Chase is moving to a new area with a new companion.

Hello!

This week has been quite a crazy one. We have definitely turned things around from last week. We taught a ton of lessons this week and found a lot of new people to teach. We are still finding some great families that actually want to go to church, which is a miracle! It's crazy how fast your attitude can change on the mission. You can go from being happy to sad, excited to nervous, tired to energetic, in a matter of 2 minutes.

 

Remember Eduardo? We were helping him build a second story of his house? Well over the span of two weeks, he has had some major trials. He was working on somebody's house a couple hours away, and forgot all of his tools at the bus stop. When he returned... they were gone! He lost thousands of dollars of really nice tools. That was pretty much all of his possessions. It was really sad, right when it happened we went over and tried to console him a little bit. After a couple days his family and him were more or less happy. Eduardo found a nice side job selling clothes in San Jose and was renting out an extra room in his house. HOWEVER, after about two days of peace... the person he was renting a room to stole a whole bunch of his things, including the clothes that he sells to make money in San Jose, in the middle of the night and moved. Once again we ran over there to try to help and bring peace to the family... Only this time it was worse. He had no money and couldn't pay the electric bill. They had no money for food, and the family wasn't in very good shape. We shared another lesson with the family by candle light and after about an hour they seemed to be pretty calm.

 

Yesterday when my companion and I were walking past Eduardo's house, he ran outside and stopped us. He said, "Elderes... I just want to thank you. Lately I have been having some real trouble with my life. If I hadn't started talking to you missionaries, I would be a depresssed mess right now. But thanks to you guys and your lessons I have learned the importance of keeping the faith. I know that these are just trials from God and Satan tries to attack us when we are weak. I know that I must stay strong and faithful. Right now I have 4 dollars and no way to feed my family. But I am happy. I am happy because of the faith that you have brought into my life. Thank you for everything you have taught me."

The work that we are doing is the work of God. We are changing lives through Christ. Even if that is the only good influence that I have on somebody for these 2 years... I'm happy. I am so glad that I have been given the opportunity help others and thank God everyday for the experiences that he has given me.

 

Things are going better with Jorge and Roberto too. We are still working with the parents so that they can give permission to their sons to be baptized this weekend. 

We have seen such a big change in them too. When we first taught them, they had never prayed before and didn't know how. Last night in Roberto's prayer he thanked God for the opportunity to be baptized in the true church this weekend. You can always tell how much a person is progressing by listening to their prayers. It makes me so happy when you can see somebody start to develop a relationship with our Heavenly Father and they start to express their feelings in prayers.

 

Also... yesterday was sad day. We received a call from the mission assistants and they told me that I will be changing areas this Wednesday... I really don't want to leave. The people here in this ward are like my family... they have seen me grow from a gringo who didn't know any Spanish to a missionary who kind of speaks Spanish! We received the call when we were teaching at a recent convert/ part family home. I have gotten really close with that family and it was really sad to tell them that I'll be leaving. They wanted pictures, so I'll be sending the pictures to you as well.

 

Today I'm going to play soccer with all of the youth from the ward, as well as with some of our investigators. It will be a lot of fun!

 

Next week I'll be in a new area with a new companion with new stories. While I'm really sad to leave Ipís, I'm really excited to get to serve in a new area! 

Love you all! Remember to write me and send lots of pictures!!

 



 

 



I like the "Go Pro" idea!

Hello!

 

I would just like to apologize one last time for the terrible e-mail I sent last week. Last week I had a ton of stuff to do and totally ran out of time to write! (I know mom... thats not a good excuse) This week has been mentally, spiritually, and physically exhausting. This whole change (six week period) has been great for my companion and I. On average we are teaching about 35 lessons a week and are picking up a ton of great new people to teach. We have done so well with this change that the leaders are thinking about sending another set of missionaries to our ward to help us out. HOWEVER, this past week has absolutely sucked. We had less than half of our average and did about half of the amount of street contacts that we usually do (usually we do about 140 quick one principle lessons in the street every week) I don't know what happened, but I feel soooo guilty. You dont really know guilt until you feel guilty to the Lord. It's a terrible feeling. We had so many people cancel on us this last week and got rained in a whole bunch of times. Annnnd to top it off, our baptisms got canceled this weekend.

