This is getting to be a habit, and I'm a little embarrassed to admit it. Hermana Borup and I managed to find our way to our favorite beach again. It was along week in the office for me, filled with many mistakes and long days. We are constantly amazed at how friendly people are. This week at la Caleta some young men asked Hermana Borup for her phone number. She never really told me if she gave it to them or not. While we were reading on the beach a young boy made friends with us. He gave a fruit that in English is called Sea grapes (uva de playa). He just hung out with us the whole time we were there. We ended up giving him a ride home. It was a couple miles away. As you can see from our pictures of La Caleta we don't look like anyone else there. It doesn't seem to bother anyone. I guess that means if we are ever here without our swimsuits I can swim in my underwear just like the locals.
We made another trip to the airport this week. A young man from the Don Gregorio Branch (that meats in our same building) is going on a mission to El Slavador. His name is Wilfredo Baez (there are actually a few more names in there but this is good enough for our purposes, right?) We picked him up Monday afternoon and brought him home to stay with us for the night. Since he is from a District and not a Stake, the Mission President needed to set him apart as a missionary. While we were waiting for the President Santos to finish some other interviews (more on this later) I took Wilfredo to get a few last minute things at the store. It's hard to imagine what a sacrifice it is for these families to send young missionaries off to a foreign land. Wilfredo's parents are not members. They own a small little store (rather booth) at the side of the road. They probably don't have a big burden to pay fro him while he is on his mission but there will be a loss of income to their family. Wilfredo told me that his father has a testimony of the Book of Mormon and the Restored church but cannot get baptized because he is not married to his mom. This is a very common problem here. This couple has been together for well over 20 years and still not married. There are some legal barriers but they aren't huge.
Anyway back to Wilfredo. While we were shopping I started a conversation about the church with the ladies at the checkout counter. They were very curious about Wilfredo's mission call. We talked about the Book of Mormon and living Prophets. It was fun to see this not even st apart Elder jump right in and share his feelings about the Church. I got a wonderful impression of what a good missionary he is going to be. Look at his smile in the picture bellow. You can see his joy for the gospel and the excitement he feels for his mission. If you look again you can see a little fear and sadness as well. He is going to represent the Lord well!
When I took Wilfredo into President Santos's office so he could get set apart at 9:00 there were some other missionaries there. They were the interviews I was talking about. These missionaries did not look happy. They had been called into the office by President to talk about some problems they were having with obeying missionary rules. Yep, this happens all over the world. Sometimes people choose to not follow the plan. This time the contrast really stuck out to me. There were two missionaries there that had to come into the capitol to meet with the immigration department. They were both hard working obedient missionaries. They looked tired after a long day but their eyes and face were filled with joy. In contrast there were two Elders that were there due to obedience problems. They were good guys and all that. After all they were giving up 2 years of their lives to serve missions. But they were not happy. In fact I have never seen a happy missionary when he doesn't follow the rules of the mission. A mission is a great time to learn this lesson for the rest of our lives. The Savior loves us so he gave us some rules to live by. We don't even need to be perfect at living them to be happy we just have to be trying. The more we try the more joy we feel. Siempre!
This week my work in the office wasn't all that smooth. My highlite was spending about 5 hours trying to pay the power bills for all the houses in the mission. They made some major mistakes in their calculations. They checked it a rechecked it. They ended up needing to give us credit towards next months bill. When I got back to the office I discovered that they only gave me half of the credit that they should have. This means I get to go back to the office and make things right. When i lef their office they were pretty clear that they would rather have someone that speaks Spanish come to pay the bill. That is something we could agree on. However they are going to have to put up with someone who speaks very limited Spanish until that some one can learn more Spanish. And that someone studies everyday to make that happen. So deal with IT!
Hermana Borup had a disaster experience this week as well. As you know we teach an English class in Nizau. A couple weeks ago we found out that they announced our free English class in the local school. Last week we had about 20 students most of which had notebooks and showed a real desire to learn. This week turned out a little different. And the timing wasn't the best. I had to drop Hermana Borup off at the church so she could teach the class while I helped the Elders move the newly assigned sisters into their new house, which took longer then we thought. When she got to class there were about 40 students only half of which were there to learn. The other half were there for the candy they heard about. The children that were there to get candy just talked and bothered everyone else. This created some loud interaction between the learners and the candy cravers. When I got there after 45 minutes class was over and no one got candy. Hermana Borup was done! She had a look of frustration in her eyes that I thought was a looked only reserved for me. Anyway the lesson is. Candy is evil! Candy equals Sugar and sugar is evil too! That's why I gave up sugar.
Sorry we don't have more pictures this week. We'll try to do better next week. We love being here. It's not always easy and not always fun but we find time for fun and we work hard to make things easier in the future. It's fun to be missionaries and help in the building of his kingdom.
Have a great week
Your friends
Hermana Y Elder Borup
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| Elder Wilfredo Baez, from the Don Gregorio Branch, with his family when I picked him up to get set apart and leave on his mission to El Salvador. |
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| Elder Jimenez and Elder Salas, both from here but are waiting for visas to go to Mexico. |
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| On our way to church this morning we ran into a little traffic jam. |
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| Don't laugh that's how you do a selfie when you're almost 60. |
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| Elder Baez saying good-bye at the security line. His first time on an airplane. |
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| Elder Jeminez and Elder Salas a the plaque that commemorates the dedication of the Dominican Republic for the Preaching of the restored gospel by Elder M. Russell Ballard. |
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