Harley, Ronnie y Juan Carlos!!!

Hello mi gente,

Wow this week se fue demasiado rapidoooo. I honestly can't even grasp time anymore - it just slips right between my fingers. However, Elder Irish and I are doing work!! We are working hard and having a really good time doing it. We sat down to plan on Thursday and decided that we were going to do ALL in our power to help our area and our zona then just put the rest in Gods hands. De verdad we saw some miracles this week!! Lemme explain a few.

1. On Saturday we were invited to eat lunch with Harley and his Parents. We ate fried rice, and had a nice conversion. Quickly after we finished Harley's dad peaced out but we were able to talk to Carmen and Harley about charity. Basically just trying to slowly and kindly plant the idea in Carmen's mind that Harley should be allowed to make his own decisiones. She opened and then on Monday we had an epic lesson with Harley about valentía. I don't remember how to say that in English. But he told us that he would build up the courage to talk to his parents. I gave him my CTR ring to siempre hacer lo justo!! and we both shed a few tears. I love him sooo much.  

2. On Wednesday we had a dope second lesson with this guy named Ronnie. He is 18 and super super sincere. We met him about 2 weeks ago and on Wednesday he had read all of the intro to the BoM. We talked about prophetas and invited him to be baptized. He acecpted and asked us what time church started. We told him and he said that he would go without doubts. We went to his house on Saturday and he told us that we was going to have to work from 7 pm to 7am in a bread shop but that he was still going to go to church. At 8:30 am he was standing at the door waiting for us with two huge pieces of cake haha. We told us he ran home at 7, showered and ran back to the church, all with cake in his hands haha. So we ate cake for breakfast quickly before sacrament meeting started. We haven't seen him since Sunday but he really enjoyed it, and seriously sacrificed to go. It was soooo dope!!

3. We had a ROUGH day on Saturday, for about 4 hours we were blank!! With nothing to do. We decided to pray and ask God what we should do. We walked and walked with out feeling impressed to teach a single person. Saturdays are super rough because almost everyone leaves to visit family or drink in los colmados. Anyways it was rainy and wicked, I felt pretty darn desanimado, but at 8 we walked passed this house and I felt an overwhelming impression to stop and talk to this young looking guy. We instantly hit it off, I spit off all the Domincan slang I know and he LOVED it. We shared a quick message about the gospel of Jesucristo and invited him to church. He said he would go sin fallar, and told us to come by at 8:15 to pick him up. On Sunday we showed up at 8:15, he was ready to go but asked us if he could invite a friend to church. Dijmos claro que si entonces se fue para buscar un amigo. We ended up just walking to church and Juan showed up with his buddy. We ended up talking about the modern day church in Gospels Principios and the spirit was super strong. I love love love teaching this class. Pero igual que ronnie, he wasn't home last night so we are going to go find him tonight. Pray for Harley, Ronnie and Juan Alberto!!!

Disculpe, estoy sufriendo con el ingles y quisiera dejar mi testimonio con ustedes en español, por que para mi de verdad es mas fácil a testificar en este idioma. Se que esta es la obra del senor y que soy su siervo. La obra que estoy efectuando no es tan fácil pero veo los frutos cada día. Amo este país y las personas que conozco acá. Se que la iglesia de Jesucristo es la verdadera y que el evangelio restaurado cambia vidas y ayuda familias a poder unirse. Yo lo se por que lo he visto. Veo cada día las manos del senor obrando con esa gente, y he podido amarlas como amaría jesucristo. Se de estas cosas en el nombre de Jesucristo Amen!!

Elder Blake 

I found the beast from sandlot. You can't really tell but this dog is HUGE!! Its paws are the size of my hands.

This is Juan Alberto and his cousins. We contacted them on Saturday and Juan ​came to church on Sunday he is dope.

I saw Dad's old truck!!

I found a TOAD last night, BTW its raining SOO much here. Erry day!!

Isaac met someone at our church who is from Santiago and knows some of Brigham's friends.

Traslados, ya me falta dos y pico?

