WEIRD week!!!

So I dont really have much to report this week..... On thursday we had district meeting and I pretty much left in tears because the pain in my eyes and head was so bad, that i had to leave. From there it all went down hill and I am sorry to say, but I haven´t left the house since thursday! It is SOOOO hard, and its killing me! I now have a rash covering my whole body and it just keeps getting worse by the day, but really no need to worry about me because I know that the Lord is looking out for me! A funny thing happened though... The Bishop called us during district meeting and asked if we could all give talks in church! YAY so the only reason that I went to church was to give my talk. So there I was sitting and waiting for him to call my name, well he never did. Then he comes up to me after and tells me that I just didn´t look well enough to stand up there and speak and that I can give my talk another week! It was so cute how worried the ward was for me, the Bishop wanted to take me to the Hospital right then, finally i talked him out of it, but he did bring me over medication. They are just so worried and so cute about it! One really great thing did happen this week! I wasnt able to go, but Hermana Antivilo went out with Hermana Haggard, while I stayed with Susan. But they visited a family that want to be baptized! I am so excited! Did I tell you guys about the lady that is a member, but has been inactive for 20 years, well she came to church, bore her testimony and they have been coming ever since, and now we are going to get them all baptized, there are about 5 kids, possibly 6 that are ready! Its great! well i dont really have much else to write! I love you all!
Hermana Reay

NO WATER !!!

Hola,
Well first of all I just want to say that I hope Weston had an amazing birthday, We had to run into the store on Saturday to get something for my companion that she really needed, and I saw this awesome tie just sitting where it shouldn´t be, and I just had to get it for him, now i just have to figure out how to send it! Well this week has definitely been a week full of interesting, great events. Julien and Victor were confirmed on Sunday and we had FIFTEEN investigators at church! Yeah my mouth dropped! It is amazing how much work we have to do here and now I am doing it with my new greenie! She is absolutely adorable and we get along so well! We have so many connections and we are just always talking about life stories!! I just love her, and know that we are going to do a lot here, its a tad bit hard because I am teaching a lot by myself, but, Hermana Haggard shares her testimony or a scripture or something. She is just so cute! The Lord really is blessing me, especially with the gift of tongues and understanding! I don't know how I have been doing it, but we get by on my little bit that I know, and the people still feel the spirit and know that these things are true! I just love the gospel and being able to teach it here, I really know that I am so blessed to be in a place where the people are so ready to just love you and the gospel! Definitely a white field here in the Dominican Republic!
As for some of the crazy things that happened this week, the stores around our house that bring us the water, yeah they ALL ran out! So we didn´t have water for a bit and were sooooo thirsty, but when they got it back we totally stocked up. Then the next day, we didn´t have water in the house! I felt so gross, we all did, because we couldn´t shower. Then the next day was Saturday when we have planning, and we stay in the house all morning, and the power was out, AND we didn´t have water! So we couldn´t shower to cool off, and we didn´t have fans, we were all literally sitting in our sweat and it was just so disgusting! We got back that night though and the water was back on, and guess how we knew? Oh yeah, there was a flood in the apartment because one of the faucets had been left on! AHHHHHH so we spent a good 45 minutes cleaning that up, and by the time we finished the water was off again! Yeah we totally had to go to church smelly, and unshowered! I am afraid that the ward is going to shun us! Oh well, but my poor companion, its her first week! But we have water now, all is fine!
Today we went to a missionary activity, and there were so many people there! I got SOOOOO sunburned! but it was really fun because we just got to chat with a bunch of missionaries and I talked with my favorite companion from the CCM, Elder Winter! It was great! It was a good little change! (although I think I will always miss my days in the Presidents house, being spoiled!) Oh well I LOVE it here, I love my comp and I love our investigators! We are off to FHE! I cant wait, we are going to get a whole family baptized, at least 5 people! YAY!!! Love you all, thanks for your love and prayers!
Hermana Reay

