We heard from Elder Stimpson on Monday.
Here's his email:
another week in the field and I´m starting to get used to it here. though not completely and I don´t think I ever will in my entire life. but here I am.
I can see so much improvement compared to last week and I see my spanish improving. My companion and I had another 2 baptisms who were baptized by some members. I will send some pictures for that. another thing that happened this weekend is that I was able to watch confrence in english. I still don't know enough spanish for that. but we had borrowed the computer of a member and plugged in the speaker. another missionary and I went to another room and watched it there. My favorite talks were elder nelson's and the one about faith without works is nothing. but its nice having a latino companion. I am forced to speak spanish all day then when I return home I can speak english with the missonaries that we share an apartment with. but i can see myself speaking fluently in a couple months or at least fluently be able to understand them. until next week.
We can't video chat but we settled for hangout. Here's our conversation:
good. this week has been hard but It's getting better.
Are you using other member's computer or internet cafe?
internet cafe. I don't have a camera. sadly but maybe some other time.
That's no problem. We are happy with pictures you sent so far
did somebody contact you about your wallet from mission office yet?
no not yet but I hope to hear soon. and nothing about a package either. do you know how long it will take for that to arrive?
Your aunt told me it takes up to two months to ship.
if I shipped it international. It was why I sent you your birthday package early
I will get started on MP3 player next week with our new credit cycle.
we are going to find a way to get a camera talk to you in a bit.
you saying that you want to call me video?
no clue! I am getting behind with tech!
They said "there's nobody here"
Internet seemed to be bad from your end?
Missed call from Matthian
Mon, 12:27 PM
I'm happy to hear that things are little better now
I wondered how you are eating in your apartment? Do you have an actual kitchen or is it hut with outside items for kitchen?
it could be the computer I am using it is pretty old. we have a kitchen a stove and a new fridge.but it is pretty small compared to the fridge we have at home.
You were in a call with Matthian
Mon, 12:33 PM
still good! Do you get a bathroom?
is it one room where you share with other elders?
yeah. we don't have a working shower. we have one but it doesn't work. we use a bucket and tupperware container. we have a main area which has the kitchen and our desks. two rooms for missionaries two per room and an extra room we use for drying laundry.
you comfortable somewhat in this setting?
what about drinking water? What do you use for drinking?
we have a filter. they said they use to buy 5 gal jugs for water but the filter was easier. when we are offered water from members it is safe to drink. they know the water isn't clean and they get their water from 5 gal jugs.
Oh! Remember - no ice cubes!
nice. What other rules in mission you have that is unique to your mission?
Okay! Are pictures I shared with you enough?
are there any more you want?
maybe a rubix cube/other shapes and sizes with instructions. there are probably other things I will want I just don't know yet.
I will need to wait until next week- so credit card cycle is over
then I can get you stuff you want
I also am thinking of sending you some facial cleanser product so you can use it mornings and evenings
are you sweating a lot during nights?
facial cleanser would be nice. I do sweat during the night but not on the face. my sleeping schedule has not changed. I am often tired during the day. during general confrence I fell asleep duing the first session for 10 minutes.
yeah i have no problems with it.
how many of people you met know English?
only 3 people other than the missionaries who live with us who are from idaho falls and pleasant grove.
whoah. as you said, it is good so you can have more opportunity to practice spanish!
how often do you teach people?
do you catch them on streets or do you teach them in houses or just everywhere!
my companion is really good at getting another appointment with others. he asks and asks and asks why until they give up and say yes.
we generally go to their houses
how do they really feel about americans?
they are very nice people. the onlying thing that i can understand is them talking about how bad my spanish is but it doesn't bother me.
Ha ha. That can be remedied in few weeks!
yeah. I am learning spanish faster than i ever would have in school. I have been fully immursed
i shared a couple more pictures with you. we had 2 more baptisms
We are not doing so much this week. Just have work hour this afternoon, cleaning and babysitting. We will have kids in for teeth cleaning soon.
I might not get teeth cleaning for a good while.
dentist said you will be okay for two years as long as you keep up with hygenic habit
ok. yeah I haven't seen any dentists here.
floss is huge key in good teeth
ok I will remember to do that.
did you meet your mission president?
yeah I met him the first day I was here. we took a picture and he said he was going to send them to our parents.
awesome! I look forward to it!
last weekend, we shopping for some more stuff for Suzy's prom
it is going be in two weeks. Suzy is extra excited about it.
Suzy managed to persuade her date not to take her to disneyland because it won't be a smart move finianically
that sounds like fun. I hope she was asked by someone whom respects her. if not i will loose it. thats good what are they doing instead?
