Thanksgiving continued...

Katherine is doing a great job sharing some of the many thoughts, feelings and experiences of our mission.  I concur with all of them.  You know, it's one of those things that, at least in our case, she does really well, she enjoys it and takes the time and effort to get it done.  To have this history of script and picture will be a treasure for us to reflect on for some time.

Just a couple of thoughts from the old man.  Katherine, your Mom, Grandma, mother in-law, daughter, sister, sister in-law, aunt, niece, friend or what ever association you might have with her is a blessing in the lives of many people. That blessing of people's lives continues to expand as we serve here in the Dominican Republic.  In the same way that she has brought peace, love and in some cases the Gospel of Jesus Christ into your lives so she is able to do with the people that we meet here daily.

Of course being able to spend the most amount of time with her, I am the greatest recipient of her goodness. She is a patient and loving person who encourages and supports me in the many responsibilities that we have here.

Hopefully some of these photos reflect some of the ways and people that she has been a blessing to:

This is her "Top 10" list

(I didn't have a photo of the "Top 6" in-laws)

(They get added to the "Top 10" list)

This is next , her "Top 20" list

Aunt Elizabeth and Luella Mathusek

The John Jackson family.  Here representing one of the many

nieces and nephews that she tries to stay in contact with. 

The Geovonny Diaz family.  One of our 

good friends here in the D.R.

Continuing a tradition of service and love 

through sharing and teaching music.

Another tradition, late night shopping at "Wal-mart", I mean 

"La Sirena".  You meet all kinds of people here.  This returned 

missionary and his son wanted to return some of the kindness done 

to him when he served as a misisonary in the D.R. so he bought our groceries.

Katherine never has been one to just invite 

one set of missionaries for lunch.

Yup, her favorite thing to do, pose for 

one more photo opportunity

Did you know that she has always wanted 

to be an English teacher? (Only kidding)

Well now she is one.  One of three of us.

If you did not notice last time we are sharing her Milkshake.

Mine is the half finished chocolate one in front of me.

Always sacrificing.

and always living worthy of the covenants 

the she has made.

You Can Never Get Enough Of What You Don't Need

HAPPY THANKSGIVING 

Someone once said, "Katherine, you can never get enough of what you don't need."  I have thought about that over and over again throughout my life.  It is true!  We have an insatiable appetite for things; clothes, electronics, adventures, getting ahead in life.  Not that any of that is bad.  Reaching helps us to move forward in life.  It helps us to improve.

However, my thoughts have been about giving thanks for the abundance that we do have in our lives.  I have especially been made aware of the abundance we have while we have been here in the Dominican Republic. But what is amazing to me, is the gratitude these people have for the things that are most important to them; their families and their God.  

Here are some of the things we are grateful for. . .our nine children.  You may wonder why we had nine children.  We had nine because there are nine letters in Fagersten.  That way each child could hold a letter and there would be no arguments.

Now, if I can only get them to learn how to spell. . .

Now that's better

Grateful for family reunions and for my Mom who started all of this:-)

Grateful for our beautiful 20 grandchildren

Grateful we can still have fun!

Grateful that Taylor Kilgore Fagersten joined our family!

Grateful we want to get together as often as possible

Grateful for family love

Grateful for all of our wonderful sons-in-law
Norm, Lars, Shawn, Brett and Matt!

Grateful for the Nauvoo Temple

Grateful for our La Vega Missionaries

Grateful for the opportunity to serve a mission and
for all we are learning.  Grateful for the strengthening of our love
for one another, the people in the Dominican Republic and for
the opportunity to witness how the Lord is mindful of all of His
children and how His hand is in all of our lives.

We are grateful for all of our family and friends throughout the world with whom we have built many years of love and friendship.  Thank you for all of your prayers, kindness, help and support to our family over the years.  We now have the opportunity to pay back a little of the many acts of service that were given to our family over the years.  We are grateful for the Savior whose life was an example of love and service to all.

"And behold I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the
service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God."  Mosiah 2:17

15 Reasons Why I Love My Companion

My husband is definitely my most favorite companion I've ever had.  All right, I've never had another companion and this is my first mission, but he is tops on my list!  Serving a mission together has been one of the most rewarding experiences in our marriage (next to having children, grandchildren, and sons-in-law and a daughter-in-law).

Here are 15 of the hundreds of reasons I love my companion!

