Ashley's Mission Email #16

The 3 Musketeers!

Hermana Given and I have a new companion now! Her name is Hermana Martinez and she´s Dominican, from Santiago. She has been serving the past 13 months in Mexico but has to finish out here because of some lung problems. She´s a great missionary though and I think we will learn lots from her, well in this week that we have before transfers... I´m not going to lie, trios are hard! Just because there´s lots of ideas and lots of switching back and forth in lessons but we´re making it work.

This is my last week of training! Ahh! That´s a little scary, but I´m excited too! 

We had Stake Conference this week and Elder Zivic of the Area Seventy was there. It was really good! A lot about how this is one work, one gospel and how we need to work together with members, missionaries, less actives, youth, investigators, everyone! A scripture that I love that I think describes missionary work really well is Alma 29:8-10. keep on finding people to share the message with. Try to be trustworthy instruments in God´s hands. One´s that He can use at any time, in any place, with any person because He knows He can trust you to follow His guidance. (Hope that makes some kind of sense...)

Well it’s been another exciting week here in the DR with crazy drivers, loud music, more and more Christmas lights every day, smelly trash cans, lots and lots of sun and sweat, but most importantly, lots of people to share this wonderful gospel with. Hope you´re all doing well! Until next week!

Love

Hermana Allen

The Fantastic Three!

Pancakes in a mug was our greatest idea yet...

Ashley's Mission Email #15

Christmas Time Is Here!

Hey!

Dominicans love to party and find any excuse to throw parties and dance in the streets and blast the music on every corner so Christmas comes around pretty early. There are tons of houses already with Christmas lights up and the chapel already has the tree up and decorated! Yet it’s still hotter than ever...definitelty does NOT feel like Christmas time.

So we´ve had some exciting adventures this week! Some of them I´ll have to share at a later time. On Wednesday was Hna Given´s halfway mark! We found this grocery store that has a bunch of American foods. It’s kind of like a Safeway. Anyway we bought a cheesecake box mix and made that. So good! We also found gravy and cranberry sauce cans. (We plan to eat it Romney style straight from the can!)

We also had interviews with Presidente Corbitt on Saturday and those are ALWAYS great.. he is a fantastic mission president and I wouldn´t be surprised if he becomes a general authority someday. I always learn so much and am so inspired after we have meetings with him. He wanted me to tell you all that he says hi too! 

Some other things that you can only find in the Dominican Republic…

If you have a broom, you can do anything. They sweep EVERYTHING. They sweep water, they sweep the gutters outside their houses. The other day we were walking on a dirt road and some guy was outside sweeping the dirt. Not reallly sure why. The only cleaning supplies I´ve ever seen here are a broom and a mop. (Which you always wring out with your hands by the way. That took some getting used to.)

A game of dominoes on every street corner. Everyone is always outside because it’s so hot and it gets even hotter inside. So there are always little game tables with people playing dominoes all over the place.

Well I still love this place despite its craziness! The work is progressing. The hardest part is trying to teach families, but the parents aren´t married because they have no money. That´s probably the biggest obstacle in the work, because that process takes a while. But Heavenly Father works miracles, so it´s possible to overcome.

I hope you all have a great week! Sorry my thoughts are all over the place. The Spanish must be messing things up. Haha but I love you guys!

Love 

Hermana Allen

Cheesecake!

Our feet were getting a little too gross, entonces... Spa Day

Just a Bunch of Birds

Ashley's Mission Email #14

Nuestro Padre Celestial nos ama.

Hey everyone!

This week I´ve been thinking a lot about how our Heavenly Father knows us of each individually. He is perfect. He is our Supreme Creator and the God of all things but somehow we can and are commanded to pray to Him. And the awesome part is that when we pray to Him, it’s not just words that we hope will make some sort of difference. No. He is listening. We are given the opportunity to form a one on one relationship with our Heavenly Father. That´s so cool and so special! It´s really neat to watch investigators actually talk out loud in a prayer to God, sometimes for the first time in voz alta or out loud. 

