27 June 2016 - Villa Mella (Santo Domingo)

(Response to Dad's e-mail, in which he described the father-son campout we went on, which included a hick through the forest, resulting in the boys all gathering lots of sticks; also, Dad got sick that weekend.)

Sticks!! Hahaha Thats awesome. Sorry to hear your sick though. This week was pretty long actually, but we´ll talk about that in a minute. Hope you feel better soon! Thats cool that you got to go out with the wee ones. I miss camping. :P Hey, so do you think you could put some money on my account? After my last companion and transfers, my mission money is gone. Also, when I got to our new house, there was no food or gas, so Ive been burning through personal money. Im not sure how much is on there still, but just to be safe. Also, more tri guard! :D I go through that stuff pretty fast. Thanks Dad! Love yoU!

(General e-mail)

Transfers!!!

Well................Im back in Villa Mella. The same zone where I started. A different area, thank goodness, but still back the capital. Its even hotter here than it was in Boca Chica! BUT the work goes on. This week was interesting. We met some really cool people, some kind of crazy people and some rather boring folks as well. ALOT of appointments fell through, something which hasn´t happened since my training, but we did some contacting and found more people. Our ward mission leader is quite the tale. On his mission, he was super disobedient, didn´t care about anything and did everything his own way. Unfortunately, he hasnt changed a bit. He bags on us all the time for being obedient and tells us the break the rules etc etc. He also spurts apostasy every once in a while. Very interesting character. Our bishop is cool though. He´s another youngin, so he´s pretty chill. He works alot though, so he never has time to leave with us.

My companion´s name is Elder Martinez from Puebla, Mexico. He´s really funny, and a Nerd just like me! We spent like an hour just sittin in bed talkin about movies and video games and stuff. Good times. He´s a bit shy in lessons though. I Kind of have to pry him out of his shell a little in lessons.

The house is pretty nice. It used to be a sister house, so its a few grades above the normal elder grunt, garbage houses. The area is nice too. Lots of paved roads, but also alot of hills. My calves are gettin a work out. There are also a few, very....very........very wealthy people in the ward. The ones with like 3 story house with giant pillars out front and like 2 cars and just wow. I felt like I stepped back into America when we ate with one of them.

So work stuff. We teach an English class every friday and last time we met this really cool guy named Marc. He was born in the Pentecostal church, but is less active. One of the other Elders had given him a plan of salvation pamphlet and he read a bit before the class. As part of the class, I explained a bit about the church and what we believe. At the end, Marc told us that when he read in the pamphlet, he felt a kind of warmth and yearning and asked us when our church meetings were. Sunday morning, he was there. We went to the wrong ward, but he did show up! We´re going to visit him on friday, so we´ll see what he thought! But yeah, that was the week really. We´re going to the temple on wednesday and all pretty pumped about that. Love you all! Have a great week! (Independence day is next Pday!! XD MURICA)

(Location of Villa Mella)

20 June 2016 - Boca Chica (Santo Domingo)

(Response to Dad's e-mail, in which Dad shared that they took Jami and her kids to the aquarium, and that Ammon and his mission to the Lamanites is a type for Christ.)

FELIZ DIA DE LOS PADRES!!! I have a gift for you, Im just waiting for Ians sandals to be done so that I can send them together.

Anyway, that sounds totally awesome. I was actually just thinking about our aquarium the other day. Mom always invited us to go with her, but I was always to selfish and self occupied to go with her. One of the many things Im going to fix upon my return.

I had never thought of Ammon like that! Ill be sure to go back and read those chapters.

Thanks dad! Love you tons and Im glad you are having such a great time!

