Miracles happen every day!

1 Peter 3:13-18

And who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good?

But and if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye; 

and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled;

But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:

Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ.

For it is better if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing.

For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.

Found this this morning, and LOVE it!  Wanted to share with you all :-)


Love you all lots, wish I had the time or the energy to write more about everything that's been going on because, let me tell you that behind every one of these pictures is at least a million words -- haha!

I really am learning the truth that satan works the hardest on us right before and after great things happen, it kind of surprised me, just another reason that it's so important to have our backup supply of spiritual experiences and faith for when things are a little overwhelming and you need that extra boost and drive!

But all is well, life keeps moving forward (and I'm pretty sure it's getting faster tooo!) Learning lots, changing lots, and just plain growing up. Miracles happen every day, and there isn't a night that I don't fall asleep in about five seconds after my prayers. 

It's a crazy ridiculous beautiful life, and I wouldn't trade it for anything :-)

lots of love

hna coe

Cute family in our ward with their stinkin' cute kids!  

(I never realized how hard it was to get a picture

 with everyone smiling and looking at the camera!)

 Haydee and Joseph were baptized this past Saturday - it was awesome!

Can you tell that we celebrate everything with food? 

I think that's a mission thing, it is a gooood thing we walk allll day.

Yesterday we were in a cita (lesson appt) with Haydee, and we were talking about cooking and how I neverrr liked to do it before my mission, I'm not even kidding -- microwave was always the way to go. Abbie would cook, and I would eatt.  I told her my mom was basically going to die when she found out it was my new love.... sooo shhh I won't tell if you dont;)

In our last cita with Haydee, we realized that we had somehow gotten weirdly matching burns? Turns out cooking is dangerous, but how funny and sassy is this picture? Love her soooo much.

 Another one from Haydee's baptism

This is Susan, she is my life saver!!  She got home from her mission my first transfer and ended up going out with us for a few hours before she got released.  She's so awesome, and is in our ward, also super helpful that she was born in the states and speaks perfect english and I love her guts (and did I mention she has awesome hair?)

P-day Tourists

Hey lovelies!

Hope you're prepared for the major picture overload 

I'm sending your way this week!

First off celebrated my 6 months in the field! 

It was pretty much the best!  

Made the most delishh tacos I've ever had - with mango, fresh avacado

and pineapple. 

Do elders eat like this?

And finished it off with brownies and a surprise diet coke, let me tell you, food is by far the best way to my heart:)

 6 months!

Needless to say it was a great day and I super love the girls in my house.

Also got a surprise package of letters from the Halls for my 6 month anniversary that literally got there that exact day. Thank you for your awesome timing skills:)

Love you guys tons!!

Also, it turns out that, without fail, every time it's ready to downpour, I have either forgotten my umbrella or wearing white.... or both. This night it was an absolutely unreal lightning and thunder storm!  I have never felt one so close in my whole life. 

Of course I didn't have my umbrella, and since we were more worried about our backpacks (and the package I was hauling around in my backpack), Hna Petersen ended up taking them both ... and I danced in a tropical rainstorm the whole way home.

Needless to say we were soaked, but our backpacks and my package survived!

And now for the tour!  Our p-day got switched because one of the elders in our zone got us a rad tour of the presidencial palace. It's in my area and I walk by it every single day, so needless to say I was pretty stoked to sneak a peak inside. I was talking to one of the dominican elders in my zone and asked him if he was excited to go in. He looked at me like the crazy white girl that I am, and informed me that he'd already been there when he was in High school... so no. 

Haha, oh well -- I continued my disneyland-like excitement basically the whole time and it made for a fantastic p-day today.

all of us

view from the outside

It was mostly just a whole bunch of really huge rooms like this. 

Basically I just kept singing the 'once upon a december' song from Anastasia since they all reminded me of the ballroom dancing scene in that movie :-)

 We spend a little time taking classy juice drinking pics at the end of the tour

 one with a guard, these guys were all around the palace

 and then we went home...

(note from sue:  check out the guy in the background...looks like he was about done with silly girls :-)

affirmation band-aid as an added bonus :-)

Happy Bday! and the Magic Lays :-)

Hey loves!

Today's shout out goes to baby brother,

who, I guess, officially, is not even close to a baby anymore! 

THIRTEEN?

Is this real life? 