 

Here is the story of our baptisms: About a month ago we met this mom in a bus stop. She told us that she had two 15 year old sons that are interested in joining a church and learning english (how perfect, right??) so later that week we stopped by and met Jorge and Roberto, they are so cool! We have been teaching them ever since and they have been super active. They go to mutual, church, and even went to conference in the stake center this weekend. They were really excited for their baptism this weekend, and when we talked to their parents for permission they said NO. They said that there is no way that they can already be prepared to do something that serious in such a short amount of time. Upon hearing that, Jorge and Roberto got sooo sad. We are going to continue working with the mom and step dad this week to see if they can get baptized next saturday, but it's going to be a big struggle. Okay, sorry for venting and telling sad stories. I'll try to be a little bit more uplifting.

 

There are many different beliefs here in Costa Rica. Almost every person here already has their "religion" even though they don't ever go to church. We were teaching this one man named Rafael. The first lesson went pretty well, but we could tell that he wanted to fight the whole time. When we returned this week to teach him a second time, he had brought one of his friends from church with him to "prove us wrong". The most popular religion here is Evengelic. Its a type of christian. Their church services are kind of scary and different than what I am use to. They have karaoke, rock bands and sessions where people talk in "tongues" and cast out demons... its weird. I have walked in on "exorcisms" before and have seen and heard some pretty strange things. ANYWAYS, when the evangelicos pray, its different. They believe that since everybody has a prayer in their heart, everybody needs to pray at the same time. So, one person directs the prayer and the others start screaming their prayers to the heavens at the top of their lungs. Sometimes they jump and spin and raise their hands up... it's scary. At the beginning of this lessons with Rafael and his friend I started by offerering the prayer. Right as I started praying, they started "praying" as well. Screaming and waving their arms and everything. It's quite a sight to see. After the prayer ended they started showing bible verses in our faces telling us how we are dumb youth and we worship a prophet of the devil and all of this stuff. Needless to say, we walked out as fast as possible. My companion and I always say that we need to wear "Go Pros" everywhere we go because of all the weird stuff that goes on here. I know this letter was kind of weird... my brain is kind of scattered at the moment. I'm still really happy to have been given the opportunity to be here. I love the people here with all my heart. I am determined to work even harder than before so that I can share the joy of this gospel with everyone!

 

Love you all! Oh and conference was awesome. It was in spanish and I had trouble understand about 1/4 of it, but it was still really good. Bye!

Short e-mail but sent pictures

 

AHHH I totally forgot about the big email this week. I'm so sorry! This e-mail is going to be so rushed, please forgive me. I have been slacking on the pictures lately because I have been writing in a sketchy internet cafe and they don't have places to plug in memory cards or USB's. This week I'm sending a couple photos and videos to make up for it!

This week has been super rainy. San Jose had huge flooding problems. The members here are really stressing making 72 hour kits because they are scared that its going to flood here too.

We are still finding a ton of new families that are showing a ton of potential to progress. And we have at least 4 investigators that are really close to being baptized!

Again... please forgive me for the terrible email.

Love you all! Thanks for all the e-mails!

 

Pride is about my glory; Humility is about God's glory- Ephesians

Buenas Dias todos! Espero que todo este bien con ustedes!

Each week I write a big letter like this, and it gets harder and harder to think of things to write about. While every week has its challenges, and strange experiences, they start to blend together and just become part of the mission life.

Thanks to everybody that wished me a happy birthday! It really made my day a lot better! And to those that didn’t wish me happy birthday... there's always next year:)

This week my companion and I had a really strange experience. We were walking along this road on the opposite side of our area, but we had to get to the church really quickly. The fastest way to the church from where we were at is through this one sector called Matadero "or the killer". Usually we stay far away from that area, but we had a member waiting for us in the church, so we were really debating whether or not we should go through there. My companion whispered to me, "Do you think that we should go through matadero?" And right after he said that a man appeared right in front of us out of nowhere and said, "That would not be recommendable." and walked away. When we turned around, the man had disappeared. I don’t know where that man came from, how he heard my companion, or where he went after, but I know that the Lord was looking out for us in that moment. Sometimes a phrase as short as "no es recomendable" is all it takes to recognize the hand of the Lord in your life.

We also have been challenged by our zone leaders to baptize every month. We had it set up to baptize four people this month, but all of their baptismal dates didn’t work out because they didn’t go to church the week before. We have this one investigator named Maria who has gone to church many times, but never wants to accept a date for her baptism. Eager to fulfill our challenge, we prayed to the Lord right before our lesson with Maria that she would accept a baptismal date for the next weekend. Filled with confidence mixed with a little bit of fear, we went in and taught all about baptism with all our might. At the end of the lesson we challenged her to be baptized but didn’t say anything about a date. This was her response: "Look, I know that I can be baptized soon. Heck, if I wanted to, I could be baptized next weekend. But that would be a commitment between me and you. I need to be prepared by the Lord and make a commitment with HIM, because baptism is something serious that takes time." And we were both like, oohh. We were both humbled by the Lord in that moment. Baptism is something that we need to invite others to do, but they need to really be ready to accept the invitation. This is the Lords work, and while we can set goals and be confident that we can baptize, we aren’t going to go anywhere if it isn’t in accordance to the desires of the Lord.

