Perrito Gordito

 Que lo que bacanos! I did a terrible job of keeping notes this week so this email will be pretty short but here it is anyways.

Fat Dog

There are a lot of dogs everywhere here in the DR. They are pretty bad. They are always either barking at people, breaking the law of chastity, or just laying down on the side of the road. And all of the dogs are super skinny and got a lot of weird diseases. So it was super funny this week when we walked by a dog laying on the sidewalk who was just super fat. I thought it was so funny. That's the only fat dog I've seen here. I don't even know how he got fat. Maybe he ate another dog haha. But I thought it was so hilarious that I had to get a picture so there ya go. Que pobrecito es este perrito gordito con su pequeñito descansito.

Costa Vida

At the end of a lesson with our friend Amilkin we started talking about food. He asked if I knew how to cook, and I told him I used to work at a Mexican restaurant. My companion was skeptical and asked where. I didn't want to admit where because it doesn't make me sound nearly as cool but I told him it was Costa Vida. Long story short I basically got roasted by everyone for a few minutes for claiming to have worked at a "Mexican restaurant". Which Costa Vida is, but it's definitely very americanized and I actually didn't cook hardly anything. It was kinda funny though! 

Las personas

We have found some really elect people. One guy is named Jose. He's dominican but actually grew up in New York. So he's fluent in both English and Spanish. It's been fun teaching him with both. But he's had a really hard life. In New York one night his house got lit on fire and his 5 kids died in the fire. He told us in our first meeting how much he needs something more in his life. He accepted a Book of Mormón and has really been studying it which has been super great. I am way excited for him. He also asked us where we've been all these years haha. So José is awesome. We also gave him a Priesthood blessing and many tears were shed. It was good stuff. 

There are a ton of other elect people. It's great! Our two best right now are Rances and Lubenson. We actually thought Rance's name was Frances until like two days ago which was awkward. Glad we found out before his baptism though. But they are both coming to church and it's a good time.

Rances is 13 and has really been great. Last week I mentioned a group of kids we invited them all to church. Apparently that had an impact on France who was in that group and he saw us in the street the next day and asked us to come and teach him. He's awesome! He will probably be getting baptized pretty soon. 

Lubenson is great too. He's from Haiti and has a really weird story. I spent like 10 minutes trying to type out an explanation about him but it is just too hard to explain. But for reference, in the pictures below he is the one in the banana shirt. But he's been coming to church as well so he will probably end up getting baptized within the next couple weeks as well. 

There are a lot of other families we're still working with that I'm excited about. Last night while walking around I saw this guy in a suit with a Bible and we both instantly smiled at each other and started talking like we have known each other for a long time. He couldn't remember his number so I gave him a card. Which, 99.9% of people don't text you when you give them a card. But he did! We are gonna teach him and his family tonight.

Spiritual Thought

I had two really big spiritual insights this week. A couple days ago I was really having a terrible day. Just super stressed out and feeling kinda angry at God for some problems. So I did something dumb. I prayed angrily. It wasn't with humility or with faith. Instead I prayed with disrespect and anger. Which ended up having the total opposite effect. I felt the Holy Ghost leave so fast, and I was left feeling way way worse than I had felt right before. That emptiness and absence of the spirit was with me for the rest of the day. It was bad. Then that night I prayed really hard for forgiveness and was able to get it sorted out. 

But the lesson there that I learned is that we need to pray to God with faith and respect. He knows all the thoughts and desires of our hearts, and he knows if we're sad or angry, but we need to pray with humility and faith to get the help we desire. So I won't be making that mistake again!

The other thought I had this week is that we really just need to choose to believe. There are always going to be reasons to doubt the gospel. If you're looking for that stuff, you're going to find it! But if you look for reasons to believe, you're going to find it as well. So after you learn some stuff and get answers from God, you need to choose to believe it. It will make you happier. I have been feeling overwhelmed by questions too lately which has caused me problems. But as I choose to believe, I feel so much better. And that doesn't mean I just have blind faith. We have some pretty dang solid evidence of the truthfulness of the Gospel. But we also need to make the conscious choice that we will continue to believe after we receive the witness because the adversary is always going work hard to make us doubt. 

I love you guys so much! Let me know how you're doing!

- Elder Wride