Semana 24: It's a Christmas Miracle (My First Baptisms!!!): 12/26/16

Hola everyone! I hope everyone had a great week and a Merry Christmas!

My Christmas was pretty great! Why? Because I had my first baptisms of the mission!!! Jennifer and Elizabeth got baptized Christmas day! It seriously was a miracle that they ended up getting baptized.  We visited them the night before and neither one of them said they wanted to get baptized the next day... Elder Navas and I tried talking to them, but there was a ton of distractions, it being Christmas Eve and all.  Anyways, Elder Navas and I got everything ready and the next time we saw them was at church the next morning.  The baptismal service was planned to be right after church, but I had no idea all during church that day if they were actually going to get baptized or not.  Elder Navas sat by them during church while I was sitting by other people, and he must´ve said something to convince them, because they got baptized! Although it was super stressful leading up to it, it was a super great experience and I´m so happy for Jennifer and Elizabeth and their decision to get baptized.  

Other than that, this week was pretty great in general as well! Today was transfers day but I don´t have transfers! I{m staying in Puriscal for 6 more weeks with Elder Navas and I´m super happy about it! I think I´m going to progress a ton this transfer individually as a missionary.  I'm also super excited because we got new missionaries in our area so we'll have 4 missionaries here instead of just 2.  Our area is huge so that'll be super helpful and fun.

So many cool things happened this week but I don't have time to write them all down.  But I took a ton of pictures this week so hopefully that'll make up for it!

I hope everyone has a great week this week!

Love,

Elder Smith

Pics: some kind of weird dance thing that was going on (not really sure but apparently it's normal here haha), my zone at the mission Christmas party, part of my MTC district (Elder Millward got transferred to a new zone :( ), got to do some chopping with a machete on Christmas eve!, the baptism!, skyping my family on Christmas! 

Semana 23: Semana de Milagros Round 4: Christmas Edition!: 12/19/16

Hola everyone! And Merry Christmas!

It´s super weird to me that this week is Christmas.  It doesn´t feel like it at all to me but I get to see my family for the first time in 5 months (via skype) so that´ll be super fun!

Anyways this week was really good! This week was the semana de milagros for the month of December (it feels like we have the semana de milagros almost every week nowadays) so each day we did something a little bit different.  Usually we just go to different areas within our zone and help the other missionaries find new people to teach.  That's exactly what we did this week as well but there was at least a little bit of a Christmas twist haha.  For example, one day, we went around singing Christmas songs and wearing Christmas hats.  It was fun to work with the other missionaries as always, and we had a lot of success in our area of Puriscal as well.  Elder Millward and I (my MTC companion) are still in the same zone and we got to go on splits twice this week (only for 2 hours) for the semana de milagros and that was fun to see how our Spanish can hold up against the Ticos haha.  

Also, I love my new companion! Elder Navas is great and I´ll be super sad if we end up getting split up in a week when we have normal transfers.  He´s super outgoing and loves to talk to people (just about the complete opposite of me haha) but he's been helping me out a ton to be more like him (to be outgoing and love to talk to people).  One example of this is that he had me contact a bus twice this week.  Basically what that means is that I got up at the front of a bus and shared a message with everyone on the bus... I'm surprised I didn't pee my pants haha (there's a video that I'll attach to prove that I did it).  

Anyways this week was awesome and we're still hoping to baptize Jennifer and Elizabeth on Christmas! Pray for them! I love and miss you all and hope everyone has a merry Christmas!

Love,

Elder Smith

P.s. Don't have anytime to respond to anyone but thank you so much for the emails!! Sorry that I can't respond!!

Pics: the video (hopefully you can open it and can hear it), Puriscal, Santa Ana (another part of our zone), me and Elder Navas with some puppies

Semana 22: Emergency Transfers!!: 12/12/16

Hola everyone!

