The weeks here in La Vega are getting more interesting

Hey what is up guys! The weeks here in La Vega are getting more interesting  while I am here. Happy Birthday Jacob! That sucks that you are still sick but get better bud and enjoy the day for me. Thanks so much for the package! IT was a great help and the candy is awesome. But this past weekend Raulin got baptized, it was his son that had the operation there was a little miscommunication on the phone. So the first fruit I have produced got baptized, so I got to talk to him the night before his baptism and he was way excited for it. So they have a piano here, and I’m still the only one that knows how to play, but it is way out of tune, and hardly any of the black keys work so I gave up playing, it just sounded terrible, and I don’t have to give talks only if someone can’t do it I might have to give one.

But this week there was a fight in front of our house during lunch on Friday and some guy got shanked in the back of the head and died which made for a gruesome lunch but an interesting one. Also we got robbed this week, someone busted one of our windows while we were at church on Sunday, but they only took money thank goodness. So I was only missing 200 pesos and Elder Reyes the same. Good thing we had our other things hidden so I only lost about 6 bucks. We came home from church and I always carry 200 pesos in case we get robbed and I couldn’t find mine and neither could my comp, so we thought we just misplaced it. So we prayed as we got ready to leave and when we looked up we could tell our window was busted. So we got lucky.

We have an awesome family that we are teaching that is so smart. They understand everything we teach and I have to change my style of teaching because they are so intelligent and it is fun teaching them. We had a family home evening with a bunch of members and the branch president that went way well. This family will be the next members of the church in this branch. Also we have some other awesome families and investigators. This area is fun, because we get to teach people that know how to read and can understand everything for themselves. We have had some set backs with people, but for the most part everyone is progressing, next transfer will be the bomb if I can stay here.

There are three things here that just push my buttons sometimes - The Virgin Mary, everyone while we are contacting that is the first question that they ask, what is y’alls belief in Maria? The second are dreams, everyone here think that dreams are the answer to them. Yesterday we had someone that told us they didn’t go to church because they had a dream that they shouldn’t go to church. The third are Jehovah’s witnesses, these people are the most brain washed people that I have seen.

But I am doing great and our area is progressing like none other. There is some weirdish going on with all of the carnaval stuff, but we just try to avoid it and work. Also this week we ate lunch at a member’s house on Sunday, and the wife and husband live here for the most part but have another house in Sandy. She asked me, do you know where the Chucky Cheese, Nordstrom’s and Chipotle are, and I almost died as soon as she said that. I was like you have got to be kidding me, she lives right next to the Cosco there and it made me a little trunky when she said that. But enjoy the BYU/TCU basketball game for me, and hopefully they win!


Love Elder Smith


More pics from last week

 "To the waterfall"

 The Bridge

 On the bridge

 Elder Vercello and Matthew

 Elder Reyes and Matthew

Matthew and Elder Williams

Jarabacoa

Hey guys, what is going on, are y’all enjoying the cold? But yeah this week has been a really interesting week and one of my most active weeks. Raulin and his family were going to get baptized this Saturday, but something happened and he had to have surgery on something, I didn’t understand on what, but he has to wait 20 more days until they can do it. It is heating up here, and I am sweating beads out here and it isn’t even summer yet. There will be photos today, and I have some sweet photos from today. Today we went up into the mountains by Jarabacoa and went to the waterfalls up there as a zone and they were legit!

Our area is doing great right now. We have some people that are just golden! Our hard work is starting to pay off, and we are starting to see the fruits of our labor. We have a lot of families that we have contacted in the night that are really intelligent which is hard to find people to teach like that, and they read and understand everything. There have been times this week when we did a contact and left a pamphlet and come back the next day and the parents read everything and have questions for us which usually never happens. Hey in the Ensign there is a girl that is in the questions and answers section, and she works with us a lot and we got like 3 golden references from her this past week but it is cool that she is in the Ensign. When Elder Reyes and I got here, and when we got the cell phone, on the screen it said Framboyanes Chupa, which means framboyanes sucks, but we have had a positive attitude this transfer and we have learned to love the area. We might not have as many lessons as the other missionaries but we have quality in every one of our lessons. But yeah the Carnival is freakin crazy here, and it is way worse than Mardi gras. On Sunday we couldn’t leave the house until 7 and we were 2 cites away from the main stuff. Carnival is the holiday of Satan, no joke. The other missionaries have to stay at our house for this month, so we have another 4 man house but they aren’t as much fun so oh well.

