Hi folks!
Here's Allie's latest message (below) just received today! She left the Dominican Republic last Monday after 5 weeks in the Mission Training Center there, and flew to the mission headquarters in Trinidad where she spent a week working and getting oriented before traveling to her first assignment on Aruba, via Curacao. She was in Curacao today and then flies to Aruba tomorrow. Because of her language assignment and visa problems in Trinidad it's possible she could spend her entire time in Aruba and Curacao, where the predominant languages are Dutch and Papiementu...which is a combination of Dutch, Portuguese, Creole, Spanish, and African. Apparently her change in language from English to Spanish was to help prepare her. Here's a little clip of someone speaking Papiementu: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQE0f-Yk9hc
Remember, you can see all her posts on: http://sisteralliewoodbury.blogspot.com/Here's Allie's latest message (below) just received today! She left the Dominican Republic last Monday after 5 weeks in the Mission Training Center there, and flew to the mission headquarters in Trinidad where she spent a week working and getting oriented before traveling to her first assignment on Aruba, via Curacao. She was in Curacao today and then flies to Aruba tomorrow. Because of her language assignment and visa problems in Trinidad it's possible she could spend her entire time in Aruba and Curacao, where the predominant languages are Dutch and Papiementu...which is a combination of Dutch, Portuguese, Creole, Spanish, and African. Apparently her change in language from English to Spanish was to help prepare her. Here's a little clip of someone speaking Papiementu: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQE0f-Yk9hc
Big:
Hello
everyone!! I hope you are all reading the BOM (Book of Mormon)! 1 month
and 1 1/2 weeks left in my challenge!! So this email is going to jump
around all over the place and I have a bad keyboard.. Sorry!
Soooo we had another little devotional with Elder Gonzalez! That was fun! I also almost got robbed while on splits (exchanges) with the missionaries in the Dominican Republic.. The guy was on a motorcycle, but was unsuccessful because my purse was slung across my body...so I am grateful! It could have been waayyyy worse. Let's just say I am grateful to be leaving, and heading to my first assignment in Aruba.
So I arrived in Trinidad Monday of last week to spend a week near our mission headquarters before heading to my first area...in Aruba! I got to spend the week here in Trinidad as a companion to Sister Kimball! She is seriously the best. I followed her blog about her mission before I came so it was pretty weird seeing her and all of the places she had taken pictures of in person! That was pretty cool. It was a really great week in Trinidad! We met some really awesome people while we were contacting. One guy we met was extra awesome! His name was Warren! He seemed pretty interested! We tried to set up an appointment with him but he works a lot so we couldn't really get a set day and time. We called him later in the week to try to set an appointment, but we still couldn't set one with him. While we were still on the phone with him though, we asked if he read the pamphlet we gave him and he said he did, and he said he had his girlfriend read it too! Then on Sunday we ran into him while we were in the contact area and Sister Kimball said that if it weren't for the spirit, she totally wouldn't have recognized him! We were able to set a day and time while we were talking to him which was awesome, and then we started talking about the pamphlet again. When we asked him about it he got happy and started smiling and he told us that he read it and he took it to work and everything. He also said he didn't want us to teach him if his girlfriend wasn't there because he wants his girlfriend to learn too! Then one of the other people we have been teaching started yelling down the street to us telling him to praise God and give his life to Jesus semi jokingly, and he just turned to us and said something like "She always takes this kind of stuff as a joke...I don't, I take this stuff seriously!" Warren is awesome. That was such a great experience.
I love Trinidad! I wish I could serve there longer than a week! I'm headed to Aruba tomorrow where I will meet my trainer for the next 12ish weeks- Sister Peterson! I have heard great things about her so I am pretty excited! I would say it has been nice to be in an English speaking country but I cant because THEY DO NOT SPEAK ENGLISH THERE!! Some people are easy to understand but some are actually impossible. It usually depends on how educated they are.
Aaggh...I never received any of your mail at the DR MTC. They said if she gets any of my mail they will forward it over to Trinidad, but I am not hopeful about that.. The Egberts (mission president) said to give the address to my apartment in Aruba for mail but idk if that's correct so don't send anything until i can ask sister Peterson!
I got pretty sick when i got to Trinidad! I know- typical me. Oh well! I am feeling much better now! President gave me a Papiementu book... AHHH!! It isn't Spanish at all! It is a mix between spanish, creole, dutch, english, portugese, and african. That's gonna be rough. I may be coming home trilingual though! Apparently they speak more Spanish in Aruba than they do in Curacao so I am really counting on that! So Pdays (preparation days) in the field are soooo much better than in the MTC. Way less stressful and much longer! Pdays will usually be on Mondays so that's when I should normally send emails- unless they have some crazy holiday which they do often. Sunday was fun in Trinidad! The wards (congregations) here are TINY!!
