30 December 2012

Tis the purple girl.  Before  the Christmas season ends, I wanted to offer a little version of the 12 days of Christmas this year in the DR.  I won't bore you by singing all the verses (you're welcome) but here is the final verse.  Feel free to sing along...

On the 12th Day of Christmas my true love gave to me:

12 Roosters crowing
11 Horns a honking
10 Lizards leaping
  9  Foreheads dripping
  8  Piles of garbage
  7  Swerving taxis
  6  Biting flies 
  5  Power outages
  4  Feet of mold
  3  Cold baths
  2  Cans of raid
And a cockroach as dead as can be!

But the amazing thing is...my true love also gave to me:

12  Brown faces
11  Hugs and kisses
10  Green palm trees
  9  Flowers blooming
  8  Smiling geckos
  7  Sunsets gleaming
  6  Clouds a streaming 
  5  Children laughing  
  4  Avacados
  3  Fruit stands
  2  Dancing mops
And a mission as fine as be!

Now you may be wondering why the leaping lizards suddenly changed to smiling geckos.  I've discovered the little ones are really cute.  I'm trying to get a photo of the little guys but they're rather shy.  I've nearly stepped on a couple of them outside our apartment.  Today we saw 4 of them in the trees on our walk home from church.  They make the cutest chattering sound in the trees.  I'm changing my mind about them, especially if they mind their own business and stay outside!

                                                       A few pictures to finish off 2012.

 It's hard to imagine a White Christmas with all of this around us!






The flowers are just lovely.  Colors popping out everywhere. 

   

 

We drove up into the hills to see our fair city from above.  We're enjoying our Institute Christmas break.

 

 

 

 

 

29 December 2012

There are sights, sounds, noises, smells, and experiences that no one would ever believe that we are getting used to.  And we haven't even left the city where we serve, except once.  We have some time off right  now, and are planning on taking some "journeys" either next week or the week following.  Then we will know more about this country.

I am going to try and put pictures within this and then comment.

This is what we see all the time in the middle of the road.  People steal the man covers to sell for the price of metal.  So, if a driver doesn't see it, then they could lose their car down there, for that is the cover for the sewer.  It stinks, and is about ten feel down.  Wonderful

Then we have the supermarkets. I don't know what the "super" refers to.  It is a tiny little thing selling few things.  They do sell water, for almost every store down here sells water.  The little scooter in front take the water jugs around to customers. 

Then there is the "lower income" areas of the city.  Or should I say, the "no income" area of the city.  These little spots are located all throughout the city.  And especially in the outskirts.  The people seem to be very  happy and content with their life.  I am sure they do not compare what they have with  what others have.  Interesting. 

 

 

 

There are blessings all around us.  Yes, we do miss our family, yes, we miss the snow, and so many other things, but it is a joy to be in this foreign country, learning Spanish, touching others, being on the errand of Christ, trying to seek out those honest in heart, trying to help these brilliant young adults as they struggle to grow and mature.  Love it.... And it is a joy to work with the Elders and Sisters as they serve as missionaries.

26 December 2012

Mom here.  Feliz Navidad!  It's been a joyous and very different celebration of Christmas for us this year.  We spent Christmas Eve with the Breton family (our director.)  Their apartment was all decked out and the table set with lovely Christmas place settings.  It made me miss home.  They served a beautiful traditional dinner of pork, turkey and beef along with 2 kinds of potato salad (one was red, made with beets (I loved it), a green salad and of course mangoo (platanos and cheese)...no dad didn't partake. 

They told us about their traditions here in Santiago.  Their big meal is always Christmas Eve.  They call it "Noche Buena."  They have leftovers from this meal for many days.  They sometimes open presents on Noche Buena or wait until Christmas morning.  Santa Claus comes and puts the presents under the tree.  The gifts themselves are called "Niño Jesus," or little Christ.  So the gifts represent the baby Jesus.  This is a tradition here in Santiago and the north part of the island.  Down south in Santo Domingo the big focus for Christmas gifts is on January 6th which is 3 Kings Day.  Then the gifts represent the gifts given to Christ from the 3 wise men and they save the big gifts of Christmas for then.  But here in Santiago, the gifts brought by Santa are called "Niño Jesus,." so it's easy to focus on the Savior on Christmas Day.    Awesome, huh.     

