Weekly Update, Transfers, New comp etc

This week has been another challenging week! I guess I can't really put my emotions into words. Haha I think it's just a combo of stress, exhaustion and trying to work my hardest. Despite my hardest efforts our investigators are just not really progressing anymore. Those who had baptismal dates stopped going to church an our new people aren't really making an effort to go to church. I think it has to do with exact obediencia; with Elder Preston we had slipped a little bit and we were doing things that distracted us from our work and didn't work in the best way. There is a lot to improve on, especially planning and getting home on time. I think that I will be able to see success this transfer if I start to do ALL the little things again. and then Ill start to see improvement.

Haha I know I'm making it sound like I've had the worst week of my life. But it really hasn't been that bad, I just feel lot of pressure from myself and from the Lord. I know that this is His church and that as missionaries we teach the gospel of Jesucristo. I know that this gospel has blessed my life more than anything in the world. I know that the atonement of Christ will help me to become a better person and to be able to help my repent of my sins. I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God and I LOVE  my savior Jesus Christ. 

Sorry for the WORST weekly letter I've written but next week it'll be better.

BTW I will either be writing on Tuesday or Thursday becuase on Wednesday we have our leadership council with the area presidente Elder Cornish. 

Love you guys!

Elder Blake

 

 

Mostly Pics - wrote to Anna instead

I'm going to write to Anna instead of my regular letter. Just to let you know, life is going well. I am happy, even though this week was SUPER hard. My companion has lost some animo. He has just gotten super relaxed and our investigators aren't pulling through. It's been a hard week in all aspects but I have a feeling that this week will be better. I finished the BoM and The New testament this week and that really kept me happy. We went to constanza for a district meeting and intercambio aswell. Pass on any of this info with the family!!

Feliz Miguel!! This guy is a hugeee stud. He is trying to get in the waters of baptism in a few weeks! He also lives in the most rural part of our area. We have to cross a sketchy river to get to his shack. haha.

The sisters had a baptism. But I love gregory as if he were my convert. He asked me to baptize him which was a huge honor

We ate this crazy fruit called niespero. It tastes weird!

Elder Preston fell asleep coming home from Constanza, its FAR. He tucked his tie into his shirt for the win.

Semana Bacana

February 24th, 2016

Esta semana me fue muy bien!!!!

Wow hello family and friends I can't believe how quickly time flies by. This week flew by in the blink of an eye. I wish I could go through and my journal and write down EVERYTHING that has happened but it would take wayyy to much time. Like all weeks let me go through a few of our highlights.

Last Tuesday we found a super cool family of 3 young adults who are progressing super rapidly. We taught them Tuesday and then Friday we went back and finished the restouracion. As week testifies of the Book of Mormon the spirit filled them room and we committed them to be baptized and come to church. Anyways Sunday came around and we called them at 8 to invite them to church. Their phone rang once and them it just shut off, we called a few more times and it seemed like them had blocked the number. We were super sad and thought for sure that they were really interested. We went to church a little let down and RIGHT before sacrament started they walked in!! It was a huge back door santa, and the best part about it was that they LOVED the Gospel Principles class. My companion taught them on Monday but I was in Cotui on an intercambio. He said that the lesson was very spiritual and that they are progressing a lot! Pray for Amilcka, Amarelis and Ricky!!!

Last night my companion and I felt inspired to go check up on a few contacts we had done about a month ago. As we were walking past the first house we felt that we shouldn't follow up with them, then from the porch we heard someone say in perfect English, yooo whats up Mormons!! It turns put the girl we contacted had her New York boyfriend over. We went to talk to them and he had a lot of questions. We taught in spaniglish and focused on the BoM. After the hour long lesson we invited them to read and pray. Johnny (the dude) said, 'Well I don't really know if this is right, but this book makes a lot of sense and I just believe that its true. Yeah, I know its true.' It was super super cool and he invited us to come by on Thursday. It was super super cool.