This week I had the most interesting Testimony meeting this week on Sunday. It had everything from complaining about the church, the members, also a lot of storimonies, and most important we had the Holy Ghost in the flesh in our meeting. Some crazy guy went up and starting ranting and speaking way loud with his whole body and I was trying to keep from bursting out laughing. He started off I am the Holy Ghost, and none of the kids can touch me. And starting going off on some weird stuff and the District President had to go up and kick him off, and the District President was pissed. He had to apologize and give his testimony afterwards. I was glad that something came up for almost all of our investigators so they didn’t have to see that.

Also this week at 9:30 last night we got faked robbed by 2 ex missionaries that are inactive, and we crossed them and they came up and they did a bad job at trying to rob us, so it was pretty funny. So apparently there is a lot of apostasy in the branches here and they are inactive because of that, they do everything other than go to church which is weird. So there are a lot of problems that I learned this week in the district here, it looks strong but really there is some bad stuff going on.

But yeah, I hope y’all enjoy the photos I am sending home, the internet is really slow right now so I will try to get as much as I can home. Take care guys and good job Makenzie in basketball, and Jacob good job also, sometimes things don’t work out the way we want them to. It sounds like things are going good for you at work Dad, and that is awesome. Take care guys and have a good week.

Love, Elder Smith

District in front of the waterfall

I am thinking I really want to swim

Pondering

With the Dominican's 

I spy a white guy!

Matthew and Elder Reyes

 Nike shirts

Matthew and Elder Miller

Matthew's Zone at the beginning of the hike

Carnaval...Holiday of Satan

La Vega Week 2

Hey guys how is it going? I am doing pretty good for the most part other than that my legs are about to fall off from all of the walking we are doing, and the couple of hours I spent playing basketball this morning. It sounds like there is a lot of good news coming from y’all guys. That is so crazy that y’all might get snow this week! Y’all can be the Veganos from La Vega for y’alls tribe. I have photos to send home but my memory card is acting funky again, so I have to run a program and re format it, so I don’t know if I will be able to send any home this week. It is weird to think that it is already time for the Super Bowl. It feels weird being out of the loop.

This area is definitely one of the hardest in the Mission, and to make things even harder they have the carnival parties starting and no one is ever home. Our area is one of the most well to do areas in the country, meaning that the work here is not very easy. My companion is a stud and I am learning a lot from him both in Spanish and how to work. It just seems like we are walking and walking and that the day is never going to end. We have a lot of investigators that we have come up with but they are always busy or not there so it is just off to the next name on the list. My face and arms are red just from being out in the sun all day. But on the good note we are still living in the mornings and staying out all day instead of just chilling in the house. We always seem to have our best contacts at 8:30 at night, giving us more motivation for the next day to go out and work. The members here are pretty good, and work with us here and there so it is nice to have their support.

I need to ask for a couple of things that it would be great if you could send to me :) - I need about 4 boxes of clear care contact solution because I am down on my last box now, and also a couple small bottles of the rewetting drops for the contacts. And also some G2 pens in black, and a couple of Zebra f-301 BP pens. Thanks so much, all of the pens I buy in this country don’t work.

Take care guys and have a great week!

Elder Smith

Matthew and his companion Elder Reyes

Buenas de La Vega

Hey guys how it is going? I am doing well after my hardest working week in the mission. Opening an area without a cell phone and starting from scratch is not the easiest thing to do. But my companion is a stud and might be the next assistant next transfer so we will see how that turns out. Our area is huge and we have to be walking around ten miles a day. The members here are awesome and we are getting a lot of help from them. The first night we started contacting just because we had nothing else to do, and we ran into some members that helped us out a bunch and we have gotten quite a few references. The members have a lot of trust in us which is really helpful and we usually always have members with us when we are out teaching.

We have had some really interesting lessons in the past week. Yesterday Elder Reyes and I had a 3 hour battle with some Testigos - Jehovah Witnesses- that were references from some of the members. My companion is a stud and he knows the scriptures way good, and knows how to use them without bible bashing, but part of the lesson was a little bashing, but we won and we have another cita with them. Also we are teaching some Haitians right now, and we have a 15 year old boy who is form Haiti and he can teach the parts that they don’t understand in Spanish in Creole, and also my companion knows a bit of Creole. So they are some of my favorite people to teach. Also we are trying to find some of the investigators of the last missionaries that they had, but we haven’t had too much luck with that.

