DRian Happenings

Hola todos!

I literally have no time so really quick!

We invited six people to get baptized! Two are on date and four said yes but haven't picked a date yet!

The guy who brought us our filtered water we were buying the other day has seen missionaries before and was like, what church are you from? We taught him the Restoration, but he had to go before we could get contact info for him, so we were like, shoot, what do we do now?

Then two days later outside of one of our friends' houses we saw the same guy! Awesome miracle! Now we have his address and we're so gonna baptize this guy!

The DR is awesome. It rained this week probably as much as it rained in Utah last year. I LOVED it. Every time it rained I just wanted to soak it up and my comp was like, you're crazy, get under the umbrella!

Nispero is gross. Tamarindo is tart, really good, and apparently worth diarrhea because I keep going back for more.

The Church is true.

I spoke in Sacrament meeting yesterday and it actually went pretty well! I told my ward to focus on growing their testimonies daily so that they're ready to share the gospel when there are opportunities to do so (or when we make opportunities to do so, cuz sharing the gospel is actually a commandment). You guys should do that too! 1 Peter 3:15

Hermana Cazier

1. A weird plant

2. Tamarindo

3. Una mariposa

4. I don't have a ton of pictures of me and my mom so this is literally a cropped family picture... but I love you Mom! DR Mothers day was yesterday and even though they didn't let me call again it's always great to think about how awesome my mom is!

Welcome to the DR!!

I am here! The DR is really different than anything I have experienced yet in my life. But it is so awesome here!!

Let's start with the work! Cuz that's the really cool part. We found 18 people this week. The people here are just ready to learn! We invited two people to get baptized. Both of their stories are awesome!

One said yes. After our phone call with him, we celebrated, then Hermana Fernández told me that the date we had set probably wasn't gonna be the actual day he gets baptized. Because in the Dominican Republic, there are a whole lot of people addicted to coffee or alcohol or living with someone they're not married to. And God has commanded us to live His commandments before we make covenants with Him.

So we went to teach him the Word of Wisdom (God's law of health) last night, and the whole time he nodding along like, "yeah, this makes sense." Then we asked him to live it and he said, "Hermanas, I already am." He used to be a coffee and an alcohol drinker, then he figured out the blessings of living the Word of Wisdom ON HIS OWN a few years ago and quit. God prepared him! God is preparing people everywhere and it's so cool!

The other person said yes, but wouldn't set a date. Hopefully she will commit to work towards a certain date this week when we talk with her again. We suggested a date after she said yes, and she was like, "I don't know, that's really soon." And then I testified straight from the heart that the most important thing is that she gains a testimony. Until then the baptism can wait. And when I said that, it was without a doubt that she will gain a testimony. This church is true and she wants to find truth. So she will. It may take time for her to build her testimony, but if an honest seeker of truth investigates the gospel, the Holy Ghost will tell them EVERY SINGLE TIME that this church is true. 

That was a big moment for me because I have always been scared to promise things like that because what if they don't feel anything? But I am learning a lot about faith. My comp has taught me to pray for faith to baptize every day and it's making a huge difference!

Also, gues what? The Spirit can direct you even when you have no idea what is going on. (Gift of tongues includes the language the Spirit speaks.) People speak Spanish here. Very fast Spanish. It's really hard to understand. I understand more every day but if we're talking to a person who talks faster than average, I sometimes understand a very low percentage of the conversation. And there is always extra noise, often loud Spanish rap music, so it's hard to concentrate. In one such situation, we talked to a lady and taught her most of the Restoration. Then my comp didn't invite her to church. That day was Saturday, and we invited literally everyone we talked to that day to come to church. As we walked away, the Spirit made me ask why she didn't invite her to church. My comp said that she had said she had a baby when she was a teenager, and not a single person in her church ever came and visited her, so she's kind of turned against churches. Whoa, I had not caught any of that. We decided to pray, so we did, and we both felt like we should go back and invite her. So we did, and she said she couldn't this week because she'll be traveling, but that she's totally up for going with us! That was cool.

Every day around 2pm, we leave the house. We walk around and visit lots of friends and find new friends along the way. We have so many lessons every single day. If someone's not home, we just visit a person who lives near them or find a new person to talk to. We have backup plans for our backup plans. If all else fails, we do the last resort: eating dinner. I think ate dinner one time last week. We're just too busy for it. Lunches are huge though, so it's fine.

