Reaping the Whirlwind -- July 25, 2016

Happy July, errbody. Well. Wouldn't ya know it. I'm writing this from the internet cafe in Espaillat. Yes. THAT Espaillat. My birth area. The one where a very fat, very lost gringo touched down on November 4, 2014.

My great lozzy. What a whirlwind! It's weird to see everything through experienced eyes. At this precise moment exactly one month from today, assuming I don't get hit by a bus or struck by lightning or something, I'll be sitting in JFK International Airport. Eating Panda Express. I know that's really not bragging to any of you (except for Elder Jake Hogan haha) but it seems pretty stupendous to me.

But really, when I first arrived here, I was blown away. The

noise, the smell, the lack of grass, the street vendors, everything was just this Spanish-speaking cacophony and I thought that all things considered, I was probably going to die.

Things have changed. I feel at home in these streets. Spanish flows naturally for me now. I understand the nuances, the dips and rises, and I think it's beautiful. There's still no grass, but I forgive Espaillat for not being the prettiest barrio in the whole city.

But after just the few visits I've made, I've received a testimony of sowing seeds. Let me explain. In my two transfers here with Elder Miller, we taught exactly 400 lessons. FOUR. HUNDRED. We worked like animals. I showed up to the house every single night feeling like a donkey had kicked me in the back. And even after all that, we had just one baptism, Wellington. I was so sick of fighting with people. I was about ready just to blow the place up. Do baptisms for the dead.

Then, today, I found out that four people who Elder Miller and

I found have been baptized since I left. Two of the less-actives who we brought back to church have gone on missions. Another couple we taught is preparing to be married and baptized. Walescak, who was baptized and whose husband we reactivated, is preparing to go to the temple to be sealed to her family for time and all eternity. And Wellington continues strong in the church.

And I didn't know about hardly any of it. I wouldn't have even known had I not come back to visit. And it blows me away. I can't realistically take credit, because miracles like that are a composite of the efforts of many members and missionaries and above all by the Lord. His work will always be done no matter who the person is that does it. Anyone could have done what me and Elder Miller did here in Espaillat. But we did it. We were blessed so completely, so miraculously, to be able to do it.

That to me is the miracle of the mission. I used to think the mission was a sacrifice. I gave up girls,studying, music, orange chicken, reading non-gospel books. I gave up my life. 

And so God gave me another life. A better one. Infinitely better. I finally am beginning to understand what the scripture means that says, "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it." And beyond just me, He blessed His other children through me, even with all my rough edges and unrefinedness. No, in the end, I didn't sacrifice anything at all. I invested it. And I have received one hundred fold every single thing I gave up. I have not been a perfect missionary in any sense of the word.

But that's okay. It really is.

Have a grand week!

¿Qué lo que, papá? -- July 4, 2016

Happy Independence Day! Things are going pretty dandily down here in San Isidro. Speaking of which.

So I'm here in San Isidro! It's still a capital area, and I'm actually only about a 15 minute guagua ride away from where I was before, so it's almost like I just moved houses and go to someone else's church. My new companion is

Me and Elder Koerper

Elder Koerper. We're an interesting companionship. Both tall guys (6' 3" and 6'4") and they can't pronounce our names. I'm JOH-soh and Elder Koerper is Elder Cooper. It could be worse. Elder Orchard was companions with a guy named Elder Croshaw at one point and their names were pronounced almost the same (OH-chah and Croh-chah) I like Elder Koerper though. Direct guy. The week before I got here, he went up an alleyway to bring an investigator named Wanda to church. She said she couldn't, which subsequently peeved Elder Koerper off (this happens often haha) and so, upon emerging from the alleyway, he saw this fruit vendor across the street with his son sitting by him. Elder Koerper crossed the street, pointed at this totally unknown kid and said, "HEY. COME TO CHURCH WITH ME." and the kid was like, "Hey, dad, can I go to the church with the big gringos?" and his dad was like, "Sure." And so he did. And now he has a baptismal date. Welp. I guess it works.

