Boca Chica 13 - I'm Convinced I Was Born in This Country

Boca Chica 13 -  I'm Convinced That I Was Born In This Country:

Hey everyone back at home what´s up?  I hope you all had a great week and just know that I found out yesterday who won the SuperBowl and I´m not too happy about it hahaha. A little late but better late then never.

 

Elder Mendez and I  --(aka Elder Chino y elder Girafa  hahaaha - "The chinese man and giraffe" which are our nicknames in the mission)

 

This week went really really well. First off, Elder Mendez is such a stud. We get along so well and he´s one of the funniest kids I´ve ever met. We work hard every day but we´re laughing about 90% of the time when we´re walking in the street cause he´s just a clown ..... but when we laugh here in a country where the people speak Spanish we laugh like this "jajajaja" instead of like this "hahahaha" !

 

But all jokes aside, our area is doing really well. Tonight we´re having our family home evening with Maria and her whole family. She´s doing so well in her progress with everything. They have the papers, the cake, her wedding dress, and we´re going in two days over to the marriage office so she can get married with German. We´re so excited and it´s gonna be awesome to see this happen because it really was only a dream about a month ago. It´s kind of crazy that two 18 and 20 year old kids are helping with the marriage and lives of a family, but it just goes to show how it´s not us and it´s God doing what he needs to do through us. She should be getting baptized on the 21st and we´re just waiting for the day.

 Maria during the lesson when she showed us the wedding rings. She loves to have the title of "My Dominican Grandmother" cause that´s what I call her sometimes hahaha. She´s legit.

 

We also have another guy we´re teaching named Martin. We contacted him in the street about a month ago. He was playing guitar and Elder Tate and I were on our way to a lesson and I just felt like I needed to talk to him even though we didn´t have a lot of time. So I asked if I could play a song on his guitar and he let me. I played and sang "El Espiritu de Dios" or "The Spirit of God" and at the end of the song, he invited us over to his house to teach him. But he was struggling with some doubts about the church and if he was ready or not to pursue the gospel and everything for all last month. So Elder Tate and I right before he left, invited him to read in the Book of Mormon and pray for an answer about his doubts and questions. Just yesterday, Elder Mendez and I visited him and he told us that he got his answer. He felt like he should read in Mosiah and he told us that "The words I read there in the stories and everything gave me my answer and I want to be a member of this Church". We invited him to be baptized and he accepted the invitation. We´re so happy about everything that´s going on and how much the Lord is blessing the people we´re teaching.

And just when I thought I wouldn´t ever see a bigger spider than the one we killed in our house about a month ago in my entire mission, we find this bad boy! In comparison, he´s about one and a fourth times bigger than my hand. We have nets though so I´m safe at least when I´m asleep haha!

After a rain strom that happened Saturday but we still left the house to teach. We just waded through water up to our shins in some places

 

About the title of my email or blog. During these past few weeks I´ve really been noticing how adjusted I am to this country and the atmosphere I´m living in. Things that I see daily that I would´ve thought were crazy if I was coming here for vacation 4 months ago are just normal life. I don´t know anything that´s going on back home really and it´s kind of weird to be so "cut off" from the world. But I´m really loving the mission. Just to realize how much I´ve been blessed. The changes you see in people and the feelings that you have as a missionary. They´re one of a kind. You can´t learn some things in this life, or it would take you a bajillion times longer to learn, without a mission. I´m grateful for the opportunity I have as a missionary and I thank each and every one of you that helped me be able to do this. I love you guys and hope all is well back home.

Until next week,

 

Elder J. Taylor Graff

A sign that I saw when a other elder and I were contacting in the capital waiting for Elder Mendez to finish with his training meeting as District leader. I swear you will only find this sign in the DR.