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

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