Hace mucho calor

The weeks are going by really fast and it’s kinda scary. I’m the oldest one in my district. When I told them how long I’ve been out they were like “you’re about done” and I was like “uh what no I’m not” but if the weeks keep going by as fast as they are, yea I’m basically finished. 

I was also really bad at writing down notes about what happened this week so this will be pretty brief. 

Street Contacting

The DR is wack. I’m pretty used to it but it’s still wack. Walking around everywhere, we see a lot of weird stuff. One guy flashed us unintentionally this week which was a low point. High point this week though was a lady rolling down her window as she drove by and telling me that I’m “beautiful”. 

This week though we were walking and there was this guy screaming like a banshee pointing down the street at a guy who was laying motionless in the road. My first impression was that he had been shot dead, and we were in a sketchy part of town, so I grabbed my greenie by his collar and we started to walk away on high alert. But then someone stopped us and said that both the banshee screaming guy and the guy in the street were just super drunk. But it was exciting. 

Santiago Road Trip

We got to take a trip to Santiago this week which was pretty fun. I remember when I first got to the DR and flew into Santiago I was like “dang this really is a third world country” but after coming to Santiago after being in Navarrete for three months I was like “dangggg this place is nice!!”. I’m hoping I get transferred somewhere like Santiago or on the beach like puerto plata. But we shall see. 

Bautismo de Jenny

The highlight of the week was that Jennifer got baptized. She was a referral from the bishop and is pretty elect. It’s so fun teaching people who actually want to be taught! And this time the water wasn’t green either so it was a great baptismal service. 

Pensamiento Espiritual

Spiritual thought this week from me would just be to let God prevail in your life. As I was reading the Book of Mormon about loving God and keeping his commandments the tears just started coming. I love God so much and hope that I will always be faithful to Him. 

Another cool thought this week came from a zone conference. Our mission president talked about the mission field being the garden of Eden. At first I was confused because I thought of the mission field more like WWZ battleground type stuff, but the more I thought about it, the mission field really is like the garden of Eden. Sometimes I am really frustrated with stuff going on here but more often than not, I am wishing I could stay here forever. 

That’s all for now. This week I will do better at keeping track of what’s going on so I can englighten you a bit more. 

Love you guys! Mucho!

•  Elder Wride

la semana pasada

So this week went by really fast (as usual) and it was pretty good so feel free to read about it if you want.

Gordito

It’s kinda funny how everyone here is super straight up with everything. If you are short and chunky, people call you “gordito”. “Gordo” means fat, and “ito” means small, so adding “ito” at the end of it means that you're fat and tiny. Jeremy, who got baptized last week is short and tubby, so we all call him gordito. I feel kinda bad but it’s just so normal here. And if you're skinny they’ll refer to you as “el flaco” which literally translates to “the skinny”. It’s just funny and kind of offensive but I’m enjoying it. 

Cállate, por favor

There’s a lot of people here that won’t interrupt you while you’re talking, but if they start talking, they will literally never stop. They just go on and on and on. This one couple is the worst at it. I’ve had to start setting an alarm to go off while they are talking and then I pretend it’s a phone call and step outside and am like “holaaa que lo que. Oh, necesitamos irnos? Okay.” And then I’m like “hey we gotta go...can we share our message with you real quick”. So setting an alarm has been pretty nice. I do it quite a bit.

Power Outage

While we were out proselyting early in the day a huge storm came out of nowhere and the power went out. It was kinda funny because the last couple of storms we’ve been told to stay inside all day but this one they didn’t say anything, and it was a lot worse. We didn’t have our raincoats on us either, but a member saw us and gave us trash bags to put over our heads, which we did. Picture is attached.

We looked pretty freaky. The power was still out at the end of the day, so we cooked our dinner and everything with a little flashlight. The power was out all night too. It was the best night's rest I’ve had here. Because there had been no power all day everyone's speakers were dead so they couldn’t blast it from their houses all night like they usually do haha. And the light out in the street that is by our window that never turns off was out. So I slept really well. 

Laura

The highlight of the week was our good friend Laura being baptized. We’ve been teaching her for a few weeks and have been anxious for her to get there. Her fiance, Rafi, is a member so he got to baptize her. It was awesome and it was really fulfilling to be able to see her get baptized. I feel super blessed to have had a small part to play in her conversion! She is so elect and is an amazing addition to the ward. She was crying a lot during the baptism too so she definitely was feeling the spirit. It was also so great to have all the ward members there to support her and to see how happy they were for her. The church is like one big family. It was just great. 

