Friday, December 31, 2010

Today Hna. Johnson took down the Christmas decorations in the office, boxed it and put it all in storage. She is on a roll when it comes to packing up and putting things away. This afternoon she stayed home after lunch and continued to pack up everything in our apartment. There are a lot of items that we inherited from the Larson’s, the Senior couple before us. Hna. Johnson is boxing everything for the new couple coming to take our place. All of the boxes of supplies we are saving for them will be stored in the mission office until the new couple gets here on the first of April.



Elder Barquero and Elder Huey, the office Elders we’re training to take our place, have been preparing all of the materials and documents for “Traslado” (Transfer Day) coming up in two weeks. One of the jobs that takes a lot of time is preparing the mission picture roster. The departing missionaries have to be removed and the arriving missionaries have to be added in. All of the pictures have to be prepped, shuffled, alphabetized and reassembled on the picture roster. I showed Elder Barquero what to do and he spent the better part of the afternoon working on it. He still isn’t finished.



Elder Barquero called me over to show me the old mission picture roster he was working on. He had prepped the page by drawing a big red X across the face of each departing missionaries. He wanted to show me the pictures of Hna. Johnson and I with the red X’s across our faces. I was shocked at seeing it. The sight of those X’s crushed me like a steamroller. Hna. Johnson and I are being taken off of the mission picture roster.

I’ve been prepping the mission picture roster for the past year and a half and it didn’t bother me a bit to draw an X across the face of the departing missionaries. This time it was my own pictures being X’ed out, wow what a difference. It is still hard to believe that our mission to the Dominican Republic Santo Domingo West mission will be over in just 3 weeks.



New Years at midnight is celebrated in the DR exactly like the US. Tonight I worked late on picture captions for the Blog well past midnight. As early as 11:00pm fireworks were going off in our neighborhood. By midnight the fireworks and gun shots were non-stopped and deafening. The whole capital sounded like a war zone.

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Today the Ayudantes (AP’s Assistants) in the south came into the capital to pick up their “camioneta” (Toyota Hilux Pick-up). It was in the shop being repaired and painted. (See Thursday, Oct. 7, 2010) It looks great now. When they left to return to the south they took all of the mail and supplies for all of the Elders and Hna.’s in the South. They had a lot to load and haul.




Great news today! Hna. Yessica Reyes (San Miguel, El Salvador) has returned to finish her mission after having brain surgery five weeks ago. (See Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2010)



Hna. Reyes had the surgery in Guatemala. (See Monday, Nov. 22, 2010) The doctors here thought she had a brain tumor but during her surgery they discovered she had a parasite (Trichinosis) in the 4th ventricle of her brain. This revelation was very good news according to Dr. Kilgore, the Area Medical Specialist. They treated the parasite with antibiotics and her recovery was much faster than had it been a tumor. We are so delighted to have her back in the mission. She is a great missionary and the Lord has truly blessed her over the past month and a half.

Today our “Blog2Print” book No. 2 arrived in the mail. This one looks great, just like the first one. It is 251 full color pages of my personal journal that I’ve uploaded to our mission blog. Book No. 2 covers six months, from Jan. 2010 to July 2010. Our first book covered the first 6 months of our mission, from July 2009 to Dec. 2009. (See Friday, Oct. 22, 2010) We plan to print the final 6 months of our mission in book No. 3 after we get home.



The Elders in the office, as well as anyone else that comes by, really like to read our blog2print book. This newest one never had a free moment; it spent every free minute this afternoon with one Elder then another. I am really happy they enjoy reading it and looking at all of the pictures. The Elders are really happy when they find a picture of themselves in it.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

This morning Elder Huey and I went to the Aduana and there were a lot of packages there again. Even though it is 4 days after Christmas the Aduana is still very busy. That is because the Dominican Christmas season doesn’t end on the 25th. The major gift giving day in the DR is “The Day of the Kings” celebrated on January 6th. This is the day, tradition says, when the three wise men found the baby Jesus and gave him their gifts.




Today a service technician came to the mission office to work on the gas range in the Elders apartment downstairs. The burners were all rusted, to gas valves were clogged and it was very hard for Hna. Ramona to cook. When the repairman lifted the range lid to go work on the valves he discovered a rat’s nest, literally!




