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)