Fun information: I learned today that if they hadn't changed my mission to Spanish speaking at the last minute I probably wouldn't have ever actually made it here due to all the visa problems they're having in Trinidad...and would have visa-waited my entire mission in the states! Grateful.
Interesting side note.. I found out that President Monson's patriarch was a Woodbury! How crazy is that??
I had dinner with an insanely wealthy family last night and they invited Sister Payne over! Sister Payne was the first member of the Church in Trinidad so I thought that was pretty awesome! She is my favorite and I love her. She is soooo cute. Anyway, all is well here in The Trinidad mission! I love you and miss you all! Please be sure to send pictures- and that applies to everyone! Have an incredible week!
Soooo we had another little devotional with Elder Gonzalez! That was fun! I also almost got robbed while on splits (exchanges) with the missionaries in the Dominican Republic.. The guy was on a motorcycle, but was unsuccessful because my purse was slung across my body...so I am grateful! It could have been waayyyy worse. Let's just say I am grateful to be leaving, and heading to my first assignment in Aruba.
So I arrived in Trinidad Monday of last week to spend a week near our mission headquarters before heading to my first area...in Aruba! I got to spend the week here in Trinidad as a companion to Sister Kimball! She is seriously the best. I followed her blog about her mission before I came so it was pretty weird seeing her and all of the places she had taken pictures of in person! That was pretty cool. It was a really great week in Trinidad! We met some really awesome people while we were contacting. One guy we met was extra awesome! His name was Warren! He seemed pretty interested! We tried to set up an appointment with him but he works a lot so we couldn't really get a set day and time. We called him later in the week to try to set an appointment, but we still couldn't set one with him. While we were still on the phone with him though, we asked if he read the pamphlet we gave him and he said he did, and he said he had his girlfriend read it too! Then on Sunday we ran into him while we were in the contact area and Sister Kimball said that if it weren't for the spirit, she totally wouldn't have recognized him! We were able to set a day and time while we were talking to him which was awesome, and then we started talking about the pamphlet again. When we asked him about it he got happy and started smiling and he told us that he read it and he took it to work and everything. He also said he didn't want us to teach him if his girlfriend wasn't there because he wants his girlfriend to learn too! Then one of the other people we have been teaching started yelling down the street to us telling him to praise God and give his life to Jesus semi jokingly, and he just turned to us and said something like "She always takes this kind of stuff as a joke...I don't, I take this stuff seriously!" Warren is awesome. That was such a great experience.
I love Trinidad! I wish I could serve there longer than a week! I'm headed to Aruba tomorrow where I will meet my trainer for the next 12ish weeks- Sister Peterson! I have heard great things about her so I am pretty excited! I would say it has been nice to be in an English speaking country but I cant because THEY DO NOT SPEAK ENGLISH THERE!! Some people are easy to understand but some are actually impossible. It usually depends on how educated they are.
Aaggh...I never received any of your mail at the DR MTC. They said if she gets any of my mail they will forward it over to Trinidad, but I am not hopeful about that.. The Egberts (mission president) said to give the address to my apartment in Aruba for mail but idk if that's correct so don't send anything until i can ask sister Peterson!
I got pretty sick when i got to Trinidad! I know- typical me. Oh well! I am feeling much better now! President gave me a Papiementu book... AHHH!! It isn't Spanish at all! It is a mix between spanish, creole, dutch, english, portugese, and african. That's gonna be rough. I may be coming home trilingual though! Apparently they speak more Spanish in Aruba than they do in Curacao so I am really counting on that! So Pdays (preparation days) in the field are soooo much better than in the MTC. Way less stressful and much longer! Pdays will usually be on Mondays so that's when I should normally send emails- unless they have some crazy holiday which they do often. Sunday was fun in Trinidad! The wards (congregations) here are TINY!!
Fun information: I learned today that if they hadn't changed my mission to Spanish speaking at the last minute I probably wouldn't have ever actually made it here due to all the visa problems they're having in Trinidad...and would have visa-waited my entire mission in the states! Grateful.
Interesting side note.. I found out that President Monson's patriarch was a Woodbury! How crazy is that??
I had dinner with an insanely wealthy family last night and they invited Sister Payne over! Sister Payne was the first member of the Church in Trinidad so I thought that was pretty awesome! She is my favorite and I love her. She is soooo cute. Anyway, all is well here in The Trinidad mission! I love you and miss you all! Please be sure to send pictures- and that applies to everyone! Have an incredible week!
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