Semana Santa (Holy Week)

Personal/Ryan's mission

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Ryan Mecham	Apr 21 (7 days ago)
to Ali, Amanda, ashley.mecham, Austin, Dallan, Isaac, Jake, Kess, me

Bueno,

This week was interesting. Holy Week here in the DR is... well... nuts. Basically everyone has vacations from work and school so the streets are a little interesante. Most of our investigators and many of the members went to the campo (which means the parts of the country that aren´t the Capital/City) to visit family and spend the week there. So we spent a lot of time trying to find new investigators. But hey, it gave us time to check up on some less-active members that we normally can´t ever find.

So they have a tradition of everyone putting swimming pools up and just hanging out in them all day, every day. Not a problem. They also have occasional water fights with plastic bags full of water. Not a problem. There is also not a ton of people. Actually a good thing. Some people have cars with really nice/loud speakers. Alright. Alcohol sales from Wednesday to Sunday are probably the highest of any time in the year. Also everything is closed on Friday. What does this all add up to you may ask: PARTY TIME! It suficeth me to say that I did not get much sleep on Friday.

On the up side. We were able to visit a few times with Clarisa. She is one of our investigators. She is 8 years old and reads better than her dad and her uncle, who are also kind of investigating the church (really just allowing us to teach Clarisa). Anyway, Clarisa asks the most inspired questions I think I have ever witnessed. We were teaching about the restoration and she stopped us and asked ¨what if I don´t know which church I want to join?¨ (her grandma is trying to force her to be Evangelical) She asked it right as we were about to explain how Joseph Smith received an answer to that very question. Luckily I managed to choke down the tears as I shared the Joseph Smiths account of The First Vision. She committed to pray.

I know that Joseph Smith saw God the Father and the Resurrected Lord, Jesus Christ. I know that he restored the true church on the Earth once more. I know that we are here as missionaries, as members, and as mortals to testify that the Lord is risen; He overcame death; and that we will do the same.

Elder Mecham