Saturday, November 15, 2008

Boca Chica

November 10, 2008

This last week was..kinda crazy. It was good because we have some good investigators, we have 2 that are getting baptized soon. Im leaving the area tomorrow! Im going to a place called Boca Chica. Its not that far from where Im at now. There was a ward service project this morning where surprisingly quite a few members showed up, and we cleaned the church. And so I got to see alot of them for the last time and say bye which was good. When I was helping at it I felt a strong love for the members here. I started to get a lump in my throat thinking how lucky I was to be a missionary here. They are awesome awesome people. The two that we baptized, Fiordaliza and Carmen got callings in the church yesterday! I was so happy to see them stand up in church! Oh just to let you know...Ive played the piano in church the last two sundays...with it being a little rusty:) The last song we sang yesterday was pretty hard and when I looked at it I decided to just let it go unaccompanied with the piano. But...I promised myself to never to do that again! Ask Chad how bad the singing can be outside the States and he´ll tell you..haha well it´s bad. So I decided i´d be better off trying anyway than to let it goo free singing! The new comp Im getting only has one transfer. It´ll be interesting to see how it goes! Im excited for a new area! Oh I have two things I thought of that you could send in my Christmas package. A watch! Now an expensive one. Just one like from walmart that has a good alarm and the date and all that jazz. And also a CD that has all the Hymns on it. Without words. Just the regular, organ played, hymns. I like listening to them. I could use it for like prelude or something too. Could you also send me one or two more of the stamps papers? That would be good too. Everything is going great here. I love the mission everyday. Im SO thankful for the Savior. I know He wants to bless us. Im thankful for the family! I love you all! Tons and tons! Ill let you know how the new area is and everything next week! I love you mom so much! So MUCH!! I hope all goes well this week! Love you!:)

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

September 8, 2008

That hurricane wasnt really a hurricane..well here at least. Just some rain and a little wind. THe worst part though is that we havent had power in 7 days! We havent been able to take a real shower for a while until this morning because the power came on last night for a little enough to fill a tank on the top of the roof. 3 days ago it was rianing during the night at about 3 oclock and we took advantage of the opportunity to try to get clean by the water falling from the roof. So we did and boy it felt good. So the hurricane was benificial. SO these Dominicans...I dont know how they even communicate to eachother. Thats seriously like what it is...como tu ta. It´s so frustrating...but thats part of it all. I´ll learn...hopefully. IWe actually havent had too many opportuities to serve. WEre trying to look for opportunities but...i dont know why we havent. Were really busy with citas I guess. People are always willing to listen to us unlike your mission it seems like. But thats something we need more of. It´s so humid! I´m in this little place that has no power and no fans and im dripping sweat. But im getting usd to it. Its awesome here. So sweet.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

First P-Day in the field

August 20, 2008

I can´t believe that I am here! It is SO ghetto. Incredibly poor and thesepeople have seriously hardly anything. My area is awesome! It is one of the mostcampo areas in the mission and is so poor. There are only about two pavedstreets in the area, and the people live in tiny homes, and I guess they arejust used to living like this because most of them really are so happy andupbeat. I can´t wait to get to know everything and our investigators betterthese weeks coming up. My companion/trainer is way awesome. He is one of thebest in the mission. He and I are getting along really well and it´s justawesome with him. Last night we taught about 7 lessons, some longer than others.And I got to teach most of about three of them. The ones that I taught was alady that is getting baptized next Saturday, and then two other members that wevisited. It was surprising to be doing that the same night I got here. So I loveit here! It is a culture shock, but I know that I will just love it here.There´s a good chance I´ll be in the same area, and maybe even with my samecompanion for a while. I can´t wait to tell you more of what´s happening here.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Testimony Time

July 24, 2008

I love missionary work. It really is one of the funnest, hardest, most rewarding work I've ever done. I was reading in D&C Sec. 138 about missionary work after we die. There's one verse in there that says "all of the faithful elders in this dispensation will continue their workafter this life" Or something like that. And that really really hit me. That sentence right there made me have a strong feeling of determination to live my life faithfully so that I can continue this work. Because I have nodoubt it's true. No tengo dudas! Christ is the Master of the work and we are His servants.

