November 14, 2016

Yeah we are working our hardest to find some progress and have things work out well here. As always we have been contacting a lot and always searching for more people to teach. The other day we had a lesson with a family that we had contacted about a week before and they may be the family that I have been searching for my entire mission.  It was one of the very few times in my mission that without even having to ask, the whole family sat down and listened.  On Thursday we taught Americo´s wife and kids and it went really well. The biggest issue there is that he works a lot including on Sunday morning. Both Americo and his kids seem pretty pumped about the church though. Other than that we have been able to see a little bit of progress in our other people and are doing our best to help them understand things. It has been raining a lot more and so it has not been very hot lately which is good.  Here in Dajabon the rain has not done too much damage. In other parts of the country it has hit really hard. One of my good mission friends is in Santiago and some people have died in his area and in some spots the flooding has been more than 10 feet deep. No need to worry though, out here in Dajabon all has been chill.  Today we went to go take pictures of the more guarded bridge between Haiti and the DR. We were just going to take pictures from outside but the guards invited us to go down onto the actual bridge. As you will see they even took pictures with us. It was pretty cool. It is kind of crazy how big of a difference there is on the DR side of the river and the Haitian side. You can easily see that it is much more poor and deprived on the other side.  We are working hard as always and trying our best to have success and find the people that have been prepared to receive the gospel. I love you lots!  Make sure to send my love to everyone down there in Vegas, especially Troy. 

Elder Mifflin

November 7, 2016

Well this week was as normal.   It is a bit difficult to find people that actually care to listen so we have to contact a lot.  We get to meet a lot of interesting people and at least invite them to learn more about Jesus Christ and his church.  We found a less active guy that hasn´t gone to church in about 20 years.  He is super excited about getting involved in the church again and wants his whole family to start taking the lessons and going to church.  Another cool thing that we did during the week is that we had a special family home evenings with the members in the which they invited a friend or neighbor to come so that we could meet them and share a bit of our message with them. It worked really well for the most part and all of them were willing to put an appointment with us to go back and teach them again.

Saturday night was a bit out of the norm. The hurricane that you were all worried about a couple weeks ago did nothing here but I think that we had a mini hurricane come on Saturday night. It started raining around 9 pm but it was a normal rain. Around midnight I was disturbed from my slumber by the bomb like thunder that was sounding all around. It was pouring really hard and the street in front of our house looked like a river. I took a short video and then went back to sleep. In the morning it was still raining but not as hard. My comp and I arrived at the church at 8:55 and there was nobody there and the building was still locked. We later found out that many members, including the branch president, had their houses get flooded overnight. We had a lot less people in church than normal and started about 20 minutes late but in the end all went well.  I am doing my best to work hard and stay focused here in Dajabon. I hope that all is well with the family. Good luck with everything and I love you all very much!

Elder Mifflin

October 31 pictures

October 31,2016

 On Thursday we had to leave really early to attend a meeting in Santiago for all the trainers and new missionaries. The next day (Friday) my group from the MTC and I would be going down to Santo Domingo to renew our visas. So during the rest of the day Thursday I was in a trio with two other missionaries that I am pretty good friends with, it was weird to be with 2 companions for a day but it was cool to be comps with them for the day. At night we all slept in the mission home. While there I was able to play lots of ping pong which was really fun, it had been a long time since I had played. That night was also the first time in a couple of months that I was able to use a shower that actually worked and not just have to use a bucket!  Anyway all of the guys from my group and I stayed up the whole night talking, telling stories, and such. That was the first time in the mission that I have "pulled an all nighter".   We left the mission home around 4:30 am and went down to Santo Domingo. The whole process of renewing the visa took about 4 hours which just gave us all more time to hang out. Then we headed back to Santiago and got there around 4. Elder Capellan and I then went back to Dajabon and arrived around 7:30 pm. We went to a quick lesson and then called it a day. I was super tired at this point since I had gone about 42 hours without sleep.

Sunday went well because one of our investigators that has been struggling to make it to church finally came. We also had the daughter of different investigator come and she liked it a lot so in all it was really good. Also a family of Haitians showed up and one of the guys has a wife that is from Utah. None of them spoke Spanish so I talk to them and she wanted to take a picture and send it to you.  I am working hard and little by little we are seeing the progress here. I love you all very much!

Elder Mifflin

 President Castillo emailed me about the hurricane and said that from what they have seen here in Dajabon it is only expected to rain heavily but shouldn´t be a big deal. He told me that he would let me know immediately if it becomes stronger or anything weird happens with it. So no need for you to worry Momma. We have plenty of clean water in the house and lots of rice to keep us alive if anything does happen :) For the moment it is just cloudy here, not raining or anything. Well this week was pretty normal. We as always here in this area have been struggling to find new people to teach. One of the people we are teaching is progressing a bit though. She came to two sessions of conference and liked it so that was cool. On Wednesday we had an activity to try and find more investigators. We watched part of Meet the Mormons at the church and told all the members they had to bring a friend. Not too many of the "friends" showed up haha but a few new people came. I was able to watch conference in English. It was awesome and I enjoyed it a lot.  On Thursday night president Castillo called me to tell me that I will be training a new missionary this upcoming transfer. So the next morning at 5:30 am we left on a bus for Santiago so that I could attend the trainers meeting. I am pretty excited for it. I think that it will be cool to have a new missionary and help him get used to the mission.  We also got the news that they will be closing the other area of Dajabon and that area will become part of my area. I am pretty sure that makes my area the largest in the whole mission. That was definitley unexpected but now my new comp and I will be the only two missionaries in the branch.  They also told me that I am going to be a district leader now.  Life goes on and I am always trying to improve and find out what I need to do to be able to help this area improve. I love you lots and all of the family. Be safe, smart, and enjoy everyday of life!

Elder Mifflin

September 19, 2016

 Well another week down. It is crazy how fast time is going by. I can’t believe that I have already been here for almost a month. This week was pretty good overall. During the whole week we have been able to invite about 5 different people to get baptized and they all accepted it so that was pretty cool. As always the big problem is that they still don´t go to church haha so we are working on that but at least they understand our purpose. On Wednesday we had a conference with multiple zones in a place close to the city of Santiago that is called Navarrete (like the last name of my old comp). Elder Martinez of the seventy talked to us and I was definitely able to learn a lot of how I can improve. He is a super cool dude. But yeah it takes about 2 hours and 15 minutes to get to Navarrete so we had to leave about 6:30 to make sure that we got there early. The conference ended about 3 and we actually had to take a bus to Santiago to be able to get a bus back out to Dajabon. In the end we had a very uncomfortable bus ride and got home around 7:00 so that took up pretty much that whole day. Then the next few days were pretty normal, working and teaching and such. On Sunday all of the commitments that people had made to us fell thru but we did have a lot of less actives come so that was good. Then today as you will be able to see from the pictures that for the first time in a long time we actually did something fun for P day. We left our house at 4 am to take a bus to Monte Cristi which is on the north shore of the island and is the area of our zone leaders. From getting off the bus around 5:15 we walked for about an hour to get to the base of the morro. From there it took about 20 minutes to hike up it. It felt really good to hike a little bit and the view was awesome. After climbing that we went down to the beach real quick to see the ocean. It was really cool to finally be able to see, hear and smell the ocean after having been on an island for more than 1 year without seeing it. I also took my shoes off and jogged a bit on the sand and it felt so good. I wanted to jump in so bad but don´t worry I didn´t do it haha. After that we went to the church in Monte Cristi and played basketball and soccer. It was a pretty awesome day overall. 

Elder Mifflin