Sweet e-mail and picture from Temple Missionaries

My name is Elder Ron Sparks. 

My wife and I are Temple Missionaries in the San Jose Costa Rica Temple and we receive from the Temple President assignments to visit wards throughout the Temple District. We love that assignment because it gives us the opportunity to meet and associate with wonderful Elders and Sisters who serve in these missions. Today it was our privilege to visit Barrio Ipis where your son serves, when I learned that he only had 2 months in the mission I was amazed. His comprehension, his vocabulary and his accent or maybe I should say lack of accent was well beyond someone who has been out just 2 months. I sometimes meet missionaries who are ready to go home who don't speak as well as he does. Normally when we visit wards we speak in Sac. Meeting and they usually have a speaker preceed us, today we had the opportunity to listen to your son give a talk. He did GREAT. His subject preparation, his wording and his accent were all wonderful. I'll bet you are thinking that there is not much more to brag about with your son, well there is still more. During sunday school his companion had to speak with the Bishop for about 20 minutes and your son had the Gospel Essential lesson. He didn't appear to be too nervous and taught it without any hesitation. Those in the class understood what he was saying, he understood what they were saying and was able to respond to their questions and ask them more questions. As I watched him I could see his mind racing to figure some things out and search for the words he was wanting. He most often found what he was wanting and he did a great job. In my opinion your son loves what he is doing and is happy. He loves the people and they love him. I don't know what he looked like before his mission but he sure appears to be healthy and happy now.

Thanks for sending your son to serve.

Elders Sparks

 

 

 

 

Lots of changes for Chase.

So..... this week has been pretty crazy. With the literal death of one of the missionaries and the figurative death of my trainer, things have been a little weird in the mission lately. My trainer left me today to go home, because he had to go home early for reasons... so now I have a new trainer! His name is Elder Camacho and he is from El Salvador! Ive been with him for about 1 hour now, and from what I can tell he seems pretty nice! He only has 6 months and 1 area in the mission, so we are still kind of learning together. I now have a couple of challenges... I have to show him the area, and set up appointments with our existing investigators. And he cant speak english. I feel like this is the push I needed though. I definitely have to step it up a knotch and work super hard.

So many people have come up to me telling me that there is a sister coming from my city. It will be pretty cool to see her here.

Other than that, nothing new has really been going on. We have a lot of new investigators, so Im excited to see what we can do with that. We had a family come with us to church yesterday, and they are progressing really well, so hopefully they will be my first baptism!

Since I have been lacking on pictures, Ill send a ton of them right now! Hopefully you can forgive me for being so lame with the pictures lately!

 Here some pictures of my apartment. Funny story about the shower: The first night I tried to use it, I turned the knob and the shower head caught fire and started shooting sparks out of it. I felt like spencer from ICarly (hopefully somebody got that reference). I still have no idea why it did that.
                          

The power of prayer is real.

I cant believe its already Pday again! The weeks are starting to fly by! I dont know why that is, but I think its because Im finally starting to adjust to life here in CR. This week I have learned a ton about prayer. I have been watching the movie 17 Miracles with my companion on repeat in spanish because its one of the only movies we have here, and one thing that that movie stresses is the importance of prayers. (I can tell Im getting used to spelling things and talking in spanish because I keep catching myself spelling things like you would in spanish. for example importance -> importants ... Que feo)  Anyways.... I have started praying with faith that I will recieve blessings. I have learned that if you prayer, KNOWING that you will recieve help, you will always get it. Yesterday I recieved a HUGE testimony of that. Sometimes when I need help, or am feeling sick, I walk a little behind my companion and offer a short, sincere prayer and usually it helps a little. However, yesterday I had a huge headache, and it was really messing up my spanish and lessons and everything. So inbetween lessons I offered a prayer with a huge amount of trust and faith in the Lord. The second I said amen, the headache was gone. And stayed gone until we went home that night so I could take medicine. It was so cool. I learn so many little lessons like that every day, thats just one example.

