Week Siete

Hola todos!

How is everyone doing?! It´s almost November! Can you believe it? I am officially in the last week of my first transfer in the field. Time has flown! It´s a comfort to know that I will be staying in my little area for at least another transfer. You are garanteed 12 weeks or 2 transfers with your trainer. There´s only really rare cases where a new missionary is only with their trainer for 6 weeks. I don´t think that will happen to me which I am fine with because I love San Juan! These last two weeks have been super busy. We´ve had Zone Conference and a Training Conference, so twice we had to take a bus to Azua which is about an hour from San Juan. The first trip to Azua we took a normal bus and on the way back I got soooo car sick. For all of those who know me well, I´m sure you know what I am talking about. I have never been so car sick in my life. But I was proud of myself because I didn´t throw up even though it took all my will power, plus divine intervention, not to. So the second time we had to go to Azua a week later, I was really dreading it. But fortunately, we paid to take a nicer bus. These types of buses are called Caribe Tours. They´re a lot bigger with comfy seats that lean back and they even have movie screes. Reminds me a lot of an airplane... We were able to get seats up front so that was nice. 

But leaving San Juan for only part of the day and being in Azua made me realize how much I love San Juan. It is very familiar now and I know my way around. I will be really sad to leave buuuut i dont have to worry about that for 7 more weeks :).

Alrighty, so a few people have been asking about our investigators. I know I havent talked that much about them..or at all... so here it goes.

First up, yesterday so great because we had 6 (SIX) investigators and 1 less active come to church. People. This is huge. I was soooo happy! Every Sunday we work so hard to bring our investigators to church and finally they came! Not all that we are teaching but that´s okay. Next week :)

Okay first, we are teaching a wonderful lady named Tihara. She is 23? Her ¨husband¨ (not married but living together) is inactive. The missionaries have been teaching her for a few months now. She was good about coming to church but once we taught the Law of Chastity and told her she needs to get married (which was received well. her and her fiance want to get married), she stopped being consistent because she wants to go with her fiance. But he finds excuses not to come each week. Finally yesterday, she was fed up with him i think, and came by herself. I´m so proud of her! She has a wonderful testimony already and has a lot of faith! They did set a wedding date for Nov 27 so we´re going to do everything we can to get them to that goal so she can be baptized. 

Next, is Pascual. Oh Pascual... Pascual has been taught all the lessons and was going to be baptized but because of family things that came up, he wasn´t able to be baptized on the previous date. We´ve had a tough time with him because although he knows the Church is true, he´s finding it hard to pioritize his life and put important things (like God) first. Also, he has been stuggling financially so our last few visits were mostly just trying to build his faith and hope because he is very depressed. He´s been doing better though. But he´s started this new pact thing- he won´t come to church till his financial situation improves. Isn´t that when we need church and God that most? When we´re struggling through trials and problems, God should be the first person we turn to. Faith and trust, my friends. Faith and trust. 

That last few I want to talk about are our little group of youth investigators. I love teaching teeenagers! They are sometimes a lot easier to teach than adults because their knowledge (in this case, religion) is still new so they are a lot more accepting. Plus they come to church! We have a pretty solid youth group in our branch so it´s pretty easy for a new youth investigator to be fellowshipped. The missionaries before me have been teaching most of the youth investigators we are teaching now except 1. His name is Haner. He´s a contact. Turns out he is learning English in school so we invited him to our English Class on Saturdays (my comp and I teach english class by the way). He has been coming to class ever since we invited him. So not only are we teaching him in class but we also teach him in personal appointments. He is actually already very religious and has a wonderful desire to learn. He came to a church activity we had on Saturday and he came to church! He´s great :) I enjoy teaching him because he knows quite a bit of English so he understands me when I talk in Span-glish. I feel more of a connection to him because he is one of the first investigators my comp and I met and began teaching ourselves. I really excited to see how he continues to progress. 

Hmkay, i´ll stop there. We have a few more investigators than that but it would be a really long letter if I wrote about them all and you would probably fall asleep in the process, so I´ll stop :) But i´m really looking foward to this week! We have everyday practically booked up so it´s going to be a busy one! Plus me and my comp have set our goals high this week. We are going to try and achieve the weekly goals that the mission president has set for the whole mission. It´s going to happen. "Indoor plumping, it´s going to be good". Name that movie! :)

Entonces.... that´s all I have for today. The work is progressing, i´m doing great, life is good. Thank you for all your support and love! The Church is true! And if you don´t know it is then you should talk to the missionaries and pray about it because the Gospel of Jesus Chirst is for everyone and can bless your life in so many ways. I know this because it has already blessed my life in countless ways and continues to bless my life every day. I wouldn´t be here in this crazy country (said very lovingly), if I didn´t know the Church and this Gospel was true. So go find out for yourself if it is true and those who already know this, keep living and sharing it! 

