¡Buenas dias! 

    Man, can I just say that the Lord is really nice to us? Because He made a lot of amazing things happen this week. He helped us bake a special recipe: 1 cup of exact obedience + 3 Tablespoons of dedication + 3 quarts of faith + 2 teaspoons of love + 50 lbs. of the Lord's help = a huge MIRACLE, and by that, I mean 5 less-actives and 6 investigators in church yesterday, and 16 new investigators!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! People, that does not happen!!!! Let's compare that to last week when we had 3 new investigators. For my friends serving in Japan and Europe, 3 is outstanding; I do not take for granted how much God is blessing this area. He is so good to us:):):)  I know that this is His doing and not mine. He is the one who is allowing all of this to happen, and I'm so very grateful for that. I am in absolute awe of how Los Angeles has changed within 2 months. There is so much potential here!!! 
    There was a ward baptism on Saturday, it was great, and I got to accompany [on the piano]; wow, I didn't realize how much I missed music! We sing a hymn at the beginning of every lesson to invite the Spirit--I love that we get to do that. But we have a ward pianist, so I never play, and there is no music in the streets cuz all apartments, unlike the South. Dominican music is my favorite thing in the world, seriously, I will listen to it for the rest of my life!! It's my favorite cultural thing here:) The national dances are bachata and merengue, which are so cool, and they come so naturally to everyone. These people are so chill, it's unreal. They're totally content with sitting for hours outside (in the South) or inside (in the capital) of their houses doing nothing but watch the world and listen to music. 
     We had the most fun P-day EVERY today!!! The zone next door to us got together with the San Geronimo missionaries and we played a bunch of sports, did teamwork games, had a water balloon fight, and had a barbecue! I love getting to know other missionaries, it's so fun! Plus I got to speak in English, which I've really been starting to miss haha:) Because of the activity, my time's super short today, so I promise I'll respond to those who wrote me later! But know that I love you guys and am so grateful for this wonderful work!!!

Love,
 Hermana Randall
​

Some super nice couple offered the zone a ride to the activity in their pick-up:)

​My district leader lived in the same building as the guys from my BYU ward, too funny! Yay for Cougar pride!

A Dominican washing machine and wringer-outer; it's SOO tiny and just swishes the clothes around a bit. Wahoo for roughin it:)

Happy Valentine's Day!
    I hope you all had a wonderful día del amor and told someone you love them! I'm really grateful that I have a mom who loves holiday decorations because our apartment looks a lot more cheery and festive now:)
    So, I survived my first week in a 2-man house with no English! I've gotten too used to being with an American companion. Funny thing I did with Hna. Black before she left: we talked in Spanish but with a Southern accent. Try it, it's hilarious:) Anyways, I was nervous about the transition and terrified to be in charge of a huge area that I don't know perfectly well, but I'm actually doing well and feel a lot more settled. Things are finally starting to pull together with the members, and I can breathe now. My comp is not Mexican, oops, she's from Guatemala. Hermana De Leon has 10 months in the mission, and she started in a 2-man apartment in the number one richest area of the mission, so she's settling in well to Los Angeles. I'm her first American companion, and she doesn't know a lick of English. Our mission president really pushes for the Latinos to learn it, so we've started off with practicing the "Head, shoulders, knees, and toes" song in the street if no one's around, haha. It's really interesting getting used to different Spanish words and accents, and now that I've lived with people from El Salvador, Panama, Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala, I can say they're all totally different, and they're all helping me learn more:)
    Dominican fact: it is totally normal to have extra or missing fingers and toes. Kind of creepy, still not used to it.
    We had a fabulous Law of Chastity lesson with Maribel and Laura, but Perla (17) wasn't there, so Maribel wants us to reteach it this week to Perla and the boyfriend we just found out she has. This week, we did a lot talking: contacting and teaching potential new investigators....but not a ton of finding. We're really looking for people who are truly ready to accept the Gospel and will be willing to take the necessary steps to baptism and onward. As a companionship, our focus is our mission theme, which is to find oro puro/pure gold and subir la montana/climb the mountain. The summit is the temple, and if we take Elder Maynes' advice from a few weeks ago and spend more time finding, we'll have greater success in bringing a larger number of people to the top. 
    I realized this week that what was keeping me from greater success was personal sacrifice. With that new found realization, I rededicated myself by giving more time to the Lord and trying to go the extra mile. We have seen miracles for contacting just one more building before lunch, giving 10 more minutes to proselyting time during the day. Through faith that we could find pure gold, a positive attitude, fervent prayer, and pushing a bit harder, we found 2 darling, little families. One is a young couple with a 3-year-old daughter, and the other is a single mother with 6- and 11-year-old daughters who have great questions about why there is only one God but so many churches. My testimony has been strengthened that God is a God of miracles, and if we'll give a little more of ourselves to Him, He'll meet us where we are and take us so much farther than we could ever imagine. There's a new Primary song that says, "Jesus is a God of miracles. Nothing is at all impossible to Him, but I know this: Of all His miracles, the most incredible must be the miracle that rescues me."  I testify that that´s true and that His help is always there if we'll just ask for it.