He is always himself

He hangs out with the missionaries

He drives in the D.R. with lots of people in his truck

He is silly with me

He takes the missionaries to the doctor and waits for 3 hours with them

He took me to the monument of Heros in Santiago with our friends

He told me what he wanted for Christmas (but Santa said it was too expensive:-)  

He crossed the bridge at the Salto de Jimanoa in Jarabacoa with me

He shares his milkshake with me

He brought me to the Mar de Caribe (Caribbean Sea) with our
dear friend Arletty and her husband Geovanny Diaz

He teaches with the missionaries 

He knows many important people (like John McCain)

He protects me

He brings me flowers

He takes me to the temple

The Faith Of A Child

Last Thursday, Elder Fagersten and I were visiting a family in our Branch.  Elder Fagersten was conversing freely with this sister and I was listening intently to try to recognize any words that sounded familiar.

We were in the back of her home and the children were happy and swinging on their homemade swing which was strung from the beam on the roof of the house about 6' above the ground.  The swing itself was constructed from what looked like a 25 pound bag that their rice came in.  The five year old daughter, Leslie, came over to me and could see that I really didn't know what was going on.  She began pointing at various items, mesa (table) and would have me repeat.  She was teaching me Spanish.  At the end of our visit, the Mom asked me if I would offer the prayer.  From the look on my face, this little 5 year old girl knew that I was in a state of panic.  She came right up next to my side and began whispering in my ear for me to repeat the words of the prayer. . .

Nuesto Padre Celestial (Our Dear Heavenly Father)
Gracias por este dia (Thanks for this day)
En el nombre de Jesucristo, Amen (In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen)

Her sweet innocent spirit touched me deeply as she reached out to me in the time of my need.  I felt my Heavenly Father's love through the innocence of this child.  I was grateful for this experience.

Leslie

Thank you to all of you for your love and prayers and fasting in our behalf.  I feel like I am making progress in learning the language, although I would like to be able to speak Spanish fluently right now!  I recall the words of the blessing our Stake President gave me when The Lord told me to have faith in the gift of tongues.  I will continue to work hard and know that The Lord is and will continue to bless me and Elder Fagersten.

Leslie's brother , Tyler

Just to give you a little idea of what we deal with in learning the language here.  The people of the Dominican Republic are known to speak very rapidly.  They also drop the endings of their words.  For example, Elder Fagersten was in a meeting and the Branch President  said "more or less."  In Spanish, they say "mas o menos."  However, the Branch President said "ma o meno."  Elder Fagersten asked for a clarification of the word and sure enough, the word was "mas o menos."  For a slow learner, like me, it is another bump in the road for me to go over.  The language is beautiful and I am grateful to be learning.

Transportation

Sister Douglas, our Mission President's wife, gave us this word of advice before we arrived on our mission.  She said, "Katherine, you know how we have driving laws and rules in the US?  Well, you will be less frustrated if you just forget about them when you get to the Dominican Republic.  There are no rules."
Truer words were never spoken.  

Where's your blinker?

Behind this horse-drawn cart on our way to pick up the missionaries.