Another eventful week here in Costa Rica!  This week was pretty much going just like any other week, but then on Saturday we got a call from the assistants to the mission president that we had emergency transfers.  Elder Canul was told that he would be leaving for another area and I would be getting a new companion.  We had to report to San José 2 hours after that.  That meant we had to return back to apartment, pack up all of Elder Canul´s stuff like crazy, and get to San José as soon as possible.  The part of San José that we had to go to is like 1 1/2 hours away so we were about an hour late... Anyways, my new companion's name is Elder Navas and he's awesome!  And you'll never guess where he's from. Costa Rica! There's only 3 missionaries in our whole mission from Costa Rica, and there's now 2 in our zone of 12 missionaries. He has 21 months in the mission and so he goes home in 2 transfers.  We have real transfers in 2 weeks (the day after Christmas) and so we'll see what happens then.  I hope I can stay in Puriscal with Elder Navas for one more transfer because we already get along really great and he's helped me out a ton. Plus he speaks pretty good English which is fun.  But... We'll see what happens.  

Anyways this week was pretty good! I had splits with the zone leaders, we had our branch Christmas party, Elder Navas and I (mainly Elder Navas) committed 9 people to baptism yesterday, and I saw a toucan (will attach poorly taken picture).  We're hoping to baptize 2 people on Christmas day! We've been teaching a mom and her two daughters from Nicaragua and the daughters who are 10 and 12 have accepted dates to be baptized! They're awesome.  The mom makes tortillas for a living and she always gives us some when we come by and teach them. The best Christmas present I could ask for would be to have my first baptisms in the mission on Christmas day! 

I love and miss you all and hope you have a great week this week! 

Love,

Elder Smith

P.s. Sorry I know I said I would do a spiritual thought and culture note each week but I don't have time today. Until next week!

Pics: it's only a little humid here (that would be fungus growing on my belt in case you can't tell); placed a Book of Mormon in a galaxy far, far away; poorly taken picture of a toucan; branch Christmas party; the view from a member's house that we ate at on Sunday

Semana 21: I'm officially a Tico!: 12/5/16

Hola everyone!

I hope everyone had a great week this week!  I always forget what happens during my week when it's time to email but I know I had a good week at least!

In reference to my subject title, I'm officially a Tico!! This week I had to go to Migration and I received my Costa Rican ID so I'm not an illegal immigrant anymore haha. It took forever but I didn't have to do anything.  All I had to do was sign my name twice and take a awkward mugshot picture and the migration secretary for the mission did the rest.  I got to see and talk to some friends from my MTC group while I was there though which was fun.  

I said last week that I would talk about the people I teach more, but then didn't do it haha.  In case some of you don't know, basically an average day for me goes like this: Wake up at 6:30 every day (or earlier if I have a meeting), exercise, eat, get ready, study for 3-4 hours, proselite (not sure how to spell it) for an hour, eat lunch, and then proselite for 7ish hours until 9 at night.  Sounds super fun right? Haha it's a lot better than it sounds on paper, I promise.  Anyways, the majority of my days I'm teaching people the gospel which is pretty cool. And when I'm not teaching people, I'm trying to find people to teach.  Our main purpose as missionaries is to invite others to come unto Christ and help them receive the gospel of Jesus Christ in their lives.  It's not always the easiest thing to do, but it's worth it to see people understand and come closer to their Savior. 

One family that we are teaching right now is the Cascante family.  We've been teaching them for about a month and a half and just this last Sunday one of them came to church for the first time! We had 5 investigators come to church yesterday by the way (the most I've had come so far in the mission)! They are a super great family.  They were a referral from a recent convert to the church and they plan on getting married this Saturday! They have 2 daughters that are 12 and 8.  They aren't progressing super quickly but we are working with them a lot and it has been fun to see the progress they have made! 

Culture note: Directions here are impossible! I don't know if I have mentioned this before, but addresses here basically don't exist.  If you ask someone for their address, they tell you the name of the city and an estimate of how many meters (or kilometers) they are away from the nearest somewhat recognizable landmark.  And then since the homes don't have numbers, they tell you what color their house is, or some other way to distinguish it.  If that sounds confusing, try understanding it in Spanish! 

*Didn't prepare a spiritual thought, sorry!

I love and miss you all and hope everyone has a great week this week!

Love,

Elder Smith

Pics: 2 pics of me and Elder Canul with Marta (the lady that we eat with every Saturday), this is how Puriscal has been weather wise for the past little while :(

Semana 20: Semana de Milagros Round 3 (Plus a HURRICANE): 11/28/16

Hola everyone! I hope everyone had a great week this week and a happy Thanksgiving! 

