Ashley's Mission Email #12

Hey Everyone!

So this week I got my new missionary mom, Hermana Given. She´s super cute and super fun. She´s from Colorado. Castle Rock actually. It’s a change to switch trainers in the middle of my training but its also really good, I think. I get to see different styles and what I like and don’t and learn what kind of missionary I want to be personally. The only problem is that I have to teach her the area and I´m already so bad with directions, but so far we haven´t gotten lost, so that´s a blessing.

How did you all like the Women´s Conference? We watched it last night instead of Saturday because of the time difference. But luckily me and my companion and 2 other sisters got to watch it on a computer in English. Regardless of the fact that I´m not fluent yet, it’s still just nice to actually hear the voices of the speakers. We´re hoping we can do the same for General Conference next week.  But if not, that´ll be a neat experience! I think I have Gospel vocabulary down well enough that I´ll still be able to learn a lot. Plus, the Holy Ghost is the best teacher.

This week we had a big Stake Family History activity that was really fun. We had quite a few investigators there which was the goal, so that´s great! I wish I would have worked more with family history before. Because the church is so new here, this is kind of the first generation of kids who are born into the church. That makes it really special for them to be able to find names of close family members and take the names to the temple. (The temple is about 45 minutes in a taxi from my area right now and the members are so great at going EVERY single week. Most members work in the temple too.)

Well I still love this calling, this place, these people, everything. Lots of crazy experiences that I wish I had time to share. All in all, I know I´m here for a reason and every day I´m glad I made this choice. It´s changing me and it´s awesome. This church is so true. It´s the only church with the fullness of the gospel. We don´t say that to make it exclusive. We say that to give every single person we can the opportunity to join and know of their divine nature and divine potential. I love you all. Thank you for all the support, whether by email or prayer or anything. Thanks :) 

Con Amor,

Hermana Allen

With President Diaz (the Stake President) and his wife, Marta.

Amarily (one of the more recent converts) at Women's Conference

Me and Hermana Given at the Actividad de Historia Familiar

Ashley's Mission Email #11

Buenas!

An earth tremor? Nope. We didn’t feel anything here. 

I did get the package though! Thanks and Hna Flores loves the necklace and the letter from Megsy. Thanks pretty girl!

I know I still have my anatomy binder but I don’t know where. My guess is that it would be somewhere in the storage room, in my desk or in my closet on that top shelf. 

That´s crazy about the water! But that’s exactly what it’s like here. We usually don’t boil the water though, everyone just buys those big things of water and you use that for everything.

Congrats Justin! I wish I could have heard you´re talk but I´m sure you did wonderfully! Love you bud.

So last night we received calls about transfers...I´m staying here but Hna Flores will be going out to El Campo to be a sister training leader out there so my new trainer will be Hna Given from the US. I´ve met her before and she´s super nice so I´m excited but it’s also sad to say goodbye to Hna Flores because I probably won´t see her very often. (El Campo is like the country, about 2 hours away in guagua or bus) But that´s all part of the mission right? It’s all an adventure! I just hope I know the area well enough to get us around. We´ll see! We actually change comps and everything tomorrow.

This week has been full of exciting things! We had an Hermanas conference where we all went to the mission home and had a bunch of speakers and lessons and some stuff about personal safety and things like that. We got to go to the temple on Friday! I love this temple SO much. It was the 5th time I´ve been through this one counting all the times in the CCM and it’s still so beautiful. Friday was my first session in spanish though. That was cool It´s amazing how the Spirit is the best teacher because you don´t need to be fluent or even understand what´s being said in order to learn new things. 

Speaking of spanish, I realized this week that it’s kind of like the story of Peter walking on the water towards Christ. When I stop thinking so much about the words I´m trying to say and instead just think about the person we´re teaching and have faith that the Lord will help me, it’s a million times easier. But the second I start doubting, start thinking that I don´t speak Spanish or things like that, my mind goes blank. Faith is powerful!

