31 may 2013

Hi all!  Hermana here.  A few words about another miracle.

First a little background info.  One of our students, Daniel Cilus, is a Haitian boy who served a mission here in the DR and has been in this country 3 years since his mission.  Jobs and opportunities in Haiti are scarce, especially since the earthquake.   His mother in Haiti is out of work.  No family members there can help him…they are barely surviving themselves.  He’s been here on visas and is trying to get permanent residency.    Without that documentation he can’t get a job here and of course the documents cost money which he can’t earn without a job.  So he’s between a rock and a hard place as so many Haitians are.  He wants to get accepted into the PEF (Perpetual Education Fund) program which would help him with money for school or specific work training but again, he must be documented.  

 How I would dearly love to just give him the needed money for legal documents but we've been advised as missionaries not to give people money.  Not only is it counter-productive to their developing self-reliance but there is no end to the need.  So I quietly listen to Daniel’s weekly challenges and pray for him constantly.  He’s one of my favorites – he speaks great English and he sings harmony!   He’s as black as night with the whitest teeth and the biggest smile.  I call him my black son!

Last Friday Daniel shared with me that his past Mission President who lives in Santo Domingo might have a lead for a job for him there.  He doesn't want to move there.  All of his friends are here in Santiago but he thought he might need to go there and check it out.  Santo Domingo is the capital, about 90 miles away.  It cost around $15 to ride the bus down and back.  I knew he’d be trying to figure out how he could come up with the money.   Again, I wanted to just reach in my purse and give him money but for the reasons above and because our funds are sacred missionary funds, I cannot.  Again, I prayed for him to find a way to go if that was best.

Monday morning after Bill and I walked together…always wonderful by the way...I walked alone for about 30 minutes.  I usually listen to my Spanish lessons on my ipod or Tab Choir music.  I was doing the Spanish lessons…concentrating and reciting.  I went a different way than usual and was heading home when I saw in the middle of the sidewalk a piece of paper that looked like money.  We've seen a few pesos on the ground but never a paper bill.  I reached down and picked it up and to my surprise it was a 1,000 peso bill (which is about $25.00) 

 I looked around to see if anyone was nearby who could have dropped it.  There was a man with his dog across the street behind his fence watching me and he didn’t come running out of his gate, so I figured it wasn’t his.  I must admit that my first thought was, ooh, now I can buy some new shoes or a blouse.  But, truly within seconds the thought and the words came clearly into my mind, “This is for Daniel.”  I smiled and knew immediately that was exactly right and I couldn’t wait to get home and tell Billy. 

 We talked about it and because it didn't come from us, we knew it would be OK to give it to Daniel and it would help him get to Santo Domingo this weekend.  Many tears were shed  as we told Daniel the story and presented him with the 1000 peso bill.  I said, this had your name on it when it dropped from heaven.  He was surprised and amazed.  I told him if he didn't decide to go to Santo Domingo, if he had a stupor of thought about that, not to worry, just use it for whatever he needed.  He said he had felt that he should go and just wasn't sure how he would do it.  I told him that I knew Heavenly Father knew him and loved him.  I just get teary thinking about it.  What a sweet experience. 

The angels are alive and well and besides moving cars out of harm’s way for us, apparently they’re dropping money around, too.  Sweet!  :)

28 May 2013

Heeerrrreesss   CHESTER.

OOPS.  That isn't Chester, that is the rooster who crows all night long, thinking he is Chester, trying to keep us awake.  Oh well, I will try again.




Yeah, this is Chester, posing for his picture.

We have blogged many times about this dog named Chester.  Of course, he doesn't know his name is Chester, but it is. (of the Kid's fame.)  As I took this photo, he was staring at me.  I calmly told him that I appreciate his silence on those few nights.  He barked.  I told him he was mildly  obedient to my companion. He barked.  I told him I expected better obedience.  He barked.  I told him to recognize authority  when Sister Partridge and I told him to cease and desist.  He barked, and then he "smiled" (sort of) and walked a few paces, seemingly laughing at me.

Well, after I walked away, he barked a few times letting me know that he was still the KING of that street, and I was an intruder.

The other night, Sister Partridge arose and told him to "Pare", which means stop.  He didn't.  I calmly lay in my bed, expecting obedience from Chester, but this night he was acting like a child that thought he knew it all, and ignored the  command.  I angrily arose, went to the window and with a loud voice, (remember this is about 3 in the morning) said, "Keep your trap SHUT, Chester."  He glanced up at the third floor when my voice came from, stopped barking and calmly walked away. 

I'll tell you, it is hard to sleep when Chester wants to bark at every fire fly, every cock roach, every moving leaf, every rooster crowing, every other dog in the city barking, or anything and it is about 80 degrees, and we are finding it hard to sleep anyway. I wonder if he questions every  time he hears our voice, if he wants to be obedient, or not?  Often we have discussed how we could run him over, of course accidentally.  Or perhaps poison him, or perhaps get a pellet gun, or get another dog to threaten him.  As you can see by his picture, he is not small, and thinks he is the king of the neighborhood.  If any of you have an idea what we can do those long nights when he is being a rebellious son, or barking just to spite us, please send us ideas, poison, or ammunition for a weapon.  I guess I could borrow my grandson's sling shot???  There has to be a solution to this challenge.  

