I know I have said this before but things are never routine here. In fact, no routine is the routine. If a day went the way it was planned it would be the first. The hours are long and sometimes hard. The work never seems to end. But the energy and spirit of the work is stimulating and satisfying. As busy as we are and feel, it is nothing compared to how busy President and Hermana Santos are. Hermana Borup and I are trying to find ways to ease their burdens. As a young missionary I was totally impressed with my Mission Presidents (I had 2). At the time I had no idea how hard they were working. My respect for my Mission Presidents has increased many, many times by seeing how hard they have to work.
We got to take another missionary to the airport this week. It was a sister going to Nicaragua. She is from one of the Districts in our mission (Barahona) so she was set apart as a missionary by President Santos. She then stayed at the mission home. We picked her up at 4:30 am to take her to the airport. It was the first time she had ever been on an airplane. We teased her that she will now need to learn Spanish. If she tries to speak Dominicano no one will understand her in Nicaragua. Anyway the point of this whole paragraph is to let you know that we got to go for another swim. We swam about a mile at La Caleta (see previous posts) as the sun came up through the coconut trees. It was really one of the best swims we have had, ever. The water was the perfect temperature and very clear. The sea was calm and the view in and out of the water was amazing.
Everyone wants to hear about the hurricane. Well for the most part it missed us. There are three missions in la Republica Dominicana. We are located in the South West corner of the country. The East and the North coasts were affected the most by Hurricane Irma, the other missions. The damage from Irma was very minimal in the DR compared to many of the countries around us. But we were ready for her. We had some of the missionaries from outlying areas come into some of the bigger cities to wait out the storm. As it turned out that would not have been necessary. Irma was supposed to hit here sometime Wednesday night and continue through the day on Thursday. Wednesday I went to our local Grocery store just to get something for lunch. The shelves were getting cleared, the store was busy, and the lines at the cash register were about 20 deep. I didn't get my lunch. I wouldn't have waited in line anyway but my favorite salami was all sold out.
Our Irma day was pretty relaxing. In fact we went into the office because we got a little restless just staying at home. On Thursday, the day of Irma, This city of 2 million was like a ghost town. After the threat of the storm had passed we drove down to the ocean to see what was happening there. The thing we will both remember most about Irma was how eerie it felt driving around this otherwise busy city and no one was on the road. The ocean was an angry gray color and was rough and mean looking. There were a few spots in the road where the drainage was not able to handle some of the heavy rain. But we didn't see any obvious damage. When we got back to our house the power was out and the backup generator to our apartment building was not working. He had to use a candle and a flashlight for about an hour. That was about the extent of our hurricane. In Nizao there were some streets that flooded from heavy rain but damage there was minimal also. President Ortiz posted a video on Facebook that I will try to Share on Facebook also. I have not heard of any damage within our mission. there was some along the Northern coast. We feel very fortunate and blessed.
We had another Baptism in our Branch this week. He is a 10 year old boy who is in a family who has been coming back to church for the past few months. The Baptism was Saturday night while we were at the service the Young Men's President asked if I could teach priesthood the next day. Does he not realize that I don't speak this language? Thank goodness for LDS media. I could create a lesson with my limited ability but with a video or two I could take the entire time. I think the lesson went well. Hermana Borup had also prepared some activities in Primary that she was able to pull off with her Spanish. She reported that things went very well. So maybe we are getting better at this language. Today the new missionary Elder Shaw, who has been here for 2 weeks gave a talk in church. I had a very hard time understanding him, but I could understand most of the talk by the Hermana who is the Young Women's President that spoke after Elder Shaw. Is this a good sign? I used to be better at understanding bad American Spanish than native Spanish.
The work is fulfilling. We hope we are not too much of a distraction to the work here. We are getting better at telling people about the Book of Mormon as another testament of Jesus Christ. It makes since, to everyone that I have spoken to, that Christ is the Savior of the whole earth and that he would visit others and teach them following His ministry in the Old World. We still have a desire to be better at sharing this message in Spanish. The mission has started a big push to flood our mission with the message of the Book of Mormon. This approach has already started to make a big difference in the number of new investigators.
Have a great week this week. We will.
Your friends
Yes, every day as a missionary is a new adventure. So glad the hurricane wasn't more adventurous than what you experienced. That's great that you understand native Spanish better than gringo Spanish. Hay esperanza!
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