"No quiero galletas!" - 16 Months

This week went by so fast holy cow. It was good I guess! Here's my update. 

Chess Guy Who's Actually Pretty Good At It

There are these two dudes that are always playing chess on the side of the road. I told them a while ago that I wanted to play them but we haven't ever had time. Finally this week we had time and we stopped and I played one of the guys in chess. 

Well, looks can be deceiving. I figured he was just this old dominican dude who didn't know anything but he was insanely good and absolutely wrecked me. And every time he moved a piece to kill one of mine he did it super aggressively. It was kinda scary. He also was muttering stuff during the whole thing roasting me. He'd be like "I thought he was gonna be good" and stuff like that. I played him twice and each game lasted about 3 minutes. And I thought I was pretty good because in St. Louis I was kinda undefeated.

At the end of our match I asked if we could share a spiritual message with him and he said yes. He's one of the few people I've met as a missionary that has been like anti-God. He went off and just kinda ripped on religion and stuff. It was cool though because he wouldn't deny the existence of God. I kept pushing for him to tell me whether he believed he existed or not and he would say "I'm not going to say whether he does or not, but I don't believe he exists". Reminds me a lot of Alma 30:48 - "48 Now Korihor said unto him: I do not deny the existence of a God, but I do not believe that there is a God; and I say also, that ye do not know that there is a God; and except ye show me a sign, I will not believe". 

We talked for a while. It's also super fun talking in Spanish. Honestly I think I'm basically fluent. Like I understand every word everybody says and I can talk really fast like them. Anyways we talked for a while and it was pretty entertaining. He said he believes in theology, not in God. So at the end of our visit I felt prompted to give him a Book of Mormón and invited him to read Alma 30. He said he would, and tonight we're gonna follow up. I also gonna play him in chess again. My goal is to survive at least 5 minutes. Fingers crossed

Lots of kids

A lot of people ask about our families, so it's always fun to see their reactions when I tell them that I have 11 siblings. I always let my companions go first because they always think that 3 or 5 kids is a lot. And then I come in and do a mic drop with 11. It's pretty great. With one of the families that asked I decided to make it more interesting. I found a picture of me and all my siblings that has us all lined up in a line from oldest to youngest. I zoomed in on the oldest and slowly started moving down the line. The line just kept going and it blew their minds. I'll attach the picture I used. 

Misinformed Dominican Woman

This dominican lady we talked to this week asked us if it's true that if we are married and our wife dies, we marry our deceased wife's sister. Not sure where she heard that. I told her no though. I then made a joke that there are some people in the world who think that "Mormons" have horns. She didn't think that was funny because she said she had thought that too. Me and my companion then both started going through our hair to show her that we don't have any horns. 

Angry Old Man

Another really cool thing this week was that I got spit on! I thought it was cool because I really felt like Christ's disciple. We were walking down the street and an old guy was like "hey give me money". I was like "sorry, we can't give you money, but do you want a cracker?". I had some ritz crackers in my bag. I pulled one out and handed it to him. He then looked at me and was like "no quiero galletas!" and lifted up his hand about to hit me. I was able to get out of the way in time to avoid getting hit but then he spit on me. It was interesting!

Spiritual Experiences

We had great lessons this week. Another one was with Jose. We were testifying to him that the Book of Mormon could change his life. As we said it, it looked like a wall just hit him. He looked at me and was like "why are you giving me goosebumps?". I told him that that was the spirit. Then I got major goosebumps too. Pretty fun!

But there are lots of great families we are working with! Things have just been great with all of them the past couple weeks. This week we're gonna just start going hard with baptismal invitations. Because really that's why we're here. So it will be exciting to see how that goes. 

We also met an amazing lady yesterday! We stopped by a little shop on the side of the road to talk to a guy we felt prompted to talk to. But the lady on the other side of the counter listened to the conversation and absolutely drilled us with questions. It was super fun. At first she was really antagonistic and told us that organized religion is bad and so on. But then when we explained the first vision, it was like a flip switched in her head. She got so excited that she left the counter and came out into the front so she could better see the Book of Mormon. And she drilled us with more questions. Before we even had the chance to offer her the book, she asked for it. So I'm super excited about her. 

