named Franchesca. She is 17 years old and is a reference of a member. She always comes to church and really is progressing. She has a lot of energy and excitement about her. We have seen a great change in her and are working with her to be baptized hopefully this month!

Dioni got confirmed this week, which was very exciting. He was even at church on time, which is a miracle for Dominicans! And for the first time he showed up at church in a white shirt and tie. Many people struggle to have a white shirt and tie, so I think that made him feel good that he could dress up for Sunday!

Funny thing for the week was I tried to teach one of our investigators English. The simple phrase: How are you?  I taught him to respond good, thank you. When I asked him “How are you?” he replied Gracias. He did this multiple times. It was really funny because he is not even saying thank you in English and it just doesn’t make sense. We all got a kick out of it.

Things are going well here in the Dominican Republic. It is slowly getting hotter and hotter, but I still can sleep without a fan! Yay!

Love you all and have a great week!

Love,

Hermana Steed