The language is coming along quite nicely now! I dont really know what it is, but this week Im really starting to understand the people... and I know that I say that every week, but Its true! Every day I get better and better! I love seeing progress! 

My companion is really starting to test me. Now when we get into lessons, we will start talking, say a prayer, then he turns to me and gets silent and I have to teach the whole thing. He doesnt even warn me. At first, it was terrifying, but now Im used to it. I dont know why, but when I talk (no matter how terrible my spanish is) the investigators listen SOOO intently. There is not a better feeling in the world than a person complimenting you on your lesson. It gives me so much more confidence!

One more quick story... just to show you how cool the Lord works and how nice the people are here! Since my trainer is the district leader, we have to go and interview everyone in our district before they can get baptized. We went to interview this family who is suuuuper nice. They have three daughters and are full of energy and love talking EXTEREMELY fast. While my companion was interviewing, I got to talk to the family and we got to know eachother pretty well. When we left that night I didnt think I would ever see them again. Buuuuut today, after we had the first month check with the president at his house (oh yeah that happened) we were going to have to wait outside in the super hot air for a bus for about an hour. But out of nowhere, that family just happened to be driving by, an hour and a half away from their own house! They recognized us on the side of the road and picked us up and dropped us off here at san jose. It was such a nice tender mercy of the Lord!

I guess I should explain the month check. All the new missionaries that came with me had a meeting at the mission presidents house. He lives in a condo about to hours away from my area. Its super nice though! And it was cool taking a bus there because I got to see more of Costa Rica! He talked to us for a little bit, gave some inspiring insights and then we had a BBQ. Hamburgers and hot dogs taste sooo good now! It is like a delicacy here to have good american food!

I wish I could send pictures, but this computer has broken USB drives... sorry. Next time! I have a video of how crazy the rain is here. It was super hot about half an hour ago, but now there is deafening thunder outside and its pouring. Weather is weird.

Love you!

Sounds like Chase is in the East Mission and will be learning how to use a welder soon.

Cool things are going down here is CR. I am definitely starting to feel more comfortable and confident here. Today is my one month mark here in Costa Rica and the day I got here I made a promise to myself that I would be able to totally understand the people here and be able to comfortably talk in one month. Well... I failed. But its okay. That was an unrealistic goal. One thing I've learned out in the field is that its necessary to set goals for yourself. And set goals that are maybe a little unrealistic. That was you push yourself to complete it, and if you actually do achieve it, it feels amazing! So I have decided to adjust my language goal a little bit and from today on I will talk whenever I get the chance. Even if it doesnt make any sense, Im going to open my mouth and try. During lessons, on the streets, in church... doesnt matter. Im starting to learn what it means to forget yourself and work. Its super easy to feel insecure about your language skills and your testimony, but I honestly have nothing to lose and they have everything to gain. Its unfair to them if I dont try my hardest at all times. So... as hard as it may be, Im going to talk. Even order my own food at restaurants. (seriously that is the most stressful thing here) My new goal is two months. Lets do this.

I kind of started on that goal a little earlier this week and the second I committed to it I put it into effect. The next lesson we taught an investigator that I had never met before. I could tell this lesson was going to be interesting. We sat down and starting making small talk. she talked a little bit about her life, but then it got silent. After a couple of minutes of silence, she started crying. She wouldn't tell us why, but I could tell something was going on in her life. I pulled out my scriptures and shared Helaman 5:12 with her. We started talking about difficulties and challenges that life throws at you, but if we build our foundation on Christ, he wont let us fall. Let me tell you, there is no better feeling that when investigator looks at you with an awe-stricken face after you say something and says, "Wow" or "I really like that". It doesnt happen very often, but when it does... wow. Its powerful. It really fuels my fire to serve.  I cant wait till I have the language down because I know I have so much to share with the people here, I just dont know how to put the words together to deliver my message. Right now Im just relying on the Spirit to get my message across for me. While I will always rely on the spirit, I want to be able to do more on my own behalf. Anyways, after we talked about that we led it into baptism and talked about how thats the next step. Then we challenged her to be baptized. and she accepted. now if we can get her to church 3 times we can baptize her! It was so exciting! Especially because I feel like I actually helped her!