Spiritual Stuff

A couple of months ago my dad sent me an article by John Groberg who served as a missionary in Tonga. He shared something really profound in the talk that I’d like to share. 

“The pattern for growth and joy in this life is:

1. Learn the truth—know what is right.

2. Promise, or commit, to live the truth.

3. Keep that promise, no matter what trials may come, by trusting the Lord to help you. I promise He will!”

I thought that was super cool and have been using this pattern. It’s been working too. The Lord has really been helping out. We have so many good friends getting ready for baptism and it’s super exciting. Especially right now, I feel like I’m watching the chess pieces move in the Lord’s plan for me and I think I am starting to see (I think) how a lot of it is gonna play out and it’s really exciting. To know that the Lord is actually nearby is a relief. If I am keeping his commandments, I can’t go wrong. 

Also huge shoutout to my little brother Daniel for having a birthday this week. Honestly I have no idea how old he is, all I know is that he had a birthday. I also saw a kid this week in the street who literally looks exactly like him so that was cool. 

Also, if anybody want's to send me something (money? haha jk...) here's my mailing address

Letters-

SDQ 8013

P.O. Box 025725

Miami, FL 33102-5725

Packages-

SDQ 8013

2250 NW 114th Ave Unit 1A

Miami, FL 33172-3652

“And now I give unto you no more at this time. Amen.”(D&C 94:17)

• Elder Wride

60 weeks in

 Hola mis queridos hermanos y hermanas. I can’t believe it’s already been a week since I wrote you guys last. Blows my mind every time. This week was good I guess so here we go. 

Whoops

I was sending a voice message to someone we’re teaching while leaning back in my rolly chair. I leaned back too far. See picture below. It was kinda funny though to hear the voice recording back where I’m talking and then suddenly crash.

Nueva York

Since being here I have talked to a lot of people who say that they have been to Nueva York (New York), that they would like to go, or they ask me what it’s like assuming that I’m from there. I’ve never really understood it but have just kind of ignored it. Well this week I solved the mystery. Everybody here thinks that New York is the same as the U.S. Like they think that New York is the U.S. and that every white person is from New York. I found out because in another lesson they asked me what life is like in New York and I was like “what the heck I’m not from Nueva York” and they were confused and then my companion helped out and we were able to all come to the understanding that Nueva York is part of the U.S.. Anyways I just thought that was kinda funny!

29 and 45

We were in a lesson with some kids and they asked how old we were and were shocked when we told them that we are 18 and 19. Apparently they thought I was 29 and that Elder Lugo was 45. Since that lesson, they have been super rowdy and haven’t shown us a lot of respect haha so that was a mistake. 

Restoration movie miracle

A little while ago we had the idea to watch the movie about Joseph Smith and the restoration, so this week we scheduled a time to set it up with a projector and stuff at the church with a bunch of members and people we’re teaching. At 6:30p.m. it was supposed to start. Well, we couldn’t find the projector or the laptop. Thankfully everybody showed up an hour late anyways haha. Eventually we found the projector and got it  working, but the big problem ended up being the little computer that we were trying to play the movie from. The laptop was struggling pretty hardcore, and after only 20 minutes we were finally able to get the movie pulled up on youtube. We tried connecting to our phone hotspot instead of the church wifi, but even then, it wouldn’t play and had to buffer really hard. At this point, it was 7:45 and everybody was sitting in the room waiting. We needed a miracle big time. Me and Elder Lugo went into the other room and said a prayer that the Lord would get the computer working and just sustain it long enough to get through the movie. But the odds weren’t looking good because it wasn’t even playing. We went back, and miraculously, it was starting to play. But then we realized that we didn’t have any audio. Whoops. We ran frantically around the chapel looking for some kind of speaker and found this giant bluetooth speaker. Super lucky. But then we couldn’t connect it to the computer because it was stuck playing the movie haha and we couldn’t stop it. I said another prayer for help and had instant revelation. We hooked the bluetooth speaker up to a members phone and while the computer/projector was playing the movie, we pulled up the movie on the phone and synched up the audio so that it would match with the computer. Bam.

It was super nuts and really stressful. Every once in a while the computer would freeze and we would have to pause the phone to keep it in sync, so it wasn’t perfect, but it was a total miracle that it worked out. Long story short, the night ended up being a huge success and I am so thankful that the Lord put it all together so that we could watch the movie and feel the spirit. 

Life with the Lord is like that. He will help us out, but he wants us to do everything within our power first, like it says in D&C 123:17. 

“Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed.”

I definitely felt that with the movie. We did absolutely everything we could, and He came around to help with the rest. It was great. 