As a zone leader I have felt very pressured from presidente to baptize and lead our zone in all los indicadores claves. Here, in all honesty, its HARD to baptize because its soo hard to find people who actually have real interés. Its been something that has really bothered me these past few weeks. I feel like I'm doing things the right way and just not seeing results. However yesterday we had a very spiritual lunch visit with a recent convert and her sister. Cauhana is a recent convert of 2 months and her younger sister Catolice has been progressing a lot, but she has been neglecting a fecha para bautismo. My comp and I decided that we needed to fast with her. Yesterday we taught about this principle and invited her fast to receive an answer to her prayers. We finished our fast ahorita and we feel really positive that she will be baptized in two weeks. Please pray for Catolice!!!

Life is going really well. I cant believe than my mission is acabándose super rapidly. But I'm going to keep working con todo mi corazón!! 

Until next week. Elder Blake

While contacting up in Los quemados we found this crazy river!

We found a dam in our area and they let us take a quick tour

In Compamento with Christopher last sunday before he left for Guatamala

Yeah we found some wild bananas.

Good Week

February 17, 2016

Hekko de nuevo

I am super super tired. Haha wow I still have to get adjusted to being more occupied. Sadly, being so tired has taken its toll on doing some of the little things; it's something that I really have to get better at this week. I guess you could say that I have felt as if I've been slipping with punctuality, going to bed on time, studying on time, leaving exactly at 10am etc. It's been hard for me in that sense this past week. However I had a really great interview with Presidente Castillo. I have come to love him and his way of dirigiendo la misión. I talked of my worries and how even though I feel like I'm doing everything in my power to baptize, the success just isn't coming. He told me that the work is hard yet rewarding (something I already knew). But he just reassured to me that he was happy for what I was doing, and gave me some more animo to hit the streets and help people conocer el evangelio de cristo. Also he told our ex ward mission leader who left for his mission that Elder Preston and I are some of his best missionaries. Even though I don't feel like it, its nice to know that he and the Lord think that.

Anyways this week was filled with some super cool experiencias. I'll start off with a super stressful yet funny day. On Thursday some recent converts told us it would be a really good idea to  go contact and area that missionaries had NEVER seen before called BLANCO. We got super pumped up about it and rallied together a small group of members to contact the heck out of this Campo. Campo means like rural area? Anyways we left our house at 6 30 A.M. on Thursday, loaded up with like 50 pamphets and a ton of Books of Mormon. We arrived to Blonco and as soon as we arrived two realites sunk into. 1. There are wayyyyyyyyyyyyy more cows than people and 2. Blanco is soooo far away that none could EVER make it to church. Haha we should have planned better because Thursday turned into a really long day without any success. We ended up having a few lessons, with a crazy atheist, a Catholic Father and some Jehovah's Witnesses, three of the worst situations to fall into as a Mormon missionary. Haha as we got home we just laughed at how crazy the day was. But then the rest of the week was a lot better. 

Elder Preston and I have been sharing the restouracion with just about anyone who is willing to listen and shows the desire to hear it. It is sooo personally edifying to help others come to the knowledge of the church. Last night we had a SUPER powerful lessons with a new family we contacted. We knocked on the door and the first thing to run up was a HUGE rottweiler, bigger than your average black bear. Right behind the dog came a young Dominican Thug named Ricky. He invited us in and we shared a message with him, his older sisters and their mom. As we were reaching the first vision I said a quick prayer that they could feel the Holy Ghost I recounted the vision as Jose Smith had said it and the spirit filled the room. We challenged the whole family to read the Book of Mormon and be baptized. They truly showed the desire to accept and I felt SOOO good leaving their house. This work would have little to no value if we did it without charity, it is soo crucial to the success of this work. More than anything I am so grateful for my testimony of the Church. I don't know what I would do if I didn't have the gospel of Jesucristo to lean on. I know that my Savoir lives and that He is the head of this church. 

I wish I had more time to recount the glorious moments of this week. Pero hasta ver!!! Vendra pronto ya sies meses!

Elder Blake

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.

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!!!