Helllllo,

Wow this transfer FLEW bye. Honestly I think it flew bye because I wasn't expecting ANY changes but out of nowhere president transferred Elder Paulino to Moca. We only had 6 weeks together. We were both really surprised and disappointed, however we will see what happens. Anyways I'm still in Bonao - now with Elder Irish. He is a stud from Nibley, Utah and wrestled in High school. We actually figured out a few hours ago that we both tore our ACLS our senior years playing sports. He in wrestling y yo en Football. Raider craziess for life!! 

Anyway I have nothing really to report on. Life is cruising here in Bonao. We put 6 fechas for the 21st of May. We put them with a family of four and two other woman. Pray for la familia Mejia, por Yassenia y Yeudies. They all need to start coming to church regularly!! I have faith that they complete with these metas que he puesto.

Sorry I'm out of time. I LOVE this work. I know that I'm on the lords errand and that my time is ticking away. I love being a missionary and pray every day por el bienestar de ustedes y por las personas que enseno. Les quiero mucho!!

Con AMor!!

Elder Blake 

 

 

In a private email to me (Julia):

 

Yeah, we pàssed by Harley's house three times this week. His parents work all week long and when we went on Sunday they weren't home. Harley can't receive us unless his parents are home. Hopefully he calls us to meet up with him this week. 

Anyways love you mom, the work is going well! We put 6 baptism dates this week. We will see what happens!!

Pray and Fast for Harley!!

Hello family and friends,

This week has been super super AWESOME. Wow I've felt just so happy and peaceful with the work that I'm doing. I KNOW that this is the Lord's church and his gospel. As many people have said Conference was awesome. The internet was somehow down in our chapel so I watched the sessions in Spanish with our branch. It was the first time I had watched conference in Spanish. I enjoyed it and loved it but it was sad to see our prophets and not hear them in the native tongue. Or simply stated conference isn't the same in Spanish!! I would like to focus on a very spiritual moment that I had this week, and would ask my family to please fast with a new investigator and I this Saturday.

After the afternoon session of conference on Sunday my companion and I left the chapel to go contact a few houses in the bordering neighborhood. Here in Bonao contacting is super hard because everyone is catholic and hard hearted. We contacted about 2 houses and nothing, we kept walking and my knee started to really bother me. I can't deny that I thought, well, the week is over its 7pm we have to call for numbers in an hour so it wouldn't really hurt if we went home right now. But I know that's not what the Lord would do. So we kept walking around. Then I felt a very sudden yet slight impression to contact this one house. Visually from the door their were MANY pictures of Catholic Jesus and this family was obviously super super Catholic. A woman (Cameron) answered the door and let us in, she told us right off the bat that she is a radical catholic but would let us come in because her mother in law is a member, who came from the capital, was there in her house and had actually just finished watching conference. We invited Cameron to invite all in the house to come and listen to our message. In few seconds, her mother in law and Cameron's 17 year old son named Harley came out. We started teaching about the restoration and Cameron got really defensive, almost yelling at us that she is cathloic and will never change. After a few minutes she went inside to go answer the phone and Harley opened up. He told us that he had watched all 5 sessions of the conference and after the last session ended, asked God if he would confirm to him that this was the true church. Not 20 minutes later did we knock on their door. I testified that it was an answer and he began to cry. He then opened up and said that he knows this is Christ's church but is afraid of what his parents would do to him if he told them he wanted to be baptized. Anyways we left it tranquillo at that and yesterday at lunch he called us to ask if we could meet up and teach him in the chapel. We met him there and he told us more about how his grand mother had told him about the church and the mission. He asked us what he could do to become a member and a missionary. We talked a little bit about sacrifice and being valiant but then I felt inspired to  teach him about fasting. We decided that this Saturday we are going to fast together so that his mother can open her heart and let him make his own decisions. We then finished with a kneeling prayer and Harley POURED his heart out asking God to help his mother. Harley is soooo dope and could be such a strong member. These past three days I have thought endlessly about his potential. I know that God has a plan for him and that he wanted us to answer his humble prayer that Sunday afternoon. I have faith that this fast will help him out - help him be able to receive the gospel. 

This is really like those crazy conversion stories we read about in the Ensign every month. I plead that you fast and pray for Harley and his family so that he can receive the blessings of the gospel!!

I love this work!!

Elder Blake