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Elder Pemberton
Santo Domingo West Mission
C/ Hatuey #73
Urb. Los Cacicazgos
Santo Domingo, República Dominicana

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Week 2

hey family
 
mom ana and dad
sorry but i´d think you would all rather get a really good email thats to every one than an individual one thats had to be typed really fast.
So first things first!
Food
yes the food here is alright. not as good as homecooked meals but steal not too bad. they have burgers ALL the time and ive had to cut back on sweets because i think i feel a cavity coming on. I´m seeing the dentist here at the mtc on thursday.
My companion
my companion is elder Watkins. What an amizing guy!!!! he´s such a hard worker and is really firm in the gospel. He´s actually from moapa valley! so not too far from us in vegas but its amaizng how differently he grew up than i did. I guess moapa is a pretty small town. But we get along reall well and we definitely teach awesome lessons together. Ive had to really work on not taking over the lessons though. My strong personality is not helping me that often here. So i´m really excited to start working on some of my faults to become a better person all aropund.
Language
the language is coming along. i was amaized at how much i actually knew. Elder watkins knows a lot too so we cabn generally get our point across when we are teaching. Its a really great time. The gift of tongues is definitely here though! oh my goodness i see elders picking up their languages so quick and i know its because heavenly father is helping them. And i know he will help me too!
DR
oh and what´s the reason i´m speaking spanish in the first place?!?! oh yeah thats right because i´m going to the DR and when do i leave? drum rollll please......... I leave the 2nd of february!!! we got our travel plans i think on friday!! we felt soo cool. Its the coolest thing to get travel plans aroud here. We fly to dallas then miami and then go to Santo Domingo its goping to be awesome!
 
the last little bit of time that i have I want to tell you all aabout our first investigator we had here at the CCM.
Nico
In our first lesson with nico we just thought he lived in orem and that he came to learn from the missionaries because he was interested in our church. He has a daughter and is from Argentina. Nico has had some issues beliving in god lately. So for our first lesson we wanted to teach him that god is our loving heavenly father and that he loves us. We tried doing that for the frist two leasson there was no way we could get him to see that he truly is a son of a loving god. So the third lesson we figured iot out kind of. We realized its not going to be us to be able to convinve nico that god exists. The spirit has to testify of the truthfulness of our message and of gods love. So our third lesson we taught him how to pray (by this time we knew he was just a volunteer and not a real investigator but it definitely did not detract from the spirit). We challenged him that night to pray to heavenly father and see if god really excists we had him read Alma ch 32 v 27 it was really great. The lesson went a little long but we got through most of what we felt like would help him. The fourth lesson made all the difference! We walked in and we asked him if he had prayed.... unfortunatelty he said know. But he kept talking about the book of mormon. He said he was sad because his wife left him and norm,ally when he´s sad he drinks. This time he decided to go and read the Book of Mormon and he said he just felt the peace and the joy in his life that we had explained to him beforehand. For the rest of that lesson and the next one we taught him about the restoration of the gospel and the plan of happiness, respectively. The 5th lesson we asked him if he would commit to baptism. AND HE SAID YES!!!!! we learned later that the 5th lesson is waaaayyy tooo long to bring up baptism. But thats ok. The spirit was very strong during our lessons with nico and i´m so grateful for that experience.
 
My dearest family and friends. I know some of you do not understand why i am doing what i am doing or understand what i am teaching about. But i promise you this is gods true church and that there is no other kind of happiness and joy that can be brought than through the restored gospel of jesus christ. I´m sorry if i upset anyone but we´re learning here that it is important to be bold. So i´m practicing. I love you all and i am so grateful for the supposrt you all have given me. This is going to be the best two years of service for my lord that i will ever do. and i will make sure that i will not take any part for granted. I promise you dad that i´ll own it. now remeber who you are everyone and whom you represent. You are all children of a loving heavemnly father and if you want help all you need to do is ask.
Cant wait to hear from you all!
love,
elder pemberton

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