THE HOPEFULLY NOT SO BORING ADVENTURES OF ELDER WILLIAMSON CHAPTER XXVII

welcome.. so it's wednesday, and i'm the most tired i've ever been on the mission.. lemme explain... *monday was zone pday, we started the day out by going to san cristobal to a park to play some games.. i call my family pretty early, so i usually miss whatever the first hour of what they're doing is.. this time it was frizbee, and it was raining, so it was a bit muddy and stuff, and it looked fun, but once they started spikeball that's when i went over for real.. i played a tiny bit of that, and then i was talking to our ZL, and he's just like "hey i've got some cups and a tenis ball and an idea for a game".. so i'm like "uhhh ok, let's see it" so he gathers some other people, and goes and gets his cups and tenis ball, and it starts off with us just throwing the ball around, using the cups, annnd then we start thinking of ways to make it a little more fun.. so anyways we ended up with two teams, and a giant tire in the middle of the field, the objective of the game, is to use your cup and your team to put the tenis ball through the side of the tire that is on the other teams' side, from a minimum of 6 or so feet away.. sooo kinda like lacrose, but with the goal in the middle, and it's with cups, and the field is sUper wet and muddy because of the rain... so it was super fun ofc, i scored like 3 goals or something, which makes sense because i'm only good at fake sports.. i diD fall at some point and posssibly sprain my wrist, but i haven't decided yet.. hopefully i'm just being a baby and it's actually fine in a couple more days, cuz i've already been to too many doctors here... anyways tho, after that game i went to play spikeball again, cuz a new hermana from el salvador (shoutout to hyde) wanted to learn, and no one else who was over there knew the rules ig.. so anyways, it's safe to say she still doesn't know how to play the game, because there were just a couppple spikeball words i didn't know in spanish, and i'm not sure she understood my hand signals and weird faces super well either.. but the point of all this, is that i got pretty badly sunburnt.. yes ik i need to wear sunscreen, and a hat, and i'll get skin cancer, and all those things, and i hope i've learned my lesson too.. so anyways skip to monday night, and i am sunburnt, and my wrist is a little out of whack, and my legs are sooo stiff and sore from running and jumping, and my back is sore from bending down to grab a muddy tenis ball with a muddy cup, annnd i'm just barely moving in general... *and then tuesday comes, and i feel it all twice as bad ofc, cuz that's just kinda how it goes somehow, and walking around with my legs super straight and the sun burning my burns and all that stuff.. and then we had a couple super long talks in our house about our areas, and we went to bed at a time that i don't know because i was too afraid to look, because i knew that we had to get up at 5:30 the next day... *ok so i sleep really light this night, and then we get up at 5:30, and i am just a tinnny bit tired.. we walk down to the little stop to wait for the bus, we get on, the driver tells us we can't be on the bus, my comp negotiates and we get a spot on the bus.. we are standing again.. that was like an hour.. we are now in the capital again.. we pass by the temple and get a couple pictures, but don't go inside, because we need permission, and we only go as a whole mission.. we get to the doctors' office on time and we're waiting for him.. we call him to see where he's at, and apperently he had some sort of emergency funeral or something to go to.. sooo he says he'll be ready around 1.. sooo we text president to ask if we can get special permission to go do some ordanances in the temple, and while we're waiting for the response, we decide to go to wendys for some food, so we start walking towards the metro, and about 4 or 5 minutes later i realize i don't have my wallet.. so we go back to where we were sitting outside, and it's gone.. we ask everyone all around, and no one knows where it went.. sooo we start walking to the metro again, and my comp sees one of those street vender guys who sells tubberwares, and he's across a super busy highway, but he my comp thinks he saw this guy over there, and he's a very likely subject.. sooo we decided to start following him just as a last resort.. so we slowly make our way across this highway, and the guy is probably 100 yards away, but he starts wAlking.. sooo we're following this guy, and we're gaining on him, but he's super far ahead.. and then he turns a corner, and by the time we get around this corner, he's still ahead, but we almost have him (his tubberwares don't really permit him to go very fast) so we are now within yelling distance, and my comp says "hey bro" and he turns to look, and then starts walking a little faster.. sooo we start walking faster too.. we eventually catch up to him, and my comp asks him first if he was at that same park, and he says yes, and then he asks if he saw any wallets, and then he says "no no i haven't seen annnything, no i haven't seen anything".. and then he's like "here check my stuff" so he drops his bags to the floor and is trying to get us to look through them to look for the wallet.. so at first i just think, wellll he probably just has it oN him, like in his pocket or something, so my comp just says "no no we believe you, we don't need to look through your stuff, you don't have it on you tho?" so this man proceeds to lift up his shirt, and show us his fanny pack, and pull out his pockets, and then pull down his pants and very thoroughly show us that he didn't have it in his underwear either.. sooo at this point i realize that anyone as smart as this guy, would actually just take out the cash (which was $2500 (that's dominican pesos, so like $50 USD) at this time, to pay for anything in the capital) and then chuck the wallet somewhere.. sooo we help this guy put all his stuff back in his bags that he's been taking out, and say sorry for bothering him, and he gives us the whole "i'm christian i would never do anything like this" speach.. sooo while we're walking back we're kinda looking around for anywhere he could have dropped it, annnd i wish this was a cool story where you pray and you find the thing, and it all turns out ok, buttt sometimes the answer is just no.. so anyways, i'm now a little short of a wallet, $2500, my drivers license, my mission prepaid card thingy, my personal card, my metro card, annnd i watched some guy strip down to his underwear pat himself down, and we aren't even sure if it wAs this guy... so anyways we walk back to the metro, my comp buys me a new card, we go to wendys, and then president actually gave us permission to go to the temple!.. sooo we got to go do laundry, cuz that was all they had open, but we did that for a while, until around 1.. and then we get to the office again, and call the doctor, and he's been held up again, so he's coming at 3 now.. so we just did a little bit of studies, and i fell asleep on the concrete floor cuz i was so dead.. and this guy finally shows up around 4, and we go in, and he's dealing with a ton of random stuff, and we meet his boss lady, and she crazy, super funny, but crazy.. annnd eventually he got to us, and he gave me a couple prescriptions, and then offered to give us a ride back to san cristobal, and to take us to subway.. sooo we went with him through a ton of traffic and stuff to subway, and then he decided to just take us to a metro station instead because the traffic was so bad.. so we say thanks to him, go back on the metro, take all our connections to get to the busses that get to san cristobal, and finally got on the bus.. we get to san cristobal, and we get some lil ceasars again, and then walk to the cambita car station thingy, and get a car, and we finally make it back to cambita at like 8... soooo we didn't do too much that day besides phone contacting, buttt i was the most tired i've ever been here... *i went on an exchange with elder taggert which was fun *hung out with my best buds juan daniel and francesca (they're kids in the ward that are just super funny) *ok ok i don't think my wrist was actually sprained, which is fire.. it's almost back to normal.. i think *yah no, it totally could be actually, i have no idea, but it kinda hurts *we had another pretty big rain storm anyways, have a good week, love you guys! alma 11:40 And he shall come into the world to redeem his people; and he shall take upon him the transgressions of those who believe on his name; and these are they that shall have eternal life, and salvation cometh to none else.

