Monday, January 11, 2010

First Letter From First Area; Sabana Yegua (Mare Savannah in English) Yegua is pronounced like "Yehwah"

Hey Mom and Dad and others!

Oh my goodness! Where do I start. I do not even know. Life here is good. Crazy and fairly over whelming but good! Right now I am in Sebana Yegua. It is a small town about 30 minutes outside a city called Azua. Right now I am actually in Azua because Sebana Yegua doesnt have internet, an ATM, or any place to buy groceries. It has a lot of "Colmodas" or something like that where you can buy snacks and drinks but no food food. It is pretty legit out there. We have to ride in the back of a truck for 30 minutes to get there. It is a whole new world. It is soooo hard to explain. The streets are about half dirt and half paved (kind of paved) It is a pretty poor town. I love it though. It is all soo overwhelming right now, not knowing Spanish and all but I know I can do it! We live in one of the biggest houses here. Cement floors and actually has a shower which is pretty lucky. We flush with a bucket though! Haha Oh my goodness so much to tell and do not know where to even start! I will answer mom's questions first!

-How do you feel? I feel sooo much better. I got some anti biotics before I left and I healed up pretty quick. i was worried I would be sick when I left but I was blessed to feel better!

-What is your place like? Our place is like the love shack kind of. I am going to try and send a picture! It is bright yellow and is awesome. We have lots of window without windows! Just bars for protection.

My companion is Elder Barrett. He is from Cali. He has been out for about 18 months. His spanish is really good. I am excited to learn Spanish from him. I think we will have lots of success.

-What is your routine in a day? The normal day is get up at 630 (I still am not a big fan of mornings but I do have to brag a little, I have gotten up exactly at 630 everyday! haha) Then exercise til 7. Cook breakfast, I NEED RECEIPES!, and get ready for day until 8. 8-1030 ish is study time. Personal, companion, and language. Then we go out and remind the member that is going out with us that day (every lesson has to have a member present in our mission) and do contacts. Then from about 1230-2 we have lunch. It is impossible to do anything from about 12-230 ish because everyone is sleeping. About 2 we go out and teach lessons until about 730 when the light goes out. When the light goes out we usually plan to visit recent converts and teach a preach my gospel lesson. There's no dinner break because we just do not have time and those are the times when people are there. We are having pretty good success. Everyone here says yes we can come in. The hard part is finding people who want to hear and aren't just being nice.

-How was your first experience with the Spanish? Horrible! haha it is pretty depressing. Let's just say Friday I accidently said Jesus was my son instead of my brother. haha it was hilarious. The speak soooo fast! and idk its just hard!

-How are you to pay for your expenses? We have a mission debit card and we with draw it from an atm. How do you want to work debit card? I am not sure what to do with this. I think you will have to check it for me if you have time :) Today is the first time I am going to use it so I will let you know if I can do it. Anything is good, just need to know how you want to do it.

-Do you cook your own food? Ya we cook our own. Poor Elder Barrett, I have no food or money right until today so he has done a lot of it. Eat at members houses? The only time we can eat at members is if we buy the food and just have them cook it.

-How will you do laundry? We have a small washer. It is pretty legit and then we hang it up in our house!

There is a nice church building where we are at and the members are very nice. We are marrying a couple this week so they can get baptized.

I guess recently they got rid of pouch going back to the states and where I am at right now it coasts like 4 bucks for a letter so I am not sure how I am going to do that. I finally got some letters today! got one from Heidi, an Hermana from my district in Provo, Keato, Aunt nancy, The Rosemores, Keato, and a Christmas present from Brindy! Finally getting some letters made my day! I need to do some more investigating on how to send letters back. I may have to write them on here and have you mail them or I think I can send them back in package or something!

Stories of the weak....Ok so this old lady gave us some juice. It was fermented and completely nasty! She was really old haha and my companion said that he thought he saw someone in her back yard and when she went to go look we ran out the front door and threw the juice out and came back in before she saw us. The poor member kid that was with us didnt get to get rid of his haha and he had to just tell her he was too full. It was hilarious. You probaby had to be there to think it is funny but it was.

Second story....house we are teaching with 2 kids. The mom is really cool and we saw her in the street and asked who the other lady in the house was earlier that day. She said that it was here and my companion said no it wasnt! The lady had no hair and she said it was her and we thought she was kidding and we were laughing and then............she took her wig off! AWKWARD!!!! but luckily she is really cool and laughed with us!

What else is new.... last Tuesday was pretty overwhelming but I am a big boy so it was ok.

It is hard out here. Definently a challenge. Most things up to this point in my life have come really easy and I haven't had to work to hard. This is def different. Being somewhere where you do not know the language and know no one is hard. I can already see how the whole mission thing builds character because you have to dig down deep and found out who you really are. It is tough. I miss you all a lot. Seeing what I see everyday here makes me feel so ungrateful. We do not even realize or appreciate all the things we have in the US. It makes me nausious to think about all the spoiled kids, myself included, who always want more more more when some people do not even know what theyre going to eat for the day. ughhhh I realize how much you did for me. Thank you soooo much. I love you all soooooooo much. It is really hard to think about missing my first niece :( I probably shouldn't say that but it is hard but I know I will have another chance. I pray for Meagan and Dud and Hannah every night. I love you all a ton... soooo much.

Adios for now!

Elder Seth Wilson

8 comments:

  1. The "Love Shack" is a building on some land we own. Meagan and Dustin lived there for 2.5 years and Dustin's dad named it. Now we just call it "The Shack."

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  2. Sabana Yegua is a small town of about 11K people. The people are all farmers living in the town and travelling to very small plots of spices, tobacco, coffee, corn, etc. The town is at the foot of the major mountain range in central DR. The "Savannah" where all the farms are lies south from the town and is about 8 miles long and ends at the Carribbean.

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  3. I can't help it, I love him! He's such a good role model my kids! Such a good attitude when it must be so hard. My favorite part is, "Tuesday was pretty overwhelming, but I'm a big boy so it was ok." Almost made me cry!

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  4. Elder Barrett is my son!!!! He is taking good care of your son!!!!!!!!! I hope they are safe. Elder Barrett's older brother survived the Peruvian earthquake.
    Jan Barrett
    barrett@surewest.net

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  5. Jan, does Elder Barrett have a blog? How did you find Seth's? Glad to have you on board.

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  6. I was inspired and happened upon it during my quest for earthquake information. Tommy speaks highly of your son and pushes him just enough to make him learn the language. I did remind him to be sensitive to your son during this learning stage. Tommy is fun loving and gentle but will push your son just to enough to be the strong elder he was meant to be!!!

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  7. Wow, this is really fun to hear from Elder Barrett's mom! We'd love to hear what his side is to some of these stories. :)

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  8. Tomorrow should be earthquake and Elder Wilson info day. We're anxious to hear what his experience was.

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