Chase has been having fun with machetes

The weeks go by way too fast now... I try to look back at all of the things that I have done and its so hard to remember.

Let me start off with one the things that I didn't have time to tell you last week... last PDay my comp and I went up to the mountains to give service to a less active member. When we got there her grandson was waiting for us with 3 machetes and took us out back to clear out a place to plant  behind the house. It was soooo fun! It was a super dense rainforest out there and I went crazy with the machete and just started chopping everything down! It was a good 4 hours of letting out all of my stress on those poor little vines.

And this week... let's see. Lately, things have been really weird and slightly disappointing. We have been putting a lot of effort into finding people, and we have been blessed enough to find some amazing families.  One kid that we were teaching says that his mom wont let him come to church anymore because she wants him to go to her church (she doesn't go to church), one investigator that was begging to be baptized a month ago now says that he doesn't need god, one investigator that has family in the church and loved learning about the priesthood now says that he has heard too many things about the church that are bad that he doesn't want to continue with us... and that is just to name a few. The mission is full of disappointments and trials like that. And honestly, that's probably the hardest part of the whole mission. Whenever somebody doesn't complete their commitments, when a baptismal date falls, or they drop you, its literally hurts so much. You grow to really love the people that you teach. And when they just cut you off or cut God off... it's terrible.

Buuuut whenever everything seems to be going against you, God sends blessings.

Alma 26

 22 Yea, he that repenteth and exerciseth faith, andbringeth forth good works, and prayeth continually

 without ceasing—unto such it is given to know the mysteries of God; yea, unto such it shall be given to 

revealthings which never have been revealed; yea, and it shall begiven unto such to bring thousands of 

souls to repentance,even as it has been given unto us to bring these ourbrethren to repentance.

27 Now when our hearts were depressed, and we wereabout to turn back, behold, the Lord comforted us,

 andsaid: Go amongst thy brethren, the Lamanites, and bearwith patience thine afflictions, and I will give

 unto you success.

Last week we were out contacting and knocked a door of a very Christian lady who wanted to reject us with every fiber of her being, but did not close the door on us. We started testifying about the importance of the priesthood and eternal families and she agreed to let us stop by in one week when her whole family was home. One week later sure enough they were all home and were all waiting for us. It is a great complete family. Husband, wife and three kids. When we sat down to teach I could tell that they were super hesitant to accept us. It seemed like the looked up a bunch of anti- mormon stuff on the internet to test us. But every question they asked I was able to answer with the scriptures and they were content with what I was telling them. I was answering questions with scriptures that I had never remembered reading, if that doesn't tell you that the spirit was helping me, I don't know what does. After about an hour and a half of questions and answers they invited us back to teach more! It was so nice to see how the spirit works in the hearts of people so that they can recognize the truth in our lessons.

Since I' ve been pretty lame with pictures lately... here are some pictures of the statues inside the National Theater of San Jose.

Short e-mail this week.

This week went by way too fast.. as well as my time to write.

Not too much has happened this week. We have been focusing more on the importance of less actives this week and luckily we have been seeing lots of success with that. We have also had the blessing of teaching families! It's always a lot better when the whole family gets involved and it makes it a lot easier!

Sorry I'm not going to be able to write a lot... but I hope you are all happy and healthy!!

Have a great week!

Meet some nice intersted neighbors

I'm finally starting to see change! It's been a long time coming, but this week has made me feel like I'm actually accomplishing things here.

The biggest challenge in this area has been bringing people to church. I would call and confirm with each of my investigators Saturday night and they would always say, "Of course I'm going to church! I'll see you tomorrow!"... and they would never come. That happened for almost a month. I got super frustrated, because it seemed like no matter what I did, nobody would come to church! I kept telling myself that I was just being tried, and eventually the blessings would come. Using Ether 12 to help me along.

This week I finally start to see a change in the area. The whole time that I have been here, I have always wanted to contact my apartment complex, but there always came up legit reasons to not have time to do it. One day, when we walked out of the house to go work, I got a strong feeling that I had to talk to all of the neighbors. So we did. We started at one house that we always walk by and there is always a guy laying on the couch and it looks like he doesn't ever do anything. So when we knock on the door I'm thinking, "Here he is again... laying on the couch.. he's so lazy he is never going to want to listen to us." But when he answers the door he is super nice. He completely opens up to us and explains that he has a 2 year old son that was born with a deformity in his mouth and he has to stay at home all day to take care of him because its so serious. He says that it has been tough on him and his wife and that he has been been looking for something that will make his life a little easier. We explained the restauration a little and he loved it! 

After that great contact, we went to his neighbor and met a single mother nurse who has two daughters. She also really liked our message and invited us back. We decided to contact one more house in our complex before we headed out and met this guy who used to go to our church about 10 years ago. He never got baptized, but really liked everything about the church. He says he wants to go again and fix his relationship with god. Not bad. 3 for 3. Then after that we went out and found a bunch more people who wanted to learn about the restoration.

Then this Sunday we had 3 people come to church on their own! It was so nice to come to church and just have investigators walk right in. They all really liked church and seem like they will progress really well.

I'm so happy to see that the area is finally starting to come together, despite all of the challenges.

Ether 12:6 And now, I, Moroni, would speak somewhat concerningthese things; I would show unto the world that 

faith are things that are hoped for and not seen; wherefore dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.

Zone birthday party and go karting

This week has been a pretty average one as far as the work goes... not much has really gone on. We have found some new people, we have had to let go of some people, and we just keep on trying to march forward with the work here.

