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:

week tres

Hola everyone! Greetings from the Sunny, humid, yet storming Dominican Republic!

Today marks the end of my third week and beginning of my fourth week in the MTC! I'm half way through! So crazy how time flies. But I love it! Thank you for all the emails! It is like "manna to the soul" like my good friend said once.I love all the personal messages. Although I don't have time to reply to everyone, I still appreciate them!

This last week was so good. I LOVE Sundays and Thursdays. Thursdays because obiviously it's P-day and I get to email you all. But I love Thursdays because I get to go to the Temple and nap! Out in the field, the missionaries only go to the temple every 6 months so I am taking advantage of the time I get to go now. And I love Sundays becuase they are just full of spiritual events. It is a day where I get to focus on my own personal growth and feel the Spirit all day long. Which means I'm crying all day. Because that's what I do when I feel the SPirit. I cry. I'm sure my companion is like, what's wrong with this girl? Haha... it's great.

Okay so contacting at the university last week was a blast. I could not speak well at all but the people were so nice! They were so patient with us and willing to help us out as we delievered a little message. My comp and I handed out 6 pamphlets and 2 BookS of Mormon. (Hope you all read that in the voice of the Elder in the Best Two Years). Plus we got six phone numbers and addresses. Boom. You know that's right. :) We're going again tomorrow and then next week, we'll actually go on spilts with missionaries in the capital. Now that, I'm excited for.

Everyday is pretty much the same here so I don't have a lot to say.... I love our "gym" time now because I started playing volleyball. We just have one net set up in the parking lot. But we all love playing so we have a great time. It's not super competitive but enough that it makes it fun and gets your heart beating and blood pumping. Oh wait, that's just the humidity. Haha. I'm drenching sweat within minutes of playing. We all are so it's okay.

I am making a lot of friends. That's the beauty of a small MTC. There's 54 missionaries here and we all know each other. The "older" group of missionaries are leaving next though. I'm pretty sad about that because I have made some pretty great friends/ volleyball buddies whil they've been here. But I'm so excited for the next step of their journeys. My group will be the "older" missionaries next, it'll be weird. But that's how the legacy gets passed on. Once the news come in, we'll pass on the secrets and tips of the MTC that we've learned from the group before us. It'll be all too quick when we're the ones leaving for good. I'm going to really miss this place though. I love all my teachers and leaders here. But I guess that is life. We get somewhere, settle in, love it, meet new people, then move on. But hopefully the friends we make, will be our friends forever.

Anyhoo, it's time to go. Hope you all are doing well. I think of you often and pray for you!

oh here's my address by the way. I know a lot of you have been asking for it :) Im theSanto Domingo West mission. That's also my mission home address. So i wont get anything from there till i leave the MTC. If you want to reach me in the MTC before i leave, send it through Dear elder.

Siempre,

Hna Dibble

week dos

Why hello there!

Happy Week 2 of my mission! Has it seriously only been 2 weeks? For the amount of knowledge I am learning each day, I feel like I have been here for a month. Time flies yet feels so slow too. Anyways...... I'm alive. I'm still doing well. Great actually. Shout out to the amazing Yvonne! She has kept me strong and healthy by her magical pills. This last week more than a few, but not too many, missionaries have started to get sick and have stomach aches from the adjustment of well... life in the MTC. I have diligently taken my pills and haven't gone down yet. In the mornings after breakfast, my stomach starts to ache a little bit but once I pop those all-natural, magical pills I am fantastic for the rest of the day :) so thank you! Thank you so much! (Yes mommy, I am taking my vitamins too).

Alrighty... so tomorrow we are going contacting at the University. Which means, all of us newbies are going to the College they have here (super close to the MTC) and talking to random strangers about the Gospel- which is what missionaries do. But.... we have to speak Spanish. Of course. Even with the immense knowledge I have gained in just two weeks, I am definitely not ready for this. I can understand my teachers just fine but that's because they are talking slowly and use a lot of hand gestures to make their point. And understanding Spanish is way different than speaking Spanish. It's going to be an interesting adventure. Especially since my comp can't understand Spanish, least of all speak it still. She's progressing but it takes time. Which means, I'll be doing all the "talking" (aka: smiling, nodding, and shoving a Pamphlet into their hands). haha...it'll be great.

Qué más.... Oh here are some funny things I've noticed here:

- everyone says "Ay mi madre!" (Oh my mother) here. It is equivalent to "Oh my gosh" in America. I'll admit, I have slipped into the habit. Of course I mean it in the most respectful, loving way Mom :) <3

- they also say "Entonces" all the time. Which means "So, next, anyways", etc. But we say it "Ennnnnnntonces". haha its great.

