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!!! 

Semana Perfecta

This was a very good week. Elder Corder and I have been doing really well. Almost all of our people are progressing, etc. I couldn't really be any happier here in MOCA. The mission is a dream!! I guess I don't really have much to report on, life is just going!!

As I mentioned, last week had been a little rough with our good buddy Berlin. We were finally able to stop by and teach him yesterday. We had a really close heart to heart as brothers. As always his heart is in the right place, and this just isn't the right time in his life to be baptized. As Elder Corder put it, he is absolutely ready spiritually, but temporally not so much. He is such a good person and I love him as a brother. Someday I know that he will be ready to get baptized. 

Although things were a little tough, life rolls on! We had three stud investigatores in church on Sunday, Felix, Jose Luis and Darwin. Para mi, it was a huge blessing that our new investigator Darwin Reyes was able to go to church. He showed up with his BoM, a Bible and una mascota to write down notes. EVERY time some one mentioned a scriptural reference in a talk, or a class he marked it so that he could go back later and study it. We went back last night to teach him and he is doing very well!! He read the Book of Mormon and had a ton of questions about repentance and baptism. We set a date for him to be baptized the 19th of March. 

Anyways this week as I had mentioned, has been a good one. We have started to go out running every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. I honestly forgot how much I love running. We only run about a 2 miles but it's enough to get the blood going. Elder Corder and I have been reminiscing about our time together and working hard until our last minutes together. He's such a stud and I'm gonna miss his BONES. Pero ya tengo que seguir hacia adelante. Tengo ganas a terminar nuestro tiempo juntos. 

Sorry for the short email, espero que sea de provecho.

Elder Blake

Old picture of our buddy Berlin!

We found a cat sleeping on some of my things.

We took her outside and she has come back to our balcony everyday for a the past week.

We fried up some oreos last night, sabia bien esta vainaaa

Week of Repentance

This week has been rough!

Many of our baptismal dates have fallen through and at times I feel like Elder Corder and I have lost our mojo. Many times this week we have come home and I have thought like, what the heck am I doing wrong? I think Saturday was our lowest day of this week, we only taught two lessons and everyone kind of fell through. The worst part is that we had to drop Berlin because he decided to work on Sundays again without telling us; it is a huge bummer. However after a sweet personal study on Monday and an awesome zone conference yesterday I felt that God was helping me understand what I need to fix and how to do it. Basically it comes down to doing the little things and having a better attitude. I read a conference talk about repentance, and was able to understand that there is a lot that I need to change:

Principally, judgement.

This week Elder Corder and I were very humbled. As we were walking home, we stopped in a colmado to buy some food. A drunk guy started to poke fun at us. He thought we didn't speak Spanish so I responded, and then another guy stepped in (who I misjudged as a drunk and he told us that he wanted us to come by and teach him.) He said his name was Darwin Reyes and that he liked the word of God. I didn't take him seriously so he asked me to pull out my agenda and note his name for Sunday at 5pm. I kind of brushed it off and we went on our way. Thursday night as we were walking home Darwin, started shouting at us from his apartment complex so that we came over because he wanted to give us a gift, and he threw down two new toothbrushes and reminded us of our lesson on Sunday. I judged him and thought that he was just trying to bribe us or something. I shrugged him off again and didn't really think much of our lesson for Sunday. Doing our nightly planning Saturday we had not planned on going to his house. Anyways Sunday rolled around and at 5:45, our lesson fell through so we decided to go contact this Darwin guy. We went to his complex and it was REALLY sketchy; it smelled like weed and beer etc. We knocked on a few doors with no respónse so we decided to leave, and Darwin walked up the stairs. He told us he had been waiting for 30 minutes. We said sorry and sat down to teach him and it was a KILLER lesson. We gave him a pamphlet and invited him to read it and pray. We went back last night and he told us he read the whole pamphlet and prayed to know if Jose Smith was a prophet and if the Book of Mormon was the word of God, even though he didn't have one!! We talked about how he could get an answer last night and invited him to get baptized, he accepted. Leaving his apartment last night Elder Corder and I vowed to never judge someone as we had judged Darwin. Who are we to judge and decide who can hear the message of the restoracion? After two lessons he has become one of the coolest people we are teaching. I have no doubt that he has been prepared to recibir este evangelio.