Bautismos de Jeremy y Johan

Our good friends Johan and Jeremy got baptized this week. Honestly the whole thing was super stressful and I’m relieved it’s over haha.

The day of the baptism we went over to the church early to fill up the font, but there was a storm outside and the Navarrete power/plumbing system is already pretty sketchy. So the power and the water kept going out while we were trying to fill it. And the water that was able to fill the font kept draining out because of a leak. To sum it up, it was like 4 hours of frantically trying to get water in the font from any source we could. We got two hoses and were able to put them through the windows to fill up the font, but consequently, the water was green. Haha. But it still works I guess. 

The baptism was good but yea it was super hectic. We had planned to start it at 3 but because of the water situation we didn’t get it rolling until like 3:45 so everybody was just waiting in awkward silence for us to finish. And then the bishop couldn’t read the print on the program we made because it was too small haha so he went into the other room and spent like 15 minutes deciphering it. It was all just really crazy but it was still good. It was kinda funny though because we have another baptism for a young lady we’re teaching on the 25th, and the young women presidency was real concerned after seeing the baptism with the green water haha and they kinda drilled us about that but we’re gonna be more prepared next time. But all in all, it was so good to see Johan and Jeremy get baptized. And yesterday they got confirmed with the Holy Ghost and ordained to the priesthood. And personally, I have worked my tail off to help these guys feel the joy of the gospel. Even after their baptism I’m praying really hard that they will stay on the path. 

La Vida en Navarrete

Navarrete is pretty good. I haven’t given as much info as I should have so here’s a bit more info. 

It’s a pretty poor area, but our apartment is pretty nice. It depends on where you’re at though. Some parts are pretty nice in Navarrete. Our apartment is on the second floor of a hair salon. Aside from the mosquitos that attack us day and night, it’s pretty good. In the town of Navarrete there are 3 wards and two church buildings which is cool. We are in Navarrete 2. We live outside of our area too so it’s a bit of a walk every day but it isn’t bad. Navarrete is also a stake, so our church building is really big. Every week there’s probably around 100 people that come per ward. And we have had lots of investigators come to church. Last week when they moved it to 10 o’clock instead of 8 for the stake conference we had 15 investigators come but didn’t even have time to count them all. During the week we talked with more people who were there but we just didn’t see them. So there’s a lot of stuff going on here. But yea Navarrete is good. A lot of drunk people, stray dogs, loud music, and it’s super hot. But I am surviving.

Living Prophets

This week during lunch I watched a 20 minute video about President Nelson and his first three years as president of the church. There were a couple spots where I just started sobbing. The spirit was super strong. I don’t understand how any intelligent person can’t see the divinity of his prophetic mantle. He’s really a prophet. Here’s the link if you all want to watch the video as well. 

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=3834060830042089&id=571637419617796

Pensamiento Espiritual

I’ve had a lot of epiphanies as a missionary haha. One of them that’s been hitting me super hard lately is how obvious it is that God exists and that Jesus is the Christ. 

I’ve talked to a ton of people before and during my mission. I remember doing summer sales and being shocked that everyone believed in Jesus. Like I kinda just thought it was a Utah thing. But everyone believes in Him. And in St. Louis, basically everyone believes in God. And here in the DR, everyone believes in God. A phrase everyone says when you ask them how they’re doing is “bien gracias a dios” (good thanks to God). It just blows my mind I don’t know why. Belief in a supreme being is just so much more universal than I thought it was. 

Also I remember in school teachers teaching us about the millions of little things that sustain life every day and how even if one little thing faltered we’d all just die. I thought that was really interesting. And then there’s people that think that the world just exploded into existence one day. Thank goodness all those little things just happened to show up. I don’t know if you get what I’m saying but yea. 

Anyways, point is, the more of the world I see, the more I’m convinced that there is a supreme being behind it all. President Russell M. Nelson actually said a couple years ago in a talk about how it was his study of the human body that he became so convinced that God existed.

Speaking of which, a couple of months ago I saw this video and thought it was great. It’s not church produced or anything but it’s still really good. Here’s the facebook link. 

https://www.facebook.com/ashtonsbingham/videos/3492198617462964/

And honestly something else that really holds my testimony together is the fact that we’re all going to die. There is just no logic whatsoever in the idea that this life is all there is. It just doesn’t make sense. I don’t know how to explain it, but I really know that life continues after this. 

