Three Baptisms!

Heya! 3 baptisms! Woot woot! They actually happened! I love those three kids so much. Carlos is a punk sometimes, but that´s ok. Yfraili´s smile could melt butter, and Perla is a complete sweetheart. She told me that I should grow my hair out, so at least while I´m in Quisqueya, we´ll see how far it gets. Oh man, I miss mountains! Well, today I´m in Alma 8 in Spanish. I love the Book of Mormon. Lots and lots. Yesterday I had my first Jehovah Witness lesson! Haha, yay, right? We had no idea what we were getting into. Her daughter wanted to come to English class, but hadn´t yet. But we´ve seen her a lot around, so we thought we might as well put a cita with her. We showed up, got ready to do the ¨intro, how to begin teaching¨ lesson, but as we were about to start with a hymn and prayer, her mom came in and told us that the two of them were in the middle of studying to be Jehovah Witness, so this whole José Smith thing just probably wasn´t going to work out. Stomach drops. She starts going off for a few minutes, and I just pray really hard to know what I should do. The thought just comes that we need to sing a hymn. At the same minute, Hna Frye reaches into her bag and pulls out her little hymn-book (love the Spirit, right?). We finally talk her into letting us sing a hymn, say a prayer, and talk about what we believe.She wouldn´t sing, but after we sang Praise to the Man (we´re subtle, I know) she told us that we didn´t sing ugly. Um, thanks...? She mostly quoted the Bible to us while we listened. But after we did get to talk a little, we taught about how Heavenly Father loves us, right? Claro. So He wants to bless us, right? So how can He do that? The atonement, yes. Families. And teach us the gospel through prophets. (I tell ya, Preach my Gospel is inspired. It´s real). She said that yes, that was all true. But now, there aren´t prophets with authority, everyone just shares the truth that they have. Oh my friend, let me tell you about this Restoration. She mostly did the talking, and we never bashed, never tried to prove anything. She said she really couldn´t handle the whole prophets or Book of Mormon thing. I opened to a random page in the Book of Mormon and read it to her, because I figured the whole thing is true, so any verse would help testify of it´s truth. And the whole thing is a testimony of Christ, so I wasn´t picky. It ended up being really good, although I can´t honestly remember what it was. I also shared another verse in 2nd nephi that talks about how we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we prophecy of Christ, etc and told her that that is what prophets do. That´s why we have them and need them. Because we love Christ and want to get all we possibly can about Him. I shared my testimony and the Spirit was SO strong (at least for me). At the end, she said she couldn´t do the whole prophet or BoM thing, but she said that she knew that we loved Jesus Christ. And for me, I guess that´s all that matters. I just hope that everyone I come in contact with knows that I love Jesus Christ. Watching those kids get baptized was so awesome! I think we better get Rafael married really quick and maybe Denia and Anulfo while we´re at it so that we can have some more! And Brayan and Davy should be coming up next month if all goes well. It´s just amazing to watch these kids realize that there´s a different life than the one right outside their front door. They set amazing examples for their parents. The more I see of the other side, the more I realize that this is happiness. Pure happiness. And you can have it anywhere. In the slums of the DR, or in the perfect family in Paradise, UT. This is the only thing that´s real, and the only thing that really matters. Love you all! Thanks for everything! Love, Hermana Sarah Peck

And The Rain Came Down. . .

