First Baptisms

Saludo! Como estan mi familia! 

As you can tell from those first two lines, I am basically fluent now! And still living that Dominican missionary lifestyle! First off, I want to thank everyone for the dear elders and emails. Its incredible how much love you can feel through words on a piece of paper or computer screen. In the letters that I have received so far, you guys had a couple of questions for me. So I want to answer those first.

DR is amazing! It is literally everything I have dreamt of! Its crazy walking the streets everyday and saying hello to all of these people that look just like your family. All the Dominicans in my area (Fantino) are crazy nice and are always saying Hi to us and inviting us in to talk about Jesus Christ and share a message. Its basically like a Dominican cummings georgia, times two on that crazy nice scale.

Fantino is very country compared to all of the oher areas in santiago. So my companion and I do a lot of walking on dirt roads, through random trails and over hot oxen doodoo. There are tons of oxen, dogs, chickens and horses that roam the streets and do what they want.

Physically it is always hot and humid and nobody has air conditioning. I get a great exercise everyday and I am now the proud owner of an amazing farmers tan and watch tan. I also have been eating tons of rice, beans, mangu, platanoes maduro, chicken and sancocho. Everything is really cheap; it is only 25 cents (american) for one large platano, so you know I've been doing work on that! 

Spiritually, it has been amazing! It's crazy how great I feel every night after knowing that I have worked my best to serve, invite, teach and testify of the gospel of Jesus Christ to everyone that I meet! My companion and I have been having success here in Fantino and we were able to baptize an amazing family this past saturday. The hardest thing for me here in Fantino is being away from my family in the U.S. It's basically impossible for me to talk, read about or hear songs or testimonies about families without crying. I love my Family so much! But it is more than worth it to help other families enjoy the eternal happiness and blessings that come from the gospel of Jesus Christ. I don't have any more time but I am loving D.R with all my heart and I feel comfortable about my spanish. I pray for each of you every night and I know how much the Lord loves each of you! 

Hope to hear from you soon!

Siempre con amor,

Elder Rincon 

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!

Los Dos Primeros Dias!

Wow! I cant believe I am emailing everyone from DR!

I don't have much time but it literally seems like so much has happened since we were all crying on the phone in the Miami airport. First off, I am safe and I am loving my country. It was unreal to go onto the plane and look around to only see my family; literally everyone looked like me. It was amazing to see so many dominicans and I couldn't stop smiling because I was positive that I was sitting behind Imani, Omari, Titi Kenia, Papito etc. 

Once i got into Santiago with my district group, I was picked up by the Mission President and other missionaries. I then proceeded to, per Titi Kenia's request, take a huge breath in and smelled my ancestors. We smell great. I was then taken to the mission home and I got to see the city a little bit on the drive. It looks like a mixture of miami houses and new york people aka. craziness in the streets.

There is so much more that I want to tell you but i don't want to be late to my meeting! 

When I had my first meeting with my mission president he told me that he believed I would definitely have the opportunity to serve in Cotui, which is so crazy and exciting! When we all received our new companions and areas I was called to serve in Fantino; this is where I am now. Fantino is really close to Cotui and far from the city of Santiago.

I couldn't believe it. I am literally living a dream come true.

Today I took a 3 hour bus ride to Fantino and went straight through Cotui. I have pictures. It´s been the craziest couple of days of my life. I don't have enough time to upload pictures but I want to tell you a little more about my experience so far. I have loved every second. I went contacting my first day and my spanish was more or less on point. It's crazy to talk to my people in my country. Everyone is humble and willing to talk about religion, God and Christ. It was a lot of fun meeting, talking and sharing my testimony with random family members that I met in the street.

Also, I have never seen so much poverty in my entire life. It is hard to see my people in this kind of poverty because I love them so much. I know that the gospel of Jesus Christ will help them gain true happiness, receive crazy blessings and have the holy spirit with them always. It has blessed my life tremendously and I know that is the reason why I am here. I am in my home country because I have been extremely blessed in my life and it is my duty to God to do all that i can to share my greatest blessing, the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ, with everyone who is ready to listen with their hearts. I know I am doing the work of the Lord.

Before I go I wanted to tell you that my companion is Dominican from Santo Domingo. We are already becoming good friends and my spanish is growing by leaps and bounds everyday because it is all I am speaking.

Please pray for the members in this country. In Fantino there are only forty members but I know that with the help of the Lord and hard work on my part, I will be able to be a tool in the Lords hands to grow his kingdom upon this earth.

I love everyone here and I love all of my family so much.
I miss each of you so much, but I will be home soon enough.

The Lord has a special plan for me here and I am just starting to figure it out. 

Los Amos Siempre,

Elder Rincon

P.S. My Prep days are now on Wednesdays! and I will have pictures next week :)