And my testimony of Jesus Christ has gotten so strong. I know I’m only 19 years old, but I’ve heard about and seen firsthand some honestly pretty disturbing things out here. I don’t like to mention them in my weekly’s haha, but it makes me feel totally sick inside. Then the question comes of how do we fix it? How do we become clean again? And that’s through Christ. Like Alma said: (Alma 36: 17)

“And it came to pass that as I was thus racked with torment, while I was harrowed up by the memory of my many sins, behold, I remembered also to have heard my father prophesy unto the people concerning the coming of one Jesus Christ, a Son of God, to atone for the sins of the world”

I wish I had access to the words that would help me describe what I feel, but the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has to be true, or there cannot be a God. And if there isn’t a God, then we don’t exist. But we do exist, so there has to be a God. And if there’s a God, he has to have a church and a way to communicate with us. And if he has a church, which one is it? Well Christ’s true church would need to have apostles like before, and the priesthood like before, and so on and so forth. And the line of thinking just goes on and it leads me back to the same epiphany. This church is true, or there is no God. Ahhhh I wish I could articulate that better but that’s really how I feel. 

At the end of the day, believing in God is a choice. And that doesn’t mean that we have total blind faith in believing in God because everything testifies that God exists. Life, death, prayer, scriptures, prophets, the earth, etc. Everything denotes that God is there! And yea we all have questions, but we should never let the little questions mess everything else up. 

Elder Uchdorft told a story about a passenger plane where one of the light bulbs on one of the wings went out. Everyone was freaking out and was so focused on why the light bulb wasn’t working, and because they weren’t focused on flying, they ended up crashing the plane. So focus on what matters most! Don’t let a little secondary question that you can’t get an answer to right now crash your spiritual plane. 

But it’s also kinda funny because I can also totally see how someone would doubt God’s existence and leave the church. And although I can see that train of thinking, I know it isn’t true.

This was probably a super confusing rant haha but I have a very strong belief in God and I hope that you all felt a little increase of that today. 

Mosiah 4:9

“Believe in God; believe that he is, and that he created all things, both in heaven and in earth; believe that he has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend.”

Also huge shoutout to BYU for winning the game on Saturday. Go cougs

Love you guys!!

-Elder Wride

comí algunas hormigas

Hey guys! This week was a grind as always. It blows my mind how long the days are but how fast the weeks are too. The days are weeks and the weeks are days. It’s just nuts to think that I’m writing another one of these emails. But anyways here’s my weekly report. Hope you enjoy

Español

Spanish is going pretty great. I’ve really been studying a lot more grammar stuff which has been helpful. Elder Lugo also corrects me about everything which is super annoying but helpful I guess haha.

Arm Wrestle Coke Man

There’s this guy we found street contacting who is really weird but cool. He’s either super annoyed to see us or he’s super animate and just wants to talk all day. It’s just kinda funny. He told us in our first visit when his birthday was so I wrote it down in our calendar so we could pay him a visit. So this week we went over on his birthday to see how he was doing. He was upset that we didn’t bring him a gift so I gave him 10 pesos and told him to by himself a coke from his own colmado. Which he did. Then somehow our lesson on the plan of salvation got derailed and I ended up arm wrestling him. He was trying to show us how strong he is for being so old I think. I’m still not really sure who won it. At the end of the “lesson” he said he wanted to be baptized. We went back on our scheduled appointment to talk more and he was really mad at us for some reason haha and he said he had a headache and it hurt to talk but he wouldn’t stop talking about how much he didn’t want to talk. We were there for like 10 minutes. But he’s cool. 

Ants = Protein

We stopped by a colmado after a lesson and I bought a little piece of bread and some juice. We were walking to another appointment and I was a bit preoccupied and wasn’t looking at what I was eating. ¾’s of bread later, I looked down and saw that the whole thing was infested with ants. I was pretty annoyed. My stomach felt weird the rest of the night.

Johan

Johan is actually probably the most elect person ever. We found him a couple of weeks ago while street contacting in between lessons. We walked up to him and a group of other kids that he was with. They were all between the ages of 10-16 or so. Johan is 14. If I remember right, the first thing we said was “who here would like a happy future?”. They all said yea, so we started to teach them about how they could do it. We got all their numbers but didn’t expect any of them would respond to us because that’s normal. But he texted us before Sunday and said he wanted to come to church. And he did! He’s been going ever since. He’s also going to seminary every morning at 6:00 am. He’s such a stud. 

But yea teaching him has been such a blessing. He’s been really quick to obey everything we teach him. We taught him the law of chastity and he was excited to live it. We talked about eternal companions and he was really excited about it. To show him the blessings of an eternal family, I showed him a picture of my family. He thought my sisters were really attractive haha and wanted their number. After pestering me for a while I sent him my dads number. It was kinda funny. I’ll attach a picture below. 