Note: The Church recently announced a change in policy allowing friends to email missionaries. Sarah says that in their mission they have not yet received permission to email anyone other than their immediate family. So until then. . . Here's her letter: I keep forgetting to mention (or maybe I´m afraid of jinxing it), but we have 3 baptisms for this Saturday. Carlos (10) Yfraili (11) (They´re best friends) and Perla (13). They say that before a baptism, all hell breaks loose. And I can now testify of that. Yfraili wanted so badly to be baptized with Carlos, but he still needs some more lessons, so we decided we´d spend a lot of time with him this week catching him up. But Hna Frye ended up getting a sinus infection. So we were home for 2 days this week, and the rest of the week I was working with a poor coughing, sniffing, groaning missionary. Also, the heavens literally opened, but it wasn´t quite blessings we received, just more water than I thought was possible to stuff into clouds that move so quickly out of nowhere. So there we were, huddled under a store-front canopy on the street after a really interesting first lesson with a very religious woman. Hna Frye is getting sicker by the second. (Here, if you get wet, you automatically get the gripe (a cold)). So I courageously take the outside and try to soak up all the water that I could before it got her. Unfortunately, I did a pretty good job. When it finally let up a bit, we hurry as fast as we can back towards our house to pick up our umbrellas and also a Libro de Mormon for an investigator. But on the way there, a wall of water advances down the calle towards us. We take off at a dash for the closest colmado, only to discover that it is also the loudest colmado in Santo Domingo. This awful Latin dance music is blaring. The kind of blaring you feel in your bones. And the neighborhood motorcycle gang (haha, joke, because every guy here has a motorcycle) is just chilling in there also, trying to stay dry. Hna Frye turns to me, and with a mixture of sign language, and yelled Spanglish, asks me if I´ve tried Mas Mas yet. I hadn´t tasted that particular chocolate, raisin, peanut candy bar mixture yet, but it´s part of the Dominican experience, no matter how bad it sounds, so I said no. I asked her how much it costs, and with a wink, she says, "15 if you´re beautiful". So she asks the colmado guy for a Mas Mas and hands him 15. He says she needs 5 more, it costs 20. She pulls a face and says, "um, that´s expensive" (in spanish of course). He gives a very latin shrug. She maybe fibs to him that down the street it costs 15. He calls her fib because of course he knows they don´t. So she puts out her hand to get her 15 back and acts like we´re going to....what, walk us and our 15 pesos out of there into the sheer wall of water to the colmado down the street? Yeah right. But he falls for it. Or just gives up more likely. He hands her a Mas Mas in defeat. And then I slide my 15 across the counter, give a big smile, and say "¡yo también!" (Me too). I´m pretty sure he rolled his eyes. But I must have been beautiful enough. And I actually am now in love with them. Who knew peanuts raisins and chocolate would actually work out? And so we spent the next 20 minutes until we could see through the raindrops enough to find home. But the baptism is still on for Saturday (knock on wood!). I´m so so scared something will fall through. And even though we had a crazy week, blessings came in the form of investigators at church!! So many! And Stefani came!! With her 7 month old baby and 2 year old. The 2 year old was actually good (I´ve never prayed so hard in my life for a kid to sit still), but then the baby starts running a fever in the middle of sacrament meeting (darn rain). So the baby screams, and Stefani ends up leaving. I will admit, I was a little bitter for a bit because if I was in charge, I would have heaped blessings on the poor girl´s head for getting her family to church despite the whole world against her. But Heavenly Father knows better than me. And this is the lesson for life that I´m learning. He really does. My other favorite story of the week was with a 12 year old kid named Brayan, who has a fecha (baptismal date) for the 25th of May. I had just had a really frustrating lesson right before we had our lesson with Brayan. It was frustrating because I couldn´t understand basically the entire lesson. The man we were teaching is really cool. But he talks so crazy. He speaks so Dominican that I can´t understand. I´m still trying to learn Spanish. Dominican is a different language. I was so frustrated. Then we got to Brayan´s, and he showed us a list of goals he made. Get baptized, be in young men´s, see the temple, go to the temple, get a triple (D&C), get the priesthood. And then he had a picture of a superhero, and he said, "and be a missionary so that I can help bad people become good and happy, like Hermana Frye and Hermana Peck do!" It made my day. I love being a missionary. I love mangos. I love moments when the person sitting across from me says "¡oh!" as I see the light come into their face, and I know that what I said actually made sense, and I hope, a difference. Love you, bye.

Feliz Cumple-mes To Me!