Oh and I get to go to the temple this Wednesday! It’ll be weird, because it will all be in Spanish. I’m kind of nervous, but it will be a cool experience to get to do a session here in San Jose. We are going with our whole zone and the mission president and his wife will also be there. I’m sure it will be a great experience!

Also, the emails have been slowing down... what’s up with that?? Email me everybody! I get lonely here! haha

I hope everybody is doing well! Remember, if you put the Lord first in all things, the blessings will come. The biggest sacrifices, and the hardest commandments to follow, will bring the biggest blessings!

Love you all!

Pura Vida!

Did he say he got a concussion?

 

Another extremely wet week has passed by fast.

 

This week we continued to find great families to teach, I got a concussion, and I had a humbling experience with the priesthood.

The miracles are still popping up like crazy. This week we had multiple people run up after us in the street asking if we could teach them. We have had strong feelings to knock on random doors, and they turn into great lessons.

Last Monday I was playing catch with a missionary with a little stress ball. As I was running after it I turned around and ran headfirst straight into the corner of a cement wall. Immediately after I had a HUGE bump and was pretty dizzy. I iced my head and the bump went down a lot, but the dizzyness continued. I called the nurse and after describing my symptoms she said I had a little concussion, but since I can still remember things I should be good. Now I feel almost back to normal, but I still have a pretty nice bump. One thing that the mission has taught me is that there will always be something that makes you want to stop working, whether it is a sickness, something hurts, the weather, but you always have to stay firm to your purpose and the blessings will come.

We have had a couple new sister missionaries come into our district. One of the sisters is having a hard time adjusting and getting used to the langauge. One day I recieved a call and her companion asked me if I could go and give her a priesthood blessing in English. After I gave the blessing, you could tell her attitude changed a lot. You could tell that she felt a renewed purpose and the comfort of the Lord. I am so grateful that I have been entrusted to hold the power of the Lord so that I can help others.

I don't have much more time, so I hope that is enough for today.

Thanks for all the happy birthday emails!

The 15th of september is the day of independence here.

Many miracles and large rats.

Sooooo I wrote my email and realized that it was just a ton of spiritual stuff and I had a lot of people asking about regular day to day stories, so I'm going to add some random updates here and you can read my first email below:)

The rats: They are everywhere. On garbage days people just throw their garbage in the streets and some people and a big truck come by later to throw the garbage in the back of the truck. This is not effective at all. When its windy the trash gets blown all over the place and it never gets picked up. Its kind of sad... but because of that there is a ton of food for stray dogs and rats. And the rats here are HUGE. We have a hole in our floor and no matter how many times we try to cover it, the rats always find a way to get in. We always wake up at about 3 in the morning to the sound of our garbage can being knocked over. We have set traps, but they don't phase the monsters. I haven't ever seen them, but If they can wiggle out of a full on rat trap, these guys mean business.

Also, we have officially entered the rainy months. It rains like crazy here. pretty much every day in the afternoon. My shoes and feet are pretty much constantly wet(and before you send me emails saying how I need to take care of my feet and keep them dry... I know.). But at least the rain is warm sometimes...

I also got my birthday package and letters from girls camp and the grandparents! I'm surprised that nothing happened to any of them! The package came in about 2 and a half weeks and the letters in about a week and a half. Not too shabby.

The amount of miracles that one experiences in the mission is crazy. I could spend hours writing about all of the miracles that I have witnessed in the short four months that I have been on my mission. Last night I experienced such a moment.