Well I still love this country and the people and the work. It’s an amazing experience. Obviously hard, but thanks for all your support and prayers. This gospel is most definitely true and La Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de Los Ultimos Dias es la iglesia verdadera.

Love always,

Hermana Allen

Habituales con dulce. So this is a dinner here. It looks and tastes like creamy hot chocolate with yams (but they taste like chocolate because they sit in the soup part) and little wafer cookies. It's actually made with beans though!

I love to see the temple!

Thanks for the package!

It's crazy how Christian this country is. These kinds of things are on every car and guagua.

Susan Diaz. She's the daughter of the Bishop and super funny. She loves to take selfies with us.

Ashley's Mission Email #10

Mission Life!

I actually wasn't able to go to the temple this week. Sad. I got a little sick on Monday night and didn't quite feel good enough to travel to the temple the next morning, which was unfortunate. I felt bad for Hna Flores who had to stay with me all day. It was actually kind of a funny story though...

After emailing on Monday we were in a lesson with an investigator and I wasn't feeling too good to start, but figured I could make it through the lesson and the FHE we had after. I started feeling worse during the lesson and when we stood up to leave I felt like I was going to faint.  But I didn't want to ruin the Spirit or anything. Hna Flores and our investigator kept talking though. So I tried to quitely sit down. But that kind of drew attention so they realized I wasn't feeling great. Hna Flores was like, she´s white but not THAT white. Claribel (our investigator) tried to get me to drink from this bottle but as she tried to push it towards my face I saw the word rum... (luckily it was English and I could figure out what it was before she made me drink it.) I just pushed it away and said water was fine. Hna Flores called Hno. Reyes, a member who lived next door and he came over and gave me a blessing. I rested for a little bit, then had enough energy to walk home. As we left Hno. Reyes told Claribel to study in Corinthians about blessings of health. I sure hope she doesn't think we´re crazy now. Haha but pero todo bien and we get to go to the temple on Friday! 

Entonces...the invesigator that I told you about, Marisol is doing great! We taught her AND her husband for the first time last night. The problem with a lot of investigators is that most people who live together with kids aren´t actually married because it costs too much. But I know there was a reason that we found her that day. And she has such a desire to learn more and comes to church every week that she can. She´s awesome!

Some other things about the DR. the storms are crazy. The lightning is so bright and the thunder usually sets a bunch of car alarms off because it´s so loud! Also, when they say they´re going to clean the house, they mean it. Ever cleaned the inside of a house with a pressure washer? It's pretty fun! 

Remind me to watch Finding Nemo in Spanish when I get home. Hna Flores and I were talking about movie quotes and the "fin, noggin, dude" is WAY cooler in Espanol. 

Anyway, thank you all for your prayers and love. Keep sharing this gospel. Make it apart of your every day life to just talk to someone about your beliefs because it could be exactly what they need right now. There´s something about the gospel that can directly relate to anyone and everyone. Promise. 

Love,

Hermana Allen

Tacos!

Sisters of Zona Oriental.

Ashley's Mission Email #9

Hey!

So this week...well we taught lessons and walked a lot and you know, the life of a missionary. In our district meeting on Thursday Presidente Corbitt came to share a little bit with us and it was very inspiring as usual. He read John 4 with us about Christ talking with the women at the well. He talked about how thats like a contact. Christ was on His way to an äppointment¨ and decided to talk to her. He shared a brief message with her and then invited her husband like we should invite the family. There are a lot more comparisons in that chapter about how to get references and how we can receive revelation specifically for the person and lots of other cool things. It's a great chapter. Presidente Corbitt really is inspired and his messages are always great!

We ate a members house this Sunday! It was the Primary President and her family. She has 3 boys and a girl megans age. One of the little boys is so energetic and so funny. It's interesting because she gave us all our food and then they weren´t even going to eat with us at first. I guess thats kind of the culture. 

We ended up doing a lot of contacting this week because the ward is still learning how to get references. A little bit of advice... it helps a lot when the members are involved.