THE HOPEFULLY NOT SO BORING ADVENTURES OF ELDER WILLIAMSON CHAPTER XXVI

we got a new phone finally! but nothing is configurated yet, so typing is super difficult.. *we went to san cristobal on pday and got some food and toys and stuff *we've been finding some new people, and starting to get a lot closer to baptism with the ones we've had for a while *we had an all out war with a bunch of flying beatles at an investigators' house, where we would smack them out of the air, and the kids would collect them and feed them to a lame (as in can't walk) chicken *and then on thursday we woke up at 5:30, walked to the secret bus stop, stood on the buss the whole time, the bus broke, we got on a new bus, we arrive in the capital, we walk to a doctors' office, we wait for a long time, we talk to him, he refers us to another doctor in san cristobal, we go on the metro (insane underground train system), we go to the biggest mall in the DR, we eat some mid tier KFC, then my comp bought a bag of rice for some guy in the mall who was asking for it, and it was super weird, we go on the metro again, we go on another bus to san cristobal, we pay lots of money (sortttt of.. relatively) we go to another doctor, i get a CT scan, we have to wait for an hour and a half for the results, my comp buys a blanket, we get some frozen yogurt, we go back to the doctor, the CT scan comes back completely normal, we go upstairs, we pay even more money, we wait, i take a nap, we mess around on facebook for a few minutes, facebook is the worst, we go back to waiting, we are let in, they check my eyes and dump yellow goop in them, my eyes are fine as well, we wait more for a receipt, we leave and go to lil ceasers (also mid, but way better than the states), my comp also gave some guy a peice of pizza who was asking for money, we pull more money out at the bank (we used it all buying doctor things), we go home in a car, we get back around 6, meaning the whole thing took about 12 hours, and we now know i don't have anything wrong with my brain that would show up on a CT scan, and my eye sight is normal.. sooo stay tuned ig, cuz that's what we're doing that's kinda it tho, love you guys, bye.. mosiah 9:17-18 Yea, in the strength of the Lord did we go forth to battle against the Lamanites; for I and my people did cry mightily to the Lord that he would deliver us out of the hands of our enemies, for we were awakened to a remembrance of the deliverance of our fathers. And God did hear our cries and did answer our prayers; and we did go forth in his might; yea, we did go forth against the Lamanites, and in one day and a night we did slay three thousand and forty-three; we did slay them even until we had driven them out of our land.

