I am done training

This week was great! This last Saturday we had an activity with our ward that the missionaries planned and it turned out great we had about 70 people there. We had games and some people brought friends and we got to meet them. We all just had a great time! It worked out great exactly how we expected it! The members fed us like every night because Elder Gomez, our district leader is going back home and so we were pretty much fed this week!

One thing that was so awesome this week is that we went to a less actives house a couple of days ago. It is the Moronta family and and we were able to share a message with them. My comp started out and he started out talking about Alma and how he was a missionary and he was talking about how Alma didn't want to be a king and he wanted to serve. After my comp was done I talked about Nephi and how he had it hard when he was with his family but he persevered through it all. We could all feel the spirit there. The mom started saying how grateful she was for us and how we have helped her so much with her family and that we reminded her of the spirit and how great the church is. She said she is going to come to church this week so we will pray that she will keep her promise! Funny story this week haha I stepped on a nail while I was doing service and we were doing service at a school. After I stepped on it I cleaned it and everything and put alcohol and stuff on it so it could be fine but then the school was like you have to get a shot, a vaccine shot so I would be fine. So they took me to the hospital to have permission to buy a shot at a pharmacy because the hospitals are so poor so we bought it and the school payed for it. We went back to the school and asked the nurse to do it and so....,. she told me that she has to do it in the butt and so.....she did it and Elder Mata was laughing the whole time because first showed me how to pull my pants down by pulling her pants down haha and then when she was giving the shot she was slapping  and grabbing my butt to try to get the blood to the area haha yeah this story was one for the journal haha

This week was transfers!!! Elder Mata and I are still companions and he is the district leader now so more work for us! We just have to work harder at everything. We have two new missionaries in our district and they are pretty cool but we had to help out with transfers so that's why I couldn't email you yesterday but everything is great and I cant believe I have already been out for  4 and a half months that's crazy!!!

That was my crazy missionary week love you guys and miss you all! 

les amo, Elder Santacruz

Our ward at our activity this past Saturday

      

Doing service at a hospital looking cool in our masks

Tallest and shortest missionary in our mission

I finally had some Mexican food. We had to make it because Dominicans don't know Mexican food! Can you tell I missed it

My awesome scripture case

  

The mission is for me

hey everyone!!

This week was pretty interesting!

First we found out that there was a missionary in our ward and he is on a mission in Mexico, so we wanted to visit the family and see how they were doing. We found out who is was and it was a mom and dad that lived there and they were not members and so we sat down with the mom and the dad didn't want to talk to us so he went in the house. The mom talked with us and she asked us questions about the mission and the rules and then she asked a serious question she said, "why are you serving a mission? elder mata and I looked at eachother like this lady is crazy because she asked us really seriously. We told her that we are serving our heavenly father and she said give me a better answer than that. She said why can't missionaries talk more than 2 times a year? She said thats just wrong to not let their parents talk to their kids and so we told her its for the missionaries to not get distracted and she just told us that we are fools and that she will never go to the church. So we left and we decided we are gonna go back twice a week and ask her if we can help her with anything untill she wants to talk to us! 

Also we are planning a huge activity this Saturday for everyone. We are gonna try to invite our investigators and inactives but we are planning more activities so that we can find more people to teach because if the members come and they bring their friends then their friends might want to know more! Thats our strategy but the mission is telling us not to contact anymore and to just use the members to recieve references so we will try that! Our goal is to have 100 people their but one thing that is hard is that the ward doesn't really help us a lot and we dont have a bishop and we just have a bishopric we are waiting for a new one. The members had a problem with the old one. Yeah there are some problems with the ward but we are trying out best here. The problem is that the people here get offended easly and then they just decide they want anything to do with the church.. but we are trying to fix things.

Our investigator Kelvin didnt go to church this Sunday and so elder mata and I were devastated the problem is he visits his family every Sunday in Porta Plata and that he leaves early but we visted the next day and he told us that he still wants to get baptized and that he is gonna try his best from now on and so we are gonna work harder with him but. We have been working with inactives and we are trying to reactivate members because what good is it when the members are falling away? We just focus on our investigators but we are working with them and the members. They are so awesome and loving. 