-Lately all we have for breakfast is either brownies or banana bread. Which is great buuuut... I hate repetitive foods. Which is all we have here. I mean it varies, but still the same. Like, we always have rice, beans, bread, juice, meat, and either potatoes or pasta. But they switch up the types of those things. like chicken rice, black beans, pinto beans, etc. But it's all very good still and am enjoying the time I don't have to cook for myself. Because in the field, you and your comp cook everything. You're not supposed to eat at anyone's houses because of sanitation and because they'll give you everything they have and not eat for a month.

-Not only do Dominicans speak extremely fast but they drop their "S"'s. Which is really, REALLY annoying. Everything sounds like one long stream of... I don't even know. You can't tell where one word begins and where one word ends.

Oh by the way! We got to go the store this week! It was the first time we got to leave our "Prison". Seriously, the CCM and the temple are surrounded by walls on every side and cars can only get in through a gate. Plus we're inside ALL day, except for gym time (which is an hour). It's not an unusual thing to see a missionary leaning against a window gazing longingly at the outside world. So we call it our Spiritual Prison. We love it here but any chance to go outside, especially outside the walls, calls for great excitement. I was surprised though. The store we went to was pretty much like a Wal-mart. Smaller, less selection but pretty much the same. I was able to buy snacks and other things I needed. Finally fixed my sugar craving. Hallelujah! They a treat here called Buenos. So good. They're like these little chocolate, hazelnut filled, wafer squares. I haven't seen any Reese's here though :( Anyhoo.....I think it's going to take me a little while to get used to the cashier telling my total is over 2,000 pesos. I want to do a double take but then I'm like, relax. That's only about $50 in America.

The rain storms here are freaking awesome! It just pours and pours. The electricity goes out but we have a back up generator so the lights don't stay out long. If it's raining during gym time, we all still go out anyways and play volleyball in the rain. It's fantastic. The other day when we had a big storm, with fierce winds, my comp and I went walking around the temple. There was Styrofoam and trash all over the temple grounds from the rain. My comp and I were commenting on it when we were like let's clean it up! We got some trash bags and asked for some others to join us. It was a fun service project in the pouring rain.

Wellll... time is up. I love you all! Thank you for all the emails and love! Send me more! I love reading them! I just print them out and read them later. 

Siempre,

Hna Dibble  

P.S. the Haitans left this week. So sad but I'm so excited for them! We got a new group of Latinos in who only speak Spanish. Should be fun practicing with them!

mission to the D.R., week uno

Hola from the Dominican Republic! 

IT IS FANTASTIC. I already love it so much and am learning SO MUCH EVERY DAY! Thursdays are my P-Day so that is why it seems like I've been dead for more than a week. no worries, I'm alive. Alright, y'all ready for the recap of this last week? Didn't think so but i'm going to go ahead anyway. 

Last wednesday, I traveled safely, met some great people along the way, had a grand time in New York, and arrived in the DR (dominican republic) around 1am. Getting through customs was a breeze. "Oh you're a missionary? Go on through." Haha... I only traveled with one Elder and one other sister. At the airport another Elder was there. He had the "Other Side of Heaven" experience because he was supposed to arrive with the other earlier group, not us. Anyways, we found our driver. Didn't speak English. We all piled into a ghetto van and started driving. About 5 min into our journey we got a flat tire in the middle of freeway with crazy drivers. Oh my word, Dominicans drive crazy! the elders helped the guy change the tire while experiencing several near- death moments as cars zoomed by, inches from us, going 100mph. seriously. but it was alright. We got to the CCM (MTC) and they even had a meal for us there. I was too tired to eat though. We found our rooms and went to bed, only to wake up 3 hours later for the LONGEST day of my life. 630am to 10:30pm at night. Our first day was filled with classes, language, and orientation. It was so hard to stay awake since I had only had about 6 hours of sleep cumulative for two nights. No worries, the Lord sustained me :)

