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.

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

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

Day after Christmas e-mail

Merry Christmas!! I hope that everybody had a great Christmas!

I don't have a ton of time to write this week.. so hopefully the pictures make up for it! Here in Costa Rica, Christmas Eve is bigger than Christmas so for Christmas Eve the Stake President invited 6 missionaries over to his house to eat dinner! It was really fun! 

Well.. Love you all lots! It was great seeing you yesterday! (Skype)

Mission President and his family

Loving the new area

This ward is seriously so great. This week was the primary program and we had an attendance of 171 people! I haven't seen that many people in church since I've been out here!

Tonight is the mission Christmas party so I don't have a lot of time for stories... but I would like to share a quickie.

Since I got here we have been teaching a guy named M. He is a talker. We get to his house and sit down and he just talks and talks and talks. He has had a pretty rough life and has fallen in to alcoholism after his second wife died. He pretty much spends all day alone watching TV all day long. He has been progressing pretty well, but always said that he will NEVER wake up at 8 to go to church at 9 on a Sunday. I decided that if he wouldn't wake up to go to church, he would never progress . We said many prayers asking the Lord to help M. get up early for church on Sunday. We go to his house, sit down, and the first thing he says is, "This Sunday I'm going to church." And I was awe struck. I don't know what made him change his mind, but I know the Lords hand had everything to do with it. And sure enough, when we passed by Sunday morning to pick him up, he was all ready to go!

Okay, I have time for one more experience... Like I said last week, this ward likes to give references (yessss) so the elders quorum president gave us a reference for one of his neighbors. When we went to contact the house a guy came out and said that he didn't live there anymore.. but after he looked at me and saw my gringo look he said in broken English, "I need to change. I feel bad with God. I have gotten spiritually far from the Lord. Help me change. Help me with my addictions. I want to be better." Wow. That doesnt happen often. So he let us in and said that he wanted to learn English to help him with his job and that he wanted to go to church. So to hit two birds with one stone, we taught the first lesson in English and he loved it! I'm excited to see where this one goes!

Well, hopefully you all have a wonderful Christmas, and remember why it is really important. To remember the words of Paul in Acts 20:35,

"I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive."

Much Love and a muy feliz navidad!

Service Project

This is going to be a good area, I can feel it!

This is going to be a good area, I can feel it!

It's been really strange, because since I have been in the mission for so long now and I have been in so many areas, I know a lot of people that are in my new ward! This ward is by far the strongest ward that I have been in. The attendance last week was 130.which is insane compared to the other wards and branches that I've been in. Also, this ward likes to work with the missionaries! The amount of references that I received this week has been more than all the references that I have gotten in all my other areas combined!

The last missionary that was here didn't leave me with too much to work with... which means that we will have to spend a good while looking for new investigators, but if the members help us out we will be doing well soon. 

It's so strange thinking that Christmas is right around the corner. It's really funny walking around on a hot, humid night and seeing Christmas lights and Christmas trees all around you! The Christmas spirit just doesn't feel quite the same here. But to help get in the Christmas spirit, the stake put together a ward choir activity. Every ward organized a little Christmas choir and sang 2 songs. It actually turned out really well and we got an investigator to come! The choir director was actually the father of the mom from the Navas family from Perez Zeledon... so I already knew him and his other daughter. Small world. 

Today was also fun, because we met the zone baptism goal last months so we got to go go karting! I didn't think I would get to do that again in the mission! And this time, I redeemed myself and got first place :)

Sorry no pictures this week. The computer is being weird.

love you!!!

Chase was pretty impressed by this bathroom. 

Chase got transfered! Lot's of pictures this week.

Had changes!! But... I got sent to the city! I'm practically next door to where I was in the office, but it's all good. At least I'm already accostomed to how it is here and what the weather is like. My new companion is Elder Martìnez and is from Mexico. He just finished his training and has 3 months in the mission.

It was actually pretty hard to say goodbye to the members in Perez. It is amazing how much their attitude has changed over these short 5 months. They have really started to trust us more and they are starting to see the importance of missionary work in their lives. I had to also leave some investigators that I got really attached to. Hopefully they will be baptized in the near future and will play a big role in helping the branch grow.

Well  I don't have a ton of time, because of changes and everything, but hopefully I will have lots of good stories for you next week!!

The Navas family feed Chase most Sunday's and they always played basketball with him on P-days.

For a Christmas service project the missionaries cleaned a cemetary.

They call this mountain the "Sleeping Indian Woman".  This mountain is always cloudy.

Chase taught the Chinchilla family who were a very nice and loving family.  The daughters attended Chases English class.  The family came to the Christmas devotional hoping to be able to say goodbye to Chase.