I love you all! Scripture of the week: 2 Nephi 31:13

Hasta luego! 

con amor,

Hermana Dibble 

Me and my companion:

The San Juan Zone:

Week Seis

Okay first, baking. I miss baking a lot! Ingredients are much different and Im still learning how to substitute so for now I cant bake anything like cookies, brownies, etc. I havent seen any chocolate chips or cocoa in the store we have here which is a big bummer. I know in the capital they have that stuff but not here. I did buy a cake mix in a box to make for tomorrow but i am nervous to use our oven. It´s pretty ghetto. Everything here is ghetto. But i have had some little treats that people here and there have made for us which have been really good. I want to learn how to make them so I can make them for you guys when I get home. We have a bakery close by that we went to last week. I was dying for a doughnut. It was a cute bakery with decorated cakes, doughnuts, and other dominican desserts. Everything looked so good. So I bought a doughnut and some other things to try. It was not good. The doughnut was terribly dry and the pudding inside was bland. Sugary sweets are very different here. In the way that they aren´t sugary at all. dominicans dont like super sweet things. (which is ironic necause they eat sugar cane as a snack). But any dessert Ive bought here is not very sweet and just different. But they have traditional plates like Tres Leches, Flan, and Arroz con leche, which are muy rico. (delicious). These are the things I want to learn how to make. Im sure when I come home my taste buds will be very different. Also, as far as treats and candy goes- the only candy Ive seen here are Snickers, milky ways, and normal hersheys. So anything besides those would be greatly appreciated :) I miss Reese´s a lot! 

Second- your other question about tourism. Ive only ever had one guy come up to me and try to force me to buy tooth brushes. But because San Juan isnt anywhere close to the coast or to tourist spots, there isnt much of what you were talking about. But when someone is trying to sell something, they are very aggressive. 

Next, my companion and the other hermanas we live with- we usually eat out once a week or once every other week.Usually Pday. Food is cheap. To get a pretty big meal, its only about 4 dollars in America. Fried chicken is big here. What´s hilarious is that they are actually quite a few Chinese here. And they own little restaurants and they sell fried chicken and rice, not traditional chinese food. 

Theres many things about the DR that are so funny and interesting. I am trying to be diligent about writing little tid bits down so I can someday share them all with you. I love San Juan. It´ll be fun to experience a new area but that wont be for awhile. 

anyways, that´s all I have today. Feel free to share this email with everyone since I wrote this one instead of a general email for everyone. Hope you are all doing well and life is good because it´s good for me! Have a wonderful birthday week!

Love always,

Hermana Dibble

My District:

 My companion, Hermana Flores:

The other sisters I live with:

Week Cinco

Hello! Sorry, this will be a short email this week. 

Our weeks are so busy! Everyday is so long and I am completely pooped at the end of the day. But I like it. Its a full schedule but life is good. There is so much work to do in our area! And I didnt realize how big our area is until my comp and I walked the whole thing. We have seriously probably only contacted an eigth of our area.Its so big! Our schedules fill up with appointments up to the next week. Everyone we meet always agrees to a next visit but thats just how the culture is. So its great but at the same time, the Dominicans are terrible at keeping commitments. And asking them to go to church is a really big deal. So that is where we struggle the most. Getting the people to do what we ask them and to come to church. We invite so many people to church everyday but maybe only 3-5 actually come. It is really sad and frustrating but thats just how it is here. 

General Conference was this last weekend! I hope all you watched/ listened and took advantage of it! The sessions were all in spanish here soooo I didn´t understand any of it which was really sad. I was really looking forward to conference, I always do. So I pretty much studied the scriptures and last conference issue in the Liahona the whole time. But the music was wonderful! (the only part in english). So If anyone wants to send me their favorite talk from one of the sessions, I would love it! 