THE HOPEFULLY NOT SO BORING ADVENTURES OF ELDER WILLIAMSON CHAPTER XXV

aghhhhhhhhhhhh.. this week.. has been.. an entire week?.. *we did nothing again on monday, cuz that's how things go here (we at least played a lil house frisbee golf tho) *we had zone council, and it's a bit boring and sad now cuz almost all my old friends left, and now it's just me and elder macdonald (and one of the sisters) who have been here the longest *i read a lot of the friends magazine in spanish now as language study *i fished for water from a well *i had "beans with sweet" for the first time.. basically just baked beans but like half as good, and it's another thing that they put random stuff in (including raisins) *i went on an exchange with elder macdonald and went over to his area, and that was super fun (still haven't done any rEal exchanges where i actually leave cambita, buttttt) *it's a tradition here for holy week for the little kids to go sit in little kiddie pool, and everyone goes to the rivers and the beach and stuff *someone flooded our house again, but we caught it a lilll sooner than the last time * saturday night, most fire night everrrr!!.. basically first we are walking by the play (a park where everyone plays all of the sports) and we see a helicopter just sitting in the middle of it.. sooo we go to see what's going on, and we get to watch it take off, and blow a bunch of dirt in our eyes.. and then we are walking to our next visit avoiding all the people drinking, and blasting unholy music for holy week and easter and stuff, and we finally come to what is supposed to be our 2nd to last visit of the night.. so we're talking to the lady we're teaching (caroline) (she has 4 kids, 3 boys (carlos: he has an extra finger on one hand, and he's super nice, but a bit of a punk around his family) (bravelis: he's super chill, and probably my favorite of them) (and then chiquitín, he's craZy, he's covered in roadrash cuz he leaves the house naked all the time, and just does crazy stunts and stuff, and he gets smacked by people so often that he is literally immune to pain, and he's how we found all these people) (who are crAzy and some of my favorite people ever) and one girl who died of cancer a couple years ago) and carolines' boyfriend (josias) just got put on date for baptism, so we're working really hard on these 2, and it's chAos.. fortunately, i LOVE chaos.. so basically we're there, and her boys are running around creating havoc, and making a ruckus, and she's yelling at them to stop, and then 2 of carolines' friends show up, and one of them has a gigAntic "6 month year old baby".. so caroline is yelling at her 3 boys to go clean up the mess they've just made (she says she's already cleaned the house 3 times today), and to shower, and to put on clothes, anddd it's all just hilarious to me and my comp.. and they're playing with the giant baby, and they're all getting slapped at random times because they're doing dum stuff, and not cleaning, and we're trying to talk to the 3 ladies, and the kids are trying to talk to us, and thennnn... it starts raining... and at first we don't think about it too much, we're just talking, and we've been here for a bit now, and my comp says "we gotta go", and i'm like "you wanna go in this rain?" and he's like "you wanna stay here?" and i'm like (in my head) "uhhh yah man, this is super fun" but i just say "well where's somewhere we could go, where they'll still let us in if we are absolutely soaked?" and then we think about the lorenzos (the family we had plAnned to visit next, but they live super high on a very steep mountain (which would have been a fun slip n slide i'm sure, but we also may have ended up being impaled by trees and machetes and haitians and dominicans and all sorts of rabid animals on our way down)... so anyways we decide we can't go there, and there aren't really a lot of other places that will be productive.. so we decide we probably need to go home, because at this point the water is getting a bit high outside.. and i think it was around then that the oldest kid runs in and says "THERE'S WATER COMING IN THRU THE BACK DOOR!" and caroline says "WELL CLOSE THE DOOR THEN" and he says "IT ISSS CLOSED" (i may be paraphrasing a tiny bit cuz this was in spanish).. so anyways my comp jumps up to go see the water coming in thru the back door, and i follow him and sure enough, there is water coming in thru the closed back door.. so we're looking for why, and we're sloshing around in water, and the oldest kid goes "mom, you left the straightening iron on" and she is like "oh i forgot about that" and my comp goes "how is the water getting in?" and she opens the door to look at what's happening, and she gets absolutely pummeled in the face by wind and rain "wow it's kinda windy" she says.. and we aren't really sure what's going on, so we're looking for something to stop the water from coming in, and then we get distracted helping the boys clean their room (which means shoving all the stuff in their closet, cuz that's obviously the best way to clean a room) and then 2 of the boys go out to look at the other side of the door, so my comp makes his way towards the front door, and i ask what we're doing now, (cuz i'm always lost ofc) and he says we're going outside to fix the problem, so we go outside, and it's kinda wet out there, but we're having a blAst, and the lighting is striking all around, and the thunder is so fetching cool, and we walk to the back of the house.. so i hold the phone under un umbrella (cuz it's super cracked and not waterproof in any way, and we forgot to leave it inside), and my comp climbes up the side of the house a little bit and reconnects some pipe on the side of the house that was causing the problem, and then we go back inside.. they the ladies are all super shocked that we had gone outside and gotten wet, but it was super fun, so we don't care.. so anyways fast forward, and we're eating some food, and playing with the kids, and then one of the kids runs towards the front door (cuz why not), and lighting struck (and i swear it was right outside, because there was no delay between the flash and the boom) and this kid got so shocked he slipped on the wet floor, and it looked like he got absolutely just struck down (and that was the funniest thing i've ever witnessed in that house, which is saying a lOt).. and then they are throwing a ball, and it flies close to some breakable things, so i smack it away from there, and it smacks one of the kids right in the face (causing his tubberware of soup to spill all over the couch).. and then one of the kids pours me a tall plastic glass of some cold bean "juice", and i'm playing a type of dominican patty cake with the kids, and my comp is beating the kids up, and the 3 ladies are milling about cleaning up water and eating food, and the giant baby is just vibing and spitting up everywhere.. and then some man in a terrifying yellow rain coat (from the movie IT (or demille)) appears with one of the flashes of lightning, and this man has a plastic bag of eggs, and he sells them to the lady, and then disappears again... annnd that's pretty much the whole night, we walked home in the rain after that, and just had a fun time *and then we had easter.. we didn't hunt for eggs or anything (cuz thAt is sUper weird) but we had only an hour of church but hey, congrats, you got a longer email this week again.. it might be a sec till that happens again, we'll have to see.. love you guys tho, have a great week!

