THE BEGINNING

At laaaaaast (think Etta James) After a bumpy start,  
               here we are finally writing on the blog!    

I will give a brief overview of our last four weeks.......  

Our district at the MTC

We arrived at the MTC Jan.12th after a lovely, hectic and emotional week of wedding celebrations, packing, being set apart as full time missionaries, last minute farewells from lovely friends and neighbors Sunday evening, and saying our last goodbyes.


This is the place! (on the MTC map)

The MTC was a week of  being filled with the spirit, filled with food (what choices they have at that cafeteria!), filled with admiration for all the wonderful faithful couples we met who were preparing to go out into the world, we were filled with love for our young teachers who knew so much. We were filled with anticipation and excitement about the unknown. Then it was over.

We got on the plane with the help of Ben and Courtney. They just got married January 10th, 2015 and are living in our house while we are gone. We flew to New York, had a brief layover and then on to the Dominican Republic (DR to us world travelers), the city of Santo Domingo. We were met by hot humid air and the Mission President Ahmad Corbitt, his wife Jayne, and Elder Ron Smith, the Mission Financial person & Sister Loretta Smith (named after Loretta Young), his wife who works at the front desk of the mission office. They are from Sugar City Idaho. And the Corbitts are from New Jersey. The Smiths took us to stay with them in their high rise apartment building which had 2 bedrooms and it was very nice.
As we unpacked it was late at night when we discovered we had left one of our suitcases at the airport! Elder VV and Elder Smith went back and we finally plopped into bed about 1AM.

Elder and Sister Smith at the Los llyomos Branch

    

With President Corbitt in the Mission Office

The next few days we followed the Smiths around. We went to the Mission office and drove 2 1/2 hours to a tiny branch to go to church on Sunday. We met many people. Elder Mortenson and his wife took us to the Colonial part of town (Columbus landed in Santo Domingo, not New Jersey). We saw many things, went to the Temple twice and had FHE with lots of the senior couples in the area (about 35 people came). We had a lovely visit with President Corbitt to catch his vision for us, and we walked and walked. Santo Domingo is a busy, dirty, noisy city. It is not without its charms however; the Temple is beautiful, there are lots of businesses, many goods are available, the beaches are nearby, it has nice big parks, big high rise apartment buildings, and there are lots of faithful Saints. It is the center of the Church in the Caribbean and Columbus is buried here.

Santo Domingo Temple (Martin took this picture on his cell!)

  


Martin and Columbus

Now on to Bonaire!