Saludos! I thought I would start this letter with a common Dominican
greeting. Dont ask me what it means, I think it means something along
the lines of Salutations. I had an awesome week in the DR. I had my
first real Dominican meal last Tuesday. My companion and I, as well as 4
other missionaries, went to a restaurant called la esquinita. My
companion recommended the plate of the day, so I got that. It had
chicken, moro, and some Dominican spaghetti. I also got a huge
strawberry shake. The moro was this rice and beans dish that had the
beans cooked into the rice, as opposed to the habichuelas and white rice
which is more like what Dad makes. It was all super good. I also read
the Ricciardi letter during my personal time, my companion recommended
it. It is about this missionary and his experiences he had with his
trainer, an elder named Ricciardi. After I read it I thought Ricciardi
was the wisest missionary ever, you guys should read it. Azua is really
hot, but I hear Texas is super hot right now, so its probably not much
different. Everyone here rides motorcycles, and my companion says that
he has got to the point where he can tell what kind of motorcycle it is,
just by the noise it makes. There are tons of dogs just walking around
the street, there is this one evil one that hangs out next to the church
and I saw him coming up behind me through the corner of my eye and I
turned around real fast, the second I did that, it stopped following me
and started barking at me. This scared the crap out of me and I did a
little dash away from it. Luckily it didnt follow me after that. My
Spanish is getting a little better, I definitely spoke more this week
than last week. I did my first ever contact completely by myself, and I
managed to get us an appointment with this individual. Ive been teaching
about half of the first lesson by myself, my companion does the other
half. we spent a lot of time teaching this girl named Willmary, and we
even had her scheduled to be baptized later this month, but it turns out
her dad is Catholic and forbid her from getting baptized, or going to
our church. This really bummed my companion out to the point where he
became almost suicidal. Im just kidding hes fine, but after we were told
this bad news, he walked across the highway without even looking and a
motorcycle almost ran him over. another one of our investigators had the
same situation, her parents didnt like our church, so we had to drop
her too. Ive only been here 2 weeks, so I dont really take this stuff
too hard yet, but I always feel bad for my companion because he has
worked on some of these investigators for months and I can tell he is
frustrated. This has been an interesting week for meals. I baked one of
those Pillsbury cakes in our gas oven, I thought is was going to be a
disaster but it turned out great. My companion showed me he how to make
this rice and sauce dish. It was just white rice covered in this tomato
paste sauce with hamburger, onions, and peppers. We also bought a
lechosa, which Im told is just the Dominican word for papaya, and we
made smoothies out of it. The highlight of my week was when we taught
Hector. My companion was teaching the 3rd lesson, and I would pitch in
and explain that faith is action as well as trust. By the end of the
lesson my companion extended the invitation to be baptized to Hector,
but he was hesitant to accept. I got the feeling that I should tell him
about our motivations, so in broken Spanish I told him that many people
from other churches will say that if we arent baptized into their church
we will go to Infierno (Hell). I told him that we dont believe that
because God is our father. I used an example, I told Hector if one of
his kids did something bad would he send them to jail, claro que no! I
explained that it is the same with God, and told him that we should want
to be baptized, so we can show our love for him. I wanted him to know
that our church isnt like other churches (not that I wish to speak bad
about other churches) we dont intimidate people into getting baptized,
we encourage them to love God, so they will have a desire to be
baptized. I hope someday he commits, well have to wait and see. On the
bright side, it looks like we may be having a baptism this Thursday with
this woman named Francia we have been teaching, she is awesome and has
kept all of her commitments. Cross your fingers, and please keep her in
your prayers. I love you all! See you next week!
His comp takes pictures of Caden and I added them here!
Comments
Our hot and dry heat Gilbert, AZ Grandson is serving in the hot and humid, Louisiana Baton Rouge Mission, tho he is in hot, humid Meridian, Mississippi. He’s been out since late Sept.
We have other grand nephews in Cali, Colombia, Oakland Fijian speaking, a grand niece just got to the coast of Brazil, and another grand nephew getting ready for Thailand.
I ❤️ Missionaries!
Carol Anne