Hermana Y Elder Borup

We had another eventful week. Marriage and family seem to be a big part of what we do as missionaries here. There is a tradition here of couples being together and not getting married. They refer to each other as spouses but it is usually not legal. It is one of the biggest barriers for adults joining the church. This week we had 3 very different experiences with helping to get people married. Our first experience was with a couple that has been together for at least 7 or 8 years. They have 2 kids together and the woman has a son who served a mission. They both claim to have testimonies. The missionaries have been trying to help them get married since we moved to Azua (Jan). We offered to pay the fee because we know that they have financial troubles (very common). When we met with them to tell them we would pay the fee, they (mostly him) informed of a different plan. He is planning on marrying his "cousin" who lives in the US. When (if) he gets residency he will divor...

Imagine living in a place that fruit is as plentiful as zucchini in the summer in Utah. I used to think our landlady is just really nice to give us mangos every day. Now I think it's like people in Utah just trying to find people to give their zucchini to. She has discovered these Mormon guest are too nice to say no. So now we are getting all of her surpluses. Really it's way more than we can use. The missionaries are not really excited about it either because they get their own from the members. The Church here has a program called SOY. It is a week-long camp like EFY forms youth age 16-18. They have a camp in the mountains where they have cabins and can gather over 1000 youth.  It is cooler there and isolated from the rest of the cities. They hold it for three different weeks. One week for the members that live in each of the 3 missions. Escarlin, who is a new convert, was able to go. It was nip and tuck there for a while. She was nervous about going especia...

This probably won't be the most exciting blog post. I have decided to summarize some of the things we did this week and leave out much of the usual commentary. The main reason is to just describe a typical week's worth of activities. Our week started out with a great Missionary District activity of hiking to a waterfall. Mckenzie, McCoy, and Diane (McKenzie's friend) came along also. (the missionaries loved having a little baby along) The start of the hike is about a 30-minute drive from Azua ( about half of the drive is on gravel/dirt road) The hike took about 50 minutes one way. Most of the hike is following a river bed and crossing the river several times. When Hermana Borup and I did it a few weeks ago we probably crossed the river about 10 times. When we did it with the missionaries it was much less than that. Instead of crossing the river they just got in it and walked up it. It was much cooler and much more fun. The river was only about 6 inches deep in the deep sp...