The rat had pulled all of the insulation out from around the oven and stuffed it under the stove top cover. The rat also stole a dish towel and drug it all the way up the back of the stove to his nest. The all cotton towel was wedged right below two of the burners. It is amazing that the towel never caught fire.




The range repairman and I spent the afternoon chasing all over Santo Domingo for gas range burners, valves and other parts. One store we stopped at had two and three burner camp stoves for sale out front on their sidewalk. Interestingly, the camp stoves were all homemade and welded from old tire rims. They looked like they could really work. After seeing them it made me want to go camping!

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

This evening Hna. Johnson and I went to the movie “Harry Potter – The Deathly Hollows”. This is one of Hna. Johnson’s favorite series of books she has read and she loves the movies too. This latest movie didn’t disappoint her. She enjoyed it a lot. She came out of the theater talking all about it and the book. We had a good time.

Earlier in the day I was with Elder Huey on a “Diligencia” to buy office supplies I accidently mentioned that Hna. Johnson and I were going to see “Harry Potter”. Elder Huey said, “Don’t tell me, don’t tell me anything, I don’t want to hear anything about it. I’ll see it when I get home.” It’s a great thing these young men and young women do when they leave home to serve a mission. They put their lives on hold for one and a half to two years and dedicate their energy and all their time to the work of the Lord. Elder Huey as well as all the rest of the missionaries are true disciple of the savior.

Monday, December 27, 2010

Just after sunup this morning all of the Elders and Hermanas in the capital met at Mirador Park for a huge service project. President Almonte was there to give directions, handed out large black trash bags and helped in the morning’s activity. The Elders spread out across the park spaced at arm’s length apart. They headed west and covered over three kilometers of the park picking up a mountain of trash.










The Hna.’s did the same thing but on the other side of the boulevard that runs the length of the park. Hna. Almonte and Hna. Johnson was with them as they walked and picked up tons of trash. There was so much that they ran out of trash bags a couple of times.










Elder and Hna. Mehr, the Area Public Relations missionaries came too. They were there to take pictures and provide a story for lds.org, public relations, news room. They never know if their news articles will make it into print or even be displayed on the church’s website but they provide the pictures and story in the hope that it will be selected.













This evening we had another very good FHE with the Seniors at the “Casa”. Elder and Hna. Atkinson were in charge of the lesson. They presented a reading of the story of “The Other Wise Man”. (http://stpaulsparis.ca/Other_Wise_Man.htm) About a dozen of the Seniors were asked to read parts. It was a very good FHE lesson on the birth of the Savior and the meaning of “…inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” Matt. 25:40.

Sunday, December 26, 2010

Our time is short in the DR and we are experiencing a lot of “The Last…” of things. For example yesterday was our “Last” Christmas in the DR, etc. Today was our last Sunday for us to attend with the Los Arroyos Branch. It was also my last time to teach the Elders Quorum. For the opening exercises of priesthood meeting I was asked if I would choose an opening song. I was glad they asked because I really wanted to sing the song I spoke about during my talk in Sacrament meeting last week, “Placenteros nos es Trabajar”. Unfortunately there is no English version in our hymnal today, but it is a wonderful song. The third verse is about saying goodbye to friends and companions and maybe not seeing them again in this life. It was very appropriate for the occasion since I may not ever see some of these good brethren until the life after this one. It is a very powerful and moving song.

Hna. Johnson was ill this morning and had to stay home. She really wanted to be with her Primary Nursery for our last Sunday but unfortunately she was really not feeling well and felt it would not be wise to go. Hna. Johnson loves those children and will miss teaching them each Sunday. The children have all grown to love her too. One little girl named Nadia refused to go to the nursery when she heard that Hna. Johnson wasn’t there today. Her mother did manage to get her to go inside after a little protest.




The Primary President asked Sister Lissehe, Nadia’s Aunt, to take Hna. Johnson’s place and be the new Nursery leader. I was able to turn over all of Hna. Johnson’s teaching materials, games and toys to her.

This morning in Sacrament meeting Hna. Prenda Trinidad Medina was confirmed a member of the church. She was baptized yesterday afternoon, Christmas Day. She is a very enthusiastic and happy new member of the church. Elder Stott described her as a “Golden” investigator.




After the block I gave Elder Stott his mail. He received 2 more packages this week and several letters from home. He was a happy Elder.