Also our two friends Rances and Lubenson are doing great. We originally had their baptisms planned for this week but we're thinking we're gonna move it to next week instead. I am really excited for them though! You can tell that they both want this gospel to start to become a big part of who they are. 

Spiritual Thought

I hit 16 months yesterday. I will have 7 months left at the end of this month. Pretty crazy. I had a nightmare this week that I wasn't in the Dominican Republic and it made me really sad. So I am happy I am still here. 

My mind has been racing a lot lately just about the mission and life and stuff. Everybody told me that the time would pass, but now it's actually starting to look like it is. Not sure exactly how I feel about it. 

A big change that I feel like has happened to me lately is that I am letting go of my pride. I am accepting that I don't have all of the answers. And it's kinda funny, I feel like as I accept that I don't know all I would like to know, I learn the most. 

Also my testimony of this gospel has gotten so strong. I am seeing first hand the way the Book of Mormon describes that the world would be before the Savior comes again. Another testament to me that He really will come. It's gonna be great! 

Last thought I just had - 

My companion has been pretty annoyed with all of these dominican people. He's mostly just annoyed with them blasting music all night. But his patience is pretty low with them. 

So when that dominican guy spit on me, my companion almost lost it. He like wanted to go and beat the guy up. I was annoyed that I got spit on, but I wasn't mad. We just walked away and I was fine even though my companion kept looking back, clearly thinking about retaliating in some way haha. He was also surprised that I wasn't mad and was like "doesn't that just make you angry?". Before the mission I probably would have been, but as a missionary I really feel like I have Christ by me and it's easier to react in the way that He would. So I responded and told him I that it really didn't bother me too much. My companion then said, "But you didn't deserve that! You didn't do anything wrong". 

Those words kinda hit me. I then thought about Jesus Christ. He literally did not do anything wrong. Absolutely nothing. He made no mistakes. And not only did He not do anything wrong, but He did so much good. He healed, comforted, and blessed everyone that was near Him. 

He was totally flawless in every way. But yet, in addition to suffering for all of our pains and sins, he was beaten, scourged, and crucified in the most cruel way. 

There is no way I or any of you fully comprehend what He did or how amazing and important it really was, but if there is anything I am learning out here, it is that Jesus Christ is really the Savior and Redeemer of the world, and nobody get's to God, but through Him, and His atonement. 

I love you all! 

- Elder Wride 

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

Drink the beer bro!

This week was actually pretty good! So here you go. 

Wendy's in the Dominican Republic!?

Huge miracle this week. Our church is like an hour walk away, but on the bright side, it is right next to a Wendy's. Pretty crazy. So we went there after district council and it was crazy. I don't know if this is a thing in the US, but they have churro fries. I almost passed out. So I got some with a vanilla frosty. I took a picture of it too because I was so happy. I was also super excited/shaking so the photo is kinda blurry. But the churro frosty was super good. Tears almost came from my eyes. It has been so long since I had something that good. Really expensive though. One Wendy's meal cost me like 4 normal meals but whatever! 

Mi Compañero

My comp and I have figured things out so it's going much better. Instead of being annoyed by things he does, I am deciding to think it's funny, which it actually kind of is. For example, in a lesson he asked the family if they are a part of Boy Scouts of America. I was like "uhhh, Élder. America?". It was funny. He also got a friend request the other day on Facebook from an obvious fake account. It had been created like 1 hour ago and the fake woman tried messaging him over messenger saying something like "hello，andrew". He asked me about it and I told him it was a fake account. Then he was like, "but it says she's from New York?". Haha it was good. I did Facebook finding for like a year. I know these kind of things.

Also there are a bunch of ants in our apartment and my comp went nuts and started killing them all really aggressively with his shoes. Then he quoted Anakins line from Star Wars: Attack of the Clones. 

"they're animals, so I slaughtered them like animals… I hate them!!!". My pre-mission humor probably wouldn't have thought that was funny but I thought it was the funniest thing ever. 