But yeah, here in La Vega they have the second biggest carnival in the world, and it is going to be crazy here for the next month. We are going to have to stay in the house every weekend in February other than to go to church because of all of the stuff that goes on. I am looking forward to buy a legit mask from it though. So I have heard numerous stories from other missionaries from their experiences in La Vega. It is hot here again which sucks, and cant even imagine what the summer is going to be like, I remember when I was first here it was so freakin hot.

I am learning a lot both about the gospel and Spanish from my companion and it helps being in a two man house so my mind works in Spanish now. He is a great cook which is nice, and at least he knows how to make rice with different types of meat.

Hey guys take care this week and I hope all is going well and continues to go well.

Take care, Elder Smith


Some interesting facts about La Vega, Dominican Republic from Wikapedia:

Christopher Columbus built a small fort near present-day La Vega, in 1494. It was intended to guard the route to the interior gold deposits of the Cibao valley. A Spanish settlement known as Concepción de la Vega gradually grew up around the fort, and after 1508, when gold was found in quantity there, Concepción became the first gold boomtown in the continent. By 1510 it was one of the largest and most important European cities in the hemisphere. The town was destroyed and buried by an earthquake on December 2, 1562, and the survivors relocated to the present site on the banks of the Camú River. The site of the ruined town remained largely in farmland until a small portion of the original city was purchased by the Dominican government in the mid-1970s and renamed as National Park of Concepción de La Vega.


February is known as Carnaval month in La Vega, this being the most famous carnival in the entire country. The patron saint is the Virgen de las Mercedes, celebrated on September 24.

El Carnaval Vegano is celebrated each Sunday in February. This event brings to this city thousands of tourists each year. This carnival is considered to be the best in the country and the Caribbean.

Many activities take place before and during the celebration of the carnival:

• Miss Carnaval Vegano pageant: in this pageant the queen of the carnival is chosen.

• Crowning of the King: the king of the carnival is crowned.

• Opening parade: this event opens the carnival. It's usually celebrated days before the carnival (with no one in disguise).

• Concert: every Sunday after the carnival a concert with popular singers is celebrated.

• February 27: This is Independence Day in the Dominican Republic. In the morning there is a parade in which the schools march and dance, etc.

• March 1: the closing parade.

Matthew keeps having parties follow him in his mission!!

Pictures he sent that he took in Cotui, his last area.

I’m not a Greenie!

I’m not a Greenie!


Hey what is up guys? So I got transferred today which I was not hoping for especially because we had baptisms in a week and a half. I am now in La Vega in the Frambollanes area. My companion is Elder Reyes who is Dominican, and we get the great opportunity of opening the area because the missionaries here got sent home during the last transfer so we get to start from blank without knowing anything. But from what I know my companion is a stud and will make me work way hard. So I will have 2 areas now and I get to whitewash them both.

So my new house is a 2 man house but it is freakin’ nice we almost always have water and power which is sweet. So now I really can’t speak English anymore because it is just us two in the house. Our new area is huge and we don’t even know where to start, it looks like I will be walking a lot more. Hey what was the guarantee on the shoes that we got from missionary mall, my shoes already have holes on the bottom.

But it sucked to say goodbye to everyone yesterday, because a lot of them I will probably not see again. When I told Arnetty and Raulin that I was leaving the kids and the mom started crying, it is weird to think that I actually mean that much to them. I am trying to get permission to go back and perform the baptisms, but I have heard President Lee usually doesn’t allow that to happen so we will see. So I have pictures to send home but my card reader isn’t working right now so I can’t send any home right now, but I will next week for sure.

Transfers were crazy, only 3 companionships stayed the same and everyone was getting thrown around like crazy. The mission isn’t doing as well as it should be, so President Lee just decided to mix things up.

But yeah it is starting to heat up here again, and yeah I think my debit card expires in June so I will need to get a new one soon. And it sounds like basketball has taken over y’alls lives. I will need my sport updates again, because Remington is not in my house.

Hey guys take care and have a great week!

Les quiero, Elder Smith

Pictures from the Dominican Republic

We were fortunate to receive a CD full of pictures from Matthew.

Here a few of the pictures he sent.

