17 August 2015 - Los Guaricanos (Santo Domingo)

Hullo!  Well this week was interesting.  I wish you guys could hear the thunder outside right now.  It sounds like just massive explosions. It´s SO loud!  Anyway, the week.  So Fausto and Demerris were supposed to get married today and they wanted Elder Bateman as the best man....but, they didn´t come to church or answer our calls so we had no idea what time it was or where to go!  We´re not even sure if theyre married!  Estivan isn´t progressing either because he always stays up suuuper late saturday night and is always asleep when we come to get him for church.  Eleser, the drunk kid we met in the street, seems to have a real interest, but his grandma, who is a staunch Evangelical, won´t let him come to church.  Apparently she thinks we´re the Devil or something.  Really nice lady though.  We talked to her actually before we met Eleser.  Well actually she did most of the talking.  Evangelicals are like that.  So yeah.  We had 2 investigators come to church yesterday...but we´re not actually teaching one of them because she want´s nothing from the missionaries.  The other is complicated.  Tania was married, but her husband left her a long time ago.  They never got a divorce however and now she is living in adultery with 2 kids and can´t get married because she has no idea where her husband is. She really likes the church and has friends here and everything, but she can´t progress until she gets a divorce. Oh well.  If its the Lords will then theres a way.

We found 5 new investigators this week...but we´re not sure any of them actually want to be taught.  If we end up keeping them i´ll tell you guys all about them though.

The best part of this week was we found out that almost all of the less actives we´ve been teaching have been reactivated! Yay!

The worst part was when we went out to teach with our ward mission leader.  Ugh.  We finished our first lesson with Maxima, a less active who really likes the gospel, but never goes to church.  Anyway, as soon as we left, Richard (our WML) turns to us and says, "that was the worst lesson i´ve ever been a part of."  Wow! Thanks Richard.  Then we walked along way to another less active and "taught" her.  Really it was just Richard and her interrupting us to laugh at things i didnt really understand.  Then we we left (now an hour late to our cita with Eleser. Thanks Richard) and he said "Well now I know why this ward won´t be getting any Baptisms." ..........so many words i wanted to say.  We missed our appointment, he made us talk to some frekas (girls who are a bit loose and hunt white men) and filmed one of our contacts.   The whole time he would stop and talk to friends or talk on his phone, making us late to everything! Ugh.  Ok, venting done.  I love you all and here are some pictures of our freshly cleaned house.  Well...I cleaned the bathrooms...I´m not actually sure if anyone else did anything except sweep a little.  The kitchens clean though. :P

Also, sorry if that email sounded a little negative.  From here on out I´m just gonna put happy stuff....The letters might be shorter. :P

This is our washing machine!  It is really quite terrible and inefficient, but its better that nothing!

Look! Our bathroom stuff is actually white now instead of yellow and black!

And this is my sweet tan line!  My watch somehow hasn´t gotten stolen yet so it continues to preserve a small part of my whiteness.

That tree is a Guanabana Tree.  Its fruit that tastes great as juice, but is like impossible to eat.

10 August 2015 - Los Guaricanos (Santo Domingo)

This week was better. We actually didn´t end up dropping anyone, but that was because nobody was around for us to drop! We went over to Jimmy and Jamy´s last night to drop them, but they were all super sick so we set up another appointment. We´ll see how that goes. Also, do you guys remember Fausto and Demeris? Well they didn´t come to church last week and we were kind thinking we might have to drop them too, but this sunday they came! And we didn´t have to call them or pass by their house or anything! And it was good because all of our other investigators that we passed for were still asleep. I was feelin pretty bumbed until we walked into the chapel and I saw them! Woo! Also, during sacrament, Fausto leans over to me and asks "Why aren´t I a baptized member?" Well good question Fausto! Probably cus your girlfriend is living with you and she´s crazy. I didn´t say that obviously, but we talked afterward and explained that we needed to teach him more. Estivan is still awesome, but he hasn´t come to church yet because he´s always asleep when we pass. All of our contacting and asking for references really turned up nothing until like thursday night. We were walking home when this drunk kid and his friends start yelling at us from the side of the road. We turn and say hi and start to walk away but he waves us over. We walk up to him and he says "I want to change my life. Are you guys Jehovas witnesses?" His friend behind says, "No they´re Mormons." The kid nods and gets a real serious look on his face and says again that he wants to change his life. We asked him if he was really serious and he nodded quite emphatically. He almost fell over in fact. So, we set up an appointment for the next day. I didnt get to go cus I was on splits but apparently it went really well. His name is Aliser. We stopped by his house yesterday and I saw his scriptures open on the table with the Plan of Salvation pamphlet open next to it. I was quite pleased and I´m pumped to actually teach him.

