Nine Days in the DR

Sunday, September 20, 2015
   Well, we've been in la Republican Dominica for una semana y dos dias. (One week and 2 days)
We have never been so busy in our lives! We arrived around midnight on Thursday the 11th of September. We got to our apartment and into bed about 2am. The Jensens (the couple that we replaced) picked us up at 9:00 am to show us around. We met the area president, Pesident Cornish, and a zillion other people in the area office. We went to visit our Funval class. They are a class of 19 young men learning English and skills to work in a call center at $11.00 per hour. That is a very, very good wage here. All but one of these young men are returned missionaries. They have strong testimonies and are very motivated. Four of them are married and three of those have children. Some of them live a distance away and stay at Funval for the whole week and only go home for the weekends. The course is 4 months long, but they get periodic interviews and if they get a job earlier, they leave Funval. Funval stands for "fundamental values". It is funded by a wealthy electric company owner in California. The only requirement is to be a returned missionary and they have to take institute, which we provide. They are an amazing group of young men. We love them already.
   We then went to the institute where we met the two directors, Jhon (not misspelled) and Oscar. We stayed there until about 11:00pm. That evening there was an institute activity. It was a dance. They gave the Jensens a gift and everyone cried. They introduced us and we said hello. The jovenes (young adults) sang. Then the dance began. It started at 7:00 but it kept growing. When we left there was probably 300 kids there. Apparently it grew to around 400. Luis Santana and his wife, Diana Carolina took us home early because we were exhausted. Luis is the area CES coordinator. His area is all 26 Carribean countries. They are a really cute couple. Carolina is in our Pathway class.
   On Sunday, we went about 50 miles out of town to a place called Azua to do a Pathway presentation. They have much interest but no one to lead the group. We will pray that they can find someone before next semester. To bring an opportunity for a college degree to these young ( and older) people is such a blessing.
   Since then, it's been much studying and preparation and teaching(my favorite part). I'll post more later, but for now. Adios mis amigos.