Also transfers are next week and I could stay with elder mata or get a new companion or go to a new area but I wont find out till next week on Tuesday but whatever happens its for the best! These 3 months with him were great and I am excited to maybe have a latin companion to learn more spanish and to get better. 

I love you guys and that was my week! I hope you all had a wonderful week miss you all and pray for you guys!

Elder Santacruz

Elder Mata took me to a Monument today

People wear these for festivals

Dominican Republic

So many stairs to get to the top

At the end I will be glad

Saludos!!! bueno bueno this week we had a bunch of intercambios missionary exchanges and I went with other Elders in my district. What you do is you or the other Elder is with you for 24 hours and they go out with you at night and they study with you in the morning. I went with the district leader Elder Gomez and then I went with his companion Elder Martinez ha none of them speak English but... I was thinking when I was with Gomez that  I am getting way better with my spanish I can under stand a lot of things they are saying and they can understand me and with the people that we talked to I was able to do small talk with them and that was so awesome. It is such a blessing to speak another language and to be here in the Dominican mission. My companion and I had a talk one day before these intercambios because I was getting stressed with the language and he told me that my spanish is getting so much better and that this mission wasn't meant to be easy and that I am not gonna know everything but he told me that at the end of this mission I will be a man and I will be glad with what I went through.

Our investigator Kelvin is still progressing but we are not sure on his baptizism because he is taking time to learn all of it and that is just great, he also is very busy teaching he doesn't have a lot of time to talk to us but he is getting more knowledge and he is more accepting to all the things of the gospel. This week was great! One thing funny that happened this week is the assistants called me and  they asked me to train a greeny and I was so shocked and I couldnt believe it I was so scared I am not fluent in Spanish and they are asking me to train but it turned out they were just joking..... hahah thank goodness I thought I was gonna have a heart attack ha but everyone was laughing and it was hilarious in the end haha

but yeah that was my week and it was awesome love you all and miss you all!!!

Shout out to my buddy Braden Whitaker for getting his mission call Kansas Wichita mission!!!! atta boy! 

Elder Santacruz

Work hard Pray hard

hello hello! This week didnt turn out the way it should have, we didn't have Kelvins baptism this week. We are going to have it in a couple of weeks but the great thing is he talked with us one day and he said that he feels like he needs two more weeks to learn more and when he said that we were so happy because we are not trying to rush him into baptism and that it is great! So we will be working hard with him! 

Also we have been working with the members. This week our district leader has been telling us that we need to work hard on reactivating the less actives and so we have been busy with them. We have been doing everything to get them to church and we have a bunch of activities.  We have been playing basketball and some less actives come which is awesome and we also play games at the church and we buy refreshments for them. The church isn't as organized as it is over there. There isn't any mutual so its kinda hard to work with the less active youth. Everything is slowly getting better! 

I got my bulto this week its so awesome! All the elders wear these dont worry mines different! its awesome! It helps a lot more so my back isn't sweaty and my shoulders dont hurt!

Everything is all good my companion is so cool. We are like brothers! Im sad that we only have three weeks left together till next transfers unless he is still with me. All is well here. There is so much work here and I love it. We are always busy! 

Love you all miss you all! 

Elder Santacruz

We went to the zoo and there were dogs

My district Leader

                                                                   

The famous bag so much better than a back pack

                                                                         

Doing the Do

Hola! como estan! this week was fantastic we are working on are next investigator he is the teacher of english and his name is kelvin he is a domincan and he is so awesome! His baptism is still on this week and we have been teaching him a lot and its so great to teach him because he really wants to know about how everything works! We can definitely  feel the spirit in the lesson! We definitely feel like he is ready for baptism and that he truly wants this because he knows this is true! Also this week we have been working with menos activos in our area and they are families and they are so great. One of things that we are trying to do is earn their trust because members have a hard time trusting the missionaries because there were tigres before us and the missionaries would never work. I feel like they are trusting us and that they are getting closer with us. One thing that happened this week is that I was really sick! I had a problem with my stomach two days ago! I thought I had worm in my stomach because I couldn't eat anything and my stomach felt like I had something in me! haha I was next too the toilet all night hahaha and you can use your imagination on what happened! That was definitely a moment for the journal but everything is all well now and let me tell you my companion is awesome Elder Mata and I are so close I love him we have so much fun together and we also work hard. That is one of the things he has taught me is that a mission is also to have fun and not be so serious all the time! I am definitely learning a lot and I cant tell you how much I love my mission the work here is amazing! 

love you all and miss you tons! 