We talked to some more crazy people and that was kinda fun but I hate wasting so much time. My companion says we can´t just leave in the middle of their ramble though. I do believe thats it. We plan on getting some baptismal dates this week, so I´ll let you guys know how that goes next week! If I think of anything else I´ll write more!

(Response to Dad's e-mail):

A second Doctorate?? Thats crazy dad! I´m out of time, but wow!  Also, thats pretty toasty. Sounds like down here, especially with the rain.  Its hurricane season down here so we´ve gotten quite a bit.  Love you dad!  Not gonna lie, I wish I could help you with the lawn.  I miss grass that isnt 3 feet tall and covered in garbage. :P  Not important though! The work goes on! But really, I love you Dad.  Alot.  Good luck with all your school work and smart guy stuff.

3 August 2015 - Los Guaricanos (Santo Domingo)

Hello those who tune in to this regurarly scheduled program!  Remember how i said this week would be better? hahahaha well to quote Thorin Oakenshield, "Never have I been so wrong."  Our Numbers were down the toilet, all our citas fell through and we´re probably going to drop alooot of our investigators.  We only have one thats progressing and thats Estivan.  He is still amazing but all of our other investigators either want nothing to do with us or just refuse to keep commitments.  This coming week will be made up mostly of contacts and hopefully references.  We´re pretty much starting fresh.  It was rather discouraging.  BUT to quote a extremely popular saying here, "all things are possible with God."  Its at times like these when scriptures like Romans 8 and Alma 26:27 jump to mind.  Anyway, this week literally has to be better. :)

We had a TON of rain yesterday...which also ruined alot of our citas, but it was kinda fun.  It reminded me of Iowa.  I was on splits with the Ward mission leader and we had to walk for about a half an hour in the deluge.  It was a good time.  Oh! Fun fact, Dominicans are terrified of rain.  Whenever it rains, everyone disappears.  If it rains before church on sunday, no one will come.  Its because they only wash their hair like once a week (usually on friday so they can go party for the weekend) and theyre worried the rain will ruin it.  As a result most of the women wear these hair net things called "tubies" which hold in the rats nest. Anyway, i was walking with Richard, The ward mission leader, and he asked me if I wanted to stop.  I turned to him and said "Richard, are you going to let a little rain stop the work of the Lord?"  He stared at me for a sec then gave me a high five and started walking again.  Good times.  Thats about it for this week, I dont have any pictures unfortunately, but next week I will.  Have a great week everyone! Love you all!

Oh and Dad!  So if anyone wants to send packages, send them to the Mission Office.  I don´t know the adress.  Otherwise you can send them down through Florida which is great for Letters, but costs alot of money for packages, part of which has to be paid by me.  its alot safer though.  Also, you know how missionaries used to get the nice, embossed sciptures in their mission language?  Well no longer.  We get the cheap, paper back ones that are getting ruined in my bag. I have to buy my own and get scripture cases.  I´m just going to get my my triple rebound, but I´d like a Bible  with tabs.  Cases that are actually worth getting are around 100 dollars. I can definately wait on the cases, but I do need my PIN so I can withdraw money and afford to buy scripts and the new cover.

