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

Baptism!

¡Hola! 

Wow this week went by super fast!!! I can’t believe how the weeks are starting to fly by already! I can’t imagine how fast they go when you start to understand everything and can speak your mind in Spanish.

All is going great over across the ocean. Nothing really has been happening here other then the weather. Its rained probably everyday this week but it only rains for like 10 mins then it’s gone. Today is different it’s been raining nonstop and raining hard! It’s never a little sprinkle here it’s a down pour!! ha and it always has some lightning and thunder which is fun to watch. Every time it rains the gutters are full of fast moving water it could probably pull a baby into the drain that’s how fast it goes. I also hate when it rains because the sun usually comes out after and then it gets really humid.. then you’re raining sweat! 

Dang I do miss those family dinners that for sure because the things I live off of everyday is cereal in the morning, rice and chicken for lunch and then peanut butter sandwiches for dinner. That’s my daily diet if that is one...

My comp and I are getting along great!! We always laugh and have a good time. :) I’m glad he is my companion! He helps me out a lot with Spanish and knows what I struggle with. I’m grateful for him. My feet are doing great, still attached to my legs so that’s good. I have been close to rolling my ankles about 7 times because I like to test my balance so I walk on the curb and I fall off when I’m not paying attention haha. My President and his wife are the nicest people!! I’m so glad that they are my Mission President for the first half of my mission because I get new ones when it’s my year mark. :) my favorite part!! ohh there are a lot of things that I like about a mission!! I like living on my own! and I like walking and seeing a lot of baseball players! And I love the kids here they are so nice and they always like to make us look bad.. haha I have a funny story to tell you but I am going to tell you next week because I don’t have my journal.  Most of all I LOVE being a representative of the Lord and having his name on my white shirt!! :) 

Well here it is, the baptisms. For every baptism we have to have an interview by the District Leader or by the Zone Leader. Anyways we had our interview by the ZL´s on Saturday the day of the baptism and as we were waiting there we were getting worried that he wasn’t going to show up because it was already 30 mins past the time he was to be there.  He finally showed up and passed the interview, which was good to hear!! ha But then we had to depend on them to come to the baptism which was later that day. We told him to be there at 3 but the baptisms didn’t start tell 4. My comp and I got there around 2:45 to make sure that everything was ready. So we were sitting there waiting for them to come. There was another baptism scheduled and other people for the other baptism started to come in and more and more people kept coming it was around 4:15 when the baptismal ceremony started and he still wasn’t there. Now we have heard of people telling us about how some investigators showed up for the interview but didn’t show up for their baptism, we didn’t want that to happen to us because that means he wasn’t really ready to get baptized but we knew he was. We were waiting for him to come and we called him he didn’t answer. We were like great we just got scammed.. ha but as we are walking out of the church here he comes down the street with his mom showing up a classy 50 minutes late to his baptism. We barely got him to change in time and right when he got out of the changing room he went pretty much straight into the font. Yeah definitely perfect timing but we were pretty sure that it was his mom that made him late because it is always the moms that make you late... (just kidding) But he was happy after and was very proud. 

The next transfers are tomorrow!!! I am not suppose to move because new missionaries to the field get trained for 2 transfer or 12 weeks then you can get transferred.... But we have been having problems with the other companions in our house with them not going out to work because they are too lazy and one of them bought a laptop and has got internet, we have known about it for awhile but we finally told the Zone Leaders about it on Saturday.  The Zone Leaders came by our house on Saturday and busted them. I never had a problem with them they just have not been working. They haven’t left the apartment for 4 weeks pretty much and they keep going to buy movies every night and watch them on the laptop. When we came back on Saturday after the Zone Leaders busted them they were packing their bags and going to the office. One of them was sent home we think and he´s only been on his mission for 6 months but obviously he wasn’t here for the right reasons.  The other missionary went to the office where the office elders are and the APs live. But we haven’t received word if he is coming back.  There are rumors that my comp and I are getting split up and it doesn’t happen very much because I am still being trained.  Anyways, I may get a new companion and a new area.  But I’ll live in the same house. President Rodriguez will make this decision so I guess we will see. We find out our new companions tonight and our new areas, I am not sure what will happen so I will tell you next week. 

