Elder David y Hna. Pam Johnson

Tuesday, August 4, 2009
This morning at 7:00am we were off to the town of Azua for another Mission Conference. This one was with all of the Elders & Sisters serving outside of the city. The format of the meeting was the same as yesterday. We were introduced and bore our testimonies. Then all of the Elders and Sisters who wanted to bore theirs. The meeting lasted four and a half hours. A half hour longer than yesterday’s but it is wonderful to hear the testimonies of these young and enthusiastic missionaries. The spirit is very strong at these meetings. I just love being here and being part of this mission. I am so glad to be called and to serve in the Dominican Republic.

Before leaving for the 2 hour drive back to our apartment I left the keys in the ignition of our pickup truck to load more stuff. Well, I found out the hard way that this truck locks its self automatically when the doors are closed. So…. This afternoon I got to learn how to use a strong wire to break into my vehicle’s driver side window. It seems that all of the Elders that drive cars in the mission have the trick down to a science.

But the heat! While Pam and I waited for help we were in the 3:00pm sun, in dead calm/no wind, 95 degrees and 90% humidity. I was soaked with sweat. I was sure glad to get on the road again, back inside our air conditioned car. What a relief.

On our way home we witnessed a rather unusual and very dangerous event. Well, it wasn’t so unusual for Dominican drivers because they do things like this all the time. We were on a busy stretch of 2 lane highway between towns when we caught up with 3 trucks. The truck in the front was a fully loaded 16 wheeled tanker slowing climbing a hill at about 10 mph. Right behind him was a large fully loaded 10 wheeled truck. Behind him was an empty tractor trailer. At the same instant both trailing trucks decided to pass the leading truck up hill and on a curve. The lead truck pulled as far to the right as he could to let the others pass. But the third empty truck wasn’t content to wait his turn; he swung clear over to the left to pass both of the other trucks at the same time. So, picture this in your mind’s eye. There were three very large trucks abreast of one another going up a steep hill at 10 to 12 mph and ON A CURVE!!! Luckily there no other cars approached from the other direction or it would have been a real mess. Finally the unloaded truck managed to get in front of the other two without incident. And we were on our way again.