¡Gallinas estan atacandome!

1y2 in the wilderness of las matass de farfan

 

 

Hi kids! ok, so I'm gonna try and write you all a better letter this week! ok, so, first off. Monday, right after we left Internet center, we went back to the house to pick up our stuff, and then go walk to the lessons we have. right before we get there, we get a call from the zone leaders, saying we have to sleep in azua that night, since we were going to the capital on Tuesday to go to the capital. azua is super far away, like, from las matas where i am, its about 2.5 hours. so, we immediately go back home to pack up our stuff, and catch a bus to San Juan, then from San Juan to azua. it was way awful. get to azua, then we have to split our entire zone into 4 houses. the house i was in was a 2 man house. we had 8 people there that night. it was awesome. then, we wake up at 5 am, and get a bus to the capital, like 2 hours and a bit. get to the temple por fin, and chill for a bit and wait for president and the APs to show up. go to the temple, which is always good, then we have to leave fast. we put way to many people in the office van, and go off to Caribe Tours (it a big bus company here) so we can get the 115 bus back to San Juan. we got there at 114. if we missed the 115 bus, the next isn't until 5. and its a 3 hour and a bit drive. and from San Juan to las matas is an hour. so if we missed it we wouldn't be home till at least 9. but, lucky there was a bus that was actually leaving at 2! so we got that one and all was good. so we got home at around 7, and we just showered and such, since we had gone 2 days without showering and nearly 10 hours of traveling.

awesome lagoon with chikitin, a cool member kid

more wilderness

Wednesday we start out the day contacting! ya! that is an excellent way to start the day....not! and we had a few lessons planned and the all fired us. lame! we had a lot of spare time after that, so we went and picked up the new pants that i had made and they are amazing, just FYI. then at night, we bought some real milk (as in, straight from cow) and my companion made an amazing sweet milk candy thing. wow. Thursday, was really, REALLY hot. like, really hot. for real. my companion made and amazing locro with ribs! mmmm soo good. we had like 16 lessons planned, we went to a few, and then it started to rain. like, Noah era type rain. lets just say, once it ended, to leave to area we were in, we had to get wet up to the knees. and we were walking on the sidewalk!! it was insane. it was only raining for like 30 or 40 min, but it rained SO much. also, there was a ton of lightning. this country is cool. especially in mountain areas like this one, we have electrical storms almost every night. just random lightning off in the distance all the time. its pretty cool. but anywho, ill try and send pics today, and if so i have some good ones! 

 

member with super cool shirt, named Coco

Friday, we had to go and visit all the people we couldn't visit on Thursday and share with them of put an appt with them for a different day. then we went to the other lessons that we had and it was another good day of nearly everyone firing us. the rest of the day we just visited a bunch of members and such. Saturday was good, it started with eating a cantaloupe sized mango, then we finally had a member to leave with us. and we taught like 10 lessons with him. it was really good, only problem was with the rain and everything, our agenda was a little messed up so we had to walk to one side of the area, and then the next lesson was on the other side, and it was like that all day. needless to say by the end of the day i was absolutely exhausted. we also ate a bunch of 10 peso bollitos, they are little things of yuca, and they are amazing! wow. anywho, now Sunday. Sunday so many random little things happened. so we go to church, and we had a record low of 44 people in church, including us 4 missionaries and little kids. it was awful. in elders class they just all argued about really unimportant doctrine. then we leave for the day, and our first lesson isn't until 430, so we decided to go and visit some members that live in Los cartones, witch is pretty far away. on the way we get stopped by a crazy drunk guy, asking us how long we have been in the service (ALOT of people think that we are military and that we are from the CIA, legitimately) and we told that it wasn't true and that we are missionaries, so he started yelling and saying "i am a chemist! i know that you are cia!" and really random stuff like that, and he kept saying he hate Americans but he wants to live with them and it was just super strange. 

