ALL About Gabriel

Ok, seriously where to begin??
We taught Gabriel a TON this week.  Every time we go teach Gabriel we
have to draw out the lesson plans and bring the primary pictures to
help explain... (because we don't know sign language, he doesn't
exactly either, and he cant read)  so we easily spent over an hour a
day planning and drawing out the lessons just for Gabriel.  But the
work paid off because he was really getting it and understanding.
So we woke up and hurried on over to Gabriel's house (we have
to teach him in the mornings during our study time because he has
school at 12 in Azua).  We taught him the mandamientos and he was
pretty much understanding all of them.  But then we got to chastity...
How in the world do you draw out a picture of chastity???  So.. we
drew a pregnant lady and man in a house and crossed it out and then
drew the same picture with rings on their fingers and a picture of
them getting married first and circled that one.  ha.  But Hermana
Rush and I were still a little worried about how to explain the
picture so we looked over at Hector (Gabriel's brother who just got
back from his mission) and told him he could teach him chastity (we
told him he had to teach chastity mainly because he always makes fun
of our buns ontop of our heads and calls them UFO's)

we FINALLY saw the popsicle motor guy in our area when we
were walking to an appointment.  We never see him but the other
hermanas say they always do so we kinda freaked out and ran up to him
like 5 year olds.  And they were SO good too.  worth the 15 pesos.

Tonight we went to Gabriel's house to tell him we were coming
by the next morning again and he was super stoked to show us that
there were only three chains left on his baptism chain we had made for
him!   He's the cutest.

We went to teach Almando at the Juan Feliz's house after
lunch.  We caught a gua gua and took it out to their house ad once we
got there no one was home!  So we sat in Juan Feliz's car chair and
put our legs up on the table while we called Juan Feliz to see where
Almando was.  He said he was probably in Azua or something.. bummer.
We tried getting ahold of Almando and got nothing, so just as we were
about to have to walk 30 minutes home Juan Feliz pulls up in his truck
and tell sus to get in and drives us home!  He's the best.  Also, Juan
Feliz is super great because he doesn't text and drive.  He just stops
in the middle of the road when he needs to send a text and sits there
for as long as he needs.

We visited Oly and talked about scripture reading and the usual
preserverar hasta el fin spiel (persevere to the end). She's great.

Then we went to Pollo's house to talk about our Ward missionary
meeting and he told us Hector was planning on leaving for the temple
in Santo Domingo in the morning and he was going to leave for his
new job all the way in Santiago right after.... which means he'll miss
his own brtoher's baptism which he is supposed to be the baptizer at.
So we marched over to Hector's house (next door) and gave him a mini
boche and we were so ticked and Hector just said he needs this job so
he can move to California.  ugh
So... yeah Hermana Rush and I were seriously annoyed and just prayed
so hard that Gabriel's baptism won't fall through! because Gabriel has
been asking us for a month and a half when he'll get baptized and it
was finally happening!
(back story... Gabriel has been going to church for the past two years
and has wanted to become a member for forever but no one really did
anything about it because they were all waiting for Hector to get
home.  No missionaries every really tried to teach him either... we're
not sure why.  But because he can't hear no one really knew how.  So
when we started trying our best to teach him he asked EVERY time we
saw him when he can get baptized.  so sweet)

We went back to teach Almando, and there is nothing like
teaching an 80 year old the law of chastity!  But he's a classy old
man and really liked it all so it went pretty well!  But Juan Feliz
just laughed at us the whole time when we had to say awkward things!
But then Almando said he wants to get baptized.. like real soon!!  So
that's exciting!  he just wants to finish his divorce stuff which will
be over by the end of the week!

We taught Jonel who is super sweet and great.  And then his little 14
year old sister came out and we were talking to her and she was super
adorable and then we asked if she wanted to come to church on Sunday
and she said she couldn't because she would be in the capital and we
asked why and she said "oh because I live with my husband in the
capital"  WHAT!?!?!?!?!?!?!  yeah this stuff is actually semi normal
here.  but still.  We were shocked that this cute 14 year old that we
were thinking would be a great addition to our young womens was
actually married to a 27 year old and pregnant.  So crazy!  and
actually so sad.

ok now back to the good stuff......

