First Baptisms! Jarynet and Jordan

Que Lo Que.... Dominican Slang

Hello! Well, as you can see my Spanish may not be coming along very fast but my Dominican slang is coming right along. Ha ha, que lo que pretty much just means what's up. We teach this big Dominican family and we walked in the other day and I said that. We all got a big laugh out of it. Well, it's been another good week mainly because we had the baptism of Jarynet and Jordan! It was AWESOME! I sang in a musical number with my companion and one of the elders on the guitar, it was cool. We sang, Soy un hijo de Dios, I am a child of God. Monday it rained like NO OTHER! We have district meeting on Monday mornings and by the time I got there my coat was soaked through, my boots, my skirt, everything! I have never been so wet in my life! It was a crazy rainstorm... not the funnest to do missionary work in. New York is still crazy. We have decided to send funny stats to President every week like, how many times I avoided stepping in dog poo. Goal 50 Actual 20. Or how many times we have run to catch a bus Goal 0 Actual 50. Ha ha, they are some fun times. I think the funniest thing is to hear and see people talking to themselves, it's always awkward but they are fun to contact! We have a couple pretty solid investigators right now and we also have a big priesthood reactivation project going for the next 5 weeks. Transfers are next week! I can't believe I'm almost done with my first transfer! I am almost positive that I won't get transferred but we'll see. You will know next week. I hope that I stay here for a while. You all know how much I'm not a fan of change so yeah... but we shall see. I like the Bronx area for missionary work (never to live here for fun). The work is going well. I have found that as a missionary it is a constant struggle with the natural man, or just with your natural self.. it's hard to adjust but I'm doing it slowly. Thank you for everyone who has been writing me! It helps more than you know! Love you all!
Con Amor, Hermana Passantino

Holy Cow, it doesn't taste like cow!

Well, my time on the computer is short again because it took me about 30 minutes to try to figure out how to print everything. Bleh! But I will give a quick update. Things in the Bronx are going good. We are working up our teaching pool and have a couple of pretty good potentials. We actually have two baptismal dates in Jan which is very exciting. They are two kids, Jarynet and Jordan. Their mom was a convert but very inactive and her kids are what brought her back. They are so sweet and I am very excited about it. The Spanish is still a struggle but I try every day. I can understand a lot more than I can speak. It's hard here because EVERYONE is from somewhere different so not only am I leaning Spanish but I am trying to learn from people who speak it 20 different ways. Today I had another opportunity to go to the temple and it was great of course. The temple here is so pretty! It is crazy how it is RIGHT in the middle of the city and yet when you are inside you can't hear a thing, you feel like you are in a different world. Meeting the Ambassador of Paupa New Guinea was really cool. You all know I really enjoy things like that. Oh so I had two "firsts"this week. So, I had to eat cow stomach!!!!! It was so weird. I think it was more mind over matter though because I took one bite and had to keep myself from dry heaving, I was able to finish it though as long as I mixed it up with rice. Then, that same night at a baptism this poor kid was throwing up everywhere and my companion and I ran him to the bathroom (while he was still throwing up) and cleaned him up, cleaned the bathroom up, and then went back to the RS room where NO ONE had cleaned up that mess, so we got to clean that up to. Heavenly Father has blessed me with strength to overcome that because there is no way I could have done that before. I am once again going to try to add some pics in here, we'll see if it works this time. I miss you all so much. Thanks for the letters!!! I love them all! One quote I have loved this week is "Hold on a little longer. You can do this! You are part of a special generation. You were prepared and preserved to live at this important time in the existence of our beautiful planet earth. You have a celestial pedigree and therefor have all the necessary talents to make your life an eternal success story" -President Dieter F Uchtodorf. I know that sometimes life is difficult, and we all have different challenges, but because of our Savior Jesus Christ, we can overcome anything, because he has already done it for us. It takes a lot of practice to have faith in him. Something I need a lot of practice with but if we press forward and don't give up, we can all make it. I love you all!
Love, Hermana Passantino