Como Estan?? How are you guys?? I bet the weather's starting to turn.. It should be snowing by now haha. Hope the kids are adjusting to school, new classes and new responsibilities! I bet it's crazy once again moving out of Grandma's and into the house in Lehi. It will all be worth it once its finished i'm sure. I was just talking to some Elders who were visiting the Temple today from my same mission. They said "Oh! you're Elder Tate? You've got a stack of letters, like a STACK of letters waiting for you." haha so I'm sorry if I didn't write back to you. It's on my list. Recently I've been craving.. so bad. Wendy's. I made the mistake of eating a Ceaser Salad basically every day the last two weeks before I left.. Bad move. haha I'll attach some pictures of what we eat, Rice and beans.. and some times we get lucky and have Octopus!! Its probably not that but it's my closest guess. haha. Its wild! Today is my last day in the CCM. Last Pday with air-conditioning.. prepared meals.. my companion.. All that. We've decided that the CCM is the only place in the DR that is still part of the US. Its English, White, and everyone has a wallet full of money. But I'm ready for a change of scene. Six weeks is a long time. But you can only learn so much from a Teacher. I feel comfortable teaching more or less and the language will come when it comes. This Sunday, me and Elder Cole got to bless the Sacrament in SPANISH. Crazy. I'm a believer in the gift of Tongues. But I would like to share a little about our experience doing splits this past friday. It was an experience I will never forget!
Lets see if I have enough time to cover what we did. So we're on the bus with all the Elders going east. Maybe like.. 20-30 minute bus ride, not too bad. Then the busdriver pulled over on the side of a busy intersection and pointed and said to walk that way. After what? An HOUR of walking we couldn't find our Elders who were taking us. Just try and picture this scence for a minute. 15-20 white, american, clueless, did I mention White? Guys just walking up and down the streets of Santo Domingo. But yeah, so me and this other guy Elder Brockbank walked in a small little office building that read (I'll translate) "Charity and Good Will". Turns out its a Funeral Home, but they let us use their phone, so we called the East Mission Home - They called the AP and about vente minutos despues we had our new compañeros for the night. Haha pretty funny. So I was paired with Elder Coc, who is from Peru.. Or Guatemala or something. What a stud. He only stood up to about my chin, but he was always so relaxed and comfortable with everyone we met. I'm tellin' ya, we talked to a lot of people. It was great. After walking through just about every tunnel, through dirty, flooded walk-ways. I can't tell you how good we have it in America.. In American, you don't work, you get unemployment benefits and food stamps. Here when you don't work, you don't eat, your family doesn't eat. And you start running out of options, quick. I found out after that the Elder Coc is serving in had recently just been reopened. They were saying it was the most poverty-stricken area in all of the city. What I saw was the poorest living Santo Domingo has to offer. But I'm tellin ya, every single person let us in and wanted to know more. I'm glad there's people in this world who live without prejudice. Its hard for me to find the works to describe the things I saw. It's one of those things one must experience to understand. I guess I'm starting to see what Dad was talking about when he visited Africa.
But let me tell ya. This mission is for me. I wouldn't even think about serving any where else. I wish I could sit down with you all individually and just talk. Because I don't have that, Letters will have to suffice for now.
I've learned so much these past weeks. About the gospel, the language, dominicans. I've loved it. I can feel the spirit with ease inside the walls of the CCM. I'm gonna miss that. But hey, keep the letters coming as you have time to write. I'd love to hear how you are all doing in your everyday. The East Mission's pday is Lunes (monday) and we leave early tuesday.. So you'll probably hear form me next tuesday! Love you guys, thanks for your rockstar examples for me! Haz lo justo!
Mosiah 2 : 41
Elder Tate
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