I tried chinola this week. Passionfruit. It's huge here. Everyone makes drinks out of it. There's straight chinola, which I tried first and LOVED. It's amazing. There's also chinola mixed with every fruit you con think of. And also other random stuff. One of our friends gave us chinola con avena (chinola with oats). I thought I heard wrong when she said the name. But it was actually delicious!

I'm going to try at least one new fruit every week. Going to the store today was so fun. The produce aisle is filled with stuff I have never seen before. I asked Hermana Fernández the name of everything. I don't remember any of it. 😜

Speaking of Hermana Fernández! She is my comp and she is AMAZING!! I love her so much. She's hilarious and I'm learning so much from her! She's a native Dominican. One of the first things she said to me was that we're both from the mata of our country. That's a slang word for tree. Utah is the "mata de los misioneros" because all the missionaries are from Utah. Santo Domingo (the capital) is where all the Dominican missionaries are from.

Don't worry though, she also speaks English. I just get to teach her fun slang like "that's a rip" when I say something she doesn't understand.

Driving here is like life size Mario kart. It's kinda scary. Fortunately we don't drive ourselves, but we find ourselves in carritos públicos and gua guas (public transportation), and I usually feel like I'm about to die.

Also we don't drink the water here! We use filtered water to drink, cook, and brush our teeth with. I drink like five water bottles full of water every day.

I love all of you! I don't remember what free time is anymore because we are so busy here! I wish I could write more, but I gotta go!

Hermana Cazier 

Pics

1. I don't know what all of these fruits are

2. Us

3. Lagartija

4. CHINOLA!

5. right after I got to the DR! 

* June wasn't able to contact us, her parents, when she arrived in the DR, so the mission office was kind enough to send us an email and a few extra pictures. It looks like she was well taken care of and there were lots of newbies like her.

Bye Oregon!

This is gonna be uncharacteristically short cuz it's 3:30 in the morning and I'm getting picked up in just a couple minutes to go to the airport.

But I had an awesome week! A couple highlights:

Going to the Portland temple! It's one of the most beautiful places ever and I'm so glad I got to spend one last time in the temple before I leave for the DR!

Finding a new person this week! 

An awesome devotional by Elder Pingree about the Atonement

An awesome devotional by our prophet and his wife which I hope you were all able to watch! If not look it up on churchofjesuschrist.org cuz it is worth watching! Also I got to see a few of my friends in the choir so that was awesome! Way to go Hermana Keen, Christina, Liv, Irving, Brielle, and Jac!

This last transfer has been so awesome! I'm so grateful for my awesome companions who grinded with me. We got a lot done. They're staying in Roseburg, so I know I'm leaving all of our people in good hands!

I sure am gonna miss Oregon. I am so glad I got to come to this mission and meet the people I did and have the experiences I have had!

And now my ride is here, so bye! Next time you hear from me I will be in a pretty different place hopefully not drowning in superrápido español. But even if I am drowning, when Peter started to sink, he called, "Lord, save me!" And Jesus immediately caught Him. If that's the pattern in the scriptures, I'm not too worried. :)

Con amor, Hermana Cazier 

Can't Steer a Parked Car

Another awesome week in Oregon!

We've started really trying to make progress with the people who we do service for. We already always pray with them but this week we started inviting them to do things. And we had Bibles studies with two of those people and one said she would come to church!

We actually had a lot of people this week say that they would come to church with us, but not on mother's day because it was mother's day. I wasn't sure how that discounted going to church, but then my own parents skipped second hour to talk with me... 🙄

But I'm so glad I got the opportunity to talk with my Mom! I love her so much and I hope all of you who are reading this got the chance to tell your mom how much she means to you and how grateful you are for everything she's done for you. Moms are truly amazing. I think the closest we can come to understanding God's love for us is understanding our mothers' love for us.

We also got to have a lesson with Tabitha this week! She's the girl we put on date a month ago, but every time we try to have a lesson with her something comes up and she cancels, so we haven't met with her since then. But a member invited her over for dinner and she came! They are a super fun family. Junior high sweethearts, which I'm not sure I've ever heard before. He served his mission in Brazil, same as my dad, and they made us "authentic Portuguese food that's been americanized". It was good. We had a lesson on faith, which is something we wanted to emphasize with Tabitha. I was worried about how we could have a spiritual lesson while at the same time keeping little kids entertained, but the Spirit makes all things possible! We had one of the best lessons I've had using the classic "faith is like a seed" analogy. The kids and Tabitha all participated a lot and I hope what they learned stuck with them.

