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
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