Hi Mom! I love you! Guess what?  I'm in the country!!!!! Like THE COUNTRY!!!!!! In Esperanza! I was in Santiago in Los Reyes, but now I'm in my second area! It a campo!  Hey, my new companion is super cool!!!!!!! I'm so happy transfers came!!!!!!!!!!

     My new house is GORGEOUS!!!!! Not like America pretty, but like a huge step up for a missionary pretty! IT HAS MIRRORS!!!!!!!! I HAVEN'T SEEN WHAT I LOOK LIKE IN 8 MONTHS PRACTICALLY! I've had Dominicans tell me that my calves are fat but now that I can actually see them in the full length mirror they are sooooo not that fat!!!!!

Hey bye, I love you!

Hello Everyone!!!!

     So I had a completely ridiculous experience this week! We were in a ruta on our way to a devotional.  And is was a sketchy ruta from the beginning...... It was like just thin metal sheets that were holding us in that car. Well, it started going really slow and we didn't know why. We were on a road where he should have been booking it. (because they usually do) We finally asked the driver what was wrong and he kindly informs us that WE HAVE RUN OUT OF GAS! So the motor is now off and we are just rolling down the road! ROLLING! So he goes as far as he can until we stop. Now it is officially dark and starting to rain. And he lets us out and gives us our money back. Now it is a Dominican rule that if we don't get to our destination, or if the ruta breaks, they return the money. So we find another ruta and get in and this ruta driver is a real nice guy and wants to help out the first ruta driver.  And so he gets behind the first broken ruta and hits it (actually car hitting car) and pushes this car to the gas station. We all just looked at each other like are you kidding me? Then getting home from the devotional we got a ride with a member in the back of his pick up truck. You know like on real roads we were driving and we're in the back..... but wait it gets better.  I'M HOLDING A FOUR YEAR OLD ON MY FREAKING LAP!!!!!!! Yep this is the country I live in. I've never held a kid so tight in my entire life:) 

     I got Aunt Diahan's package!!  Yay food!  The perfume she sent me smells really good too.   It's called Scarlet Kiss by Bodycoligy.  I like it a lot!  She also sent me orange nail polish.   So I've been rocking that!   It is the month of Halloween:) 

     Those are the highlights of my week.  I'm pretty sure I'm getting transferred next week, so i'll officially be leaving my first area. I'm sad about that, but its good to get to know more of the country.:)

Love,

Hermana Carey

Hello everyone! 

     So I ran into soooo many things this week! 1. A sack of bananas from a banana tree with my face 2.  A fire extinguisher that was attached to the wall....also with my face 3. A bright orange giant gate that was super obvious.....with my hip. Yep apparently I'm just a bulldozer and can't watch where I'm going!

      My cooking experiences were great this week! I followed with our tradition and made french toast for conference! Mom it's better with milk and evaporated milk too!!! I made it for the sisters and Elders! I only made it for the Elders so they would give me their syrup which I kept and now I have it for more french toast! I also made pasta salad! That was good! Then yesterday I made homemade garlic mashed potatoes! So... mashed potatoes with a fried egg, avocado and hot sauce.......SUPER GOOD! I'm going to learn to make rice this week.... we'll see how that goes!

      Today was fun! Well, hard but fun! We climbed to the top of a peak which sucked, but was super pretty, so it was worth it! We payed a guy to take us up in his truck to where the trail leads off and that was funny! He got a flat tire and I have never seen a tire shredded in my entire life until today! Well it was fun! We fit 14 people into the back of that little truck and climbed the mountain! Yay! 

But yup.... those are the highlight of the week! 

     Oh and conference!  LOVED THAT! It was like vacation!:) Man, the general authorities are just so great aren't they? Anyways love you!

Hna Carey

 Dad,

     Conference was so great!!!!!!!  I learned a lot! Conference is different to watch on the mission! It's just nice to be on the receiving end of the advice and counsel! I never thought in my entire life I would have to console and help people with problems like the ones I have encountered.......half the time  inside I feel like "are you kidding me Heavenly Father?"  I'm only 19, how am I supposed to help them? Then a scripture will come to my mind and and I just start talking and let the spirit guide what I say until they feel the love that Heavenly Father has for them. It is an amazing feeling! Being a missionary is so hard, but I love it so much! I love teaching people and helping them to realize who they really are and how special that is!  I love You!

Leah

Hello Everyone!

     So this week was fun! We were in a ruta and I am now understanding some of the music here and a terrible song came on and the ruta was full of missionaries and one stranger and the driver. So we were all just kind of looking at each other and so it was kind of funny because I had to ask the driver to change the song and then he and the stranger laughed because they thought it was funny. And the other missionaries were just laughing at me because because I was trying to communicate. Then he changed the song and I was all happy and when I looked at the other missionaries they laughed and told me that I didn't understand this song because it was much worse that the first song!  So I looked at the driver like "are you kidding me!" and then I told him to change it again and that this song was worse and that I was sure he had better options. Everyone thought that it was pretty funny.  Then we got out at our stop and I thanked him for changing his terrible dirty music. The driver thought that it was funny.

     Also, a highlight of the week! 80's music!!!!!!! Our neighbors are great! We get to listen to Celine Dion and Hotel California! But it sure is a bummer that it starts at 8 am on the dot. Try studying  about Jesus and having Celine Dion blaring through the window!  And you can't really close the window because you'll die from heat. It's special. 