I don't remember if I told you guys this but Elder Holland was in the CCM here just 2 weeks before I got here so we´re just swapping places! I want to hear how that went!!

We get to go to the temple tomorrow!!! I´m so excited. The whole mission gets to attend the temple and I think we get to talk to the temple president for a while too. I´m super excited for that. The temple president (Presidente Flake) is really cool. He´s from Snowflake AZ too!

Mi Español... I´m sure you´re tired of hearing this but it´s coming along. We had a lesson this week with one of our investigators where I went with one of the other sisters because her companion was sick so my companion stayed with her. This meant I kind of had to lead the lesson because it was our investigator. I felt really peaceful though and it was slow but I was able to say what I wanted. Then the husband told me that I dont understand anything and dont speak spanish... Dominicans are really blunt. Haha. It actually didn´t bother me at all though because I know I said what I needed to say.

Entonces...have a wonderful week!

Love,

Hermana Allen

Our Sweet Ride... I Wish

Ashley's Mission Email #8

Casi 2 meses! Where does the time go?

so by the time i get to the computor i always seem to forget what happened this week...

dominicans are still loud and crazy but i still love it here. the weather is still hot and humid but i´m adjusting. i always have like 20 mosquito bites on my legs. the mosquitos here are like immune to repellent so thats fun. every missionary i know has had chikinguna so i´m now just hoping that i don´t get a bad case of it. the worst is trying to sleep when the power is out because then our fans dont work but i´m usually tired enough to fall asleep anyway and the power doesn´t go out very often in our apartment thank goodness. the food is great! i ate at pico pollo for the first time this week (thats super dominican, they´re EVERYWHERE. its kind of like kfc but less clean. but i still haven´t gotten sick so that´s a blessing.) the rule on eating with members is tricky because the other president said never but presidente corbitt says we are allowed to if we help prepare the food to make sure they cook with clean water and everything is sanitary. that makes it tricky though because you can´t really tell one member you can eat with them and another that you can´t. but we´ve eaten with the bishops family and one other so far so usually we´re on our own. Hna Flores and Palacios make delicious Guatemalan food a lot which makes me wish i was a better cook to share something with them too!

remeber my story from last week. she came to church with us and i just love her so much. she´s actually from haiti and her kids live there but her spanish is great which is good because some of the haitians only speak creol so we can´t teach them. my french (and sometimes even my english) went out the window when i started learning spanish. anyway she´s awesome and i REALLY hope she agrees to be baptized because this gospel would make her so happy!

so as a ward of references we´re trying to find creative ways for the members to find people who are interested in the gospel. one of our ideas is that we will hold ballet classes at the church for the primary and they bring friends and we share a spiritual thought to start and then later hold a mini performance for the parents to come watch and hopefully allow us to teach them. so guess what! i get to teach ballet! in spanish! we´ve had one class so far and its cute how excited they all are. i hope it goes well.

the spanish...well it´s coming. somedays i´m like woah i just bore my testimony without having to translate everyword in my head and other days i feel like its such a struggle to make a sentence. either way i know i´ve been called here for a reason which also means that i´ve been called to learn spanish for a reason. a section in Predicad Mi Evangelio said something about how we should not just master gospel vocab because the Lord invests a lot in us to learn a new language and it might be because we need it later on in life too. so i´ll keep studying and praying. 

OH MI MADRE! ELDER HOLLAND! i´m so jealous. that´s amazing. that will be such an amazing experience. wow. well i want to hear all about that! good luck with your talk. thats intimidating but i know you´ll do great and say exactly what the congregation needs to hear. Dad is so lucky to be able to spend so much time with him. tell me what you learn!

Hna Goff, Flores y Palacios (left to right)

Happy Birthday!

yummy Guatamalan food

Yummy Guatemalan food. Sister Goff, Sister Flores (Ashley's companion) and Sister Palacios

What happens when no hay luz.