Only Five Days Left in the MTC!!!! - Thursday, May 31, 2012

Hey guys!

This week has been great!

After emailing on Thursday we cleaned our room, and wrote letters and chilled 'til dinner, and then it was back to class, and back to missionary work for us. Ha.

Friday was easily the best day I've had here! After lunch we got to go on splits with the missionaries from the West Mission (My Mission)! It was amazing!!! I can't wait to get out into the field!!! The West Mission APs came and picked us up right after lunch, and drove us to a chapel where we met up with the missionaries. I was paired with Elder Zorn and Elder Jensen, who are both super chill. We walked to the "Centro de Heroes" station and took a Metro (they have a super nice subway system in the city of Santo Domingo; it's probably less than ten years old, and definitely beats the Metro in New York) to the out-skirts of the city (it was about a 40 minute trip). After we got off, we walked to their apartment to take a bathroom break. It was LEGIT. I cant wait to be out in the field! Ha. They have no air conditioning, no hot water, they sleep on mattresses on the floor with mosquito nets all around, they have a fridge, a propane stove, and a sink in the kitchen, and their washing machine is basically a basin that you fill up with water and then mix your clothes around in. Ha. And according to them their apartment is the nicest one in the mission! This is gonna be the coolest adventure! I am SUPER PUMPED!!

After that we walked to a member's house (by house I mean one room with a stove, a fridge, a little table and a bed in the corner), where we met up with Orlando. He is one of their current investigators who got baptized on Saturday (or at least that was the plan). We went over what was going to happen at the Baptismal service with him, and then answered a question he had about the Priesthood. It was AMAZING! I understood everything, and I was able to help teach! I'm 99.87% sure the gift of tongues is real. Ha. It was a super cool experience and it gave me a ton of hope cuz I realized that this whole missionary thing is something I'm gonna love! The crappy side of that experience was that it had to end.... :( They piled us back into the van and brought us back to the MTC. Ha. It wasn't even fair. They gave us a taste of the real world and then sent us back to study some more!

Luckily its only 5 more days til I finally get to leave for the field! Next Tuesday is the day we ship out! According to the President we leave here at 6:30 that morning, drive to our missions, meet our new mission Presidents, have a short interview, get placed with our trainers, and then we're off to our new areas! I cant wait! I'll let you know how that all goes down in my next email. :)

Saturday was normal. We had leadership meetings all morning, class in the afternoon, gym time, and then 3 hours of class again to finish up the day.

Sunday was great! Sundays are my favorite here! We Sacrament meeting, watched a Devotional, had a district meeting, had Priesthood meeting, had a goal-setting/how-we-can-better-our-district/how-we-can-finish-out-our-MTC-stay-strong meeting, and then we finished off the night with a Devotional by MY Mission President and his wife, and Yum-Yum (ice cream). :)

Monday we had class all morning. Then after lunch we went and did service at the University (we picked up garbage), and we ran into some missionaries from a college in California, which was awesome! They spoke English, and they were basically fellow missionaries. :) After that we had gym, and then more class... Ha. 

Tuesday was good! We had a devotional by the Area President Elder Vines, which was unreal. He taught us about the importance of helping our investigators become truly converted, and HOW to help them become truly converted.

After that we got to take our suits to the dry cleaners in preparation for the field. :) Then we finished off the day with more class.

Yesterday was a normal day. Which consists of:

7:00 Breakfast

7:30 Personal Study Time

8:30 companionship study time

9:30 Class (usually grammar instruction, a lesson from the MTC book, and practice teaching our "progressing investigator")

12:30 Lunch

1:30 Language study

3:45 Gym 

4:45 shower time

5:15 Dinner

6:00 Class

9:30 Family Prayer

Then quiet time and bed time at 10:30. :)

Anyway, everything here is good! I can't complain! I'm still loving my companions and my district! I'm getting a little cabin feverish, cuz we're cooped up all day everyday, and the field is so close I can taste it! But I'm holdin' up pretty good! :)

Love you all! Hope this message finds you all doing well!

Love,

Elder Cade Mooney

Here are some pictures of a killer bee we (Elder Shepherd and I) found on the temple grounds. 27May12 

Two More Weeks in the MTC - Thursday, May 24, 2012

Wow. Time flies.
Another whole week down.

This week was really good! We had some big changes, and we've been super busy, but I honestly wouldn't have it any other way.

After emails last week we got a new companion, so now we're a Trio. Elder Shepherd, Elder Mena and I. The original Trio (Elder Nelson, Elder Chatterly, and Elder Mena) was having some trouble staying focused, and being on time to things. So the President moved Elder Mena in with us. At first I wasn't super thrilled about it, but it's actually been really great. Elder Mena has an awesome testimony, and he speaks the language really well. So he's been an awesome asset in our lessons and in contacting. Plus, the President called Elder Mena as a third AP. So we share the load even more now. :)

By the end of the day last Thursday ALL of the Latins had finally arrived. We have a total of 28 missionaries living and studying all day long on one floor of this building. Ha. It gets a little claustrophobic at times, but everyone is really chill and understanding. So I think we're gonna make it.