Here's Brother Breton and his son Maico with their lovely tree.  It's a Dominican thing to wrap the tree with yards and yards of ribbon.  There's a "Niño Jesus" under the tree. 
  


Notice the bars in the windows...every apartment and home has these, and tile floors.  Christmas throws and pillows on all the sofas and chairs and candy dishes everywhere like Grandma Ron's house. 

The rest of the Breton family. Relaxing after the big, big meal.







Our Christmas was quiet and very different from the past Christmas's living with our family.  We enjoyed our Christmas morning.  Santa came and filled our stocking and left some nice presents.  Notice dad's wrapping.  Mine are was least wrapped nicely in newspaper!  

The first time ever!  When he actually wears them on the beach, I'll definitely take photo proof.  And notice the flip flops.  Another first.  Will wonders never cease? 

 

My beautiful hand made scripture cover.  And blue blouse hanging on door.  Nice.  Our fan is not going around because it was actually cool on Christmas, in the mid 80's.  We took a lovely walk in the evening after dinner.  We didn't see the sight below, that was the day before Christmas.

 

Not exactly chestnuts but rather piglets roasting on an open fire....just makes you feel all toasty inside, huh.  More pictures to follow on flickr soon of pigs on the corner (or is that corner on pigs!) and more videos in dropbox, too.

 

Happy Holidays! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

24 December 2012

Sorry Kate.  Must Pontificate.

This morning on our way to our morning walk, I saw a guy sweeping up dirt from the gutter, putting it in a very nice bag with writing on it, sealing it, and then I am sure he is going to sell it.  He will probably sell it as great manure or fertilizer.  I don't know, but I won't buy any.

I learned a lesson this past week.  We sleep in this bed.  Or course we sleep in a bed. Well, Bonnie sleeps on my right and on the left of the bed, next to me is a LED clock.  Every night when she wants to find out what time it is, she has to sit up in bed, climb over me almost to see the time, to see if it is time to get up, or to see if she has more hours to sleep.  We have been doing so for three months.  Well for Christmas, I decided to purchase a small electric clock for her side of the bed.  Though  I appreciate her climbing over me every night a few times, I figure it may help her sleep.

Well, we went to three to four different stores, asking about a small electric clock.  Well, it seems that they don't make electric clocks here, at least to put beside Bonnie's bed.  So we purchased one that runs on batteries, doubtful is she can see it at night.  We got it home and I started to wrap it in whatever paper I could find, sticking it together with  gum, though I hate gum.

THEN I had a brilliant touch of inspiration.  why don't I just elevate the clock on my side so she can see it without any trouble.  I put it on top of the bedside lamp and it solved the problem.  After all that discussing, seeking a solution to the problem at many stores, going all over the city searching, there was a solution right in front of my  own nose.

That is the lesson.  I felt the Spirit tell me that often when something bothers us, when we have an obstacle for anything, we search for a solution, we try to solve the problem when the answer is right in front of our nose and all we really need is humility or the desire to ask Him who knows All.  There are small and simple things, solutions, that often will resolve our troubles, it is just listening to Him to find out the solution.  That has happened too many times to mention, even in something as simple as an electric clock, non-existence in the DR, or seeing the time in the middle of the night.

FLASH MOB revisited.  We had one last night.  At 5:30, the noise level woke us both up, it was getting louder.  (we don't live on a main busy street)  Well in front of our apartment there were cars going by with speakers waking the dead.  On every car, there were hundreds of people inside and people hanging onto the outside and even people on top of every car.  They were three deep all going the same direction.  There was even a flatbed, eighteen wheeler, decorated with Christmas lights, LOUD music, filled with at least 100 people on the flat bed, all singing, shouting, and drinking a beverage, I am sure it was hot chocolate.  This "parade" went on for at least twenty minutes, road filled with car after car, all screaming and drinking, and loud music.  The dead must have been awakened.  I thought, "I  hope this doesn't go on for two days, until after Christmas."  It was quite interesting.  I guess it was a Flash Drinking, Singing, Screaming, horn honking, MOB at 5:30 in the morning.  Crazy.

22 December 2012

Greetings.  It is December 22.  Three days until Christmas.  It is about 85 degrees.  Hot, humid, and ready for snowball fights.

Friday, I had the privilege of teaching a lesson to about six investigators.  The assistants to the President brought some of them, and a sister couple brought a few others.  As I was taking a few minutes to prepare, I FELT divine influence.  It was cool.  I collected (through inspiration) a list of scriptures about Christ.  It showed His pre-earth experiences through His post earth promised presence in our lives.  It was fun, especially feeling the direction what to say, what to present.  That is why I love to teach so much, just being used as His instrument.