Other than that, life is good. I really have a terrible time thinking of what to email about. If you have any specific questions, email them to me and I´ll include the answer in next week´s letter. Then I can talk about specific things that you find interesting that seems normal to me :) 

The weather is still sooooo hot. The hottest part of the day is between 1-3pm. But it cools off fast at about 5pm. Everyday at that time, clouds roll in. I love all the fresh produce and fruit available here. There´s a big flea market we sometimes go to. There´s all sorts of produce. And you have to buy everything green because the next day itll be ripe. My favorite are the avocados and pineapples. The avocados here are HUGE ande delicious. And theres lots of red to orange to green tomatoes. Green tomatoes are actually very good. A common meal we have here are avocado and tomato sandwiches. Two other things I love here are empandas and juice. Empanadas are sold on like every street corner. They are delicious. We have to be careful about buying street food but we have a couple of stands we now are safe. I want to become an expert empanda maker. And the juice is to die for. We go to a particular place that sells fresh juice, everything from cherry to coconut to oatmeal to grapefruit, etc. A common loved juice here is called Chinola. I was told it is Passionfruit but I dont think it tastes like passionfruit. I dont know. Its good though. I will get fat from empanadas and juice and I am just fine with that. Because its all super cheap! An empanada is about 50 cents in the US. and they are big. Two fill me up. Anyways... thats the random story of the day.

Sorry, no pics again this time. I forgot my camera cord. Next week, I promise! 

Love you all! 

Con amor,

Hermana Dibble

week quatro

Four weeks down, 2 to go! But not even a full 2 week. I have the rest of this week, next week, then two more days. I leave the MTC on Sept. 23rd. So crazy. Two more days marks a full month. Time flies. 

How y'all doing? Everyone back in school now? Except for the BYU-I kids? 

This week has been.... interesting. Last Thursday we were supposed to go contacting but didn't get to because there was a strike or protest going on at the University. Something about the government wanting to exploit land and the people wanted to preserve it. I guess the protests here can get pretty rowdy. The teachers said that it doesn't take long for the police to show up and drop tear-gas on the crowd. Pretty sad. Anyways, we didn't get to go. So they rescheduled it for yesterday but I wasn't able to go unfortunately. I caught a pretty bad bug that's been going around. The MTC's wife caught it first and was out for the week, then the President got it but not as bad. Next thing I know, I have a sore throat. I've been so worried about getting stomach problems with the whole adaptation thing that I didn't think about catching a cold. But if anyone knows me, they know how susceptible I am to colds. A different Elder got strep and I was so worried I was going to get that. But thankfully it's just a cold, even though it knocked me out for three days. But no worries, I am feeling a lot better now. I was permitted to sleep during the day so that helped a lot. I am trying to rest as much as I can because tomorrow we get to go on splits with the missionaries in the capitol! I am so excited and don't want to pass up this opportunity. Tomorrow is going to be crazy but I know that through faith and trust, I can do it.. even if I can't breathe that well ;) The teachers are funny here. They act like no one ever gets colds. They ask me what's wrong and I tell them I'm sick and I have a cold. But cold in Spanish doesn't translate to sickness but to the temperature. So they tell me I have the flu, which we all know is very different in English. So I just tell them "Estoy moriendo" or "I'm dying". It's so funny. I love the teachers here. They're great.

Everyone has been asking how my Spanish is coming. Well... it's coming :) I'm getting better at talking and formulating sentences on my own. With a few mistakes of course, but it's coming. I guess tomorrow will be the real test. My learning was stunted a bit this week because of my cold but I hope to be back and focused tomorrow. Otherwise, life is good. Still learning lots. The "Older" missionary group left last week. That was really bittersweet because we all got so close. Another group arrived yesterday. We got quite a few of Latinos and Americans from the South and Utah (of course). It's weird to think that we're the "older" missionaries now. But we won't have as nearly as much time with them as we did with the other group. 

Oh, fun side note. My comp and I were called as the Music Assistants. We're in charge of picking hymns and arranging all the music for the meetings. Pretty fun :) P.s. with all the singing we do here (we sing a opening hymn and a closing hymn for every class and meeting), I should really be a fantastic singer by time I come home. that is the hope, my friends ;)

Welp, that's really all I got. Next week, I'll tell you all about my proselyting experience and much more since it'll be my last P-day before I go out into the field! Wahoo!

Love you all!

Little mini thought, Open up to Alma 32 and read about faith. Notice that faith is not being compared to a seed. Rather, the seed is being compared to the word. 

 Adios for now!

con amor,

Hna Dibble

Hand Hugs!

 District Helaman: