Sunday 6 October 2013

September 30th, 2013 Letter





Well it is already the third Pday. Time is going far too quickly, although each day feels pretty long. Gracias for all! Thank you for the picture of you guys, and I would print the others, but printing costs money and I´m not sure how well it all works. The internet centres are a little strange... But I can probably do something with them sometime when we go to a different center or something. 
Haha, I guess it is about time for winter to be in Canada. Here it is still hotter than ever. We basically just sweat all day. It is a little uncomfortable, but better than walking out in the cold or something like that! I´m glad you are all still enjoying the water and that Dad is getting better with his foot and all. Try and heal father! I will eventually receive the Dearelder things, and Elder Peterson gave me this idea that his mom does, where she copies and pastes the blog posts from other missionaries who are his friends and sends them as Dearelders because it is free for everybody! I was thinking you could do that with my letters and maybe Dallin´s if Sister Low would like. Just a thought I had. For the blog, I didn´t think I had that many friends but okay! Especially friends in France and Germany! I guess my amazing french skills paid off!
Speaking of french, we sure run into a lot of Haitians. Some speak Spanish and we teach them and its great. Others don´t, so I try to invite them to the church and then we move on because L´Eglise du Jesus-Christ et don la ri Mexico is definitely not sufficient to teach a lesson. But we try or something. Merci bouqueax or something....
Anyway I have a few new friends here. The members are pretty neat but never give us references, but they sure have funny stories. I still get called a chino in the street by all the children. Hey chino chino! I either say hi or something or say some chinese if they want or sometimes I ask them if they want pica pollo. Pica pollo is their chinese food here. It is fried chicken. Like, KFC style. But it is made by Chinese people so its chino. They also eat rice called chofan, and make some kind of chop suey they call chosuy or something strange like that. It is interesting to say the least.
I have taken a liking to plantane here, especially fried. It is super good. We eat a lot of pasta, rice, pancakes and cereal since it is easy to get and cheap and easy to make haha. We eat pretty well, and get a lot of fruit. I especially like making these milkshake things with mango or banana. It is super good!
Our investigators are pretty cool. We have better success with young people or old people, but still not much for families. We really would like to get a family. The closest we have is Yonlaiki e Yaijara, who live pretty close to the church. The family is great and studies all our pamphlets and can recite our lessons exactly. They just haven´t come to church yet. But it will eventually happen. Everyone here loves to talk. I don´t know if I mentioned our good friend Sirilio, who has taken 3 hours of our time or more in only two lessons with his lovely stories of life and the bible. Given his knowledge of the bible is spectacular, we are not entirely sure if we will go back unless he reads the pamphlet. It really is something to see, the way the Dominicans can talk about stories or the bible or whatever cosa they happen to start talking about. Sirilio was running around the room one time, grabbing things to demonstrate something about the sun falling in the last days, or started clapping his hands and talking super fast about how Pablo did all these amazing things and how Pablo is his favourite apostole and how he wants to live like him and how great life is with faith and how people really need to find faith. Yeah. Eventually we were almost even rude to try and leave the house haha. We said we wanted to teach something new other than the bible but for some reason that didn´t really compute and he continued talking about the bible. Haha, he has me monologing now too. Anyway, there is a gift of tongues in the Dominican, not just for missionaries but for everyone. It just never stops moving here. 
We played baseball today. I´m not terrible. I hit the ball. The poor latinos who have to come here, the only latino nation that doesn´t play soccer. Just baseball and basketball. It is strange here, how american customs and all really have strong roots. Like, a T-shirt in Dominican speak is T-chirt. Or tape is tapi. And people really have that kind of swagger look or whatever it is called here. When they play baseball they use terms like pitcher and out the same in english. Pretty cool stuff. The cars still drive crazy as ever, and we cross the street crazy as ever. 
My teaching is improving. I fall asleep in less lessons where the person starts monologing, and can usually follow what is going on if the spirit is with me and I pay good attention. It is amazing what a difference it makes if I am really in tune or very much out of it. I teach a lot better now, and although I am not speaking in Spanish the same as English, I am improving and can speak very simply, which might be better right now. Apparently my accent is pretty good. Although I pronounce some words very strange, thanks to my english and chinese influences. Everything goes really well, our lesson count is going up and up. All we need is people to come to church. We pray for it all the time, and I hope someone really decides not to be lazy or busy with whatever it is they are busy with and come to church. Although we are super friendly with all our investigators and great friends, we need to establish something about being missionaries I think, and that people need to commit to God. That really all of this is for God. I have been reading really interesting things about how to change one´s will to the will of God, and I really hope I can do that. Instead of seeing the mission as a duty, I want to see it as a pleasure, because I am the will of God here trying to bring my brothers and sisters home. I really appreciate what President Rodriguez says in his letters about what I can do to be better. I hope it always improves and that you guys also find success with your work. Remember I always love you all! Know that we are working hard here as always, and I already feel as if I have been doing this my whole life! Especially since I can´t ever preach in English, I guess that call letter means something! Whenever people want to talk in English, I have serious trouble because I can´t pray in English anymore or preach in English. I can still speak it though haha. I guess I will have to sit in this limbo of not knowing spanish and not knowing english. I better improve my baseball skills to fit in here more! 
All my love as always, and I hope everything is going well with everyone! Send my wishes for the best to everyone we know! Always be faithful, and I hope soon we have a baptism here! It may take a while longer, but we always work! It is a little difficult to get tranquil relaxed people moving, but we will somehow get it done, since apparently get it done is some sort of Canadian phrase or something.
Con amor como siempre,
Elder Sullivan
PS It is super entertaining when I say Eh here, but I really don´t say it much and apparently that is a disappointment. I am sorry you guys are experiencing winter now. We sure are not. Dad, get better and stay healthy and learn to surf like a pro. Mom, I am going to try and cook fried rice here soon or something haha. Please take care of everyone and remember to relax like a Dominican. Tasha, don´t fail school and have fun and feel free to date boys or something. Christina don´t fail and take care of your stuff and always be crazy and watch good anime and tell my friends they smell bad!
PSPS I will send pictures next week, there was no SD card slot today!
PSPSPS I hope that letter eventually reaches you! I´ve only sent two letters from here, each a week apart. One for you guys and one for someone else. I´m sure the post really isnt very good. Take carrreeee!

Oh I forgot to say my health is great. My metabolism still runs like a machine. Never worry. And you know how supposedly people were to be really musical and good singers? Not true. Without pianos in the home, not many people sing well. They like dancing and such, but the singing suffers here haha. And the pop music... well, I have yet to die. It just plays too often in the street. Haha. Their traditional merengue and things like that are great though! If we used to think Loreto was strange and poor and loud, not at all like here. Welllll have a good time and all!

Oh I also forgot. Something strange about spanish. The word charlatan in english is almost never used. in spanish charlatán is super popular! People always say it about a jokester. So I say it a lot about our latino companions haha. I dunno something for the peeps.

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