This week was an interesting one... Because there was a freaking hurricane that hit Costa Rica!!! BUT... I was not affected by it all so no one needs to worry.  I honestly didn´t hear much about it.  I heard it was coming and that we needed to be careful, but the weather was no different than normal so if I had heard nothing, I wouldn´t have noticed a difference.  I was honestly a little disappointed I didn´t get to experience it a little bit but I´m obviously glad nothing bad happened in my area.  I´m still going to count it as I survived a hurricane though haha. 

Other than that, this week was the semana de milagros for the month of November.  Nothing too crazy happened that I can talk about but it was a really good week! One day, our whole zone came to Puriscal to help us find new investigators which helped a ton! We finished the week with 21 new investigators! Most likely most of them won´t progress a ton, but a few of them are really great (or los escogidos, as we like to call them).  2 of them even came to church this week which was actually a really big deal because it was about an hour away in Escazu this week! Super awesome!

I have realized that my letters have been a little boring lately and I don´t talk about the people or the culture too much but I´m going to change that starting now! 

Culture note: In case you were wondering how we find new people to teach, we go door to door kind of like a salesman.  The only difference is... here in Costa Rica almost every house has some kind of metal gate around there house.  As well, almost every house has bars over there doors and windows.  Because of this, we can´t exactly knock on peoples´ doors.  Instead... we yell OOPEE BUENAS from the street in front of their house and hope somebody comes to the door haha. 

Spiritual thought: This week I have been thinking a lot about attitude.  For those of you that know me (which I assume everyone that reads these do) you know that I´m not the most outgoing guy/show a ton of emotion.  BUT... I´m hoping the mission changes this for me.  Attitude is super important.  We don´t always get to choose our circumstances, but we can always choose how we react to these circumstances.  If we can always react positively and choose to be happy, we will be able to feel more joy and happiness in our lives.  As a missionary this is key.  There are times when everything goes wrong.  Appointments fall through, people reject you, etc.  But if I can just remain positive and open-minded, I know something good will happen eventually as long as I continue working hard and don´t lose hope.  I hope that made sense haha.  It makes sense in my head but I probably didn´t convey it in words exactly right.  

Anyways, I hope everyone has a great week this week!

Love,

Elder Smith

Pics; My thanksgiving dinner, 2 pics of my comp and I this morning (I promised pics but nothing really happened that i could take pics of so i made my comp take pictures with me this morning)

Semana 19: Baby it's cold outside: 11/21/16

Hola everyone! Or as the Tico's say, "¡Pura Vida!"

I hope everyone had a great week last week!  Everything here in Costa Rica is going great.  The only thing is... It´s cold!  Summer is supposedly starting, but that means it's hot during the day, and really windy and cold during the night.  Now when I say cold, it's probably only in the high 50's at the very minimum, if that.  I think I've just gotten used to the warmer weather so I'm not used to the cold yet.  I've refused to pull out my sweater just yet because of my Oregon pride/grew up in a cold climate attitude but we'll see if I give in this week.  My current companion just came from Guanacaste/Liberia (a super hot part of Costa Rica) so he's been freezing haha.  

Apart from the cold, this week has been a pretty good week!  To be honest, nothing too noteworthy or crazy happened but it was still a good week overall.  My new companion is great!  He's a convert to the church and is super humble, and hard-working and is super good about finding each person's need and then having a scripture to share with them to help them.  Basically this is how the week went: I know the area and the people (more or less), but he can go in and get to know the people better in one lesson than I have in 12 weeks haha.  Granted he can speak Spanish fluently and has more time in the mission than me, but it's still impressive to me.  It kind of feels like I'm in training still, I just have one hour less of study time in the morning.  It's going good though and I think I'll grow a lot as a missionary these next 5 weeks.  At least I hope haha. There's a promise that if you read the Book of Mormon in a different language, you'll be able to speak that language.  I'm going to finish it before Christmas so we'll see if I'll be able to speak some Spanish by then.  

This week, I also gave a talk at Church.  I wasn't that nervous to be honest, but then again I don't think the expectations were too high because it was in Spanish haha.  I had an open topic but I gave my talk on the importance of the Book of Mormon and how it's the keystone to our religion.  If people can just read it, ponder it, and pray about it, they can come to know of its truthfulness and receive the fulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  There's only two options: it's either the truth or a lie.  I know that the Book of Mormon is true and that we can come closer to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ through reading it.  The Bible is just as important, but the only way we can come to know that the church is true, if Joseph Smith was a prophet, etc. is through reading the Book of Mormon and praying about it.

