April 14th- Same Old Same Old, Just Teaching to a Different Fold

Hello!

Grographically and domestically, the streets I'm walking here in Capotillo are miles aways from what I'm used to. Theres this awesome thing called a light schedule, which means between the hours of six and ten forty-five twice a day, you don't have a fridge. The dudes here are way buffer, houses are super crammed in, it smells a happy smiley port a potty.. A lot is different here, but 

everyone here still gives us juice so its cool. 

This area acutally used to be two. They combined the Capotillo and the Simon Bolivar wards about three years ago due to inactivity amongst the wards. This means they also combined the missionary areas. So the area we've got is a chore to cover. But the work is alive a living here, and we have a ward mission leader! I'm excited to have more support from the ward

The elders before us left a baptism. It was this last saturday, it was all green flags. The tank was full, speakers were selected, papers filled out.. Everything. It's normal for all meetings to start an hour later than planned, but this meeting was kind of a let down. Nobody but the speakers and us missionaries were there. We postponed for the next saturday. 

I felt bad for the guy.

Elder Ventura is 19, he's from guatemala, knows spanish, and like half my size. He's a super nice guy I know we're gonna be just fine. Good feeling.

Being district leader doesn't mean a whole lot. Just that you have more stuff to do, and more meetings to go to. I am excited to see what this transfer brings.

Oh yeah" And I'm now the ward painst once more! But Capotillo/Simon Bolivar hasn't had an elder who could play in over a year and a half, so they only know a few hymns and what they don't know is how to sing while there is a piano accompanying them haha. Kinda fun. 

Not much more I can think of.. This upcoming week is semana santa, which is the week celebrating the coming of Christ's birth. It is common for people here to prepare spiritually during the week by staying home and reading scriptures, fasting, praying and spending time with the family. For the kids it is even a week off from school. I hope we all can prepare a little big and learn a little bit more about what Christ has done for us, and hopefully

 gain a bigger testimony about our Savior

Love each and every one of you, take care

 Elder Tate

foto 1

Me and the compa chillin missionary style

foto 2

find of the day: 

waffle crisp

I love capital grocery stores

April 7th- Whoop schee doo bop a scooby doo‏

Hey Everyone,

What a marvelous week in was. Well Saturday and Sunday, M-F. Very very lame. Bodily had actually contracted Giardia, which meant that we could not leave the house. Yay. In my days hiking and being outside, I had heard of the dangers of giardia but I always shook it off and drank the river water anyway. But NO MORE. I have seen it's effects and would suggest to avoid this plague at all costs. But we got creative with our house time; played hours and hours of dominos, read cool things, and read cool scripture books. I gotta say, I do not wish solitary confinement on any man. It is a bad way to live.

Conference though. MAN, it's always a great weekend when theres conference. Sin embargo, this conference was my first in spanishhh. So it was different but the familiar spirit was still there. Thats how I'll describe it; it's different. Its odd for me to hear the Apostle who's conducting be cut off and replaced by a deep, heavy masculine spanish man voice. At first I said, ''No wait.. I can understand the first one!'' But it's cool, I think that Richard G Scott covered his own talk in spanish, because his talk was clearly an american who magically possessed all the same abilities of putting everyone listening to sleep. My comp doesn't think it was, but I'm tellin ya that it had to be him. 

But--

I have a cool story. and if any of you guys still read these letters, you'll be excited too. 

Between the Saturday sessions, we ran home to make some lunch. I'll draw out the scene for you: So there I was in the kitchen, making guacamole. Just mashing up some big fat avocados and mashing and mashing. When suddenly, the older elders bust in and tell me that I had to call President. I'm was like ''What?? Why?!'' I thought my life as a missionary was over. While the phone was ringing, I was thinking of any sin I might have commited, or any person that I may have offended in Hato Mayor. So, after we exchanged pleasantries, he asked me: Elder Tate, would you be willing to serve as district leader in Capotillo, Santo Domingo? 

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT? After I gather my drooling mouth back off the floor, I stumbled out something, and I think I said yes. 

