Wednesday, February 28, 2018

2/26/19 By their fruit ye shall know them.


Dear Ya'll
I can speak Spanish. I can understand other Latinos. Just not Dominicans very well. When it's a short back and forth conversion, I'm good. But when they start telling stories? I don't understand a lot. And I actually really like it, because it's funny when Bienvenido tells stories and I have no idea what's going on. I just see this old man frantically waving his arms around, he talks in different voices of the people in his story, one time he picked up a chair and put it on his head...It was relevant to the story, but I just think he looks crazy and it's more entertaining that way.
Do you know the scripture "by their fruits ye shall know them?"
I remember my dad one time doing a little rant about this. Just look at the "fruit," look at what good comes from the church. And if it's good fruit, it's a good church. The other day, Bienvenido said the same thing. Interestingly enough, Bienvenido sells fruit. So he was talking about the fruit of the church: humanitarian aid and missionary work and all these other good jazz.
And then he said what every missionary dreams of hearing their investigator say: "Yo se que esta iglesia es verdadera."
He also said he was willing to leave his congregation and get baptized without them if he needed to.
but he really doesn't want to leave them. He wants them to come with him. We're trying to start teaching more of them so they'll be prepared to get baptized soon too. He won't commit to baptismal date until he's finished reading the Book of Mormon. But we don't know how close he is tho.
In other news:
We're having a wedding!!!
So like, basically nobody in the DR is married Legally. They just call eachother husband and wife and have their lives and their kids, but they never got married. One of our investigators that was progressing so well suddenly hit this wall because her "husband" doesn't want to get married. We're not even asking him to change anything about his life or have a wedding, Just sign the paper! But he doesn't want to get married, and she's not willing to move out. So we're just kinda stuck. Hermana Kennerley says this happens all of the time. She has never successfully married a couple during her entire mission.
until now
We began teaching this one young couple Jose and Yeneldy. They're great. When we taught the lesson on Chastity, he said "so we have to get married?" and we're like "yeah..." and he said "We're gonna get married then." and then he looks at his "wife" and just has a big smile on his face, and she smiles too. They're just so in love they have no problems getting married. And they actually want a little wedding, not just sign the paper. Which is great! We can have the wedding in the chapel. They'll get married on the 9th and baptized on the 10th ❤❤❤ Hermana Kennerley and I are excited to plan this wedding! But we have no idea what we're doing. We're going to try to get as much help from the ward as we can. If you guys have any ideas or advice or suggestions, please share!!
Oh, and after 2 months of lessons with Jose and Yeneldy, they finally tell us his name isn't even Jose. It's Argenis. What the heck? How did we not know? They said we're literally the only people that call him Jose. Well...I'm glad we found out before we made the invitations.
Please send me pictures!!
All of ya'll! Of anything and everything. What's new and what not
I'll send some too!
With love and sunshine,
Hermana Pollard

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