Pday Activities

Ashley's Mission Email #7

HEY EVERYONE!

you may have noticed that i didnt email yesterday. there was LOTS of rain. the streets were full of water (about 2-3 feet) so we couldnt get to the internet center. even if we were allowed to swim here, there was no power so that wouldnt have worked. but all is well! this week has been great!

Heavenly Father definitely has his hand in this work. i had been praying for more opportunities to talk with people. both to practice my spanish and to find new invesitgators because i know there are more people in this area ready for the gospel and i was getting a little restless visiting members houses more than investigators (which isnt a bad thing, the members help a ton but our purpose is to invite others to Christ.) anyway, one day in planning Hermana Flores was a little discouraged at our numbers as was i. i suggested we read PMG about finding people so we did and made it a goal to talk to more people in between citas. we felt good about that. the next morning i had this undescribable excitement. i studied some contacting phrases and some of the points of the 1st lesson in spanish so that i would be able to recall them faster if we found someone who was interested and so that i wouldnt just sit there quitely while Hma Flores took over (after all..in the mouth of 2 witnesses right?) so we set out that morning and i still had that ready to teach the world attitude. i decided to talk to this first person we saw. i introduced us and then Hma Flores started talking to her. she had met with missionaries before and Hma Flores recognized the missionaries names. we set up an appointment and i was really excited. then hma flores told me that that morning she had been looking through the carpeta del área (not sure what that is in english, record of the area?) and had seen her name and the names of the missionaries. it stuck out to her but didnt have an address or phone number. only like an hour later, we found her in the street! so cool.

i cant remember all that ive told you about living here but its pretty exciting! like i said, we didnt have light yesterday so that head light came in handy. there are cockroaches all over the appartment. thankfully most of them are dead because they sprayed right before i got here. also these tiny ants everywhere. but im so glad i havent seen any centipedes yet. ive heard they have HUGE ones here. the trash cans in the streets are a mess and smell really bad especially when it rains. but the other night we found 5 tiny kittens in the trash so some lady helped us pick them up and we found someone to take them. lots of crazy experiences, but i dont have time to share them all.

my spanish is getting better. some days are better than others but just gotta keep on going. sometimes its frustrating when i understand whats going on but dont know what to say and sometimes its frustrating because i simply have no idea how to understand dominican but its okay. itll come!

well i hope you all have a wonderful week! 

love,

hermana allen

Ashley's apartment and having fun in the rain.

Ashley with Hermana Flores and her Mission President and his wife. (Brother and Sister Corbitt)

Letter from the Mission President

 DOMINICIAN REPUBLIC SANTO DOMINGO EAST

Presidente Heriberto Hernandez

Republica Dominicana   Santo Domingo   Gazcue   Avenida Bolivar #45   Teléfono (809) 687-5080   Fax (809) 685-8309

Dear Allen Family,

For me, it is a great pleasure to inform you that your daughter, Sister Ashley Allen arrived at the mission home safe and sound and ready to start her mission.  We want to thank you for having sent her to serve in this marvelous work.  Her own life and that of her family will be greatly blessed. 

Your daughter will have very special experiences in this year in a half of service.  The people of this country are very kind and have the desire to know the truth.  We are sure that with your support and love, and the guidance she will receive here in the mission, Sister Allen will obtain success. 

We are at your service to respond to any inquiry that you may have with respect to your Daughter or her mission.  We expect her to communicate with you each week via letter or e-mail.  She will also communicate with you personally by telephone on Christmas and Mother’s Day. 

Sister Allen will receive all of our love and care.  Without any doubt, she will be a blessing in the lives of the many people she will bring to the light and the truth. 

May you receive blessings in abundance from the Lord. 

Sincerely, 

President Ahmad Corbitt

Dominican Republic 

Santo Domingo East Mission.

The first week out of the MTC.

Leaving the MTC

Ashley's Mission Email #6

Buenas!

i dont even know where to start with this week!i got out into the field on tuesday and my trainer is hermana flores. she´s from guatemala and she´s awesome. i can actually understand her spanish! having her as my first comp is going to help my spanish a lot. we´re working on her english too. we live with 2 other sisters. one from mesa and another from guat. they´ve all been out for a while so its only ever spanish speaking in the house. i can usually follow along with most conversation but i have a harder time speaking myself. that will come in time. i´m serving in the Mendoza area and that´s a really big blessing. the ward is great and the obispo is SO supportive of missionary work. we actually decided this sunday that from now on the ward will be a referral only ward which means no more tracting and means that the members are more responsible for being a part of the work. its great but also a really big task! so my little bit of missionary advice..help the ward missionaries by giving them names of ANYONE you know who might want to hear this life changing message. its important. ok thanks!

