A True White Christmas in the D.R.

Phillip had a very wonderful (and very lengthy) phone conversation with his family on Christmas Day!

He said he had a message for both of his loyal blog readers:

"As the new year begins, may we all begin anew our committment to good music, good food, our family, and the gospel of Jesus Christ!"

Of course Phillip's parents worried about the potential “homesickness” that naturally results from the Chrismas calls, but Phillip and his companion had a baptism (a Mom and Dad and 8 year old daughter) scheduled for later that evening which all agreed would be the single best remedy to any homesickness that might result from the Christmas phone call!

The following are excerpts from his email on Monday reporting on the Christmas Day baptism!

Hey my favorite Christmas family: I love you!

I´ll tell you all about the baptism. I realized I forgot to tell you the whole marriage story. [The parents of course could not get baptized until they were legally married.] It was a huge fight to get them married. After their third trip into the capital and a small miracle, they got the permission to be married.

On Wednesday, the judge was a bit lazy and said that she´d rather do the ten minute service on Monday. Anyways, the Assistants to the President´s for the south talked to the judge and convinced her to do it right then. They got married without any problems.

Later that night, I ended up doing an intercambio [missionary exchange], with Elder Messidor, one of the assistants. I actually loved the intercambio with Elder Messidor. He´s Haitian, goes home in about two weeks, and is a stud missionary. He definitely teaches like the Book of Mormon Prophets with power and authority.

But back to the baptism. They all showed up to the Church with no problems. They all had a lot of animo (excitement) to be baptized. They decided that Elder Urry would baptize the Mom and the little girl, and that I would baptize the Dad. The baptisms were great. I didn´t get the Dad fully into the water the first time, but the second time was perfect. My shirt got all wet and I forgot to bring another one, but no worries. It feels good wearing a damp shirt all night.

We went to the family´s house after the baptism to celebrate with them. When the Mom prayed at the end of the night, she was truly grateful for the feeling she felt that night. She definitely prays with her heart and she knows that she´s talking to God. Something that I can work on in my life. They all showed up to Church on time to receive the Holy Ghost, then the Dad bore his testimony.

I Love...the people...of the world!

Elder Phil

All That Matters

To read a letter from Phillip to Gretchen, go here.

Here's his letter from the week...

The big news of the week is that Confesora was baptized.  It was a great baptism.  Elder Urry did it.  We weren´t exactly sure how to do it because she doesn´t have much control of her legs, and she´s a fairly hefty lady.  He tried a few times, but her legs kept coming up.  Finally, what we ended up doing is a priest from the branch rolled up his pants and came in to the font.  He held her legs down, while Elder Urry went in with her.  No need to worry, she was immersed and the next day became a member of the Church.  She gave a great testimony in Sacrament yesterday too.  She´s not all the way there in the head, but she knows the church is true and she comes every sunday.  That´s all that matters baby!

We had some great lessons with the gangster, Amaoris.  Actually, probably the best lessons I´ve had on the mission.  We went with a woman in the ward named Marsela.  She´s my favorite in the ward.  She got baptized about 4 years ago, and always bears an awesome testimony of the Book of Mormon.  He reads and prays.  The problem is, he left out of town for about a month yesterday.  So we gave him all the pamphlets, told him to keep reading, and hopefully, after he returns we´ll get him to Church.  And the papers of Bolivar showed up this week.  He´s getting married.  He has met with the missionaries just about every day for the past 5 months, so he knows everything just as well as all the members.  Honestly, probably better than most.  So this Saturday we´re going to baptize him and his son Carlito.  I´m super excited. We´re still working on Fledida and Luis.  I doubt that Luis will be baptized now, but hopefully they get married so that Fledida can become a member.  

I had a good week.  I love you all!  -Elder LeCheminant

Always Be Enthusiastic and Get People Involved!

Familia!

How is everything going back in the estados unidos?

Wow! It´s amazing how much you miss the candied yams of Grandma Teedie when all you´ve had are rice and beans for a month!

Well, I´ll talk about how this past week was for us. Most of the days have been pretty typical for us. But I´ll give you a cap of some of the more exciting things that happened this week. We have two great new investigators. One, named Willy is a 16 year old kid. He had gone to Church like the last 5 Sundays, but no one told us about him, so he hadn´t met with the missionaries. Hopefully, we´re gonna teach him tonight.

The other guy was Amaoris. I talked to him on the street with a bunch of other guys who were playing dominoes. They all looked like thugs, so I started questioning them to give me some good Dominican slang. They were all more than willing. Dime a ver mi Pana Ful. Que lo que monstruo. Translation, talk to me friend. What´s up monster! He also wanted to work on his English so we said we´d pass by the next day. My comp figured he wouldn´t really be interested and just wanted to learn some English phrases so he let me do all the talking. I figured I had nothing to lose so I might as well be as enthusiastic about the message as possible and try to get this guy interested. I left him a pamphlet and he committed to read it. Everyone commits to read, but the most we´ve had is someone reading a couple pages from a contact visit. We passed by yesterday and he had read it twice. With some good questions about it for us!

So the lesson I learned this week is always be enthusiastic and get people involved, and don´t judge anyone by their looks. Because people are full of surprises!
Love,

Elder LeCheminant