12/25/11
As for Christmas today, it started off with my companion and I doing some scripture study then we went and had breakfast.(cereal for breakfast on sundays in the MTC always... even on Christmas). Then after breakfast, we went back to our classroom for a little but with our district and then went and waited in line to get into the auditorium. First we watched the spoken word by the tab. choir and theeeen we had our sacrament meeting with David A. Bednar! It was an awesome meeting. He talked about learning of Christ and not just about Christ and how we can truly be Christstlike and completely forget ourselves and serve others completely and by forgetting ourselves, we will actually come to find ourselves. I thought that was way awesome because that is actually something I have been thinking about lots since I've gotten here. He also talked about truly using the Atonement and how it amplifies our abilities and gives us power from God, making our own abilities even stronger and so we can overcome certain things. I was semi-close to the front and there were times that I felt like Bednar was literally staring straight at me and talking to me. It was pretty awesome. Especially when he was talking about the atonement, it just hit me. I'm getting soo excited to go to the Dominican Republic and meet the people and start sharing that message. Seriously so excited.
12/26/11
Today, I just have been reminded sooo much of how much our Savior loves us. I know he does. I know we can do anything because of the atonement of the savior. I am so grateful that I am aware of that in my life right now. I am so grateful for prayer and how much it comforts me every day. I know he loves each and every one of you SOO MUCH!!! MISS YOU!!!
Tomorrow is my last day in the Provo MTC, weird!! Wish me luck!!
12/28/11
They gave us just a little bit of time today to be able to write home and tell you that I made it here!! All is going well so far! We got here at about 10 last night. I just remember the first step that I took out of the airport, I could istantly smell it and feel the air was different. It was pretty exciting. We were all walking out and they had some people waiting for us from the MTC. When we got to them, they had a bus come to pick us up with all of our stuff and there was a trailer hooked back to the bus and so they went to go open up the trailer and so we could put our luggage in the back and as soon as they opened up the trailer, the door fell off. It was pretty funny. They just kind of looked at it and was like, ""well... oh well I guess." and just continued to move the luggage in the understorage bins and in the bus. They then drove us to the MTC. It was crazy driving through the city. I wished really bad that it would have been in the daytime so I could see everything. We drove through some city and next to the ocean. The thing that surprised me the most was the piles of trash on the sidewalks in the middle of the street. Other than that, it's beautiful. We got to the MTC and found that it shares a parking lot basically with the Temple. I can see the temple right out the window right next to my bedroom. It is beautiful!! As soon as we got here, they had some food for us and talked to us. So there are 19 of us that got here last night from the Provo MTC and we are the only missionaries in the MTC right now. There are more Haitian missionaries coming tonight. It will be pretty fun to meet them. The MTC is basically on the 4th floor of a building. Everyone lives up here and there are a couple classrooms for us. Only the cafeteria is downstairs. It's not very big. Just big enough to seat about 30 people. The food has been pretty good so far. Today for lunch, we had rice, beans, fruit, veggies, pasta, meat and rolls. They said that rice, beans and meat is their "bandera", their national meal, which also represents their flag, which bandera means. Well, we have to go back to class now, so I will write you more later!! Love you lots!!
12/29/11
Ok, so I will tell you the rest of how it's been here. Overall, it's been awesome. Especially every time I walk outside, I feel like I'm in heaven. It is seriousliy the perfect temperature here right now. Feels soo good. That might change once summer gets here, but we'll see I guess!! Today, we have a prep day and so I just got back from going to the temple! It is beautiful! All of the American Missionaries did an endownment session together. They did the session in English and had headphones for other natives that were attending the session also. Also, the Haitian missionaries got here last night! Most of them were receiving their own endownment today. They weren't in our same session, because they speak creole, but it was still pretty cool to see them there getting ready to go. I can just imagine how different this is for all of them. They got here last night with only 1 teacher that can speak creole to them, so he translates everything for them when they give us instructions or anything. There were about 10-15 of them that came here and 3 sister missionaries as well. We also found out that most of them are actually around the ages between 22-25. They usually go when they're older because of their situations. It was interesting to hear that. I can just imagine how new and different this is all for them. It is really cool to see them though. It's kind of funny, because when the me and the other American Hermanas walk in the room, they usually stare at us. Sometimes they aren't even sneaky about it. I just find it funny.
A random fact that I found out since being here: there really aren't many wild animals on this island, because there was an indian tribe that inhabited it a while ago and killed off most of the animals and so there aren't many left. Just an occasional small squirrel or small animal. I don't think spiders are included in that, though; and I don't know about snakes either. I sure hope they are included in that. I would be totally content with never coming across a snake while on my mission.
