"Elder, this aint the language they taught me in the MTC"

Me and Elder Ramos

My wonderful family and friends!!!!!

How are you? Thank you for all the love, support, and prayers. You guys are the best! This week has been the best week by far! This week we were able to go on splits in the field with other missionaries who are in the field in the DR! We piled 14 people into a 12 passenger van and were like bottoming out the whole way to a church here in Santo Domingo. We got there and we were in a room and an Elder said, “Alright lets go! Who wants to go with me?” Looking back I knew I felt the spirit telling me to go, so I immediately raised my hand and we were the first ones out! My companion was Elder Ramos and he is from Honduras! He was so awesome.  We immediately walked around a mile or so to the subway and I asked where we were going.  He said that we were going to Cristo Rey, which is the poorest city in the Santo Domingo west mission. It was one of the most heart breaking and humbling experiences I’ve ever had. It is unlike anything you can imagine. People have barely anything and its just jaw dropping. But I absolutely fell in love with it.  Everyone seemed to be so nice and even though they had so little, they still want to draw nearer to God and Jesus Christ.  So amazing.  Anyway, Elder Ramos is now going home in 2 weeks and the whole time we wished we could have been companions. We were like best friends in a few hours. He was a hard worker and he taught me how to truly love the people!

Okay so the first thing we did was walk a long time to go visit a sweet lady. Wow is all I can say.  She sits all day on the side of the road in a wheelchair and sells packaged cookies and things like that for a living.  She’s been in the wheelchair for 30 years and recently her mother and sister passed away and she has nobody left in her family. My heart just breaks for her. She is so sweet. We taught her on the side of the road about our message and Elder Ramos had me teach about prophets which was really nerve racking, but I somehow was able to! The thing is, when you get out of the MTC the people don’t speak regular anymore…they speak like an auctioneer… it is nuts! I can understand everyone here in the MTC, but after our lesson with Yessenia, I was told my companion, “I understood about 1 percent of what she said”.  My companion emailed me and said she came to church! I was so happy!

Okay then we went contacting! We were walking and we got into more of a place of these homes stacked on top of each other, and my companion slowed down.   I asked him what he was doing and he said, “I’m listening to the Spirit to tell us where to go”.   Elder Ramos is a champion. We yell “BUENAS” at peoples gate when we get to their home.  We got to one home and I introduced who we were and asked if we could share our message about Jesus and God. She said, “Oh yeah, come on in!” I was like wow… that was way too easy people are so nice here!  It was so good! This woman had a cute little family of 4 boys and a girl. They lived in this tiny house like 20 ft by 20 ft.  We shared our message and I was able to give her my Book of Mormon, and the woman was surprised and said “For me?!” I said, “Yeah of course!”  She was so so happy to get it! This woman had been to the Santo Domingo temple open house and she was so happy about the church.

Our last appointment was with a family and a new convert.  It was so amazing and the family was so awesome.  My companion said that they loved me because I tried to speak, and I guess I was funny.   Elder Ramos had me share a lesson and so I shared John 3:16 and talked about how much God loves us and talked about Jesus and his marvelous atoning sacrifice for us!

I love you all! Thank you for all you do for me! I fly out on Tuesday to Puerto Rico so happy and grateful. I have so much to learn and grow and I can’t wait to go out into the field tomorrow again.  I love you all! I know that if we love God and trust and have faith in Jesus Christ that all things are possible! This church is true and it will bring greater happiness in your life than you have ever experienced! Keep all of your heads up! It will all work out! Love you all!

Elder Waidmann