Also, we have this other investigator named Eduardo. Hes pretty cool and can actually speak some english so thats always nice. We have been doing some service for him by building a second floor for his house. and yes, I mean actually building it ourselves. The people here are crazy! they do everything themselves! He cut a hole in his celling and built some walls around the second "floor"and now we are doing electrical work and putting interior walls. Not going to lie, it actually is coming along quite nicely. When we got there to help the first time he looked at me and said "do you know how to use one of these?" and pointed to a welder. I just laughed because I thought it was a joke. He wasnt joking. He wanted me to weld together his roof. I haven't touched the welder yet, but Im waiting for him to teach me.

Tomorrow I meet the new president of the East mission. Im super excited! From what I've heard from the other missionaries, he sounds super nice! I cant wait to meet him!

Oh, my ward is starting to have english classes every saturday. Guess who the teacher is. Me! Im super excited! I have no idea how to teach english... but It'll be so fun! Both members and nonmembers are invited so hopefully we have a good turnout and itll be a good teaching opportunity.

Lastly, here is my address:

Costa Rica San Jose East Mission

Apertado Postal 249-2010

Zapote, San Jose, Costa Rica

Im like 90% sure that this is the permanent address for the mission. If not, ill let you know. And if it changes, Ill still get the letter itll probably just take longer. Ive been told that letters take 2-3 weeks and packages take at least 2 months. so yeah... Dont send anything that I need to get quickly. haha

HEY!!! Happy birthday!! Sorry its late... I remembered right after I used my computer time last monday.. so dont think I forgot about it! What did you end up doing? Madison told me that you would be in santa Barbra. I hope you lived it up down there. Maybe went to a frat party? I think you still look young enough to get into one. haha

Seriously though, I love you so much! hope you had a good birthday and madison did something special for you!

Hope this week was amazing! Keep praying! And it wouldnt hurt to put me in your prayers every once in a while;) 

Paz y Bendiciones! Pura Vida!

Wonder if he will be in the East or West mission.

This week was a wet one. Lots and lots of storms. I have never seen rain like this before. It comes down in HUGE drops and it never stops! Also the lightning is insane! It happens about every 5-10 seconds and is always accompanied by crazy loud cracks of thunder. Its super cool. Luckily the rain hasnt been a huge problem in my área, but there has been some major flooding in other áreas. It makes sense though, summer is the rainy season here. I also found out this week that there are only two seasons here in Costa Rica. Summer and Winter. Most people dont even know about the other two. I had a cool thing happen a couple of days ago during the storm though. I accidently forgot my umbrella when I left the house and it starting pouring during our first appointment. But the wierdest thing happened. Every time we ended an appointment and had to walk to a different house, the rain stopped. Then the second we got into a new house, it started again. I thought it was just a coincidence, but then the next day I talked to the sisters who were in the área right next to us and they said that they both forgot their umbrellas yesterday and the same thing happned to them! Crazy how the Lord protects you from even Little stuff like rain.

Last week I forgot to mention that I gave a talk in church. It was a Little intimidating, but I think it went pretty well. I had it all written out, and read it pretty much Word for Word, but at least I could get my point across that way. My companion didnt prepare anything for his talk, but it went really well. Hopefully I can get to that point where I can just get up there and give a good, understandable talk in spanish on the fly.

This week was pretty cool. I feel like im really starting to bond with the people here. I dont know if thats because I can actually kind of understand the language now, or Im just not afraid of looking dumb trying to talk anymore. This week one of our investigators got remarried in a catholic church and we decided to stop by her house afterwards for the party. When we got there she gave us soda and cake and introduced us to her whole family. We ended up staying for hours and had a good time! She introduced us to her family as her really good mormon friends. Her family had a good time making me say all these weird Costa Rican slang words. I still dont know what I said... I hope it wasnt anything bad. they seemed to love it though. haha

