Sister Ashlyn Don Perry: Week 6 :In the Mission Field!!!

Ah mi madre it has been a crazy week!! But big news... I´M IN THE FIELD!!! :D I left the CCM last tuesday. It was horribly sad to say goodbye to CCM District but Soooo excited to finally be in the field. My new companion is Hermana Francis and I love her!!! She is such a sweet heart, loves to sing, hard working, patient, and such a wonderful mom to me :) I am her first child (first one she has trained). She is from Logan.

My new area is Azua. I forgot where it is on the map oops, but it is wonderful. It has a good mix of campo (small town, not busy, very poor), and city. It is the hottest area in the mission, but luckily is have been cloudy so it hasn't been so bad. It did rain crazy, crazy hard the other day though!! My house is sooo lovely. It is a palace compared to what I thought it would be. It's quite big too. Its right in the middle of the city and campo areas so it's perfect. On every corner there are colmados which are little stores that sell snacks and groceries. But they are seriously on every corner. I love it!!

So in the first day I forgot bug spray so I got some monstrous bug bites all over my legs. They look nasty but they're getting better,they itch like crazy though!!!

So besides our house being amazing, we don't have a whole lot of water so we have to take bucket showers... They are such a chore. Ha I've never been so upset to have to take a shower before! They will definitely take some getting used to. Basically we have a bucket in the shower with a pitcher and you have to pour water over yourself with scrubbing your hair and that water is freezing so you cry a little each time you pour that water. haha I don't like them. :P

This has been the looooongest week of my life. It feels like I’ve been here for a month already. But at the same time when we finish for the day it feels like we just got up. Sooo weird.

So this is our day in a nutshell:

6:30 get up, pray, devotional with other hermanas (we have 4 total in my house: me, mi compañera, Hermana Bush, and Hermana Flores) eat, get ready.

8:00 Personal Study

9 comp study

10 greenie training

11 language study

12-2 cook/eat lunch

2 leave to teach

8 return and plan

10:30 bed

We have some awesome investigators. One is named Karubi. She is getting baptized in like a month!! She's so cute. We are teaching another family who lived in Florida for a while and they speak english!!! So awesome. We have also taught a lot of less active members and those are cool too. My favorite is when a member comes to a lesson with you which actually happens quite often. While we were going to find a referral the other day we found this lady to teach, Argentina. She goes to another church and believes that all churches that talk of Christ are true. We showed her the scripture one God, one Faith, on baptism and explained how "One faith" means one church and she understood and it was soo cool! We taught her the first lesson and I got to tell her about Joseph Smith and quote the first vision and the spirit was sooo strong!! It was so cool. Sooooo cool.

I have never been so tired in my life. I wake up tired and struggle to say awake the whole day! There was one day this week were ALL of our appointments fell though and I was tired beyond belief and my comp said something that helped me get though the day, and many others. "It won't be a bad day if we keep going." And she was so right.

My spanish is dying. By the end of the day I struggle though lessons. I'm pretty sure I’m getting worse :P

On saturday we got to go back to the Capital (it's about 2 1/2 hours from Azua. We took a bus and went for a greenie training with the new President (President Nuckols) who got here on friday. We were the only sisters who came the night before so we got the stay at the mission home which is something that apparently never happens so it was pretty sweet. Their house is HUGE!! Our room along what huge. I felt like we were in a hotel. Crazy. We got to sit and talk to President and his wife for a while and get to know them. They are so nice. The next day we went to church with them and everyone thought we were their daughters haha. Also, sunday was mothers day here, so Happy Mothers Day again mom!! After church everyone who is new to the mission came for dinner and a meeting. We learned how to manage our stress and what we should be doing to train. On the way home we road a guagua. It is a small bus that they pack full of people. Crazy crazy.

It's a huge adjustment but I'm sooooo excited to finally be in the field!! I love it sooooo much!!! I know this is where I'm supposed to be!! I love this gospel.

Love you all so much!!!!

Love, Hermana Perry