I actually have two areas - Dajabon and Carbonera

My Mission President and his wife
Presidenté and Hermana Castillo

Love you more than…. Strawberry popsicles!

I bought myself one for my one week anniversary. It tasted like strawberry jam on a popsicle stick, reminds me of good old strawberry jam on moms fresh bread- yum!

So this week kind of went by slow, mainly just because it feels like I’ve been doing this for years already. I don’t know the language or the area or anything super well but it doesn’t seem like there is anything else I could see myself doing right now.

For starters, some cool and funny things. There are little lizards that crawl on all the walls of everyones houses, and they get me distracted when we go to teach people, because I try to think of ways to catch them and show the boys. I also really like seeing jeeps. So far I’ve seen a jeep from the 50’s, a pickup truck jeep (Comanche), some wranglers like the wrights down the street have and then some new Jeep Grand Cherokee’s. It always makes me smile seeing these pieces of home here. Amerika!! 

The motorcycles here are small but id love to have one like them back home. I found a “Saturdays Warrior” cd at our house which is great. One of our members named Hermano Blanco reminds me of Grandpa Anderson, Ill try to get a picture sometime. There is this family that reminds me of ours who raises chickens but these are for cock-fights. Also one of the girls likes to fight like the boys do. My bag wasn’t that good and looks like Frankenstien with all the sewing I’ve had to do to hold it together. I think I’ll have to get a new one soon with my credit card.

 

The view from the internet place we email from

More about my area. My companion, Elder Coombs, and I actually have two areas, Dajabon and Carbonera. Both of these we are whitewashing (serving in an area that has not had missionaries before) so there is a lot of work to be done. Both areas have a lot of menos activos (less active) which we are going to reactivate and get them to invite friends to meet with us. But for now, its mostly walking around most of the day doing sweaty contacting.

Everyone here talks soooo fast. As far as understanding goes, from easiest to hardest: gringo spanish, mexican spanish, dominican spanish and finally our branch presidents Spanish, haha. The people speed through words and mumble, especially the branch president. Also when you ask people to repeat themselves they don’t slow down but say it exactly the same, good thing people here are so nice.

We did some service like painting the inside of this ladies house and grinding up corn for a member to make bread. Hard work, but they fed us the traditional chicken, rice, a salad thing and a soda and then spaghetti. It is a little weird but spaghetti seems to be pretty common dish here. For our own meals we don’t know how to make a lot so we keep it simple with oatmeal, cereal, hamburgers, hotdogs, tacos and fried plantains.

We went to the Mercado (market) also which was crazy. Imagine a warehouse full of sweaty people shouting in Creol or French if you’re Haitian, Spanish if your Dominican and then English if your me. Everyone is trying to sell stuff and buy stuff and get good deals. I got a tie for like an American 75 cents.

My bed in the room, with authentic Dominican sheets, because I forgot to bring some from home.

Little bits about each day this week. Elder Rojas and Elder Verde who we live with, had baptized a little boy named Gerson (or Harrison) this week. I gave a five minute testimony/talk in church which was decent. We visited this sketchy hospital and gave a little girl a blessing. We, (I used one of my memorized phrases) challenged two girls with baptism and we have dates with them in September, which means we have Yaritsa, Maria Jose and Dios Mari who have dates for September. This is great but the challenge is making these investigators solid members who won’t go inactive. It is sad to see so many people who are inactive here. I’ve heard this mission called a baptizing mission, but one that needs a lot of work with reactivation. We tried to hitchhike the other night to get home from our second area. We couldn’t get any cars or trucks to stop so my companion kind of made me get on a motorcycle taxi or “motoconcho” with him and the driver. Its okay in some areas but I don’t think it’s allowed in that area, which made me feel guilty. But it did feel nice to have the wind in my face and to look at all the stars. We decided that that will be our last time riding on the squished motorcycle in that area.

For my spiritual moment I want to share a scripture from second Nephi. You’ll have to look it up for yourselves, but it is about acting or being acted upon. Just like cars or birds or airplanes, we were made for a special purpose of going somewhere. We are meant to act, to improve, to move forward. This life is a time not to be acted upon, but to act for ourselves. Making mistakes is part of the process are acting. Acting doesn’t mean being perfect but to do, to work hard and get better. I have two years to act on my mission and we all have the rest of our lives to act, do something with yourself. Do what we were sent here to do.

P.S. a few questions/requests: send some recipes for how to make foods!!!, like simple stuff and rice to. If anybody has questions about packages send them through DHL. I haven’t gotten my new personal card, but when I do what is the pin and what do I do with the old/my current card. 

Movie quote: I love kung fuu!!!!!!!

Thanks for the emails, with all my love

--

Elder Andrew W. Sheffield