August 12, 2010

A Mí Querida Familia,

 

Every week I dread having to sum up my experiences in one brief email to you...but have no fear, because I will prevail! My first week here in the D.R. has been one full of trial and error. As Dickens would say, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. And living within the gated walls of our little MTC is proving to be a challenge for my wandering spirit. I´m only beginning to understand the meaning of how a mission is hard. But at the same time I´m getting just a small taste of how incredibly rewarding this work can be. I know it will only continue harder and better as I go out into the field.

 

So...some experiences to share! I´ll start with a funny one. First, my sweet companion Hermana Peterson is such a trooper with Spanish. She uses what she knows and just gets by with a limited vocab as best she can. She really is amazing and I admire her perseverance. However, the other day as we were talking with an elder from her old district she tried to ask him where his drawings aka dibujas were since he´s big into drawing. But instead she said "Donde esta su bruja?" which means "Where is your witch?" to which he replied "En mi cuarto!" (In my room). Hahaha. I almost died laughing. I love spanish.

 

On a more spiritual note, I had two really amazing experiences this week. First was on Monday where we got to go visit the university and basically meet people as we shared folletos (pamphlets). I'll be honest, I was scared out of my mind to talk to these people in Spanish. But as we started out, my fears became less and less important as I realized that these people desperately needed to hear what I had to say...even if it was a few broken words of Spanish. We ended up having some really neat conversations. However, it instilled an even greater desire in me to learn this language. Poco a poco...I will get it. :-) The other experience I had was last night with our MED teacher Hn. Mediavilla. After my companion and I taught him our lesson both of us expressed some frustrations in not being able to say what we feel in the language. However, he shared a wonderful scripture from Moses about our Heavenly Father's love and sorrow for us. It made me more determined than ever to do this work with all my heart.

 

Today has been pretty exciting as well since we got to go to the temple this morning and then do service this afternoon. The session was in English, much to my dismay, but it was probably better that way. Maybe I'm not ready to tackle that task in Spanish yet. The Santo Domingo temple is beautiful though, and very small...which is almost a nice change I think. Service was exciting as Hna. Peterson and I got to pick up trash between bushes at the university. I now know the full meaning of "noxious weeds"...at least I think that's what they're called.

 

Well I'm running out of time, but basically life is good. I have many things to be grateful for...like delicious food (I love la bandera!), a ping pong table (I have to exercise control daily not to sneak down and play outside of gym time lol), air conditioned buildings, amazing teachers and leaders (Elder Vinas visited us this week!), a great companion, a wonderful district, and of course this wonderful gospel! thank you so much for all of your love, support, and prayers, I wouldn't be able to make it through a day without them! I love you guys!!!!!

 

Love,

Hermana Bradley