hablamos de los justos‏

Que lo que me gente!

Its so tough to try and pick what to say when I write these. Haha, This week a lot has been happening, and honestly the week coming will be just about the same. 

Had Stake Conference this past weekend. HOLY COW. Coming from the tiny rama all the way up in the mountains, seeing a chapel completely full all the way to the back and having people standing up because we ran out of chairs was simply amazing. It really was such an awesome meeting. We had the first Counsellor of the Temple Presidency Santo Domingo Temple there. And as you can probably guess, he talked about (da da da duuun) THE TEMPLE. Normally, a talk like that would make me miss my weekly temple trips there, But this is a special week. Something that only happens every 12 of never. 

Get ready.

We are capital bound this wednesday.

WE ARE GOING TO THE TEMPLE BAYBAY

YESSS. I wish you could hear how much I get psyched out to my comp every morning to go. Its only happens twice a year, and It's seriously going to be the best. AHHH.

This week we met a fine young chap, Jonathan. He was a reference from a returned missionary in ourr ward. He is on fire. He's about twenty, single, and works in the capital every day. But he loves church! It' s super great. He's read up on the church a TON. and knows everything. Out of all our investigators he has the most 'animo' to learn. We're gonna keep meeting up with him, and hopefully we can put a fecha for his baptism. It's so great to find someone who is so prepared to learn and feel the spirit. I love teaching the teachable. It gets me exciting just talking about it. 

 

But it's great, we just made friends with our new ward mission leader today. He's 20 and is preparing for a mission, sending in his paper this next sunday. But anyway, he lives was out in campo. So today we took a bus out to see him and his family. They own quite a bit of land for farming and all the rest. But he showed us some absolutely awesome mountain. Things I thought only existed in Utah, you know? But It was great. Great to be out and just breath that easy peaceful mountain air. 

I feel like I am so scatterbrain right now.. Just really excited for what's coming this week. But I did find something I really liked this week in our companionship study. We were reading up on Temples and just whatever we could find on the subject of Temples and we came across a talk in the Liahona that mentioned the scripture found in Ephesians chapter 6, the whole chapter is just golden. But I liked the verses 13-18 a lot. If you are ever needing an inspring scripture, you can always turn to any of the epistles of Paul. I just picture him as a meridian time Elder Holland. You ougtta read it so you can understand what I'm talking about. 

Aun que yo soy el scatterbrain ahora. Se que eso es la Iglesia verdadera otra vez restaurado entre la faz de la tierra. Me siento muy agradicedo para ser un misionero en este tiempo en la historie de la Iglesia. Con muchas de mis amigos, nosotros somos los soldados del señor en esos los ultimos dias. Les amo cada uno de ustedes. Yo estoy muy suerte para tener familia y amigos come ustedes. 

Cuidanse mucho. Nunca olvidaran nuestro salvador y que hizo el para el mundo.

Good luck with that google translate.

Love you guys more than mangoes

Elder Tate

Attached--

Obligatory little banana photo & us passing by a hotel where there was a POOL.

 

 

Tasty

Here. Its a getting home tired and eating cookies for dinner kind of life. Missions full of rules, to keep our mind, heart and thoughts here while we are serving. But one rule that is not found in the misión manual is the number of cookies you can eat. I feel like I eat too many.

Today, super cool, I'm just feeling more comfortable and at peace with spanish. I love looking back at an hour long bus ride where I was just talking about.. Just STUFF. When I arrived on this loco Island, I felt like I didn't have much of a personality when I would speak spanish. Like I'd just throw a bunch of uncongugated verbs out there and hope they made some sort of sense. But I'm gettin it baby! Not all the way there yet, but, teaching, calling on the pone.. ya tu sabes. Those things that used to scare me are just the everyday now.

Pretty cool.

More or less avarage week. We got to do a super awesome service for the mornings of Wednesday/Thursday. We arrived at the house of this single momma with 5 Young kids runnin around, with our broom and mop ready to clean her patio. No biggie. but unbenounced to us: Patio in spanish refers to the BACKYARD. Not, the front patio where people sit. Her backyard was knee high with thick, nasty weeds. So.. She gave us both machetes and we started a whackin. It took us two days mostly because we don't get anywhere close to squaring up the the speed of Hatian counterparts. From being on the mish without of all our adventuring, out hands have gotten super soft. . And yeah, Elder Bodily's and my hand within and hour were cramping up, and we became fatigued from the beating of the hot sun.

So, yeah. It took us two days.

It's super awesome to get to know this family. The mothers name is Rue, and her kids are all just smiley and so ready to learn about the góspel. One of the younger girls, Maunuela, is very great friends with Sorangy (the gal who was baptized). And like her has a raging desire for some tank time, as do her other very excited sisters. Its super great. We just got to know some other neighbors of the same group of Little kid friends. This other family, same deal, has a son named Junior who is pretty good friends with Manuela and Sorangy and we got to pass by and start the first lesson. Very attentive and happy family who don't believe that we are really on our own at 18 and 19. But I see a lot of progress with both of these families for the transfer. All of our other investigators we have dates for and having a hard time visiting chruch. But we will continure to visit them as much as we can, and keep inviting them til we drop.

Had parque al este again. Played a Little soccer. Just hung out and tried to keep cool. Always a great time.

Just a thought I had this week, I'd like to leave with the other stuff I said before I go -

Sharing the Gospel is always a great thing to do. We all know that. But the thing is, it sounds like a scary thing to do at times, especially among friends, and family members that maybe are not making the best choices. Before my mission, I can honestly say I never shared my testimony with my Pals, and family as much as I should have. I was too worried of what I would say, and if they would take what I was saying the wrong way. Stuff like that. But thats the cool thing, thats where the holy ghost comes in. The holy ghost accompanies us when we seek it's power honestly and worthily. We can share góspel truths with ease. In Alma chapter 37 verse 6 it tells us that "For the small and simple things are great things brought to past.." This scripture is so true, and I know it. I know if we do the small things to help out our friends, family, whomever! Thery're gonna remember it, and it could be just enough to help them change and come unto our Savior. I know we're here with a purpose, lets not let this great oppurtunity slip through our hands while we still have time.

Yeah, you already know.

Have that super cool week doing whatever you do

Elder Tate

ps momma said she wanted to see baptism pics.

here you go.