But overall, the comp is good. People are always better than you think they are. There's a quote I heard once that says something like "there's not anybody you wouldn't love if you could read their story". So there ya go. 

Beer Guys

As we were walking the other day we saw a white dude. So I was like "hey, you speak english?". He said yea and we had a good talk to him. Apparently his whole family lives in New York but are also dominican, so they are super fluent in spanish and english. Their english has a huge new york accent which was super weird to hear, but they also have a total dominican accent when they speak spanish. It was weird. As we were talking to this group of guys they were like, "you want some blue moons?". I was like "uhhh no thanks". Then the guy grabbed some out of the nearby cooler and was like "broooo take the beer broooo". Me and my comp were both just like "uhhh no". It was weirdly aggressive. They kept insisting for like a minute just going "broooo drink the beer!" and one guy literally shoved the beer in my hand. They told us to drink it. It was just kinda funny. Like dude, I've been on a no-beer streak for going on 20 years. I'm not gonna drink it. But I still had the beer in my hands so I was like, "I'm just gonna throw it away" so they took it back. But it was... weird.                                                               

"I am a Monkey"

There was a group of kids we met who started to use some profane english words to us. I don't know who taught them these words, but it was sad to hear. So I asked them if they wanted to learn some more profane words in english. They were super anxious to hear it. I then told them that one of the most profane phrases in the english language is "I am a monkey". I told them that they weren't allowed to say it because of how offensive it is, but it was no use. They were super excited and ran around saying to each other "I am a monkey!", thinking that instead they were calling each other profane things. It was kinda funny. I enjoyed it. But don't worry I told them the next time we stopped by what it actually meant.

The Area

I am really liking the area now. The top part of our area is pretty poor and crazy like Navarrete but the bottom and top left part are all super rich people. So it's a fun mix of people. I was still really annoyed by the nice grocery store and tried to go to the poorer one last week, but then I realized that that is dumb. The nice place has good food. And it's actually cheaper. So we are shopping there and I am enjoying it. I hope I will start to gain weight again. Which will be great. I started MTC at 135, then went to 175 my whole time in Missouri, and now I'm 155.

Rip Navarrete

Anyways, I had a nice flashback this week of my time in Navarrete. We were at the mission office and I talked to a brand new missionary sister who said she was going to Navarrete. I told her I had just been there and she asked me about it. I then shared the following story. I never shared in my weekly because I didn't want to scare anyone. But I'm not there anymore so I'm gonna share it!

We were coming home late and the power went out again haha. So on our way home it was pretty sketchy. As we were walking, we heard some gunshots from behind us. They sounded closer than normal, so we turned around and saw that where we had just been walking, there were a bunch of people making noise and part of the street was on fire. So we started to walk faster haha. Then as we were walking a guy on a motorcycle with a gun and a mask covering his whole face pulled up and was like “you guys gotta get outta here”. So we walked a lot faster haha. 

The sister looked totally terrified. I felt dumb for telling her that realizing that it probably didn't help her not feel homesick but then tried to hurry and make up for it by telling her about all the good stuff. But don't worry she'll be fine! Navarrete is a good place. 

Pero Vs. Niño

While out and about this week we heard some screams from behind us. We turned around and saw a kid riding on his bike, being chased by a dog. He was screaming for help, but no help was coming. Haha. I felt like a superhero kind of, and ran at the dog. And I scared him off. It was epic. As the kid was riding away he turned around and was like "gracias señor!". And I saluted him. It was pretty epic. 

La Obra del Señor

We have found some super elect people. Here are a couple of them! 

Madelin and Dionoso

The very first person I contacted here was Madelin. She was mildly interested so we got her number. We did a lesson over the phone but then fell out of contact. Then we ended up accidentally walking by her house when she was outside, so we met with her and her husband. They are elect! We taught the restoration our first time, and when we came back for our second visit we saw that they were both sitting at their dinner table together reading the Book of Mormón with notes and everything. Totally warmed my heart. In our second visit we taught the Plan of Salvation, and they were so excited to hear it. We would tell them a gospel principle and they would look at each other with a "wow" expression. It was great! I get so annoyed with people who we teach them something crazy like that they lived before they were born and they seem totally unphased by it. But this couple reacted to everything so perfectly. The husband said that he wants to be baptized in behalf of his dad. So they are awesome! 