BEST DAY OF MY DANG LIFE.
for reals.  So hermana rush and I woke up and quickly got ready to go
get Gabriel for his introvista.  We were praying that he wouldn't be
far from his house so we could find him quickly and when we turned the
corner he was already sitting waiting for us outside!  And then Hector
peered out the door!  Hector was here!!!  not in the capital or at his
job!  We thanked him for coming to his senses. Then the three of us
walked to the capilla and reviewd the book we put together of all the
drawings of the lessons.   Hermana Rush and called Quiroga to see
where he was and he said they actually couldnt make it!
WHAT!!  I literally screamed "what" and then in walks Quiroga laughin
his head off.  funy joke... not!

Then we all sat down and for Gabriel's introvista he taught us
EVERYTHING from the book.  And he did is perfectly.  It was
incredible.  Edler Quiroga kept saying how much Gabriel really knows
and we were like Yeah he's amazing!  It went really well and it was
great for Elder Quiroga and his companion to see how special Gabriel
is. Gabriel even made Quiroga's companion smile (and he's usually a
grump).
Anyways, Gabriel knew everything and all those frustrating days of
trying to teach him for hours and not getting anywhere totally paid
off!  After we finished and Gabriel prayed in his head to end Quiroga
said he had to call president.  We were super nervous because usually
when there's a special situation like Gabriel it's hard for everything
to be oked by president.  But then Quiroga came back in the room after
15 stressfull minutes for h. rush and I and was smiling super big!
He looked so proud of us and said that President wanted to thank us
for our hard work and that he could feel the spirit when Quiroga
talked to him about Gabriel.  Then he said President wants me to draw
out another book for him like the one we made Gabriel!  wow pressure!!
But anyways it was such a great feeling and the spirit was so strong
and cute Gabriel was super happy and we were super happy and it was
the best!
At  1:00 we cleaned the capilla and filled the pila with Hector, Pollo,
and Gabriel. At 3:00 we hurried and finally showered and ran to a
couple citas. Then we went to set up the church.  Gabriel and his
family showed up and then like the ENTIRE rama showed up.  It was
incredible to see everyone there!!  There were so many people we had
to move from the small room with the pila to the chapel for the
service!!
We watched two strenght for youth videos instead of talks so Gabriel
could watch them and he really seemed to love it!  Then hermana rush
shared a brief testimony and we all crowded into the other room for
the baptism!!  THEN GABRIEL FINALLY GOT BAPTIZED!!  it was so special
and my eyes were so watery and I tried so hard not to cry the whole
night.  Gabriel was beaming the rest of the night and it was so cute.
Then it was over and we handed out our famous cookies that have more
oil in them than should ever EVER be consumed, but whatever... (we make
these cookies for every district mtg and baptism and everyone dies
over them and it's great because people like me even if they can't
understand me that well..)

the most amazing young man I know!!!!

Sunday was super wonderful as well when Gabriel was confirmed.  He's
the cutest and I really care about him like he's my little brother.
Anyways... I know like all I talked about was Gabriel because i LOVE
HIM SO MUCH but we actually did have lessons with other people this
week.... We have a great investigator named Mira who let hermana rush
do her dishes while I taught her about the book of mormon and prayer.
haha it was actually super awesome though because she was so stoked
about her dishes being clean that she paid attention better than
usual.
Also about an hour ago hna rush and I were at the print shop to print
baptism pictures and an army guy came in for a picture and he didn't
know how to tie a tie and no one else in the room knew how to so I
stood up and tied his tie for him.  (not gonna lie I felt pretty
awesome that I knew how to tie a tie.) and that's definitely a GREAT
journal entry-  I tied an army man's tie today.
Anyways... Love you all and thanks for all the letters and packages!!!!
love
hermana huish