This saturday it was our turn to clean the church. The whole church has tile floor so it was a tonnnn of sweeping. Luckily a recent convert family came to help us and it sped things up a lot. The family has two kids named Katherine and Christian. Katherine is 8 and is the cutest Little girl ever! I had never met her before but when she saw I was the new missionary she ran up to me and hugged me (well my legs, because shes like super short (and Im not sure if im supposed to hug children but she surprised me and I couldnt stop her so its not my fault)) She and I had a great conversation about her and her english teacher and the United States. I love talking to kids because they are super patient with my terrible spanish and love to correct me. After we cleaned the church we went to the piano and I taught them how to play a couple of songs. It was a lot of fun. When we were teaching the parents the next day in góspel principles they invited us to go to the Zoo in San Jose with them next monday. I hope that Works out!

The misión meeting was pretty fun. I got to meet a lot of people. It is really cool seeing all of the different countries people are from! There are a tonnnn of latinos serving in this misión and I was pretty lost during most of the meeting because it was all in spanish. Everyone was really sad that president was leaving. I wish I could have gotten to know him better... The new president comes tomorrow though and Im excited to meet him!

Spanish update: Still hard. Still improving.

Hey did you get the card I sent you? I sent a graduation card to Elise weeks ago from the MTC. Just wanted to make sure. Keep praying for me! I miss you all so much! Hope all is well!

Love you Mom!

Hope you have a good week! Pray and read your scriptures!

Who knew he was such a clean kid?

Okay I have a lot to write and not a lot of time to write it... lets do this! (please bear with my typos)

First things first: I finally got a pillow! It has seriously made life so much better! I have been sleeping without one and was doing fine, until I woke up one day and my neck KILLLED so I finally went out and bought one.

Also... everything down here is so dirty. Trash everywhere, everywhere smells funny, I don't think most people know what a mop or a broom is, and that includes my apartment. And that is not easy for me... I like clean things. So this week I went to the store and bought a bottle of 409 and went CRAZY in the apartment. I spent hours cleaning and organizing everything! Elder Xicara said that I looked like a kid with a new toy. haha So now the apartment is a little bit cleaner and smells nicer thanks to my automatic air freshener. Plus cleaning has always been a good stress reliever so it was a good project for me.

The langauge here is slowly getting better... I had a cool experience a couple of days ago. We have been teaching this family since I got here, but when I first got here I could not understand ANYTHING that the wife was saying because she talked so insanely fast. But now this week when we went to teach a lesson, I could actually make out words! It was so nice! And she actually noticed and pointed out that she could tell that I actually kind of knew what was going on! hahaa

We had a zone meeting this week and I got to meet all of the missionaries in my zone. Surprisingly there are actually a lot of gringos in my zone! They tried to pick on me by having me say the prayer and do all these practices, but they were all shocked that I could actually speak clearish spanish! I love getting complimented on my terrible spanish because its really funny most of the time because I can't understand their compliments. Like a person will say, "wow I am shocked that you know so much spanish. I can actually understand what you{re saying and its pretty impressive." And I will just sit there staring at them like :/ what? Im getting pretty content with not knowing whats going on around me most of the time. I just embrace being lost. Im still studying the language like crazy though trying to make sense of this madness.

I went shopping today and it was so weird! The mall was playing all this really popular american music but none of it was edited! It was cussing like crazy but nobody cared because they couldnt understand it! I was not prepared for the cold at all so I bought a nice sweater. Also the clothes here are so cheap! like they are nice too! I bought a sweater that would usually cost like 60 in the US, a pair of blue pants (which are so cool! They are like stretchty skinny chinos but I can still wear them), and three ties for only like 20 bucks! And then I also needed a new backpack because I found out that my old one wasnt waterproof the hard way...

Tomorrow is the mission presidents last day, so we have big meeting with the whole mission. It should be pretty good! I dont really know what to expect though... I think I find out if Im going to the East or West mission tomorrow. Im pretty sure Im staying East.

Oh also... Im not sure of my address yet because of the mission split. I will probably know next week. Packages are safe to send... but there are some rules. Ill have them next week tambien. They take a while to get here... but they usually always do get here untouched. 

