I Wouldn't Recommend That. . .

Hermana Peck & Hermana Brockman

Sarah's New Mission President and his wife

Hmm....let's avoid talking about investigators this week, because I don't want anybody to cry.

So, let's start with a funny story. The other week I was talking to my comp and out of the blue I had a strange thought that went like this: ¨If we had iPads, would we have an electronic version of the area book?? Like would you type in the information so that it was actually legible? Would they have real addresses? Maybe they even have a google map flag?¨ Then we laughed and shrugged it off. ¨Like that could ever happen.¨ Then when I read Erin's email via DearElder, she said, ¨Thank heavens for our online area book.¨ And I read it to everyone and we died that it was actually a real thing. Our poor book. You can't read the Elder's writing, it's stained and falling apart. And true story, when we were whitewashing Bani, one of the addresses of our investigator was ¨pink house next to the colmado.¨ That one took us days to find.
So so different.

This week we had zone conference to meet our new President. Surprisingly, I had to give my farewell testimony. I still have a good chunk of time left so it caught me off guard. I would try to explain what I said but it only really makes sense in Spanish. Luckily, the gift of tongues was in effect and I literally think that was the best Spanish that I have ever spoken. After weeks of trying and practicing and crying, I finally can roll my r's in the right spot!!
But after every success comes the humbling. A Latin Elder came up and said ¨Wow, your Spanish really surprised me, you speak really well.¨ And I didn't understand him and had to say, ¨huh?¨ When he repeated it, I was really embarrassed. Well, I guess it's not that good!

The new President and his wife are great. They are from California. They both speak French fluently. The wife is learning Spanish. The President knows Spanish, just speaks it with a french accent. They are super kind. I received more personal affirmation as a missionary from those two strangers than I ever had in 15 months of my mission before. They took the time to talk to every single one of us.

And this all sets up my most embarrassing moment of my life. And I'm honestly serious about that. It turned out that the assistants needed to pick up something from our house, so we had to go home from the conference with President and his wife and the assistants in their Honda Pilot. I should have known that I was riding with Americans. I should have remembered. But instincts took over and I just assumed that we'd fit all four of us in the back. (In any sort of Dominican public transportation, you have to fit four or five or even six in the back seat.) So I just hopped in. As I squished in there, the Assistant, with a very amused look on his face said ¨I would not recommend that.¨  I squished myself out and was met by two shocked and horrified faces of President and his wife. They thought I was a little savage child. So to try to make up for it, when I got into my real seat, I made sure to put on my seatbelt. I haven't been in a car with a seatbelt in probably a year.
Then they came to see our house, and we hadn't had water all week. It was pretty bad. We  couldn't do the dishes. And our front yard is just nasty weeds. I was pretty mortified.

But anyway, that was my week.

Love you all,
Sarah