Gabriel disguised as a "rubio"

Gabriel getting baptized by his big brother, Hector

STRESS and More Stress

So.... last monday night at the Juan Feliz cabana we were teaching Almando about the difference between an ordenancia and a convenio.  Almando seemed a little confused and finally Juan Feliz told everyone to stop talking so he could "simply explain this".  I was super relieved until he started with "So let's say you were going to buy a solar panel..." oh no...:)   They are so great and are so earnest in their teaching!! And even though they can stress us out a little we love them for it. 

Monday night we tried to make homemade pizza!  It was a successfull first attempt.... 

Tuesday we taught this kid named Jonel but his real name is Grady.  His best friend showed up who is named Greibi (yeah, graby and greidi...) who turned out to be a menos activo!  We had a great lesson and both were super into it.  At the end of the lesson we noticed a guy sitting there and we went up to talk to him.  He said he listened to the whole lesson and loved it.  He said he'd seen us around before and everytime we're there he just feels good inside.  awwww!!!

We taught Eveni and Laudri, but they were a little unfocused and running around so we watched the joseph smith first vision on the computer (they have a computer!!!!) and they liked that a lot.  

Thursday we had intercambios with the Hermana Leader and her companion.  But there are so many hermanas that we didn't split up companionships one of them just went with us and the other with the latinas.  It was fun!  But that night hermna rush and I gave up our beds so they could sleep in them and slept on the floor.... oh my heck worst decision of my life!  for some reason it didn't cross my mind that sleeping on a cold tile floor with nothing underneath you and no pillow to cushen your head would actually be super uncomfortable.  We didn't sleep a wink:( 

What makes that even better is the next morning we had introvistas with Presidente Rodriguez!  We all bucket showered and took a gua gua to Azua.  There we received packages (THANKS MOM FOR THE CLIFF BARS AND CRYSTAL LIGHT!! ) and talked with our zone.  Then President arrived and gave a mini devotional and then we started with the interviews while Hermana Rodriguez talked to us.  Hermana Rush and I told her that we went to the same high school before and have known each other since we were three and now we're companions and she FREAKED out.  She was stoked.  Then I told her that my mom served in Santiago and knew who she was, the 14 yr old daughter of the super star family in Santiago, and she LOVED that!!  It seriously made her day, she was jumping up and down and kept saying it's a small world!!  Finally, at 4-ish we each had a 5 minute interview and then got ourselves some lunch at an actual kind of restaurant in Azua and we brought President a frozen chinola because it was his birthday! 

Saturday..... the most stressfull day of my dang life.

Hermana Rush and I helped Presidente Feliz deap clean the whole capilla which took a million years and then we started filling the pila.  

We had district meeting and after Oly had her introvista with Elder Quiroga.

Then we went home and made cookies for the baptism and it was so hot in the kitchen and we actually hadn´t had time or water to shower in a couple of days so we looked pretty gross...

Then we went to visit Maria and she wasn´t there so we talked to Hector for a bit and he was blasting his missionary EFY music and singing his heart out and it was awesome.

Then we ran home and grabbed the last minute stuff for the baptism and went to the church at 5:30 and the baptism was scheduled for 6.  

when we got there the pila was empty.  EMPTY!!!

we freaked mainly because it had taken 5 horas to fill up that morning and we only had thirty minutes.

presidente helped us hook up every hose we could find the all the bathrooms and everything and somehow we were able to fill the font in 45 minutes! 

Oly obviously showed up right at 6 (but it was fine because in the DR being on time is usually being about 30 minutes late...) so not everyone was there yet either.  

We knew she was ready but she is just so shy and timid that the thought of getting baptized infront of 40 people was killing her.  

I don´t really know how, but she stayed... and the second she got under that water hermana rush and I were SO relieved and happy and Oly was grinning from ear to ear and it was so exciting.  OLY ACTUALLY GOT BAPTIZED PEOPLE! And she was so happy, which of course, makes us so happy!   

