Week 54: Virginia's Upcoming Baptism! A lot of the times the easy choice is not always what is correct!

Group

Well a new companion, same area, new assignments and some very big news this week. It was a pretty good start to the week, working hard with my new companion from Utah. He actually got here to the country the same time I did. We are trying to find a lot of new people & also learn new ways to teach. 

We are going to have a baptism next week. Its sister Virginia who is 53 years old. She is a amazing lady that the Lord has prepared for us. She is going to help so much in building the true church of God! She wants that all of her family is baptized & has been praying for that help.  On Friday we finally got the chance to sit them all down and teach them the restoration. The following day they came to two of the activities. We have had some very good lessons lately with the spirit so strong! I really do think it is for faith and obedience. The Lord has guided us on what to say and teach and we are helping the people come unto Christ. Sister Virginia passed her baptism interview & will baptized next Saturday by me. 

It is so amazing to see people change there lives to follow Christ. When ever we have problems in life we just have to remember it is God trying to help us be better so we can live with him again. A lot of the times the easy choice is not always what is correct, but if we choose the right we will always be blessed. The email is going to be a little shorter today but better then nothing I always say! 

Elder Wolfe

Week 53: Elder Vinson, Tougher then Geocaching & Family History Work

So this week we actually got to talk to Jeff.  I was diagnosed with breast cancer & wanted to tell him via the phone rather than an email.  We contacted the mission president & he offered to have the senior couple serving in the area to help us contact him.  After his church, they invited him to their house.  Once they arrived they handed him the phone & told him to call us.  We thought he'd call after our sacrament meeting, but he called right after the taking of the sacrament.  Gratefully Ben had taken this possibility into consideration & saw the call come in.  We jumped up & went out to the car to chat with him.  He was nervous obviously, but then handled it with faith.  He asked a lot of scientific/health related questions, then as a good missionary, he had complete faith that all would work out & we'd all learn something from the experience.  He was supportive & kind.  He fasted for me  a couple weeks in a row & said he prayed continually.  He's a great son.  Love him!

This week like many has flown by! It wasn't anything super crazy but it was fun. I still don't have a companion so I have been with members all week. Recently I have received a list from the branch here of less actives. We are trying to locate them but that is hard. In this country the streets are not organized. They have names but no one knows them & I don't have a smart phone with Google Maps so it makes it tougher then geocaching. I have found a couple that have moved, died, or just don't want to listen. I found a couple people to teach but they aren't crazy good. The week passed by fast because we worked hard and it was fun being with different members all day. Some who are  preparing to leave on missions which is fun. The most helpful thing I would say I did was teach how to do family history work to some recent converts that plan on going to the temple here in September. I gave them the little booklet to fill out but for them its hard in the sense that they don't even know their parents to well. Also everyone has like two parents and 15 brothers and sisters. There isn't much to do here for fun so they find there ways.

Elder Varela which is an Elder from the other part of my area with which I live with also goes home here on Wednesday. That also means there is transfers, or change of missionaries. I will be the new district leader here in Barahona and my new companion is Elder Vinson from Utah. He is actually from my same group so he has the same time as me here in the country. The other companionship in the house is going to be the same Elder Casco but he will be training a new guy so we don't know where he is from. There has been a lot of changes in this transfer but it will be fun to see what happens. That's all I have for this week so take care and have another good week before school starts!

Elder Wolfe

Barahona, Dominican Republic

Week 52: Half Way!!

This week has been great to be honest! It all started on Tuesday! We finally found a house we could move into! It is brand new and is very very high quality! Very big house with 3 rooms and 2 bathrooms with 3 big rooms and the roof is a balcony with a view of the beach! But wait that isn{t even the best part! I left that day right after moving with a member and I had a AMAZING lesson! It was with a lady named Verginia. She is a contact from my first weeks here in Barahona and she has received her answer from God that this is the true church and that it is time for her baptism. It is planned for the 26th of August! It is super cool because the next week on the 1st and 2nd of September the branch will be going to the temple and she will be able to go! I am so happy for her and she wants all of her family to come to the truth! The true gospel of Jesus Christ is going to bless this family so much! The lesson it self went so good and she is just such an amazing lady! Tuesday was by far the best day of the week. The other days were good but they couldn{t top off Tuesday. 

I learned something very valuable that day that I already new but strengthened my testimony of. We got this new house that is very beautiful and we will be able to live VERY comfortable but the happiness that it brings is not what serving God brings. The happiness I felt in the lesson with Verginia was so much greater then receiving this new house! It is a happiness that is forever, not just for a couple months! I love this work and it is all the better that I know that it is the gospel of Jesus Christ, not just another man changed teachings like all the other churches. If you doubt what I am saying or don{t think I am right just ask God. No one is stopping you from asking Him. Just a simple prayer will change your future and the happiness of all your kids and grand kids. You can be one of the millions that have asked and received just like the Bible says.  

It is so crazy to think that I will be home in less then a year and gives me the desire to work that much harder. The mission flys by SO fast! It has defiantly been the fastest time of my life! I am learning so much here on the mission! I have learned more in this year then I have in all the years of school I think including speaking another language fluently! I ask all of you this week to take 10 minuets to think about how you feel in preperation to see your God. Do you feel prepared or do you have the slitest doubt? If you have a doubt, please ask God to send you someone to help you or give you some guidence. He is waiting for you to ask, you just have to ask Him. I hope you all can do this invitation and have a better week then your last!