Also today I found out that I am serving in the "hood" of Costa Rica. Which makes sense... lots of sketchy stuff goes down in my area. I wont include any stories because I dont want to scare you, Mom. But if anyone wants to hear any email me and Ill let you know!

I hope all is well with you! Thanks for all of the prayers! 

Love you!

Second Week in Costa Rica, Pura Vida!

This week has seriously been so insane! I don´t even know where to start!

There are so many things that are different here. It is seriously like a whole different world. I didnt think I would struggle with the language as bad as I am right now. A lot of the people talk extremely fast and slur words together. And Costa Rica has its own kind of spanish too. There are words and expressions that people use here that are brand new to me! One thing that people say here a lot is Pura Vida. Pura Vida can pretty much mean anything down here! You can ask somebody "How are you?" and they will say Pure Vida! or one time I was teaching a lesson and asked, "how do you feel?" and the sister said "Well I feel pura vida..." and I had no idea how to take that. I guess its a good thing though! haha They also say Tuanis or supertuanis which means cool. OH also! Remember that finger snapping thing I did in middle school that you hated? Everybody does that here! If something cool happens they will yell OOSH TUANIS and start snapping their fingers together! Its so funny! The Costa Ricans are called Ticos. Usually when you want to say something is small you add -ito to the end, but sometimes people here add -tico to the end and it means the same thing! Its so confusing... Im sure there are still a lot more weird things about the language here that I have to learn.

Honestly, its so hard not being able to effectively communicate with the people here. I feel like Iike I have a lot to offer the people here, but am so limited with the language. Everybody I talk to is so shocked that I have only been here for a week because of how good my spanish is, but I feel like its so terrible. All of the members of my ward on Sunday commented on how great my spanish is, but I couldn´t understand their compliments and my companion had to translate for me... its annoying, but I know that with time I will get better. I just need patience. and help from God. lots of help. haha

My first day I went on an exchange with an elder named Elder Saalvadra from Columbia and Elder Shumway. We went to an area called Tres Rios and let me say.. I was not expecting to EVER see an area that was that poor. The houses were super small and had metal roofs and were falling apart. That area was in the rainforst and it started raining super hard and we were walking through really thick mud all day.

The people here are super poor for the most part, but are really humble and nice. One thing that is both good and bad is that pretty much everybody offers you food or a drink when you visit them. I have had some pretty strange things, but for the most part I´ve liked it all! Except for last night... I went to this members house to teach a lesson, and her house was suuuuppper messy. She made dinner for us that night and served it to my companion and me on dirty plates and cups. She gave us some weird hot drink that she had sitting in a dirty crock pot and served it to us in cups that had old, crsuty, dirty, rotten food chunks in it. It was so gross. Last night I was pretty sick, and I think it was because of that... I feel a little better now, but hopefully I´ll be totally good by tomorrow!

My trainers name is Elder Xicará. He is from Guatemala and he is super nice! He speaks a little bit of english. Thats nice because he can translate some words that I don´t know.

I have time to share one quick story. The first night I was out teaching with Elder Saalvadra and Shumway we went to a progressing investigators house. We taught a little lesson about baptism and it went pretty well. The investigators main concern was that she didn´t have a strong desire to get baptized because the spirit hadn´t told her that she needed to be. At the end of the lesson, Elder Shumway offered the prayer. It was short, choppy and in broken spanish. But when we looked up after the prayer, she was crying. She said that the prayer was so powerful, and she had gained a strong testimony of the gift of tongues and believed that the spirit touched her heart. It was a really cool experience!

Today I went to San Jose and went shopping for some things while I was waiting for some immigration stuff to get processed. San Jose is crazy! there are so many massive buildings and so many people! The drivers are crazy there! All of the restaurants are huge there too! I found a two story Taco Bell, so that was pretty much the hilight of my day! haha I also found a store that sold cheap fake watches... so obviously I bought three!

I don´t have time to write anymore, but I hope all is well with you all! 

Can´t wait to hear from you next week!