A week Summary

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 spots.

That same night we drove Mckenzie McCoy and Diane to the airport to say goodbye. It was really fun to have them here for a short time. On our way to the airport, we took them to the historic district of Santo Domingo. SD was the first city in the Americas. It has the oldest church and the oldest university also. There really is a rich history here with pirates and revolutions and dictators.

One of our activities this week was teaching Escarlin to drive. She is 17 and every bit a teenager. Her mom who doesn't drive herself just decided to buy a car. They usually get around on the back of a moto-taxi. We took her out twice during the week she thought she was pretty good (teenager) until we started working on parking skills and going in reverse. She started to realize maybe it's not all easy.

While McKenzie was here with McCoy some neighborhood kids came around to see the baby. We invited them to come back and watch a church video at our house. Two of them (brother and sister) are recently baptized but don't come to church often. Anyway, 7 or 8 kids showed up and we showed them "Finding faith in Christ". The oldest, a boy named Francis was very impressive. He is one of the members. After the video, he quizzed the other kids about the movie and about the life of Christ. During the movie, if one of them was not paying attention, he would give them a little boche (scolding).

We had an Hermana from the district come over for a couple of hours and Hermana Borup helped her with her genealogy. It is very hard to do genealogy here because there is a history of couples that never marry. Many families are mixed, with different fathers and half siblings etc. It was fun to listen to Hermana Borup and the Hermana member trying to communicate. The names here can be original, to say the least.

Friday night there was a Baptism, where a 14-year-old boy was baptized. His father and sister were Baptized a few weeks ago. He's a great young man with a light in his eye. The mother is not in the picture so their family has now all been baptized. They can support each other.

The same night as the Baptism we had a ward Bachata Party as an activity. We actually had a good turnout but almost everyone was youth or young adult age. Bachata can be really fun and this dance proved it. Everyone danced with everyone. Escarlin came toward the end even though she could only get there in time for one Bachata dance. It was worth it to her.

Saturday we had a District-wide open house at the District (like a Stake) center. The missionaries organized 5 different rooms in the church where a different subject was taught in each room. (The Restoration, The Book of Mormon, THe Plan of Salvation, The Gospel of Jesus Christ and Temples) Our job was to make sure they changed rooms every 15 minutes. We think that this was a job that the missionaries felt they could trust us to do. (meaning there wasn't much else they trusted us to do)

We had a great day at church on Sunday. Escarlin drove her new car and since her mother didn't want her to drive by herself she came along also. We have a great gospel essentials teacher and the lesson was on following Christ is the pre-existence. The teacher was able to get all the class members to participate. I gave a ride to a member family that the father was in an accident on a motorcycle and didn't feel like he could drive. So they asked me to help them out. He is our Elder's Quorum President.

Our week finished off with picking up a sick Hermana from the hospital and bring her to our house with her companion for the night. The doctors couldn't figure it out, but it was either migraines or something to do with a bad reaction to heat/dehydration. He fed them and got them in a nice airconditioned room for the night.

Of Course, there was more to the week but this is a good summary of the highlights.

We love being here. We're not sure how much of a difference we are making but we love trying to make it.

Have another great week, we will

your friends

Hermana Y Elder Borup

Kids from the neighborhood around the District center. Someone didn't want her picture taken.

The hardest part of being on a mission. The Grandkids

The wife of the new Branch President with their 3 kids and her sister. Just going home from Church

There is a strict rule about not letting young missionaries ride in the back of the truck. These 3 got to ride here on the way to the water fall hike.