Are you guys from Utah??

All is going well here. Just the same old stuff has been happening. I had 5 pairs of pants made by the local tailor and everyone calls them Dominican pants because the Dominicans make them a little tighter at the bottom instead of loose which I do like a lot and they fit amazing! 

The food is good here. It’s the same chicken all the time, but we are mixing it up every day because everyone is getting sick of the rice and beans.

Ohhh yes yesterday I was at church and a normal church day right?? But after church was over the second counselor came up to me and ask if I can give a talk next sunday..... ummmm haha obivously I couldnt say no because I am a missionary, so I said yes and now I have to prepare for a talk where I don’t even know how to speak spanish... ha but I guess we will see what happens in a week. 

One day we were trying to find a less active member that is in the ward.  We were in a huge apartment complex ha yeah it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.. but our first door that we contacted was a mom and we introduced ourselves and ask her if she knew these people that we were looking for and she said no - of course.. ha but the next thing she said is “are you guys from Utah??” we looked at each other we were like what the heck nothing like that happens; then she said that her daughter studied at Utah State for a little while and that she wanted us to come in to meet her. So we did and we ended up having a lesson with her and she obviously knew a little bit about that church because she lived in Utah.. and this whole lesson was in English!! ha it was a great break from Spanish that’s for sure. I taught all of the lesson and we both walked out of her house and we both look at each other and we both said at the same time "did you feel the spirit in there" and the spirit was so so so so strong while we were teaching it was unbelievable how strong it was!!! She is open to talk to us and she wanted to know more, it was just a great experience that involved the spirit so strongly!! 

I’m sure there will be more experiences next week – wish me luck with my talk in Church!

Love

Elder Medrano

We found this spot in our area by accident. 

I know I know my hair is long... I'm getting it cut tomorrow!

These are my jeans for the mission. Still dress pants! :)

Confidence Booster

Dang it I am so jealous that it is snowing there I wish it would just snow here just once but nope that is not possible at all! I was at church yesterday and I looked out the window and it was raining, I thought it was snowing for a minute but then I remembered that I was in the DR... I will only miss two skiing seasons!

My new area is a lot closer to our house, we walk about 10 mins to our area which is cool but I didn’t mind walking the long distances. 

Since we lost the companions that would always cook for us we are now sharing the cooking arrangements, we switch off every day and whoever doesn’t cook gets to do the dishes, so we aren’t always on dishes which is nice.   

Well here is something that happened yesterday that was pretty cool! Yesterday in fast and testimony meeting Santa, a really strong member, went to bear her testimony. She started to bear her testimony and said she had a really really spiritual experience last Wednesday. I wasn’t really paying attention very well but when I heard her talk about the spiritual experience I looked at her and she was looking right at me. Then I remembered that we were at her house with her family and husband who is not a member of the church because he sells lottery tickets on the streets.  Santa’s husband talked to the Stake President about selling the lottery tickets and the Stake President said it was okay because that is how he is supporting his family. He has a testimony that the church is the true church and that he wants to get baptized but he doesn’t want to go to church and feels awkward because he sells numbers on the streets. Anyways, the next thing that she said is that her family and husband had a lesson with the missionaries. She said something that gave me so much confidence and that I was fasting for... it went something like this - she had a really strong spiritual experience with one of the missionaries that is new to the field and it is hard for him to speak in Spanish and can’t really express his feelings and himself yet. But this one missionary’s testimony was short and only consisted a couple of things like "the church is true, the Book of Mormon is true, etc." she said that it was short but still so powerful because he was not scared to bear his testimony in Spanish but yet it was so powerful and could feel the spirit working with his tongue so strong. She said that from then on out that she learned the gift of tongues is true and had the most powerful experience. Santa’s testimony gave me a really strong confidence booster for my mission and for my Spanish! 

After Santa’s testimony another guy came up to the stand and nobody knew who or where he was from. He shared that he was at work one day at the Panaderia Thani (thats right next to our church). It was on a Wednesday and it was rainning super hard and he see´s two Mormons with white shirts and ties running, smiling and laughing down the middle of the street in the pouring rain. He said since that day he was wondering what this Mormon Church was all about and why they were so happy to be running down the road laughing and smiling while it was pouring rain. After he sat down everyone started to laugh, because the Dominicans when it rains they all hide under a tree or a garage because it passes in like 10 mins haha. Those two crazy Mormon people running down the middle of the road was my companion and I because we were late to a meeting with the members of the ward. By the time we got to the church we were soaking wet, pants, ties, everything soaking wet. My tie was so wet that I twisted it to drain the water out and on the ground was a puddle of water just from my tie haha. See what the littlest things do to bring people to church and how they look at a missionary or even just a mormon and judge them right away on the streets. How they can easily judge our religion just by one simple thing like that! 

Everything is going great. We taught five inactive families over the week and all five families came to church yesterday so that was really cool and six of our investigators came to church also!!! We were really excited and so was the Bishop about our work! Our week went well just the normal walking, working and teaching the word of god. :)

Love,

Elder Medrano

A community service activity on Saturday

What we have to ride in to get to places called a guagua

This is in my area on a rooftop 

White Wash

Hello there!!

Wow sounds like a lot is going on!! Too much to handle sometimes because it is crazy to think how much is going on there and nothing really too new here just new companions and stuff... but thats the usual around 6 weeks every time. Yes the time does seem fast but at the same time its really slow because I am out here trying my hardest to speak the language here. Understanding isn’t my problem because I can understand a lot of the conversation, it’s just the talking is the hardest part for me. I have 21 months left and it seems like a long time! ha seems longer when your companion is 19 months in his mission. I did get a new companion. I’ll tell you more about him later. I miss the Halloween parties so much that was my favorite seeing all the kids dressed up and having them come down to the house. They do not celebrate Halloween down here so it’s kind of boring! But I am going to celebrate that’s for sure. haha we celebrate everything on the mission.. even if its just a letter, we celebrate haha 

WOW that is crazy about the last two World Series games,  I don’t really hear much about baseball, ever since I was transferred to a new area I don’t have a contact to keep me updated on the games.  In my old area we would stop into a store to get water and the owner of the store was really into baseball and he would give us updates on the games. I’ll have to find me a contact in my new area.  Dang sounds like a crazy world series!! I wish I could watch them, but just think I only miss one more world.

Well I got a new companion (Elder Mooney from Cedar Hills, Utah) and my new area is Manoguayabo B.  Because I got a new companion and a new area they say I got “white washed”. It’s hasn’t been fun this past week because you really have to start from scratch and you have to find all the old investigators that the other elders were teaching and you have to learn a new area. We got lost a lot this week because there are a lot of little roads that can be taken to a house.  I am so lucky that I got another companion that knows how to speak spanish.. ha and he is really good at teaching!! I can’t believe how he can bring the spirit in so quickly to our lessons he uses a lot of examples so that people will understand and he is a really hard working which is great! Nothing better than a great companion and a hard worker!! Our first day out was good we walked a lot because we were trying to find everything. But we found a member that took us around and showed us where most of the members lived and where some of the investigators that they were teaching lived. This member was so great and it saved us time trying to recreate everything.  He was with us for almost 3 days.  This was crazy because they usually don’t do that, but that was a great blessing and saved us so much time.  

Sorry nothing really to crazy happen this week because we were working hard to find everything and everybody but I am sure that there will be something better next week.

Love you very much!! and always will!! tell every hi back!! 

Love,

Elder Medrano