Alberto and Sairbel

This family was found by my last comp Élder Laureano a week before I got here. He said they were walking and he felt the spirit super strongly tell him to go talk to a guy outside his house. He turned to his comp at the time and asked if he felt the same, so they went and talked to Alberto García. Him and his wife are insanely elect. He  was apparently baptized as a kid but we can't find his records so he will probably have to be baptized again. But we have taught them everything and they are coming to church every week so I am really happy about that. They are also cruising through the Book of Mormón so that's great. 

Amilkin and Larisa

Another elect family! We saw him outside his house and started talking to him. To be brief, we found him this week and he's already been to church. In our third lesson he asked us what the difference between the aaronic and melchizedek Priesthood is, which was super cool. We haven't even talked about that so he's definitely been doing his own research. 

Bruno

We found Bruno street contacting too. He's 23 and also pretty elect. Honestly I don't know what else to say about him other than that he's elect. So it's good. 

Spiritual Thought #1

As a missionary I feel like I have "many revelations daily" like the scriptures say. Sometimes it blows my mind how much I'm learning. I hope I'm not too weird when I get back. But my biggest epiphany of this week was that life would be so much better if everybody just did what they said they would do. 

Of the dozens and dozens of people this week that we invited to church. Most of them committed to coming. My companion was excited to see all these people there but was surprised when I told him that we'll be lucky to get 1% of those people to actually come. And of all those people, 5 people came. Which is still great, but why can't people just do what they commit to doing? I looked these people directly in the eyes and asked if they would come to church, and they said yes. With a lot of them I kinda knew right off the bat they wouldn't come, but I don't know why they say that they'll come if they won't. 

As I was feeling frustrated at these people for not keeping commitments, I had the thought of "are you going to do what you said you would do?". Really I'm kind of the same way. I have committed to do a lot of things and live a lot of commandments, and I know they are right. But it's hard to keep those commitments sometimes. But when I do, life does become a lot easier. I am thankful for a Savior, who when he came to the earth didn't shrink from what he promised he would do. 

Spiritual Thought #2

There was another family that we met that was pretty elect. You could feel the spirit really strongly in their house. They read from the Book of Mormón we gave them and said they felt the spirit very strongly and they felt that it was true. So, we invited them to come to church. Then the excuses came, like "I have work" and "I go to another church". I am used to these responses, but I looked at my companion and he looked like a wall just hit him, being the first time he's seen the spirit testify to someone that the gospel is true and then watch them choose not to follow it. He just looked so confused. Then he asked them, he was like "but you felt the spirit! You said you believe it's true! Why won't you come to church?". We talked about it with them but despite the spirit they felt, they aren't willing to come to church. 

It is super interesting to see this happen all the time as missionaries. People believe in God, but they don't believe in living His commandments. They believe in the Book of Mormón, but they don't believe in coming to the church it testifies of. Super interesting. 

There was another group of kids we were talking to and they were all mildly interested in learning the gospel as well, but didn't want to come to church. We then had the following interaction.

"Who here believes in God? Raise your hand". 

They all raised their hands. 

"Who wants eternal life?" 

They all raised their hands. 

"Who wants to do what God said we need to do to have eternal life?" 

They all raised their hands again. 

"So who is going to come to church with us this Sunday?" 

All the hands went down and started mumbling a number of excuses. It was pretty sad! They know they should come to church, but don't want to. I've come to see in the world that everyone is, as Brad Wilcox said, "so focused on being saved by grace, that they aren't being changed by grace". 

Anyways, I thought that was interesting. 

Spiritual Thought #3

I've learned so much out here, and I've also been super humbled. I thought I was kinda cool when I first came out here, but now I know how small and weak I am. I am literally nothing without this gospel. It means everything to me. I am fighting so hard to learn as much as I can out here so I will be ready to face what will come after. Because life isn't gonna be easy. 