I AM GOING TO BE A TRAINER!!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
I finished my third transfer, and am soo sad to see it go. I really am going to miss Hermana Antivilo! She has become one of my best friends! I have learned so much from her, but it’s ok because now I can apply that all to myself and use it the rest of my mission. I can also teach it to my new companion because guess what???
I AM GOING TO BE A TRAINER, TO SISTER HAGGARD!!!!! (A girl I met when I was younger in my cousins ward in Provo.) Ah when I found out I almost had a heart attack! I really don’t feel ready for this, but I guess we never truly feel ready for the tasks that the Lord has for us! I am going to be super busy this transfer and I know that I am going to learn so much, I am still practicing understanding all of the stories that the people are telling! It’s ok, I know I can do it with a lot of personal prayers, and prayers from you guys right? I am excited to see the blessings, and we have a lot of great investigators, because yeah I am staying here in Gazcue and couldn't be happier! I love it here! The ward is blossoming and I love it all! I am sorry this week is so short, I just don’t even know what else to say because my fingers are shaking! I am going to be a trainer! ahhhhh (I promise I wont let it get to my head!) Love you all!
Hermana Reay
(p.s. Victor and Julien were baptized on Sunday and it was amazing! I am so blessed with such wonderful investigators!)

I can't believe July is almost over, where did it go?

Hello everyone!
I cant believe that this is the last time I will be writing to you in the month of July! It is sooooo crazy! Well of course we had a wonderful week, I just might cry all week next week to see my companion go, I don't have a clue what is going to happen, but we will deal with it, and no that it is what is supposed to happen! Kayla was baptized yesterday, she is such a cutie and I am so happy for her, she is already a part of the ward. She is going to girls camp with them and they had a stake dance Friday, and her and her brother went. Victor wasn't baptized yesterday because he didn't make it back from a basketball camp in time, but him and his brother David will hopefully be this weekend! We also have another baptism this weekend. JULIEN! I couldn't be happier, he is so ready! We introduced him to Susan and she shared so many things with him that he needed to hear, and he is convinced on so many things, and he now has a goal to marry in the temple. He is so great and I am so happy that Susan is helping us so much, she is always coming with us and helping our investigators so much, she will be such an amazing missionary!
We are working SO hard because it is our last week! Ulda and Domingo (they are the ones that we gave the Washer to) still haven't received their birth certificates, so they aren't married yet :( But Ulda left today to go back to her birth place and his, she is going to get them, and as soon as she has them we are taking them over to the government offices and they are getting married and if that can all happen this week, and we have faith that it will, she will be baptized this week too! (everyone pray for them!!) If all of that happens our goal will be met, of 7 baptisms this month! It has been such an amazing month!
A few funny and great things happened last night! We had a fireside that the bishop put on, "In search for happiness". It was great and there were a couple speakers and the President and his Wife came and spoke as well, they all talked about the Plan of Salvation. And how we can truly be happy in this life, and the gospel has everything to do with that! It was so spiritual and amazing, I even cried in the talk our Relief society pres gave! It was great, and we had quite a few investigators show up, and some investigators of surrounding wards also, because we invited the elders from the wards that are close by because we sang a special musical number. We sang the EFY Medley that they sang at my farewell, but a little different because we had to do it in Spanish and change a few parts! It was crazy because we only practiced it twice before! :( I didn't think that we did very good, and I guess neither did a lady in our ward, she comes up to me after "the Elders sang really beautifully, but you Sisters just don't know how to sing" and then she just starts laughing... they are so blunt here, haha oh well. There were 6 Elders and 3 Sisters and Hermana Fuentes was sick. But the spirit was really strong and it was good! Afterward one of our investigators came up to us and said "OK what do i have to do to start my journey?" he is great! I am excited for all the wonderful people that God is preparing for this area, the Dominican Republic is just flourishing and I couldn't be happier to be here and to be a part of it! the work is amazing!
We have also been contacting VERY inactive families, some of them just don't really want to talk to us anymore, but there have been a few to have the church back in their lives! By us talking with them, showing love, and sharing about the restoration, they realized why they became members in the first place, and I am so happy! We are trying our best to be so obedient and work with everyone we can, we see the blessings and feel the love! I hope I can keep it up my whole mission! Thanks for all your support! i love you all!
Hermana Reay

BUENAS!!!!!!

