Unusual week and experiences

Well this week has been one for the books. I have had so many crazy, weird, interesting experiences this last week, hopefully I can remember them all. I'll just start with Saturday. We have been teaching a cool 14 year old named A. He has been really open to our lessons and everything, and we got to teach his mom once and she only kind of paid attention to us. Well Saturday night we stopped by to teach the family a lesson. When we knocked on the door the Mom answered and told us to come in. So we followed her in the house. As we entered, the house looked totally different. There was a huge painting of some hooded figure with runes and the star of david and a menorah on his forehead and a weird altar set up in the corner with strange bottler and candles. I thought it was kind of strange, but we started off our lesson. Right after the prayer she said to us, "Just to let you guys know, I'm not interested in changing my religion. I am interested in the truth. All truth. You have truth. I have truth. We are all truth." I was kind of confused by her comment so I started asking her question about what she meant. She started telling me that she was an Agnostic Rose Cross follower and that she believed in the hidden truths of the bible. She also told us about her own spiritual journey and how we can reach higher levels of spirituality. She said, "If you ask any of our neighbors what we do here, they will say that it is black magic.... but it's not. It's white magic. The level of spirituality that we have reached has enabled us to do things..." She said she couldn't tell us anymore because of an oath of secrecy that she had sworn. At this point I was creeped out but extremely curious so I kept asking her questions trying to get more information from her. She didn't say much more, but showed me a wall sized painting that her husband (who is a cultist priest) had painted. It depicted a huge black swan feeding 7 baby birds its own flesh from its stomach. Behind it was a big cross with all sorts of other symbols. She said if we ever decided to join her we too could know the meaning behind the picture. She said she feels an energy from us that tells her that we are ready to learn the deeper truths and she invited us to go to a Eucharist next week. (We won't be going.) After all of that we shared a very brief lesson about Joseph Smith and ran away.

On another note, remember Elder J? The sick elder that was with us for a couple days? He didn't get any better... we had to send him home yesterday. It was really sad. He only had about 3 months left in the mission and really wanted to finish. Wednesday night we stopped by Presidents house so that he could have his last interview and we had cookies and ice cream there. After that we had to wake up bright and early to drop him off a the airport.

After that saddish morning we had to set up for a leadership meeting with all of the Zone Leaders here in the office. It was a pretty big meeting because we are going to have a new Assistant. Elder Hansen, He was my zone leader when I was in Siquirres. Im excited to get to work with him!
 

Two of the sisters that came up for the leadership meeting couldn't get back to their area because it is Holy Week and there weren't any busses to get to their area 3 hours away. So president told us that we had to go drop them off in the car. So all day yesterday we spent 7 hours in the car driving down to Perez Zeledon, Cartago. It was actually a really pretty drive. You go up this really tall mountain through some really windy roads. It was really foggy and rainy so sometimes you could only see like 10 feet in front of you. Funny story. On the way back I was really tired so I bought a huge coke to stay awake. Well, naturally after drinking a huge coke, I had to use the bathroom. So I pulled off the side of the road up to the border of this dark rainforest to go to the bathroom. As I commence doing my business I realize that it doesn't sound like I'm hitting plants. I squint and see that I'm peeing on a huge cross!! I peed on somebody's grave!! In the middle of the rainforest! I think I might be cursed now.

So those were just some of the highlights of my week... Next week are changes and we are getting 3 gringos, 5 latinos, and 2 senior missionaries. I'll finally have some work to keep me busy in the office! We are also going to the temple as a mission next week! That should be a lot of fun!

Thanks for all your emails and prayers!