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