We were driving along the other day, three lanes immediately narrowed to one, because there was a tire in the road.  It was placed in a LARGE pot hole, one that could swallow a car, and that is the way to show drivers that there is a hole in the road. 

I am SO PROUD of Sister Partridge.  She just finished teaching a WHOLE semester of "directing music" to about ten kids, the class narrowed down to four to finish, but she did so well, with  little help from me.

We will probably move into the apartment where the current mission senior couple lives.  Our mold continues to grow and drop down in our bathroom, thus we will be moving January 11 or so. 

We FOUND some duct tape.  It is one of those items we take for granted there in the US, but we need some, and found some.  It is surely more expensive since they have to get it down here, like many things, but we found it.  NICE.

Tonight we are going to a capilla to sing Christmas carols for a time.  It is still sort of challenging for me to think of Christmas when I am feeling so bothered by the heat.  Perhaps after tonight, it will dawn on me that we are only days away from Christmas. 

No power today except for emergency power so no hot water, so cold showers, and to top it off, little water pressure.  Just some of the "blessings" we have down here.  Love it.  I am sitting in here while Bonnie is in some part of the apartment.  Since my ears are not as good as they used to be, I wonder if she is babbling on, thinking that I am listening to her. She does that quite often, then I am held accountable for what she has said.  She is getting good at that also, babbling...

Yes, I am.  I was in fact in the tub (filled my teapot several times with hot water) babbling on.  Living with a hearing challenged spouse has it's difficulties.  When we're apart (which we never are very far) and I think he can hear me, I go on and on about important things of course and then he'll find me and say, "Babbling."  So, in the tub I just wrote a new song.  You know the tune, "Ye Elder's of Israel."  OK, the chorus goes like this,

                         "Oh babble on, oh babble on...I don't think he's there.
                           He may not be listening or else he don't care."

To all you senior couples, you'd better be a-likin' your spouse because it's 24/7.  Thankfully I do.  We laugh a lot.  Oh, and one more thing.  The food we eat gives me gas.  Alls I can say is, we don't call it El InstiTUTO for nothing!

This is a cardboard box Christmas tree that was found in the place where we do some of our shopping.  Nice huh?

So, when they want to sell a pig, they go into the field and kill it, put it in the oven, then place the over cooked pig in the store and sell it's "PARTS".  Anyone want a pig's head?  It was quite attractive. The other little things in front came from it's body somewhere, who  knows where???

19 December 2012

Flash Mob!  Wow!  An amazing experience.  It was the brainchild of Sister Douglas and she dreams big!  It was awesome.  Rehearsals were as fun as the short performance.  Sister Douglas directed us in her wonderful take-charge way...standing on chairs and swinging her hips to teach the elders how to move to the music.  Some scenes in the rehearsals reminded me of "Footloose" trying to teach the farm boy to dance.  Seeing the elders trying their best to stay together was so cute.  I'll download videos to my dropbox and send the link, asap.   And the actual flash mob video will be ready for uTube soon and we'll send that link as well.  They had several professional videographers there.  Should turn out great.  Can't wait to see it. 

We began in various positions on 3 levels of the mall's central plaza. The mall music was turned off but it was not quiet by any means. The noise of shoppers and weekend gatherers was at its normal level of frenzy.   

 

 Sister Douglas and I were perched at the top of the escalator with our violins hanging down nonchalantly at our sides awaiting the signal to start down.  One of the soloists directly below us picked up her cell phone and that was our cue.  Two soloists began singing in loud and lovely voices "Regocidad! Jesus Nacio."  (Joy to the World)  Little groups of missionaries from different levels joined on each phrase.  People stopped in their tracks to listen and watch.  Sister Douglas and I came down the escalator playing "And saints and angels sing"...and I was trying my hardest to concentrate on playing the right notes, keep my balance and not trip as we got off at the bottom.  So far so good!
 