Todo de mi amor,
    Hermana Randall

We now have 2 MTC companionships from the same group (July 15th) now in the same zone!! These Elders were in the district next door to us, and we had classes with them every day--grateful to be reunited! 

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

¡Saludos!

    Transfer calls came!! I´m going to be staying in Los Angeles, and my new companion will be Hermana De Leon (literally translates to ¨of lion¨) from Mexico. And guess what? Hna. Black is only moving 15 minutes away to the other Sisters' house in the zone to be comps with our Hermana Leader! AND Hna. Flake, my MTC companion, is coming to that house, too! So I´ll get to be with them every single Monday and have daily morning devotionals with my best mission friends!! I can´t believe it, I´m so happy:) I´ve been very blessed to have 4 obedient companions so far, and I don´t take that for granted. Also, I´m feeling very grateful for my mission mom, Hna. Dibble, who is going home this week; she is so amazing, and I´m so glad I got to have a trainer like her.
    On Tuesday, Hna. Monks (Hna. Black´s new comp) came to my area to do splits for the day. Her Spanish is so good, she´s super nice, and I love how she teaches; it was a great day. (Btw Randalls, she´s from Meridian, ID!). Thursday, we contacted the coolest lady every in our huge residential area (I was wrong, there are actually about 400 apartment buildings there). Her name is Carol Perez, and she´s a broadcast journalist, just like what I want to be! She´s trying to set me up with her 19-year-old minor league baseball player son who´s living in Arizona right now haha not going to happen, but she came to church yesterday! And she straight-up asked for a Book of Mormon!! Miracle, I´m so excited to teach her:) Maribel came to church, too, but not her daughters; the difference in progression of Maribel and the girls is pretty big right now, so I think they´ll be baptized separately.
    The Dominican Republic is a very religious country, and there are a lot of missionaries from other churches who preach here, especially Jehovah´s Witnesses. Their chapel is right by ours, too, so people usually think that I´m a 23-year-old Testigo de Jehovah, and I´m like no, I´m a 19-year-old Mormona from Utah. Nearly everyone here has at least heard of Mormons, so that´s a start:) The ward is starting to work with us a little more, yay! I´d say that this has been a transfer of planting seeds; I´ve talked to a lot of people, but not a ton have really wanted to accept our message, but maybe they´ll listen to other missionaries who come along in the future. I´m hoping we´ll get some really solid investigators this next transfer! Coming to Los Angeles has been such a huge change, but with being in charge of the area and receiving my new companion, my world is about to take a 180 turn. But you know what? It´s going to be okay. President Thomas S. Monson said:
"The Redeemer chose imperfect men to teach the way to perfection. He did so then, and he does so now."
Those words have brought me a lot of comfort this week. God is watching over us, and He can see a lot of things we can't. We can find peace knowing that it'll be alright, and I'm going to have faith in that. Know that I love you guys! Keep it up this week!

Love,
   Hermana Melissa Randall
​

​Splits with my Hermana Leader, Hna. Monks

Our reactivations, la familia Vargas!

​Trying to teach my comp how to make a cool face

I just love Hermana Black so darn much!!!

