This week has been another good one!
First exciting tid bit of news…. Our kitchen sink has been fixed!!! We talked to the owner of our apartment a couple weeks ago, and he finally came through! He sent a plumber on Tuesday, and that poor plumber had to take the lid off the cement box out back (the Dominican version of a grease trap), and he removed two HUGE garbage bags full of the most disgusting smelling kitchen sink residue that has ever existed. But now, OUR SINK WORKS!!! I have never been so happy in my whole life! Ha. We can now do dishes in our sink, and not have to worry about nasty water coming back up through the pipes!
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| The aftermath of the plummer... 10/16/12 |
Also on Tuesday, my companion (our district leader) had a leadership meeting with the Zone Leaders and in said meeting they told everyone about a new goal that our president has set for our mission… He wants every companionship to baptize an investigator every week, and to baptize a whole family once a month. Ha… I don’t know about other missions in the world, but here in the DR that is a pretty high mark. But our response, “ Challenge Accepted!” We know it is gonna take time, and it’s not going to be easy, but it is definitely possible! So at the moment we are still working hard on contacting to get our investigator pool to a point in which we can accomplish the goal of a weekly baptism. I am definitely a fan of goals. Ha. I realize that this goal might not be achieved in my time here in Independencia, but that’s not important. The goal has raised the bar, and has given me a new determination to find and baptize EVERY prepared person in our area boundaries!
As for my fun food experiences this week:
On Wednesday afternoon Elder Domine cooked up some fish meatballs that he and Elder Alba received as a gift from their investigator Prenda. Ha. Sounds weird, but they were actually really tasty. Then on Wednesday night my companion and I went to the Guzman’s house and taught Amelia and her mom how to make No Bake Cookies! So fun! And then they sent us home with your standard meal of rice and beans topped with scrambled eggs for dinner. They are the greatest!
On Thursday for lunch the four of us crammed in our tiny kitchen and made Fritos (Fried plantains, kinda taste like french fries), and then Elder Domine whipped out some of the most delicious Dominican “espagueti blanca” that I have ever had. Definitely one of the better missionary made meals I’ve eaten so far. Also, that same afternoon while we were hunting for the plantains we were gonna fry, we came across a truck selling bunches of green banana’s for 20 pesos each! So we bought about 20 bananas for the equivalent of one U.S. dollar. Now we just have to wait a few days for them to mature, and shortly thereafter we will be in a sweet, yellow version of heaven!
Then yesterday, Wilfredo’s (one of our investigators) mom gave us the biggest avocado I have ever seen. But it is also still unripe… So I guess you’ll have to wait until next week to find out how fantastic it tastes. Ha.
I think, just based off the climate and the food here, I live in Paradise. And that’s not even including the Dominican people! This island, especially this area is gonna be a tough one to leave!
Spiritual thought for the week:
On Thursday morning I had an incredible scripture study. Thanks to a suggestion from Elder Domine, which he received from Elder Bednar last time he was in the Caribbean, I have started my own set of “small plates.” Elder Bednar explained it with the story of Nephi, and how he kept the large plates as a record/history of his people, but he also kept a set of small plates to record his spiritual experiences and the inspiration he received from his personal scripture study, and his personal prayers.
Anyway, in this particular entry in my small plates, I learned a lot about the importance of scripture study. I read in Jacob 7:23 and saw how peace and happiness was directly related to the study of the scriptures. Then two verses later in 25 it talks about how the people of Nephi prepared themselves for war by fortifying themselves to be conquerors of their enemies, and I applied it to myself in that every time a study from the scriptures I am building up my spiritual armor to be a conqueror of the devil and his angels.
Then the miracle:
Our afternoon on Thursday was HARD… We had a ridiculous amount of first lessons planned, and they ALL failed us. So we contacted, but we were not well received. We contacted for 3 hours, and only got a few solid appointments planned for the following day. Tos ay the least, I was discouraged. But then 6 o’clock came around and we went to our appointment with Amelia. Amelia is an inactive member that went inactive a few years back of her own accord, but now she is accepting, and wants to come back to church, but she is on house arrest due to a recent surgery her had to remove a tumor in her jaw bone. They ended up having to take out the whole left side of her jaw, and most of the surrounding tissue as well. So now she just has a piece of metal in there, and she cant use that side of her face. Anyway, we took her a Book of Mormon, and we talked with her about scripture study. My discovery from earlier that morning fit perfectly with our lesson and she loved it! We talked about the importance of scripture study, and how much it will bless her life. She committed to read from the Book of Mormon EVERYDAY starting that night, and she was SUPER happy about it! She just hugged the book! Ha. With this whole house arrest thing she has A LOT of down time, and she told us how grateful for us she was, and how much of a difference we have made for her! It was exactly what I needed to hear after the long afternoon of rejection.
Then that same night, we visited the Gils, a part family (the dad is a member, but the mom and the girls are not, and neither his mother who lives with them) in our ward. It was an unplanned lesson (we had planned to just stop by and put an appointment with them for another day, but they invited us in to share a message right there on the spot), so we didn’t have anything in particular that we wanted to teach. Well, as missionaries usually do in such situations, I defaulted to my personal study from that morning. It was AMAZING! The spirit took over and we ended up discussing how important not only fortifying ourselves with scripture study is, but also how important it is to be united and fortified as a FAMILY: Brother Gil was SO excited about it! The whole family accepted our challenge to study from the scriptures, even just a few verses, every single day. I felt the spirit confirm my words as I promised them of the blessings they would receive if they would keep their commitment and READ!
I would like to extend that same challenge to all of you. If you aren’t already, make the effort to crack open the scriptures, even for just a few minutes, EVERYDAY. Not only personally, but also as a family. I know that scriptures contain power. I don’t know how to explain it, but I have witnessed it in my life and in the lives of the people I teach. I know without a doubt that if each of you search the scriptures daily, personally and as families, you will be blessed. You will be guided by the spirit in all that you do, you will have a better attitude, and a happier outlook on life, and you family will be closer and more united. The blessings of “The Little Things” are the greatest by far!
I love an miss you all!
Keep on keepin’ on! This Church is true!
Love,
Elder Cade Mooney
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| Making Piña batidas 10/15/12 |
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