During church we had to talk to a million people to figure out stuff for Gabriel´s baptism, which is gonna really happen this Saturday probably!  He is something special alright.  Everytime we see him he asks when he´ll actually get baptized (in sign) and we keep having to push back his date because of his mom who is always not ready and were praying this is the week!  He´s super happy and we made him a countdown chain!

Well, that´s really it for this week.  It´s been a stressfull one!  But today we´re just going to sleep and do absolutely nothing which rocks.  

Love you all!!!

LOVE The Work and Rain

     Monday night we got a gua gua home from Azua and then raced home to eat a quick something and hurried over to our family night cita with M and her family.  She was in the kitchen the whole time so we ended up just visiting with her menos activo husband and old neighbor for about an hour.  Then, M came out of the kitchen with two plates completely filled with pasta and fritos.  I was honestly thinking they were serving plates for her family but then she pulled over two plastic chairs and told us to come eat while it was still warm.  .....  So she sat there and talked to us while we tried really hard to eat all of her food.  It was amazing, but easily enough food to feed ten people.  Hermana Rush was a rockstar and somehow polished her plate but I really couldn´t stomach it and was about to slide the rest of my pasta into a folleto when hermana rush said we had to go (thank heavens) we thanked M and slowly dragged our full bellies home.  It´s a good thing we don´t eat with members here usually or else we would be really really fat. 

      On Wednesday we walked the 3 kilometers to JF´s house to teach M again (we found out his actual name is A and we´re still trying to figure out why we thought his name was M...)  When we got there, JF was chillin on his lawn chair (as usual) but this time he had ripped out a seat from a car and set it ontop of his other chair. It was a really nice upgrade from his normal lounde spot.   We laughed so hard and he just looked over at us like whatever.  

gotta love the "lounge chair"
A+ for resourcefulness!! 

Then U (JF´s wife) came home from the capital.  She was in the capital for breast cancer treatments, which are going really well for her.  She also pulled down her shirt and flashed us her non-existent boob.  haha it was weird.   Then she whipped out this La Sirena bag (a fancy store like Walmart thats only in the capital) and gave me this yellow blouse she had bought for me!  It was the sweetest thing ever...and I wore it this sunday and she was stoked! 

The yellow shirt from Ursela

     So, the girls we took to conference.  They´re amazing.  Loadri is the 13 year old and is super great.  But Eveni is something else.  Shes the 10 year old who looks like a 6 year old.  The last visit we had asked them to read a couple pages in the Restoracion folleto and when we came back Loadri had read a paragraph (which is actually pretty good:) but Eveni had read the ENTIRE folleto TWICE.  As we were going through the lesson she would raise her hand and explain everything in detail, but in her own words, before we even got to it.  She told us about the grand apostacy and what that means, about joseph Smith´s first vision, about the importance of prophets, she even told us that the church is like a mother and her child... the mother gives her child rules and guidlines to help her child... she also explained albedrio and sacerdocio and talked about joseph smith translating the book of Mormon.  If she´s not every missionaries dream then I don´t know who is.

Me and Helen....what a love

     Also, Gabriel is super special too.  We thought a lot about how to teach him the restoracion and we ended up drawing a stick figure lesson of the whole first lesson and then we used the church pictures to help us.  The first hour we went to teach him was pretty frustrating.  He wasn´t understanding and we didn´t know what to do.  We took a breather and went back and tried to show each thing like a prophet and then show the bigger picture and he really got it!  After working slowly on that for a while we gave him all of our sketches and pictures and then he explained it all to us perfectly! We were SO happy and I honestly almost cried.  It was the greatest feeling ever.  On Sunday we brought the little joseph smith first vision video for him to watch and as joseph smith was walking into the trees Gabriel looked over and smiled and pointed and signed the words for God and Jesus Christ!!  It was the best feeling in the world knowing that he really understood it and even though he couldn´t hear the words we KNEW he could feel the spirit.  Gabriel is the best.  OH!  Also Elder Tapia (Gabriels older brother) got back from his mission on Wednesday!!  He served in Puerto Rico so he knows a lot of english now and he is so sweet and was working with us to try to teach Gabriel.  He´s a great kid and we are all so so so excited for Gabriel and Maria to get baptized together on the 26th of October. 

