DR Lifestyle

This first week has been crazy! I bonded with my dominican brother-companion, I walked everywhere, and I taught a bunch of people (one of them, who I found out after, is my cousin!) I went to sleep every night exhausted, listening to merengue blasting from the houses and stores around my apartment. I also met the local members and had an amazing sunday sacrament meeting. 

Literally there are so many experiences that I want to share with my family, but i know that there is just not enough time (so you all probably just have to serve a mission in DR to understand lol).

Here are the best experiences:
Each day I contact with my companion (Elder Montes de Oca from Santo Domingo) at least two hours a day. Which is basically just talking with people about the gospel while sitting on their porch together. Talking to people is really cool because everyone invites us in and wants to listen to a message about Jesus Christ. Everyone believes that Jesus Christ is everything to them, but a lot of poeple don't go to church and don't like to pray...it's a weird combo but I can feel everyones love for the Savior. One family that we have have been teaching is pretty special! Familia Ortiz; they have great faith and a yearning for the gospel of Jesus Christ! All four of their children have a baptism this saturday, but the parents are not able to until they get married. I am really excited for their baptism, because I know how special and sacred baptism is and how much they will be blessed for taking this great leap of faith. I love this family because they're loud, big and love to talk about the gospel, a lot like my family. All of their little kids (and the kids here in fantino) try to speak english with me and I teach them funny words. It's pretty fun because they're better than most of the adults. I'll keep you updated on this family next time and I should have pictures of the baptism.

So the ward here is pretty small with about 40 active members and 30 inactive members. A big part of the missionary work here is visiting the non active members and sharing spiritual messages with them or just seeing what we can do to serve them. For example; last saturday my companion and I and two other members sang two songs in sacrament meeting and this week I have a talk. This past sunday was a great fast and testimony meeting. The spirit was so strong and I was able to share my testimony with my new ward family. The combination of their strong testimonies and my singing of families can be together forever overwhelmed me with happiness and love. It's so crazy to finally mix my loud and amazing dominican culture with my spiritual beliefs.

I know that there is going to be a lot of success in this area if I continue to work hard with my companion.  

Some of the funniest things about DR is that everyone wears clothes, hats, and food that have english words on it but nobody knows how to speak english or what the words mean. There are a lot of bootleg things here. The other day I saw a Miami Heat hat with a MLB baseball sticker on the front of it...I started laughing but when I explained it to my companion in spanish, it wasn't funny. Oh yeah, I have only spoke spanish in the past week and I'm starting to find my dominican flow. 
Another funny thing is that my companion loves to sing english songs but kind of butchers them with his thick dominican accent. I have been teaching him english everyday and he is improving every day; this also helps me because he is able to sympathize with me when I don't understand spanish words because he only understands about 20 english words. 

Another really cool experience was going to cotui last monday for my district meeting. Being in cotui was a dream come true and meeting tons of people who know my cousin Nelly Almanzar was crazy! Apparently she now knows that I am serving about ten minutes away from where she lives! I have her number and I am going to call her tonight so we can get together. Literally I feel like everyone is related to me and a lot of them actually are. Like a cousin of mine who I have been visting. I found out that she was my cousin about two times after we visited with her family. She is not a member, but her sister in law is and she has a lot of active member friends. We'll all just have to wait and see what happens with my new found cousin Carmen! 

I love my country and the people here. I am livin my culture errday with platanos, loud merengue music and preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ in spanish with everyone I meet. I love my mission and I love Fantino! I love my family and I pray for each of you often! I miss each of you so much and it is really hard to be seperated from each of you, but I know that the Lord will bless each of you as I continue to give my all to serving him and his children. The Lord has entrusted me with a small portion of his earthly kingdom here in DR and I am doing all that I can to build it up with love. I know that am servant of my savior Jesus Christ and I have been given the oppurtunity to give back all that I have been blessed with to his children here in Fantino. It so easy to love the families here because the Lord has given my family so much love.

Hope to hear from all of you soon! 

But until then, NOS VEMOS!

siempre con amor, 
Elder Rincon

p-s I forgot my camera cord but Ill hopefully be sending tons of pictures soon!