So every Wednesday, we have an english class in the church. Wait. First. I'm going to teach you a word. Conani. A conani is a gang of small children. This is  important. See, apparently something about learning english can't draw one single adult, and so when we showed up to the chapel at 6:30, we were faced with a conani of about fifteen kids. And zero adults. Well, we couldn't go in the church unless we had another adult, so we called some members until we finally got a brother who was willing to come out. In the meantime, the conani was getting restless. They were thirsty and wanted to go inside the church to drink some water. We. Did not care. We were fine just leaving them outside. Everything was going so smoothly until one of them figured out that I had a key. And the pestering began. And the nagging. And the whining. And the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. I was just about to the point where I was weighing the ups and downs of kicking some kid butts when one of the little gremlins stuck his paw in my pocket and grabbed the keys. I, er, patted his hand and the keys slipped out. There was a quiet clink as they hit the ground.

And then all hell broke loose. I dropped and covered the keys as the conani swarmed like a school of piranhas, punching, kicking, pulling my hair. One little punk bit my right hand, which logic sort of boggles the mind when you consider the keys were in my freaking left. So here I am. A 6' 3", 180-pound adult 'Murican missionary being mobbed by a group of little Dominican kids like we were in the Walking Dead, I finally managed to stand up and toss the keys to a red-faced-from-laughing Elder Koerper. He caught them, took one look at the advancing conani, and casually tossed the keys on the pavement. They snatched them up and in one cackling horde stampeded into the church. BUM. MOVE.

A picture of the zone Hainamosa

Anyway, today is the fourth of July. Independence Day. Don't really know what I'll do to celebrate it. Independence here happened in February. Last year, I still bought a hamburger, drank Coke, and sang The Star-Spangled Banner on the roof of the Los Solares house with Elder Tillmond. It was patriotic in its own sad little way. I enjoyed it.

But being a foreign missionary has really been interesting on a couple of fronts. On the one hand, I've gotten exposed to a different culture. But it's also been fascinating for me to be exposed to my own culture from a foreign point of view. I could go for a long time about the differences, but the point I really want to touch on is the sameness.

The Dominican Republic and the United States are very different places. Very different. Traffic is organized chaos.

It was raining, so rather than be in the rain
for all of two seconds, that car owner just jumped
the sidewalk and parked under the roof. It's whatevs.

Laws are more like guidelines, anyway. People are sooo open. You walk up to any colmado guy and as long as you're open with him, he'll treat you like you've been friends for years. It's nuts. People here are by and large dirt poor, but if even us, big foreigners from a country with a reputation here for being rich, were to knock on the door of some hovel and say, "Please give us some food, we're very hungry," they would go through hell and back to get us at least some bread and rice. Employment here is sketchy at best and savings plans aren't overly important because you can't save when you're scraping a living. They print bible verses on peanut wrappers. (I once walked into a bathroom in Verón, and all over the walls, people had graffitied things like, "Christ is coming" "Repent!" "Satan is a liar" "There's no happiness in sin" etc. And I'm like. Well. Graffiti's bad. But. Better than American graffiti.) Teenage pregnancy is rampant and families that are divided and scattered all over the place is the norm. I can count on one hand the number of families I've met that were just two parents and all their kids in one house.

And you know what? Their desires are just about the same. They want a job they like. They want stability. They get self-conscious. Girls want to look pretty. Guys act stupid to impress girls. They worry about whether or not the girl who sits in the colmado is gonna reject them or not. They want to learn the guitar. Children dream of being professional athletes. They dream of changing the world. Everyone just wants a happy, healthy life, being accepted and surrounded by their loved ones. They want the same thing.

This is a lesson that should be obvious. That people have the same fundamental needs and desires no matter where they're from. But I know that I always thought of people here or in Africa as people whose entire existence was devoted to carrying water jugs fifteen miles each way every day and eating millet and walking in the bush. And it's not. There are different standards of living, but people are people, and we are no more people than they are. Because from a Dominican point of view, that right there is a hallmark of Americanism. The arrogance.

I don't really know where I'm going with all of this. I'm slightly unfocused. But. We're not in this life to compete with each other. We're all playing the same game. And we're all on the same team.

Love,

Dallin

The Santo Domingo temple grounds

Rushin' -- June 20, 2016

Well, time is short, but here are some pics. Also, transfers are here. This means that Elder Orchard (the rather

diminuitive fellow with spiky hair in the picture of him and me with Jeremy, a member, between us) will be finishing his mission and peacing off to Las Vegas tomorrow morning.