Love,

Elder Medrano

Outside our house

First El Libro de Mormon & First Swing

Everything is going well here!! I know its crazy to think that I already have two months down even though this month felt like its been 2 years but they usually say that the first month in the field feels like forever! So I am glad that I am past the first month and they also say that the months start to go buy a lot faster after the first month!! Holy cow there’s already snow?! DANG it I’m so mad that I miss two skiing seasons it looks like this year might be a good year for skiing! I am freaking missing it but that’s alright I am doing something better! 

My companion said that he's ready to go home but he doesn't want to worry about it because he said that I was an answer to his prayers.  The last companions that he has had have been kind of lazy and  didn't work hard. He prayed that in some way he wanted to finish the misssion strong and working hard so he wouldn't regret it. One day the President came up to him and told him that he received a revelation that my comp wanted to finish his mission strong! The President told him the best way to do that is to train some greenie which is what he is doing now. ha 

My shoes and feet are doing amazing!! Although I would like to buy some shoes that are $50? I love this country because everything is so so cheap!!! Ohh yeah don’t get mad at me when I come back with about 25 new hats?! haha I acutally got a hair cut in the CCM and I am going to get a hair cut right after this when we are done here. My hair is getting poofy!  We just did a cleaning in our apartment this week. The tub where the shower is was so filthy and then I got in it with a scrubber and the thing looks brand new now. We cleaned the floors and so our house is pretty clean right now. Just to tell you how dirty it was it took me 2 hours to clean everything off of it.. yeah it was that dirty!! 

I gave out my first EL LIBRO DE MORMON to a girl named Naomi. We really aren’t suppose to give a LDM to an investigator until a couple lessons in but our first folleto The Restoration talks about the Book of Mormon, we didn’t think that she would read the whole thing but she did and she understood everything besides the Apostisia (sorry i don’t know how to spell it in english so that’s in spanish). Anyway we felt that she wanted to read more about it and so we gave her a LDM (Libro De Mormon) and gave her the first chapter to read and every time we are there in her little home she is always happy to see us and loves to talk to us and her kids are so shy it’s cute but they are starting to open up and they are starting to talk to us more and more. :) That was my first LDM placed in this country. I was so happy and excited. Hopefully she can be baptized while I am here so I can say that I taught and baptized her. Hopefully that will work out but we will see. :) 

My first SWING in the DR! I took my first baseball swing at a baseball field here. They just barely made a baseball field where I am working. It’s not nice but hey it’s a baseball field. We came from a lesson and we had like 20 minutes to chill and relax because our next lesson was just down the street from the baseball field (they call it a ¨play¨ here) so we just sat down and watched some kids play for a min. Then my comp got up and called one of the kids over here and asked if we could take one swing. He went first and missed the first pitch and hit the second one up the middle. Then it was my turn to swing the bat. I got up and thought in my head that I am going to miss so I took my first swing and missed the ball completely. Then the second pitched came in and I did the same thing as the first one. I thought oh great I just lost all my baseball skills right there. So he threw another one and I fouled it off and then the next one came in and I hit it finally - it was a good hit into the left field gap and it went into the river that was behind the baseball field.  I felt so bad and didn’t have an extra ball on me to give them. I told them I’m sorry. But I had to laugh about it because they were all laughing at me when I missed the ball. :) haha 

Mi testimonio-

I know that this church is true! I know that the Bible and Book of Mormon are true writings of the prophets and true writings of God himself. I know that our Savior lives and I know that he died on the cross to feel all of our sins and the pains that we would go through in our life to come. I love being his representative of the gospel and I love to be a missionary. It was hard for me to leave my family and friends for two years but I know with all my heart that it was my time to go and it was the right decision for me to go on a mission before school started. Even though I had to give up a couple of college offers for baseball, I prayed about it and He gave me an answer. I knew from then on out that He wanted me to go on a mission to serve His people and bring the lost sheep back to him. I am so grateful to be serving a mission in the Republica Dominicana. Even though I am having a hard time with the language I know He put me in this position for a reason and I am here to find that reason out and I know that it is one of the trials in my life that He wanted me to go through. It was so hard for me to leave but I know that it was my time to serve the Lord and to be a full time representative. I know that while I’m gone that He will bless my life and my families lives. I know that God knows every single one of us and He has a plan for all of us. He has the most perfect plan for all of us after our lives are done here on the earth. I am so grateful again to be a missionary and to bring his lost sheep back to him. I love this gospel so much and I am grateful to teach it to others!! :) En el nombre de tu hijo Jesucristo, Amen. 

Well - love and miss you guys lots!!! Thanks for all the love and support!! I can’t thank you guys enough!!  

Love, 

Elder Medrano