Elder Merrell

Sunday, July 20, 2008

me puede llamar

Dominicans are such incredible people. We met this lady who actually asked if we could sit down with her and talk. She is catholic but was so incredibly open to what we had to say, and she didn't disagree with anything we had to say. We probably talked with her for 20 minutes about Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, and mostly prophets. Basically the first lesson. And at the end, it was....I still don't know what to think. it was interesting. At the end I apologized for our Spanish and told her "don't worry! We're here for two years. We'll get it down!" And also I kinda bore my testimony saying that even though we can't really speak EVERYthing that we would like to, the things that we did say we knew were true. And she started to cry! She was mumbling some words and I didn't understand a word of what she was saying and so i didn’t know why she was crying! It was so confusing! But we got her number as we were leaving and she said "Me puede llamar" which means you can call me. And so we just stood there like What just happened? But she said we could call so sweet!

Preston's 1st letter to mom from the DR

July 17, 2008
We just got back from doing service outside in the real world, and it was pretty crazy. This place is just like how I imagined it. People going crazy on the streets, poor, people staring at you..It's pretty interesting. It's humid so you can imagine how much I was sweating..My whole shirt changed colors...

My new companion for the MTC is Elder Barrett. He's from California and he's way cool too. We are different in some ways and so it makes it interesting. Oh mom you should see the Santo Domingo temple! It's incredible. Surspringly huge for it being in Santo Domingo. We don't get to go in till next Thursday. You should go on the internet and look at pictures of it. The MTC is not even fifty yards away.

These two Elders from my mission came to the MTC yesterday to make a quick stop for something and they talked about the mission for a little bit and made me that much more excited. I can't wait to get out there! 5 more weeks...

Provo MTC





Hola mi familia!I miss you all so much. How is everyone doing? It's crazy to think I've only been gone for a week. It seems that short but at the same time I've been here forever. Today new missionaries report so I can eel like I know everything and they don't! Anyways I love you all so much. And I love you mom! Sorry my last letter was kinda short. You don't get a whole lot of time to do things..I love love love the spirit that is in the MTC. Ther eis nothing like it!

Last night I saw 5 apostles! Every Tuesday there is a devotional and every time there's a devotional a general authority speaks. But this Tuesday was special because there are 130 new mission presidents that are being trained here and with that comes pretty much all of the Apostles, and the First Presidency. Elder Holland, Elder Christofferson, Elder Perry, Elder Scott, and Elder Hales spoke. There was a choir, and me and my comp. sang in it. But the choir consisted of hundreds of missionaries, so..it was way cool! My comp and I got to meet our new mission president. He is so so cool and is going to be an awesome President! He's from Chile so he speaks incrediably fast spanish. It'll take some time to understand him.

I can't wait to get started with him in the Dominican. I love my district. We've bonded so closely. That's one thing that'll be hard is to move out of the district. I love them all so much. It's funny to think you are brought together not knowing each other at all, and spend hours a day together, and not only that, but developing a feeling that you would do anything for them.I love the gospel! It is true! I know it is. I am thankful for Joseph Smith restoring it. He was a prophet and he did see Heavenly Father and Christ! Christ did suffer for our sins and we can become clean through his sacrifice. If you have faith in that, and faith in the fact that he does live and that he knows what you're going through, and that He understand so many more things that we cannot, and if we pray for faith and a testimony, it will be given to us if we have a desire to have it! He will give us a strong and unshakeable testimony, and we will have the gift of the spirit.

Elder Merrell

Thanks for Everyones Support!!!

Apparently writing through pouch mail can be tricky. Here are the instructions from Preston:

...you write it on a plain sheet of paper, fold it into three parts, put two little pieces of tape on it to keep it from unfolding, put a stamp directly on the paper itself, along with the address on the front (no envelopes). To send more than one, just do the same thing and send it separately. So the two pieces of paper can't be taped together or anything. Each piece of paper has to have a separate stamp. Kind of crazy.. But here's the address:

Elder Preston D. Merrell
Dominican Republic Santo Domingo East Mission
P.O. Box 30150
Salt Lake City, UT 84130-0150