Back together with comp in Puerto Rico right before I left to come to Dominica

English Class students

Well it's been a pretty crazy week with a ton of driving with all the airport trips. My old companion Elder Segura flew back out to Puerto Rico this last Saturday. My new companion, however, flew into the island last Thursday. We didn't know who it was going to be until he walked off the plane, and I was super surprised to see that it was Elder Jones. He was my companion back in Puerto Rico right before I left to come to Dominica. We're back together for my last couple of weeks out here, and it's going to be super sweet.

In these past couple of days though, Elder Jones has got quite the welcome to the island. We had a crazy guy crash our business class. He kept calling me Jerry and would not leave. He started trying to eat our food from the kitchen and to drink our water. During the class, he was going off about how he needed fifteen million dollars so he could take over the world. The day before that while we were exercising at the park a baby bull tried to charge us. Then after having getting yelled at by someone telling us Jesus was black even though we hadn't even said anything to him, we got yelled and threatened to "Leave this place! Get out!" by some Dominican after coming out from a lesson. We also headed out to go pull out our money for some food, the phone bill, and the house's power bill. The ATM malfunctioned and ended up eating my card without giving me any money. The bank was closed at the time, and we were told I'd be able to get it back in two days when the manager comes into work. When we went in to go retrieve the card later on, they told us they destroyed all the cards. So we had a huge hassle with that, and we have to wait a while before all those funds transfer over, and I can get a new card. So hopefully we won't need to much money any time soon.

Anyways, that's been our life recently. We've been trying to sort all those messes out. We have been able to find some cool people recently as well. We have been very busy with all the trips and other work we've been having to do recently as well though.

They wanted to sing us a goodbye song before Elder Segura left to go back to Puerto Rico

With Alvina and her baby

We had a super sweet week! We started it off with a branch activity we had up on the North side of the island. We all got together and had a fun game of jeopardy. It added a whole new level of difficulty when half the kids that showed up didn't speak any English. We hadn't planned on any Haitians coming either, so we prepared everything in English. We had to make some crude translations for everyone to be able to play, but it ended up still being super fun and everyone had a great time.

Jeopardy in Portsmouth

Then we headed down to the South side to do some work out there and found a couple really cool people. We ran into this one guy who was super interested in our message on our way out to do some shopping for the Branch's food supply.

After church in Portsmouth

We've also started teaching this one kid that we met a while ago playing some basketball with them. We just happened to run into him later on by his house, and he called us out and told us he was one of the kids we played some ball with earlier. It was pretty cool cause he said he actually looked up to us while we were playing cause we weren't talking any trash to anyone else like everyone else that was playing was doing. We were just trying to help everyone have fun. We gave him a Book of Mormon, and he said he had already seen it before but that he'd read it before the next time we came.

We finished off the rest of our week by "working up a sweat" during our "battle" with the branch and some of their friends up on the North side of the island again (they call exercise working up a sweat and a soccer game a battle here). Pinky, the first councilor, has been wanting to have a battle for a long time, and we finally got around to one. It was cool cause once you start a game, a lot of the kids from the town want to join in and play.

Setting up for the battle

With the Ger family

We were also invited one last time to have a meal with the Ger family. The father of the family, Delicon, has been living here in Dominica for about five years trying to save up enough money to bring the rest of his family our here from Haiti. They were finally able to make it out here shortly after I arrived to the island. Everyone besides Delicon hadn't ever met missionaries before until us, and we have just started to teach them a few weeks ago. They were pretty sad to hear that my companion would be leaving next week and that I'd be leaving about a month after that. They wanted to sing us a goodbye song before Elder Segura left to go back to Puerto Rico.

Delicon's daughters

Why haven't you guys taught me that sooner?

Playing sticks with Duran

It wasn't quite as eventful of a week as we've been having recently. We started to digitalize most of the records and maps out the area for all the future missionaries that serve here. So we've been entering all that in as we've been doing our work around the island.

Getting our satellite phone set up for hurricane season

We did have some cool experiences though. Danny, one of the guys we've been teaching is heading out to Trinidad in a couple weeks to go get an eye surgery. He's been going blind, but there's only one eye doctor on this island apparently so he has to head out there to have the operation. We had a super good lesson with him the other day. He said his girlfriend is going to go talk with her parents when she goes down to her home village to finalize it, but they want to get married when he comes back from Trinidad at the end of next month. So hopefully everything goes well with that, cause he wants to get baptized then as well.

