Hello!!!

How are you all?? its been so long since we have talked!! haha, any who, it was super awesome to talk to you all this on Christmas! sadly no talking to Raquel, and no email...BUT, baby steps, baby steps. she has an excuse, since her baby is at home!! soo cute. man. i cant wait to meet him! he will be HUGE when i finally get to see him!!  well i talked on Christmas so this will be a super short email, ill go ahead and send some pics now. but just say that Sunday was crazy. super quiet in the morning. SUPER quiet (except the usual dogs barking and insects.) but everyone drank themselves half to death and so no one was out on Sunday! it was strange. and then today we went to one of the many houses of the infamous Trujillo, and it was crazy. just a huge gutted building. ill send pics now...
love you guys!! talk to you in 2011!! (which, by the way is my black year! the year i go without seeing the fam! crazy!)
'Elder MacArthur!!

our investigator, victor. we ate dinner on Christmas eve with him!

Christmas morning presents!

uh, a little worried about the watch getting stolen?? hahaha

where trujillo kept some cars

house! its huge

back of house

pretty sure this was his room, its super beat up and worn down, but still beautiful.

up down panorama of his room

sitting in some crazy huge office room or something, with manuel and mijaris, both baptisms of mine

on the top of the house

looking at the country on the roof

panorama of the DR

me in back of the house

I'm cool. trail leading away from the house

hi world!

never a shortage of food here in the DR!!

note the headlamp, its SO handy!! because finding a mouse is really hard to do in candle light....haha

 This week was super strange. first off, i will start with Tuesday. we had our district meeting, headed off to a pica pollo, ate some food, and as we were leaving, i thought, man, i really have to poop. we aren't allowed to use any bathroom except mission home bathrooms, so we headed to the zone leaders house which is super close. we were almost there, and i was about to soil my pants, when my companion thought that it would be a superb time to sent a fax. booooo. so there we are, waiting to the fax to go through, and well, lets just say i didn't make it. its super degrading to poop your pants, just so you know. didn't go out to work that day, i was super sick. but all is well and good! in this mission, you are a greenie until you have left your first area (still in my first), you mission dad has died (Jones has a transfer and a half left) and you have crapped you pants. (check! December 14th). so that's cool i got it outta the way!

this, is a tinaco. the water is stored here, so we always have it. city water is pumped into here and this goes to our house, most are black. this is clear, so all the things in the water get sunshine and can grow.

this is the water that i get the pleasure to shower in everyday.

we have 2 tinacos, the last 2 pics are looking inside the top of them

Haha. not much else to talk about, I'm putting a list together of things to talk about with you  guys, and you guys do the same thing. write some stuff down you wanna know and talk about! oh, and if mom ever finds some super cool fabric, i would love like 1 3/4 yards of it....people make pants here super cheap, so ya. just if you happen across some you could send it as a goodie package. also, one of our zone leaders, elder yeip, leaves this transfer, and lives in Ogden. I'm sending my memory cards with him to mail there, its much safer haha. so you should get those by February. just FYI. I'm sending a 4 gig and 1 gig home, packed to the brim of photos.  yay! anywho, MERRY CHRISTMAS! I'm soooooooooo stoked to talk to you guys on Saturday! i love you and have a good week! ill send you a few pics now
love you!
elder bubby MacArthur

our baptism on Saturday. the boy is our baptism, the girl the zone leaders. his name is mijaris. a bit of a hooligan, but a good kid!!

group pic with a bunch of people from the ward

dad asked how i did wash, so here is our washer, and our nice clean water!! no, it doesn't really clean clothes. just kinda gets em wet....

Another week in San Cristobal!

OK man this week. so ill start out with a bit of excitement. so last night we had to be in the house by 8. why? well, ill tell you:

Our favorite colmado that we always go to, its closer to our house than shop-n-go. so at that colmado, there was a kid that worked there. Saturday night he was shot by a bunch of hooligan kids and killed about 100 yards from our house. so, the family of that kid was kinda out for revenge, so it wasn't the best time to be out in the night. so ya, this country is pretty cool....