Yay! Mango tree outside our new house. First bus ride. A big bus! Hermana Peck and Hermana Frye View from my first house. My first batida of lechosa (papaya shake). Not bad. . .but. . . Making guava juice. My favorite teacher, Hermano Rodriguez. And our last night in the CCM. I´m 2 months old as of Saturday. The other Hna´s in the house bought me a biscochito (like a muffin cupcake thing). Aaaaand it was fast Saturday/Sunday. Torture. The emails from you guys was JUST what I needed today. This has been a HARD week. Not that the work is different or harder, but it´s all settling in to be real life. And real mission life is hard. And yesterday in Sacrament Meeting was the first time since the first week that I really got homesick. And it was a whole lot worse. I miss church with my family, in a language that I understand. I miss lots of things. The hardest thing is that i don´t feel like I´m making meaningful relationships with the people here because there´s such a language barrier. It´s really starting to take a toll. So I loved getting your emails. You guys all knew exactly what to say. But the good thing is, When I miss my family because they´re so awesome, I realize that so many families don´t have that because they don´t know how to have awesome eternal families. But i have a pamphlet for that! So, update on Stefani (one room house mother of 2). Her lessons are so incredibly emotionally draining. For my comp also. After one tough one, I could tell Hna Frye was thinking about quitar-ing her. (Spanglish for ending teaching her). She quit her job, but still isn´t really keeping commitments. I kind of didn´t want to go back either, but I got a strong impression that we couldn´t give up on her yet. I shared that with Hna Frye, and with tired eyes, she nodded. That night as I was filling out the registro for her, I realized that no one has ever taught her lesson one, about the restoration. I was so shocked. So, we´re going back and teaching lesson one and we´ve had the best couple lessons yet. But she still has a long way to go and a lot of things to change. I don´t know if having this will make the difference for her, but I know that Heavenly Father knew she needed to hear this so that she could have the opportunity to make that desicion with all the knowledge. Rosa has mysteriously disappeared. Argh it´s so frustrating. Why don´t they come to church!?! Missionary brothers, I want your stories on stuff like this! Our week: Monday is P-day. Sundays are really hard for me, and just when I think I can´t make it one more day, it´s Pday. But Pdays are super busy also. It´s just nice to trade the stress of finding people and teaching for the stress of bucket laundry, mopping, and grocery shopping on a budget. Tuesdays are usually district meeting, but tomorrow we have interviews with the president. (And I´ll be able to see if I lost the weight I accidentally put on with the rice and pb&js at the CCM) (This mission gives everybody rice bellies and hunchbacks. It´s only a matter of time). Wednesday we actually get to have language study, Thursday is weekly planning. On Wednesdays and Saturdays we teach English class. Sunday is crazy. Church at 8, go out and teach, then back for meetings in the evening. I don´t know if I will every stop feeling this deep exhaustion. Yesterday, I pulled out the first packet of Cider that you snuck into my suitcase, Mom. And I didn´t care that it was a billion degrees outside still, I drank it hot. It was the best thing I´ve ever tasted, and made me think of you! If you ever send a letter, I would love actual printed off pictures of the family! You guys are so great. But, miracle of the week: Flor. We found her contacting, she might be golden. We´ll see. I´m sending some written letters tomorrow. Love you all so so so much. I don´t know if you guys realize how much the loving support means to me. And I get the best emails out of anyone I know. I´m so grateful for you guys! Love, Hna Peck

One More Step!