​¡Hola!
​
    Happy February! I seriously cannot believe how fast time has flown by--January lasted for a split second, and transfer calls are coming this week! Ahhhh! Speaking of time, I want to share what a missionary's day typically looks like (I've been meaning to do it for forever but always had too much else to say:D)

6:30am  Wake up, devotional with Hermanas from the zone over the phone, exercise, get ready
8:00  Personal study
9:00  Companionship study
10:00  Proselyting, district meeting, zone meeting, or weekly planning
12:00 Lunch in the apartment
2:00  Language study
2:30  Proselyting
8:00  Return to the apartment, plan, mini dinner
10:30  Lights out

    50-100% of our appointments fall through every single day, so basically you come to not expect a whole lot out of other people, but you always have hope:) Thanks to our mission president, the Hermanas now have the wonderful privilege of attending a 6:30 am meeting with ward Priesthood leaders every Sunday from here on out. It's a 20 minute walk to the church, and the change for Daylight Savings Time doesn't happen in this country, so it's really like we're walking there at 5 am; let's just say I was having major drill team flashbacks yesterday as we went for the first time.
    I had another lesson in English! I talk enough in English with Hermana Black that it wasn't too weird, but yeah, it was great! It was with a 14-year-old named Kimberly who lives in our residential area, and we're going to visit her again tomorrow. Through inspiration, we also found an awesome less-active lady named Hermana Peralta who was a temple worker and everything; we're excited to start working with her, and she's really glad that missionaries finally found her house. On Saturday, we went to the baptism of our zone leader's investigator. The man baptizing her had a bit of a hard time, so she went under the water 3 times and the prayer was said 12 times because he kept messing up. I felt so bad for the poor girl, but she finally did get baptized, so yay! I hope she remembers the peace she felt afterward and the comfort she experienced when she received the gift of the Holy Ghost the next day.
    Yesterday, our zone did this awesome thing called a cosecha where we all come to one companionship's area for the afternoon and go on splits with the members to find less-actives. Every ward and branch here has hundreds of less-actives, so a cosecha is a really effective way to narrow down the teaching pool to figure out who still lives in the area and who is ready for the missionaries to teach them. Turned out that everyone on my assigned list had moved, but I had a great time teaching some other inactives with really strong members.
    Guess what? I had my first reactivations of my whole mission!! It was Hermano and Hermana Vargas, an elderly couple in our ward. We had Family Home Evening with them last week, they had their interview with bishop yesterday, and the paperwork is all filled out, so they're officially reactivated! In this mission, the goal is for each companionship to have one baptism and one reactivation each month. I know amazing missionaries who've had 4 baptisms during their entire time her and others who've had 16. It just depends, and numbers aren't the only sign of success. what matters is that we're doing our very best to be obedient and work hard with a willing heart to build up the kingdom of God:)
    Speaking of baptisms, we set a date with Maribel and her two daughters for March 12th!! We had a fantastic lesson with them about baptism, the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. It's so wonderful to know that if they do this and keep their covenants, and if their husband/father who passed away accepts the gospel in the Spirit world, they can live together as a family forever. This really is a gospel of hope and happiness:) I was able to share with that family something valuable I learned from my mom this past week, something that's been on my mind a lot. It's about how the Spirit is a manifestation of God's love. Sometimes we feel a little far away from God, but when the Holy Ghost touches our hearts, that's Him saying, "I love you. You are my child, and I am here for you." Explaining that to Maribel's daughters, who don't have an earthly father right now to turn to, was very special. I'm so grateful to know that we are never alone, that we have no reason to fear, because we will always have God on our side, and we can choose to always have the Spirit with us. Moroni 8:16 says, "Perfect love casteth out all fear." Since the Holy Ghost is synonymous with God's love, we can also say, "The Holy Ghost casteth out all fear." May you all feel of his special spirit this week! Love you!

~Hermana Randall
​

​The bishop's darling kids

Eating with an RM and the Los Angeles missionaries

​Some of the only white people in the DR

The district:)

