Monday 4 November 2013

November 4th Letter


Well I´m glad all is super well, even if everyone is swimming in snow! At least the skiing or something should be good! I suppose our weather has cooled down a bit to a more bearable level, but the humidity kind of makes up for that and keeps us itchy and such. It has rained a lot the past few days. The Dominican myth here is that the ¨lluvia le da la gripe¨ o sea en ingles, the rain gives you a cough and cold kind of thing. Sounds crazy no? Well it is so strongly believed here that they really do get a cough when the stay out in the rain for a little while. Kind of interesting. Everyone kept telling us when we were contacting that we shouldnt be out in the rain. Haha. We definitely did not heed their advice.
I´m glad Amanda has her mission call and all! Hopefully I can congratulate her somehow with our stinky mail system! (I still dont have anything but the dearelder stuff from you guys). Australia will probably be super cool and awesome, and maybe her clothes will actually get clean in the washing machines! (That is kind of a problem here. Appliances are cheaply built to say the least.) If Australia is like New Zealand, it is probably an awesome place.
Good to see Brent is still a goof and loving the mission already. And Dallin still loves the mission and still does goofy things. Sorry I dont send pictures much, but it really is pretty difficult. I havent charged the camera in a while sorry. There hasnt been all that much to take pictures of but I will get you some pictures someday here!
About Brother Linteris, I will probably get Elder Diaz back someday. I dont know how as of yet. For now his companion keeps putting weird halloween stuff in my room and like stuffs this inflatable skeleton into my sheets and pillow o lo que sea, apparently all old relics from other missionaries.
So I guess I am a week into the second transfer. So far so good. I´ve had diarhea a couple of times (like today) but still no dengue, so Im no veteran yet. I´m liking learning spanish, but I still have habits to break, which is difficult because there are a lot of north americans in the mission who all speak english together haha. I feel though like Ive been living here forever or something and everything is pretty normal now. People are usually easier to understand now, and Ive realized more and more how slang and improper the spanish is here. Sometimes everyone doesnt even speak in the right tense or anything haha. We just kind of... speak. How we want. Welcome to the Dominican. 
The people we teach have been super cool as of late, and also disappointing at times. We had this one lesson with a 14 year old kid, who before couldnt read very well, but in just 3 weeks is reading amazing and got through 3 Nefi 11. (sorry about the spanish spelling there). We asked him in the lesson a bunch of questions, and somehow he gave us the answer that he knew the church was true and that joseph smith was a prophet and that he was truly in the camino of God. Wow. Super cool the faith of jovenes (young people). Unfortunately he didnt come to church this week. All our most promising of investigators still have this problem. We really need more member help, and more dedication and faith on the part of the investigators. I dont think they see the need for the sacrifice of coming to church, and that they have commited to God to do so. We are still working on that. But we are trying with every last scrap of effort for baptisms in this month, as this will be it for the transfer. Two of our best investigators, who we always have amazing lessons with who accept all the commandments and read and understand and do so many cool things, and yet they have problems coming to church. We passed by their house to take them to church and they were all sleeping and didnt even come late or anything. The lessons are probably going to be about commitment. Our members need to pass by their friends and neighbours and bring them to church. We are really stressing the point of church with everyone and that it is a commitment but somehow I dont know if everyone thinks they have their sure answers yet. We have to help them with that too. But we still continue, and lessons really are enjoyable with everyone, when I dont fall asleep in the first one of the day haha. We have started teaching these super short lessons with contacts now, to see if anyone actually has real potential or interest, and this has proved a lot more effective and yielded more new investigators. We even had this one guy who called us down in the street because he wanted to be taught haha. He tells us just by visiting him twice we have changed his life and he doesnt have the desire to drink anymore or do anything bad and just follow Christ. We think what he says is true. I hope he really does change and that next transfer he can enter the church through baptism and all We found this one lady with tens of thousands of questions who said she would be baptized if our church was true. She could be a really great investigator. Just have to get her to go to church so she can figure it out. The only baptism in this area from the other elders was a man who constantly attended church and asked questions, so we really need people who can do that. We are really close. If we can move from the seed of faith into real commitment.
Well thank you for everything my family and continue strong, as I have learned in Alma that we really must do everything possible today. Today is the day to change. If we say tomorrow, it will never happen. If we say little by little, it will never happen. I have started always saying it will happen today. Because even if we fall a few times, every time we fall we say it again. Today. Always remember that today is the day given to men to perform their labours. Do not take less as an answer.
You always have my love family and my prayers. I always hope the best for you. I carry our family name with me always. And as always get made fun of for being chino. Every day. Without fail. But such is life and it is a lot of fun (everyone does a funky dance for me and tries to talk behind my back haha). 
Sigue adelante,
Con todo mi amor,
Elder Sullivan

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