Hermanas Mirabal

This week was one for the books. I spent from Monday-Thursday in Samaná and got transfer news on Wednesday. President called me and told me I was going to a new area in Navarrette and he asked me to be the Zone Leader. So that was exciting. 

I got to my new area Friday and we hit the ground running. My comp is Elder Kirkham and he is a good dude. He's from Salt Lake and went to Skyline High school. We both have the same time on the mission which makes for a super fun companionship and lessons. 

We have so many friends we are teaching and are super busy all day long. Yesterday we had a great lesson with two men named Pedro and Carlos. We taught then about the gospel and about baptism. It was such a good lesson. When we brought up baptism the first thing they asked was "ya’ll do baptism after 3 months of learning right?" And we were like wellll could be 3 months but also could be 3 weeks lol. So we put them on date for 3 weeks from now. 

There is a family that's less active in our ward. The mom is named Yajaira and the dad is Gustavo. They are truly amazing people and are so humble and kind to us. Yesterday they face-timed a missionary who served here a while ago. He is from Idaho and he served here 10 years ago. He's a super cool guy and was super inspiring. It's cool to see someone who had a huge impact on someone's life still be in contact with them. He gave us advice for finishing up the mission and I won't lie it made me kind of sad to go home. 

Overall was a solid week. I'm super excited for the last 2 months and all the miracles we are about to see. The mission is truly a blessing and has changed me forever. 

Love and miss you all. 

Elder Wilde 

Craziest Week of My Mission.

Well this week was one I will never forget. And unfortunately not for a very good reason.. to put it short, we almost got kidnapped by a man from Afghanistan. Sounds fake, I know. But wasn't fake. Scariest moment of my mission so far, but thanks to spiritual impressions we made it out okay. 

The story would be way too long to tell on this email. So I'll leave it up to those of you who would like to know, to shoot me an email or message. 

Other than that we had a fun week. We found lots of new people to teach and we were able to put our friend Ambioris back on date for Baptism. Samaná is hard. It's a slow area. But we are working hard and slowly improving things. 

We have been teaching heavily this week a new friend named Coralia. She is in her 60's and is good friends with our friend Ana who I have talked about in the past weeks. Coralia is an amazingly kind women and is willing to listen to our message and ask us questions. She makes fantastic passion fruit juice and has been a little miracle in this week. She has a grandson named Miguel who is 14 and wants to be a Jockey when he gets older. First Dominican I have met that wants to be a Jockey. They are super cool and have expressed interest in coming to church and seeing what it's all about. Sadly she didn't come yesterday cause it was raining. In the DR they think rain is basically a poison that kills you. Not actually, just kinda haha. 

Ambioris has a baptismal date again. He struggles badly with the Word of Wisdom but miracles are real. Pray for him. He is reading the Book of Mormon and he loves it. His catholic mom even told us last time that she is interested in visiting our church. We are making lots of progress with him and he truly is the happiest guy ever and makes missionary work so much fun. 

As far as members go, this week we went to a lot of them. Aka 5 of the 7 active members haha. The group leader and his wife live in a town called Las Terrenas. About an hour drive from Samaná. We went to their house on Wednesday and it was so fun! He made us an amazing lunch and dessert and we had a great conversation on how to help the group here in Samaná grow. For those of you looking to come on vacation, highly recommend Las Terrenas. Some of the prettiest beaches in the country and not a lot of people. 

I still love this gospel so much and love the mission even though it is difficult. Thursday was one of the scariest days of my life, but with our focus on Jesus Christ we have felt peace and confidence the past few days as we keep on working. 

Love all of you. Miss you guys lots. Excited to see ya’ll soon. 

Elder Wilde 

Entrevistas

Hey Everyone,

Well this week was just another normal week out here in the DR. We had some success this week and also had Interviews with President Bretón! 

To start off, a highlight from this week was getting to have interviews with President. I'll only have one more interview with him and then he goes home:(

But my interview was great! It was interesting to say the least cause our area in Samaná is so hard and President basically just said "keep trying, I know you have a hard area" haha so that was funny. But it's always a fun time getting to talk with President. Interviews were done virtually sadly so I didn't get to see Hermana Bretón:( 

Apart from that we had a good Sunday. My comp and I were asked to speak (we speak like every other week) about missionary work. My comp spoke for a solid 5 minutes which meant that I needed to fill in 25 minutes. Luckily I was able to pull some last minute thoughts out and gave a decent talk on how we need the members to help us in our missionary work. 

Our friend Ana came to church yet again! She is truly a miracle. Saturday we taught her the Word of Wisdom and I was worried that she was gonna be super against it and not being able to drink coffee and her exact words were "well if I have to drop coffee I can do that without any problems" which was amazing!!! The bad news is that she is going on a trip to Puerto Rico for 1-2 MONTHS so we won't be able to teach her until she gets back and there's a good chance I won't be in Samaná by then :(

But overall just another solid week. Trying to grind out these last few months and have no regrets! Hope you are all doing well and are enjoying the spring! Love ya’ll! 

Elder Wilde 

Comp Got Lost!

Hey everyone! The weeks seem to be going by slow, but this one went a little quicker than normal. 

