Day 3 of my Dominican Republic Missions trip

July 22nd:
On our first full day in the Dominican Republic, we woke up to a traditional cereal and toast breakfast sided with fruit and orange juice. After quickly devouring our breakfast, we loaded into our bus, and headed off to church in Santo Domingo. We were special guests (as announced by the pastor) even though the whole service was in Spanish. Luckily, we had a translator device so we could understand. The church service was just like any normal service. We sang a few song, the pastor gave his message, we sang a couple more songs, then we were done. After church, we headed back to the complex for lunch. At lunch, we had our first taste of the food we were going to be having the rest of the week. We were treated to mouth watering grilled chicken prices with rice and a salad. Soon after lunch, all of us jumped into the bus and went to the beach. Before we went to the beach, we were strictly told "ignore the venders, if you show any interest in what they have, they will not go away!". I though "that can't be too hard"! Well, I was wrong. No more than 30 seconds after we set foot on the sand, a vender walked up to Kiegan Basso and started trying to sell him a bracelet. Wondering what Kiegan was up to, I quickly went over to see what he was looking at - bad idea. The vender grabbed my wrist and strapped a bracelet on. He said "$15 for bracelet." and he wouldn't listen when I told him "no". He kept pushing the sale until my dad walked over, sternly said "we are not interested, NO!". For about 5 minutes, all that came out of his mouth was "my friend! Wow! Me 19! Trying to make living here! Buy something!". He eventually got the idea that we weren't going to purchase anything so he left. We FINALLY went into the water, only to find out that it was unpleasantly warm (about 90 degrees) and for whatever reason, caused everyone to itch. We decided that the beach was overrated, so we went back to the complex and went swimming for a couple hours before dinner. Dinner was deep fried chicken with dirty rice, a salad, and the delicious juice/nectar (which was served with every meal). After dinner we had our nightly devotions and went to bed exhausted, after our first full day.