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