With Elder Segura

He got so pumped up about "breaking the chain" as he calls it. He said his parents raised him in a terrible situation without God and that their parents raised them like that as well and so on. He got super excited and started yelling about how he wasn't going to let that happen to their baby daughter.

He wasn't always in the best place, but has completely changed his life. We found him my first week out here. We were hiking up a mountain to go work in the area and we met him on the way up. When we went over to go talk with him, he said he passed by us in a bus at the bottom of the mountain and said he'd take it as a sign of God if we went to go talk to him. We've taught him about all of the lessons now, and is the most faithful guy ever. Every time we teach him a new thing, he always says "Why haven't you guys taught me that sooner? I didn't know I was supposed to be doing that." He may not know everything or have had the perfect life, but he understands the gospel so much better than so many people. The commandments aren't just rules or restrictions we have to follow. They're a guide or instructions given to us to be free from so many other problems and have a happy life. He has such a testimony of that and is so excited to be able to follow it.

Last Monday we headed down to Scott's head, the most southern part of the island. It's almost it's own island with a little pathway across between the water. We found some cool shells out there. Then today we headed over to Cabrits national park which is in the north side and also used to be it's own island. We almost weren't able to make it in cause we had to pay a pretty big entry free, but the park ranger let us in for free after talking with him for about 15  minutes. We got to visit Fort Shirley out there.

On Scott's Head

At the tip of Cabrits National Park

Panorama view from fort Shirley

Inside Fort Shirley

Viewpoint overlooking the town of Roseau

Dominica fun fact: After all of my time here, I have only seen about two strollers actually be used for babies. Every other Dominican seems to find them as a great way to wheel around their boxes or crates of beer.

More pics from our hike with the Smarts

Cool crab

Island Life

Flooded trail

Unfolding fern

We tried to warn them that it was a VERY hard hike.

With the Smarts on the way up

Well these past two weeks have been super busy. We were so tired one night when we got back, when we had gotten home I laid down on the tile floor with no pillow or anything, and the next thing I knew it was morning.

Smart's plane coming in

When the mission President and his wife came down last weekend though, we had a ton of fun. All in all, we had two Family Home Evenings with the two sides of the island, a very long hike, and HOURS of driving with them.

Walking through the valley of desolation

Our first activity with the branch was pretty cool. It was mostly kids that ended up coming so we played a bunch of games with everyone, had lots of cookies, and a whole lot of fun. The next one we had was mostly adults so we didn't play as many games, but they shared a really cool message.

Youth Book of Mormon class

Playing fun games with the kids

Duran shooting into the cups

More games with the kids

Pinky and his three boys

Then on Monday, the Smarts had wanted to go hiking with us cause they hadn't been in forever. They mentioned they've been wanting to go on the boiling lake hike really  bad. We tried to warn them that it was a VERY hard hike. The last time we went it took 4 and a half hours and we were practically jogging a lot of the path. The hurricane wiped out a lot of the trail as well. The hike is so cool though, they wanted to go anyways. So the next day we headed out early to do it. Lucky for them, they happened to come on an extremely rainy day. It absolutely poured the night before and pretty much all of the day. It was so wet, the trail changed from a trail to a stream. There was so much more water we saw a huge waterfall at the start of the hike that wasn't even there the last time we went. We were being hit with massive raindrops and lots of wind. Only time I've ever been freezing in the Caribbean. 6 and a half hours later though, we finally made it back completely soaked.

Flooded trail in the rainforest

Climbing up the trail which had pretty much become a waterfall

Climbing down a mountain

Along the Ridgeline

We had to say goodbye to one of the recent converts down here named Richardson as well. He's Haitian and moving back to Chili to be with the rest of his family. It was cool cause his last Sunday here he brought some of his friends to church so there ended up being like 4 Haitians we had never even talked with there. It's so crazy to see the faith that some of these guys have even when they don't understand like 95 percent of it.

Clear view of the Boiling Lake

At the top of a mountain

The mission president and his wife came down to Dominica island

Brian's Mission President - President & Sister Smart 

Well this week's going to be short cause we don't have any time to write. The mission president and his wife came down the other day so we've been taking them around. We just got finished up going on a 6 and a half hour hike with them in the pouring rain and then headed over to eat some lunch on the ocean front. Now we are going to go set up an FHE for the Branch. I'll give the full update next week when I have some time.