 

stuck in the mud in the wilderness

 

 

So later on, at our first lesson, we are sharing with this girl and her super catholic neighbors, and her son is sitting on her lap. he is a little less than a year old i believe. now, some background. here, kids are ALWAYS naked. always. so, this naked baby is sitting on her lap, and i am in the middle of explaining how Christ established his church, and all the sudden we hear a way gross sound and the boy had just explosively pooped all over the ground. luckily it missed her, but the boy just acted like nothing happened. the neighbor lady just laughed and said "wow! without shame! (sorry, that's a bad translation...its better in Spanish "hai, sin vergüenza eh?!" ) and it was super funny. then, as they lady was cleaning it up, we hear another crazy sound. look back, and there is a chicken (also, LOTS of chickens roam the streets here) and it has a frog in its beak. yes, a frog. and it is just beating it to death against rocks and stuff. and there were a ton of other chickens around it trying to steal to frog. it was just super random and hilariously strange. then, things calm down, we finish the lesson, and it was great. it was a REALLY good lesson minus the pooping boy the the murderous gallina. then we go to one more lesson, and the go contact more. and when do you know, we contact a super crazy old lady, go to shake her hand. she grabs it strangely, kinda hunkers down, and super awkwardly kisses our hands. it was so weird. so ya, that was my week! 

 

elder hawks, my step son who just left me

Juan Antonio Moreta, my new mini misionary son! and dont worry, not getting fat again, just bad camera angle. i promise.

Oh, and not like its anything new, but it has been SUPER hot this week. man alive, and way more humid than normal. and our landlady is still crazy and so we haven't had water for 2 days. today i showered with just over 2 cups of water. yay being clean! also our light schedule has changed so we don't ever really have light at night. its so lame. and by light, i mean electricity. man. lame.

anywho, hope you all have a good week! tell dad that that kid who got called here can email me anytime and i would love to answer any of his questions. also let him know about my blog! ill try not to scare him too much :) haha.

but i love you all!

=Elder MacArthur

 

 

Stalker? Maybe so...

Wow, what a week. so, Monday, me and my comp are walking, and all the sudden i get a call, its private, and its from our investigator, Liliana. she starts to talk and express her love for me and such...ya. so, that sucked. so Tuesday we went to he house one last time, shared a bit and invited her to continue reading in the book of Mormon. so, we left, with the intention of never leaving again. then, we start getting texts from Liliana's sister and we find that she is in love with my companion. awesome. more on this later. 

 

So Wednesday we work for just a few hours, catch the last bus to San Juan, and then head down there to spend the night. i slept on the hard floor, with my book of Mormon as a pillow! ya! then early Wednesday morning we got the first bus to Azua to have zone conference with president and Elder Cornish(70, new presidency member of the Caribbean). it was super good, all about faith, but really, Really long. we were there from 8 am until 3 in the afternoon. it really so so long. but afterwords, me and my comp had to talk to president about the whole Liliana situation, and he almost special transferred us, but we told him that as of now, it wouldn't be a problem. she had called us over 10 times durning that conference...aye aye aye. 

 

Anywho, so we then go home, and because we got out there so late, we did not get back to our area until 8 at night. Friday was a normal day, just trying to get back on schedule and make up all the people we had to fire from getting back so late the day before. in the afternoon Liliana called us from a different number, and was asking why we hadn't come by, and my comp told her why, and then she just hung up. about 15 min later we get a long text message with a bunch of excuses, trying to tell us that its just a joke, and that if we don't pass by her mom will be all mad because she liked listening to us and such. then Saturday, me and my comp went to the market early to go and buy a bunch of food for the next few weeks. and on the way, guess who we ran into? you bet it was Liliana! she cornered us and started interrogating us, and we got outta there as fast as we could. sunday, she comes to church, and it was just super awkward. she then asks if she is still going to be getting baptized this coming Saturday, and we told her no. it really sucks, because she really does have a testimony and does want to be baptized but we can no longer do it. so, in a few months, when new missionaries are here they can give her a call and go and teach her. so ya. pretty much my week has been normal other than trying to deal with all this Liliana madness. 

 

Also, its been like flood raining everyday for a few hours. so, needless to say, we have AWFUL numbers. but none the less, we will be having another baptism this week if all goes good, her name is Yamilet, and she is 14, super cool. so that should be happing if all goes well!

 

Good news, were going to the temple tomorrow! so we once again have  to sleep in San Juan tonight, but I'm stoked to go to the temple again! even though round trip its over 8 hours of travel in one day...aye!

also, next p day is different, you all NEED to write me Sunday, not Monday. my p day ends at like 1 your time next week. so, ya. just be aware of that. that would be awesome.

anywho, love you all, and i will try and send pics next week, i keep getting unlucky and getting all the crappy computers that do not like to send pics, and its been awhile. so, ill try and do better with that next week. anywho, love you all!

-Elder MacArthur

Montame la Pura!