Not much else, haha. we started working in a new barrio, again. sigh. this one is about a 40 min walk from our house. and like 50 from the chapel. so, don't really know how i feel about it but my companion is sure it what we have to do, so we'll see. its a cool area, not as many dirt roads and less evangelical people, but its harder to contact since its so far away. the mission goal is 140 contacts every week, and this week we only had 97....ouch. but we did have many more member present lessons this week so that was good. we didn't have a baptism, but we should have one next week. the same kid i talked about last week that the bishop would not talk to. he still hasn't talked with his family, but the kid is ready and prepared, and the bishop does not have the authority or keys to postpone one of our baptisms, so its going down on Saturday, finally! we have been teaching him for 6 weeks!

We also contacted a guy named Ivan. he is like....a contact that you read about in the ensign. we have only had 2 lessons with him, but he is adult "ya! Melchizedek priesthood!!" and is super smart, has sooo much animo and interest. during our contact he asked if he could have a book of Mormon. once he is baptized (he has a fecha for the 8th of enero) he will no doubt be a leader later on in life. he is incredible. so ill keep you updated on that

What else....oh, last night we watched a video about Christmas, joy to the world, with motab and stuff to an investigator...in English!!! it was great. haha, they didn't have the remote for the DVD and so we could not put it in Spanish, so i tried, and failed, to translate it. but it was still good, motab and Christmas will bring the spirit anywhere!

Man, it is still hard to believe its December. even the members here have been talking about how hot it has been the last like 3 days. wowie, yesterday was super toasty! even at nights lately its been hotter! aye aye aye. but I'm doing a bit better at accepting that i have to be here for another transfer. and Spanish is till awful, but I'm doing a bit better. i still cant understand much, but its a bit better now. not good by any means, i still cant really have a conversation, i...man. I'm going to sent my memory card home with one of the missionaries here next transfer, with a video of some of the Spanish here. its insane. its way different than Mexico Spanish....

So ya, that's my week! And Raquel and Brigham, you and Callum are in my prayers!! i have been praying for all three of you more than anyone for the last month, and i will continue to keep you in my prayers. i know that everything will be ok, just trust in the Lord and have faith and everything will be ok, i promise! i know the Lord will bless all my family for being out here and that everything will be fine! i love you guys soooo much, and you guys officially have a good excuse for not writing me this week! LOVE YOU!
elder bubby

hello world!

burning a tie for 6 months!!

Ok, so i feel really bad, so i made a list of things to write about this week, but its now a new transfer, so i have a new agenda, my other, with the list, is a 30 min walk to the house away, so, another time ill give you some details. anywho, so transfers are tomorrow and low and behold I'm spending a forth of my mission in my first area. booooo.  this area, well, about 99 outta 100 are evangelical and they are the only people in this country that will NOT listen, and the members here are cool, but are worthless for the missionaries. wont give references, wont leave with us or anything. and the ward mission leader doesn't do anything and makes us come to like 2 hour meetings that just waste our time. 

my study room! its kinda chrismasy!

 I really wanna leave. so bad. i wont lie, I'm running out of animo here, in this area. just working so hard and nothing coming of it. mostly the fact that the ward is not super stoked with us because people are going inactive and we haven't had many baptisms, but they wont do ANYTHING about it. they think we have to do everything, when in reality the members are 65466 times more important than the missionaries. aye. not cool. anywho, that's my little vent for now.

ya, the cutest little girl ever, second to lily of course!

 Oh, also, yesterday i had a full on break down, i told April and heather, but man. after knowing I'm staying here, and it being Christmas time without the fam and such, i kinda lost it last nigh. i didn't sleep at all, just crying all night. it wasn't super cool. Christmas is hard. aye. 

ts kinda dark, but yes, yes that is a chicken. in a tree. its actually a really common sight around here!

 But, other than that, and the fact that my Spanish is still quite worthless, I'm doing good. haha, man. this place is so weird. and its so hot. we have no investigators really, no one is progressing, cant get anyone to go to church, and the bishop wont let us baptize the 2 kids we have that are way beyond ready because there are alot of inactive kids in our area. he wants them the be baptized, but to wait until he talks to their family. he has been saying that he will "talk to them this week" for almost 2.5 months now. its ridiculous. so ya, our ward just doesn't like missionaries i guess, i dunno.
but, that's about all i have for now! talk to you later!
buh-bye!

burning a tie for 6 months!!