(General e-mail)

Alright well this week was kind of rough. It started off ok with good lessons and quite a few people that really wanted to be baptized. And then there was wednesday. However, before explaining wednesday, lets give some background info. So, our Bishop just opened up a new restaurant up by the beach that does delivery. Obviously, us as misisonaries saw this as a great chance to not cook! Thus, tuesday we all ordered a nice dish of rice and beans. It came, we ate and all was well. The next day however, was a different story. The one bathroom that works was suddenly the tri wizards cup as the three champions raced towards it to relieve themselves. Almost the whole house got really bad....stomach problems. Everyone, except for me. :D but, everyone else decided to stay in the house for the day because they didnt want to stress their tender stomachs with walking. In the end we played dominoes with our neighbor (I won...alot.) and finished off with a round of our neighbors avengers monopoly. My companion ended up playing soccer the whole time with another neighbor (can play soccer but cant walk to appointments 0_-...?). Anyway, the day was lost, and the rest of the week tanked. Appointments fell, we had a whole bunch of random silly things happen and just alot of time was wasted. I was not the happiest camper in the republic. All of our baptismal dates also fell and we also had one of our golden families tell us that they dont want us to visit them anymore. We barely saved the situation thanks to a tender mercy from the Lord in that we found a friend of that family, who is a member, on the way! Testimonies were shared, doubts were cleared and they continue, but dont want to accept a baptismal date.

In other news, saturday night we also got the call for transfers. Im out. I'm headed...back to Villa Mella. The zone where I started. Different area though, so thats cool. Still District leader, and my comps name is Elder Martinez. I dont know anything about him really, but ill give yalls the scoop next week. I will be very sad to leave Boca Chica though. I've got some of my best friends here. BUT the Lord needs me elsewhere.

Anyway, love you all! Hope you all have a great week!

Elder Beard gave me a present from his entirely batman themed package. hahaha

Final zone pic

13 June 2016 - Boca Chica (Santo Domingo)

(General e-mail)

Alright so lets talk about this here week that just done passed us by. So not alot happened really. My companion is kind of palomo, but aside from that not much change. Our Bishop is starting a new business that does delivery, so we helped him build, fix and paint up his restaurant. It looks pretty nice and the chef is a member. She cooks AMAZING so if I stay this transfer I might be gettin some more veggies and fruits in.

Also, a while ago we met a less active whos been away from the church since the early nineties. In the first little talk in his colmado, I felt impressed to give him a BOM. I did so and the next time we visited, he had read halfway through alma! I was pretty happy, and even happier to taste his home made fried chicken and plaintains. Mmmm...how am I not fat?

I dont have much time now, but all our baptismal dates fell on Sunday, so that was kind of a bummer. We have a FHE with 3 of them tonight so we're going to see que lo que (whats what, or whats up) Love you all! The spirit is a truly amazing thing. I just finished an audio book describing the Prophet Joseph Smith. AMAZING!

P-Day

Baptism!

Mom, we made one of your recipes.

Trunky year mark cookies.

Look, I made a grafiti of my name.

Sanbil, the super mall.

Subway

6 June 2016 - Boca Chica (Santo Domingo)

(General e-mail)

Happy year mark self! Can you guys believe it? A whole year! Time goes by waaaaay too fast. However, dont think that Im totally focused in the passing of time. The mission occupies my thoughts.

Speaking of the mission, lets talk work.

So in general, things keep going the same, but this week definately had its ups and downs. We only had one person in church on sunday, and even that almost didnt happen. The split in the area has changed things up as well as a few "jostles" in the companionship. Right now we have only one baptismal date that is firm. His name is Jackson, but everyone calls him Michael (dont ask me why, thats how nicknames work here. Totally random). We contacted him in the house of a different investigator named Brenda who also had a baptismal date. He seemed a bit stiff at first, but now he is amazing! He always reads in the Book of Mormon and has been to church twice now. He really likes it too. He says everyone is really friendly and he just feels peaceful and happy inside. He also participates alot in the classes. He´s pretty much just missing the baptism and he´s good! His two sisters (they all live together) also want to get baptized, but haven´t been to church yet, even though they say they really want to go. We´ll see. Dapheney, the Haitian we baptized is doing really well too. The first day in our new chapel, she told us that she felt like she was at the temple again, and that she´d never felt that way in the rented building. It was really cool.

We are working with 3 families right now who want to get married. The process is kind of expensive and also a pain, but we´ll get there. We´re also seeing an abundance of dreams about the gospel. 2 of the families have recieved dreams now.

Um... what else...hmmm. Well, Lemme try and send those photos again. Love you all!

The chosen Sacrifice:

No time...again. But I have a lot of photos.