Meeting People

Hello, Hello to my Family. 

I completed my one year mark. We had district meeting on that day and one of the hermanas in the zone congratulated me and told me that she would like to have the skirts and blouses I have when I leave. Haha I still have a long time, Im not done yet! 

This past week, we had quite a few people contact us. We are usually the ones that have to approach people but occasionally people are curious or they want to practice English and will come to us. One woman that approached us this past week was a missionary for the Catholic Church. She is from Chile but has been in Haiti for the last two months. I asked her how it was in Haiti. She started to cry and said she saw many sad things but the hardest thing to see was all the starving kids. She said it resembles Africa. It breaks my heart. It has been interesting to see the relationship between Dominicans and Haitians. The countries do not get along and there is a lot of ill-will between the people. 

Sunday nights usually drag for me, it is usually the hardest part of the week. Last night we were contacting close to a members house; she was outside and told us to come visit her. We happily accepted her offer. She told us about the battle she had with cancer this last year. She said that many times when young people die, people say that it was what was supposed to happen. She said she didn’t believe that. She said when Christ was on the earth and had the chance to heal someone, he healed them. He didn't say no because it was their time to die. Something that I really liked was that she said she wanted to actively fight her cancer. Some people may just say a prayer and hope that it will go away but she said she would pray for the strength to take the steps she needed to take and do the things she needed to do. She began eating so many different roots, herbs and vegetables along with her chemo-therapy. She said she had an evil growing inside her and she wanted to get it out. She also filled her life with the things she loves to do. She sews, and cooks, and creates things. Being at her house last night made me want to be filled with life the way she is; to live life more fully. I entered her house feeling very unmotivated but left feeling encouraged. 

I love that we get to meet so many different people and hear their stories. Each person has their own story. 

Valentine’s Day was fun! In the D.R. they call it the day of love and friendship. I think that is to help those that don’t have a significant other to feel better. An investigator gave us bags full of treats and a necklace. He said he doesn’t have many friends other than us so he wanted to celebrate the day somehow. Also, one of the Hermanas that I live with got robbed on Valentine’s day. She was walking and the man behind snatched her bag. Cute Hermana Manalo saw it happen and started chasing him and yelling at him in English, almost catching up to him. The poor Hermana has been robbed twice now. 

Hermana Mack is from the D.R. - She got to go to her Dad's Baptism last month

The young man and the artist I talked about last week both went to church yesterday. Yea!!! 

I love hearing about the Olympics and all the updates about your week. Thanks for the emails. Also, I got the shoes. Thank you! Have a good week!