Hey everybody!
    ¿Como esta la vida?  ¡Espero bien! The word to describe this week: conferences. I was one of the luckiest missionaries ever! On Tuesday, we watched the worldwide missionary broadcast, and it was so awesome! The theme was "Teach repentance and baptize converts." Members of the Seventy, Apostles, and Sister Bonnie L. Oscarson spoke, and I learned so much. I loved when Elder Dallin H. Oaks said we need to teach with power and emphasize that we can only return to God's presence through His Atonement.     
    On Friday, Elder Richard G. Maynes of the Presidency of the Seventy and Elder Hugo B. Martinez of the Seventy from Puerto Rico gave a special devotional with their wives for the missionaries in the capital! Elder Maynes served his mission in Uruguay, just like Grandpa Q did as a 19-year-old and as mission president! Also, Elder Maynes was a mission president in Mexico and spent lots of time in other Spanish-speaking countries, so he gave his talk in Spanish:) The Hermanas got to sit in the front row, and then Elder Maynes came down from the stand and talked a lot right to me and Hermana Black--so cool! One of his themes that I loved was "Have more faith than fear," something I have definitely learned to be true on the mission. You can't expect miracles to happen if you have doubt that they're possible; you gotta rely on the Lord and trust that He'll make things works! Because they will! 
    The next day, Elder Renlund of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles gave a devotional with all of the youth, and we didn't get to go, but we were allowed to attend a meeting for the missionaries, investigators, recent converts, and less-actives with Elder Maynes and Elder J. Devn Cornish of the Seventy and Area President. We went with a lady in our ward, Luz, who has been a convert for 5 months and has a daughter serving a mission in Mexico. I loved Sister Maynes' conversion story: she grew up in a non-member home and was searching for the truth, and when she was 23, she met BYU basketball player, returned missionary Elder Maynes. He introduced her to the Church, gave her a Book of Mormon, baptized her, and then married her a year later. How cute is that?? Our mission president talked about how the Book of Mormon will best show the path to happiness--so true! 
    Just when I thought things couldn't get any better, the presiding bishop of the church, Gerald Causse, was at our stake conference the following day with Elder Martinez, the Santo Domingo temple president, and their wives!! I was SO excited, and the investigator we were sitting with couldn't understand why I was so happy haha but wow, what an honor to listen to them! And we got to shake their hands! It was the best stake conference I've ever been to, and I appreciated it so much more as a missionary because I was looking for specific counsel for investigators and learning how to teach the doctrine better. Bishop Causse told an incredible story of how the Book of Mormon is essential in conversion and the story of how the Church was given permission by the French government to build a temple there in his homeland. SO INSPIRING. 
    There were so many things said that Jazmine (our new investigator, 21, has a 1-year-old daughter, this was her first time in church) needed to hear about why it's important to have the organization of the Church (read Elder D. Todd Christofferson's talk from the October 2015 General Conference "Why the Church," it's amazing), the Sabbath day, families, the Book of Mormon, and living our lives in accordance with the Gospel. She really liked it and said it all felt very natural. It was so cute, she leaned over and asked me during Sister Martinez's talk why she was crying, and I explained that sometimes the Spirit is so strong that we are overcome with emotion, and we have tears of joy and gratitude. It was so good for Jazmine to hear such strong testimonies from our leaders, to see so many members united with their families in the Gospel, and to see that we're just normal people with a lot of faith and conviction.
    That was something she said later that evening when we visited her: the Mormons are so firm in their beliefs, have so much faith, and testify with power. Why is that? Because we have the absolute, perfect truth: the knowledge of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. We have the exact same organization that Christ himself established while He was on the earth, with the essential characteristics of a living Prophet and Apostles, the Priesthood, revelation, and the scriptures. No other church has these things; every other church is of man. God doesn't like confusion, so why would He have more than one church? Ephesians 4:5 says, "One Lord, one faith, one baptism"--ONE way to enter God's kingdom, and we know of that through the Plan of Salvation, modern revelation, and the ancient scriptures. I want everyone to find and accept this perfect path that God has laid out so simply and beautifully for us! It is possible to obtain eternal happiness, and each one of us has the ability to find out for ourselves that this is true and that God has a divine plan for you and me. He's waiting for us to turn to Him, and He is so happy when we do! He loves us so very much; we are never alone, and if we choose to make Him a bigger part of our lives, we can feel of that perfect love even more. Know that I love you, too! I'm thankful for you all, and I'm so glad to know that we're all children of God:)

Con mucho amor,
   Hermana Randall

​My last time with Hermana Dibble/trainer/mommy--she's finishing her mission at the end of this transfer

Hi everyone!!