I love and miss you all and hope you all have a great week this week and a Happy Thanksgiving!  Christmas has been in full effect here since October haha. 

Love,

Elder Smith

P.s. Sorry no pictures this week :(

Semana 18: Finally a regular, old missionary: 11/14/16

Hola everyone! Happy Monday!

I have officially finished my training as a missionary after 18 long weeks haha!  It honestly doesn't feel like that long but it feels good to have finally reached this point in my mission.  Everyone says that this is the point when the mission really starts to go by fast.  Also... Hopefully I should have Spanish pretty much down after 6 more weeks I believe, so that will be nice haha.  I feel like that's when the mission will really start to go by fast.  

But, today we had transfers... I am staying here in Pursical for at least 6 more weeks (spending Christmas here!) but I have a new companion.  His name is Elder Cunal, he has 11 months in the mission, and is from Mexico.  Haven't talked to him a ton yet because we just met each other this morning, but he seems like a really nice, hard-working guy so we should get along great together.  It was sad to say goodbye to my last companion (my dad), but I'm looking forward to the future and being the only one that knows my area at the moment.  It will be more difficult for sure, but I also know this is a great opportunity for me to really start to grow and improve as a missionary.  

This week was good though!  It definitely had it's tough moments, but one day really made up for the rest.  This was Elder Batres and I's last week together, and I had realized that we still hadn't really fasted as a companionship apart from Fast Sundays.  Since we hadn't had a ton of success lately, I thought it would be good idea to try it out.  That day we ended up having 2 super great lessons.  One with a family of four (which the parents are getting married Dec. 10) and the other was a lady that we had met with once before. All 5 of them accepted dates for baptism for December!  I have come to learn though that just because people accept dates for baptism, it doesn't mean they will get baptized for sure.  However, I feel really good about these people and the Spirit was super strong during both lessons.  The most amazing thing for me though about this day though was just seeing the faith and righteous desires that these people have.  As missionaries, our primary purpose is to help people come closer to their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  To watch people do this is amazing to me and one of my favorite parts of the mission.  It's not always an easy path to follow the Savior, but if we do follow Him, we will be eternally blessed and feel more happiness, joy, and peace than we can feel in any other shape or form.  

I hope everyone has a great week this week!

Love,

Elder Smith

Pics: made a new friend, the sky was super cool one day, we got Christmas gifts from a member of the branch before Elder Batres left, a recent convert family that got married and baptized a few days before I got to Costa Rica, saying goodbye to Elder Batres today

Semana 17: 2 Gringos Alone in Costa Rica

Hola everyone! Happy Monday!

This week had it's good moments and hard moments as usual, but that's the mission and I love it! 

Referring to my subject title... Me and Elder Millward had splits together this week!  For anyone that doesn't know what that means, missionaries sometimes change companions for the day.  Me and Elder Millward were together this week for the first time and it was awesome!  I was honestly a little nervous about it to start off because neither one of us can speak Spanish fluently yet, but it actually went pretty well.  The coolest part for us though was just realizing that 11 weeks ago we were companions in the MTC, but that day, we were back together again preaching the gospel in Costa Rica.  We're also starting to have English classes once a week to try to find new people to teach.  Me and Elder Millward were together for the first class and it was actually harder than it sounds haha.  

I also had splits the day before that with one of the zone leaders.  His name is Elder Dunyon and he is from Arizona and goes home next week.  It was a super great experience for me as well and I learned a ton and hope I end up becoming as good a missionary as him one day.  

Apart from those days, the rest of the week was pretty tough for me.  This is my last week of training and I just felt really nervous for what lies ahead for me.  I felt like I hadn't progressed much with the language and that we hadn't had much success still.  I was feeling pretty down but then my companion Elder Batres talked to me and shared a scripture with me that really helped.  It's in Ether 12:27 in the Book of Mormon and it says, "And if men come unto me I will show them their weakness.  I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them."

