Six Mission Photos from the D.R.

What follows are 6 mission photos in no particular order. 1) Deciding who makes the better candy bar, the LSU Tigers or the Alabama Crimson Tide; 2) Enjoying some local Christmas decorations; 3) A Christmas pig; 4) A mission conference at Christmas; 5) Thanksgiving dinner; and 6) P-Day in the D.R. Country side.

We had 9 investigators in Church yesterday!

Ok, Familia:

I can’t believe Gretchen entered the MTC 3 years ago yesterday! Time really does fly sometimes.

We had a good week. We had zone conference. I really liked it a lot. Hermana Rodriguez talked about health and obedience. And Presidente talked about repentance. However, I’m realizing right now that I´m blanking out and I can´t remember too many details or insights about what he spoke about. But it´s not about what I learned, but what I felt. We also did some role plays and practice. Elder H. and I had a lot of participation. We talked about the successes and goals of the last transfer and the transfer to come. It went well. Another piece of good news, I´ll be able to talk to Francisco and Santa on Tuesday night. Presidente wants us to call the families we baptize about once a month. So, hopefully I´ll be able to talk to them and Horbito and Dianella from Sabana Yegua.

Our other investigators are all doing well. There was a night last week where a couple people weren´t in their house so we decided to pass by to see Luz, because we hadn´t seen her in a while. We set another appointment and got her to Church. I was very happy about that. We had 9 investigators in Church yesterday! All we need to do now is help them progress up until baptism. The members here have given some great support. It makes a big difference when the members sit by the investigators and help them feel comfortable.

We´ve been getting lucky here with food. A lot of members have been feeding us well. The Old Bishop´s family fed us on Saturday afternoon and another great family fed us on Sunday. A great way to break a Fast!

General Conference is this Saturday. We´re going to have it in our chapel. If investigators come, we can go on Saturday. So don´t worry, we´ll be trying to find some people for Saturday. Also on Friday, we have interviews with Presidente. I´ll let you know how those go next week.

English class is growing more and more each week.

This morning we played basketball. I wanted to get a haircut before we went, but somehow on the way there, 500 pesos fell out of my pocket. Which is a shame, because I was going to barely make it through the end of the week with what I had. So, just letting you know.

Love, Phil

I`ve been studying more and thinking more about the greatness of the grace of God.

Letter from Phillip on March 5, 2012

Hola Familia,

Here is a picture of our baptism from last week. I forgot and left my tie at home, but Elder H. loaned me his tie for the baptism.

Let me tell you a bit about this week. We didn´t have a super eventful week, but we did have some good lessons, put some baptismal dates and found some new people to teach.

English class. We started out 3 weeks ago, but it`s already a hit baby. We had about 20 people come to the English class on Saturday. We divided the class up into 2. An advanced class and a beginner class. Elder B. and I took the advanced class and it was great. We did it all in English. We were wondering how everybody found out about it. I think we`ll end up finding some people to teach out of all of it.

We did a service project this week as well. We cleaned a kid`s house in our ward. His name is Angelo. He`s a funny kid who loves to theorize about deep doctrine. He`s preparing for his mission, and always helps us out, so we decided to return the favor.

We have the coolest former bishop ever. He just got released, but he has so much excitement to help others. Everyone looks up to his family as the model family in the ward. Our current bishop is great too. We just have to drop by his house more often.

We got an awesome referral this past week. Her name is Paola and lives with a recent convert. She`s 18, and had a lot of questions about the Book of Mormon. She read the testimonies at the front of the book and was ticked off that there were no woman witnesses. She thought it was somewhat sexist. But she went to Church yesterday and liked it. We have an appointment with her soon.

Also, we are teaching the rest of Maora`s family. They are all going to Church and a couple of them have accepted to be baptized.

I`ve been reading a lot in the book of Romans. The apostle Paul is still one of the best missionaries ever. If only we could all be as smooth as him. Ever since that Grace talk you sent me by Brad Wilcox, I`ve been studying more and thinking more about the greatness of the grace of God.

Have a great week!

