A Little Something Sweeney: Family. Friends. Fiction. Food.

 Another week, another day of tryin´ to speak.  That´s the thing about Spanish, there just aren´t as many ways to be creative or witty . Or I just haven´t learned the magical formula yet. Like how I want to say "I was wondering," or "I challange you to read so and so chapter of the Book of Mormon." There isn´t really a word for wish or for challange, at least, not a challange as in, a duel. How has the Latin community survived without these words for centuries? That is the real reason I´m here now, to figure out the answer to that question. So no one has to suffer in suspense of what the title of this blog means, the rough translation is that there are thugs in the street. I know this because every time I say goodbye to someone, they say "cuídese," which means, be careful. And I have to be careful because of the thugs in the street, or the ones that everyone is convinced are out there. I feel like I haven´t seen a whole lot of tigers, but I´ve seen a who...

Whew, what a life! It´s almost been a month in the field. I can barely believe it, except that my dirty, and over-worked shoes testify that time has indeed passed. Also, the fact that I can now understand sometimes what the people here are saying is another key indicator. Most of the time, I just nod my head and say “oh…” It seems to work most of the time cuz people here just like to talk (like people everywhere) so I have officially turned into the world´s best listener. So to answer some of the burning questions I´ve received, here are your answers: 1). Yes, I shower out of a bucket and no, it is not with warm water. You just get used to it after awhile. 2). I realized after the last entry that I was not clear about a couple of things: a facial handeshake refers to the fact that you greet someone by clasping hands and kissing checks. I usually just feel bad for whoever has to greet me since as I´ve mentioned, I have a bad case of faucet face and they probably wonder what is wrong wit...

So, I´ve come to a decision: At the end of the mission, I´m going to walk up to the first male Dominican I find and ask them if I can be their ticket out of here. I mean, they ask me and my companion often enough; I feel like it would be rude not to return the favor. But in reality, it´s not that bad. We haven´t been harrassed; for the most part people just like to say "ooooh, Americanas!" I don´t know what the correct response to that is. "Ohhhhh, Dominican!?" I don´t know. But it makes me want to laugh and roll my eyes at the same time. Which I usually do. So, in other news, we have a mice/lizard infestation in our house. The lizards have a real fondness for my shoes and my companion´s pillow . And everytime I try to catch it, it makes these impossible, Kristi Yamaguchi-like leaps into the air and evades me. It likes to be in our company though. I guess we have a pet, for the time being. As for the mouseketeer, we were doing our nightly planning session and I he...

Ok boys and girls. This is taking longer to write than normal because I am in some sort of internet café and the keyboard is in Spanish. Welcome to my whole new world. Seriously, though. It´s new, compleley different, and a little crazy. Let me elaborate with the few minutes I have to spare. So, when I left the MTC, I was driven via truck to some church building where I met my new companion and trainer, Hermana Brown. She is as white as me, but actually knows Spanish. The people in the ward love her and give her all sorts of crazy gifts. She wore one to General Conference this past Sunday (yesterday). It looked like a giant pink butterfly but I wasn´t fooled. It was really a crazy hair clip from the 80s. During the Saturday session of Conference, one of the good sister of the ward, Hermana Rosa (one of about a billion Rosas here) also gave my dear comp some silver hoop earrings. She apologized for not having any for me. I told her not to even worry about it. Seriously, I don´t think...