I love you all, and I love this work. I know that the Lord can work miracles when we are humble and meek. I know that the Lord requires humble servants, and although I'm not pérfect he knows that I'm trying!

Amo a ser misionero.

Les quiero mucho

Elder Blake

Sweet Week

This has been a really good week. Elder Corder and I feel as if we have gotten our mojo back after two hard weeks. We are finding awesome people with sincere interest in the gospel of jesucristo. However, I think my highlight was seeing the gospel fire re lit under our investigators. Aka Jose Luis y Berlin. Berlin came to church unexpectedly on Sunday and we went up to the pulpit to bear our testimonies. He promised me that if I went up first he would go up as well. His testimony was short and sweet, just like a little seed! He bore his testimony of the BoM and Jose Smith. We went to his house Sunday with the bishop and he told us that as he spoke he felt as if he were part of the church; it was an answer to my prayers. We committed him, once again, to be baptized in two weeks.

I bore my testimony on this awesome scripture  I found last week in my personal study it reads,  44 For behold, it is as easy to give heed to the word of Christ, which will point to you a straight course to eternal bliss, as it was for our fathers to give heed to this compass, which would point unto them a straight course to the promised land.

In my mission I have seen how easy and addicting it is to heed the words of Christ. I bore my testimony to the congragtion sobre eso. In Spanish it reads, a prestar attencion a las palabras de cristo. I guess giving heed is presting attention, but I know that we need to give attention to the scriptures and the words of our modern prophets, sooo awesome. The church is true. And I have no more time!! Sorry for this small, dinky letter!

Love you all!

Elder Blake

The following photos were sent by the mother of the man on the right (no name tag). He was back in Moca touring his former mission with his parents. I am so thankful for these wonderful images - especially the one of him bearing his testimony. Wahoo! 

'Elder Blake bore his testimony, site wish I could have understood it, but he did have an investigator that got up and even said a couple of things!'

Una semana rara!

Hey Family,

Sorry I have little to no time!!

It's been a wild week, a lot has happened and proselytizing was REALLY hard from the 24th to the 27th. Thank goodness however because everything seems to be back to normal. (At least until tomorrow, Moca is going to go NUTS for the New year) On Christmas night people were blasting music until about 1 30, we couldn't sleep because it was loud!! And the music was really bad! I took some good video.

Anyways all is going well. The skype session that we had on Christmas was the best one I have had by far, I could really feel the spirit and I know that our families can live together forever through the power of the priesthood. I would like to write just a little about the difference from last Christmas to this one. I think one of the main reasons as to why all missionaries serve a mission is to help others, but more so to have a great change of heart. I will never ever forget what mom and dad said last Christmas about Isaac. As I was skyping they said that he looked and talked like a missionary. Or in other words Isaac HAD changed, the gospel made him a different person. Then I asked jokingly: Well, do I look or talk anymore like a missionary? The response I got was a flat no. It kind of struck me in that moment. What was the difference that my parents saw in my brother and not myself? What was it that he was doing that I wasn't? Had I just wasted the past three months of my life? I realized that they probably hadn't seen such a change because I had not worked with diligence or habia entregado todo mi corazon a nuestro padre celestial. 

 It says in Dyc 4 2 Therefore, O ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day.

 3 Therefore, if ye have desires to serve God ye are called to the work;

As it says in Verse 2, we must serve in the work with ALL. In this past year I have come to realize what is truly important in this life. Service and discipleship to our Lord and Savior jesucristo. I believe that my family COULD see the difference in personality that I was hoping for last Christmas. I know that this gospel makes good people better and better people great. I love the savior and se que este es su obra. 

Sorry I have almost nooo time but I hope that we can all try to serve God with our hearts minds and strengths in this nuevo year. 

I'll give a better update on the work and stuff next week. But, just so you all know the work is rolling and I love it!

Con Amor,

Elder Blake