Week 23 in the D.R.

Oct. 27, Sunday

            We drove out to Monte Plata with the Haws to attend church. We attended the three meetings and then drove over to see the large chicken coop. The coop is almost done and they are getting ready for their chickens. We returned home and attended a Bishop’s Storehouse meeting at the Santo Domingo Dominican Republic Stake with President Olivero and all the storehouse volunteers. We walked home after the meeting

Oct. 28, Monday

            We went into the office in the morning. Julio asked us to help purchase three hundred buckets and towels for a project in San Cristobal. We worked in the office until early afternoon and then went to Spanish class, helped two missionaries with their Spanish presentations and then we attended family home evening. The Bairs and Casanovas were leaving and I had been asked to put together a short video honoring their service. The video went over well. We had a good program honoring the outgoing Temple Presidency.

Oct. 29, Tuesday

            We went into the office early to check our emails and to do a few things. We ate lunch and then went shopping for buckets. We shopped at two La Sirena stores and were able to purchase one half of the buckets and towels we needed. The church visa had been rejected at the two stores, so I had to put the items on my visa. The items totaled over $800. We drove the items over to the office and unloaded them. We returned home tired after shopping.

Oct. 30, Wednesday

            It was a repeat of Tuesday. We went into the office and called visa to reactive our account. After talking to three people, our card was reactivated. In the afternoon we shopped at two more La Sirena stores to finish our purchases. We had bought 300 buckets and 300 towels. The items were for a project in San Cristobal Stake. They wanted to help teach the poorer people in their town the importance of proper hygiene. The buckets contained, Clorox, soap, a towel and instructions on hygiene prepared by the Health Ministry. The stake was going to distribute the hygiene kits and then invite the recipients to a fireside to teach them the importance of practicing proper hygiene. This project was to help with the cholera outbreak in the area.

Oct. 31, Thursday

            We went into the office and made final arrangements for our project to San Cristobal. In the evening we met the Ruckers and Dunfords at the Agora Mall and had dinner and then went to the movie, Captain Phillips with Tom Hanks. We had an enjoyable evening with the group. By the way, they do not celebrate Halloween in the D.R. It was a quiet night in the streets. There were no goblins, ghosts, or witches roaming the streets.

Joy, Vickie Rucker and Jim working on Hygiene kits

Nov. 1, Friday

            We left the apartment at 7 am and drove three hours to the Vicente Noble Branch and picked up the Branch President and two other individuals to attend the closing ceremony of a water project. TheCchurch and Worldwide Water Relief partnered to provide clean water to a school at Batey 5. We attended the ceremony and were delighted to see all the children dressed in the school uniforms and excited to have clean drinking water at their school. The children sang a song, the Haws sang two songs and then they had a ribbon cutting ceremony. It was overwhelming to see the gratitude these children had for something as simple as clean water.

Ribbon cutting for water project at Batey 5

After the ceremony, we drove to Barahona and checked into the Playa Azul motel. We swam in their pool, ate dinner and enjoyed playing a game of Mexican Train while watching the beautiful ocean. What a beautiful day we had.

Nov. 2, Saturday

            We had breakfast at the resort and then loaded our swimming gear into the truck and drove to Bahia de las Aguilas National Park. We changed into our swimming suits and hired a small boat to take us to the beach 20 minutes away. We arrived at the beach and spent the next hour and one half snorking, swimming and enjoying the beach. We got back in the boat and went back to the park entrance and had lunch at a small eatery. We drove back to the motel and had dinner at the resort. The evening was cool and very pleasant to eat out-of-doors. We walked over to the ocean and sat down and watched the ocean waves for a while. We then returned to our rooms for the night.

Boat ride to Bahia de las Aquilas N.P.

Playa Azul 

 

Nov. 3, Sunday

            We got up early and checked out of our motel. We drove one hour to Vicente Noble where we attended church. It is only Nov. 3^rd but they were already singing Christmas songs. Christmas is a big deal in the Dominican Republic. They celebrated for several weeks. After the meeting, I was talking to the prior branch president and I told him I liked his Christmas tie. He took it off and asked me to trade ties. I took mine off and we traded. I now have a tie for Christmas. After our meetings were over, we drove home in two and one half hours. We settled into our apartments to rest from our three day adventure.