Oh and the mission president also said they usually try to take the American missionaries out to kind of see some of the historical sites around the area to experience it. I didn't realize this before, but the Dominican Republic is actually one of the first places that Columbus stopped. He stopped at Cuba and then here I think, so this island is actually a huge historical site. Santo Domingo is the first city that Columbus established I think. Pretty interesting.
I already love the people here! Seriously, they are very friendly and nice. All of our teachers are natives and some of them don't really speak that much English either. Pretty much most of our lessons are in Spanish, with them trying every once and a while to try to say it in English so we understand. It's pretty funny sometimes, because the teacher will ask us a question, and none of us realize they're asking a question and so we just stare at eachother until the teacher starts laughing because they realize we didn't understand. The teachers have to make a conscious effort to talk really slow for us. Last night our teacher was explaining to us that we are learning Dominican, not really Spanish. He said it while kind of laughing the whole time. He said that when we go home, we'll think we can speak spanish and we'll try to talk to someone in spanish and they'll wonder what language we're speaking. He was like, "por ejemplo, come esta usted, es come 'ta 'tu?" haha. It was pretty funny. This will be quite the adventure to learn!
1/5/12
Ok, so in this MTC they get a new batch of American Missionaries every 6 weeks and they rotate between the latinos and Haitians while we're here also. Right now the Haitians are here and will be for another week and then after they leave, native latinos will come in for probably 2-3 weeks as well. I wish I could explain how fun it has been to be here with the Haitians! They are seriously some of the most loving, fun, people every. Every time I see them, I just wave and say Hi and I usually get this huge grin back and usually they just start laughing at me (I haven't quite figured that one out yet, haha) But there are 3 Haitian sister missionaries and they love to talk to us during meals and teach us how to say certain things in Creole and we teach them things in English. Some of the other elders too try teaching me things, but I can never understand them. It's quite hilarious. They'll say it in Creole, then translate it in spanish(which I still can't really understand very well) and then I just give them this funny look and they are like, "you don'know spanish?"" ahah and I just laugh and say, ""pocito"". haha. In general though, they seem to have fun no matter what they are doing. On Sunday, we had ice-cream and they were all acting like it was the best thing in the whole entire world. A bunch of them had 2 bowls and were hiding their 2nd under the table. IT was hilarious. Oh and during gym, I love wathching them play basketball, they look like they're having the absolute best time of their entire lives. Some of their smiles just get me every time. There is one elder called Elder Excellent and always has a huge grin on his face. We can only take pictures on prep day, so I'm going to try to get some pictures today to send to you guys.
Oh yeah, so this morning, there was a earthquake here. I woke up to my bad shaking, until I realized it was an earthquake. It wasn't that bad of earthquake, though. Later, I found out it was a 5 on the scale, but it seemed less to us, beacuse we were on the top floor of an earthquake proof building. It didn't affect anything though. Although, during breakfast, I could see that some of the Haitians were acting pretty sad and kind of somber. We realized that it probably brought back a lot of feelings and emotions from the earthquake and tsunami that hit them last year. I can't even imagine going through that. I bet they didn't like the reminder at all. I know one of the sisters said she got baptized just a little over a year ago, right after the tsunami. It was seeming to affect her a lot today. It has been very humbling to be here with the Haitians. I know that a lot of them have come from very humble circumstances. but to feel their love for us here has been such an awesome experience. I feel super grateful. This last sunday, we had fast and testimony meeting. During every meeting, they have a translator that translates for them. During the meeting, whenever one of them got up to bear their testimonies, a leader would get up, stand right next to them and translate what they said right after they said it. Even though we could not understand what they were saying, the spirit was sooo strong. I learned that the spirit definitely has no language barriers. It was such a neat experience. All of their testimonies were all so simple, yet so strong. It was such a testimony to me. This has been such an awesome experience.
Ok, so this last Friday, we went out in the city!! we went to a park right outside of a baseball stadium and handed out pamphlets. We walked around with our companions and just talked to people walking around. I was kind of scared at first, but I honestly loved it. The people here are so friendly. They all were very nice and just started talking to you right away. Some of them we only just briefly talked to, but a few of them we talked to a little longer. One guy at the end knew a tiny bit of english and so through our broken spanish and his broken english, we communicated with eachother and the conversation ended up going to prophets and the godhead. It was such a neat experience. most of the time though when we went up to talk to someone, we would do our little introduction, give them a pamphlet and then as soon as they said something, we couldn't understand it, so we would just say, ""lo siento. Nuestra espanol es no bueno. Estamos aprendiendo espanol ahora." and they would usually just laugh at us. Usually they knew a little bit of english and so we could kind of communicate. It was awesome, though.
If you would like to mail her letters she would LOVE it and here is her address:
Avenida Bolivar #825
esquina Calle Genesis
Los Robles
Santo Domingo
Republica Dominicana