Buenas!
How are you all!? I can’t believe that it has been another week, it seems like yesterday I was just writing you! But I am glad to have the opportunity to again so soon! It has cooled down here for the last few days (knock on wood). But that also means that the rain is back, but I am totally ok with that because I would rather be rain-wet than sweat-wet! Anyway…we had a really great, really fast week! Our days seem like they are 1 hour long! But we have so much to do and we are doing a lot of walking! We were both sick this week, but we kept working despite that and we really received some blessings! We have 4 baptismal dates! And we couldn’t be happier; we are hoping to have at least 2 more! These people are just so ready to receive the Gospel! Kayla and Victor are a couple of kids we have been teaching this transfer, and they just love everything about the gospel, they are brother and sister. They love the Book of Mormon and mark in it all the time and they both told us yesterday that they have been praying for a date for their baptism and they both think that this month is good, so we set it for Sunday! They absolutely LOVE church and they always invite all of their friends! Every time that we go to their house to teach them there is someone new there! The best part was what happened yesterday, so they have a lot of people that live close to them, so we said, “We will just come pick you guys up before church,” and their dad told us, “no you just all meet here and I will drive you in my gwa-gwa (which is like a little van-taxi thing)” so we were like OK whatever, so we met at 8:30 and he takes us all out to the street and right there is a HUGE, yellow, school bus! Ha ha it was great! He uses that because more people fit into it than a van, so anyway we totally went to church in a school bus! It was a lot of fun! We had 11 investigators in church and now I think that if I ever get below double digits I will cry, because we have had that for the last 3 weeks! It is so exciting! I just love all the people that we are teaching right now, I don’t have enough time to tell you about all of them, we don’t even have enough time in a day to visit them all, but they are all just accepting everything that we are teaching! I will quickly tell you about one, his name is Julien, and he is from New York! We teach him in English, well because that is all he speaks, but he is great. He was sent here by his mom, because he was getting into bad things and she couldn’t deal with it anymore. So when we (well Hermana White and Hermana Antivilo contacted him) first met him he was 100% gangster, and he had earrings and chains, and necklaces, and a doo-rag, and big, baggy clothes… they gave him a “For the Strength of the Youth” pamphlet and he read it 6 times, took out his earrings and doesn’t wear anything on his head anymore and no more chains. His clothes are getting less and less baggy as well. He loves the teachings of the church and says that this is what he has been waiting for, and he already feels the blessings. He got a job the week after he started praying and reading the Book of Mormon and he said it’s the first one he’s had in his whole life, he knows that God is blessing him and he wants to be baptized! He came to church and loved it (even though he didn’t understand everything) and he also wants to serve a mission, although he said he doesn’t know if he’s allowed because he has a tattoo on his shoulder, he was SO worried about that! I just love it! He is so happy and I see a change every time we meet with him! Well I gotta be going, I love you all and love your support! Thanks for your example and all that you do!
Hermana Reay

July is HOT!!!

July is HOT!!!
The mission president’s wife said that July is the hottest month here, but I have also heard that August and September are worse...we'll see! I think that I can handle it! I am just enjoying myself amidst the heat though! We are working really hard and our work is paying off! We had 12 investigators in church yesterday! I hope the numbers just keep getting higher, its so amazing to see all of the people there that mean so much to you, you cant help but smile and be happy the whole day! We also had another baptism, Esleiter, he is 11 and he has been going to the church for 2 years on and off with his cousins. But neither of his parents are members, but he REALLY wanted to be baptized, so we taught him all the lessons in the last couple of weeks, and he was baptized on Sunday, it was sweet. He will be a good member, and hopefully a really good example to his other siblings and his parents.
A few awful things happened this week, that I am not going to go into, but I just want to say that really through trials you do become stronger, and sometimes I think that the lord is just testing you to see how you will handle it. All in all things are fine, one of our investigators broke a commandment that shouldn’t be broken and another one we had to leave. But we are making it through.
The Lord is blessing us, we are right now teaching a new family. The parents are great and I know that one day they will all be members, but for right now, their 2 children are the ones ready to be baptized! Kayla and Victor. They both came to church and they loved it, and they both have friends there that they didn't know were members. It really helps when they know someone in the ward. Well they have both been praying and reading the Book of Mormon, Kayla has even been marking A LOT of verses. We think that they will be baptized within the next couple weeks. They are really special and every time that we go there the spirit is really strong and really is teaching through us! I love that feeling!
We also have Ulda and Domingo....let me just tell you a tad about them, Domingo was so against the missionaries and the Church (he didn't understand why he had to be married if he didn't even attend the Mormon church and it made him angry!), but Ulda no...Until Hermana White and Antivilo taught him the first lesson, then he started to understand it. Then I came into the area and we have been teaching them ever since. This is Ulda's second time hearing all of the lessons, but she loves them more and more, and her testimony is really growing! Domingo can't read, and Ulda reads really slow (she reads A LOT better now then she did before she read the Book of Mormon) anyway, he cried when we shared the plan of salvation because they had a baby that died. And then he was just sold, he is accepting everything and he comes to church and he loves the bishop and everything. So we asked them to be married again, he didn't reject but told us that he would give us his answer after all the paper work is ready! (Ulda says that it’s an answer we'll like :)) anyway I just love them. Pretty much we are going to be having a wedding, with baptisms soon to follow! I love to meet people that you just have so much love for and you watch their lives change for the better right in front of your eyes and they are receiving all of these blessings from God because they are doing what he wants. They are so happy! And I can’t help but soak in their happiness and have it with me for the whole day! Remember Ulda did, all the laundry by hand on Saturdays so she could keep the Sabbath day holy! She is so cute, we brought the washing machine over to them this week and they were just so happy and crying! They live in the poorest of situations out off all the investigators that we have, but they are probably the happiest! I just love the humble. I learn so much from them! There are so many things to say, but I just don’t have the time, just know that I love it here in the Dominican Republic, I am dealing with the Heat and we are finding so many souls that are White and ready to Harvest! I love you all and am so thankful for your love and support!
Love, Hermana Reay
P.S. My miracle baptism, Susan, she is just ceasing to amaze me every day! She has been going out with us and she is just wonderful, she always shares great stories and she is taking our inactives and investigators under her wing and making sure they are happy in the church and going to the activities! She already signed up for 4 institute classes and...............she decided she is going to go on a mission!!!!!!! I couldn't be happier for her; she is definitely an Angel and a Sweet gift that I had the opportunity to teach! I love God's tender mercies!

