Saturday, January 28, 2017

Meeting some interesting people in the city


Training sure is an interesting experience! I was blessed with a Hondureñan 18 year old. In just this short week I have experienced a little bit of what being a father is all about. I have to teach him the language (Costa Rican Spanish), lend him money (until he gets payed next month), teach him everything I know (about missionary work), and make sure that he is happy at all times. 

This week we have had some pretty interesting experiences. Sadly last week many of our investigators told us to never come back... so we have been forced to knock doors once again... gross. But my companion has to learn that not everything we do is fun sooner or later!!

This week I met a very nice woman who had 666 tattooed on both arms and explained to me that Jesus was a woman and lives today in Miami. I also had the experience of talking to a man that explained that the United States has a secret time machine that we used to make the trojan horse of Rome and ruin lots of other important events. The city sure is an interesting place...

Well now that January is almost over we have been trying as hard as we possibly can so that M gets baptized. (an ex alcoholic that is making huge life changes one step at a time) He now knows all the lessons and has been going to church every week since I have been here but for some reason still doesn't want to get baptized! We have done all that we can, but he just doesn't think that it is time yet! It's stressful... but the ward is supporting him 100% and sooner or later he will be baptized.

Pray that I will be able to find prepared investigators this week please!!
Love you!

New companion and missionary trained by Chase

Sunday, January 22, 2017

Training a new missionary, good tracting experience and shout out to Elise


I'm going to be a father!!!! And don't worry... that just means I'm going to be training a new missionary. I've been waiting for this for so long! This week we had changes my companion left and President said that I am going to get a new missionary this change. I will probably finish the mission training. It will be hard, but fun! Tomorrow I find out who I will be training.

As far as my week goes.. I had one pretty cool experience. Right after lunch, we started to visit our investigators... and one by one they all started canceling on us... what a suprise. So by 2 we were completely out of places to go, which only means one thing, knocking doors. So we started in an area that we had never been to before. After about half an hour burning the heck out of my neck, we heard someone yell, "Elders, Elders come here!" I had no idea who it was but we went over there. Right when we get there he says, "Hi. I'm a less active, and haven't been to church in a while... but my girlfriend wants to get baptized, Can you help me?" It was such a great miracle! He also said that he had already set up a family home evening with the ward second counsilor and that we were invited, so tonight we are going, we will see what happens! Hopefully it goes well!

Well, I hope that you all have a fantastic week! Shoutout to Elise! Congratulations on getting engaged! You beat me to it... I didn't think that that would happen!

Love you all! Pura Vida

"Expecting" to train the new missionary.


Sunday, January 15, 2017

Cleaning out a house and and an unexpected daughter listens to a missionary lesson


We have started changing how we are working here in the area. We have a good group of people that are progressing in the gospel, but I have really been working hard on finding families lately. I have found that it is realllly difficult to find families knocking doors because usually only one person is home.So we are now trying to get to know everybody in the ward and have a lesson with them at their house to try and get them to trust us and give us references. Well, it has been working greatly so far.

This week we showed up at a members house to visit them and they asked us if we could help them clean out their neighbors house that was full of garbage so that they could rent it out to someone. Obviously we said yes, but I didn't know what I was agreeing to.. when I walked in, there were literal mountains of garbage and dirt throughout the whole house. and the backyard looked like a dump. We spent the next 6 hours cleaning out the house... luckily all of our night appointments canceled. After cleaning out the house, they gave us 3 part member family references!

Also.. I had a cool experience last week. We have been visiting this family that lives close to the church and the mom is super great. She reminds me of grandma Cathy and grandma Lisa mixed into one person. She is super active and works in the temple. Anyways, the last time we were there her sons girlfriend just happened to be there and so we taught a lesson with her. While we were teaching, the moms daughter came out of her room and started listening. As the lesson ended the daughter said, "if I don't get married is it possible that my son can get sealed to my mom so that he doesn't get lost in heaven?" and the room got super quiet. I had no idea how to answer that question.. but I'm currently studying the answer. Anyways, the daughter has been inactive for years and nobody knew why. But just from that one question, it all made sense!

We went back to the house yesterday and just the mom was there and she said "THANK YOU SOO MUCH" we had no idea what she was talking about but then she started to explain why. Supossedly she had gotten into a yelling match with her son about how he chose his girlfriend over going to church on Christmas and the girlfriend didn't understand why it was such a big deal, but then after talking about it we showed up and the girlfriend saw how important the church was to the mom and got super interested in the church. Then she said that she was amazed that her daughter came out to listen to our lesson and she hasn't wanted anything to do with the church for years. After we left the daughter said.. "I don't know why I started listening to them this time, I just felt like there was something different about the new gringo elder.. the way he talked just made me feel like I needed to listen. And then the girlfriend said the exact same thing. Apparently the girlfriend liked it so much that she didn't drink wine with her family on new years and she now doesn't drink coffee in the mornings either. Who knows what is going to happen, but it made me feel super good. Lots of times in the mission and in life, we are just put in the right place and the right time. If we let the spirit guide us in what we need to do and say, we can be the means by which God works miracles.
Not a lot of pictures this week... Just a scorpion that we found walking down the street






Saturday, January 7, 2017

Love Chase's face in the picture!

Feliz Navidad, Feliz Navidad, Feliz Navidad, Prospero Año y Felicidad!!
haha I never understood that song until the mission.. now it makes so much sense!

This week has been rough... everybody takes Christmas and New Years off to go on vacation, so nobody was home!! I walked quite a bit this week just looking for people who were in their house..

We also were supposed to have a baptism this weekend.. however when the missionary showed up Manuel confessed that he felt like it was all going too fast (and he may have a point... we met him 3 weeks ago). He has been progressing so well! He used to be an alcoholic, but since our first lesson with him he hasn't drank once!! He also said that December has been the hardest month in his whole life, because his wife just died and he feels really lonely, but he knows that the Lord sent us to his house to pull him out of his depression. He is still progressing really well, he will just need a couple more weeks to get ready!

New Years Eve is super big here and it was really hard to sleep that night. At 12:00 they lit off sooo many fireworks! It was crazy! I felt like a war was going on! It was a contant flow of rockets going off for literally 10 minutes! I seriously thought that Nicaragua came to take over Costa Rica and they were dropping bombs.

oh.. here's a funny picture! haha I went to get my haircut at an investigators hair salon... the barber decided to teach the investigator how to cut hair and used my head as a practice dummy... she ended up completely shaving the bottom part with a razor blade. good times