This scripture helped me a ton this week because we all have weaknesses, but that doesn't mean they have to remain weaknesses.  I know the language and success will come with time, I just need to be patient and continue to have faith, and eventually it will come.  

I love and miss you all and hope everyone has a great week this week!  Thank you for all of your emails and love and support!

Love,

Elder Smith

Pics: Pupusas! (a common meal from El Salvador), Halloween! (thanks to the best mom ever for the package), Cerbatana (one of our areas that is literally in a cloud in the afternoon/night), a hike that we did today!, supposedly the ocean is in this pic but it was still super far away

Semana 16: Mormon Wedding Crashers: 10/31/16

Hola everyone and Happy Halloween!

I hope everyone had a great week this week!  This week in Costa Rica had its ups and downs but I also had some super cool experiences. 

First off, to refer to my title, I went to a wedding this week!! Last Sunday we had a new couple come to church for the first time who Elder Batres and I had never met before.  They had a good experience at church and they invited us to their wedding on Saturday.  It honestly was pretty weird because we didn't really know them (or anyone else at the wedding) but a wedding is a wedding.  

Also this week we had some experiences where I totally felt that we were put in the right place at the right time. Since I don't have a ton of time, I'll share the coolest one.  First, this week we have had 4 different refrigerators... We keep getting new ones but they end up not working.  We ended up having to throw away a lot of our food because of it as well.  But anyways, while we were switching out fridges, we started talking to this one guy who we assume is our neighbor.  He was super friendly (and could speak English) but we didn't really think much of it.  Then, later in the day, we were walking in a completely different part of our area, and who passes us on his motorcycle? This same guy who we had talked to earlier.  He invited us to come to his house to teach him/talk to him.  When we got there, we found out that he's a member but isn't active anymore.  We didn't really have time to find out why because all of the sudden we hear someone crying and it sounds like they're in a lot of pain.  It turns out his wife had given birth recently and was in a lot of pain from the birth still.  We were able to give his wife a blessing and she was still in pain afterwards but was definitely a lot more calm and not crying while they waited for an ambulance.  It was super cool to have that experience and realize that if we hadn't met with him earlier that day, we never would have been able to give his wife a blessing.  

Other than that this week was good but not too eventful.  I hope everyone has a great week this week and has a great Halloween!  Everyone enjoy a scary movie, corn maze, or candy for me!

Love,

Elder Smith

Pics: wedding, pics of our apartment (sorry I don't have any other pics from this week)

Semana 15: Semana de Milagros Round 2: 10/24/16

Hola everyone!

This week was the semana de milagros for October and it was great, although very tiring.  I had to wake up at 4:30 3 days in a row to travel to different parts of our zone but it was totally worth it.  On Wednesday, we had our activity as a zone in a park in Escazu.  It was very similar to our last semana de milagros except for this time the theme was the Plan of Salvation (God's plan for each one of his children on the Earth to return to live with Him again).  My job this time around was to contact people in the park to come listen to our presentation/activity.  It's scary sometimes just going up to random people and trying to talk to them about religion but super cool at the same time.  I was able to contact a few people by myself and they actually could understand me and agreed to come listen to the presentation/activity haha.  It was super cool for me to see how far I've come since our last semana de milagros.  

Also this week we received 2 new references (people interested in hearing more about the church) from the church.  They both seem super great and one of the references is a couple that wants to get married.  They came to church yesterday and they liked it!  We're going to start teaching them and we found out today that they're getting married on Saturday and we're invited!  Super cool experience and a miracle for sure.  

Lastly, I started to read the Book of Mormon the second week of my mission and just finished it this week.  I have read the Book of Mormon a few times before, but this time was significantly more meaningful to me.  I have never enjoyed reading a book more and I know now more than ever that the Book of Mormon is true and the word of God along with the Bible.  I read the Book of Mormon looking for the Characteristics of Christ and I was able to find at least one characteristic on every page.  I invite all of you to do the same because it truly was an amazing experience for me and brought me closer to our Savior, Jesus Christ.  Something that has really stuck out to me so far in the mission is the power of faith and prayer.  It is so important to always have faith and exercise this faith daily.  Life isn't always easy, but we always have our Father in Heaven to turn to for love, support, and comfort.  

I love and miss you all and hope everyone has a great week this week!

