April 15, 2024 THE HOPEFULLY NOT SO BORING ADVENTURES OF ELDER WILLIAMSON CHAPTER LXXVIII

*the sudden sounding of a beer mug smashing upon the floor* "ANnOtHeR" (but in an asgaurdian accent).. another email that is.. now half of you are like "but another doesn't have 2 n's in it".. and the other half of you didn't even realize that i accidentally put 2 n's there... i saw rain for the first time in like years.. and there was a little mini storm, so we got all soaked.. i had forgoten how fun that is.. all the streets start flooding, you're soaked and sloshing around in your shoes.. everyone is looking at you like you just drank a poison frog milkshake and your about to die.. and then people start telling you that you can't be outside in the rain.. we can't be in the rain or you'll get gripe.. gripe is supposedly the flu.. but it really just means you have a cold.. or just any relatively unknown sickness.. so they'll get mad about that when they see us walking in the rain.. and usually we just tell the people "since we're gringos we don't get sick from the rain".. which is true, we don't get sick from being in the rain.. but what's weird, is that they legitimately dO get sick from being in the rain.. and they all say it's because you are getting wet, and that's bad for you.. but it's actually because when it rains, the temperature drops probably 25-20 degrees.. that's a guess that's probably very off, but it sufficeth me to say that it gets very considerably and noticeably colder.. which is still crazy to us gringos, cuz when it rains it gets colder, but obviously not like snow cold or anything to that degree (get it? cuz like temperature and degrees and such).. so basically, they get colds.. because for them it's cold.. which was always weird to me, because where i live, it's not always blisteringly hot like it is here.. but then i realized that that's just what they are used to.. their bodies are used to the much hotter weather, and what might be a nice air conditioned room to most of us, is enough to make a lot of dominicans sick.. buttt what's even weirder than that, is what happened when i got to this area.. so basically in all places of this country there's no hot water.. like it's just not even a concept, unless you heat it up on the stove.. which isn't really a problem, because as mentioned before it's super hot.. so the cool showers are refreshing, and sometimes are even heated up a little bit from the sun (because they have the water stored on the top of the roof in a tank).. buttt as i've said before, padre las casas (my area rn) is a lot colder than anywhere else i've been (and not actually cold, just colder).. since i've been here during the winter months, the water has been vEry cold.. and as a result of showering every morning in the freezing cold water, i pretty much have gripe at all times.. sooo i have basically become a dominican.. but the weird thing, was that i thought i would get gripe from the rain storm, because it was a little cold.. but while taking a shower after getting home (with the rain water, cuz it all just goes into the tank).. the water from the rain was warmer than the water from my normal showers.. i'm not really sure what the moral of this story is buttt.. i also went on an exchange with elder lucio in azua, and we had an interesting day.. we had to tune in thru zoom to some meeting about "adjusting to mission life".. i didn't really pay attention, seeing as how i'm kinda adapted to mission life at this point, and this random lady literally spent like an hour talking about why we need to get up at 6:30 and excersize every day.. and then i had 3 baptismal interview to do over the phone.. baptismal interviews are fun to do, but it's lot better in person, cuz you can interact with them better.. there's no bad internet problems.. you can kinda just do it better in general.. buttt between the random zoom meeting and interviews we didn't get out of the church until like 6.. sooo that kinda wrecked any plans of finding and stuff like that.. we just went around to their 3 people who were getting baptised the next day.. and one of them was an interesting lesson, cuz the first 30 min of it was just his mom explaining to us how horrible her son is.. and then like 10 min of them arguing.. and then like 30 more min of him complaining to us about how horrible his mom is.. sooo that was kinda interesting to see that from an outside view.. lucio and i both thought it was kinda interesting.. and while we hadn't really had problems to that degree with parents, we ofc had had our arguments and stuff.. sooo we tried to talk to him about how they could make that better and stuff.. buttt that was fun.. buttt he was baptized the next day, so hopefully that will help out in the house to have more peace.. and then we had church.. that was pretty good.. we had 2 friends come, and one of them came 2 weeks in a row.. sooo that's super lit for this area.. i however am leaving to another area on friday.. idk where i'm going, butttt we'll see.. sooo i have started saying goodbye to people, cuz my last day will be wednesday.. on thursday we go to azua and sleep there to be ready for the guagua on friday morning to haul us to the capital.. this'll be the first time i've gotten to go to transfers in 7.5 months, cuz my other transfers in between that time have been weird and random.. sooo this will be interesting to see where i go next... Mark 6:33-34 And the people saw them departing, and many knew him, and ran afoot thither out of all cities, and outwent them, and came together unto him. And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd: and he began to teach them many things. this was right after his cousin John the baptist was killed.. he was sad.. he went out of the city to mourn with his apostles.. but people followed him.. and instead of sending them away.. instead of just telling them to come back in a couple days when he'd had a little time to think and be sad.. he was moved with compassion towards them.. so he started to teach them and to serve them...