    I hope that life is just jolly right now for you! Mine is:) And just when you think things are getting more normal, they keep changing, and life´s never boring! I´m really grateful for that; I´m pretty sure I have the most exciting mission in the world:) So I started off the week by having a lesson with a family...with our mission president and a member of the stake presidency! Kind of scary, turned out great:) It´s a single mom with her 16- and 11-year old daughters, and they were a reference from President because Maribel (the mom) has a sister who is married to an ex-mission president who lives here. Maribel is our investigator closest to baptism here and is the only investigator in this area who has a date, but we´re working on that:) And she came to church yesterday!! She walked in late during a talk about the Book of Mormon, which is exactly what she needed to hear; it was great:) So we had 5 less-actives and 4 investigators in church--miracle!!
    By the way, it´s 90 degrees here, so go play in the snow for me and enjoy real winter! I felt like I was back in the South this week when we didn't have water in the apartment for 3 days...thankfully our next-door neighbor was nice enough to let us haul water from her place for an hour this morning! And then our water came back right after that haha but hey I got to teach the lady for an hour so wahoo! It´s always a surprise how teaching opportunities come:)
    We had splits this week, so I went to an area called La Yuca to serve there for a day; the other 4 Hermanas in the zone all live there. My companion was Hermana Pisconte from Lima, Peru, and I was the senior comp (WEIRD) because she only has 3 months in the mission! Guys, I hit 6 months this week! Nutsy! Soy vieja. We also had a good zone meeting this week--I´m so grateful that our zone leaders are obedient and are helping to shape up this area! 
    Every Monday, our zone eats together at this Catholic lady´s house named Lamaya; she´s been feeding the missionaries for 6 years (she really loves them), doesn´t let us pay, is amazing! But she doesn´t want to get baptized, and other missionaries´ efforts to teach her in the past haven´t worked. Today, only our district could come, and the 6 of us had a really awesome talk with her about her concerns with the LDS church. Maybe she´ll start letting us officially teach her! Well, on the way to her house, we had our funny moment for the week: turned out that our taxi driver was drunk and from New York, so he was talking in English and telling us about how if we ever need a free ride, we can get it from him. Yeah, um, no the free ride was not worth the risk of getting in an accident, but he assured us that we´ll always have a friend in him haha.
    Speaking of English, I had my FIRST LESSON IN ENGLISH!!! I don´t even know the word to describe what an experience that was! I´ve only talked in English a handful of time here, but I had a real lesson in my native tongue! We had a prompting on Tuesday to not visit our originally planned area and to contact a new area instead. Through a series of circumstances, we ended up meeting this 26-year-old named Luigi who lived in Utah for 5 years because he got a scholarship to Utah State! It was nutsy! He´s been living in Switzerland for the past couple of years (but was on vacation here), and one day, he was working on top of a building when he turned around and saw the gold angel Moroni statue and realized it was part of the Swiss temple! Every time he sees missionaries there, he talks to them, and he had a few lessons, so he knows quite a bit about the Mormons, especially since he knew so many of them in Utah. He said that he felt a special peace there, that he didn´t even have to talk to the people to feel the difference. He has never felt safer anywhere in the world than he has in Utah, and he wants to feel that peace again. BUT he said it would be weak to retract what he´s said about not wanting to be a member of the Church. I told him that it´s strength to turn around and let God help you just from where you are--He´ll take whatever amount of faith and desire you have and build you up from there if you´ll let Him. The thing is, Luigi is very content with his life, and due to major trust issues, he doesn´t want to risk the happiness he has right now. That´s such a problem here in Los Angeles--all these rich people think that they don´t need anything more in life. I love this scripture in Alma 5:28:28 Behold, are ye stripped of pride? I say unto you, if ye are not ye are not prepared to meet God. Behold ye must prepare quickly; for the kingdom of heaven is soon at hand, and such an one hath not eternal life.

    If we let pride get in the way and won´t let God help us, how can we receive more of God´s divine love and power? We just can´t! I´m so grateful for the Atonement of our Savior, Jesus Christ, to lift us up and help us in every hour, every place, no matter what. He loves you, I love you, and we can all make it through this crazy, trying, wonderful life! Stay safe and know that I am so grateful for you all!

Much love,
   Hermana Randall

Zone Conference

​Happy 6 months!

Throwback to firestation funness in Ocoa (our ward mission leader is a firefighter):D