Nov. 4, 2013

Hello Family!

If anyone is wondering, no, Dominicans don't celebrate Halloween. I totally forgot about it until someone mentioned it around 8 o'clock that night...I was like, ¨Oh yeahh..isn´t there supposed to be like...candy and Mom´s chili here right now?¨ Bummer. The DR doesn´t celebrate it, but they do celebrate The Day of the Dead, which is all this week. 

You may ask, ¨What do Dominicans do on this... Dia de los Muertos?¨

 I would tell you, ¨Well, what do they do everyday?¨ 

And you would say, ¨Oh, but of course. They sit and they drink.¨ 

And I would say, ¨Right you are, my good sir, right you are.¨ 

And they don't celebrate Thanksgiving either, but on Thanksgiving, as a zone, we are going to have a big Thanksgiving dinner in the chapel and it's going to be GRANDE. We´re already planning it all out...it's gonna be big. 

This week, this big huge guy was walking down the street, and he yelled, ¨Hey guys, how´s it going?¨ And I was like ¨Da crap...a guy that speaks English?¨ We talked for awhile, and he turned out to be from Ohio. He was a super nice guy. He´s a missionary with his wife from the Testigo church. We only had small talk, but once we left, I was like, ¨Waaait, I don't even know what they believe. All I know is that they are our enemy.¨ Ha ha. NOT REALLY.....but kinda. It's like..people leave our church for theirs and people leave their church for ours. 

My comp and I wanted to know what they believed, and we ended up running into them again in the most random part of the town later that night. I don't know if it's against the rules, but I was just a curious soul and asked them what they believe. I was expecting his wife to talk about the authority or Joseph Smith, but NO. ¨We believe the earth will be cleansed...¨ 

¨...Yeah....(us too)¨ 

¨And we believe that Jesus and the Jehovah are 2 different people.¨ Then she went in depth about the Jesus part, and I was thinking the whole time, ¨Well, in Corinthians it says this...(so that's wrong)..and in James it says this...¨ I wanted to bible discuss so badly, but I just held my tongue. I do have to admit that I felt kind of strange...I was talking to these missionaries who were twice my age about religion, and I was thinking, ¨Wait...I'm only 19 years old.¨ Haha. Sometimes it's just weird to think about how young missionaries are. 

THE GIFT OF TONGUES IS A REAL THING. My new companion just finished training, so she doesn´t know a ton of Spanish, which isn´t a bad thing; it's normal. On my first day out I remember I was so worried that I wouldn´t understand what people were saying or that I couldn´t get my message across, and I figured that  she most likely wouldn´t either. But to be honest, I shouldn´t have worried. My Spanish and confidence have jumped a lot only within a week..some days are better than others, but that's normal. All our Heavenly Father asks is that I give my best effort, open my mouth and walk by faith, and He will fill in the rest. It's really cool to see Milagros working through me, and to be able to see the change.

We had a baptism! I know, I'm sorry that I haven´t brought it up. He name is W, and he´s SO great. There´s a scripture that's in Alma 13:24...I don't know what it says in English word by word, but in Spanish it says, ¨...angeles las estan declarando a muchos en nuestra tierra en este tiempo, y esto con objeto de preparar el corazon de los hijos de los hombres para recibir su palabra al tiempo de su venida en su gloria.¨ It just talks about angels preparing the hearts of people to receive the word. My first day in this area, we got a reference, and it was W. He´s 24, and kept ALL of his commitments and he progresses really quickly. It was really cool that I was able to see all of it. His baptism was on Saturday and I really do think that angels were preparing his heart for a very long time in this tiny little town. He and I get along really well. When I was with another hermana, he would always say, ¨Okay, Hermanas, be like Hermana Buhrley...You know I like American time.¨ He´s so punctual and I love it! Dominicans and their time.....the worst is combining ¨Mormon time¨ with ¨Dominican time¨. That usually means, like, an hour and a half late. Once I hit 5 months, though, I got over it, haha. 

My English is going out the window. It's so funny when we email our families because we´re always saying, ¨How do you say this in English?¨ the whole time, haha. 

Will you tell Hailey happy birthday for me? It's TODAY! :) Happy birthday, Hailey! The only present I can give you is a joke. ¨Birthdays are like boogers..the more you have, the harder it is to breath.¨ 

Anyway. I love being a missionary....some days more than others, haha. But it's really great, and I'm really glad to be here. I'm glad to hear that everything is great back home. I just realized something...in less than 2 months, ill be able to talk to you guys face to face. How wonderful :) Have a DANK week!

Hermana Buhrls