Family! so to answer every one of your questions about the hurricane, no, i did not get hit. at all. i didn't even get rain. ya, it DID NOT RAIN. at all. i was super disappointed. so, ya sorry. it was super anti-climactic. anywho, this week was a little weird. i do indeed have a few stories! so, Tuesday. we taught a billion lessons. it was insane. in the morning we had to take a bus to san juan (an hour away) and have a meeting with the zone leaders. it was a meeting for just the district leaders, stuff that president wanted us to talk about it the district meetings.  but story, like i said about the pres changing all the rules? ya. so now we cannot leave with members younger than 17, so our member present lessons have gone from 15-20 a week to 1-5 a week.yikes. and now when we contact we contact in a completely different way, and we are not allowed to put citas with girls unless they are part of a family or we are positive that they actually have real interest. which, i like, but also makes it really hard to have alot of lessons a day. and we are working WAY more with the leadership here since they are pretty apostate sometimes. so ya, more on that later. 

 

Wednesday, it was super cloudy and kinda windy from the hurricane, but that's it. no rain, no relief from hot. but, we had district meeting, and surprise! the APs show up to my district meeting! guess what? las matas de farfan is about a 4 hour drive for the APs! awesome. but it was really good, it was a good district meeting, i organized it well haha. so i got a big high five from one of the APs. Thursday, was a bad, bad day. i dunno why. i was super crabby, super tired, and had a gnarly headache all day. not a good day at all.  Friday was a normal day, nothing really spectacular happened. but Saturday, ya! we had a baptism! her name is Ambal and she is super cool, 9 years old. i baptized her, and when she went under she decided to take a nice big breath of water. awesome! but it was all good. so ya, su`per stoked about that! 

 

Then we had another fecha, named Liliana, but we are going to have to drop her. lets just say that is is 100% in love with me. as in, she called this morning from a blocked number and started saying that she loved me and my eyes and my way of being and such, and just kept saying "¡te quiero mucho!, ¿no me quieres?" which means, i love you! don't you love me? and it was not good....so we are going to have to drop her. craziness. and then we will be having another baptism on the 10th, a 14 year old girl, super smart and really stoked. so ya. things are kinda picken up here finally! its been good. my comp is defiantly not very obedient, but we defiantly are getting along and i can keep him under control. he also is a PHENOMINAL cook. so i will learn from him and cook you guys some amazing Dominican food when get home! it will be good.

 

Also, it is defiantly Agosto. super hot. wowsers, and to dad, i WISH it was got to 73 in our house at night! and was less than 90 degrees in the evening when we get home!

 

Also, side note. this week, was SUPER hard in general for me. i dunno why, i have been super home sick this week. it went away with the baptism. but wow, i dunno what happened to me. i was freaking out i was so homesick. but i love you guys and i pray for you all constantly, and i love the mission, but i also cant wait till i can see you all again! thanks so much for supporting me and being the greatest family in the world! love you all!

Elder MacArthur

Brady, thats me!

Family! ok, so this week was defiantly a good one. so,

Tuesday, we go to caribe tours bus station to pick up my comp, and i remember him! he was in my zone for 1 transfer in San Cristobal, and i remember that he was one of the only Dominicans that i could not understand at all when i left there. he has a really raspy voice and has an accent from cibaou (the north part of the country). but as the week has progressed, he keeps asking seemingly innocent questions, but were questions trying to determine what kind of missionary that i am and what he could get away with while he is with me. but, all in all we have been getting along really well. we have not had any problems at all.

Friday we had zone conference. it was insane. the new president and his wife are going crazy. in a good way, but wow. the zone leaders were in the capital ALL DAY at a conference on Thursday, then Friday they tell all the stuff to us. so, we started at 9, the zone leaders knowing we would all have alot of questions about what was happening. he was right! he changed sooo many things. and apparently he is going to be bringing back music maybe, if people are obedient to the new rules he has given. basically he hit the reset to default button on the mission and then is tweaking it slightly to fit the mission better. its just a BIG change from Pte. Almonte. so we will see how everything will go! oh, and I'm still District Leader. Saturday had the baptism of one of the other companionship's, he is amazing. named Tito, and really a great guy, he has completely changed his life around t be baptized!

