Week 11 in the mission field!

Family and Friends!

I hope you are all doing well in the freezing cold!  It sounds like it has been a really cold winter thus far in good old Utah!  I am enjoying the heat and humidity of the beautiful Dominican Republic!

Things are going well here in Yamasa!  This is the last week of the transfer and I have so much energy and excitement to start this week!  We have been working with a couple of people who are prepared to accept this gospel, but unfortunately we did not have any investigators at Church on Sunday.  This seems to be a continuous problem here in the Dominican Republic.  But the Lord has really prepared people and with that comes the tempations of Satan.  We are putting our trust in the Lord and working as hard as we can to strengthen the people we are teaching.  We have been contacting a lot and have found some people who have potential.  After much tribulation comes a lot of blessings.  We see blessings everyday but I know that the Lord has something great in store here in Yamasa!

Today we went to Villa Mella for our zone activity.  We played scripture chase games and ate some food.  One of the scripture chase games was if you didnt know the scripture the other person got to put whipped cream in your face. First I got to put whip cream in an Elders face but the last time I fell as victim!  (Pictures attached).  It was fun to get together with our zone and have some fun!

The mission is great.  On Saturday I will have completed 4 months!  Wow 4 months already.  The language is coming along, I still have a long way to go, but have also come a long way.  The Lord is blessing me and I know that He will bless you too as you follow His commandments.  Obedience is the first law of Heaven!

Love you all and have a great week!

Hermana Steed

Happy New Year- 2017!

Happy 2017 Everyone!  I hope this year brings so many wonderful blessings to you all!

January is going to be a great month in the mission!  As a mission we are working to baptize 300 souls this month.  We have been working on this goal for a while, but this week we had a meeting with President Corbitt and set specific goals for each of our areas in order to accomplish what we need to.  The Lord really has prepared people to accept this Gospel!

In Yamasa we have been planting a lot of seeds and we are seeing people that are prepared. We contact a lot, ask for references from everyone, and we find people to teach!  The mission really is an awesome and amazing experience!

We finally had another lesson with Familia Garcia. It has been a little difficult to have a lesson with the dad because we cannot go there at night right now, but we received special permission to go because they are not coming to church.  We have discovered part of the problem and will continue to work with him to work through his doubts.  I know that the Lord loves each and every one of his children and that we are all here to help His children along the way, but most importantly that our Savior Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father are here to help us along the way.  We just need to ask for the help and we will be amazed at the strength we receive.

What  a blessing a new year is, to start over, to reflect on our lives and think about where we want to be, what we want to accomplish over this next year.

As for the pictures this week they are of food, because well, the holidays bring food.  Here New Years Eve is a big deal and they have a huge dinner as well!  We got a call new Years Eve night at 8:30 for an invitation to a members house.  We called our leaders to receive permission but they said it was too late to go out.  So the members brought us the food, which was so kind!  And as always in the Dominican Republic they gave us soooo much food!  Haha we got a kick out of it, but it was so nice and yummy.  For celebrating the New year we had some glow sticks so that was our little party at 9:30 at night!  Happy new Year!

Well I hope you all have a wonderful week and New Year!  Be happy and optimistic.  The Lord loves you and is always there for you.  I know the Lord answers prayers and gives us strength.  This gospel is amazing and I know it is true!

Love you all,

Hermana Steed

Food, Food, and more food for Christmas

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas yesterday!  

Not much to report this week.  The missionary work is always a little hard during Christmas time, but we have spent a lot of time with members and their families.

Something fun on our way to the mission home for the Christmas celebration was that as a zone we all sang Christmas Songs in the metro!  It was fun to spread the holiday spirit.  A lot of people just stared at us but others joined in!  

We ate a lot of food this week, probably more than in my entire life!

We had our branch Christmas dinner, then we had our Mission Christmas Lunch, then we had our Christmas Eve dinner, (well 2 because we were invited to 2 houses), and then Christmas Lunch again!

Typical Christmas dinner

I am telling you lots and lots of food here.  Their Christmas is like our Thanksgiving.  But it was nice to be with other families and celebrate this Christmas Season!  It is a beautiful time to reflect on our Savior, Jesus Christ and His life!

Well I will attach a couple of pictures and I hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Hermana Steed

Christmas Picture

Have a very Merry Christmas

One of my favorite places in Yamasa, pictures do not do it justice

Hello everyone,

First off I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas this Sunday!

Not much has happened this week.  During christmas the missionary work is a little harder because a lot of people are gone and with their families, but we continue to contact and visit our investigators and visit members.

One fun experience this week was we went contacting and a lady gave us what they call naranja dulce.  So orange candy.  Well it was pretty terrible.  It is orange peel that is softened and in this gel thing.  She gave us so much of it, and sadly I had to gag it down.  I guess it is a really popular thing here, I felt bad but I did eat it all because it is nice that people give us stuff but I hope to not have to eat it again.  Haha!

This is a nicer home here, a lot of
people paint their homes bright colors

This past week was my 3 month mark in the mission- CRAZY!!  Time is flying.  Only 15 months left in the mission.  We have a lot of work to do here in Yamasa and continue to work hard!

Thanks for all your love and support!  Have a wonderful Christmas Day!

Love, 

Hermana Steed

A lot of homes here are just left undone, so this is common.