Also, I asked Elsa Greenwalt to talk to you guys about sending me a copy of The Lamb of God, because...I need music. haha.

for letters
Elder Christian Blake Frogley
Santo Domingo East mission
SDQ 4102
2250 NW 114th ave- unit 1A
Miami, FL 33172-3652

and for packages
Elder Christian Blake Frogley
Santo Domingo East mission
AP 000914
8532 NW 66th st.
Miami, FL 33166

Well apparently I have a bit more time, so lets add to the big letter!  Music here is...well...basura.  Its not music  Its pretty much just bass with a few words thrown in.  The favorites right now are Doobie, where the singer literally just says doobie over and over and thats the whole song.  Then theres the sound of the can.  Thats also the whole song with some really electric music garabage in the background.  Also, I need 10 women, and  "Beep bop, beep bop I am rich".  Thats the words for the whole song.  Makes me laugh.  The true king and ruler of both music and the country however is Romeo Santos.  My trainer has banned me from ever looking him up in my life, but everyone listens to him at some point during the day.  I dont think he´s that bad, but oh well.  I cant really understand what he sings, but it sounds ok. haha

Recently alot of power transformers have been blowing up and power is spotty all over my area.  There are tons of riots in the streets every night and we find burned tires and stuff everywhere.  Lets see...what else happened.  We had a barbecue. ha! To make the grill we took  the front, cover part of a fan, filled it with charcoal and tried to light it.  We have a video of all of us staning around the feintly glowing embers and desperately fanning the coals with plates.  It was fun.  We finally got our stipend back on schedule...ish this week so we could actually buy semi healthy food!  I actually eat (and kind of enjoy) alot of tomatoes and avacodos.  Shhh don´t tell Dad.  But mostly its rice and Salami, Cereal, eggs or sandwiches.  I´m actually working out pretty quite alot and its something i intend to do alot more of when i get back.  i´m lookin pretty healthy if i do say so.  Speaking of healthy.  This last week I got a nasty fungus thing all over my back.  It spread like over night and for the next few days I could barely move.  Everytime i´d shift of twist my back it felt like the skin was cracking.  I got some special soap and cream to get rid of it though and now its mostly cleared up.  What a great image right after talking about food...now I´m hungry.  We had a deep cleaning session in our bathrooms today ( and by we i mean I) and now all of our stuff is white...ish!  Better than the yellow and black it was before!  I scrubbed away generations of missionary hair and layers of shower and sink scum.  The ball of steel wool is practically destroyed and we´ve decided to burn the rags.  The toilet bowl is hopeless though.   Thank you for all your letters, thoughts and prayers.
I love you all!

27 July 2015 - Los Guaricanos (Santo Domingo)

Hullo! Alright well this week...happened.  Ugh.  It was rough.  Almost of our appointments fell through, so the majority of our lessons just kind of happened. "oh, so and so isnt here.  Lets visit this person instead!"  Alot of that...almost all.  Anyway, now you get to hear a little about our investigators!  I have very little time though, so I´ll be brief.  First, theres the good one.  Steven, or Estiven, is our main progressing investigator.  He is awesome.  He´s 15 and he and his brother and sisters actually really enjoy our lessons.  He reads everything, he has great questions and he´s just an awesome young man.  Pretty much the only reason he doesnt have a Baptismal date yet is because his parents.  His dad is chill with him getting baptized, but we´re pretty sure he and the mom only want us over there so that we´ll take there daughters to America.  Thats a very common and very annoying problem for us.

Next we have Jimmy and Jami.  Very complicated.  In short, Jimmy is a drunk bumb, theyre not married but have 3 kids and are living together...maybe.  Not real clear on that cus she might have thrown him out.

Finally for our main investigators we have Fausto and Demerris.  Fausto is a cool guy and could actually be progressing if his Girlfriend wasn´t crazy.  Demerris is a member, but they are still living together.  Every time we teach them about Chastity and stuff, Demerris just takes over and says thats its ok theyre living together as long as nothing happens. <face palm).  Any way, we took them to the temple last week and had a really great lesson despite Demerris´ best efforts.  Fausto agreed to be baptized, but we don´t have a date and we´re not really sure if he actually wants to or is just following is bullying, super controlling and (again) crazy girlfriend.  So yeah.  Theres my week.  I´ll write more if i have time, but i have tons of pictures!

Some of these are still at the MTC.

So these are from last Pday, we went to this old fort and the church, if you remember.  These are the DR founding fathers.

I have way more but not enough time! ah! Love you all.  We talked to an old couple who decided to make us stand in front of there cross to make sure we werent devils, then we talked to an old man that was convinced the world would end that day and we as missionaries are here to find the missing half of the earth and talk to dead people.  Pretty funny!