    Oly is getting baptized this Saturday the 19th for reals!  AHHH we´re so excited.  She´s the cutest thing ever.  

     On thursday it poured. We were teaching a lesson in the church and when we walked outside the church the sprinklers were on.  We walked around the sprinklers and were confused when we were getting completely drenched and then realized it was raining. ha.  

     But seriously we looked like we had just jumped into a swimming pool after 3 seconds of being outside.  It was insane.  We ran to our next appointments house but no one was home so we ran to the next one early and noone was there either.  So we ran to a members house and then our district leader told us to go home and shower and get into warm clothes or we´d get the gripe.  But it´s kind of confusing because we actually shower from a giant tank of water from the ground and so we ended up rinsing off the rain water WITH rain water... but that´s just the DR for you.  

     Hermana Rush and I were contacting this week when we stopped by a house with three people in lawn chairs.  When we started introducing ourselves the two people not facing us turned around and they were jehovas whitness missionaries.  It was super awkward and we said bye and ran out of there.  Jehovas whitnesses (testigos) are CRAZY.  Hermana Moronta told us a bunch of stuff that they believe and we were super weirded out.  One thing is that they are very adamant about not eating animal blood.  But that confused me because who does eat animal blood?  but whatever, if that´s what they want to strongly believe it is fine by me!

     On Friday we had zone meeting and my dad, Elder Klein, is dying this next monday so we all said our last goodbyes.  

My Mom, me and my dad! 

Then we got our letters and packages and thanks mom for the almonds and trail mix and gum and the cutest bangles for hermana rush and I!  

We got preached to by a crazy Evangelica lady Yesterday too.  We introduced ourselves and she freaked out on us and started rambling on and on super fast and loud and after 10 minutes I said  Sorry but we aren´t here to fight we were just here to share. and then she screamed that she was sharing with us and kept at her craziness and then again I said we weren't here to fight and we quickly ran out of her house.  crazy people.

    Today we woke up and cleaned the house and had morning devotional and at 8:30 we were done so we´ve just been bumbs the rest of the day and it´s been super nice.  Usually on Pdays we go and do a bunch of stuff but today we´ve just chilled and it´s pretty great.  The second we left the house to go to the internet place it started pouring rain so we grabbed our umbrellas and ran out the door into the flooded streets.  The rain is THE BEST here.  

LOVE the rain!!

    
   Anyways, It´s been another sweet week.  Definitely hard but great!  We also have tried to make only concon this past week and we mastered it last night.  It was great! (concon is when you make rice the dominican way and then there´s hard rice at the bottom)  

Love you all!

Hermana Huish 

Sign Language and Coconuts

Hola Hola

The ghetto computer I´m using has a super still space bar so I´m having to basically slam my thumb on the space bar every second and it´s driving me crazy...Anyways... life is great!!   Last monday after we got home we went to this member´s house and then Pollo was there too and we were all chatting and Milagros (the member´s name) got a phone call from Pollo´s brother who asked to talk to me on the phone.  So he asked how I was doing and then he went on this long tangent and I just gave the phone to hermana rush and she thankfully finished off the awkward conversation for me... but long story short I have my first Dominican Fan and he´s Pollo´s brother.

