Week 37

Hi Everyone

Well to start things off, the Island is awesome!!! Its super hot and humid still buttttttt, this island is a huge desert! It’s got palm trees growing right next to big tall cactuses! It’s really weird.  Super dusty and dry, but still really humid.  I don’t know how that works either. It’s more put together than the DR, but it’s still pretty poor! It’s about 40% paved roads and 70% Dirt. Showers are still cold and there's no ac, But we have power always and YOU CAN DRINK THE WATER! It’s nice :)

My companion is a way chill guy named Elder Atkinson from Guyana. He has only been here 6 weeks more than me so we are both struggling trying to learn Papimiento, but a lot of the people here speak at least 2 languages, if not 3 or all 4 (English Spanish Dutch and Papimiento) So we usually start in Papimiento and end up going to Spanish or on rare occasions we get to teach in English! But it’s usually in Spanish which is good because I definitely don't want to lose my Spanish! The only rough part about this island is the people don't want to listen to you at all. It’s definitely a big change from the DR, so we have a lot more time out on our bikes in the hot sun. There is just one small branch on the entire island but the members are great! They feed us a lot too, which is good because if they didn't we probably couldn't make it to the end of the month money wise. Holland owns this island and I guess they hate Latinos so they make everything on the island cost a ton of money to try and get the Latinos to leave. So a lot of people have two or three jobs which means they are never home which makes it hard to teach them. Also they have a strong Dutch culture so nobody really wants to listen. But it’s a lot of fun!

 I looked out my window yesterday and saw this huge cruise ship sticking up over the houses! This place is awesome!

Love

Elder Harsh

This picture was taken by a vacationer on the island that went to church there and met Elder Harsh- Took a picture and sent it to me!  I was very happy to get this picture!