“Welcome to the Elder Darrel and Sister Joanne Hammon Caribbean Area/Dominican Republic (DR) Mission Blog!”
Darrel and Joanne Hammon
Joanne and I are serving as Welfare Specialist for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Caribbean Area Welfare Office, located in the Dominican Republic, for a period of 18-months. We are currently in the Missionary Training Center, fondly known as the MTC in LDS circles. We arrived on Monday morning. And what a week it has been! Here is just a small flavor of what we are experiencing:
Preach My Gospel—The scriptures and Preach My Gospel are the primary texts at the MTC. Preach My Gospel is an incredible teaching text. Unlike the charlas or the discussion when I served, Preach My Gospel is laid out beautifully. You can obtain the entire text here: http://lds.org/languages/additionalmanuals/preachgospel/PreachMyGospel___00_00_Complete__36617_eng_000.pdf. Before we entered the MTC, Joanne and I read Preach My Gospel from cover to cover and read all of the associated scriptures. Incredible experience! We feel that everyone in the Church should read Preach My Gospel. It explains the gospel in such detail and beauty. You can see why some missionaries call it “scripture.” The First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles approved it.
Language Study—Since we are going to the Dominican Republic, we need to know some Spanish. Fortunately, I served in the Chile Concepción and Osorno Missions many years ago. Joanne didn’t. The MTC was kind enough to send us some of the MTC Spanish language curriculum prior to our missions. We have been studying it. At the MTC, Joanne and I are in two different classes, each with four students and a teacher. The teachers are phenomenal. Joanne’s teacher is a young BYU student who served in the Boston; my teacher, also a BYU student, served in Nicaragua. They know Spanish, and it is fun to meet with them on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday evenings from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. y aprender y practicar Español (and learn and practice Spanish). We have learning lots. On Friday night, all of the language students met and had a testimony meeting where you bore your testimony in the language you are learning. It was a wonderfully, spiritual experience. We didn’t understand all of the languages, but we felt and understood the spirit, the universal language.
Teaching Experiences—During the Preach My Gospel sessions, we are learning/re-learning how to teach the gospel. It has been a wonderful, yet scary experience. We have participated in various role-playing activities, including actually teaching two “investigators.” Joanne and I have taught Church groups and classes all of our lives. It is a bit different when you teach Preach My Gospel. There is something about combining the knowledge and the spirit in order to have a spiritual teaching experience. The spirit is what really teaches, and you hope you have some of the spirit when you teach.
Cafeteria—You cannot have an MTC experience without food, and we mean lots of it. The MTC cafeteria is quite large. It feeds over 2,000 missionaries per meal. Usually, there are three stations for each meal. Some meals we have had so far include: fried chicken salad; roast beef, potatoes, and gravy; French toast sticks; oatmeal, loaded with nuts and raisins, honey/brown sugar; taco salads; pizza; hamburgers and French fries; chicken burgers; ice cream; and a host of other yummy things. You can eat as much or as little as you want.
Overall, we have had a wonderful experience over the past week. The week has flown by. Next week we begin our welfare training. Then, we leave for the DR on Friday morning! We are excited although we don’t feel as ready as we need to be. We suspect, though, that much of our training will happen when we arrive in the DR and meet with the Area Presidency and the Area Welfare Manager. No matter what, we are here to serve the Lord.
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