Like always, it turned out great

Arrived Oct 21, 2015

Love you more than…

Your dream-style sunrise!  Sunrise over palm trees with a nice ocean breeze and birds singing! I was on intercambios (exchanges) again this week but this time in Monte Cristi, which is right next to the ocean. I woke up and right in front of me, outside the window was a red beautiful sunrise and everything else that makes it perfect! Almost as cool as my new waffle maker.

 

Inside the Marcado, which had closed and then re-opened.
Technically I've been to Haiti, since the store crosses both borders

Outside the Mercado

Answering questions. So Elder Verde came into our study area one day a few weeks back and told us he didn’t want to talk to us and didn’t want us talking to him to finish out the transfer nice and peaceful. It was a big surprise that came out of nowhere. In mission language he is my uncle/step-brother and when you all live in the same house its kinda hard to have something like that. However, out of the blue, we are all like brothers again and everything is good.

 

Our cooking lessons from a couple of weeks back

Week in review: Our planned service project and lunch with a menos activo fell through last Thursday, so that was hard. There are never people home or out and about in the mornings, so from 10-2 we always are looking for things to do and people to teach. SO it started out hard, but we were spoiled by a Mangu dinner with salami and juice from a lady who started investigating the church three years ago! Her daughter passed away and when some elders came to her house, three years ago, and explained how families can be reunited forever, she totally knew it was true. The problem is her husbands birth certificate and papers are all messed up, so they can’t be legally be married and so they can’t get baptized, but one day it’ll all work out. The bad luck continued when my life-line (fan for my desk) fell and the blade broke. They are replacable, but we couldn’t find the right one so I was/am dying of heat. Also when I heard of intercambios again, I was kinda nervous/not in a great mood. I love the other missionaries and especially zone leader Elder Whitworth, but with intercambios you leave everything you know for a day and just go off and try to talk to new people. Like always, it really turned out really great. Spanish is still hard, but I can see how far I’ve come. Also we made an avocado milkshake, which are actually really good haha. Intercambios ended with us four elders working in the bakery part of a grocery store, and making bread which was fun. The workers were tigres/ragamuffins, like dad says, and I learned all the street talk. ¿Que lo que mani? Kinda like whats up dog, except the actual translation is “that what peanut” haha. Getting people to actually come to church is still a process, and even with members it’s hard to get people to be on time. But it is a good goal to work for. "Mormon standard time" here is half an hour late but then a flood of people come in. In Carbonera we are working with small steps in getting the menos activos to come to the small service at granpa/hermano Blanco’s house, since his health doesn’t let him to get to church. We found a menos activo with fourteen non-member kids, and we are really hoping to get somewhere with them. We had a district meeting the other day and ate at the classic pico pollo. Its kind of a conspiracy since they are all run by Asians who speak Chinese and live here. I realized that we eat more chinese food, fried chicken and chofan, than we eat mexican food like tacos, burritos and tortillas, which I never expected before getting here. The Rama (branch) has made a big push in getting more members to work with the missionaries, so we are getting more lessons and more references from members which we barely had any before now. We made cookies from a muffin mix for a menos activo lady who watches a lot of American movies like “Fast and Furious” and “Star Wars” which was super hard to avoid. We are working now in another part of our area called La Fe which is hard. We don’t really have anybody right now but were working on it. There is an all-star family there, the cement to the Rama, who is going to go with us and hopefully help a lot. We had a really interesting lesson/got a stern talking to, by one of our actually good friends who believes that in heaven there isnt/wasnt gender. It is really interesting to hear different opinions. And realize how much I love and believe there is a  purpose in who I am and where I’m going. This week has kind of been a restart in how we are working, so numbers are kinda small. But there should be good progess. Transfers are coming up and I’m getting nervous. They say its like starting all over, leaving again on a mission. The odds are my step dad/second companion will be a Latino, who will be hard on me to get me to be better. Its called “greenie breaking” and I’m nervous, but I’ll probably stay here as well, which is kind of a comfort.

 

My companion eating our "cooking lesson" meal from a couple of weeks back

This weeks ponderism and spiritual message is the favored classic: 1 Nefi 3. “I will go and do. The Lord giveth no commandment save he shall prepare a way.” The Lord is actively working for us. Elder Coombs has been singing a lot of Christmas songs lately, and the only Halloween song we can think of, and people have started putting up Christmas lights, so snow has kind of been on my mind. In the snowy blizzard of life the Lord has commanded us to do things, but they seem hard since we can’t see through the icy wind. However the Lord has shoveled away the snow drifts and made a path for us. Though it is sometimes hard to see, there is always a way. We will still be cold and tired at times, but there is a way. Once we obey and make it through the white out, waiting for us is the loving warmth of a Father’s arms, and a big mug of chocolate caliente. I know it is true and I want you to come to know it as well, so go and do and follow the commandmewnts. 

Hope this helps any who reads this.

Something you guys can do for me is send a few copies of the picture of Frammi and Marias baptism so I can give them the pictures. Any advice and recipes and pictures and movie quotes and jokes and stuff is acceptable whenever as well :)

With love

Elder Andrew W. Sheffield