Ha ha. He hasn't told Suzy or Suzy hasn't told us.
because Suzy got shift during dance and she was very upset. Talked with herboss. Her boss said she can switch with somebody else on morning.
so she is planning to work from eight to four then go to dance after four
ok that good. I didn't have to worry about that because my boss was very good at giving people their shifts off. that or letting them know ahead of time that he could not so that you could arrange something. It was always hard around holidays.
as long as we let him know ahead of time.
Suzy tried. It was like one thing went through one end to other end with no effect.
Suzy will do partial date on other day.
Annalise will get braces on next week. She will be wearing them for fifteen months
in short, she will have them off before you come home. LOL
Julia will be wearing expanders for eight months
then we wait till she loses all adult teeth before she can wear braces.
ha ha. They are going to eat Jello for a while. Fun. Ha ha
your dad just went mountains yesterday to look for camping spot. Still lots of snow in some area.
They are going to camp this weekend.
Do you have all photographs you want?
can I get a picture of all of stimpson side of the family
the recent one we had together wasn't best one.
still will send you it all the same.
sent you old ones that I can find for now
I will find more of them later on.
Your dad and I love you so much and we always are thinking of you everyday.
ok. and our mission president gave us 75 minutes
i have a little extra time
you done with letter to your mission president alredy?
is he able to speak english?
yeah. luckily. otherwise I would have been lost the first day.
yeah it is pretty overwhelming. How do people in Dominican Republic "reject" you?
Did you get to meet up with some tourists too?
either they say they're catholic or they say no while laughing over and over as they go back inside their house.
I haven't seen any tourists yet.
They are very nice with their rejection.
It is way better than being called Satanic angels (wink).
even some of the catholics will still invite us into their home
where exactly are you in Santo Domingo? What is the name of your area?
a little west of the capitol. if we take taxi it only takes us a few minutes to get there.
How far are you from temple?
but as we were flying over the country side I saw a few lakes and a bit of drool came from my mouth wanting to fish.
Ha ha. Yeah they are not having any water shortage anywhere!
clean water, now that is issue.
did you get to know your companion?
do you know exactly where your companion is from?
It isn't in our area. I think it is about 15 to 20 minutes away. I haven't gotten to know my companion that well because of the language barrier but we can ask eachother simple questions and reply.
and my companion is from the northern part of the island. he is serving here because he was waiting for his visa to panama. I don't know who I will be with next transfer. If I will finish training with him or have a new companion.
ooohh. how long has he been here already?
I hope he will get to go! It always is awesome to see other place, different people
He has his visa or at least its ready. so they are probably planning his flight.
wow. So you just have him for two to three weeks and he is goine
will you get another trainer or senior companion?
I don't know. I haven't heard anything about that from the office here
all right. you will hear soon enough.
things always change very quickly in missions.
I still remember how when I first transferred from MTC to Michigan Lansing mission. My president changed my area at the spot.
Instead of planning to have me to serve in Kalamazoo, they had me to serve in Grand Rapids.
interesting. how is jonathan doing with is prep for his mission?
He probably is very busy with the school. It's April and finals are coming up very soon. I doubt very much that he has time for mission preparation. LOL.
oh ok. when is he leaving again?
I hope that we can get together for Easter dinner. I will wait and see, I guess.
was uncle david there when he opened his letter?
yeah he was there and so was some of his sisters and mom
It was huge crowd! Ha ha.
We did the stuff that we began out with yours . . .
facebook live, marking out states/countries on Aunt Kim's map
we had a lot of cookies for snakc
fun. what was the most guessed place for where he was serving?
talking to you. I heard you aren't going to disney land any more for your prom date.
yeah we're going to lagoon
just as fun don't you think?
still costs a lot of money
but your date doesn't have to pay for the plane ride and the tickets for disney land which I here the tickets for disney land are now more than 500 dollars each
his group plans are still not for sure
while lagoon is only 50-75 dollars. hope that works out for you guys.
he was gonna go with one of his friends that i know pretty well but he got rejected twice
i hope it works out because i wannna know plans so i can get work off
mom was telling me you have work during the dance.
i switched someone shifts
and they said they can shorten it for me
so i won't miss the dance at all
how fluent do you think you are
I am not at all. my spanish is terrible. but I can understand them better.
you've had maybe 2 months
it's tough to learn a new languge
i've been doing french for 4 years and i can barley speak it
mom here. isn't it end our talk time?
time goes to fast. yeah I have only a minute. but love you guys. good bye for now. until next week. talk to you later.
I love you, my elder Stimpson!
hang in there till we see you again.
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