This whole week my companion and I have been struggling to fijar citas (I dont really know how to say that in English... it means to have a for sure appointment) We have been teaching a lot, but with people that we randomly run into, because all of our existing appointments cancel on us. Well every night this week my companion and I have ended up in the same neighborhood really close to our house with about one our left in our day, and no appoinements to go to. It was really frustrating because even when we had scheduled to work in the complete opposite side of the city we somehow always ended up in the same neighborhood at 8:00 at night. So last night we ended up in Zetillal at 8 again... and my companion had to go to the bathroom(no surprise there jaja). He decided to ask the closest house if he could use their bathroom, but the person said no... which was weird because people never say no to that. But the lady said to ask the house across the street. Now we have knocked almost every door on this street about three times each, and every time we would knock on this door, nobody would ever be home. This time we knocked on the door and immediately a girl opened the door. My companion asked if he could use the bathroom and she said yes and let us in. As we walk in the house there are balloons everywhere, presents, toys, and a ton of food. While my companion is in the bathroom, the family immediately starts talking to me like we are best friends. The dad is asking me all sorts of questions and he tells me that his son turned 4 today. The son who had just turned four comes up to me and shows me all of his presents and asks me to play with him, and then the mom comes in and asks if I'm hungry. Without waiting for a reply she hands me a HUGE plate of fried rice, beans, salad and a ton of soda. Next thing I know Im talking with the whole family and they are all so friendly. They acted like we were best friends and it all felt so natural. After talking for about half an hour we got their number and we will definitely be returning there next week.

The crazy thing is that things like that happen all the time. The people here are so trusting, open, and friendly to the missionaries. It is so cool to have so many friends here! You can meet somebody and in 10 minutes feel such a strong connection with them. It's really hard to describe the feelings that I feel while I'm in a lesson. If anybody reading this is considering serving a mission... Do it. The things you learn, and the experiences you have are better than anything else. I wish I could put into words everything that I want to say, but I can't, partly because my English is slowly slipping away...and partly because it's just impossible to describe.

I am so thankful for this gospel in my life. I am grateful for the opportunity that I have been given to share it with the people here in Costa Rica. At times the work is hard, really hard. But the ability to change somebody's life forever is worth it all. My testimony has grown so much in these short four month's that I have already been out here, and I am excited to see what happens next.

2 baptisms and another dog bite!

¡Hola chicos!

 

This week has been full of excitement! 

 

I would like to start off by telling you about one of the scariest moments of my mission. Well... remember my first week when the shower head caught on fire? IT HAPPENED AGAIN! This time was soo much worse though! I was turning off the water after I finished showing, but something strange happened. The showerhead started making a suuuuper loud scratching sound, and then spit out a ton of boiling hot steam! Then the whole shower head started glowing bright red and smoking like crazy! Then, it popped and stopped working. It was so weird. But now we have a new replacement showerhead and its works great:)

 

I also got bit by a dog again. Different dog, same place. There are too many stray dogs here.

 

The ward had a really cool activity that I really liked this Saturday! It was modeled after Lehi's dream. There was a rope strung down the middle of the hallway of the church and on one side were good things and on the other were worldly things. The people had to walk down the hallway and choose whether they wanted to go in a good room or a bad room. Across from our room was a huge dance party with super loud music and laser lights... needless to say, not a lot of people chose our room.

 

This week I also learned to weld. We are building a balcony in Eduardos house now and I welded in the floor. I think I did a good job? I hope I did...

 

Last Saturday we had two baptisms! It was really nice! I baptized Jesus and my companion baptized Michael. They are twins that live with a recent convert. They are about our age, and it was really fun teaching them. Jesus is really excited about progressing even more in the gospel and has been asking me tons of questions about the priesthood and the temple. It's so cool to be able to be part of somebody's conversion like that! I feel so motivated and grateful for the opportunity to bring one more person back to our Heavenly Father! 

 

A Huge thunderstorm broke out just now and lightning struck super close to the stake center where I am, and all of the power went out... luckily the computer saved my email!! haha the thunderstorms are crazy here. The thunder is like a loud cracking sound, like nothing I've ever heard before! 

 

I have time for one more story... I have really been wanting a candle. 1: because our apartment always smells super bad (because the amount of rats that die under our house is incredible. Also remind me to tell you the story of the GIGANTIC rat that we have living in our house next week) and 2: because it is super relaxing. So I went into a store and asked if they had "candelas aromaticas" but the lady heard "candelas romanticas" and thought I was trying to hit on her. It was awkward... Things like that happen all the time though! I can speak Spanish pretty clearly now, but the people here always think that I can't and don't listen! I'll say something and my companion will understand, but the person I'm talking to will ignore me or hear something totally different! Oh well... I will just keep trying. 

 

Hope everything is well with you all! Remember to pray daily with faith! God is always there to give us everything that we need, we just have to trust that we will receive his help according to his time!

Pura Vida

 

 

                                                     Welding

 

 I have really been putting off cutting my hair... I think its time for a haircut

 

                                                      Baptism!

 

This is why I'm fat. Soda and baked goods. They are everywhere and are super cheap! My baptismal pants barely fit me now... I need to cut down on the sweets.