La Fiesta de Navidad 2009

The youth at institute have been planning one of their big events of the year and that is the Annual Christmas Dance. The youth love to dance and none of the dances are slow dances. They love Merengue, Bachata, Salsa, and Reggaeton music. They are all latin dances and are very fun to watch and to do as you can see. We have also included some clips of them as well. Dancing is a way of life here. It represents the joy for life that the people have here. One survey of the countries of the world has rated the Dominican Republic as the second happiest country in the world. We certainly believe it! Even in poverty, the people are kind and find joy in the little things like dancing and singing. We had about 300 youth at the institute on Friday night. Many were non members that the youth invited. Many were members from stakes in the Santo Domingo area. It was high energy all night with skits, songs and dancing. Sherrie has impressed the young women (and young men) with her treats. Some of the young women want her to do a class on how to make deserts. They do not know how to bake the sweet treats here that we have in the US. They love them. She spent all day on Friday cooking. We did go home for her to get off of her feet for a while. We bought a lot of fruit and the youth made a delicious drink with the fruit cut up floating in the drink. The dance lasted until about 11:30 when they finally had to pull the plug on the amplifier to get them to stop. With 300 kids jumping up and down for 6 hours, it was very warm. What a hard job we have! We had a ball! We tried our hand at it but it does not look at all like the dances that the youth were doing! Sherrie did much better with one of the young men that asked her to dance.