Choose your lane of traffic





"Traffic Rules" in the Dominican Republic

• If you are a car, moto, bicycle or pedestrian and you need to text, just stop in the middle of the road
• If you are a pedestrian and need to text, just stop in the middle of the road until you send your message
• Feel free to talk on your cell phone while driving your moto in between cars while driving as fast as you can
• Be sure to back up on the street if you've missed your turn, don't worry about oncoming traffic
• Don't worry about replacing your headlights on your moto, continue driving at night without them, it makes others become great defensive drivers
• Bored of white headlights, go ahead and change them to green lights (the color of choice) or blue lights or multicolored lights that flash like the lights in a disco.  Hey, everyone needs a change now and then
• If two headlights are not enough, go ahead and put on six headlights because you can blind the oncoming cars and everyone will move out of your way
• Feel free to park on any side of the road and in any direction
• Go ahead and drive on any side of the road until you are ready to have a head on collision, then be sure to get out of the way. . .go ahead and live on the edge
• If you are a moto, you can drive down any side of the road, in between trucks, cars, and you can make a u-turn in front of a car and head down the opposite side of the road
• When stopped at an intersection, pull next to the car in front of you and make a left or right hand turn.  It is more exciting when two cars pull up on either side of you and turn in opposite directions
• Don't worry about stopping for red lights.  The red lights just slow traffic down.
• Tail lights are not necessary on vehicles
• While driving, be sure to dodge the roosters, dogs, pedestrians, bicycles and horses that randomly roam the streets
• It is not required to use directionals
• No brakes on your moto?  No worries.  Just be sure you are not wearing flip flops when you try to stop.
• Looking before you turn would take the excitement of driving away
• Be certain you have money to give to the people who are washing your windshield, if you happen to stop for a red light, or for the people who are selling you sunglasses, baseball caps, cell phone chargers or fruit
• When driving next to an Ambulance, feel free to pass him on both sides at the same time.  Don't worry about cutting him off.  He will get out of your way.
• When streets are flooded, don't let that slow you down.  If you are driving a moto, simply put your umbrella up and hold it in front of you so the rain doesn't get in your eyes.  Don't worry about the umbrella blocking your vision.
• Cram as many people as you can in your car, truck, taxi, gua gua, moto. . .no seat belts required
• While driving a truck loaded with vegetables to sell, be sure to put at least six people on top of the vegetables to keep them from falling off the truck
• Helmets are not required on motos
• While driving a cement block truck, be certain to have someone sitting on top of the blocks.  Don't forget to call your friends on your cell while you are keeping the blocks from falling down
• Motos are free to zoom through red lights without slowing down or looking to see if there are any cars, motos, pedestrians or bicycles coming.
• Park you car in the middle of the road if you need to get out and talk to someone or run into the store to pick up an item 
• If the traffic light does not work, don't bother to repair it because no one pays attention to the color of the light
• If your moto breaks down, repair it in the middle of the road where it stopped.  Don't move it to the side of the road
• When dodging the holes in the road, be sure to go around the hole onto the incoming traffic lane.  The bigger vehicle wins

Anything can grow in the Dominican Republic anywhere

Notice the weeds in the left corner of the photo.  Those are the same weeds as in the photo above.
The truck is going around the weeds in the road. Yes, he was heading straight towards us. Why
didn't he go around the weeds on the other side of the road?  That is far less exciting!

Safety is first.  (By the way, I took this photo in my side view mirror)

Gua Gua (transports people like a bus) For 20 pesos you can
get to where you want to go.  No limit to the amount of people
they will carry.  Ask the missionaries:-)

Talking on the cell

The Baking Challenge

Baking was something that I did all the time at home.  Well, now here is the challenge.  If you look closely at the photo below, you will see that my oven has no temperature dial.  There is simply a flame that goes from small to large.  The challenge. . .to figure out what temperature the oven is.  Oh, did I mention that none of the stores around here carry oven thermometers.  Why?  Because no one uses their stoves (except to store pots and pans in them) because it is too hot to bake.  I also learned that turning the temperature dial to the right does not make the flame get bigger.  The biggest flame is when the dial is perpendicular to the stove top. Hmmmm, how does that work?

However, I did take the challenge and made my first batch of chocolate chip oatmeal cookies.  They turned out pretty well.  Another senior missionary told me that you have to add a lot more flour to your recipes here.  Wish I would have known that when I tried to make my first batch of banana bars. . .they were a little dense :-)  

Baking in this oven did bring me back to my childhood days when we had gas ovens.  We had to light the oven with a match and light the burners with a match in order to cook or bake anything.  So every day when I turn the oven on, and light the burners with a match, I think of my Mom and the fond memories we had growing up in New Jersey.

What temp is 350?  Your guess is as good as mine!

There used to be some things that I felt very confident in doing.  Things I have done for years, like grocery shopping.  I could go into the grocery store, compare prices and find the best deal.  Now I go into the grocery store and can't even identify the grocery item, let alone figure out what is the best price.  When I saw a whole fryer chicken and they wanted $290 (pesos). . .whatever!  I was having a hard time converting dollars to pesos.  I just couldn't bring myself to spend $290 on a chicken.  Well, I settled down after Elder Fagersten told me that it was really about $7.  Although that wasn't a bargain, it was a much happier thought than spending $290!

OK, so the next shopping adventure was to buy fruit from the street vendors.  We decided we could do that since this particular vendor was a member of the church and we wanted to support him.  That worked out pretty well for us.  However, we were out of mangoes so we stopped by a local vendor and this is what we saw.  Yes, that is a cat on a watermelon and yes, there were chickens roaming in the around the fruit as well. So that sealed the deal for me.  No more fruit purchases from the street vendors.  We might get more than we bargained for.

Fresh fruit anyone?

Chickens like the leftover fruit, too.