18 May 2013

We are alive.

Yesterday, we were driving to the Institute and on the way, one of the worse, or THE worse intersections of the  city had the traffic lights out.  They weren't working.  We commented that it was sure stupid that the engineers, or the city people, or those hoo doo  people didn't immediately fix the traffic lights. That intersection has traffic coming from five different ways, and it is always awful.  We have been sitting at that intersection and often drivers just run red lights, ignoring the lights.  One has to be aware, and expect the unexpected.  There is always lots of traffic at the intersection.

Well  tonight, we were returning from Santo Domingo where we went to witness one of our students get her endowments before her mission, (She has been assigned to PROVO, nice huh?)  We approached that intersection and commented that the traffic lights were still out.  I approached the intersection and checked out the many different ways.  One of the feeder streets, where traffic came to that intersection, comes from the left, from a hill, and around a corner, thus I could not see down that road.  I waited until it was safe to proceed and slowly entered the large intersection.  As I did, there was a guy coming FAST into the intersection.   I glanced to my left and there he was.  He was coming straight for me.  I wasn't going fast, but put on my brakes by reflex.  He was practically in  my lap, and I saw his face as his car came directly for our front left fender.

As I saw fear in his face, I saw him start to turn the steering wheel to the right. I saw him slam on his brakes, turn his wheel and fear enter his face.  Based upon the speed of his car, the speed of his effort to turn his car out of the crash,  I knew he was going to hit my car door.  I actually "felt" his impact, could see us thrown around and injured, badly.  As the front of his large car went to hit ours, I again noted the fear in his face, for he was right there, in front of me, plowing into me. I felt I could reach out and touch him.  His face is engraved in my mind.   Due to the slow reaction of his car, I, as I said before, felt the impact.  It was really as if I could feel the car hit ours and both of us being tossed around and who  knows what?  THEN...

Angels answered our prayer of this morning, many of your prayers, and angels moved his car, much faster than it was moving to the right.  I almost felt his car scrape ours.  As his tires screeched, as his car turned, almost as if it were on a turn table, he missed us and came to a stop right in front of my seat.  I looked into his eyes and his mouth dropped open.  He was as surprised as I was how fast his car reacted, beyond the initial change in direction.  

I know we should have been involved in a serious accident and would have had lots of injury on our part.  I am humbled tonight to know that Father is protecting us, saving us from accidents and other unseen happenings.  We should have been in an accident.  Thanks be to our loving Father for protection tonight.  It was truly a protection miracle.

10 May 2013

We were talking with a Dominican Dude the other day and he told us of the following ball teams, and most of the remaining ones.... who have schools down here in the Dominican Republic to find, teach, train, and nurture ball players from this country.  They go out and watch the teams from the cities throughout the country, and select those who have talents.  They sort of "draft" them and ask them if they would like to come to their major league training schools, universities.

They conduct classes, teach skills, observe talents, and search for those players who would "fit" on their teams.  I am sure that not many make it, but the major league teams figure it is worth the money to do so, to find those like Alex Rodriguez, Sammy  Sosa, and so many others who  have started out in this country.

The youth feel this is the way to "make it", to be recruited by one of these teams, show them how good they are, and it will be their ticket out of this country, into the land of milk and honey, the United States and earn millions of dollars.   That is why there are many ball diamonds in every city, and many, many fighting to  play on those city teams.

9 May 2013

Note:  (Because of monies from other sources, we did not use the sacred funds donated by loved ones for this vacation between semesters.)

Our vacation with my sister and brother-in-law, Katy and Russ was simply fabulous!  I think the pictures will tell the story just fine.  The Lifestyle Vacation Resort in Puerto Plata was like a cruise ship on sand.  It helps to know a shareholder (our Mission President) and get their dirt cheap rates.  That, combined with the all-inclusive thanks to our very generous Rosanders, we ate like kings!  Just raise your menu whilst lazing around on your beach bed, and several waiters come running to take your order.  More crepes?  Nachos?  Another piña colada?  Juice?  A hamburger?   Yes, señor.  Right away, señora.  I could get used to this life.  Oh, that’s right, I’m a missionary!  Forgot that for a minute…or more like 6 days to be exact!  CES missions rock the house!  In lieu of mid-week P-days like normal missionaries, we get breaks between semesters…we get to be tourists, enjoy our island in the sea (even with our family!), wade in the warm ocean, comb the beautiful beaches, tour the 500-year-old ancient forts, cathedrals and ruins, recharge our batteries and gear up for the next 15 weeks.  What could be better?  And as you could tell from Bill’s recent blog, our vacation was timed perfectly, before the May monsoons!

Here’s a smattering of our fun in the sun…and our tours in the Colonial Zone of Santo Domingo.

                                                 Choose your bed on the beach.  

                 

Let's see, am I comfortable enough?