THE HOPEFULLY NOT SO BORING ADVENTURES OF ELDER WILLIAMSON CHAPTER XXIV

hey 👋 .. it's already saturday morning and i haven't started my email (usually i write it slowly throughout the week) *saw another snake, this one was promptly stoned by various teenagers *we started a jumping wall in our house (we high jump and stick a card on the wall) mine is the lowest of those who have participated, but it's getting higher *i mayyy have gotten super bad at doing laundry last week with going to the hospital and stuff, which lead to me mayyyybe wearing the same pair of pants like 9 days in a row *i found out that the power actually just goes out cuz the power company (for some reason there's only like one in the whole country (ig monopolies are allowed here)) decides they wanna turn it off.. so they do *we're gonna have conference, and it's gonna be insAne, cuz we're gonna go all around for every session and make sure everyone possible is watching it *my comp and i are dodging the ward drama like keanu reeves dodging all those bullets in the matrix *ok ok, idk how these emails are sounding, like maybe boring, or maybe super chaotic and random, orrr idk.. but the mission is sOo fun man! and when it isn't, it's even better, because you can chAnge that any time you want.. you choose how much you get out of it (same with everything in life (uhhh i think, i haven't really been here that long (in life i mean (or in the mission buttt)))) *one thing we've been doing with a couple of our friends, is having them write down questions that they want to be answered in conference, and the coolest thing, is that we already know that if they are listening and searching with real intent, they're fr gonna get their answers.. because we have aCtual prOphets of gOd.. that's so sick!!! *the first session of conference was a bunch of technical difficulties, and then me playing cards with a bunch of kids so they wouldn't run around and make a ruckus (we were doing it in the church with a projector and stuff) *but the conference was super good anyways, hope you guys had the chance to watch conference, if not, it's always on the gospel library and such.. love you guys! ether 4:12 And whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do good is of me; for good cometh of none save it be of me. I am the same that leadeth men to all good; he that will not believe my words will not believe me—that I am; and he that will not believe me will not believe the Father who sent me. For behold, I am the Father, I am the light, and the life, and the truth of the world.