Week 6: Rain Descending from the Sky (and Our Eyes)


Hermanos y hermanas,

What a great time I have had here at the MTC, so much that this goodbye is almost as hard as when I left home. It has been so bittersweet (and nerve-wracking). I leave at 4:30 tomorrow morning (in less than 9 hours as I write this) and arrive at the beautiful island of Puerto Rico around 9. I am so excited.

This week a surprising amount of exciting things happened despite being locked up in the MTC for our final week. The rain here has been crazy, and while we didn't get any hurricanes we got some beautiful rainy weather. At least, it's only beautiful when you are looking out the window, or playing volleyball with your district -- it's basically like swimming when it rains as heavy as it did this week.

We got to go out into the field again to do transfers with missionaries in Santo Domingo. I had the privilege of joining Elder Hawkins -- who celebrated his 6 months Friday -- and Elder Hamblin -- who left the MTC only 3 weeks ago. I feel really bad for him, but a member we were working with said my Spanish was better than his... So please pray for him and everyone else who really needs the gift of tongues! The language is especially hard for some. Also, please pray for me, because I still can't understand half what the Dominicans say... I have heard that Puerto Ricans do speak just a little bit slower. 👍

While I was in the field I learned a couple of things:
  1. It is totally acceptable to pick fruit off of random trees and eat them. I really, really hope it is the same in Puerto Rico.
  2. Being white, tall and having blue eyes is a spectacle. Three white, tall guys with blue eyes is almost the same as if three men in clown costumes were walking down the street 😂
  3. The members here are so awesome! We got to teach with a 16-year-old priest for a couple hours going from house to house teaching his teenage friends, which leads to subpoints:
    • Fortnite is just as crazy popular here as it is everywhere else in the world.
    • It is really hard to tell ages of the teenagers here. Some kid I thought was 19 was actually 14 and another I thought was 6 was 10 😂
  4. And finally, giving a preisthood blessing in Spanish is flippin hard. The instructions in Spanish require you to understand Spanish and I'm not quite good enough to translate directly from English to Spanish. Yikes!
Adios!
Elder Thornton

Pictures:
  1. Hermano Pilarte!!! (Our evening teacher) He is a legend. Someday I'll tell y'all his crazy stories but this guy:
    1. Graduated from high school 3 years early
    2. Is halfway done with med school (Dominican Med School is a little easier than American Med School)
    3. Was a pro karate athlete and has beat up multiple people who attempted to mug him
    4. Is about to propose to his amazing girlfriend
    5. Served a fantastic mission in Texas
    6. And... is only 20 years old. Wow.
  2. Picture of a picture: If you squint hard enough you can see President Nelson in the front and half of my face in the back. :)
  3. A semi-candid of my district in our classroom. Now you can see how messy our desks have been for the last 6 weeks. 

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