This week has been good as usual! One thing that´s been great is that we´ve been taking the youth out to teach with us more. There´s one young man about 14 years old, Angel. His mom is less active and his step dad isn’t a member. Angel is such a great missionary though. He asks us questions about how to teach the importance of the Book of Mormon to his step dad and what scriptures would be good to share with him. While we were walking with him on our way to an appointment he asked if we did that thing where we knocked on doors. We were like, contacts? Of course! You want to try one? He was a little nervous at first, but after the first couple, he was a natural. The youth are so prepared and ready to share the gospel! It’s awesome!

Anyway, I love and miss you all. Thanks for the emails! Remember that you can share the gospel in so many different, simple ways.

Love

Hermana Allen

We matched! :) (Hermana Munoz)

Just a stroll through the park...

Homemade Costa Vida Salads.

Ashley's Mission Email #13

Contacting everywhere. Even in the trash piles. 

Hey everyone! So I hit my 3 month mark and that seems so crazy. The time FLIES. I still feel new. I´m not sure that´s going to change though. 

So crazy story. This week Hna Given and I were walking to Stefany´s house (a 12 year old investigator with a crazy strong testimony. Her parents won’t give her permission to be baptized though... we´re working on that.) So here in the DR they have certain streets that have 4 or 5 big dumpster trash cans and then usually mountains of trash all around them. Well on the way to her house there´s one of these streets. There was a guy digging through the trash (that´s not very unusual) and we saw him pull out this nice framed picture. Hna Given was like, that´s the first presidency! So we went over and asked him if he knew who that picture was of. He said no. We told him that it was a picture of the prophet of God and that he would be speaking to us this weekend. The guy told us that he had been baptized into the church but hadn´t been in forever. Hna Given was like, you are a member and you don´t know who that picture is of? You´ve got to go to General Conference! So he said he would. He doesn´t live in our area but we really hope he went. Then he shook our hands (remember he had just been digging through the trash) and we walked away. Thank goodness for hand sanitizer.

Conference was AMAZING! We were able to watch it in English! But I think it´s awesome how they have speakers in their native languages now. We were translating the English subtitles back into Spanish for some of them. That was fun. also, Elder Martinez (one of the Sunday speakers who gave his talk in Spanish) visited the CCM while I was there and did a mission tour later so I´ve met him and his wife and they are so awesome! They´re from Puerto Rico.

I learned so many things from conference that I felt a little overwhelmed with what to do with all the information. I had an idea though. one of the questions that Pres. Corbitt asked me in my interview when I first got here was where I want to be when we have our closing interview. I´ve thought about that a lot and decided to create a little personal project. I´m calling it “My End Result".  kind of silly I know but I´m writing out a description of how I want to be when I leave here then I´m picking parts to work on and specific ways to develop these attributes. I hope it will help me to be a better missionary now and to learn how to continuously improve as a person, even after this precious 18 months.

Another short story...in mission prep we did these speed role plays and one was to take 2 objects, a Gospel principle and make a lesson out of it. Well I was telling Hna Given about the practice Jade and I did. We had the cream of an Oreo, the cookie of the Oreo and the Plan of Salvation. I told Hna Given how the cream was like our time on earth, the cookies like before and after and how its only complete with all 3. We laughed and stuff but then we were in a lesson, teaching the plan of salvation and she says "it´s kind of like an Oreo, Hermana Allen, you want to explain?" That was fun, explaining that in Spanish but I think I´m going to have to find a way to get back at her for that one.

Well I love you all and hope you have a great week! Remember what you learned from Conference. Keep sharing the Gospel. Choose the right. All that good stuff!! 

Love,

Hermana Allen

Our Zone During General Conference

We love our Go Go Squeeze.

Walking Down a Nice Street in the Dominican Republic

We Rearranged the Living Room

We're down to 2 fans now. (It's really sad when they break.)

American Food for My 3 Month Mark

The Only True Church

Forever 21 Models Missionary Style. (When none of us are wearing our own clothes.)