Love,

Elder Wolfe
Barahona, Dominican Republic

Week 51: Killed a Missionary Elder Francis

Well I have just finished what is called in the misión, "killing a missionary". My companion Elder Francis has finished his misión of 2 year. He had to leave 2 weeks early for the university to sign some papers and stuff. He was from Las Vegas, Nevada. For now though I am in a group of 3 missionaries. One named Elder Casco from Mexico, and the other is Elder Valera from Honduras. Elder Varela is also about to finish his misión in two weeks. I have talked with a lot of the members to help me out by leaving with me to my área. 

Well we are in the process of moving houses. We moved out of the original house to the señor couples house with hot wáter, air conditioning, and all the other bells and whistles but there was some complications. On Tuesday the sisters in my group where robbed during the night when they where sleeping. The house was all locked up so they think it was a inside job so we got kicked out of the senor couples house and they moved in. We went back to our original house and I connected the power not the most legal way but we have power again. This house just is very old and is time to movie because it has some problems that are big fixes. We have found a new new house though and the contract was signed yesterday so we will be moving into that tomorrow! Super excited for that! Very very big house!

Lessons wise this week was great. We have lots of progressing investigators now and have more people with baptism dates. We have found some golden investigators as we call them which means they are prepared by God an keep all the commitments. Transfers, or in other words, changes of missionaries is going to be crazy this time. It can be that they take out two missionaries from my branch to work the whole area or one of us trains and a new district leader and a new house. Lets see how that goes though. I have almost a year in the field coming up her on the 3^rd of August. It is crazy to think that because everyone says that the last year flys by, but for me the first one went by SUPER fast! It is so much fun out her and it is so beautiful! It is super hot but I just have to power through that. It is about 90 degrees on the average now with high humidity so that is getting me in shape for sure. I sweat SO much but with great sacrifice comes greater blessings. That is something I am learning so much her on the mission. Sacrifice and blessings. If we don´t even read the scriptures daily or pray to him, you shouldn´t expect to live with God after this life. God is very merciful, but is also very just. He cant bend his words, we must keep all of His commandments and then He can bless us with more blessing then we can receive!

Love,

Elder Wolfe

Barahona, Republica Dominicana

Week 50: Endure to the End

To be honest it is kind of crazy how fast the weeks go by! It doesn´t seem real! Well just to start I want to say that the mission is so much fun! This week wasn´t the best in finding new people but when things are tough that is also when you need to learn from them. We had some very good appointments this week and many with good spiritual experiences. The way we are trying to find right now is a little more effective because we are visiting all of the members and asking for them to start thinking of friends and invite them to the activities we put on like movie night, English class, and another fun activity that is for young single adults. This week we had a really good turn out for the movie night. We watched the new Beauty and the Beast. We had about 40 people there! Of those 40 we had about 8 investigators and it helps them have a better relationship with members. 

Some of the best lessons we had this week were probably with less actives. Two of the less actives are recent converts but we have them a very well planned lesson on enduring to the end and what happens if we don´t. Lets just say they went to the activities and church this week for the first time over 4 weeks. The better one though wan´t even to planned. We passed by and we taught him mainly about the Plan of Salvation because his dad died and he is now doing bad things. We talked with him about how he can see his dad again but has to make good choices and the Spirit was super strong and he cried and I almost cried too. 

It was a pretty fun week too because we had a member leave with us from the young men. We had good appointments with him and we even found a lady we have been teaching for a while but then she left out of town for a while but is now back. The English class went well too and I got to talk with Elder Buhler who is one of the senior couples in the mission and a less active who knows English.

Well this week was great and fun but I hope you all have another great summer week! Oh FYI, I will be home in exactly a year from now.

Love ya!

Elder Wolfe

Santo Domingo Oeste Mision

Week 49: Just asked for a million dollars, but everything will be okay!

Group July 10, 2017

Well another 2 weeks has been down since I have written a big email. Sorry I didn´t send one last week. My P'Day was really weird and didn´t have the opportunity to take the time to write a group e'mail. Other then that though everything is going great! 

Last P'Day I hit 11 months here on the mission. We have been working hard here in Barahona. We have been contacting a lot because there are not to many progressing investigators here. We are also trying to work with the members for references but so far we haven´t received to many. 

My companion had to go out to the capital which is like 4 hours away on Wednesday and Thursday so that meant I was stuck in a triple companionship. I was not down for that so I made some serious calls and got members to leave with me the 2 days so I could work in my area and I even found 6 new people in those two days! That was fun but I was glad to get my companion back. 

We also started a English class here that went pretty well the first time. We invite everyone and their mom to activities and church but no one comes here. The people here are pretty lazy from what I can see. If you leave them a commitment to do in there house like read something small they will do it. Once you ask them to walk two blocks down you just asked for a million dollars! But there are people here who will make the sacrifice for their salvation. 

On Sunday after church my companion had to go back to the capital for his visa because he´s illegal at the moment and if he leaves like this the country will charge him $100. There was another guy in my house who also had to go so I stayed with his companion. 

This P-Day has been really slow though because we are just playing card and eating but it is nice to just chill out. 

My knowledge and testimony is growing every day! On Saturday when we got the call that my companion had to leave again I wasn´t happy because of splits. I really don´t like splits because one it´s usually not in my area and two I don´t know how the other missionary teaches. I was kind of stressed out about that but I prayed for help and I felt this feeling in my heart that everything will go okay. In the end I just went to the other guys area like I thought but I felt in my heart that I didn´t need to be stressed out about it. These past two weeks have been fast and pretty fun to be honest. The mission is flying by and it is so cool to hear family and friends leaving on their missions too! I hope you guys have a great week!

Love,

Elder Wolfe

Week 48: No group email :(

He didn't send a group email this week or we didn't receive it.  He seemed distracted when we were emailing back n' forth.  There were a couple new pictures.  He loves his new area & they've been working hard.