I'm somewhat convinced that Dallin
gets his photogenic nature from me
-- The Kommadant

Speaking of peacing, I've been transferred! I'm going to San Isidro with Elder Koerper, a 6' 4" New Mexican who played baseball in college. We'll still be the zone leaders in Hainamosa. They're going to put sisters in my current area, hence they took both Elder Orchard and I out.

Speaking of which, I tell you what, I'm not very good at handling stress. On Saturday night, there was sooo much to do. We were supposed to compile a weekly report, finish stake conference, pack, make our area book all neat and tidy for the sisters, clean our house to sister standards, and a whole plethora of other things.

And so, as I often do when I have so many things to do, I got home that evening and didn't do one single thing. No, I utilized the ancient stress-management technique of collapsing on the floor and eating a quarter pound of beef jerky. Now, this did not solve my problems, but it sure made me feel better.

And so. With that in mind. I love you all, but well. I have a bunch of stuff that I've been putting off for two days so. Have a great week!

Love, Dallin

Sometimes, you just gotta squat -- June 13, 2016

Squat is relative. I'd say that technically only Elders Hutchins and Potokar are squatting. Strictly speaking, I'm whoa-lunging and Elder Zamora would be Tebowing.

I still have not found my camera cord, although I did buy an sd card reader. Right now I'm troubleshooting- Elder Potokar emailed me the attached pic. There will come more photos if I can get this consarn thing working. A ver.

Some Deep Dembow (dem-BOHW) -- June 6, 2016

Dearest Family and Friends,

Well I'll be. An actual salutation? I dunno when the last time I did one of those was, but I mean. It didn't really change the email at all, did it?

Well, it's week five of the transfer, so time's blowing by. Elder Orchard only has two weeks left and I can't believe that the clock is hammering down. It's like when you're surfing and you see a huge wave coming at you- You know it's coming and you kind of want it to get there and also really don't but it's gonna hit you whether or not you like it. Haha I've never actually been surfing before, so I don't know if it really feels like that, but that's what I imagine it feels like.

Let me tell you something. Being in the DR has upsides and I love it and all. But imagine you're sitting there. The Spirit is so thick you could cut it with a knife. You're about to invite someone to be baptized. You're just certain they're gonna accept. And then. Out of nowhere. Someone cranks an amp and your eyeballs start tangoing in your skull because the bass is vibrating so hard. Yeah. So that's a downside. In case y'all don't know what dembow is, I recommend looking up the song Tarzan by El Mayor. I do NOT recommend looking up a translation of Tarzan by El Mayor. Anyway.

So a couple of weeks ago, we did an intercambio with the elders of Sabana Perdida 2, and I was over there with Elder Aplanalp. We had an interesting experience that has been stuck in the back of my mind ever since. We were walking down the street with José, one of the members over there, when we saw a dog jump out of an alley and scare some poor girl in heels right out of her socks. We used that as an entrance and contacted her. She seemed very interested in the gospel and invited us to her house. We accepted. What followed were 90 of the most frustrating minutes of my mission.

She didn't set us up. Not really. But she never had any intention of listening to us. She was a Jehovah's Witness, and she was determined to whip us purple with the Bible. Now, I think she may have underestimated the formidability of Mormon missionaries when it comes to an old-fashioned Bible bash. She never really threw us for a loop, and from an outsider's point of view, I would humbly say that we had the upper hand for most of the conflict.

But from an insider's point of view (namely ours) it was a total failure. We may have handled every cross she tried to throw at us, but if anything, we reinforced her own conviction that she was right and left an impression of Mormon missionaries as pompous and contentious. We should NEVER have tried to fight it as we did. I suppose the important thing now is to learn from it and not repeat the experience.

Now, to be perfectly honest, I don't really know where I'm going with all of this. I don't know why I'm taking valuable time out of your respective days with this lame story, but I guess it just really struck me. One of the hardest things for me to accept as a missionary is how some people refuse to explore things outside of what they currently believe. Or some people who receive a strong spiritual witness of gospel truths eventually reject them because they like smoking or don't want to get married to their girlfriend or whatever. There was a time when I just wanted to grab these people and shake them and just shout, "STOP PLAYING AROUND, THIS IS FREAKING ETERNITY WE'RE TALKING ABOUT!!" And frankly, I still sometimes feel that. But. God respects agency. And I guess it's just a reminder of why we need to be so careful with how we use our own agency.

Anyway. Have a great week, errahbody!

