This and that from Hermana P.
Last week in my BOM class I was teaching Jacob Chapter 2 about
riches. I asked my students what they
would do with 200,000 pesos if they had to spend it in one day. Their answers were very telling. Keep in mind that this is about $5,000 American dollars. A fortune in their minds. They really have no frame of reference and have trouble comprehending that much money. Baldwin (not in this picture) said he would save it for his education when he returned from his mission and then added, “maybe I’d buy some
sneakers.” Lillybeth (with pink scarf) said she
would take her mother to Disneyland…something her mother has always dreamed
about. Daniel (back row right) said he would start a
business and give people jobs. Giselle (not pictured) said she would rent a jeep and buy some food
for her friends and they would drive and drive and drive and see their country
and of course, go to the beach. Carlos (white vest) said he would buy a house for his mother or fix her house because she has no floors, only dirt. Junior (center back in pink shirt) said he would buy an orphanage for children in Haiti.
So here I am getting ready to preach about the misuse of
riches and how Jacob admonished his people to seek riches for the good of
others and they taught me the lesson in 5 minutes! These sweet humble kids. They are so generous and giving and
unselfish!
There’s a little rest stop on the way to Santo Domingo
called “Miguelina’s,” about half way which is perfect. A few years ago a woman named Miguelina had an idea. Knowing there were no decent rest stops between Santiago and Santo Domingo, a 2-hour drive, she invested in some property and built a little pastry shop with some bathrooms. She advertised them as the”cleanest baños in the
country.” It has become famous and they
have to keep remodeling and making it bigger.
They’ve grown into a restaurant now with a wonderful pastry shop and
seriously THE CLEANEST bathrooms we have ever seen here.
I’m not kidding when I say, you go into the bathroom, there are two
maids there with swabs and mops in hand.
You enter the private stall. When
you’re finished, you come out and they smile and go into the stall right after
you and swab and mop if necessary. There are 2 maids in the men’s bathroom too. J And they empty the waste baskets in the stall
immediately because you can’t put toilet paper down the toilet in most places in
this country. I know…ew…but the plumbing
just doesn’t handle paper. (Now I know
my sister is thinking, so why didn’t we stop there on our way to Santo Domingo? Yeah...too bad I didn't have my dire emergency there but had to wait until just outside Santo Domingo to make my mad dash into that awful sport’s
bar, full of men gambling on cock fights…and yes, I could have used 4 maids that
day. But let’s just say it was a
memorable experience…and don’t ask.) So
now Miguelina’s is a must stop for us now in our travels to the Capital.
We spoke in a little branch today called La Cienega. They meet in a big house converted to a meetinghouse. Elder P. did so well. I love listening to
him speak in Spanish. I read my talk but at
least I pronounced most of the words correctly.
Things are looking up. We love the children. These boys must be twins!
Tropical storm Chantal pretty much missed us and petered out
and became a tropical “depression.” I
wonder if there’s medication for that? J It rained a lot in the Capital (Santo
Domingo) and they closed the Church Area Office and the Institute there and flights
were cancelled. So Breton decided to
close our Institute here in Santiago, too ("for a precaution"…I think he really
just wanted to go home and have “soap and chocolate.” (He meant soup…but he always calls it soap
and we can’t bring ourselves to correct him.)
Cute , huh? Reminds me of one of
our favorite movie quotes “Eulalie, not another poop out of you"…….."I think he means
peep.” J
We had steady rain for 1 day but honestly it was never torrential
here and no wind uprooting trees like we had on May 1st . Funny, nothing was closed then…it was
considered “normal.” We just
laughed. There were
heavy rains around the country and people who live in the campo had mudslides
and a lot of people were displaced. I talked to
Carlos about his mother and he said she had a lot of mud and flooding. Bless her heart – having a house with a dirt floor in a big rain storm? We’ve had some
tent camping experiences like that. But
they just clean up and go on. Just the
chance of big rains and wind and all the media hype and buildup made everyone
edgy. They HATE the rain. And it has rained pretty much every day at
least a little bit since May 1! 
It does make for green mountains all around us. I love driving away from the city and seeing
all the green. And I'll never tire of palm trees. So beautiful!
It’s going to be hard to come back to the dessert. But I promise I'll adjust!
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