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

First baptism and changes in the mission worldwide!

The Lord blessed us this week with a wonderful baptism!  

His name is Dioni and is 24 years old.  He is the brother of a member and wanted to learn more about the church.  He has a strong desire to follow Christ and change his life for good!  It has been an amazing experience watching him come unto Christ as he has kept his commitments and searched for an answer that this is the true Church of Christ.  We have been teaching him for over a month and he was prepared to accept this gospel!

He was baptized last night and thankfully my first baptism in the mission wasnt stressful, but was a special moment for him!  Pictures are attached.

Another thing this week was that as missionaries worldwide we had a training.  Part of this training was that they announced changes in the mission.  Our daily schedule will be changing this week.  They have given us more time in the mornings and we will be planning in the mornings instead of at night.  They made these changes to be more flexible for each area of the world and to help us arrange our schedule so after the mission we will find time to study our scriptures and so forth.  I think it will be a great change and helpful.  We find out what our President says on Thursday.  Our preparation day also starts at 8 am instead of 10 so that's nice.  for those of you who served missions you will understand this next part.  They changed the key indicators.  We only have 4 now that we report so that we aren't stressing about numbers of lessons as much anymore.  Which is super nice!

This week I had 2 rights of passage in the Dominican Republic.  The first was I ate Pica Pollo.  Pica Pollo´s are every where here are are just little places with chicken, rice, and fried plantains.  It is super cheap and actually pretty good!  The second right of passage was wearing a tuvi.  Every Dominican women wears a tuvi to bed for their hair not to get all crazy.  many women just where them in the street and one of our investigators put my hair in a tuvi.  It was funny because I am blonde and the tuvi was black so it looks kind of funny, picture attached.  I am becoming more Dominican every day!

This week we were also walking to one of our investigators and there was like 20 kids in the street and they asked me to speak in English so I did a little bit and they didnt understand but then they followed us down the street, it was pretty funny.  After the lesson they were all still in the street and just came up and started shaking my hand.  I felt a little famous for a minute, but it was really cute!

We are continuing to work hard here in Yamasa and find people to teach!  We see miracles every day, big and small!

I hope you all have a great week and a wonderful first week of February! Wow, February already!  Time is flying!  

Love,

Hermana Steed

Week 19

Me in front of an unfinished house, there are a lot of them here

Family and Friends,

One of the areas that is beautiful 
in our area some of the trees 
have orange blossoms so it 
reminded me of fall back home

Things are going well here in Yamasa! We saw some opposition with our investigators this week but are continuing to work with them through it all!  We were going to have 2 baptisms on Saturday but they didn’t come to church even when we went searching for them so that was a little hard but we are hoping on Sunday!  Yay! The baptisms are Gladys and Dioni! I will tell you more about them next week if they get baptized! We have some great things coming!

Some fun things this week was that I got to smash cocoa beans with this huge stick. I was sad that I didn’t have my camera, but it was a fun experience. I found out our new mission president from a sister that works in the office. His name is President Smith and he is from Florida. President Smith how fitting! haha  

Also in our zone meeting this week there was a huge spider in the church and one of the elders killed it with another elder’s jump rope. It was really hilarious because us sisters were screaming and the elders were all trying to kill it and then played with it after! 

We also had one of our investigators girlfriends throw rocks at the house we were teaching in. A lot of people say she is crazy, so I guess it was normal for the man we were teaching. Interesting experiences in the mission!

Anyways good times in the mission. I hope all is well back home! The heat has come back to the Dominican Republic, the cold lasted like 3 days.

Have a wonderful week,

Hermana Steed

hace un poco frio aqui en Yamasa!

Hola Family and Friends!

For those of you who do not understand the subject line of this email it means it has been cold here in Yamasa!  Well "cold".  Unfortunately, I was even a little cold this week in the mornings.  It was a low of like 75 degrees.  I know I should not say I am cold because of where you are, but I think it is kind of funny that I got a little cold and the people here are just freezing!

I also saw a man walking a pig like a dog.  The pig was not having it though, it was screaming and whaling like no other.  I felt really bad for it!

But anyway as for the mission!  I will be staying in Yamasa for this transfer!  Yay!  We have so many great things coming in the next few weeks!  We had some great lessons this week and are working with a few of our investigators to be baptized this month!  My mission president, President Corbitt has shared what the Lord has promised us if we do 5 things: have excepcional faith, talk with everyone, be exactly obedient, ask for references, and work with members.  If we do these five things our mission will bring 300 souls unto Christ through baptism!  We are working really hard to do all of these things and we are seeing miracles!  Our zone has brought 16 souls unto Christ so far this month!  But here is the story of 2 of our investigators:

Gladys:  We found Gladys when we were waiting in the street for another appointment. She approached us and said that she had talked with a member of the church before and really enjoyed the conversation.  We asked her if we could stop by her house after our appointment and she said yes.  We taught her the Restauration and invited her to be baptized and she accepted.  She truly was a miracle and will be baptized this month! Ojo de la fe!

Orquidia:  Okay Orquidia is an absolute miracle!  She worked in Villa Mella in the area of our Hermana Leaders but lives in a suburb of Yamasa Saturday and Sunday.  Our Hermana Leaders taught her and then we were to follow up and have her attend church.  But recently the lady she worked for in Villa Mella told her that she wont employ Mormons or have mormons in her house.  Orquidia said thats fine then I will leave and find another job!  Wow!! What incredible faith and an incredible example!  She quit the job and in the same day found a job that is less hours and pays more!  What a blessing!  We went to go visit her on Sunday because she did not come to church.  We would have gone to get her, but she lives about 20 minutes in a bus away from us.  But anyway we went to visit her and had a wonderful lesson with her, her boyfriend, and one of their friends.  All of them accepted the invitation to be baptized.  Now we are going to teach them and help them progress!  It was honestly a miracle!

Things are going well here.  So many miracles every day, big and small, and so many more to come!

My spiritual thought for this week is from the talk from this past General conference by Elder Bednar "If Ye Had Known Me"  What a fabulous talk, I encourage you all to read it again!  He talks about 4 things we need to do to know our Saviour: exercise faith in Him, Follow Him, Serve Him, and Believe Him.  While reading this talk this question popped into my head, Do I know the Savior generally or personally and specifically?  What a great question to think about.  Do we think that His promised blessings are just for others or do we truly believe that we can receive the blessings He has promised and that He is our personal Savior and Redeemer?  I ask you all to ponder this question and I know that I will be striving to better do these 4 things and to learn that He is my personal Savior.

Anyway a great week!  The pictures attached are my last district.  Elder Palma is from Mexico, Elder Cornellis is from Oregon, Hermana Periera from Brazil, Hermana Pancake from Ohio, but her family now lives in Utah, and my companion Hermana Chamu from Mexico.

The other is my zone, and the other is me on my 4 month mark with one of my favorite foods! Platano fritos!  Yumm!

Have a great week everyone!

Love,

Hermana Steed

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