On Friday my companions and I had the assignment of picking the new District Leaders for the 3 new Latin districts. No pressure. Ha. We sat with different missionaries for every meal and then gave the President our final decisions at family prayer that night. I thought he would take our decisions into consideration and then just pick the ones he actually wanted, but he went around that night and called the 6 Elders we had chosen... But don't worry, cuz we made pretty good choices. Ha. I love them all.

In the afternoon on Friday we had contacting at the University again. It was really good. We only talked to two people, but the girl we talked to we talked with for over an hour. She was 18 and finishing up her first year of college. She spoke like 6 languages, so she was all for helping us with our Spanish. She was interested in the fact that the members of our church are so devoted, because her problem with religion (the reason she doesn't go to church) is that all the church members around here (mostly Catholics) call themselves church members but they don't live any of their church standards and they never go to church. She was amazed that we left our homes for 2 years to preach what we believe. We gave her a Restoration Pamphlet and a Book of Mormon. I really hope she calls the numbers on the back to get in touch with other missionaries, cuz it's killing me that I cant follow up with her, or make another appointment to keep teaching her! I can't wait to get to the field! They keep teasing us with these cool missionary experiences and then they put us back in this tiny room and tell us to study some more. haha.

On Saturday we spent 3 and a half hours training the new District leaders on how things run around here. Ha. It was humbling. The President handed the whole thing over to us and we had to explain everything in Spanish. It was a bit of a struggle, but we eventually got through everything. The new District leaders are awesome. All the Latins are awesome, but we spend a lot of time with the DL's cuz of meetings and stuff, so I know them the best. After we trained them and gave them a tour and stuff, we had class the rest of the day.

Sunday was good. We had our first leadership meeting, and anytime a problem or concern was brought up by one of the Latin DL's the President would just turn and look at the three of us to handle it. Ha. I'll just say I've definitely had my fair share of humble pie this week.

After meetings we watched the devotional with Elder Ballard (that we were present for at the Provo MTC) again, and had some more meetings. Then in the evening the President of the SD East mission came and spoke to us on the Christlike Attributes from Preach My Gospel. It was super good! and of course we followed it up with Yum-Yum (ice cream).

Monday we had class, all morning. Then in the afternoon we had service and we got to go pull weeds at the Temple. Ha. Even the weeds here are pretty. They are super green and look like plastic, and I honestly would have just thought they were pretty plants mixed in with the flowers, but apparently they're weeds here. Ha.

In the evening on Monday we had TRC again, but the Browns couldn't come because of elections (I guess it was pretty intense outside of these walls after the Elections on Sunday... Our teachers all slept here on Monday and Tuesday night cuz it was safer than going home.) so we taught the Bairs (the temple president and matron). It went really, really well! We taught on receiving revelation through reading the Book of Mormon, and they gave us some awesome insight and some good feedback!

On Tuesday morning, we watched another amazing devotional by Elder Holland. He is a powerful speaker. He talked about the coming about of Preach My Gospel and about the expectations the Brethren have for the missionaries. Ha. It definitely was a kick in the pants for all of us. He is a really straight forward dude. lol. Then we had classes for the rest of the day.

Yesterday was a normal day full of classes.

Over all the week was great. :)
Some great BoM chapters to check out this week: Alma 26, and 2 Nephi 2.

Love you all. Hope all is well back home.
I still miss you all! But I'm doing really good.
I love being a missionary!

Love,

Elder Cade Mooney

Temple Grounds - Thursday, May 14, 2012

Our district with the president and his wife

A funny magnet on our fridge

Hey Guys! Thursday, May 17, 2012

This week has been really good!

Right after we got off the computers last week we went to the Botanical Gardens, which is huge (probably over a hundred acres). They had all kinds of different plants from all over the world that they cultivate to grow here (cuz the climate here is practically perfect in every way). It was basically a modern day Jurassic Park, minus the dinosaurs, plus some gardens designed to resemble gardens from other continents. Ha. It was BEAUTIFUL. There were all kinds of trees, shrubs and flowers. We took a train and had a tour of the whole park, and then we took a tour of the museum they had there which had a bunch of displays which depicted different ecosystems in the Dominican Republic. It was way cool! They had a bunch of Taxidermy in the displays, which was really cool cuz we've seen quite a few of the animals out in the wild. 