Love,

Dallin

P.S. There was a kind of funny moment there at the end with that lass. Elder Aplanalp tried to give her a Restoration pamphlet and she was like, "I can't accept that. There are images in it that offend me." and Elder Aplanalp was like, "Is that so? Well, does the cover offend you? No? What about this one?" and she was like, "Yes, that one." and so Elder Aplanalp was like, "Arright," and straight up ripped the page out. She started protesting like, "Hey, you don't have to destroy the thing," and then he just started tearing them all out and it was just so unexpected. It was pretty funny. Although I mean, she still didn't accept it, so it's whatever, but it was sort of a silver lining for the experience. That's all.

Sabana Grande de BOOYAH! -- May 23, 2016

Right, so on to the week.

My new companion is Elder Orchard. He's an ancient missionary from Las Vegas. He's going to finish his mission this transfer. He's 5' 5" and I would conservatively estimate that he benches twice as much as I do. And I'm like. Ten inches taller. So. That's embarrassing. Also, we totally go to the gym in the mornings.

Being a zone leader is one heck of a job. I went up to this place called Sabana Grande de Boyá to do some baptismal interviews. Sabana Grande de Boyá is like Consuelo. It was wonderful. It smelled like cow dung and I felt right at home. I wish I knew how to type a hashtag so that I could hashtag:cachevalleylandof72000cows. Do people still hashtag? I dunno. But the interviews were fairly uneventful. We were told that the guy who was supposed to be interviewed was somewhere on a sugar cane plantation looking for lost sheep (kind of ironic, huh?) and so we didn't even end up getting to do the interview. hastag:campoproblems. BUT! I did get to write in my journal for the first time since transfers. Oh my unborn posterity is going to kill me.

Zone Conference

But it comes with perks! I got to do an intercambio with a trainee named Elder Rosales who's from Honduras and is serving in.... Los. Solares. Yeah. My old stomping grounds. And I discovered something very important. I really love Los Solares. It's not just the bomb-diggety chicken empanadas from a licensed D'Maykel franchise. Nor is it the friendly colmado owner, Freddie, who always told me that everything only costed ten pesos when it did not in fact cost ten pesos. Freddie helps though. No, as I walked down that street in Los Solares, it just felt like home.

Which is an extremely weird thought, because Los Solares is nothing like home. But it felt that way. It's also interesting because, well, it's been nearly a year since I was last there. Everything was so familiar. But also totally different. Some roads that were dirt are now paved. Juice costs like 80 pesos (!!!) New houses were built. There were different people behind the counter at the cafeteria and internet center by the house. It was the same. But different.

I think going home will be kind of like that. I don't mean to talk about going home, but as of this Wednesday, I have exactly three months remaining. That's like. A little over one scout camp season. That's really not long at all. This feeling of being an old man in the mission is odd. Becoming a better missionary has become the object of my existence for the last twenty months, and I'm still doing it, but I'm doing it with the knowledge that in a lot of cases, I'm preparing things here for someone else. The whippersnappers. The greenhorns. The younguns.

And that's okay. It's an important job and someone's gotta do it. Just feels weird is all.

But hey! Love you all and hope you have a great week!

Love,

Dallin

P.S. Sorry for the lack of pictures. I still haven't found my camera cord since being transferred.

Return to the City Slickers -- May 9, 2016

The World's Largest Mojito

This week's epistle will be very short. Apart from finding the world's largest mojito, apparently, I have been transferred. I am going to return to the zone Hainamosa, only this time, I'm going to be in the area Hainamosa. For any of y'all who done forgot, I was in the area Los Solares in that zone from February until July last year. I will be a zone leader there.

Ah! But leaving Verón. I don't really know what to say that I didn't say the last time. Leaving is still hard. I love so many people here.

But! I did want to send that group picture there that was taken yesterday (Sunday). This is a diverse roomful. Without pointing out faces or naming names, in this picture there are orphans, divorcees, widows, widowers, a homosexual, one who had committed murder, and two Mormon missionaries. These people represent broken families and regrettable decisions. They've all made some mistakes, some of them terrible, terrible mistakes.

And all of them are being healed. Because all these people were gathered in one home in the name of Jesus Christ. It seems so ridiculous. But that's just the miraculosity of missionary work.

Also, my mother is legit.

Love,

Dallin