As far as fun and activities go... this week has been awesome! My whole district had a birthday in the last 2 weeks (except for me... you all still have a month to think about my presents ;) so one of the ward members invited us all over to have a big birthday party! We made pizza and had cake. It was a lot of fun. Then the next day, since the Zone met our baptism goal we got to do a Zone activity in San Jose! Since San Jose is so far away, we drove up on Sunday with the same family and had a nice little road trip with them. On Monday the whole Zone met up to go GO KARTING! It was so much fun! It was an indoor track that was actually really cool. It was set up as a tournament and the people with the best lap times got to stay in and move on the the next heat. I made it all the way to the finals but got third place... I blame it on the slow kart...I'm not bitter. haha 

I hope you all have a fantastic week!!

Remember to pray, read your scriptures, and be somebody special.

Helped with a Birthday party, cleared a lot and taught English classes.

I feel like this week went by crazy fast. We have been doing all sorts of things that have really taken up all my time. A couple of days ago we went to this place called Pejibaye which is about an hour and a half away to help clean up a lot for a member so that she could build her house there. It was super pretty, but really hot... It was good though because I really felt like we helped a lot. She is a single mother with 2 young kids and really wants to get settled down and have a house of her own. She comes to church as often as she can, but its tough because she lives so far away and has to wake up at 4 in the morning to catch a bus that heads towards Perez.

The day after that I had an extra long English class (I teach English for an hour every Saturday in the church) because one inactive 22 year old decided to show up so I could help him with an English presentation. After helping him, he opened up a lot to me and started telling me how he messed his life up and how we is embarrassed to go to church and some other stuff, but I told him that we would start working more with him so that he come back to church and he finally accepted the invitation after years of saying no! After our English class we helped out with an investigators sons birthday party. We pretty much ran the whole thing.. we served the food, helped with games and the piñata, and cleaned up, but it was worth it! After the party she said, I think I have received an answer and I am excited to stay on track to complete with my commitment. I'm not exactly sure what she was talking about, but we have been working with her a lot so that she can get baptized at the end of the month. I hope that it all works out!

Another cool thing that happened was that last night a member from our  branch got his mission call to Peru. It was really fun being there when he opened it and remembering when I opened my call to Costa Rica.

This area is definitely testing me and I have had quite a few set backs and obstacles here, but I know that eventually the Lord will help me out if I stay focused, obedient, and try my best.  Like it says in

1 Peter 1:7,

That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:

and Romans 2:7,

To those who by perseverance in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, He will give eternal life.

Hugo is walking and Chase found a cute friend during a 2 1/2 hour walk through the rain forest.

Hi!

This week we had zone conference all the way in Zapote, so this week I lost about 2 days of work. It took about 3 and a half hours just to get there. Zone conference was pretty good. President Arredondo did a question and answer with the whole zone for about 2 hours and it was actually really helpful. He had a lot of good advice.

Other than that... not much has happened. Remember Hugo? The one that fell off the roof and said that God gave him a new chance at life and he wants to change? Well he has been progressing really well. He is reading the book of mormon and all of the pamphlets that we give him and he is loving it. His only problem is that he couldn't walk very well and had problems remembering things. He wasn't able to go to church because of his problems. So this week we decided to give him a blessing so that he could feel better and be able to go to church. We gave him the blessing and explained the importance of him having the faith to be healed and he said that he was going to pray the rest of the day so that the Lord would heal him. Well, we decided to go back a few days to check up on him and when we got to his house we were sad because he wasn't there. As we turned around to leave we see Hugo walking down the mountain back to his house! The man who could barely stand up and walk around with a cane was now hiking up and down mountains! It was a miracle! It was such a cool experience to see how the power of the Priesthood can heal. He says that he feels a lot better and plans on coming to church this next Sunday! I hope he does come!

That's about all I have for this week... I hope you have a spiritual week!

A goat that followed Chase along their way back from the 2 1/2 hours

of walking out of the rain forest.

The Senior Missionaries Chase became close with from the office. Sister Bert's told Chase that they should get together once he returns to BYU so they can "hang out."  Chase will probably take her up on this also.

Beach, baptism and dark spirits, oh my.

This week has been crazy.

Elder Palencia and I have been working hard and have had some cool experiences because of it. This week has been pretty rainy and we have done a lot of walking, but it's been worth it with the amount of new people that we have found. 

During the week nothing too interesting happened... but the weekend was super exciting! Saturday at 8:00 Luis got baptized! After his baptism he gave a really nice testimony and then the next day he received the priesthood and the holy ghost! 

After church on Sunday we got a call from a member that said that her 14 year old daughter that lives far away has been seeing and hearing strange things... and that she thinks that her house has a weird evil spirit. Soo... jokingly I said.. "well it looks like you're in luck, because I have been practicing my Latin and just restocked on my holy water, so lets do an exorcism!!" And she thought I was serious... so we walked two and a half hours through the rainforest, battling high humidity, the occasional rainfall, and bugs the size of my head until we finally arrived to a quaint little shack of a house. Once inside we enjoyed a quick little lesson about the sacrament then got down to business. I did the anointing and my comp did the blessing. While we were doing the blessing she started falling forward a little bit and we had to hold her up. Once we finished she started bawling and it kind of freaked her family out because they said that she never cries. Then she said that she wanted to throw up but couldn't... it was weird.. Then I blessed the house and got out of there. 

Also.. today for p-day we went to the beach! Its called Dominical. It was my first time going to the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. It rained the whole time... but it was still lots of fun! I made a mini missionary out of rocks and we (the sisters, my comp and I) played volleyball!

Well... I ran out of time. I hope that you all have a wonderful week and remember to say your prayers!!