Derek: Welcome to the DR

I left the beautiful country of the USA last Tuesday night at around midnight. On my plane was a Sister, and my new companion Elder Vigil. We then we had a layover at JFK airport. I was suspecting to meet up with a bunch of new elders, but we only ran into two; which it turns out, was practically my whole district. We all took the last 4 hour plane flight to the DR. The second we stepped out of the plane the humidity hit us like a dump truck. The exchange rate here is crazy; it was like 16000 DR pesos for 360 bucks. Anyway, we took a van to the MTC so we got to drive though the city. The trees and other plants were so green and grew everywhere and the beach was beautiful. Almost every building was worn down or in ruins, but the bright colors they were painted made it really pretty to behold. We got to the MTC and everyone here is super nice. I've only been here for a week but and we all feel so close. There are only 23 of us here and 8 in my district, which I actually enjoy. It means we get close and we get more hands-on time. This is crazy because the Provo MTC has thousands of missionaries. My companion is an Elder Vigil. He is super cool, but his basketball is worse then his Spanish. We have about ten hours of classes a day for teaching and language skills. Learning Spanish has been really hard for me. I am far behind the others and am struggling to learn the language. This is hard for me because if I had to be honest I think I might know more than many of them how to connect and teach better, but I am not able to say what I feel the practice investigators need to hear. (Plus they are going so much harder on us than the others.) I keep getting super hard on myself and stress out a lot, and I'm always studying but I feel that I am still not fluent yet. But that is when I remind my self it’s only been 5 days and no one has ever mastered a language in 5 days. Its just I feel like I have been in here for at least an eternity and so I expect my Spanish to be as good as such. I can't believe I’ve still got 5 more weeks in here because it feels like its already been forever and I just want to be out on the actual mission already. The locals here are truly the nicest people in the world. Every one I've met is so welcoming and so sincere. My comp and I walked into the gym last week and these 5 cute little 9 year old members who were here because their parents were visiting the temple ran up to us and started giving us hugs. It was the best feeling in the world. We spent the rest of free time playing ping pong and fussball with them and even though we could barley talk to each other, they were so nice. I’ve heard it’s also like that out in the field and can’t wait. The Temple here is by far the prettiest building in the whole city and probably the whole country. It is made of this pink marble and is super big. We even drove by the capital building and it was nothing compared to the beauty of the temple. The food here taste really good coming in but sucks coming out. My comp and I have been having trouble with the food the whole time. Prayers are answered almost instantly here. I have had 3 prayers answered in less then an hour after I asked. Anyway the people here are amazing and even though I am learning a lot, I cant wait to go and serve.