Week 51- Una Semana Bacano

My Dear Family,

I hope you are all well, you need to know you are all Bacano! That means cool here and it´s Elder Wolf´s favorite word!

We had a great week here in La Victoria, started off a little bumpy but ended amazing.

Monday morning I awoke, and started moving about the apartment, I noticed that my companion was still comatose in his bed, so a snuck over and gave his forehead ( the blanket was pulled over his head) a little tap. The blanket flipped aside and I received a killer look from my companion who looked very sick. And that´s how Elder Wolf awoke very very sick Monday morning. I think he got sica, a rather nasty bug down here. The day was pretty rough for my comp, but he pulled through it like a man. He was feeling better enough Tuesday for us to get some work done. 

This Wednesday we had a world wide training meeting for missionaries. Elder Oaks, Elder Anderson and Elder Bednar were present along with a number of other church leaders. In it they answered a series of questions from different missionaries around the world. It was awesome hearing their discussion and counsel concerning the different challenges we face in the field. They also announced a change in the missionary Schedule! It´s a lot more flexible and leaves a lot up to us in deciding how to plan our day. It´s a pretty drastic change but President Corbitt will decide how we will be applying the changes.

This weekend we had the Baptism of Elizabeth, Dislaila, and Erismel. It was truly wonderful, It was such a privilege to see these three people enter the waters of baptism. The Spirit was felt strongly and I could not stop smiling. This gospel makes me happy.

Love,

Elder Call

(Sorry I don´t have pics of the Baptism this week)

Week 50- A Crazy Awesome Week

Dear Family,

I apologize for this one being another short one. This past week has been crazy but awesome. 

Tuesday morning I bid goodbye to my Comp Elder Rivero and said Hello to Elder Wolf, my new one. We then departed to La Victoria. Elder Wolf is amazing, he is this crazy missionary from South Carolina who apparently can do a legitimate southern drawl! He refuses to show me, but were working on that. He´s an amazing missionary who tried to contact almost every individual in La Victoria on the first day. I love him and I love his energy. He´s also the first Gringo comp I have had since my trainer Elder Frogley. I love the Latins but I´m a little excited for this new change. He also comes from a super large family, 8! Only difference is there all boys and one little lady. But anyways, He has a love of the gospel and has a great desire to share it with others.

Elizabeth is doing great. We had a wonderful lesson with Elizabeth, We sang Venid a Mi, Come Follow Me, to start the lesson. After, we talked about choosing to follow the Savior. Hermano Freddy, who accompanied us, bore his testimony about leaving his job so that he and his wife could join the church. And afterward Elizabeth shared her testimony! Then I shared mine, it was super awesome and the spirit was present. It is a joy and a privilege to share the Gospel with these people, to share a message that brings joy and happiness into our lives. 

I love you all, 

Saludos!

Elder Call

Pictures,

The new Comp. He´s more red than I am!

 

Week 49

My dearest Family and friends( and whoever else might be reading these words), Saludos!

I hope you all had a superb week and are enjoying another one, to those of you who are in Washington I must confess a pinch of envy of the wintry weather you are enjoying. We actually had a bone chilling 74 ish degrees the other night, but that's about the most intense it gets here. It was actually a bit interesting seeing all these Dominican folks walking around with coats and windbreakers, the struggle is real here in the Caribbean......

This week was good. Yesterday, we had an awesome area conference broadcast. Via satellite we listened to the messages of a couple awesome people. We started out with President Cornish who was released recently as area president here in the Caribbean. He gave his message all in Spanish and it was awesome. He talked about trusting in the Lord and shared a few powerful examples from church history. President Anderson, Apostle, also gave the final message of the broadcast, his remarks were translated for him but I loved his message too. He reiterated the importance of the messages shared and talked about the importance of Faith, Diligence, and Humility. The overall theme was the basic principles of the Gospel, how important these basic principles are for everyone, member, missionary, and investigator. 

Yesterday, we also had the baptism of Romel, a young kid we´ve been teaching. A certain Elder may have excessively filled the baptismal font but nevertheless, the service went onward!