But nothing really more happened. we are gonna have a baptism this weekend, por FIN! a 9 year old girl named Amber. she is part of a a member family. then we should have 2 more in the next 2 weeks, so we shall see! I'm just glad to finally start having some success again, its been a long dry spell here in Las Matas...
so, apparently there is a hurricane that's gonna be passing by here in not much time. nothing is really happening here, nothing ever does haha. so no worries! ill just have muddy shoes for a few days, not like that's unusual!

Also, random thing of the week, on of our investigators, Lilian, has a 22 year old sister, who is pregnant. we were trapped in their house during a torrential downpour yesterday yesterday and they asked for my first name. they couldn't say it very well, but apparently said 22 year old girl really likes the name Brady, and plans to name her baby boy Brady in December when he is due. she is also very upset that i will not be there for the birth in December, and proceeded to pout in a corner. it was a very strange experience to tell you the least haha. but ya, i am really jealous that you were all at bear lake, i wanna go swimming so bad! haha, but no worries, 9 ish months....
but, i love you all!

Elder MacArthur

HI GUYS

Hello family! this week was pretty standard. working with my mini missionary was way cool, he is amazing, and is a really great teacher and has a super strong testimony. i learned alot of stuff from him. he left this morning and so i am just in a trio for today and tomorrow morning till i receive my new companion. his name is elder Martinez, is Dominican, and supposedly he is super not so fun. not obedient at all, so we will see how that will go. so ya, ill tell you next week how he is! anywho, so right now i will give you a little update. so, right now we have 3 people who have a fecha. Amber, she is 9, and a reference from a less active family, the mom is now active but the dad is far from it. but the amber is super stoked to be baptized and will do it the 27th of Agosto.

Then we have a girl named yamilet, she is also amazing. she is 14 and is super smart and stoked to be baptized. she lives here with her grandma, her parents live in the capital, are members, but abandoned her and her 2 brothers at her grandmas house, they are all sick. have some sort of blood disease and so they are really small, and one brother is super handicapped. but none the less she is awesome and should be baptized the first weekend of September. then we have another girl named Liliana. she is 25, and a little flirty, but in all reality for sure is interested. she is super smart and really learns from the folletos we leave and stuff. we can leave chapters in the BOM and she reads them and understands it all. she is really amazing, was at church and really enjoyed it. she has a fecha for the 10th of Sept. im so stoked for this.

This transfer passed was the first transfer with no baptisms for me. that really sucks, but i really think that we will have a few this next transfer! but i am happy to be getting another Dominican so i can start learning Spanish again, but i have just been hearing so many things that aren't so great about him, like getting caught multiple times with personal cell phones, and stuff like that. just a really tigre missionary. so, I'm gonna have to be on my toes this whole time. super.
but anywho, that's about it! i cant respond to most you cuz once again, i only got a letter from heather (an excellent letter from heather, i will say)
so ya, please write me. i really don't like going a week, let alone 2, without knowing about how you guys are doing...
but i love you!
Elder MacArthur

Family!

Hey fam! so, first off it you were wondering if the hurricane hit me, no. i will get into that later.

So! Monday. as i said last week it was a special transfer, and i got a mini missionary. tal vez is not his name, that translates to "maybe" in English. Tuesday, i found that my companion (Hno. Moreta) teaches very well! we were walking to a lesson and then all the sudden i get a call from a zone leader, saying that a hurricane is coming, we have to go home and buy a weeks worth of food. that was crazy. so i give the rest of my district a call, and find that the other companionship here left their cell phone in the house of an investigator on accident. i was freaking out to say the least. i couldn't get ahold of him and we had to go home and buy food and stay in the house until we got the green light to go back out. so Wednesday, we are still housebound. we stayed in the house the whole day, it was awfully boring. and to make it worse, they kept saying the hurricane was close, but it was suuuper hot, no wind, no clouds. it was lame. that is all that happened.

Thursday we wake up and it is super windy and cloudy. we think for sure were going to have to stay in today. nope! they gave us the go ahead to leave, so it was a miserable wet windy muddy day. had to go and visit all the people that we fired the day before and it was just not a fun day, and was raining hard enough so that we were not able to set citas for the next day. . Friday was a bit better, but we had nothing to do because of the lack of contacting the day before. we visited old investigators, members, inactive members, and was a suuuper long day. and the end of the day we went to an English class that and inactive member teaches, and alas no one showed up. so that was also a waste of time. sigh. lets just say it was a really hard week in all this week. not to mention the ridiculous humidity and heat the last few days, it has been killer!