Elder Santacruz

The Power of Missionary Work

Hello everyone!

Wow this week was simply amazing! I had the opportunity to baptize someone! It was the best experience ever! I will always remember that day. The day we had the baptism we were so happy it finally arrived. One funny thing that happened was we found out that the church didnt have power or water hahahah so I was just like oh flip hahah but dont worry we still baptized her the bishop helped us out. He paid for a water truck to come fill up the font! One thing that was bad was the water was so nasty haha it was so green so the problem we had before the baptism was trying to get the water clean. We went to the nearest cormado(mini store) and bought some blue dye to try to make the water less scary haha So we poured the whole bottle in the font to try to make it look like blue water. It worked out!!! The time came and we had a talk from one of the members and we also had a testimony given after that it was time for her to be baptized! One thing I had to do was remember the words to say in Spanish. I was practicing the whole week just repeating it in my head haha but it worked out great. When the time came I remembered it perfectly. How great that moment was when we both saw eachother on each side of the font and how I remembered looking down at my toes going into the water and how I saw her smiling and that made everything worth it. All the lessons we had with her were all worth it and I was happy that she made that decision to change her life forever.That night was one to be remembered!

Also this week we have been working with our other investigator and he is the best. He is a teacher and his name is Kelvin and we have his date settled for the 18th! He is doing so good out last lesson we had with him we talked about the plan of salvation and how we all can feel the Spirit when we are together in a lesson that is the best!

Everything is going great, there are some times when Satan brings me down but at the end of everyday I know that I conquered him and that out work in Cristo Rey is paying off!

Love you all, miss you so much! 

This gospel is 100% true and it is incredible of how my testimony grows everyday!

Elder Santacruz

Feliz año Nuevo

hello everyone happy new years!!!! I love you all!!! I was so grateful to talk to you guys it was so weird and really cool at the same time! I can finally speak Spanish haha it only took me 18 years to pick it up well im not fluent yet but its great. This week was great haha this week we have been preparing La france for her batism this Saturday!!! woot woot!!! It is awesome and I cant wait till this saturday! We have been visiting with her every night and she is willing to do everthing! She is working hard and I know she believes in this gospel. It is amazing to see someone change so quick I know that her faith has grown so strong and mine has grown even stronger than it was before. Also this week new missionaries came to the mission and missionaries that live around the mission home have to come and take the new missionaries out for a couple of hours and they have to place a book of mormon so we went and I had to take an Elder out and it was awesome! Its crazy to think that I was just doing this! It was great the elder was form Peru so he knew spanish and it was easy for him but he has a lot to learn just like me. Also there was transfers the assistants asked me to help out with it and it is crazy but Elder Mata and I are still together and than after this transfer he will probably go somewhere else. 
This week I also lost my camera or maybe it was stolen but I looked everywhere and I could not find it and i was kinda sad cause it had my two tranfers in it and so for a couple days I was bumbed but I remembered that La france got her stuff stolen and she was super sad that someone did it and I gave her words of comfort and I told her that they were things and that things happen for a reason and I felt better after I remembered that! 

All is good here everything was closed yesterday so I couldn't write you guys but I love you all and I hope you had a good new years! I sure did! We all had a sleep over with a bunch of missionaries and we hung out and played games it was fun and we saw fireworks and a lot of people were shooting there guns in the air, crazy!! ha but Im alive dont worry!

I love you all and miss you all happy new year I hope you all will set goals to come closer to Christ!

Elder Santacruz 

shout out to grandma! happy birthday!!!!!!!