Tuesday the Clawsons came for a house check and thank heavens we actually had enough water to mop and wash our dishes for the first time in a while!  They said they were impressed with how clean the house was even though we like NEVER have water or luz and we were like ¨yeah, that´s right it is impressive so thanks for actually noticing!¨  (We like to laugh at how our missionary friends in Europe and the states talk about the new Ikea couches they get and the fancy waffle irons and the fancy food they make and then there is us eating wafers and peanut butter in the candle light fanning ourselves with Castidad folletos because we are dripping sweat at 9 at night) 

So Oly´s new fecha (baptism date) is for the 19th of October and we´re super stoked and she´s super stoked and we love her a lot.  Although she´s so timid and sometimes a pain she´s actually the funniest thing ever.  Also (this is really good) her brother who is 20 years old has 6 children.  SIX!  at TWENTY!  And his oldest child is 8.  But thats just typical DR stuff.  We contacted a fancy rich house last week because we have been wanting to get into one and on TUesday we went back for our cita (lesson) and there were two boys there from the neighborhood who seemed actually really interested!  So we are excited about them.We were on our way to the chapel in the church to go teach music class and when we passed the primary room we saw millions of church pictures scattered across the floor and instantly we knew it was an answer to prayers!  We sorted through them all and found the best ones to help us teach Gabriel (the deaf kid).  So we were SUPER excited about that.  We had a lesson with this cute girl named Veronica.  Her husband is a menos activo.  We asked her if there was anything we could do to help her in any way and she said ¨find my family¨.  We asked what she meant and it turns out she has NO idea who her parents are!  So sad.  So we tried to comfort her and tell her we will try our hardest to talk to people and help her out.  But it just made me so grateful for my amazing family.  It´s so sad because we have this wonderful message to share about eternal families and most people think it´s not that great because their families are crazy here.  Most people only know one of their parents and all their siblings are from a different dad or mom and just so disfunctional and its super sad.  They really don´t have ¨families¨ they just have a lot of half relatives.  So, even though the roads here aren´t that smooth, a TON of people have roller blades here. So, mom, send me my roller skates so I can fit in. thanks.

On thursday we figured out that our giant stash of bananas was quickly going bad so we made banana bread. Except we live in the DR and we don´t have real recipes or even real measuring cups so it definitely turned out as a banana brick.  But we still ate the whole thing, obviously.

We walked a mile to the Juan Feliz house to teach an investigator who lives with the super star mormon family in Sabana Yegua.  Their pretty much the funniest family in the whole world too.  Brother Juan Felix just sits in his metal chair all day outside under their straw tent and sticks his feet up on the table.  Their whole family just mumbles and talks SO fast too and all at the same time.  When we got there he macheted off huge chunks of sugar can for us and they said we shouldn´t start the lesson till everyone was done eating their sugar cane. So we chomped and spit and talked for like 40 minutes until we had finally choked down our giant sticks of sugar.  once again... super classy.We taught Arrangelli and Hector and Ramona and their cute baby. They're my favorite investigators because Hector seems super interested and we´re so excited about them!Hermana Rush and I went a little crazy and bought ground meat at a comlado and made it for lunch on Friday!  It was so crazy and awesome and wonderful to eat real meat!  And we have yet to get sick so we´re feeling pretty good about our colmado meat now!Eduar is so perezoso (lazy) and we gave him a mini boche on Friday because he wasn´t keeping any commitements and we see him all the time just sitting around.  