Love,

Elder Smith

P.s. I found flamin hot cheetos this week!!! It has doritos and sun chips and pretzels in the bag as well but I'll take what I can get haha.  I know you all were super worried about me not having flamin hot cheetos in my life so you can all rest easy at night now 

Pics: Me and Elder Batres during semana de milagros, Our zone activity, a cool view from one part of our area, a really cool sunset/sky one day, and a view of the city center of Puriscal

Semana 14: I can speak Spanish! Kind of...: 10/17/16

Hola everyone!

This was a great week here in Costa Rica!  Why?? I could actually understand and speak Spanish better!  I'm definitely not fluent still by any means, but there were times when I could understand almost everything the people were saying and could respond with pretty good Spanish, if I do say so myself.  The gift of tongues is real and amazing!

Another cool thing this week.  We committed 6 new people to baptism!! One of them is a family that was a reference from a member in our ward.  The mom and dad want to get married and were wondering if they could get married in our church building because the church they want to get married in won't let them for some reason.  We've only had one lesson with them so far but they are all super great.  We've also had like 3 people in the last week just come up to us and ask if we could teach them haha.  We are always so taken aback when that happens and don't know what to say haha.  

Also this week I got to go on splits with the zone leaders!  Half our zone are Americans now so I have some more people to talk in English with. Yay!  The zone leader I was with for the day is named Elder Mitchell and he is from Arizona.  He actually has family from Lake Oswego though!! Super small world.  He's related to Ashley and Audrey Buchanan from the Lakeridge ward! He was really great and it was nice to be able to learn from him and ask him questions and everything.  

Other than that this week wasn't too exciting but it was great.  At one point we helped a member pick fruit from their trees.  He had 3 different types of lemon trees and gave us a ton to try.  We also helped him chase down either a huge chicken or rooster that had escaped the chicken coop.  Sorry if this email was a little bit jumbled but I didn't have too much time.  I love my mission and the opportunity I have to share the gospel of Jesus Christ while at the same time grow as an individual and come closer to my Savior and Father in Heaven.  

I hope everyone has a great week this week!

Love,

Elder Smith

P.s. Didn't take any pics this week sorry!  Will send more next week!

Semana 13: Insert Creative Title Here: 10/10/16

Hola everyone!

Another week here in beautful Costa Rica!

I don't have a ton of time to write this, but this week was a huge improvement from last week mission work wise.  One of our investigators, Mario, committed to be baptized on the 22nd of this month!!  I'm so excited for him, especially since he has been an investigator for about a year I think. He has had some struggles in his life, but I know this baptism will be such a huge blessing to him in his life.  We also contacted some new areas this week and almost every single person let us in to talk to them!  It was so great and I think we will be able to find success with these areas.  

Also this week we got to do some service for one of our investigators.  Our job was to clear this ivy stuff from this hillside by their house and what was our gardening tool? A machete haha!  It was so awesome and just a little bit different than doing yard work at home haha. 

Other than that I can't think of anything else too exciting that happened this week.  It was a great week overall and I'm so excited for this week and hopefully me and Elder Batres can really get the working going here again.  The language is still really tough, but I know I will get it eventually. Elder Batres is pushing me to participate in the lessons more, whether I like it or not haha.  I'm so grateful for the opportunity to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to the people here in Costa Rica.  It is amazing to watch people grow closer to their Savior and come unto Him.  The mission is hard sometimes but it has been such a blessing in these 3 short months that I have been here.

I hope everyone has a great week this week!

Love,

Elder Smith

Pics: Me trying (and failing) to look intimidating with my machete, a more normal picture with me and my machete, me and Elder Batres with our machetes, got to make macaroni (my favorite), and I found a crepe shop that is right next to where I live!

Semana 12: General Conference Weekend is the Best Weekend: 10/3/16

Hola everyone!

I am officially half-way through my training here in Costa Rica!  Today was my first transfer day in the mission and I'm staying in Puriscal with Elder Batres but this is most likely our last transfer together.  Even though so much has happened these last 6 weeks and it sometimes seems like time isn't passing very fast, I can't believe I've been here 6 weeks already.  