Beginning of Transfer 2

Nothing much to report this week.  But it was the beginning of my second transfer with my new companion Hermana Chamu.  She is from la Estado de Mexico, Mexico.  She is 22 years old and is the only child in her family.  She attended the university for 3 years previous to the mission and is studying law.  She does understand some English she just has a hard time speaking it.  So pretty much we are helping each other out!  It is difficult at times, but we get by!

Hermana Chamu and I

Right now we are trying to find more investigators, so we have been asking for references and contacting quite a bit.  So lots of good things to come.  We did contact someone yesterday that his friend from the capital gave him a Book of Mormon so we are going to start teaching him!

This week we had a stake activity where we sang and watched Church Christmas videos and we also got permission to watch the First Presidency Christmas Devotional.  It was really good, well what I could understand anyway!  Haha.

But things are good here and I love the Christmas season, even if I do not have the snow.  The Christmas season is a wonderful time to feel peace and reflect on our Saviors life!  Some of my favorite scriptures on peace are: John 14:26-27 and John 16:33.  I encourage you to read them!

Well I hope you all have a great week and continue to have a wonderful Christmas season!  Love you all!

Best wishes, 

Hermana Steed

This morning when we were about to leave we saw this large spider with her baby sack thing (I do not know what that is called), but anyway my companion had to make it leave with this stick and I ran into the house screaming because it almost came into the house!  I do not like spiders and spiders are large here!  Haha fun times! 

Transfer 1 and December already?

Avocados in the Dominican Republic
are huge and quite tasty!

Well I have completed my first transfer in the mission field.  We found out Saturday night what the transfers were.  I will be staying in Yamasa and my mission mom will be transfered to Hainamosa Campo.  So I will be getting a new companion tomorrow!  Her name is Hermana Chamu and she is from Mexico, and yes you are right, she speaks no English!

I am very nervous and I know that it will be hard the first couple of weeks, but I know I can do it and I know I need it for my spanish to improve.  But I do know that the Lord has confidence in me and I know I can do it with His help, so here we go!  No more english!

This week was great!  The Garcia Family finally came to church so they are starting to progress and the baptism of the kids should be sometime this month, but we are just working with them, but also being patient with the Lords timing.

Recent convert kids, Jorky and Jorkailes

We also had our mission tour with Elder Zivic from the Quorum of the Seventy.  It was really great he talked to us about how we should not just focus on baptisms but also retention, reactivation, and church attendence.  So we are really going to work on that because right now the branch here in Yamasa is struggling with that.
We drank a lot of fruit juice this week.  We keep having people just give us juice and it has been wonderful.  The juices here are amazing, they have so many different fruits here.  One of my favorite juices is chinola.  I have no idea how to explain it so sorry!

So as I have said before there are chickens every where here.  They just wander the streets, and yes people do kill them and eat them, but the other day I saw a guy driving and in one of his hands he was holding a chicken.  I just love these people.  When we go contacting and we talk to people there are always chickens and roosters just wandering into peoples houses.  It is really fun!

Family of Lesandra and Yorddan

Anyway a great week in the mission!  I hope you are all enjoying the snow and the Christmas season!  I am here enjoying the sun and rain and wonderful extreme humidity!  I wish you all the best!

Love,
Hermana Steed

Week 5 in the field!!

Hello everyone,

 

I hope you all had a great thanksgiving!

Updates for this week include me taking my first bucket shower!  You have not lived in the Dominican Republic until you have taken a bucket shower so check that off the list!

For Thanksgiving we made brownies at our Hermana Leaders house.  The ovens here are different so we didn’t really know what temperature it was at so the brownies never got really cooked before we had to go to bed so it was kind of like brownie soup!  Yummy!

Friday we went to the temple with a couple of zones.  We woke up at 4:30 to go to the temple and it was marvelous!  It was such a fun day.  On the way back though we ran into some obstacles.  The buses back to Yamasa stop around 6:30 and we got to the bus stop around 6 and no bus came.  But then a guy came and told us to catch another bus to go a different way.  We were with some other people so we did as we were told so we could get back.  Anyway we got on this bus and traffic was so so bad and we ended up being on a bus for 3 hours instead of the usual 45 minutes, but one of the girls we were with we contacted.  Her name is Anabel and she seemed really interested so we are going to visit her tomorrow!  

We also had investigators finally come to church!  Antonio and Chamil.  They are friends and have some really good questions.  Chamil questions religion a little bit because he thinks they are to control people, but we have been focusing on agency and the blessings that come from choosing the right and he seems to really enjoy it.  They both really enjoyed church and I am really excited to see them progress.

The Garcia family did not come to church and we were devastated so we went there later that day and found out that they really didn’t have an excuse not to come so we had a lesson on the importance of keeping the Sabbath day holy and partaking of the sacrament.  As of right now we have a date for the 3 kids for the middle of December.  We are hoping for this day because we have invited them to be baptized so many times, but hopefully now they understand the importance of going to church!

We also got to watch the Christmas video that the church put out as a member showed it to us.  It is AMAZING!!!  I encourage you all to watch it.  It shows how Christ lived His life and how we can do Christ like things today!  Watch it!!

The Dominican Republic is awesome sometimes interesting but awesome.  Cultural fact of the day is that people preach in all sorts of places.  People come onto the bus or the metro and just start to preach.  This morning some guy got on his roof and started preaching through a megaphone. I guess they beat us to it!  I am enjoying my mission!

Spiritual thought is read Alma 34:38.  Just because thanksgiving is over doesn’t mean we shouldn’t give thanks every day!

Love you all, 

Hermana Steed