     We also locked ourselves in the chapel and we were in there for about 30 minutes.......We also saw a moped race this week.  It  was funny!  I love fried eggs and fritos!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So good! You haven't had fried eggs until you've had a Dominican fry your egg!!!!! so much better! Yay! Anyway that's what happened this week. I am reading Jesus the Christ and it is so good! I have read Our Heritage and Our Search for Happiness! They are amazing! And we set a baptismal date!

I love you guys!

Hna. Carey

Hello Everyone!

      So this week was funny! I think that our house has seizures.....the lights are having serious issues! Have you ever painted your nails in the dark with the lights flickering? No? Well I sure have! That was so funny! Every time the lights went out I had to wait for them to come back on again then hurry and do the next nail before the lights shut off again! That was an experience!
      Then we had an emergency from a member this week! He called us and told us that we had to get to his house in about five minutes and so we practically ran there! And what was the emergency? CAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love cake so much!!!!!!!! They had thrown a birthday party and had leftover cake quipes bolas de yuca y empanadas! BEST EMERGENCY EVER!!!!!!!! Ahhhahahhahah. I love my people! We even got goodie bags! 

     We had zone conference as well and the area 70 was there so that was super great! My companion chased me down in the the rain yesterday, so that was pretty funny! Man, walking all day in rain sure does take it out of you! But it's a nice change from the NEVERENDING HEAT! IT IS SO HOT IN THIS COUNTRY!!!!!!!!!!!! But its okay! Who needs the cold!?!?!?!?!?! 

      I went on an intercambio this week with my sister leaders and we were in a lesson and their recent convert was asking about really deep doctrine and the sister leader told me that is was my turn to take the next question.  I didn't know the answer so I had him look up a scripture in 1 Nephi that says something along the lines of "I don't know the answers to all things, saveth that God loveth his children." Haha the convert sure got a hoot out of that and just laughed and laughed and laughed! Anyways those are the highlights of the week.

I love you all! 

Hna Carey:)

                                          eggs, tortillas and ketchup for lunch

     Well, today sure sucked! I flooded my house and my money went missing! I DID NOT LOSE IT! IT WENT MISSING I SWEAR! So I had to take out the $50 you just put in and I am so sorry that I had to take it out! I'm looking for the money and I honestly have no idea if I'll find it. It might just be gone.  I flooded the house filling up tub things because the whole city of Santiago is having water problems. We have not had consistent water for days. Well water usually isn't there at night which is normal, but it's been going out in the daytime too, so I flooded the house.  Not a a big deal because that is how they clean here, but it was a pain to clean up.  I am so sorry I didn't lose the money, it is legit GONE.

      And I sure am having the hardest time learning how to budget because we went like 3 days last week without food. It's just the pricing is so screwed up here. You can live on the missionary budget if you only buy rice, eggs and yucca but if you want anything normal like peanut butter the prices are jacked up because it's from the US. I'm so sorry! 

      Ummmmm............not much else has happened this week.  We have a pretty frisky investigator who was a freca(flirt) with the elders in front of us.  It was actually really funny!!!!! She left the Elders pretty scared!

      Mom I hit 7 months!!!!!!!! 11 to go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And yep I've learned a lot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:) My companion and I are just trying to figure each other out..........Oh!  We ate fried tortillas with scrambled eggs and ketchup! It was gross!........But it was lunch.......:) um..............yup...............I have some awesome Christian music!!!! Daniel would be SOOO  jealous!!!!!!! We had 29 lessons this week and 9 less actives and 7 investigators at Church this Sunday for the primary program!

     BYE MOM I LOVE YOU! SOOOOOOO MUCH!

Hello,

     So this week.....I decided that cats are gross. We went to a service project where cats were in a lady´s house and they just pooped everywhere. It was special....=) Only my cat is not gross, I love her! Also, we had a zone dinner and that was super fun! We had to cook for 18 people and the president and his wife in our house! That was crazy!

      I got to be with the mini missionary a lot this week which was way fun! Funny experience! So she saw a Rubiks cube and just got so excited that she wanted one and so I listened to her talk about her ¨cubito¨for 3 days and finally we went back to the store and she bought the cube and we went back to the house and she was playing with it and all the sudden I hear "öh no! mi cubito! Se rompio, mi cubit!¨She´d only had it for 10 minutes and it had completely fallen apart! I laughed SO hard! And for about 20 minutes she just sat there trying to put it back together! Aw poor thing!  She eventually  fixed it.

     Then, we had to go into the city for a meeting and we went to McDonald's for lunch which is pretty high class for a missionary here, I kid you not.  We had to cross the street to get there and we were crossing like Dominicans, which is pretty much just jay- walking and there was a barrier in the road and we didn't realize it because we were talking. So we´re standing next to the barrier in the middle of the road when the traffic starts and we have to climb up on this ledge so that the traffic is 4 ft away from us instead of 3 ft. And then we´re just trying to figure out what to do and the mini missionary starts to climb the little fence in her skirt! And then Hna Navas follows her! And I'm there in a pencil skirt that doesn't allow for climbing over freaking fences! So one of the strangers selling something comes and grabs my hand and helps me over the fence! It was a tad bit crazy, but fun!

      I HAVE A NEW COMPANION FROM COSTA RICA AND SHE WAS IN MY GROUP FROM THE CCM!

Anyways I love you guys!

Hna. Carey

Leah and just the mini missionary

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