Botanical Gardens Thursday, May 10, 2012

Our district with the Haitian Missionaries

Our District

 

On Friday we went and contacted at the University again. It was really good! We placed 5 pamphlets and a Book of Mormon. Sadly we didn't find Pavel again. :( I just hope he was proactive and called the other missionaries. We did meet a guy named Ezekiel who was a pretty devout Catholic, but when we walked up to him and introduced ourselves he started asking questions about "the Mormons." He was really curious, so we gave him the Restoration Pamphlet and explained it. When we got to the Book of Mormon he got excited and started asking questions, so in our broken Spanish we gave him a copy and told him to read it. He was already going through it as we were walking away, so hopefully we planted some sort of a seed in him. :)

Saturday was another really long class day.

Sunday was good. We watched a Devotional by Elder Oaks on staying worthy through partaking of the sacrament weekly. It was really great! He stressed the importance of constantly keeping the Holy Ghost with us, and constantly being worthy to have the Spirit with us at all times. Then I called home. Ha. That was rough. It was SUPER good to hear from everyone, but you really don't realize how much you miss people until you hear their voice...
After that, we had some more meetings, and we had to go over some things to prepare for the Latins to come this week. Then we watched the Testaments as a district and had our Sunday night Ice Cream (affectionately refer to as Yum-Yum haha).

Monday was our service day. This week we went to the university and picked up trash for an hour. Ha. It was good to experience the mid-day heat that I'm gonna have to live in in the field (cuz we definitely keep it at 21 degrees Celsius in the CCM. Yup, we're pampered). Then on Monday evening we had TRC with the same couple missionaries, the Browns. We taught them about receiving personal revelation through prayer, and the importance of prayer. The spirit was really strong! They said it went really well and gave us some really good feedback! And they told us some of the stuff that's going on in the outside world, particularly in the West Mission, and most of it is a little sketch. Ha. The elections for the Dominican President are happening this weekend, and apparently there are some pretty hardcore riots that happen because people get so worked up about the outcome of the Election. Ha. I'm glad I'm in the CCM still, cuz those poor missionaries out in the field have to stay in their apartments with their shutters closed for four or five days of this weekend/next week. Ha. But don't worry, cuz as long as they're obedient, nothing bad can happen to them. :)

On Tuesday we got to go to the Supermarcado! It was a GIGANTIC store that was about the size of a Super-Walmart, but it had two floors, so there was twice as much stuff. We got some more flash cards, some more pens and some notebooks (we write a lot..), and we got some Dominican cookies and some Dominican candy. We figure "when in Rome do as the Romans." It was cool to see the culture differences, and all the different fruits and vegetables they have in the produce section. Their clothing styles are kinda different, but they're cool. Also, everything here is really. Really cheap. My companion got some really nice dress slacks for 1000 pesos which is approximately 25 American dollars. It was cool. :) I'm excited to get out into the field and actually experience and be immersed the culture here.

Yesterday was the "la llegada de los latinos." We got 29 new missionaries during the day yesterday and the early hours of the morning this morning. We have 6 new Hermanas and 23 new Elders. They are actually really cool! Elder Shepherd and I went around the Residence Hall last night and met all of them. They're all super nice, and they're all super willing to help us with our Spanish and talk slow enough so we can understand. Haha. Everybody was in their rooms and in bed on time as well, so I think last night was a success. The president kept telling us they were gonna be a handful, and that really wasn't the case last night. I guess only time will tell, so I'll keep you updated.

As of right now, all is SUPER DUPER well. I love being a missionary.

I love you all, I hope everything is going well back in the United States.

Love,

Elder Cade Mooney

¡Hola Familia! - Thursday, May 10, 2012

From: Cade Mooney 
Date: Thu, May 10, 2012 at 10:15 AM
Subject: ¡Hola Familia!

Hey guys!

This week has been pretty great!

Because there are so few missionaries here at the moment, the President and his wife take us on field trips in the afternoon on P-Day. So right after we got off the computers last week we went to the Colonial Zone, which is the original city that Bartholomew Columbus (Christopher's Brother) settled. It was the first colony to be settled in the New World. The outer wall, the cannons, the watch towers, and several of the buildings are all still in tact. One of their cathedrals has been converted into a super cool, two story museum with all the artifacts from the colony and some artifacts from the Indians that lived here before Columbus discovered the island. There are paintings, and pots, and weapons, and all kinds of other cool stuff. They have little audio devices that you can use to learn all about each exhibit. It was way sweet!! We spent like 2 and a half hours in there. Don't worry mom, I took plenty of pictures. Ha.

Then on Friday we had our normal class time in the morning, but instead of class in the afternoon we went to the University to do some contacting! It was way cool! We live like 2 blocks away from the university, so we walked down there, and our teachers gave us Restoration Pamphlets and a Book of Mormon and told us to go preach the Gospel. Ha. No big deal.