(dad, can you tell me about the ward mission plan and about the family mission plan. how it works? some examples?)

(one thing about packages just so you know is that it cost me 90 pesos/pound so try to keep it light if you can. if you could send me some hard copy pictures that be awesome! )

so the living conditions are crazy in some areas! our apartment is pretty clean and actually pretty big though. i learned how to do laundry this morning though. i mean i knew how to do it in america but its a new experience here. the machine is much different. also in the mornings there are roosters that live...i actually dont even know where they come from...but every morning i wake up to roosters. thats new. i just cannot get over all the new experiences here. lucky we always have light and water but most people dont. its really a place i cant even describe to you but i love it sooooo much. everyone is super friendly and so open to hearing anything about Christ. which makes a huge difference for us!

the kids here stared school today and that reminded me of all of you guys! how is it? 

one cool experience from this week...(of many). we went to la sirena (the store) after zone conference on thursday. we were waiting in line and a little girl tapped me on the shoulder and asked if we were mormons. i said yes were are and really cutely she said she was too and then ran back to her mom. it just gave me a greater love for this calling and opportunity. its hard for sure but its also SO much fun and SO great. 

anyways, i love you all and thanks for the support!

love

hma allen

Pics from the MTC

Airport Pictures

Ashley's Email #5

entonces...this week! wow! 

 

going out with the missionaries was easily the best part of this week. my compañera was hermana rivera from Guatemala. she spoke english really well though which was pretty lucky for me. she was amazing, ive decided i want a trainer like her but shes in the west mission so that's too bad. we took the "guagua" (bus/van/taxi thing) from the mission home out to their apartment. fit 21 people in that thing! i wont tell you about the driving because you probably dont want to know. just be thankful that this is not a driving mission, i am! their apartment was actually nicer than i expected. really clean for the most part. no A/C but thats normal. they had a few fans. after we filled up our water there, we started walking. she had 4 appointments set up and told me right when we met that our goal was to contact 20 people so it was going to be a busy afternoon. just walking through the streets was probably the most crazy experience of my life so far! the building are right up to the road in most places so you walk right next to the road. the streets have water and trash everywhere. most of these people live in houses smaller than my bedroom but work so hard to keep their area clean. its loud and crazy and everyone sits outside on the streets playing games and talking to neighbors. the houses are mostly behind shops or above them and the kids play on the roof because there's no space in the ally ways and streets. stray dogs all over and even some chickens. no A/C, no running water or electricity most of the time. so moral of the story, be grateful for EVERYTHING.

we taught one guy (jan) at his work at a little convenient store and read the book of mormon with him a little. another lady at her house, a 12 year old girl at her house (Marie). she was so smart and picked up on el plan de salvacion really fast. the other lady we taught at her house while she served coffee to people passing on the streets. 

i could understand the majority of the lessons, i prayed and testified a lot, introduced the book of mormon once and taught a tiny bit of the plan de salvacion with hermana rivera's help. i contacted a couple people and then let her take over when my spanish ran out which was pretty quick. anyway, best day of my mission so far but also the most shocking.i dont think ive sweat that much in my life but thatll be how it is for the next 17 months! we get to go out again tomorrow!!

so we also went to the temple this morning! we did initiatory (in spanish) first. that was cool!  by the end i could understand it. then an endowment sessions in english still thank goodness. hna olsen, me and another hermana had the names of 3 sisters and hna freestone had the mom. that was neat! i love the temple!!

so lauren guess what!! i told hermano nunez about how you say pie all the time and he's started using it so your word is now in the DR. de nada! haha

i was called on the give the talk in sacrament on sunday. that was a surprise and its scary enough getting called up on the spot, let alone in espanol but it went well. as far as i know, i didnt say anything crazy.

the other day we were teaching our investigator "petra" (our teacher who acts as an inv. for practice). we were teaching outside because dominicans cant stand how"cold"it is in this building and this little dominican girl came up and gave me a flower. i said gracias and she did this cute little shrug with her shoulders and was like de nada. it was adorable!

words of the week...

rompecabezas=puzzle but literally...headbreaker. we thought that was cool.

thanks for the pictures at the cabin! looks like you guys had a lot of fun!

well....

miss you all and love you lots!!

love,

hermana allen

another week's email!


hola everyone!

so this week has been wonderful. i want to tell you about a few really neat experiences. 