Tuesday we had District Council in Nagua and then we started our exchange with the Elders of Progreso. Elder Barney from Cali came to Samaná with me and my comp went to Nagua. The exchange went great and we had a super good time. Well Wednesday my comp and Elder Williams got on a bus at 10:30 to come to Samaná to finish the exchange. About half an hour after they had gotten on the bus I asked them to send me their location. I looked at it and they were HALFWAY to Santo Domingo. So then I called the AP’s and told them and they were like "bruhhh" haha so basically Santo Domingo is outside our mission boundaries and so it was kind of a big deal, but in the end it didn't matter they were fine. Just made our exchange 2 days instead of 1 day. So Thursday we switched back. 

Apart from that we had a decent week. The work here in Samaná is really really slow. We have a solid 3 active priesthood holders in the group and about 7 total active members. We are trying so hard to baptize and bring new people into the fold but there is also a massive necessity to bring back inactive members! It is fun work out here, it's just different. 

One miracle we have seen is a recent convert named Manuel. He has been a member for about 10 months and is so cool. He wants to help build up this group. He is so vulnerable and has shared many personal things with us and we are just hoping to help him turn to Christ. He is starting to come to church weekly cause he says it’s the only 2 hours of peace he feels during his weeks. 

I love this church so much and I know it is true. Jesus Christ lives and guides this Church. President Russell M. Nelson is His true prophet in these latter days. I hope all of you have been making effort and time for the temple. 

Hope ya’ll have a good week!

Elder Wilde. 

Temples

Hey everyone! Hope you're all doing well.

This week was a super fun week. We had Zone Conference on Wednesday and General Conference this weekend! 

Zone conference was a super good time. It was the first Zone Conference I have had since July where I wasn't having to set up technology and go to all 3 Zone Conferences haha. Made for a nice relaxing day. We talked about the Doctrine of Christ and how to teach short powerful lessons. We have been trying to apply that in our area and hope for success! 

As far as success goes in Samaná there sadly isn't a lot of it right now. The good news is that we are trying and can always find a positive. The positive this week is Ana. Ana is a lady I have talked about for 2 weeks straight. We randomly found her in the street one day and she has come to church for 3 weeks straight. She is truly amazing! She is reading the Book of Mormon and understands our lessons so well. We are hoping to invite her this week to be baptized. She has truly been a light in our lives these last few days! 

As far as General Conference goes, I loved it! I truly feel like I received some answers to my questions and it feels so good. There are too many talks to choose from as a favorite but I did love the talk by Alexander Dushku. I feel that too often we get caught up in wanting a "pillar of light" spiritual experience that we lose track of all the "rays of light" experiences. I loved thinking back to my rays of light experiences and realizing just how strong my testimony really is. 

I hope you all got the impression to start visiting the temple more. I am gonna give my best effort to go weekly when I get home. I think the temple is truly an amazing place and for all of us that live in Utah, we're far too blessed to make excuses to not go to the temple. 

I love you all and hope you have a great week! 

Elder Wilde 

Holy Week

This week was a little slow, but it was still good. Holy week in the DR is crazy! I feel like it's more celebrated than Christmas, which is kind of cool. 

We were able to baptize our 3 friends Caroline, Harry, and Richard. It was an amazing experience getting in the ocean. The water was warm and it was just a beautiful place. They are super good kids and I am excited to see what their future will look like in the church. 

This week we have had some crazy things happen. One of our friends told us she was struggling with depression and other self harm thoughts and we used that as a way to teach her about covenants and the baptismal covenant. She seem interested in making a covenant relationship with God and now has a baptismal date for the 27th of April. We hope she can progress well towards that date so her life can change. 

We met some more cool friends and taught some people who have interesting stories, but always end up having so much interest in learning more about Christ. Our friend Ambioris is one of the guys who has CRAZY stories and we don't know how true they are, but has already started to read the Book of Mormon and claims he will finish it this year. I hope that he does.

Also wanted to say thanks for all the Birthday shoutouts! 20 years old is kinda cool to say haha. Love you all! 

Sorry for the short email just don't have much to say this week. 

Hope you have a great week! 

Elder Wilde 

Revived

This week has been amazing. I am still in Samaná but training a brand new missionary! His name is Elder Haney and he is from upstate New York. A place called Ithica. He is probably one of the funniest people I have ever met. To say that President clutched with this companionship is an understatement. 

We have been working hard! He has the greenie fire and is so ready to work. He is motivated to work and teach. We have already seen so many miracles. 

One of them being from Saturday. We were walking around giving out a bunch of invites to church, like little cards. Anyway we talked to a women named Ana. She was kind and all but I didn't write her name or number down to put her in as a new person in teaching cause I wrongly assumed that she wasn't very interested. Well yesterday 5 minutes after Church began, in walked Ana. It was so awesome! I couldn't believe that she came. Later that night we went and had a really solid lesson and hope to help her progress towards baptism. 

Speaking of baptism we are gonna baptize our 3 friends this Friday! Pray that everything goes well so they can be baptized and confirmed. 

Honestly the mission is the best. This week has truly reminded me of how much fun the mission can be. If we truly have faith in Jesus Christ and give Him our all we will find true Joy. 

It's been so fun training a new missionary who is excited and motivated to work. We have a great time together. 

Love you all and hope you have a great week! 

Elder Wilde