Not to hate on people who leave the church, because we love them, but I did hear something interesting a while ago. There's a guy who left the church many years ago, and since then has become super super anti and basically dedicated his time to fighting it. Also he is now atheist. In one of his podcasts, he said that at this point in his life, "the only thing [he] really knows is that [he] exists". I think that is pretty sad. Like has the gospel really answered that many of life's  questions, that without it, the only thing that you know is that you exist? It's just kind of sad. 

Sometimes I get frustrated that I was raised in the church. I know a lot, and because of that, I am obligated to live and share it. But it is hard with all of the wickedness of the world. Sometimes I just wish I was born in some little town in Canada or something where I could just live my life without all the stress of living and sharing the gospel. That is super selfish, but I feel that way sometimes. 

But I truly believe that if I hadn't been raised in the gospel, I would have found it quick. I can hardly sleep at night sometimes with all of the thoughts I have just about life, and even then, I know the answers to all of the big questions. So if I hadn't been raised in this church, I don't think I would have been able to rest until finding an answer to the primary questions. And those are found right here in the Restored church of Jesus Christ. 

Anyways there's my rant. This email is so long, I'm sorry! I love you guys! I love being a missionary! It's really hard and exhausting, but it's satisfying to look at the past nearly 16 months and know that I have been giving it my all. I love the Lord, and I am learning better and better to submit my will to His. There's a lot of things I'm still really scared and stressed about. I would love answers to them now. But all I can do is keep walking and trust that it will be okay. 

• Elder Wride

BYE

 

Klk

Que lo que

This email will probably be pretty bad haha because I don't have much to say. I don't even remember what happened this week. 

Comp Life

Me and Élder Laureano got put into a trio with an American greenie fresh from the US for 2 days but then Élder Laureano left so now I'm with him alone. It's been…interesting. I am praying for charity haha

I have really grown to love the Dominican Republic though. My companion was going crazy all night with the dogs barking, roosters crowing, and people playing their music at full volume, but I have actually come to enjoy it.

Pizza Stuff

I'm still super annoyed though by the giant grocery store by our apartment. It is wayyyy too nice to be here. We went shopping there last Monday and they literally had a take and bake pizza. I bought it, but when I was getting ready to cook it I felt that I needed to continue to live my foreign experience. So instead of cooking it in our oven (which is kinda busted anyways), I cooked it like a pancake in a frying pan. It's weird how all of these little things I always complained about but I think I actually secretly enjoy. And the pizza pancake tasted pretty good. I'll attach a pic. 

Epic Reunion

The highlight this week was that I got to see my MTC companion! Who I have never actually met in person! But have spent several hours just looking at each other's faces haha. We were in a meeting at the mission office and one of the Elders came up to me and was like "hey. Élder Hansen's up stairs". So I sprinted upstairs and saw the beast sitting in a chair with his back towards me. I ran up, put my hand on his shoulder and flipped him around towards me. I was like "Élder Hansen!". He lost it and we both jumped around and gave each other a big bro hug. It was epic. Love that guy

Teaching People

We found some pretty elect people though. One guy named Amilkin and his wife are pretty elect and they said they'd come to church which would be fantastic. Getting people to church here has been rough because of how far it is but I trust that if the people really are ready for the gospel, they will make the sacrifice. In Navarrete, the church building was in the middle of town and everyone knew where it was. People literally lived a 30 second walk from it, and even then, many wouldn't come. So really at the end of the day it just comes down to what we want. Everybody ends up with what they really want. 

We also had a lesson this week with a family that is super elect. We still hadn't taught them the plan of salvation or the gospel of Jesus Christ, but in our last lesson we had with them they asked a ton of questions, and just based on those questions we accidentally ended up teaching all of the plan of salvation and the gospel of Jesus Christ. Pretty cool how all of the deep questions of the soul are answered in the doctrine of the church. 

Spiritual Thought

Another thought I had this week is that I think most of God's children are pretty disobedient. Most everyone we talk to believes in God but won't do anything he asks. It says somewhere in D&C that the people of the telestial kingdom are as numerous as the stars. I agree with that statement haha. It is really painful to watch a missionary, but thanks to the plan of salvation, everybody will receive what they were willing to receive. 

accidentally ended up teaching all of the plan of salvation and the gospel of Jesus Christ. Pretty cool how all of the deep questions of the soul are answered in the doctrine of the church. 