I seriously remember being 8, and super stoked on having a little brother. You were tiny with huge eyes, a bald head, and a birthmark between your eyebrows that got super red when you cried. I rememver you crying a ton when babysitters would try to put you to bed, and I would end up rubbing your back and making up songs to sing to you until you fell asleep. You were basically hudini (sp?) trying to crawl out of your crib and even learning to unzip the crib tent we eventually put on. My favorite was pushing you around in my "double stroller" aka, two plastic play strollers taped together with you and my doll in either side. And then you got older and paid me back by taping the door handles together of me & Abbie's room until I yelled to mom to "let me out cause I gottaa peee" who cut through the entire roll of masking tape wrapped around it so I could escape!

Needless to say I love you lots! 

Can't believe how tall you look in the pictures mom and abs have been sending me, and I hope you're living it up fishing and doing all that other icky little boy stuff this week!

Just know big sis is thinking about you from all the way over here! 

(even if you never write me...

...I digress)

Happy thirteen, I'm literally refusing to let you get any older!

<3

*****************************************************

So its been a great week!

Hit 6 months on the mission tomorrow and that is basically the weirdest, these month marks are freaking me out, passing way to fast, I think this whole counting thing is gunna need to stop!

So I'm running low on time, but gotta share my "Magic Lays Story"!!

So we bought some snacks (chips, carrots & sandwich stuff) to have a picnic before intercambios instead of ordering food, so we hopped on our gua gua with our stuff & headed home.  A few minutes into the ride, Hna Taylor somehow dropped the tube of Lays potato chips, and they flew right out the door of the gua gua. She immediately yelled, "Stop!" (in spanish, of course) but the driver didn't hear her, and we flew right through the intersection!   

Before we knew it, everyone on the gua gua was yelling for the driver to STOP! STOP! ...  so he did. I was watching out of the back window as the light changed in the intersection, where our poor container of Lays had landed, and cars started driving again but, somehow miraculously, every car was missing it. 

Then out of nowhere, one of the men in the gua gua jumped out, ran through the cars, holding his hands out to stop the the cars, and then ran back & hopped into his seat.  He then casually handed Hna Taylor the container of chips, and we started moving again. He was so nonchallant about the whole thing!  I was cracking up.

You seriously would have thought that Hna Taylor had dropped her first born child out the door, from all the commotion that happened afterwards!!  Anyways, he was so embarrassed as she tried to offer him oreos or anything else she had in her bag, to thank him! 

Just basically a kind superman saving our day, and our 80 pesos worth of of Lays.

I love this country --  A big chunk of my heart is making its home righttt here in Gazcue:)

Until next week<3

hna coe

our "picnic"

failed attempt at walrus teeth

Uh Oh ... she's pulling out the soap box!

Haha, it's true!  I'm sure you've all missed my rants and wisdom (okay, okay, hermana coe, I wouldn't go that far). But I finally have some energy (and time) to write some thoughts, so here goes nothing :)

Sometimes I wake up all stuck in my head thinking about life and our big purpose here. I'm grateful to be able to have some of the answers to my questions through this gospel and studying the Plan of Salvation. Turns out those are the questions of the soul, the things that we yearn to know, the things that make everything else make wayyy more sense.

But I was thinking specifically yesterday about who I think I am. But really like underneath all that shiny exterior stuff, not the me the world sees, but all that underneath stuff. The person we are when no one is watching, the one that no one sees unless you let them. The very heart of you, the driving force behind everything that you do. When you dig deep down and look, do you like what you see? Are you comfortable with the truth of what you find, what you've learned, where you are and how far you've come?

If you can't tell this week has been one of major self-reflection for me. It is the weirdest realization to see that I'm already 1/3 of the way through my mission. I know I've still got a whole year left, but have I really accomplished everything I would have hoped to in these 6 months to really make a difference?

I'm learning that, like with everything else, this is a step-by-step process, it doesn't come over night, and sometimes it takes a good amount of effort to actually make the changes that are necessary, but I've been lucky enough to be raised in a family that taught me that the effort isn't one we make on our own. We have some pretty powerful back up from our Heavenly Father, and everything we go through in this life was designed specifically for us to learn and grow. Which basically means that sometimes it's stinken hard, but not only do we learn as we go, but we also get stronger. What a blessing right? Because anyone with eyes knows we need to be strong to make it through all this crazy going on in the world.