(Response to Dad's e-mail):

Sounds like a "Swell" time indeed! ;) haha But really daddy, that sounds great.  It is definately a challenge here, but Our mission here is to literally "Save the Dominican Family", and thats what I aim to do.  Even if they don´t want me to.  Too bad.  Its hard to love everyone, but I try my darndest, even when they pee at us.  Yes, that happens.  Its perfectly normal to just go at it in the street.  But yeah,  havin fun. gettin stories. :P Love ya dad!

20 July 2015 - Los Guaricanos (Santo Domingo)

Well I´ve been out almost a week and I am just exhausted. Happy, but exhuasted. So much stuff has happened this past week and a half and I don´t have near enough time to tell it all. Thus, I will summarize. I left the MTC and went to the East Mission office on tuesday. There I met president and alot of the missionaries. President Corbit is super awesome. He´s pretty intense, but also loves to joke around. He´s also super strict for which I´m grateful. My trainer´s name is Elder Bateman, so all the people here call him Elder Batman. Yeah. My trainer is Batman. hahaha Anyway, the first week was pretty messed up. I´ve already been on splits with other missionaries twice and one was on my second day. Then, on Jueves, (thursday) we had zone meeting, friday my comp had to go with one of the ZLs to do...something. He´s a district leader by the way. I got paired up with Elder Brady, the other Zone leader, and he´s totally awesome. We cleaned the baptismal faunt and fillled it because he was having a baptism that night. Then we went out and taugh some lessons. I actually end up teaching quite a bit for a greeny. Anyway, the next day was sunday, my first in the new ward, and today is Pday. No normal days yet. Crazy. We have a few investigators, several of which we are probably dropping. I won´t say names yet cus honestly I don´t remember who is who. Ok, semi up to speed. Story time. Thursday (i think) we were walking up the street and passed a sister sitting in her doorway. We said hi, then noticing that she looked pretty down, asked her if everything was ok. She said yes...then burst into tears. We asked her what was wrong and she told us to come inside. Apparently her son broke some sort of pipe in the street while playing and she doesnt have the money to fix it. She´s scared that she´ll lose everything. We shared a brief message about how much God loves her and how Christ had already suffered through all of her troubles. We ended by singing Come COme ye saints and the spirit was very strong. She called us today and asked us to swing by, so we´re going to go see what happened. Story number 2. Pday. Today was very manso, or chill. We cleaned the whole house (gross, when i first got here there were like 5 dead cockroaches in the bathtub.), then went to the touristy part of the island and just looked around for a bit. We walked through an old fort and saw the statues of the DR founding fathers. Then we walked though the first Catholic Church of the new world which was totally awesome. It kind of reminded me of Italy...a little. haha. Then we came back and played volley ball with some of the elders in our zone. I took tons of pictures....but i forgot my camera at the house. facepalm. Oh well.

And now, general information and random tidbits!

Our house is apparently pretty big, but also pretty lame compared to other houses. It has 3 bedrooms, all of which connect to a bathroom. There are 2 companionships in the house, but we only use one bathroom for...bathroom...stuff. We all get to use our rooms shower though.

I also tried my first street foods! First there was a chimi which is kind of like a dominican Hamburger, then an Impenada, which is chicken and cheese in the middle of fried dough. Both super good.

A spider had babies in one of our pans so that was fun, and i wake up everymorning with fresh mosquito bites. Sigh. I promise I´ll have tons of pics next week! Also, Dad. You should repent for sending me that picture of those chips. I didnt get lunch today. but seriously, you should send me some. Also, don´t forget to forward my emails!

Also also, have you ever tried typing on a Spanish key board? Its awful. And google says almost every word in this email is wrong. hahaha Love you all!!

Ok, i got a little more time.  Culture explanation.  The culture here is...well totally fake.  Everything is just fake fake fake.  Its all made to model america.  The clothes, the technology the signs everything.  Also, law of chastity? non existent.  Thats our main challenge.  Ive been hissed at 3 times now which means that somebody wants me...in the bad way.  When we were out tracting on my second day, this like 15 year old girl across the street started yelling at me some very not good things.  Its pretty messed, especially cus its only cus we´re white..  Also, here there arent taxis, but instead we have public cars.  This is kind of like a taxi except the car is super old and junky and they stuff as many people as possible inside.  Sometimes the car is so grody that you can see the road passing below because of all the holes in the floor.  Anyway, no I´m out of time.  Goodbye for another week dear friends and family.. I love you all.

