We are here!!!!

SUNDAY FEBRUARY 12

We ARRIVED!!! Our flight was good, we arrived late to Dominican by an hour because we had a silly person on the plane that was arguing with the flight attendant so the pilot kicked them off the flight…..so that meant that they had to go through the luggage to remove her baggage which meant a slow slow departure.

So we landed and then had to go through customs…..we followed the crowd and there were a lot of people….4 planes had just landed…..so we approached the customs guard, he says “Buenas Dias, Como estas?” we hand him our passport he stamps it all in the time it took Gray to say “estoy bien”.

Lisa and Chris really wanted us to feel comfortable and to show that even though we are far from home we can have the same conveniences that we are used to.  If you can believe it we went to dinner at a CHILI’S……It was hilarious, here we are miles and miles from home in an American chain restaurant. The menu was written all in English which made it easy for us to decide what we wanted however no one in the restaurant spoke English….so we had to order in spanglish……

MONDAY FEBRUARY 13

So after breakfast at Bethel we were given a tour by a brother named Shane, he worked in the shipping department and is originally from England. We met the Branch Overseer, who wasn’t too busy to relate some incredible experiences to us. He talked about the legal battles that Jehovah’s Witnesses face there, mostly property issues. 

 It was amazing, the Dominican Republic Branch is beautiful. So we stayed the night which was a nice way to ease into being here…we had HOT water for our shower, the water IS drinkable and we can flush toilet paper down the toilet(yes you read correctly)

We met a very funny couple at Bethel, they are from California and were visiting Dominican Republic. They serve in the circuit work in California. We had such a good time spending the day with these brothers. It was incredible to meet strangers and leave as great friends. Only with the love that we are taught allows such wonderful things to happen.

MONDAY AFTERNOON….

Vamos a hacer las compras ……We go grocery shopping….after 2 hours in the store we spent $12,900. on food……….in pesos silly!!!!

We had two shopping carts FULL, as you can see in the pictures.  This is to last the month, the town that Lisa and Chris live in has limited food supplies so we had to stock up on all the things that we needed.

So we left for Duverge at 4:30pm with a 4 hour drive ahead of us. It was an interesting drive, there are no lines on the road, and people just go anywhere. The motorcycles are everywhere weaving in and out of traffic, they have 4 sometimes on a 2 seated bike….Chris has to use his horn all the time!! Its crazy even though there are really no rules and people just drive crazy everywhere we didn’t see any displays of road rage at all.

As we were driving to Duverge Chris and Lisa gave us our first Spanish lesson, I knew they wouldn’t let us get away with it for too long.

Earlier in the day when we went shopping Lisa played a trick on me I asked her where the bathroom was as she said "I don’t know" so I had to go and ask the cashier where the bathroom is….so I went up to the cashier and asked “Donde esta el bano?” and then after I realized that Lisa was just making me speak Spanish …..I laughed at how good she is at tricking me…...

We have arrived now at their house and we are so comfortable already, we have unpacked and are about to go to bed. There are so many more things I will share but that will be tomorrow.