San Francisco
In the Mission Santiago, there is a curse called the Curse of the
San Francisco. San Francisco is a zone way out in the middle of
nowhere, and they say if you serve out there in your first year,
then you are going back in your second year. This is a curse because
that stake was in a state of apostasy and all the members liked
spreading rumors about the missionaries. Well, as I am sure you guess.
I fulfilled the curse of San Francisco. I served out there in my first
year in an area called Nagua. My last six months I was called serve
in an area called San Francisco 1.
At first I had a really bad attitude about the whole transfer because
my last area, Los Jardines, had some baptisms scheduled and I was
anxious to see them get baptized. Also San Francisco was out in the
middle of nowhere. The worse part about that area was the house. The
power went out 12 hours a day and you had to take bucket showers
because the spout was broken. I was a little nervous about meeting
the members because they were famous about spreading rumors, so I
followed every rule perfectly to avoid them.
Despite my negative attitude going into the area, it turned out
to be my favorite area. The work was hard, but we were getting it
done. There had only been like 2 convert baptism that year, which
was horrible. We geared down and worked. The first transfer we had
one baptism. The next transfer I got super lucky and my companion was
Elder Derek Smith, one of my best friends in the mission. The work
was difficult but because I was with a good friend, it seemed like it
was going really good. We had a golden investigator that was baptized
name Orlando. The last week of my mission, we baptized the daughter of
the family we were working with and the parents were planning on getting
their divorce papers and baptized soon thereafter. The mission ended
great, and I can say it has been the best two years of my life so far.