So there's my brain dumped out in an email, haha!  (wow, that sounds way grosser when I re-read it)

but I love you all, and promise that next week's post will be lighter, just wait for the story of the epic lays and my mission cactus/seaweed...

until next week:)

hermana Coe

"You don't have a soul, you are a soul, you have a body"

C.S. Lewis


Saying goodbye to Hna Prestwich - she went home this week!

 smiley

 silly

 haha, that was so funny

wait, ahhh

haha, okay let's gooo

My week in Pics

Soo, first off I need to apologize for being a lame blogger, but I promise that this one should make up for all the 5-second lame ones posts past few weeks.

Turns out being a trainer is hard, and sometimes I just get tired, I think it has to do with that whole "being a normal person" thing... go figure.

So, the past few p-days, we've been painting at a member's work, it's like Color Me Mine, but on crack (am I allowed to say that on my mission blog? ...oops). It started out as the white, then the black and the last picture is when it's all finished!  I must say I'm super proud of it! 

Also yess, I realize that this was probably the biggest souvenir I could have chosen, but when I started looking and saw this one, I fell in love... so what can I say. 

Also we stopped by the office on my way home to show them our finished products and within minutes I found mine a home! She'll be hanging out in the senior missionary couple's house for the next year looking all majestic. They are the best and I'm sooo greatful not to lug her around.

We just got transfer calls, and I'm staying here this transfer finishing hna Petersen's training! My 4th transfer here and my only area on the mission -- wooo GAZCUE SISTA 4 LYFE!!  But really, Hna Prestwich (my 1st trainer) has been here her whole mission (5 transfers/8ish months) and she's just now leaving for her new area where she'll be sister training leader! Crazy stuff, I will miss her tons!

This is Wendy -- She is a member that we have been working with who has just started coming back to church. She teases me that I've chosen her as my replacement mom here, ridiculouss... But she really is amazing 27ish and takes care of her younger brother Ismael (11) and son, Naibin, plus school and work!  I don't know how she does it. 

Naibin and Ismael are super rad and remind me tons of porter. We had a sweet noche de hogar with them about following the prophet and ended playing "Don't eat Pete" also known as "No come pedro".

I absolutely love her!

She's already offered up her house for when we come back to visit, and is hilarious --  I'm pretty sure she does more for me than I could ever do for her.  

Rad braid Wendy gave me!

We went out and explored the area for our p-day, Hna Loughlin and her new companion came to visit

 Picture with my 2 trainers! 

 The sun was so bright, we just gave up on opening our eyes (1st one is candid). 

I love their guts, it will be weird living in the house without either of them there!

Rad package Molly sent! Can we just talk about how hipster this is? I'm not sure that I have the authority to make a call on this, but I'm pretty sure I have the best, most supportive friends in the world... but I'm just gunna make it anyways:)  Thanks lovely!

Also had a meeting with all the sisters in my district.

Love being reunited with my district of girls, all of which are so far away!

 (Hna Walker is missing because she got knocked out with a good old case of Denghue (sp?) and was in the hospital, but talked to her today and she's out and feeling muchh better, that stuff is gnarly)

Hermana Prestwich is leaving me! The night she got the call, it was raining and we decided we wanted to go out and get soaked... but then it decided to stop... sooo we shook our guanabana tree and it did the trick:) I will miss her tons.

Also pay no attention to how gnarly my skin has gotten here; 

turns out sun and sweat and stress aren't a great look for me.

Here's one of us all cleaned up for church on Sunday!

 deserted gua gua

All the Hermana's in the mission right now

link to video :-)

(from sue)

Kenzie sent a letter this week talking about a woman she has been teaching about the gospel -- she said this woman's grown daughter is a member of the church already, and is in an "I'm a Mormon" video.  She told me I should google it cuz it shows a lot of the D.R. Thought you might like to see it too!

Here's the link:  Soy Mormona doctora y madre dedicada

(don't forget to turn on the closed captioning if you don't speak espanol :-)

A couple "Firsts" (and I survived!)

Doing well, super busy, learning how to do things better than I have before and not get stuck in ruts!

Set my first baptismal date, and taught the Preach My Gospel class in our ward for the first time, in spanish, with the mission president there (talk about nerve racking). But I survived and all is well. 

Hermana Petersen is learning soo much so quickly and we had a really good week of lessons. Will try to do better at documenting life and stories to share with you all! 

Love you all, you're in my thoughts and prayers.

Read your scriptures, pray, be good, put your Heavenly Father first, and everything will fall into place. 

until next week

hna coe

Walking to a meeting with Hna Prestwich,;

can't believe just 2 transfers ago she was my trainer & now we are both trainers,

seems like years ago.