Elder LeCheminant

The things of eternal significance

January 30, 2012

Let us begin with the things of eternal significance. Maria was baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Saturday night by her uncle. She was truly ready to become a member of the Church and will be a strength to the wards she lives in. She is studying to become a doctor at Santo Domingo University. We watched the movie The Restoration at her baptism. Before my mission, I had known the doctrine of the Church, but in my mission I´ve come to a greater understanding of the doctrine. I was reading Acts of the Apostles this past week, and I more fully understood that I belong to the same church as Apollos, Paul, Peter and Timothy. It was a true restoration. So, long story short, the baptism was a success.

Operation Ingrown Toenail

Operation Ingrown Toenail. You heard right. I´ve had an ingrown toenail for about a year, but it´s never bugged me too bad until a couple weeks ago. So I called Hermana Rodriguez last night, and she told me to go to the MTC doctor this morning. Elder Shaver, from Eagle Idaho operated on me. We had some good mutual Eagle connections, so we passed the time well. He numbed the toe, and cut out the bad part of the nail. Quite anti-climactic, but now my toe is better than ever. We stopped by McDonalds afterwards on our way to the metro. All in all, an excellent morning in downtown Santo Domingo!

We´ve started teaching a man who has been less active for about 13 years. He lost a little daughter a couple weeks ago and decided to come back to church. We decided to teach his family, and have put baptismal dates with his two kids. Ashley (10), and get this, John Taylor (8). We´ve had some good visits and I think they´re going to progress. Maria is doing great. She´s still looking good for baptism on the 28th of this month. Gabriela has a lot of interest. Her husband´s a super chill guy that is very nice, but works most Sundays.

In other news, I read an excellent talk by Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin called Sunday Will Come. I loved it. He related it to Christ´s resurrection. We all have our Fridays, when everything goes wrong in life. However, Sunday morning will always come. That´s what I like about religion. I can´t imagine living life without the hope that everything will be made fair and just in the end. Let´s be honest, all too often, this life is not fair. But that is why we believe in a compensating after life. If we keep that hope kindled in our everyday life, life treats us better.

Love to all,

Elder LeCheminant

I thought a lot about the mercy and compassion of God

Dear Family & Friends

We finished the year in style, and have started the new with pizazz. I´m not quite sure what that means, but I do know that we´re gonna find out if the Mayans were right this year.

We had an excellent week. Francisco, the man that we´ve worked with closely for the past 5 months entered into the waters of baptism on Saturday night. Then, the first day of 2012 he was confirmed a member of the Church. It was an incredible experience. I thought a lot about the mercy and compassion of God. He´s always there to accept us when we repent and do our part. His wife Santa shared her testimony at the baptism and they both shared their testimonies on Sunday. After the baptism, Santa made us a mean Dominican stew and we all felt good.

New Years Eve here is wild. Loud music is always a part of the culture here. But it was only amplified. These past two weeks, everybody has spent their vacations by sitting outside, dancing bachata, and drinking beer.

I will tell you another story of the week. TERREMOTO! My first earthquake. It was at about 5 A.M and it scared us all when we felt all the beds shaking. No need to fear, it was just a little one, and it did nothing else but give us good conversation starters throughout the week. I said we were going to be looking for some good new investigators, and we were blessed to find a few new people with a lot of interest.

We contacted a super cool woman named Gabriela. She´s a mother that went to all three hours of Church yesterday with her two children. She´s got a lot of personality. She told us to mark off some chapters in the Book of Mormon that will help her. She´s accepted a baptismal date, and is excited to learn more.

Maria is still as strong as ever. She should be getting baptized in a couple of weeks.

For P-Day we cleaned and went to a priesthood ward activity playing dominoes. I´ll have to teach you all how to play Dominican dominoes.

It´s a big holiday here today. The Day of Kings; honoring the three wise men; so nobody´s working.

I got some great Christmas letters from friends and family. Tell everybody thanks!

Well, I´m doing well!

Love,

Felipe Victor

Four New Pictures of Elder LeCheminant

Here are a few fun photos that Phillip passed along to his parents recently. The first is with a few of his bunk mates; the second is him wearing a New York baseball shirt on P-Day; the third photo captures him taking a break while on the streets of the D.R.; and the last is a picture taken with his companion and President & Sister Rodriguez!