Elder Brigham Blake

Email: Brigham.Blake@myldsmail.net

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Preaching in Paradise

Dear EVERYONE,
 
This week was filled with Liderazgo meetings, zone meetings and intercambios. Oh and occasionally working with Elder Preston in Bonao haha. All in all LIFE IS GOOD. We are working like horses and trying not to think about the poco time we have left. Its always sad when people ask, I have to say 6 months and then they just say. OH YEP you're almost done!!! As if it were to be something I should be happy about haha.

Wow soooo many things have happened this week it's hard to focus on just a few short highlights. However, Monday was probably one of my favorite days of the week. We had our zone meeting and interviews in the morning. I capacitated to my zone about the importance of being obediente and showing our example to everyone. After we had an intercambio with a struggling companionship. I worked with a new missionary in my area and thankfully didn't get lost. It was super cool showing him how to work and contact. Every other second he would just stop and say something like, wow dude you're soo spiritual and I LOVE Bonao. These phrases really impacted me because, sometimes I think I just fall into a spiritual routine and forget how amazing missionary work is and the knowledge I have obtained. That night we spent 2 hours just reviewing the lessons and helping Elder Valerio learn scripture that backs up our doctrine. I realized that I have learned sooo much in this past year and five months. (Yes I hit this mark today) I love the mission and I hope that everything is going well back at home. 


I am OUT of time but I love all of you and I hope that everyone is okay and safe.
Sorry for not writing much!

Con Amor!

Elder Blake 
Last Pday, we went to hike up to a water fall. Believe it or not we cross this river every other day to get to Josecito. Its the coolest place on the planet. PS this is my comp.

​The waterfall

Candongo, Best fruit ever! Check out my neck tan.

​Looking down into Los Quemados.

Thursday, February 4, 2016

Físicamente, estoy cansadoo!!!

WOOOOOOOOOOOOashhhhh.

Holy cow, I have never been so tired in my life. Life is going really well here in Bonao; it's been a very fun, stressful and rewarding week. Quite honestly I am super stressed out about everything,because it doesn't seem like we have enough time in the day. Haha but honestly it's good this way - I REALLY feel focused in on the work. We almost don't spend time in our house. We leave at ten am and get back home just after 9pm, EXHAUSTED and FULL. People here in bonao are super generous, we always get super good food. (Have I mentioned yet that I am sick of rice though?) Haha we eat it EVERYDAY. Beans, rice and pollo. Jamas la voy a comer la bandera dominicana. 

Honestly I don't know where to start, with the zone, our area my comp haha there is soo much. I guess I'll start with just the highlights. 

We have two church services every Sunday and we have to split time every week between two areas. Bonao and Los Quemados. Los Quemados is seriously a jungle paradise. It's at the feet of several mountains, a HUGE river and it's super super tranquillo. Our church service is held at a church owned facility and we have about 25 members there every week. We are trying to get more men to make it into a self sustaining branch. We had 8 investigators there on Sunday which was awesome. We put a date for two weeks with this super dope guy named Carlos who sacrificed baseball to come to church on Sunday. We are hoping and praying to get him dunked this transfer. I hope that some day I will be able to retire in Los Quemados because it is really paradise. Der hecho today we spent the day up there just hiking mountains and looking for fruit. We found guanavana, chinola, jacka, candogo, mamon, and some others. Honestly I don't think that any of these fruits have English translations. However it was a super cool pday activity. 

On Monday we went down to Cotui for a district meeting and I stayed there on a intercambio to help out a really struggling companionship. As a matter of fact it was one of my old companions Elder Vizcaino. It was a super hard intercambio, because their area was is SUPER rough shape and were not being very obideinte. As his old comp, I was able to help him realize that things had to change etc. I got back to bonao Tuesday at around 10am and we got to work. Thankfully we have a pretty good zone with good missionaries. We have only received one panic call from the sisters who found cat sized rats eating the food off their kitchen counters, that wasn't too fun to deal with haha. 

Anyways this week has been awesome. Elder Preston is a really good friend and missionary. We have really bonded and now we are just trying to stay afloat. When we aren't dead at night we have bonded and found many similarities. Most of all I'm grateful for his leadership and teaching style- he is super focused and super loving. I have become a much better missionary from him. If I had more time I would share a good spiritual thought pero ya casi me voy!!!

Les quiero con todo mi corazon. Se que esta es la obra del senor. Aunque este muy cansado y quisiera poder dormir un ching mas, se que tenemos que ser obedientes.  

Con amor!!

Elder Blake

Dope Week., and NOOO TIME

Well I finally left Moca after 6 months. It was weirdly a lot easier to say goodbye than I thought it would be mainly because it was almost certain that I would have been outta there!! President called me Monday at 4 and asked me if I would accept the call to become a zone leader. I honestly wasn't expecting it, but I obviously said yes. I am wicked nervous!!

I am now in Bonao as a zone leader with Elder Preston and our zone slash area is huge!!! We are going to hit the ground and go to work. It's going to be an awesome transfer. Basically bonao is super awesome, the branches are kind of weak but it's going to be good. We have to travel far for our branches (we assist two sacrament meetings every Sunday, we basically are having to work two seperate areas) It's super awesome. 

Well it was really hard to say goodbye to Elder Corder but most of all the people I was teaching. We had Felix and Darwin in Church on Sunday. Felix is planning on getting baptized in two weeks and Darwin for the principio de Marzo. They both killed it at church and I feel like I really left my area better than I had found it. 

Sorry I have to go teach etc!!! I will hopefully be able to write a better letter next week!

Con Amor Elder Blake!!!

I read this scripture this week about the blessings of living the gospel of Christ. Read 2nd corintios 5 vs 17.

UNTIL NEXT WEEK!!!