We helped this lady move stuff from her shed to her truck bed in the pouring rain. I volunteered to be the person who stood in the rain the whole time tetrising the truck bed. I love rain. I love how much it rains in Oregon, and I've heard it rains even more in the DR. 😏

Also a cool experience I had this week! We had this training meeting where someone said, "you can't steer a parked car." She talked about how God can't do anything with us if we aren't trying. But once we put forth effort, He's able to direct us. Sometimes it involves Him completely changing the direction we're going, and sometimes the way we chose turns out to be the right path.

Anyway, I was thinking about that, and I really wanted to be able to teach with the Spirit, and specifically I wanted to share a scripture from the Book of Mormon with her. That morning I studied really hard. I prepared a bunch of Book of Mormon scriptures that I thought might be relevant to what we were going to talk about. I prayed that the Spirit would bring a scripture to my mind. And then during the Bible study, it went a completely different way than I was expecting. And the Spirit brought a scripture to my mind that answered a question she had. My prepared scriptures didn't end up getting used, but because I prepared myself I was able to be receptive to the Spirit!

Have an awesome week everyone! I love you guys and don't forget to start driving! Get that spiritual momentum going and step on the gas! Then don't stubbornly insist you know the way - let Jesus take the wheel.

Hermana Cazier 

Pics

1. this Plan of Salvation diagram that makes it so easy to teach it and emphasize that the plan shows God's love for us

2. this makes it look like what I said about the rain was a lie, but it was actually pouring about fifteen minutes before we took that picture

3-4. some funny pictures we took at a member's house. The kids were making fun of us for doing the hand thing that takes the picture for you 😄

5. we rescued a goat from the fence

6. book origami is something I've never seen before but I thought this was so cool!

The Light Within

The final dance concert of the school year was all about light. Some songs included light in the lyrics, or actual lights in the dance. Some didn't seem to have anything to do with light and that's okay too. I guess every dancer is light on their feet. :)

There was a competition of sorts in ballroom. Everyone had to choreograph a dance and then they chose which would be used in the concert. Ivory's dance was chosen and I love it so much. It is very beautiful. The whole concert was great. I'll miss seeing Ivory in ballroom next year. 

There is a bit of a mix in pictures. Some are the better quality ones that someone took during rehearsal and the others are zoomed in from our audience cameras, but some of Ivory's faces are awesome and needed to be on here. There are pictures from each dance and then the dance itself. Enjoy.

This first one with the girls in white was Ivory's choreography.

Next up is the mamba. I think Ives did a great job on this one.

This Cha Cha is short but sweet. Ivory is lifted up on the shoulder. She got a lot of fun lifts since she is small.

Finally the Lindy Swing. I got to see this one a couple times during the year. It was fun to watch every time.

Good job ballroom. And everyone.

I always try to run over to get a picture of Ivory in costume, but she always changes too quickly. But Denise (Isaac's mom) caught them one night, so I got one in costume.

Dance is always one of my favorite concerts of the year. Like I said, I will really miss seeing Ivory dance. She is really good. But I think she wants to focus on wrestling next year. 

Father's Day 2021

I see what is happening here. I am officially almost a year behind. June is going to creep up and I'll be 365 days behind schedule. That's pretty bad. I'm not sure what my best course of action is. I could just double up and do back to back posts. Like when your phone says, "This day one year ago."

However, I'll get Father's day on here before it happens again. Naturally I can't remember what all transpired on Father's Day. I imagine we showered Tyler with love and reminded him that he is just about the coolest dad out there. We got him some cool t-shirts.

The shirt isn't entirely accurate. If you follow Tyler on social media, you will see that he tells Dad jokes WAY MORE than periodically. 

I believe we did the Dad challenge where Tyler tries to hold everyone at once. However, I have NO idea where Daisy is? Was she sick? Is she clinging to his back? Was she in ID?

Anyway, in just a few short weeks, we'll celebrate Tyler again. I'll tell you about it in 2023, I'm sure.

It's a Blackout

Poetry that is...

Robyn does some awesome things with Blackout Poetry. I'm not quite that creative. I can barely make a poem by finding words I want. But Robyn adds the artistic element that puts them in a class all their own. So enjoy these. You might have a little trouble seeing all the words. Good luck.

Cool right?