Saludos

It looks like the weather in SLC is a little bit different than in the DR. It is hot, hot, hot here. I have a really nice sandal tan- any sunscreen I put on seems to just sweat off. 

 

To describe La Romana... Our area is quite large and covers both city areas and more of the country side. There is a large river called Rio Salado in our area that is pretty. Most of the streets are really loud. Music is always blasting and they are not afraid to use their horns. They are the champions of the wheelie (wheely?) here. It is not a rare occasion to see a motorcycle or bicycle pop a wheelie for an entire street. The houses are really bright vivid colors. There are fruit stands on every corner and all the mango trees are ripening as mango season is just beginning. Dominos is a favorite pastime and people play it on tables on all the sidewalks.

We don’t typically knock on doors, mostly we bang on people's gates outside their houses and yell, "buenas", or "saludos". When I introduce myself I think many people think I am saying I am Christian rather than Christensen because often the response back is, "Christiana, amen, amen." I love walking around - which is good because we do a lot of walking. My feet are holding up pretty well - so far! There are times where we take a carrito to things if it is too far to walk - such as district meetings. A carrito is pretty much a car that claims to be a taxi. 

Many of the people live in impoverished circumstances. It isn’t rare to be sitting on buckets, teaching in a one room house with the six children and chickens running all over... (ok well the chickens only happened once but there are a lot of stray chickens, dogs and cats everywhere!) It is a challenge to see the way other people live. They have such simple lives; it makes me wonder why I was able to be born into a good LDS family in the United States and why these people weren’t. As I have thought about this, it helped to hear President Uchtdorf’s talk about West Africa and seeing the light in places where there are challenges. Light is always triumphant. Many of these people are still happy and radiate light despite their circumstances. I also liked the quotation you sent from President Uchtdorf’s Priesthood meeting talk: “Remember that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is built not for men and women who are perfect or unaffected by mortal temptations, but rather it is built for people exactly like you and me.”   The gospel gives us much to hope for (Ether 12:4).

I read the other talk you sent with me, His Grace is Sufficient and I absolutely loved it. We had to turn in our mp3 players at the Mission Home, so I am not able to listen to the talks you sent with me, but I love the hard copy ones - so thank you! 

Every day is a new adventure. 

 

 

"If we all threw our problems into a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back"

Con Amor, 

Hermana Christensen