Serving in an Island Paradise!

What in the world....I didn´t even know anything about Weston! Send my love to him, I will keep him in my prayers and I hope that all is well! :( I need his email! Real quick before I forget to tell you, Gabriella didn’t show up to our appointment :( I was super sad especially because I was by myself with my teacher! (And she’s pregnant; I’m probably the only missionary in the world that can say she’s had a pregnant companion!) But I guess its ok, I need to get used to people not showing! I hope that she can find some other missionaries soon! So I am in the Dominican Republic, like the actual part with the people! I can’t even believe that it finally happened! I am so happy! I have a companion! Can you believe it? And...She’s from UTAH!!! YAY! Her name is Hermana White and she is from Tooele! She is the greatest, she goes home in June and I am her first American companion that she’s had, and she is sooooo ecstatic, because I guess there are just so many things that the Dominicans don’t understand about our weird Utah ways, and we are going to cook food instead of just beans and rice every day! So that will be good! Its so much fun! We live 2 blocks away from the Ocean, and in the morning we go jogging at a little park there. The ocean is gorgeous, and if we go early enough we see the sun rise! It’s my favorite time of day because as soon as the sun is up, and you feel the humidity mixed with the heat, its pretty much torture...IT IS SOOO HOT HERE! Our apartment is pretty nice, we live with 2 other Dominican Hermanas, and they are loud and LOVE to cook, and the kitchen is about the size of a bathroom so its tiny. But its fun getting into the culture, part of the house is outside, and we have a balcony and stuff, I will have to take some pictures and send them to you next week! Especially of our washer! It is soooo weird, you have to put your own water in and then drain it and take out the clothes and put them into a spinner? I don’t know. I have yet to attempt that! Also can I just tell you how much I hate cockroaches? I got up to go to the bathroom the other night and I turned the light on and then about 10 of them, HUGE ones, scattered! EWWW. They have all kinds of weird things here! We were once teaching this lady outside of her house, which is pretty much a shack behind another house and there is garbage everywhere and bushes and trees. Well I couldn’t really pay attention because I kept hearing something in the bushes, yeah a huge Rat came out later! Its crazy here! But I love it! We got to the Mission office on Monday and met the Pres. and then our companions, and guess what happened next? Scott Kitchen called! haha he is so funny, he has called me a few times, just to make sure that I am doing ok, Hopefully I will get to see him before he goes home because he is in an area that is pretty far from here I guess, but he was hilarious he said, "Oh my gosh Edna! I can’t ever call you Hermana Reay, you will always be Edna!" He just cracks me up. Oh I didn’t even tell you about where I am... They kept me in the city; our church is the same place as the mission office. So I am really close to the temple and the tourist attractions, and everything. Its safer and busier, we get a lot of contacts and its gorgeous. Our area is called Gascue (pronounced like gaskway) and there are only Hermana´s here. We live in the Colonial Zone which is the oldest part of the country so all of the buildings are old and there are a lot of ruins and things. Its cool! Oh everyone that we meet is super nice! Everyone wants to hear about the gospel, they are totally open; I am so lucky to be in a mission like this! Everyone thinks that I am Latino...they don’t believe me when I say I’m not, and if they don’t think that then they think that I am Chinese! What is that? Do I really look Chinese? haha its funny what people call us on the street! We’ve had some crazy experiences because we are both American, some inappropriate people, but we just ignore them! One of the weirdest experiences, we contacted this lady and then ended up teaching her the first lesson, and then asked if we could end with a prayer, so she said sure come inside. So we went inside her house and sat down, but her and her friend didn’t. Whatever...so then we asked whom she would like to say it and she said oh my friend will. Then they both started chanting! SO LOUD and breathing really loud between sentences and she put her hands on our heads and started shaking them and oh my gosh soooo weird! She was asking the demons to leave and the Holy Ghost to come, I don´t know sooo weird, and it lasted for 5 minutes! My neck hurt! haha my companion said that’s never happened to her before! well I don´t have that much more time but I will just tell you about a couple families. One of them the mom committed to baptism on the 17th and now we are just working with her kids, they are really hard; one of them doesn’t believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God?? But they came to Conference!!!! And he really liked it and we have an appointment with him tonight! They would be such an asset to the church because they are amazing! I don’t know what is going on a lot of the time, but then something will just come out of my mouth when I need to get a point across, and we have really connected! He is progressing so much! I love being able to help these people. Another, the Rodriguez family, they were a reference and we went and taught them 2 times and they came to conference too! They liked it as well.... I think I will always remember them because they are the first people that I actually taught a lot of the first lesson and shared the story of Joseph Smith! My Spanish is already improving and I love it here! Conference was WONDERFUL!! I can’t wait to get the Ensign of it! I can’t pick a favorite talk, but what is cool is that 2 people spoke that I recently met, Elder Anderson and Viñas they are both presidents of this area and they spoke to us in the CCM! So that was cool and did you see the program on the Dominican Republic between sessions on Sunday? Yeah well that was my home where I lived for 6 weeks, the temple is so pretty! Well I love you all so much, and think of you often! Read D&C 58:3-6 those really helped me out this week when I wasn’t feeling a little frustrated. I love the scriptures, there is always some comfort and direction in them. Have a great week. Adios