Flashback - when Brian first arrived in PR

Flashback - going back to PR for 2nd time after hurricane Maria

Picture from Sister Smart - excitement for PR temple (just broke ground)

It's been awesome to have such a large focus on Christ and what he's done for us over this weekend

Waiting at the church for everyone to show up to business class

Hopefully everyone had as wonderful of an Easter Sunday as we did. Ours consisted of each of us giving 20 minute talks on the Atonement of Jesus Christ that we found out we were going to give about 5 minutes before we were asked to speak.

Easter Sunday

It's been awesome to have such a large focus on Christ and what he's done for us over this weekend. We truly can receive all the help we need through him. And it's thanks to him that we can follow the path back to God and overcome any obstacles that stand in our way.

After church though, we headed out to share a message of Christ with a few families. It was actually super cool to see so many people enjoying the day with their families. When we went over to visit Delicon and his family, (a Haitian family we are teaching) they were making some food, and invited us in to eat Easter lunch with them which was pretty cool. Before we ate, one of the daughters asked for help with a math problem. After that they all started giving us super hard math problems. We just pretended to solve them all in like two seconds. It was pretty funny cause they all thought we were so smart. Long story short they finally figured out we were just messing with them and flipped out. It was definitely a fun experience to be able to enjoy Easter lunch with them and then share a message.

Right before lunch with Delicon and his family

Towards the end of the day we also got to make the drive down from Portsmouth to Roseau. It's a windy mountain road along the coast from one side of the island to the other. We get to make the drive all the time, but I love it every time just as much as the last. The sunset into the ocean most definitely made the day like ten times better.

With comp at sunset

We had our first lesson from the Business class that we started up here in Roseau as well. We got down to the discussion on best insurance options. It was so funny because the whole class came to the decision that the bed is the best option out here. Our Branch President then started to explain to us about how it's normally just better to rest up than get medical help out here. I guess that happens when you live on a small island in the middle of the sea.

Waiting for people to show up to a Book of Mormon class at the church. Got wet paint stains on our pants when we stood up

Dominica fun fact: Depending on which store you go to, you might need to check the expiration date before buying something even if it's packaged. Some stuff must just take so long to get out here that it's already almost expired by the time it m

At Trafalgar falls

akes it.Heading down to a lesson on the beach front

View of Roseau while contacting

Coming back from a lesson at night

Heading down to a lesson on the beach front

"Yon lòt sis semèn nan Dominica" - "Another six weeks in Dominica" in Haitian Creole

Elder Segura and I

Transfer news came in..... Both Elder Segura and I will be staying on Dominica another 6 weeks. It wasn't, however, too big of a surprise considering the fact that both of us already have the itinerary for our return flights back to Puerto Rico. I won't be heading back until June 29.

We did have to deal with the mess of trying to extend my Visa this week. I didn't have my return flight with me when I came out, so they would only give me a three week stay. Needless to say I had already overextended my stay for almost a month. We tried to get that issue taken care of, and it took FOREVER. After two days, 3 interviews with different inspectors, and having to walk all over town to get all the information they wanted, I was finally able to get it extended. It was definitely a hassle, but I'm now legal for the rest of my stay here.

The rest of the week went super sweet. On Friday I finally turned twenty, and although I couldn't celebrate traditionally with a birthday cake and all that, we got to have a meal with two members that retired out here from Switzerland. It was absolutely amazing. The rest of the day didn't cease to surprise me. Every single day here is so unique. We headed into town to go pick up some DVDs to burn some stuff for the branch. On our search for a place that sold DVDs, we ran into all sorts of stuff. The first shop we entered into told us we had to go to the Muslim store to find them. On our way to go find that, we ended up finding our way into a Chinese store where we tried to explain what a DVD was to a dude who pretty much only spoke Chinese. We ended up just giving up there, and then ran into a Cuban and two people from Venezuela who were calling us Gringos (white people) and cat calling us in Spanish. They were very surprised when we turned around and told them we spoke Spanish. Out of all people though, they were the ones who knew where the Muslim store was, so we finally got some directions to that. On our way out we ran into some more Haitians and talked for a little bit in Creole. And that's about how it usually goes when we head through town to go do something. We never know what the heck is going to happen. It definitely makes our trips fun though.

Cool fact about Dominica: We see a rainbow literally like every single day. I've seen more rainbows in my time here then I have the rest of my life. Including one day when we saw a triple rainbow. I didn't even know that was scientifically possible.

Double rainbow

Rainbow Island

Rainbow