So, Whoop whoop. I'm all packed and I'm tomorrow I'm headed for this awesome cool place called Capotillo. All I've heard is that its pretty sketchy area and a lot of people die there. Don't freak out, Mom. Missionaries don't die, just gansters and angry people. I'll be with a little Guatemalan named Elder Ventura (which translated almost means adventure). He's from the same group as Bodily, and I hear he is incredibly shy. So, I'm excited to break him out of that shell. But yeah, I'm very new to the capital and am excited to see what it's gonna be like. 

Bodily goes Capital too, he'll be in Osama so we'll get to see eachother this next p day when all the missionaries get together to play soccer!

 

I wish I could throw up some pictures.. Evil dominican computers gave the card I've been using a nasty virus.

Other than that, theres not much to report on. I wish to leave with a scripture that a found finishing Alma this past week. It didn't really mean much until I got an email from a friend a few weeks ago. He told me the to be a missionary is to be a minister. And a minister means that you are also in the same terms an Angel. It sounds almost narcissistic to say, but he explained to me that to bring another the gospel means to be an angel. Anyway, I found this past week that Missionaries really are angels and Alma backs it up right here when he says:

 Alma 32:23 

23 And now, he imparteth his word by angels unto men, yea, ^anotonly men but women also. Now this is not all; little ^bchildren do have words given unto them many times, which ^cconfound the wise and the learned. 

Pretty neat to think about I'd say.

And shoutout to ASHLYN PERRY who leaves for the Santo Domingo West Mission this week. She's a real cool gal.

Ok, thats a big email but you better have like it.

Choose the Right

From

Elder 

Tate

March 31st- Just a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down

What a week.. 

Bodily and I have spent the week making crepe after crepe after crepe. Don't know how it actually worked out, but it did. We successfully had a big ole swap of american stuff for dominican stuff witha  lady who came all the way from salt lake to visit the rolling hills of Hato Mayor. So yeah, por la gracia de dios we have had a nice heavy jar of nutella that complimented our crepes this week. Shout out to that golden father or mine. Who provided along with the nutella, 2 bags or cadberry eggs, jelly beans, chili powder, guacamole mixes and all the rest. Definitely the crown moment of this past week.

We put down some fechas!!!!

Yanni and Jazmin both said yes to the invitation to be baptized. We contacted them a little less that 3 weeks ago, and have been progressing too fast. Yanni is Jazmin's aunt but they all live with Janni's sister (who crazy enough was already a member, just less active) in the same house. But yeah, they both agreed witht the firm date of 3rd of May. I know they'll make it to their date, these two are super humble and are love reading from the BOM. It's so awesome to see that light go in their eyes. 

Also, we had great progress with another young gal, Tibisay, who's 22. She made it to church this past week, and said she felt like she was among friends. We promised her if she would make the effort to go to church, that she would feel the spirit and be super blessed. She, too, is progressing and reading from the book of mormon. I enjoy visiting her, because she always has a new question about the gospel or what we can and can't do as missionaries here in the DR. It's tough with her though, sometimes it feels like she thinks we're dating. We can't tell if she's just being really nice when she calls to see if we made it home safe, or when she calls to invite us over earlier than the return visit we had made just the day before just because "she wants to talk". And just the other day, we accidentally leave our phone at home and have 4 missed calls... all from Tibisay.  °.O ... Wierd.

But, the feelings are not mutual. So I feel like we're safe.

Played soccer most the day today, drank some awesome pera piña, and yeah. Now I'm here. 

Right. Named the letter what I did because the companion is now deathly ill. We measured his tempurature and it was 102. He called the presidents wife and we have to go get his poop checked to see if he's got a super fun parisite called amebas. If he does, happy day for us! Because we'd have to stay home for the week

 and DIE of boredom.

Last week of transfers. Gonna get a haircut tomorrow. I'm consuming unhealthy amounts of mangoes... What else, summers coming.. And oh yeah. Super super super excited for conference. 