But Johan is so elect and all the members know him. We’ve been getting members at every lesson. At one lesson we had with Johan we felt prompted that we needed a member there but weren’t able to get one beforehand and it was 8:00 at night. But we knew where a member nearby lived so we sprinted to their house and asked if they could join a lesson and they said yes. So we sprinted back to Johans house to tell him. On the way to his house, I ran into a pile of sand (there are lots of piles of sand/dirt all over the place) which knocked me over into a pile of dirt. It was actually pretty funny looking back, but I felt pretty dumb. My pants and shoes and everything were covered. All of Johans family thought it was really funny. But we ended up getting that member to help us teach Johan that night, and they asked him if he would help give people hand sanitizer at the stake conference Saturday and Sunday. So Johan did that too which was awesome. He also got up at 6:00 am on Saturday at the request of the bishop to clean the chapel. 

Anyways, he’s just super awesome. Last night we had another lesson with him and he told us about how he’s come to know the Book of Mormon is true which is great. He’s set to get baptized this Saturday. Hopefully all goes well. 

La Obra

Aside from Johan, the work is going great. We have Jeremy who should get baptized with Johan this week, and next week we have the fiance of a member named Laura who is awesome and is set to get baptized, as well as our friend Moises. And the week after that Jonas and Antonio should be getting baptized as well. And there are other people we’re working with as well and it’s going great. It is a little overwhelming though. Because of stake conference, church started at 10 am yesterday, and it normally starts at 8. So our church attendance just went crazy and a ton of people came. We didn’t even have time to see who of all the people we’re teaching came. It’s been crazy. But it’s good. 

Spiritual Thought

A thought I’ve had this week is how big the church is. I never really thought I’d find so many strong members of the gospel in such remote places of the world, but they’re really everywhere which has been cool to see. And the work is really increasing. The gospel is literally being carried to the entire world. It’s pretty awesome. 

Another thought I’ve had is focusing on the good. The way I write my emails is that during the week, I take note of spiritual/funny things that happen and then write them down. Then I pull up that list of things at the end of the week and expound on it. And voila. It hit me recently that, if I wanted, I could take note of depressing and hard experiences and just expound on those instead. And those stories would be totally true and accurate, but you would all leave feeling depressed. Point is, just as I’m having happy experiences, I’m also having really depressing ones haha. And choosing to focus on the ones that are good makes me happier. 

Also, big shout out to my little bro @Elder Hyrum Wride who got set apart as a missionary last night!! He's gonna do great.

I love you all. 

No(s) vemo(s)

- Elder Wride

Yo Procrastinaba

Heyyy

Sorry I procrastinated this super bad so I don’t have a lot of time. But this week was good. 

Fried Lizards + Rice Explanation

Last week I posted a picture of some fried lizards and some rice. I got a couple of concerned emails. So just so you know I didn’t actually eat it. I found the picture on our area phone and just thought it would be funny to put in my weekly. Haha

Moroni Guy

We were street contacting and started talking to these two guys. One of them asked if we were “mormones”. I didn’t even bother correcting him so I just said “si”. Then the other guy flipped out and was like “Mormon was Moroni’s dad! You are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” and then he started to lecture us and everyone else about how we are literally Christ’s church and stuff. It was pretty cool actually to hear his testimony. Apparently he’s just an inactive member. Hopefully we can get him back!

Street Contacting Con Los Niños

We were street contacting and a group of kids came to talk to us. As much as I wanted to teach them all, it’s not easy to do when you don’t know their parents. So I told the group of 10+ kids that we were gonna play a game. I was going to give them each a card with our phone number on it, and the first one to have their parents send us a text would win. They all seemed pretty excited. There was one little kid (probably like 5 years old) who was super hyped about it. He told us he was going to win. In my head I was like “yea whatever” because he was so little but then his mom was the only one who texted us. Ha!

Stealing Stuff

We were at the store today and I jokingly grabbed a little statue of the eiffel tower and then started to walk to the door as if I was gonna steal it just to be weird. But I stopped pretty quick and when I turned around a worker saw me and was like “what are you doing” and then he followed us around the rest of the time in the store. It was just kinda funny

Gotta Wrap this up

It’s almost 6 and I gotta wrap this up sorry guys. But this week was really good with missionary work. We had 10 people at church and have 5 people on date. Our most elect guy is Johan. He is so elect! I’m pretty sure he has a crush on one of the young women in the ward which is great because now he’s going to seminary every morning at 6 am too! He is great. 

G2g, love you guys. I will write more next week

Elder Wride

My boys from CCM!

cool sunset pic