Dining in style.  Gotta love all-inclusives!

The fabulous foursome!

In Santo Domingo.  This is a 500-year-old fort.
So amazingly well-preserved...like us!


Walls are made of limestone and coral.

 

My knight in shining armor!

We're in a 500-year-old room, a gathering place for kings and there the king sits...on his cell-phone.  Gotta love it!

 The 1st Cathedral in America - not much to look at on the outside,

but gilded with plenty of gold and silver on the inside.

Columbus's final, final, final resting place.
Amazing building in the shape of a cross.
Built in 1992 to celebrate 500 years since Columbus discovered...The Americas!

The Popemobile.  Nice that the new pope won't
ride in one.  I like him!

We visited Tres Ojos. " Three eyes."  Beautiful underground fresh water lakes.  Very cool.

6 May 2013

Storm:

Normal:

The weather here is Hot.  Then the next day it is hot.  Then hot again, and then hot.  At night it is a bit cooler, or we wouldn't sleep for these 18 months.  Well, yesterday it was 90 degrees.  Of course it was humid and one of those days that was filled with perspiration.  Since it was Saturday, we were out doing Saturday things, purchasing food, getting caught up and preparing for the coming week.  As we left the institute, (doing month end things) it looked like rain.  

Thursday night it rained while we were out and there was water in the middle of our kitchen, and a few other places throughout the apartment.  We always leave the windows open to air out the place.  Since it never rains here, we thought we were safe, even coming home from the institute threatening rain.  Well, we were going to the local Blockbuster to see if there was a movie we could watch, for you see we are still between semesters.

As we neared the movie store it started to rain.  I mean really rain.  I mean torrential rain.  I mean downpour.  It was nice since we haven't seen much rain here.  Well, remember, it was 90 degrees hot and really started to get serious, as if it wasn't serious before.  It started to hail.  Big hail.  I thought we were going to have damage to the car.  We entered the underground parking at the movie place and there was about six inches of water in the parking basement.  We swam through the flood, parked the car and got out.  Found a movie, and swam back to the car.  Everyone was talking, pointing fingers, watching the  hail, the rain, and the heavy wind. 

On the way home, there were leaves broken off of the trees, streets littered with things.  As we neared our apartment, there was rivers where there used to be roads.  We approached our apartment and the power was out, thus we could not get into the parking lot where we parked our car.  We would have to wade through six inches of water to arrive at the front door of our apartment complex. 

Finally, it slowed down raining and blowing and tried to show us blue sky.  An important person came out and manually used the key and opened the gate, we entered.  Water, mud, debris everywhere.  We entered to find the couch by the open window soaked, our bed soaked, water everywhere (we live on the third floor) and mud also within our abode.  As it started to grow dark, we still didn't have power and had to eat a bite by candle light.  We slept in a different bed that was hard as a cement floor, or tried to sleep.  Every hour or so, an alarm, loud, sounded and continued to ring through the darkness for hour upon hour.  Chester the dog, barked all night long.

We called one sister we work with and asked her about the storm.  She laughed and said that is "NORMAL" for May, get used to it.  We went walking this morning and herein are shown many pictures of normal rain showers coming through this month of May.

Today, Sunday, it rained again and rain came into our apartment, water on the floor of our living area.  NORMAL.

5 May 2013 -

We picked up Katie and Russ at the airport and drove back to Santiago.  We stayed the night.  Katie had many things we had asked for, that we could not find down here.  Female stuff, yarn, meds, vacuum parts, and things that would be handy to have down here.  She brought a sweet photo album from Emily and some Garlic Makings from Rebecca.  It was truly like Christmas, so I christened her "Katie Claws".  She had a suit case that weighed 50 pounds, thus we had 50 pounds of goodies, in April, a Christmas in April. 

Well, those of you  who know me, know that I very respectfully, humbly, softly, just mentioned that it would be nice to have a few black jelly beans.  You can't find them down here, and for some reason my companion and I love black jelly beans.  I hate black licorice but love black jelly beans.  I know, it doesn't make sense, but  do I make sense?  

Anyway, she was getting to the bottom of  her suit case and I inwardly, started to worry that perhaps I did not ask strong enough about the black jelly beans.  I mean, maybe I was too humble, too transparent in asking, softly suggesting that if she happened to find a bean or two, be them black, she might bring them. 

Finally she was about to close her fifty pound suit case and I was just sort of sad, worried, concerned that perhaps it wouldn't be a black jelly bean Christmas in April.  She looked at me and said, "Oh one more thing."

You can see the picture.  Katie, dear Katie, dear Katie Claws brought 20 pounds of black jelly beans.   Now she insisted that I asked for twenty pounds, and maybe I THOUGHT about it, but I can't remember ASKING for that many pounds of beans.  I can become the Jelly Bean King of the Dominican Republic.   She said I could eat seven every day, but I figure it would be about a pound every day???  That is adding a pound to my heavy body, a day!   Thanks Katie Claws, I will always be nice and not naughty, especially for 20 pounds of anything.  Anyone want a bean or two?  I seem to have plenty!