Dear elder works great out here. Also letters sent to the mission home out here come very quickly. So thanks everyone for the letters here. Ah, end of the story is, she makes it to church, miraculously gets a job, and then that job makes her work on Sundays so she´ll never come again. Bah!!! The story took a turn for the worse, obviously, so I´ll just leave it. So, I´ve been so very very excited for conference for weeks. I did what they always say to do and came with specific questions, I´d been praying to receive the revelation I needed, all that good stuff. Well, the good news is we were able to watch it in the church if we brought investigators. The bad news, of course, is that it was in Spanish. I prayed and prayed and prayed that I would be able to understand and receive the revelation that I needed. Or that somehow, someone would offer to give me a radio in English or something. So Saturday at noon, we eat super fast and head on over to the church. Carlos was our investigator, he´s 12 and been going to church his whole life, he just needs baptized. We´re shooting for the 20th. So I bring my notebook, and I'm unbelievably excited to hear the voices of the prophets and apostles. Oh wait, we can´t hear their voices, we´re hearing a Spanish voice-over. Ok. Well, incredibly excited to hear what we need to do and have my questions answered. After the first talk, a heavy disappointment and a headache descend on me. By the second, my brain quits trying to translate, because it just can't. The English hymn starts and they pan the crowd and tears start streaming down my face. (And keep in mind, this is the first time I cried in the field.) In that moment, there was nothing in the world I wanted more than to be in the Conference Center. In Salt Lake. In English. Hearing my prophet. Hna Frye put her arm around me and told me that that´s exactly what she did during her first conference in her first transfer. And then I kept on crying because I wanted so bad to understand, and all the people in the DR that could understand, were out partying in the streets. Why don´t people come to church? Why don´t people understand how amazing it is to hear the words of these people called of God? There were only 3 other people in the chapel other than us missionaries. But, the afternoon session, we brought Rosa. Hopefully I can tell you more about Rosa later, but as of right now, she´s basically golden. She was waiting for us with her 3 daughters, they were all dressed up. I had colored pencils, so they spent the time coloring while Rosa raptly listened to two hours. Anytime they talked about something we had taught, she´d nod and go "oooh, si." And then I was glad that it was in Spanish and that I couldn´t understand, because Rosa could. But basically what I got out of conference was, get baptized, get married so you can get baptized, and missionary work is awesome. Also, ironically, right after conference, we were contacting in the street and had two people thinking we were a homosexual couple. We had to try to explain a definite "no" to that one. But in the last 3 minutes of conference, when I kind of was pouting at Heavenly Father for not letting me get the revelation I wanted desperately, I realized that if he was trying to give it to me, by this time I had shut myself off. So for the last 3 minutes of Pres Monson´s parting remarks, I put all my energy into trying to understand. And of course Heavenly Father knew that 3 minutes was all that I could do. And of course he made sure that I got all the answers to all of my prayers and more in that short 3 minutes, from the words of a prophet. Because revelation and the Spirit doesn´t have language barriers. Sometimes, I start to think that the whole world is cement, trash, flea-infested dogs, and people that hit their wives and children. But then I look up. And sometimes here, it rains flower petals. And those petals mix in with the trash in the gutter. And so when all I can see is trash, I look for the flower petals. Newsy stuff: my companion has 9 months out here. She´s from Napa California. She loves basketball. She is a senior at BYUI. My area is Quisqueya. We moved this week into a giant house. We live with 2 other Americans. Which means we speak way too much English and I´m not learning Spanish fast enough. :( So there´s a less-active member that we visit. She´s getting older, and we´re pretty sure she has Alzheimers or at least we hope she doesn´t really believe that we´re all going to live underwater when Christ comes again. And sometimes she forgets that He came. And most of our beliefs, and basically everything. But we were sitting on her porch talking to her when a beautiful breeze comes up. I loved it. But then she tells us that it is too freezing in this awful country, and she needs to go inside. O-kay.... We step into her house and it´s like a sauna. I´m having trouble breathing normally it´s so hot. And so my companion kind of takes over trying to teach again about how Jesus Christ came, died, and was resurrected while I focus on survival. All the while, this big, black, tacky jaguar statue is literally staring me down from her center table. O-kay... Well, after a few minutes, the room is spinning, and I realize my head is sinking lower and lower and I´m falling over to one side. Swerve, over-correct, sink to the other side. Dreamily I hear the sister talking about the milenium. My companion trying to tell her that no, we won´t live underwater. Finally it´s time to go and I hoist myself up, carefully walk out, and then hold on to the telephone pole and try to stop the flashing white dots in my vision. After a second, I take some deep breaths, and it´s back to walking down the never-ending calles of Santo Domingo. One more step at a time. I learned to Dominican mop today. It involves throwing water all over the floor and doing some kind of crazy dancing with an old-school mop. It was not my favorite activity. Mostly I´m really bad at everything here. Cleaning, laundry, cooking (well, there wasn´t much to work with there to begin with), talking. That´s what I miss a lot. I used to be good at speaking. I used to be able to play with words and convey ideas with eloquence. Haha, not anymore. But, I´m learning lots and lots and lots and more. And I love being a missionary. Even when sometimes I hate doing missionary stuff. :) I work on enjoying each moment, and it makes it much better. I love love love this gospel! And all of you, Thanks for all the news, I love getting it! Love, Hermana Sarah Peck

Growing Up, A Little Too Fast!