The Santo Domingo Temple

At the MTC in the Dominican Republic

Mission Home

Remember he is still teenage boy 

Hose to fill up the washer

I am truly grateful for my washer and dryer

The cafeteria at the MTC in the Dominican Republic

Our area is doing better now

Hey guys, what’s going on? I am doing pretty well other than I had to waste a P day to go to Santiago to get a medical test which sucked. I guess some guy in our group in the CCM had TB or something and so everyone in my group had to go to the mission home to get tested which included needles so it wasn’t very fun. But this past week Elder Franco and I had the best numbers in the zone, according to the zone leaders. So it sounds like it is cold there, enjoy it for me. But yeah, we eat fruit all of the time here, we always go to the colmados and buy it and make juice which is my favorite. They have all kinds of fruit here and some that I have never heard of before the mission like zapote and lechoza, but the pineapple, and bananas are freakin delicious. So it sounds like Jacob is doing good in basketball and the girls are awesome, getting tough in there.


But nah the good weather is starting to leave and it is getting hot again and mosquitoes came out of no where and I am getting eaten alive out here. It sucks when you go to bed and you leave your feet uncovered and you wake up in the morning with bites all over feet which isn’t fun when you are walking all day.

Our area is doing better now, and our family of Raulin is freakin awesome. They have come to church the past couple weeks without us putting a huge emphasis on it which means they are choosing for themselves to come and they have the excitement to do it. They are doing really good and even the kids are learning a whole bunch. The son, Ryme, asked me for a picture of the Salt Lake temple so he could put it up on the wall. Other than that it is just a ton of walking and trying to find people at their houses which is a pain sometimes. But we have a dinner with Raulin and his family on Monday night because we have transfers next week, so I hope I stay here but we will see what happens.

This past Monday I had an intercambio with the DL in his area, so it was nice to finally teach with an American. It was an interesting day, we had some people that just wanted to bible bash with us when we were trying to teach so we just left. But in the night we were teaching the Doctrine of Christ to a family which is pretty much baptism. And the DL gave me a chance to convince them that there baptism wasn’t valid, so I nailed it and even got them to commit to a date, so the DL was impressed so I was happy about that. Sometimes here Dominicans won’t listen to you because you are white, so I didn’t have that with Elder Jacobs because they had to pay attention to me.

So keep up the good work at home, and stay safe.

Les quiero, Elder Smith

This week has been a great week

Hey what’s up guys how was the vacation break? So y’all finally got the picture CD, so I am guessing it worked then, I will just make a CD every couple of months and send that home. I just found that machete chillin’ on the temple grounds, a temple worker probably left it on the ground. So it sounds like everything is going great, congrats Britt on the scholarship and Makenzie on the win. So will dad have a plane when I get home? That’s sick that you are actually starting to get into the flying stuff, I know it has always been an interest of yours. We can fly back here when I get home. So Jacob gets to go to the Cotton bowl, your gay, just kidding but have fun, who is he going to cheer for. Colby got his call to Boise, Idaho, alright that’s sweet for him, I was wondering if he was going after this semester or the next but that’s sick.

This week has been a great week, other than the 31st and 1st were dead days, and it was a little dangerous to be outside with everyone out drinking so for the night we went over to the District Leader’s house with the other Elders in Cotui. Other than that all of the other days have been really productive and we have got a lot done. Raulin and his kids are set on being baptized pretty soon, and they have a lot of excitement for that and he is doing everything he can to avoid alcohol and hasn’t touched a drink since we taught the Word of Wisdom. The wife has some doubts but I think she will pull through soon, I would give anything to have the whole family baptized at once. So the members are finally starting to work with us a little bit on this family so we have to do less work which is nice. So we are continuing to fast and pray for this family and encourage them to read and pray together so that all can be part of it. Other than that we just had to drop a lot of people which is not fun to do, and we have to go from house to house again but oh well, if you don’t do it you don’t have anyone to teach.

The weather is perfect here right now, maybe a little hot in the afternoon, but the morning and the night is absolutely perfect. So I am enjoying the weather here and it isn’t as bad walking when it is not as hot.

But I hope all is going well back home and that everyone continues to have fun and work hard.

Love, Elder Smith

 Elder Matt Smith

Elder Franco

Matthew's companion

Landscape

More landscape

Showing that they don't take care of things very well there

Baseball field... Remember it is the Dominican Republic

Matthew with a knife/machete he found on the Temple grounds