ONLY ONE MORE YEAR!!! WOW, TIME FLIES!!!

Hola!
How was the 4th of July??? Did you all celebrate? I hope so, I missed it last year, and when you aren’t in the States its just not the same! I hope you all had a BBQ and some fire works! Can I just tell you that it is so amazing here? We are having so much success in our area that we don’t even have time to teach everyone! At church we had 11 investigators! Before that the highest number I had had was 6…almost double! And we are receiving so much help from the ward and especially our bishop because they can see the hard work that we are doing! He bore his testimony all about how grateful he is for the missionaries in the ward and that the members should all open their doors to us and do whatever they can to help us. It was really touching and special! And especially because we had a baptism too! I want to tell you about 2 investigators…The first is the one that was baptized on Sunday, Federico! He is just hilarious! We are so happy for him because the ward just welcomed him with open arms and the Bishop made him feel really special! He was and is so accepting of EVERYTHING about the church and the gospel. Did I tell you that he thinks that all the rain that we have been having is a sign from God that he needed to be baptized! We had such a good time teaching him and we always had a lot of good laughs because he has a great sense of humor. Something I will never forget…. He walks into church on Sunday and asks us, “where is the storehouse?” we were like, “huh?” “in the bible it says to bring all the tithes to the storehouse, I have my tithing so where is the storehouse? Is it here?” haha it was hilarious, so we just had to explain to him about how to pay tithing! He loves everything and I know that he will always be a strong, active member! His baptism was really special and the spirit was really strong! I also want to tell you about Ulda and her partner, Domingo. They are just amazing. I met them my first week in the mission field when I was with Hermana White. And there were rats and everything in their little shack of a house behind an abandoned building. Well back then we didn’t think that there was much potential with them but now there is! Ulda wants to be baptized so bad, but they need to be married first, and Domingo didn’t want to be (I think its because he cant pay for the marriage) so we started to teach him all of the lessons and he was crying in the Plan of Salvation and everything and he has come to church 2 times now and they are just so special! Seriously, Ulda is one of the biggest examples here, she never used to come to church because that was the day that she would do laundry, everything by hand for about 10 people. And it takes her all day… Well she changed and does it all on Saturday so that she can come to church on Sunday. She is so faithful and diligent. Well Hermana Antivilo wrote her boyfriend about Ulda and he was really touched by her obedience to keeping the Sabbath day holy…so he asked everyone in his office if they would chip in a bit of money, and they all did, now we have enough money to buy her a washing machine and we will probably have a little bit left over to help pay for their marriage! The Lord works in mysterious ways, but it was seriously an answer to her prayers because she was so, so sore when she came to church and she said her hands just hurt for days, she is just amazing and when we told her she just cried and said that God had answered her prayers. There are so many other things I could tell you but I just don’t have the time. Just know that we are teaching a lot of Golden families and that the Gospel really does bless families and I love this work, I am so grateful to be a park of this Marvelous work and wonder!
Love you all,
Hermana Reay