We changed keys (Sister Douglas just said play this little run and end on this note and voila!  Easy for her but after mucho practicing I actually landed where I was supposed to!  Everyone joined in on the 2nd verse.  We had 2 violins, a viola and though we had a missionary who played the cello we could not lay our hands on a cello anywhere in this city, even to rent. There were several flute players (recorders actually... very few play what they call the "dulce" flute.  We had a trumpeter who realized at the practice that he was playing in the key of b flat when 2 of our numbers were in the keys of c and d...but no worries.  The guitarists just played in whatever key they wanted!  On our second number, the first group of elders came in singing "Far, far way on Judea's plains" and believe me, they were indeed far, far away from the pitch and way ahead of the pianist who was pounding out as loudly as he could.  But, you have to understand that these sweet Dominicans usually sing in their own pitches to their own tunes so to them I'm sure they thought they were hearing a choir of angels!

 

And really, they were!  The spirit was speaking loud and clear.  I had a hard time playing through my tears.  Sister Douglas was playing with the sound of 3 violinists and I was doing my best to keep up.  We did one verse of Silent Night and hearing everyone in the mall join in was just incredible.  Then we rocked out with drums and various other percussion instruments (Dad banged on a chime with a screwdriver, some had pot lids, others boxes and such) to Feliz Navidad with 100+ missionaries and 30 students and families dancing and singing, and letting their hair down.  You'll see all of that in the uTube video I'm sure!  

Afterwards no one wanted to leave...

 We talked to one of the students today who  was near the Jumbo store (a big grocery/department store that opens into the mall plaza) and she said when the music started, everyone in the checkout lines froze.  The cash registers all stopped at once.  They just dropped their jaws and stared.  It was 5 minutes of pure joy!    

We felt privileged to be part of it all.  On our way out to the car, we walked through a life-sized nativity scene in the mall, away from the hustle and bustle and I had a sweet aha moment about the Savior's birth and being here in the Dominican Republic.  I looked at the scene with the green palms around and thought, so much of Christmas to me has always been associated with snow and sleigh bells and chestnuts roasting on an open fire...joyful things that have added to the spirit of Christmas.  Here, with none of those favorite things...it's not chestnuts roasting, but pigs a toasting...instead of Jack Frost nipping, it's foreheads dripping.  :)

But in that quiet little oasis in the mall, I was deeply moved by the feeling that I'm living in a climate and place more like the Holy Land than any place I've lived so I can focus on the Savior more readily.  It's easy to imagine Jesus on some of the dirt roads and in the dusty unfinished corners of our city and  think of myself walking today where Jesus walked.  So, I made my wish and dropped my peso in the little pool.   

 And I'm filled with the wonder of Christ in Christmas in a whole new way.   An experience to be cherished and treasured up.  I'm so grateful for that!

  

 

 

 

16 December 2012

Well, it was quite an experience.  Last night was the FLASH MOB in a large mall here in Santiago.  There were probably 135 voices.  We were all supposed to be there at 5:30.  Bon and I arrived about 5, and did some shopping with her violin in the car.  It was interesting to see so many elders and sisters walking around the mall.  We were trying to act as disinterested customers.  But there were about 40 companionship's.  We all walked around, waiting.

About 5:30 we were supposed to be in our position.  I was there on the second floor.  I glanced around and it was almost comical.  I looked up to level three and there must have been 20 or so missionaries standing at the side looking down into the center.  On the second floor there were another 30 standing there.  Then on the bottom floor there must have been the remaining 40 or so standing around waiting for the last thirty minutes.  It was totally fun.  I smiled and gave thanks for being amongst so many missionaries. 

Right at 6, two sister missionaries stood and started to sing.  They were joined with a few more, then a few more, and then at the end, all 130 voices were singing Joy to the World.  Then we had a few elders start Far Far Away, and they too were joined slowly by all the others.  Then we sang Silent Night, and then Feliz Navidad/We Want to Wish  you a Merry Christmas, in both languages. 

Of course there were instruments joining in all the time (Mom played almost the whole time, all the songs)  When we got to the finale, everyone sang, danced and had a ball.  At the end, 130 missionaries and about 45 additional members of the wards joined in and shouted, Feliz Navidad.

It was quite an experience.  Something that will be remembered by all who were there.  I had one lady come to me and ask when we were going to do it again.  I said, probably next year.  She was depressed and wanted us to do it again last night, and often.  It was a special way of letting everyone know that the LDS, or the missionaries represented a church that believes in Christ. 

I am sure that mom will write more about it and add pictures.

I desire to record here also the project that we did for Sub for Santa down here.  Those who read this may be interested in knowing.  The next blog I do, perhaps later today, will be treating that.