Here we are again I guess this means another week has passed. And yes just like all the other weeks we have been busy. The work in the office seems to be getting a little more routine. (except when it's not) When it's not routine it's because of some mistake we have made. We're not sure if the Lord is testing our patience or we are testing His? I'm glad His is infinite. Hermana Borup's is not by the way.
President and Hermana Santos are at break neck speed by the way. It has been really fun to watch the Assistants try to keep up with him. They are totally exhausted. Every time we see them. The Santos' have been having zone conferences and interviews with the missionaries. In order to get a better feel for the missionaries and the mission in general he has been doing the interviews in their homes. I'm sure this has some missionaries very worried as well. Missionaries are not famous for keeping clean houses.
We have a rash of sick missionaries (no pun intended, really). Besides the sister from Peru who has had troubles with her eye and which delayed her return home. (she is now 4 weeks past) There have been infections, heart troubles, illness in general and now a case of kidney stones. We have gone to the Hospital a few times this week. When you think about 170 or so young men and women running around in these conditions it is really a wonder why there is not more illness. There is an overall feeling that the Lord is looking over His missionaries.
Hermana Borup and I gave talks in Church this week. "Did they understand?" you ask? Our official answer is "of course we gave them in Spanish". In reality it hard to say. There was considerable stumbling on hard to pronounce words but we feel like our Spanish was close to correct since we had some new converts help us with that. As a side note the member that was helping me, corrected a direct quote from the Spanish Preach my Gospel. Perhaps most important is that the members of the branch laughed at the appropriate times when I told some jokes. This is always the best sign.
For Pday yesterday we went to a beach called Playa Juan Dolio. It is a Public Beach about 50 minutes from our home. It was really beautiful. We were able to swim and just enjoy the beach. We did discover that the public beaches are a little different then we are used to. The Beach is lined with tables that have umbrellas. If you want to sit there you can pay a fee or you can buy something form the restaurant associated with the the table. We spent most of our time being the only ones to sit on the beach in the sun but we eventually decided we needed to get out of the sun so we bought some fried fish. The fish was really good and we got to get out of the sun. The Dominicans just loved the beach. If they weren't up under the shade eating and playing Dominoes they were in the water letting the waves push them up onto the steep beach.
We had two baptisms in our Branch this week. Both were young. One was nine and the other was 12. There is an electricity issue in most of the Dominican Republic. Most communities have planned power outages plus outages at other random times. It just so happens that the outages in Nizau were just at the right time to be during the Baptisms which were held on two different days. Both Baptisms were done by the light of cell phones, which was a first for me but didn't seem to be a big deal to our Branch members. The 12 year old is a young man named Dariel. He just showed up at church several months ago and has been taking the lessons from the missionaries. He is smart and outgoing. He loves the gospel. His father just started taking the lessons as well. In priesthood meeting he participates and next week he is giving the priesthood lesson.
With our limited Spanish it has been difficult for us to share the gospel in a direct way but we look for chances wherever we can. The mission has a pamphlet they use a lot to introduce people to the Book of Mormon. It gives a little back ground of how the Book of Mormon came to be, about Joseph Smith and then gives some background of the book itself. It includes 3 Nephi chapter 11 where Christ visits the Americas. We know enough Spanish to explain these simple concepts to others. We have found that in general people want to have it and read it. I will often see them reading the pamphlet after we have moved along. I have yet to have anyone not want to know more. Everyone I have asked if they believe in Christ has said not only that they do but usually with a response like Of Course!
The Dominican Republic is the only country in the world that has a Bible on the flag. Sundays are relatively peaceful with most stores being closed. People seem to love God and Christ. Don't get me wrong there is plenty of work to do but there is a good start to the work already.
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