Also transfers! So after much anticipation, we received the news Saturday evening. My comp is leaving me! He is going to the zone where I was born, Las Americas. I am receiving an American missionary, Elder Wolf. I will miss Elder Rivero, he´s an awesome missionary and has been a great example to me. I have to go now! (Ford was called to be District Leader to replace Elder Rivero.)

Con Carino( with love),

Elder Call

P.S. Sorry I didn´t send pictures this week!

Week 48

Dear Family,

Things are doing pretty good in La Victoria.

We met with Sammy this Thursday and he told us he wanted to be baptized, it was an awesome moment and everything. We´ve been working with him for a long time and at last he was making a decision. Unfortunately, on the way home that night we got a call from Sammy apologizing telling us he still does not feel ready. It was frustrating because Sammy is very much ready but he thinks that he has to be perfect to be baptized. At our next appointment Elder Robertson and I talked to him about how we don´t have to be perfect, we should try to improve every day but everyone makes mistakes, that´s why we have the blessing of the atonement. He told us he would think about it and he agreed to prepare for the fourteenth.

Elizabeth is also doing really well. We watched Joseph Smith, the prophet of the Restoration with her. The beginning was a little rough because her son Edris was being pretty rowdy; thankfully, he fell asleep not too long into the video. Afterwards, we answered some of her questions about the prophet and about the Book of Mormon. We challenged her to continue reading and praying about the Book of Mormon, which she accepted. She came to church yesterday and said she enjoyed the classes. She's doing well and is preparing for the 21^st.

Transfers are next week, We´ll know this Saturday night. With Christmas and New Year's the past six weeks have zipped by. I´m pretty sure that I shall be staying in La Victoria to receive a new companion and the same with Elder Rivero staying in Los Palmares. 

The picture is from last Monday, we all went to a giant mall in Santo Domingo called Agora and we all bought overpriced McDonalds, which was amazing. 

We also bumped into Sister Romney, the wife of the MTC President, they are both heading home this month and it was awesome to say hi before they headed home.

Love,

Elder Call

Week 47 Feliz Ano Nuevo

I hope you´ve all enjoyed the New Year and hope this following year shall be awesome for you all. I´ve been eating way too much food this week and feel somewhat akin to a balloon. I was already bloated from eating at a members home Saturday night. Then yesterday, Elder Rivero made us Tacos....So yea, food. 

Elder Rivero's Tacos

(Elder Oliveira and I eating at members house new years eve)

I´ll admit I have been a bit trunky at times but nevertheless the Lord has been merciful and I´ve had some great experiences. So this week in Los Palmares we contacted a reference, his name is Ruben. Come to find out he has received different missionaries for two or three years and has at different points in time attended church regularly. We came to his home and he basically asked us when he can be baptized. It sounds like he´s had a rough time especially recently. His mother passed away in December and kinda shook him, I´m not sure but perhaps it´s one of the reasons why at last he has decided to be Baptized. It was a pretty cool moment.

I had another experience this week on a companionship exchange with Elder Oliveira. We were in La Victoria and went to visit Samy, we´ve been working with Samy for a long time but he has become touchy when we talk about Baptism. It´s been a frustration for me because he´s very prepared and we´ve invited him many times but he just says that he doesn´t feel ready. So there we were, Elder Oliveira and I, and near the lessons closure we brought it back to baptism. At first the same thing happened, Samy started to close up like he´d done before. I began to back off, thinking we are beating a dead horse here, but then Elder Oliveira told Samy how sometimes youth don´t want to join the church because they think they can´t dance or listen to music, stuff like that. All of a sudden it was a light bulb went on above Samy´s head and he responded that´s exactly it. We proceeded to explain to him that those sort of things he could still do, we invited him to write down a list of all the things he´s worried about, so when we come back we can settle his concerns. And he accepted a date for the 14th of this month. It was awesome because at last I think that Samy will at last be entering the waters of Baptism, I am thankful that Elder Oliveira was there and was listening, when I´d almost thrown the towel in, He asked the right question when I thought that´d I´d asked them all, perhaps the Lord was giving me a lesson in the importance of listening. I am thankful for the Lords many tender mercies, like giving my companion a nudge 

Once again Happy New year, I hope you all have an awesome week and a wonderful new year of twenty seventeen, may God bless you in your righteous endeavors.  

Love Elder Call