1. contacting at the university on friday, we talked to this man who was excited to see us because he said he had a passion for english and had taught himself by listening to music (he was a Christian singer) and reading grammar books. we taught him a little about El Libro de Mormón and la Restauración in Spanglish. i was able to use my mission prep work and recite the First Vision is english. it felt weird after only saying it in spanish for so long but and the Spirit was strong. he was sooo interested. he told us that it was a gift from God that we were able to run into him that day. we gave him a pamphlet and a book of mormon and he was so grateful. he said he would definitely read it because he wanted to know more about Christ. i know it was a lesson mostly in english...but still really cool. hopefully he contacts the missionaries.

2. we watched a devotional this week called the character of Christ. it was given by elder bednar a few years ago on christmas day and it was amazing. when it was over, it was one of those times when i didnt want to move because the Spirit was so strong but at the same time i wanted to get up and get to work. it was super inspirational. the whole message was about turning outward like Christ would, when the natural man would turn in to our self. so good.

3. all the north americans and latinos leaving to puerto rico and the santiago mission left on tuesday so on monday evening after planning time we were talking with our roommates (hermana geraldo y portillo. i miss them a lot, they were great and helped us with our spanish a lot!) anyway, they asked if we wanted to come into their district to sing that helamans army/ sisters in zion song with them as their closing prayer. we didn't know the words in spanish but they were like its ok they're on the board, so we went and sang with them and the elders in spanish and it was really powerful. so sad to see them leave but they all had such amazing stories and will be great missionaries!

okay so my month mark is on saturday and thats pretty unbelievable! time has gone by really fast. the past 2 days it was just the 22 missionaries that all came the same time as me and that was pretty nice. we all played baseball during gym time yesterday and that was so fun! i feel really Dominican now. haha today, 45 new missionaries came in, which in provo wouldnt be a lot, but here its like chaos! this is the most they've had in about a year i think. but its fun to have them all here! we got new roommates for the 3rd time since we've been here! 2 from mexico, 1 from here and 1 from provo but she knows spanish. there's another sister here that is from the Philippines. it took her 28 hours to get here! she's only been a member for a year and she's the only member of her family. there are so many more elders and sisters here with stories like that and it's pretty amazing!  

hermana olsen and i got a calling this week! its just to set out and pick up hymn books after CCM prayer every night but it has a reputation here because of the last sisters who had this calling so we have some big shoes to fill. haha the trio of elders in my district were called as the new AP's too so we tease them that our callings are pretty much the same thing.

we watched another devotional this week that was given about 2 years ago and as he was announcing, we heard "and then we'll have a musical number by our own Elder David Archuleta". Hermana Olsen turned to me and was like this is the best day of my life. it was pretty funny. he sang the Spirit of God and it was good! one of the verses was in spanish!

hermana olsen and i have found some fun stuff to do in our spare time. one is translating hannah montana or high school musical sounds into spanish. that's always fun! 

Sundays are the best day of the week here! we have sacrament where we all prepare a talk in spanish on the subject for that week and then we are called up randomly to give it. then sunday school in our districts. hermana olsen and i teach this week. then relief society in english so thats a blessing! then we always have a doctrinal class with presidente freestone. he is a very smart man. we get to watch a movie and then later a devotional and then sunday dinner is always pizza and we get ice cream and get to walk around the temple every sunday night! usually the best day of the week!

the temple is open again! so we got to do sealings and an endowment session this morning. i love this temple! its actually really big and apparently when it was being built every one would ask why they were building such a big temple and one of the 12 said that it was for a reason and would be needed. the church is growing so much here! its interesting because this island is actually where Christopher Colombus first stopped apparently and he came back here on every voyage he took. i'm lucky to be here where the work is progressing so quickly!

we go on splits with the real missionaries tomorrow for about 8 hours! scary but so exciting!! 

words for this week...

la nube=cloud (but it sounds a little like noob so it made me think of LoLo.)

here's a tongue twister we learned...yo daba y trabajaba en la guagua yo hablaba yo viajaba yo comía y engordaba. (literally it means...i gave and worked, on the bus i spoke, i travelled, i ate and i got fat...) so it doesnt actually mean anything but it sounds cool when you say it in spanish! haha

well i think that's all from this week. next week we probably will only get about 45 minutes to email because of how many people are here so i'm sorry if i can't email every one back!

only 1 more p-day in the CCM! oh mi madre!

love from the DR,

hermana allen