Then there is Gabriel.  He is deaf and mute and can´t communicate with anyone really and we tried to teach him how to pray in sign friday night and he was trying SO HARD to understand and he is the sweetest boy in the world and so patient and so smiley and happy and he seriously comes to church every week and tries his best to learn even though his circumstances are so terrible and he is such a huge inspiration.  Friday night we really really wanted to try our coconuts so we spent two hours trying to saw open our coconut with a kitchen knife.  It was a long process and finally hermana Moronta came over with her Dominican Woman strength and just slammed the knife straight through it and opened it for us.... I was way impressed.  And we were super stoked to drink thecoconut water and eat the real deal coconut stuff (even thought it´s nothing close to american shredded coconut that´s basically sugar...) Saturday we wanted to go to general conference (broadcast from Salt Lake City) so bad in Azua but as missionaries you have to have an investigator if you want to go to conference so we dragged our new investigator and her adroable 10 year old sister into coming with us by telling them we would buy them ice cream (I´m making this sound terrible...they were actually super excited to go...) Anyways when we sat in their house and waited for them to get dressed, their youngest sister, Hellen, was prancing around in her tiny panties and then she was sitting next to me on their couch and hermana Rush pulled out her camera and she was flinging her legs all overme and posing and being absolutely hilarious we were all dying.  She´s a riot.  And we can´t wait to go back to their house now.But anyways...back to conference.... it was super great besides the fact that I pretty much understood like nothing except the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.   Not really, I actually got a couple things like the basic themes and stuff but after like two hours of trying so hard to concentrate on spanish my brain was shutting down so I would just close my eyes and chill for a little bit inbetween. But one time Lowdrey and Eveneli (the two 13 and 10 year old adorable investigators) looked over at me ¨sleeping¨ and laughed and I was super embarrassed because they were actually taking notes and I, the missionary, was napping.  whoops!  Oh also, did you guys see the family choir?!  Did you see the girl in the red shirt at the end of the first song who was seriously so into the song?!  I really hope you guys all saw that because she made my day.  Funniest thing ever, I hope you guys know what I´m talking about!Saturday night we passed a panaderia after we dropped off the girls at their house and we convinced the bread guy to make us  integral rolls because we´ve been dying for not white bread. He also gave us two sweet rolls for only 5 pesos and then a free coconuti! (the never ending perks of being the only two white girls in Sebana Yegua) Well... that´s about it for this week!  Today for p'day we hid out in the middle of a banana farm and drank coconut water from coconuts and chilled in the dirt. It was great!
 
Love and miss you all!!!!  
hermana huish 

Laugh Attack and Free Stuff

I can't believe it's already been three weeks in the field.  It's crazy. (ok maybe three weeks sounds like nothing.... but whatever it's a big deal!) 

On tuesday we started doing a music class because no one here knows how to read music or lead music or anything like that.  So a lot of the boys in the ward came and hermana Rush and I switched off playing the piano while the other helped show how to lead music.  The class was about 35 minutes and we only got through 3/4 time (yeah, they REALLY don't know how music works.) But they were so excited to learn it was adorable.

Wednesday was interesting.  Our first two citas fell through so we decided to hurry and make copies for Oly's baptism invitations.  So we copied and cut all of them and started walking to neighbors and members and handed a lot out.  We were also crazy tired because the annoying dogs barked all night and the chickens also screamed all night and it just made it kind of a rough day.
So we were dragging our feet to walk accross the area to go see if Eduar was home and we saw this man with a cart full of giant sticks of sugar cane.  So we just asked for 5 pesos worth and he cut us each a GIANT stick.  We were stoked.  And to eat sugar cane you take a giant bite and them naw and suck on it and then spit it out (super classy, I know.) It's super interesting stuff but it was a good treat for a crazy off day.  Then the girl who lives by Eduar who combed our hair walked by with her sister and kept staring at our enormous sticks of sugar and Hermana Rush slammed hers against her knee and it split in half.  It was super impressive.  So I karate chopped mine in half too and we gave some to the girls.
We were SO tired that we were just giddy and walked down the street like in circles and just kept laughing and laughing.  Then we walked down one street to see if Luisa was there (she's been out of town a lot) and we heard someone yelling "rubia, rubia!" so obviously whoever it was, was yelling for us because we happen to be the only two white girls in Sabana Yegua.  We looked all around and then realized it was a guy sitting on top of a coconut tree!  He dropped two fat coconuts down to his friends who came and gave them to us!  They offered us 6 more but we were already struggling to hold one each... so we declined.  (but now we have two coconuts that we have no idea what to do with because we dont exactly own a machete...any suggestions??) 

We then went to talk to Oly and she told us that she's excited for her baptism AND she wants to be a missionary!!  We were stoked to say the least.  