Also later today I'm going to attempt to teach Dominicans how to play Spikeball so wish me luck. 

Ciao! Love you guys mucho. 

-Élder Wride

Week 65

First off, I feel bad if I'm spamming anyone with these emails that they don't have time to read, so if that is or isn't you let me know because I'm gonna try and condense the amount of people on this list. 

But this week was a rough one. My spiritual high came to an unanticipated end but I'm slowly recovering. 

Nice Lady

I might have already said this in a past weekly, but a lady rolled down her window at me and said "gringito que cosa más lindo". Which literally translates to "little gringo, what thing is more beautiful?". So that made me feel good…? I guess. I don't really know. 

Rubik's Cube

While doing a companionship study this week, I looked at my companion Élder Flakes desk and found that he had a Rubik's cube. I know how to solve them, but I wanted him to think that I was a genius. So I looked at it with a puzzled kind of look. Then I sighed and was like, "man, I've always wanted to solve a Rubik's cube". Then he got all excited and was like "oh I can teach you!" and he started to give me the first basic instructions. I followed along slowly, and then acted really puzzled but also smart. I then started to solve it and it was epic. When I started picking up speed and solving it without any instruction Élder Flake got mad and was like "you idiot you know how to solve it" hahaaaa anyways I don't know if this whole thing made sense but it was funny.

Tiene un burro? 

Elder Flake was looking for a bag this week, so we stopped by a little shop on our way home to see if they had one that he could buy. He was about to ask the guy there if they had any bags, but then realized that he didn't know the word for it. So he turned to me and asked. I told him "bag" in Spanish is "burro", which means donkey. I was trying super hard not to laugh. He could tell I was trying not to laugh and didn't trust me. So he asked Élder Lugo what "bag" in Spanish is. Élder Lugo was on my same page and affirmed that the word for bag is "burro". So Élder Flake went and asked the guy if they had any donkeys he could buy. Right when the words came out of his mouth me and Élder Lugo just died laughing. I was literally crying. Soooo funny. 

Rough Week

So everything was honestly perfect. The area has been popping off lately. Lots of people to teach, lots of people at church, lots of baptisms. I have really grown to love Navarrete so much. I remember having the thought this week that I could honestly just live here forever and I wouldn't even be mad. Then suddenly we got a call from President and he said I was leaving Navarrete. It was super unexpected. The call left me with only a few hours to pack my stuff and say goodbye to people, so we ran to the apartment and I just shoved everything in my suitcase. Then we went around the area and I tried to say bye to and get pictures with as many of my friends as I could. It was so sad. I don't think they are going to miss me that much compared to how much I miss them. My new area is called El Dorado which covers a lot of the east side of Santiago. It's kind of rough here. The church building is an hour away and the area is huge. It's gonna be an interesting time. 

The lowest point was when we went to the grocery store. I have been so used to surviving off of what's in Navarrete, but here there's an actual grocery store. Air conditioning and everything. And they have more than just canned stuff. I kinda cried a little bit in the grocery store thinking about how much I missed Navarrete. 3 months ago I was depressed that the stores didn't have a lot, but now I was depressed because they had stuff and it made me miss Navarrete even more. It's just not the same here. There's not like any mosquitos so I don't get to use my zapper as much. That's been hard. We have an actual laundry machine here which is gonna take getting used to. The dogs and the music aren't as loud either which has been a big adjustment. Basically I'm just super homesick for Navarrete and it's been a rough couple of days. 

It was also really hard for me because two of my good friends Junior and Albert got baptized last week. We have been teaching them for a while and I was really hoping to be there so that was hard. I did get to join over zoom though which was good. They are both super elect and I miss them tons. 

My spiritual thought this week is from D&C 103:36. It says: 

"All victory and glory is brought to pass unto you through your diligence, faithfulness, and prayers of faith." 

I'm holding on hard to that promise right now. It's gonna be a rocky road for a bit but I'm gonna push through. 

Love you guys! 

• Elder Wride