Love ya guys, thanks for all the prayers and continued support for the missionaires,

Cuidense

Elder Tate

March 24th- We keep spendin' most our lives livin' in the preachin' paradise

Safe to say that my time here in the mission has been put into a vaccum. I have no handle on how fast these p days come and go, I swear school weeks never went by this quick.

This week we worked quite a lot with our pool of women that we are teaching. It's tough to say if they deserve the name of ''progressing'' investigators. They progress off the walls when we come by to teach, but always fail to be found in the congregation on sundays. It got the important reminder this week in my personal study that agency is the reason we're all still here. And even my beloved investigators can choose not to go to church. It's tough sometimes, but when they actually do come we praise the heavens all the day long!

It's wierd for me to think that more than two thirds the transfer's already done. It seriously feels like we just had our big get together that we have when we start transfers.

Spoke in church this last sunday. It's super awesome to look back and see how much more comfortable I am giving talks than when I was just brand new. I spoke about how sometimes (without knowing it) we are living far below our potential as members of the church. I shared the story from the Utchdorf's April 2011 talk he gave about the man who boarded a cruise ship and didn't know the price of food and all the activites aboard were included with the price of the ticket. I could really feel the spirit when I shared this last sunday. 

And that is never a bad thing

So.. I'm not going to brag off the walls or anything about this one. But, for p day today we kind of went to 

A WATERFALL. AAHHHHH, Again with the swimming temptation!!!! I was gonna just explode. Me and Bodily got the once in a lifetime day with some cascadas, and it was (I know i've said it in a couple emails) THE best day of my mission as far as p days go. I'll see if I can't put a photo on, my card has been really buggy the last couple times. But, yeah. I promise on the existence of snow that I did not swim. We instead, just took really dramatic pictures of us pretending to jump in. But yeah, It was a day that will never be erased. 

Also this week, I read up on the Anti Nephi Lehites in Alma 24. It is awesome to see what faith those people had, and what solid testimonies they must have had as well. Ya oughtta read it when you have the time.

Thanks for being you

Have an amazing week

Elder Tate

March 17th

talofa lava

que tal mi gente??

This week was super duper. Not much went down for P Day, we're trying to find some more fun things to do while we still have mountains for a back yard. haha, but we always have a good time.

This week at church we found our new referrals there. Such a nice surpirse, Its rough have so many people ''promise'' us JUST ONE HOUR for church, and never have them come. But I'll tell ya now about these referrals, they are cousins and a sister of some members in our ward (the same ones that let us use their cpu's every week to write) and the momma/aunt was just delighted to recieve her Book of Mormon this past sunday at church. In all of it's rarities, I always love placing that gorgeous book in the hands of someone ready to learn. So, we're gonna keep passing by, and hope for monumental progress. Because, for real, she had a chasm of anger when I teased that I left her book at the house. I hope they read. All of our other dique ''investigators'' have each either not been home, or are just too busy to meet with us it seems. We'll keep passing by, but a lot of our pool are just that, pass by and invite for church. It's sad to drop investigators that had dates for baptism or who seemed to be progressing so well. It's something I am always reluctant to do.

We had another domincan delicacy the other day. Havichuelas con Dulce -- or Sweet Beans. Its a smoothie of pinto, kidney and the other dark bean, with lots of sugar and cinnamon. Before you say what I did, you've gotta give it a try because it's nothing short of super super good. (haha couldn't think of a good word to use). I'll have to get the recipe.

Just about halfway through this transfer, times flying, and it's getting hotter. Still sweating ALL the time. Pero, asi es la mision. 

Right. The Temple this past wednesday was just incredible. Makes me miss the luxury we have of temples 15 minutes from the house in every direction. I just love the temple. Every time I go, I learn something new. This time, it was how to do an endownment session in spanish. Whoop whoop. Leaving with the spiritual high, we then went to the Wendys, where I then palleted my tray with 20 dollars worth of the best american plates this place has. Days simply do not get much better than that. 

Let me know if theres something you wanna know... because, I know theres always something about the week that is left out. 

Yeah, stay righteous and persevere!!

Super inspiring missionary scripture I read in the temple

Alma 17:11-12

With Love Love Love,

Elder Tate

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.