Hola Hola Hola! First and foremost, muchisisisisimas gracias to everyone for the outpouring of love manifested in email. However, out in the real world now, I´m only going to be emailing my family. So please contact my mother about a legal adoption, but until then, pray really hard for the mail system here. (and remember that the more you send, the more likely they are to make it to me ;) ) But really, it's supposed to work better out here. Entonces, out here in the huge real-live world--which is really a relatively small world, in a small part of the city of Santo Domingo--I've had to grow up a lot overnight. Laundry is an adventure, cooking is an adventure. I've taken a step up and now my milk comes from powder, which actually tastes better. One of the strictest and also least-followed rules of the mission is that we can't eat in anyone's home, or off the street. After seeing both the homes, and the street, I wasn't really tempted, but just in case I was, one of the Hermana's that we live with has an amoeba living in her intestines. And it's not fun. (She claims it was a bad water bottle but I also know for a fact she eats with members.) The blessings that come from obedience. Of course, I've also heard of a million other missionaries with parasites that have been obedient, so I guess it's just one of the many risks here. I don't remember if I told you about Alex's oatmeal in the CCM (Alex was the cook). I'm sure I did because I'm obsessed with it. But we tried to recreate it the other night. We got pretty close, but not quite. Which is good, because my trainer has been trying for 9 months to do it, and she said that when she gets it she can go home. I might have to keep sabotaging it, because I definitely need her. Speaking of the wonderful Hermana Frye. She had her 9 month mark on Wednesday. She is pretty awesome. Literally the best way I can think to describe her is cool, calm, and always collected. She is kind of quiet, but very powerful. I don't really know how to describe it. But she takes good care of me. She doesn't always tell me what to do, so I have to watch her closely. My Spanish is coming slowly and surely. I didn't really worry about it the first 2 days, but after that I felt like I was pulling the new card for too long and it was time to be fluent! Disappointingly, I'm still not. But it comes. So, a day in the life: Get up early, stretch, shower, eat, study, comp study, 12 weeks training program study, language study. Then we have lunch from 12-2. It's 2 hours for lunch, but we don't have a dinner break. Then we get ready to go out. I put on sunscreen because I'm a good girl. I put some repellant on my ankles because I hate blood-sucking insects. We take turns, whoever carries the Bible carries the keys, and the other has the triple and the phone. And we are supposed to always always always carry a Book of Mormon in our hands. And then we step out into the world. This week has been crazy because it's Semana Santa (holy week). And I am not a fan. Everybody leaves the city for the playa (beach) or campo (country) so there's no one to contact or teach, and everybody that stays just gets drunk. Slight exaggerations, but only very slight. Hopefully tomorrow it'll get into the normal swing of things again. Everybody is always in the streets, which makes sense after you see the houses. Back at home in church, if you're referring to temporal things or sin or such, you'd say "things of the world". Here, they say, "things of the calle" (calle means street for you gringos.And remember the ll makes a y sound) So literally, quote: "You can't just be a member of the church one day and go do the things of the calle the next." It's kind of a rough kind of life. We have one investigator. She lives in one of the calle-homes. (You can't imagine it unless you've seen something like it, but I'll try to describe). There's tiny tiny alleyways curving anywhich way. Doors in the walls open to tiny cement homes on either side, or colmados (hole in the wall little stores; think gas station, but not). This particular home of this 22 year old mother of 2, is in a particularly dark, narrow calle. Little rivulets of water (and sewage) run down the middle of each alleyway. A few cement steps set in the side of the wall allow you to jump into a open rectangle with a curtain that is the doorway to...a room. Just one. Smaller than my bedroom at home (much much smaller). There is a bed, a tiny stove, a tiny tv, and one tiny chair. We sit on the edge of the bed. By the door is a bucket where the two-year-old boy goes to the bathroom. She is from Haiti, so I have a very hard time understanding her street-spanish with Creole accent. Before I came, she had a baptism date, but it fell for a lot of reasons. She isn't married, nor is she likely to be, because the man that comes around often enough to pay for some things and keep the family growing isn't really into that kind of thing. Especially since who knows how many other calle-homes he has. I'll have to tell you more about her and her little family, because I'm almost out of time. But sitting in that room I've had the hardest emotional experience of my mission. But sneak-preview: she came to church miraculously!! Stay tuned for next week I guess. I'm sorry I didn't have time to respond to everyone's letters, but know that I did read and appreciate them all. (I can't print them off anymore) :( I love to hear about it all, so keep it coming! I love this gospel. I love my Savior. Thanks for all the support, I can feel your prayers. I love you all. Love, Hna Sarah Peck P.S. Sorry I couldn't figure out how to send pictures :(