Working and Working on My Spanish

Here I am in the 3rd week at the MTC, technically it is the 4th week because of our delay, so we only have like 2 and a half weeks left. I feel like I just got here a few days ago and we are already in the third week. The older missionaries left the MTC yesterday and the day before, so now we are the senor missionaries here so to speak. The new missionaries all got here yesterday and today, and about half of them are in their 20s which is really weird. It seems really weird that we are the "older" missionaries here now and we've only been here for like 16 days.

Well this week has been great. Even better than last week was. This place kind of feels like home now, and all the things that are happening at home seem distant to me now... We had a piece of Hurricane Maria come through late Thursday and into Friday a little. It was pretty fun actually, because the wind and rain were really strong but not dangerous, so we were outside having some fun in it, I will have to send some videos. We have been working and working and working on our spanish, and it is coming along pretty good. I would say I can understand about 60% of what is said in spanish, if the person is speaking slowly enough. We have taught a bunch of fake investigators this week and they have gone really well. We can give a good lesson from Preach My Gospel and share scriptures and testimony, but we still struggle to answer their questions because we don't always understand what their saying and how put together a sentence to answer, but it is coming along well. We watched MTC devotionals from Elder Cook and Elder Bednar this week, both of which were absolutely STELLAR. Elder Cook told some great stories about missionary work and the importance of it. Elder Bednars devotional was also really good. I felt the spirit really strongly testifying that President Monson and his apostles are prophets and are the Lords mouthpieces for us in our day.

Yesterday we got to LEAVE THE MTC. We got to go to the store a few blocks away here in Santo Domingo. This place is just like a Walmart in the US, just not quite as big. Our district walked 3 or 4 blocks to this store to buy some essentials, but mostly candy. So we finally got to walk around the streets in the REAL WORLD. It was a real culture shock for sure to walk around these streets. Everything is different here, there is garbage everywhere and people drive like MANIACS. We walked down the sidewalk of a road that would be maybe 35 mph in the US and there were people flying past us at like 65 like it was nothing, all the while everyone just J walks and horns are honking and people are almost getting run over, its crazy. 

I am so excited for general conference coming up this weekend. After working so hard this week the though of sitting down and listening to the general authorities speak in english seems like Christmas to us. 

Thank you everyone for the letters and the support. I hope you all have a great week

Elder Porritt 

Here's the view of the city from the roof of the MTC

MTC Devotional with Elder Alonzo

Holy cow this week has been WILD!!! This is the first full week we have had in the CCM (MTC). It has really been a really awesome week though, full of spanish and full of the spirit.

The highlight of the week came yesterday afternoon. We had an MTC devotional, and our guest speaker was a member of the 70, Elder José L. Alonzo. He and his wife spoke to us at about 11 AM yesterday. Elder Alonzos wife spoke first. She gave a great message about missionary work and bore a powerful testimony of it. Elder Alonzos talk was absolutely awesome. He shared the scripture D&C 11: 21, and had us replace the word "Word" with "Atonement", which was mostly what his message was about, the Atonement. He also spoke briefly about prayer and that we should avoid things like "vain repetition," and making our prayers like "ordering groceries over the phone". He also councelled us to make our prayers like having a conversation with God like we would with anybody else, and that God wants to know how we are doing even though he already knows how we are doing. I really loved his talk and felt the spirit very strongly. His testimony was really the best part though. He knew without a doubt what he said was true, and so did I. 

We went through another session in the temple today, and did some more sealings, which was awesome. 

We are working really hard at learning spanish. It is SO difficult, but I know that it will come along soon enough. We have been practicing preparing for and teaching investigators in spanish, even though we still dont know didley squat of the language. It has been a struggle trying to communicate with our teacher/investigator, because most of the time we don't completely know what he says when he responds to our message. 

The first Sunday in the MTC has been really sweet. President Gulbrandsen says that we will come to realize that the sabbath is a delight, and I already have. Sunday is the best day of the week here. Sacrament meeting is great, and we have a 3 hour doctrine class with the president that is really awesome as well.

Well I hope everyone has a great week this week. I wish I could write more, but we only have an hour to read and write all our emails which is not nearly enough time.

Have a great week.

Elder Porritt

This really cool tree on the grounds, it is completely horizontally flat.

 The Beautiful Temple here in DR

Hurricane MARIA!!

Everything is fine here. We are supposed to get the hurricane tomorrow night. I'm sure you guys have seen the news about it, but it is supposed to go farther north that where we are. Sister Gulbrandsen says we are on a big hill and we are supposed to get a little wind and rain tomorrow, but that everything is going to be perfectly fine. We will all be fine. I will send my regular email tomorrow on P-Day just like usual.

Elder Porritt

We Have Arrived in the D.R.

Hola everyone!!!

We are finally here!!! After two long flights we landed in the DR and boy was it HOT and HUMID. It feels like 100 degrees all the time outside. Thankfully the MTC is fully air conditioned and we haven't had to deal with it all that much yet.

I traveled with a group of like 15 missionaries, only 4 of us are going to the Trinidad mission, and we are the only 4 in the whole MTC too. We walked out of the airport and met a spanish guy from the MTC. We all loaded up on a bus and took the hour long ride to the MTC. The airport is on the east side of Santo Domingo, and the MTC is on the west side, so we drove through the whole city. Santo Domingo is pretty interesting to say the least, a lot of the buildings here are painted in bright colors, but most of them look pretty run down. There was a lot of garbage laying around everywhere all over the side of the road and in the streets it was pretty crazy. And holy cow people are crazy drivers here. We drove a road that would probably be like 50 mph and there were people flying at any speed. The roads have lanes on them, but they are just a suggestion to most people. Nobody uses a blinker and they swerve in and out of lanes like maniacs, it doesn't matter if there is someone there. Passing in the right lane is common and everybody that drove a motorcycle or even a narrow car would drive through traffic in between lanes, it is insane. 

On the other hand the beaches were BEAUTIFUL. We drove right along the coast for like 45 minutes and the water looked really sweet, I really wish we could go swimming out there, because it looked like paradise in this humidity.

The MTC is awesome!!! My new companion is Elder Norton, he is from Arizona.  We are in the Alma district, there are 8 of us, the 4 of us going to Trinidad and 4 other elders that are going to the Santiago, Dominican Republic mission. The food is suprisingly pretty good. It is a lot more like American food than DR food, even though there are a few food items that are from here. Our MTC president is President Gulbrandsen, (I think I spelled that right) he is from Bountiful Utah, and he is awesome. I had a great interview with him when I got here on Tuesday, and I have loved all of what he's taught us so far. The MTC is pretty small, WAY smaller than Provo for sure, There are only 60 elders and sisters here right now in all, and we get new missionaries every three weeks, but probably in 2 weeks from now since we got here a week late.

We have had mostly doctrinal lessons so far, we only started learning spanish last night, and boy oh boy it is going to be difficult. I only have 4 1/2 weeks from now to learn this language and we're really going to have to rely on the spirit. 

Today is P-day and we got the opportunity to go to the temple, which is like 500 feet from the MTC. The temple is absolutely beautiful. It sticks out like a sore thumb, even though we aren't in the poor part of town. My district did a bunch of sealings, then we went to the 10 AM session. Since almost everyone there were missionaries they did the session in English, and the few spanish only people were given a headset that read the words to them in Spanish, so it was pretty cool. 

We only have an hour to write letters and are only allowed to use our cameras on P-day too, so I got a few pictures today, so here they are

Love Elder Porritt 

Here's the best picture I could get of the beach driving down the road on the bus

Here is my companion and I in front of the temple

Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic Temple

 This is our district

P-day Pong