9 July 2015 - Santo Domingo MTC

Woops! hahaha Sorry dad. That sounds quite lonely... Anyway, what a great week. Splits with the missionaries was super fun. The people here are crazy, but generally really nice. I went to like the ghetto area and we taught a few lessons. I didn't really do much except for pray, but i could understand what was happening most of the time. There are giants mounds of trash everywhere and the streets are filthy. Clothes are optional, especially when its super hot out, like it was on Friday. The streets between buildings are all twisting, tiny little alleyways. However, the people we taught were very nice and open to what we were saying. Time just flew by. I didn't get to go to my actual mission though; we were in the West. Apparently it isn't quite as congested with people there. Oh, and you know how in Ian's mission everyone had terrible housing but like a monster TV? Well here everyone has like tiny, cinder block houses held together with re-bar, but ALOT of them dress very nicely and have iPhones. Some one will be sitting in a broken plastic chair, drinking water from a can, but will be dressed in like skinny jeans and a nice shirt with some fake Ray-bans glasses. Its quite odd. But the rest of the week was still great. We watched an AMAZING talk by elder Bednar at on old Christmas MTC devotional. It was just....just awesome. I took like 2 pages of notes. We also fixed our problem with Ramon by bringing up Numbers...25...I think? And D&C 1:30? Haha by the voice of my servants it is the same..that one. haha And he accepted that and promised to keep reading and praying BUT now he says he wont pray because he has to finish the BoM first. UGH. But We'll be leaving soon so I wont be teaching him much more. We officially go out into the field on Tuesday. Its coming!! :D SO pumped. Um...lets see. What else happened. The drivers here continue to amaze me, I almost got hit by a motorcycle. There are literally no traffic laws here. When we were on splits, for the longer parts of the trip we traveled in the back of a truck. Its kind of like a taxi, but a pick up with like this rack thing in the back so you can stand up. It felt kind of like riding a horse standing up. Good times. Temple today was super great as always, but I was sad cus It was our last time. President Cornish came and spoke to us as well, so that was pretty cool. We're going out on splits again tomorrow, so wish me luck! :D

We found this massive leaf on the temple grounds. No idea where it came from.

And this is our district. haha

2 July 2015 - Dominican Republic MTC

Weeks are cruisin by. haha That sounds awesome Dad! The email list is on my Facebook page! It should be like the last post I did. A lot of people commented on it with their emails. You should just be able to see it through your Facebook if you go on my wall. Anyway, this week was pretty swell. Learning lots of Spanish and about its 15 different cases! -_- We just got 50 new missionaries in yesterday and now its packed here. They're going to have to start rearranging our schedules. Tomorrow I go on splits with the missionaries to teach real people! I'll probably just sit there and pretend to know whats happening. :P Also, lessons with our "investigator" Victor went really well! On Tuesday he agreed to be baptized! My comp and I were super pumped even though it was just play acting. In the mean time our lessons with Ramon went steadily down hill. He is stuck on Nephi killing Laban, refusing to accept it was the will of God because God commanded that we must not kill. We tried to answer his question and at some point during the lesson he said he wanted to kill us so...yeah, kind of didn't do a swell job on that one. Any advice for answering his question that won't lead to our deaths? We took some time and decorated our classroom with a whole bunch of cool quotes and scriptures in Spanish. Then one of our teachers said we should make it more personal so i made The Eye of Sauron, cut it out, made the tower around it, surrounded it in the writing from The Ring and wrote "Veo a Usted" over it. Its pretty awesome, not gonna lie. I've gotten quite a few complements. Aside from that, esta semana was the same. Its all swell and good here! No pics this week cus...well...nothing really happened...yeah. haha Love you all!

AND two quick things I just thought of. Was it Fathers day this past Sunday? If so, Happy Fathers day, whenever that was. :P Item number 2. I heard about the Supreme Court decision. That's super dumb. The entire mission was super bummed about it. Also, fun fact. Apparently the general Jamaican population hates Gay people. Our Jamaican elder was like raging about it. Love you all...still...haha