The first guy Elder Shepherd and I talked to was an Engineering major, his name was Anderson. He was super chill and we talked to him for like 20 minutes and then he had to go to class. So we walked him to class and gave him a pamphlet and the number to get in contact with other missionaries in the area.

Then we talked with a guy named Pavel. He is studying linguistics, so he wanted to practice his English with us. Ha. It was a good deal. We talked with him for about half an hour; he helped us with our Spanish and we helped him with his English. He said he knew quite a bit about our church because he had been taught by some missionaries previously, but they had had some Visa issues and they had to go back to the U.S. and I guess they just didn't get him in contact with other missionaries. He really wanted to learn more. He kept asking us when we could come over and teach him more, but we're kinda tied to the CCM at the moment so we had to give him the information to get a hold of other missionaries. It sucked! I was so mad! We told him we'd be coming back to the university this week and we'd look around for him. So we'll see what we can do tomorrow.

Then we went and talked to Annie. She was an accounting major, she seemed interested and she talked to us for a solid 20 minutes. She was super nice. And then her friend walked up, and when she saw us she did the Catholic cross symbol over her face and chest. Ha. It was funny. We explained that we weren't Catholic, that we were from the Church of Jesus Christ and that we believed in Christ just like the Catholics do, but we were a different church. We gave them a pamphlet and the numbers to get more information, and they said they'd call it.

We talked to a few other people, but they weren't really interested in talking to us, or they didn't have time.

It was a super cool experience, and a really reassuring one. Both of us didn't quite realize that we were actually capable of communicating in Spanish. Plus, the fact that we got 3 prospective investigators in just over 2 hours was really cool!

Then on Saturday we had a normal day. Just class, class and more class.

On Sunday we watched an amazing devotional by Elder Holland on being better missionaries. We had testimony meeting, and priesthood. We went for our temple walk and then came home for dinner to break our fast. After dinner we had a district meeting cuz we had some conflicts to work out (yup, there's missionary drama. What. A. Joke.) And we needed to set some goals. After our meeting we had another devotional where the Santo Domingo Temple President and Matron came and spoke to us! It was really cool! They talked to us about the temple garment, and about the importance of temple ordinances. Then they opened it up for a question and answer sort of thing at the end. It was super cool!

On Monday had class in the AM and then we went to a school for the mentally and physically disabled and volunteered. Elder Shepherd and I worked with three year old kids. They were SO funny! We played with play-dough and we fed them their snack. It was nice because they mostly just communicate with grunts. Lol. No Spanish necessary. But we talked to the employees quite a bit. Everyone we talk to is always super duper surprised when we tell them we're only 19 and we're from the United States and that we don't get to go home for 2 years. Ha. It makes sense why we do it; people straight up respect us for it and they always want to know why, or what could possibly prompt us to do something like this.

Tuesday we had a devotional with Elder Cornish (a member of the Area Presidency out here). He taught us about the Atonement and about all the things Christ did for us. It was UNREAL. He is an amazing teacher. He explained how through the Atonement we can become new creatures. "Christ doesn't want to make us a new model of the car we already are; He wants to make us a Rocketship." He explained that being changed through Christ is far more than a new paint job. We are literally turning away from the natural man, and becoming new through Christ. It was way cool.

Yesterday was another normal day. Tons of class, 3 meal times, and a smidge of gym time. Ha. Our teachers still go over to the park with us everyday so we can run. They are super cool. They're all DR natives and they're all RM's. They know the scriptures SO well, and they teach the gospel in a super clear way. They are hard core spiritual giants, but they can still goof off and have fun with us. They're way cool. We're all so grateful to have them!

This morning we got up, had a little time to email, and then headed to the Temple. We get to go to the Temple here every week, and then when we're out in the field we get to go twice a year. :) I think it's a pretty good deal. The Santo Domingo Temple is BEAUTIFUL. It's so amazing! We get to be there for 2 or 3 hours every Thursday. They let us do a session, and then we can pick another ordinance to do after that. Then we get to come back and have more time on the computers before lunch because I guess the mail system is a little iffy here, so the President wants us to communicate mostly through email.

Then after lunch we're headed to the "Botanical Gardens" which I assume are just super cool, hardcore, tropical gardens. So I'll take some pictures. ;)

I love you all. I hope everything is going well for everyone!

Love,

Elder Cade Mooney

We went to the place where it was declared that our church had rights to preach the gospel in this contry when the mission was opened. It had some cool pathways and some cool views, and the big "we get to teach the gospel" plaque. 

The girls stole my camera while Elder shepherd and I were teaching. They took Pictures with us teaching in the background (there's a live camera feed going while we teach so the other companionships can watch, and then we can play it back and watch it while our teachers give us feedback.)

The goofy face guy is Hemano Rodriguez, He's our favorite teacher. Ha. He and Hno Nunez. They're awesome!