We told the elders our great news and we were all excited.... but then the elders called at 10:50 at night to tell us we had to change Oly's baptism to 3:00 instead of 6:00 because they had a baptism too and we were really mad because we had already asked if they did and they said no.  

So, the next morning we had to call Oly like 8 times and the elders back and forth and then go tell the whole ward that the invitations we passed out yesterday weren't happening.  Oly couldn't do it at 3 so we had to change it to next week which is General Conference which is dificult because we're going into Azua... yada yada yada it was frusting...

Anyways, we finally got home, started to make lunch and Hermana Hernandez just started bawling to hermana rush and me about hermana Moronta and we just tried our best to comfort her and tell her we loved her and it was so SO sad and then hermana Moronta walked in and asked her what was wrong and we all got in this big talk about treating each other with respect and it was almost two hours long!  crazy.  

Well then we went to go teach Eduar but he was busy so Pollo (a member... yeah his name is for reals pollo so we call him chicken) said we should teach Eduars dad who just laughed at us and blabbed the whole time.
Friday we had district meeting so we had to go find church keys.  Hermana Rush and I walked to Juana's house and she said she lost her keys. We went to Diwalys house but his mom said he was lifting weights.  We walked towards Presidents house and on the way heard a weird honking noise and turned around and saw a GIANT pig.  I mean really giant.  Then we fuond Hansel who took us to Paula's house because she has the last key. On the way we walked through a neighborhood fight over whose agua was whose.  Then we finally found Paula and had district meeting and ate the banana bread we made from a few of our giant banana stash!  

Saturday we finally had a free morning to study and it was amazing.  We went to the church super fast so I could practice the hymns for sacrament meeting (yeah dad, I'm playing the piano!) and Diwaly and Rony were there cleaning so H. Rush started mopping all the floors while I practiced piano.  

We started this fast that the mission is having and we both want to work on following the promptings of the spirit better.

We had a free 40 minutes from lessons that fell through so we tried to follow the spirit and gave a total impromptu lesson to this lady on the side of the street and since we were both trying to work on following the spirit we bth just talked about like 30 different things and I was kinda all over the place.... hahaha so we need to work on that. 

We had English class and taugh about discriptions (I am tall... blonde...intelligent....bored....happy) it was fun but stressfull because there are a couple people who speak pretty good english and it's nervewracking trying to teach them!  But one of them is named black (thats also his for reals name) and he's adorable and he's working on his mission papers and hermana rush and I keep telling him he's gonna go to Arizona so get ready to have Elder Slade come your way (we hope!) 

Saturday night we bought eggs and tried to make pizookies and they were so good but eating semi raw eggs from the DR kinda freaks me out... but that didn't really stop us from eating it!

On sunday Oly didn't show up to church so now she can't get baptized the next week. OLY!!!  and then Eduar didn't show up either even though when we passed by his house to walk to church with him his brother said he already left for church... we later found out he went to the Catholic church! (some people....) BUT Maria and her son Gabriel came and 6 other investigators and menos activos! 

Gabriel really wants to get baptized but he is mute and deaf so we don't know how to teach him...but third hour of churhc we sat with him and he tried to help us learn sign language!!  We are going to try our hardest to learn so we can teach him!  He's so sweet and 16 years old and we're really stoked about him.  

Last night is rained SUPER hard and it never rains in Sabana Yegua so it was really fun.  I just sat in bed watching the sky flash light and listened to the thunder crackle so loud.  It was ultra nice because none of the dogs were out barking and none of the chickens were out screaming either.  

This morning we woke up super early to come into Azua and play sports with our zone.  We played volleyball and soccer and then slept on the bleachers for a little bit too.  Then we got giant frozen yogurts for 100 pesos which made me super happy because froyo totally reminds me of home.  Now we have to go buy our fruit and veggies for the week and go home and try to clean our house without water.... it's always an adventure here!

Love you and miss you all!

hermana huish