Group 11-14-2016
Another week here in the DR. Living the mission to its fullest and had a pretty interesting week!
Monday: P-Day was well needed and well used today. In the morning we went to email and went to the mall again. We ate some nice American fast-food but that wasn't the best part. While we where at the mall we saw Elder Gonzalez, the area president from the quorum of the 70. I have met him before in the CCM, but we got to see him again out in public and his son too. Luckily we all had our missionary clothes on so we were all good! After we ate we went and looked at the latest Nike clothes and the Apple store then took off to home. My companion and I and the Elders from Christo Rey 2 played a game called "Dominos". It is a very Caribbean game and is pretty fun! It is super hard to describe so if you want to know more just Google it haha! Once 6 o'clock rolled around we went to our "Noche de Hogar" (family home evening). We walked in the hardest rain storm I have ever seen and also my companion who has been here 10 months! In 1 minute my pants where SOAKED to the skin and it all ran into my waterproof shoes that held all the water inside! So wet from the waist down, but I had my rain jacket so the top part was fine. Super fun to be honest! The streets were flooded with water and there were rivers on the hills that were so big and just 100's of gallons of water coming down this hill! So much fun! The noche de hogar went well then we went home. Solid P-Day!
Tuesday: What a day today! The morning was good and just got things done but the work was great! First off we went to a house that I had contacted with the CCM Elder earlier. We taught her about Prophets and she had questions so we went really deep into Prophets but oh well haha! After her we went and picked up a member and went to some less actives house. They are getting better and their desire for church is stronger now! With the same member we went to one of our strongest investigator, Maridania. She is already at Mosiah 15 and we gave her a Book of Mormon a couple weeks ago! After we talked about her reading we went into the lesson. We taught "The Gospel of Jesus Christ". It went smoothly and she understood everything and the member pitched in perfectly! After that we had to drop the member back off then went to our other strongest investigator. This lesson was very cool because she received her answer while we where there. Caridad is her name and she has all the lessons and is now prepping for baptism. She wants a stronger testimony of latter-day prophets and she has problems with coffee. She is doing better with the coffee so for latter-day prophets we have been listing to conference talks of Thomas S. Monson. This has been helping a lot and we shared the one about the word of wisdom from this past conference. The cool part is how she received her answer. I recently downloaded a ton of talks and they where all random. When I played the talk at her house, I just chose a random one but it wasn't random. This talk was about how God is always there and Cardidad was in tears because it was so perfect for what she needed to hear. She has been having some problems and this talk helped her out a ton and the Spirit was SOOO strong in that room. Anyone could feel it! She said she knows the church is the church of Christ. She has been baptized into 4 other churches but never felt they were fully true and she said this one is way different and God answered her personally that it is true. It is so cool to be an instrument like this in the Lords hands! We had some more lessons after this but I am just going to stop here because that one was so amazing!
Wednesday: Today was a aright day. We had splits today and I was with Elder Cook again. I don't know why but every time we go on splits the dad-gum appointments always fall through. They were all falling through with an appointment every two hours until the evening. We went to a members house to talk with them about a less active that they are friends with. We talked with them about the less active they and a friend came in. For the message I just taught the first part of the restoration. After that we went to another lesson with a member. It was the members little brother who just turned 8. We taught him the restoration and the Book of Mormon. The night ended off good at least. It was nice to talk with Elder Cook because he is also new and we were talking about the change. It was really nice to talk about it and how we wish we could be better missionaries because our trainers aren't the best I would say, but we are going to try to be better missionaries together. That was my Wednesday!
Thursday: Pretty rough day. This morning my companion Elder Nieves had a super long zone leader meeting and didn't end until around 4. That could have given us 2 hours before to work so I talked with another Elder about leaving to go see a couple people. He didn't want to and came up with a bunch of excuses so I waited until 5 o'clock to leave today. That is the sucky part of the day but then it got better. Well kind of, the first three appointments fell through, but that was because we were 2-3 hours late. We met up with a member and he left with us and we only had time to go see a less active with him. This less active hasn't really changed at all since I got here so I planned this lesson myself and it went very well. I got her to open up a lot. She knows her life is always better when she reads and stuff but right now she isn't obviously. It’s something more then just being lazy so we will keep working with her. After that we went to a family home evening to call it a day. Not a whole lot of work but we did what we could. It sucks how much time we lose from all our walking but you can't change that unless you buy a motorcycle... There is a KTM dealer in my area too...
Friday: We left on splits with the CCM today. I went with a Elder Abla from Utah. We had a pretty good day. To start the day off, we contacted a little bit and he legit told us to go a way in Spanish haha! That was fun and a nice reality slap to the face that you are on your mission. We went to am appointment with one of our investigators and shared with him the Plan of Salvation. I got the other Elder to talk a little Spanish at the end of the lesson. After him we went to a members house and went with her to Caridad’s house. We read a chapter with her and the other Elder shared a message. After it was time to take him back and we ended the day with a nice caramel filled churro!
Saturday: We had a solid day today! Full of service, preaching, and activities. Not much more you can ask for! To start the day off we taught 4 people english. After lunch we went and taught Dayan’s mom because Dayan had to leave. Her mom wanted to talk and the spirit was WAY strong! I was asking so many inspired question and she was agreeing and she wants to have an eternal family with her daughter Dayan. That was a really cool experience for me because I was being an instrument for God! After her we had some other great lessons then went to Caridad’s house and read a solid chapter in the Book of Mormon. After her house we went to the chapel for an activity. We had a great turn out and they had the grill going cooking hotdogs. We played a lot of basketball and ping pong and dominos (a really big game here). We had a lot of non-members and a great way to end the week.
Sunday: Another solid day to end the week. Church was good one because we had a important investigator come and I was going to speak. But then it got rescheduled for next Sunday. After church we had a really good lunch, then we went straight to work. We gave 8 year Rodney, one of our investigators, a Book of Mormon. It was the kid one and he was SO happy! After that we picked up a member and went to a less active. We had a great experience on the way there. This guy got in my face and called us liars and criminals and that New York is a lie. He was just yelling as loud as he could just in my face! We where all laughing so hard and people around us where laughing also and it just made him more mad haha! Anyways we had a good lesson with her then Elder Nieves had a meeting so Elder Rodriguez and I left together in my area. We listened to a talk at a investigators then went to some other people to end the night.
The start of the week was pretty hard but Saturday and Sunday where great. Lots of splits and lots of meeting and not to much work because of travel. All good though because it wouldn't be a mission if we didn't have hard days. Talk to you guys next week!