This week honestly was pretty uneventful as far as teaching goes.  It seems like we have a lot of people to visit each day, but none of them are progressing very well which is really sad.  It's great talking to them and teaching them, but I'm not sure they are following through with their commitments such as praying or reading the Book of Mormon/ pamphlets we give them. It's frustrating sometimes because we know doing those things will bless/change their lives so much, but they can't see that until they actually do it themselves.  But we just need to figure out what we can do better as missionaries/teachers to help them keep their commitments and come unto Christ.  

This week we had a multi-zone conference and it was with about half the mission, which there are 132 missionaries in our mission right now I believe.  It was super great to see other missionaries that have been here awhile and see the kind of missionary I want to be like.  We also had general conference this past weekend and it was great!  We are so lucky to have  a prophet and apostles and other church leaders on the earth and listen to them speak twice a year! It was all in Spanish so I couldn't understand hardly anything which was really sad, but what I could understand I liked a ton.  One member let me listen to like half the Sunday morning session in English on his phone which was super nice.  My favorite talk probably was from M. Russell Ballard during the Sunday morning session (one of the few talks I could listen to in English).  He talked a lot about having faith in Christ. It's not always easy being a member of this church and we may sometimes have questions or doubts, but it's important to always remember that the answers are always there, we just need to have the faith and desire to sincerely search, ponder, and pray for them. I also loved listening to the missionary choir during the Saturday afternoon session.  They sang "I'll go where you want me to go" which is my favorite song ever and always helps me to feel the Spirit.  

I hope everyone has a great week this week! Watch general conference online if you missed it!

Love,

Elder Smith

Pics: soccer field in a super cool part of our area, me and Elder Batres wearing our Costa Rica soccer team shirts, me and my trainer, Elder Batres, and him with his trainer at the Multi-zone conference

Semana 11: Patience is a Virtue: 9/26/16

Hola everyone!

This week I completed a month in the mission field and it was so great!  We had our month check with our mission president, President Laboriel, and it was an awesome day.  The temple is about an hour/ hour and a half away from my area, so we went to stay at one of the secretaries´ house the night before because we had to be up and ready to go at 5 am... I still don't know how I get up so early sometimes but I've been pretty good so far.  All of the other elders did the same thing so it was super fun to see all of my friends from the MTC and see how they're doing and hear about their experiences.  We then went to the temple and it was so great to be there and feel of the Spirit that is always there. Everything was in Spanish so I couldn't understand much, but luckily you can feel the Spirit in any language.  The temple is one of the smaller temples in the world I think but I loved it.  We then went to the mission president's house for lunch and interviews which was super great too.  President Laboriel really helped us feel at ease about everything and taught us a lot of really helpful things.  I love my mission president, even though I'm still a little intimidated by him sometimes haha.  The mission home is super nice!  Every person got a hamburger, fried chicken, and pizza (Pricesmart/Costco) pizza!  

Other than that, this week was pretty rough haha (hence the patience is a virtue title).  Every day this week, pretty much, we had little to no success and it was super discouraging.  It seemed like no one wanted to talk to us or listen to our message and we just didn't understand or know what to do.  The mission goal is to have 5 baptisms a month (I think it changed to 3 right before I got here) but we didn't have any this month.  We've had people commit to dates, but then the dates would always fall.  We were feeling pretty down, but I think it helped us to be better missionaries because it helped us to find things we weren't doing, or weren't doing consistently to help our investigators. Now we are a lot more focused I think and hopefully this week goes a lot better.  

Yesterday was the beginning to this better week.  We were busy all day and had one super great lesson in particular.  It was probably one of the best, if not the best, lesson I've experienced in the mission so far.  It was the daughter of one of our investigators and we had never met her before.  We didn't teach her all that much, but we listened to her questions and comments and bore our testimonies to her and the Spirit was super strong! It was so cool to see the Spirit working through us to her and see her open up more and more as the lesson went on.  It was only the first lesson but I really hope we can continue to teach her in the future.

I hope everyone has a great week this week!  Don't forget to watch General Conference this weekend and hear from the prophet and apostles!

Love,

Elder Smith

Pics: Me and my companion in front of the temple, me and Elder Millward, Me and Elder Millward and Hermana Hansen (some of our district from the MTC) and her companion, Me Elder Millward and Elder Clark, and a pic from my hike (not really a hike but it was still fun) today!