Email received 4 November 2010

    Wow this has been an interesting yet good experience here in the DR.... isn't it so crazy that I'm here living in another country.... I'm official now cuz I changed some of my money to pesos. Anyways it's good here, everything is in one building, very small.   Our rooms are on the same level as our classes and the cafeteria is downstairs, so basically everything is a closed space. I've been extremely sick with a cold, and have been spreading it. My bad, trying not too, but it won't go away.... I think everyone knows me as the sister who coughs. I got a blessing from two of my elders from the district, so that was good. 

    Mail here is slower than we thought, only 3 of us received mail for the entire week ( not me), it only comes on Tuesday or Wed. so you can do a DearElder,,,,,,,,,,... Here its kinda a no win situation with the communication, but we'll make it work. I'm now companions with Hermana Kamisese only and she's been such a sport with me being sick. I still love the other hermanas too, and we've been trying to communicate with the Haitians. We have a good group here in the CCM, and I have a fun district. Half DR, half PR.... they definitely have their times tho when you know they are 19 year old boys, if you know what I mean??!!! Anyways... its very personal here... we eat with the President and His wife and with the employees... there is a thing where every lunch we eat rice, beans, and meat, and a fresh banana, then for dinner something American or DR. Our meals are basically the same everyday, already getting tired of it, I'm in trouble lol….The people here are nice, but you can definitely see some of the cultural differences. All our classes are in full blown Spanish, so we are learning from some serious translating in the noggin. It's hard and tiring, but I mostly can understand, but really only my teachers, cuz then someone else talks and I'm lost. Spanish is hard, but I know the Lord is helping me with it. We haven't taught yet, we will be doing that on Friday at a college campus down the street, talking to real people about the gospel the real deal. So we will see how that goes. Hm. Kamisese and I have taught our teachers like fake investigators and every time they are like great job, excellent so we must be doing something right and they must understand some of the Spanish. We also went to the temple today... that was nice and its such a beautiful temple and so glad we are so so so so close to it. Just the next building over, basically we live on temple grounds. You won't get too many pictures cuz we can't take any until the Haitians leave and that day we can, and then our last day. That's it, so don't expect a card or anything. Crazy eh... they are a million times stricter than Provo, but it's good here.

Happy Halloween!!!

Hermana me... aka comoletti

P.S.   hey don't know if i said but we heard Richard G. Scott and met Elder Coleman area of the seventy!!

I found out that DearElder.com has free letter delivery to the Dominican Republic MTC via the church pouch every week.   You need to make sure the letter is submitted on their website by midnight on Sunday night and the letter will make it into the upcoming week's pouch.   No signing up needed.   Just go onto the website and click on the 'Pouch (Free)' icon on the left side of the DearElder homepage.   You need to choose the Dominican Republic MTC as the delivery location.   Jessie will be there until early to mid-December (we don't have an exact date yet).  

If you haven't used the site before it's really quite easy.   You type the letter directly onto their page and hit 'Submit' when you're done.   Then, once a week the company will print the letters and put them into the pouch for delivery.   It's a wonderful service and we've used it a lot already.