Saturday was a normal day, nothing out of the ordinary, and Sunday, out of 16 appointments, only 3 were taught. wow. NO ONE was in there house, and like 3 of them hid when we got to the door which is always my favorite. so sorry this letter is not as good as last week, but I'm on an awful computer and it keeps shutting off and freezing, so i have been really struggling with it this whole time. sorry! ill try and get a better one next week, just seems like the whole world decided to use the Internet today and no Internet centers had 2 computers available but this one...boo! but i love you guys and i will talk to you next week! bye!

Do you like boys?

Hi family! OK, so I'm determined to write a good letter this week, as long as apes updates my blog. deal? cool beans. so, i forgot to tell you but last week for pday we went with some of the members into the wilderness of las matas, and explored come lagoons and such. it was way fun. pictures to come. then Tuesday, well lets just say that i was in pain from the mad sunburn i had from Monday....the whole coller tan leaves the neck quite vulnerable when wearing a normal tshirt again...but we had district meeting (i liked those way more when i didn't have to plan and direct them). it was my comps bday so we hit up some ice cream afterwards and then he opened up his gifts from the fam. the sent him a card game called Monopoly Deal, and its AMAZING. its monopoly, but in 15 min with cards. so amazing. but Tuesday we had about 15 lessons planned, and taught....none. they all fired us. lame'o. but that's kinda how are days have been lately.

Wednesday was kinda the same. had 11 lessons planed, and taught one. not much of a confidence booster.
Thursday was much better. out of 8 lessons we taught 3! but, defiantly did not set return citas...not good. they just all wanted to contend and dispute and such. but Thursday, wow, it was HOT HOT HOT! it is defiantly august! man alive sooo hot. and, here, the whole "warm before the storm" is more true than ever. it gets waaay humid and hot, and then the heavens BURST. it rained. and rained HARD.
Friday, we went and visited a few people, then had to go open the church for the other missionaries. we then got stuck there for 2 hours. they were having a youth activity there and no one had keys but us, and we cant leave when no one else can lock the doors. so we had to wait for two hours for someone with keys to come. let me just say i was less than happy about that. especially since that was our time to contact to put new lessons. right when we left, it started to downpour again, and here its impossible to contact while its raining. so, came Saturday and we had nothing to do. that was a hard day. made a bit better by the fact that we got stuck in a colmado for like 2 hours because it was nearly hurricane outside. it was some of the gnarliest rain i have ever seen. yes, we are about to enter hurricane season.

Saturday morning was cool, i got to do my first baptismal interview as district leader! it was of a 14 year old boy and he was way legit. super escogido! it was amazing. Then Saturday night we get in the house, and everything is wet! it was raining so hard that the walls and windows were pretty much leaking (and we might have left a few windows open...it was blue skies when we left!). and we get home and we have no water from the pipes, our landlady downstairs is drunk and blasting loud music. we call and complain to the office for the millionth time, and por fin gives us the go ahead to move! so all we have to do now is wait for the elderly missionaries to check off the huge amazing house we found and then we are moved and away from satan lady! oh, and we found out today that the water bill has not been paid for 5 and a half YEARS. that's right. she never gave us the bills so we didn't know, and there have only been missionaries there for 13 months. so we paid like 3500 pesos today for our debt and she has to pay the other near 120000 peso debt....which is alot...wow!

Sunday we finally had one of our investigators in church and so that was amazing. we have been teaching him for like 5 weeks. His name is Adrian and is way cool. just needs to get a litte more animated for his baptism and going to church. Then, Sunday we are on the way to pick up a member to leave with us, and i get a phone call. From the Assistants. that usually means I'm in trouble (and i didn't think i did anything wrong) or special transfer. turns out #2 was right! found out my comp was going to the capital and that i was going to receive a new comp that isn't even a missionary. he is a member! he is whats called a mini missionary and is my comp until the next transfer, so nearly exactly 2 weeks. so I'm basically training, but he is even more green than that, knows nothing of the mission. he arrived here today. he is way tall and seems cool! so it will be good, I'm really stoked. its just weird walking around with a guy that does not have a plaque on. way weird. but this happed i guess because alot of people left the mish yesterday, all ended. they left early for school or something so to fill in the vacancy's they send some people mini missionaries to fill in the vacancy i guess? they didn't tell us detailed. so, ya. that's about the week for ya. now, I'm going to send you lots of pictures since i have not done that for way too long.
bye, love you guys!
-Elder MacArthur