Hey, all, I'm back with another update. Sorry it took me so long lol. These past couple weeks honestly have been great. Let's get right into it.
First, Elder Zollinger, a missionary I that was living in the same house as me, left a couple weeks ago, and a "new" missionary replaced him. He's "new" because he's new to the Dominican Republic Santo Domingo West mission, while beforehand he had served in the Santiago mission for a year, but then had to go home for a couple months because he got sick. His name is Elder Pierre-Toussaint from Haiti. I've been trying to learn a bit of Creole from him, too, because there's a lot of Haitians on our area.
Speaking of Haitians in our area, remember Benson, the Haitian that was abducted by immigration on the way to church? Well, a week later we walk into church, and guess who was sitting right there waiting for us? BENSON. I was amazed to see him again. He said, "Yeah, right after they dropped me off, I got right back on another bus and came back the same day. Oh, yeah, and I want to be baptized now lol." Never mind he had a huge change of heart and out of nowhere wants to be baptized, I was still amazed he was able to just come back so easily. So yeah, he'll be baptized this Saturday, the 10th of February.
We also tried teaching this guy who's totally anti against our church. I felt that he was only like that because he didn't understand correctly what we believe, so I wanted to give him a chance to learn what we really believe and help him to not listen to outside resources. As I expected, when I asked if missionaries had ever taught him before, he said no. We talked about the Book of Mormon because or church is basically entirely based on if that book is really scripture or not. By the end of the lesson, he showed interest in reading it, so we promised that the next time we come by we'll give him a copy. The problem is, we gave out all of our copies, and we haven't gotten new ones since like a month or two ago. Also, at the end of the lesson, the daughter comes out and says that she had studied before at BYUI, and took seminary classes, read a bit of the book of Mormon and other stuff, which was insane. Moral of the story, speak with everyone, even if they don't seem interested, because they could have a secret daughter that's totally elect, you never know. We're waiting to go back until after we have a Book of Mormon for them, but I'll keep you posted once we do.
Just as I had to do when I first got here, we had to go get Elder Oberg's residency. We had to go to a hospital out in the East mission, and I got to see a lot of other missionaries, including a couple of Elders that worked in my area before me. They were happy to hear Benson was getting baptized and that the area is doing good. After Oberg and the other greenies got all of their tests done, we took a metro to AGORA, the biggest mall I've ever seen. It was awesome! They literally had everything. We ate McDonald's, which was fun.
The work overall is going good. We're going to really focus this week on having members with lessons and inviting every person we're teaching (all 27 people) to come to church. The members in this area are amazing and so active in the missionary work, which is great. If only I were a little better at planning lessons with them lol. I'm getting better at it slowly. Please pray that we'll be able to get the people we're teaching to church this week.
That's about it. A long one this time, because it's been a while, but yeah, the works going well, and we're about to work even harder this week, which is exciting. The church is true, the work is true, I love Jesus, and I'm so grateful for everything He has shown and taught me this past year. Thank you for all your prayers and support as well. They're definitely being answered over here, so keep praying. Of course, I'll be praying over here for you guys as well.
I must go -Elder Barlow
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