My companion's name is Hermana McFarland. She is from North Salt Lake City. I love her so much already. She is a small, cute Polynesian (Samoan) girl. She has beautiful naturally curly hair which she complains about all the time. Don't worry, I'm used to it (aka Hannah) ;). I guess I will never understand since i dont have curly hair but want it so bad. We get along together every well and have learned so much from each other already. though, she has never had any sort of spanish class in her life so it is really hard for her. Oh my gosh, I am so thankful I took Spanish in high school, even if it was for three years. The teachers here are all dominicans and speak nothing but spanish to us. I may not be able to speak back but i do understand them 80% of the time. Most of my memory of spanish has come back now and has served me well in class. And words I dont even remember learning, come to me. Just in a week I can say a simple prayer and bear my testimony in spanish. They really force you into it. the second i was here, my comp and I had to give a lesson in spanish to a fake investigator. That was stressful since I don't know any church/ gospel vocab at all. But i'm learning. A lot. All the time. Spiritually and mentally. I am so grateful for tender mercies and small blessings from the Lord that make all the difference. The Gift of Tongues is real because my rate of learning is 2x faster than my learning rate in high school. 

Okay, food! Let's talk about food since I know that's all you guys really want to know about. 3 meals a day, every day. Breakfast and dinner are normal and lunch is HUGE. Breakfast is usually some kind of sausage or bacon with eggs. Or we have banana bread or brownies. Yes, we have brownies for breakfast. I knew this was the right place to come to. The dominicans believe that if you have your sweets in the morning then you have all day to burn them off. Maybe that is why America has an obesity epidemic. But the thing is, I don't want sugar in the morning.... My intake of sugar has definitely gone down and i miss snacking. I want candy and granola bars/ fruit snacks up the yang. So if anyways wants to send me snacks....hehe. Okay lunch. Lunch includes two MOUNTAINS of rice (one flavored and the other just white), two kinds of meat (chicken, beef, or pork), and of course- beans. BUT they serve the beans separately so I don't have to eat them :)  Lunch always includes fruit and a green salad. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. The pineapple and mangoes here are DIVINE. I love having fruit and salad at lunch. Dinner is usually varies. WE've had mac and cheese, taco salad, etc. Typically we get potatoes with some kind of pasta. Carbs and starch. Oh and more carbs and starch. At every meal there is bread and juice. The bread here is white and pretty looks/tastes like hot dogs buns but bigger. The thing here to do is smother them in butter and cook them in the panini grill till they're flat and crispy. So good. My weakness. And the juice here is so sweet. I like juice but man, i cant even handle it. Johnny would like it a lot :). So yeah, I'll gain weight here but everyone tells me I'll lose it quickly in the field. Still haven't decided if that's a good thing or a bad thing....

Everyday, we have a full schedule. We always have something to do. I'm so tired all the time but I can sneak in little cat naps after lunch. I still have yet to learn how to fall asleep instantly, anywhere, anytime, but desperation will kick in soon enough i think. Nah i'm fine. I try to go to bed right at 10:30pm so i get a good sleep. And let me tell you, the sleep is great. I close my eyes and boom, my alarm is going off. It's all good. I'll adjust soon enough. P-days are great though. We get to go to the temple right after breakfast and are there till lunch. Oh by the way, the temple is literally right next to the CCM. There is a big wall/fence that surrounds the CCM and the temple. For "gym" time, we can go outside and run/walk around the temple. "Gym" time is kind of a joke. They don't actually have an excerise room here. The gym rooms consists of two fuse ball tables and a ping pong table. But they have a volleyball net outside and balls to play with. My comp and I run/walk run around the temple a few times and then play basketball or volleyball. It is sooooo hot and humid. The weather isn't bad, its just the humidity that is crazy. Im drenching sweat within 10min. so yes, I shower twice a day. Everything is ghetto here but I love it. Since the CCM is used for the temple and other church stuff, there's always members around who are so friendly. It's a lot of fun. 

there's about 54 missionaries here. It is a lot of fun being able to get to know everyone more personally. I love our MTC president and wife. I love having the temple right outside. And I love the beauty that is here in nature and in the people. There's some Haitians who are here training too. They only speak french but they are so nice. They all have wonderful, humble spirits. I just wish I could communicate with them! I love my district (group of missionaries who are assigned to be with each other in classes). We have a lot of fun. We have three teachers. One in the morning- afternoon- and evening. Our morning teacher is the best. His name is Hno Nuñez. He's hilarious and always happy. He likes to lie all the time though. (joke with us, take advantage of our newness by convincing us of untruths about him). It's all super funny and he's great to tease because he takes it and dishes it out. We have a lot of fun in class. I was the only one who didn't believe his lies though so he knows he has to watch out for me ;) 

Dang, time goes by so fast. I wish I could say more but I have to go. I love you all and thank you for all your emails, prayers, and support! I'm here and doing good!

con amor siempre, 

Hermana Dibble