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.