Semana 41: Semana de Milagros: 4/24/17

Hello everyone!!

This week was the Semana de Milagros for the month of April and it went really great! We focused a lot on helping the members share the gospel of Jesus Christ, not just us as missionaries.  

On Tuesday, we had a family night as a stake! For those of you not familiar with family night or stake, family night is a night we spend with our families (bet you didn't see that one coming haha) once a week where we have a spiritual thought/lesson, play games, and eat! Also, stake is a term we use to describe a congregation of members.  A stake is made up of several wards and branches (smaller congregations).  It went super great! We taught the members how they could be more involved in missionary work, and us as missionaries also put on a skit for the members.  My role was to be a contact in the street that uses a lot of Costa Rican slang/words we can´t say as missionaries... For example: "pura vida" "mae" "tuanis".  

Also, on Friday, we had a zone activity in Santo Domingo with all of the missionaries in our zone.  We had an international food night with food from each of our countries.  There was food from Guatemala, El Salvador, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. All the food was really cool expect for the states.  We made brownies from a mix haha.  Even though they were the tastiest, it was a little lame to describe in comparison to the rest of the food.  But it went really well and we had 13 investigators show up! 

I also had the opportunity to give a talk in church yesterday.  I didn't really have much time to prepare but I think I ended up talking for 15 minutes, in Spanish! (that´s a miracle for me haha).  But my topic was missionary work which pretty much goes along with my email theme for today.  As The Church of Jesus Christ, we have a great and important message to share with the world, and it shouldn't just be the job of the missionaries to share it. Their job is to teach it, but every member has the ability to invite others to hear it.  Sometimes we might be afraid to invite others to hear it for fear of how they'll react.  But I learned something recently of how we can invite others to hear it without them taking offense.  There are two simple questions we can ask: first, Have you heard about the church before? And second, Would you like to learn more? They can say yes or no to either question and no offense is taken either way.  But if they say yes, especially to the last question, that's your opportunity to say more.  I know this gospel is true, and we ALL have a great responsibility to share it with EVERYONE! 

I hope you all have a great week this week! Sorry that I didn't have too much to report on this week.

Elder Smith

Pics: The rain has started! (inspiration from this last general conference), more rain, international food night!, semana de milagros

Semana 40: Semana Santa! Happy Easter!: 4/17/17

Hello everyone and Happy Easter yesterday!

Here in Costa Rica Easter doesn't really exist, but semana santa does! It's celebrating the same thing (the resurrection of Jesus Christ) but they don't have the Easter bunny.  Instead they spend the whole week celebrating (mainly taking a week off work and school and going to the beach).  Because practically everyone didn't have school or work, EVERYONE left Santo Domingo and went on vacation to the beach or something like that.  It was DEAD! The buses basically weren't running and the only businesses that were open were the bakeries.  It was super weird and made working a little bit hard this week, but all is well.  

Also, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were the most important days (the 3 day period were Jesus Christ died, and then was resurrected).  On Friday, there were a bunch of people walking in the street in some sort of parade with people in costumes and statues of Jesus and Mary and stuff like that with a band.  They were walking really slow and taking up the whole street so we just had to watch and wait for it to pass before we could cross.  It was funny because everyone was looking at us (missionaries) really weird and wondering why we were there.  

But apart from it being Semana Santa, this week was a little discouraging/sad as well because of our investigators.  Olman, Johanna, Rachel, y Maybellyn (the family we have been teaching since February) don't appear to be progressing as much lately and we aren't quite sure what to do with them.  They have EVERYTHING but just haven't made the decision to get baptized yet.  Also, Eduardo y Yara (investigators that we've been teaching for about a month) came to church for their 3rd time this Sunday! Eduardo is the one who we knew was going to be a little complicated for him to get baptized but we still hadn't explained to him why.  We decided to let him know in private at church on Sunday.  But, while we were talking about some of the requirements that one needs to get baptized (make covenants with God) he let us know that him and Yara aren't actually married... Yara was pretty much our only hope for a baptism this month and so when I heard that... It was a little rough to say the least.  Every time that we asked them before, they said that they were married, but a lot of people here say that even if they aren't.  To get baptized, you cannot be living with your significant other unless you are married.  Marriage is ordained of God!  We hope that they will get married, but because of the situation that Eduardo has, it would be very complicated for them to get married... But we aren't losing faith! To lighten the mood, we had an AWESOME experience this week while teaching them about prayer! Yara is super great and likes the church a lot, but still didn't feel that she had received her answer about it yet.  We spent the whole lesson teaching them about prayer and then we invited Yara to say the closing prayer to the lesson... I don't think I've ever felt the Spirit stronger in any other prayer than my own before in my life.  When she finished praying, she just kept her head in her hands and was clearly emotional/crying.  We asked her how she felt and she just said she felt strange and didn't know how to describe it.  I KNOW this church is true! If that wasn't an answer to a prayer, I don't know what is.  

Which leads me to my spiritual thought this week.  I believe I shared this in my email about general conference but I´d like to reemphasize it.  Gary E. Stevenson, one of the 12 apostles, spoke the gift of the Holy Ghost and how it has 3 functions: warns us of danger, comforts us, and testifies of truth. Thankfully I wasn't in danger this week, but I can testify that I witnessed the 2 other functions of the Holy Ghost this week.  We may not have the best of days, but the Holy Ghost is always there to offer us comfort and peace when we ask and plead for it.  I also KNOW that the Holy Ghost testified to Yara about the truth of this church and this gospel.  Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ may not be in our presence right now, but because of that, they have given us the Holy Ghost so that we can be guided and lead back to them.  

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

Elder Smith

P.s. Sorry I didn't take many pics this week :( 

 

Pics: we made pupusas as a zone last pday, the view from my apartment  

Semana 39: 9 Months!!! 4/10/17

​Hello everyone!!

I hope everyone had a great week this last week and that the weather is getting warmer.  We have about one more month of sunshine from what I´ve heard, and then we´ll have rain every day until like December... But this week was super great! I complete 9 months in the mission this Thursday and I can´t believe it! I know I probably say this a lot, but it´s crazy how fast the time goes in the mission.

This week was super great! We have 2 new really great investigators named Mario and Berenice! I contacted Berenice in the street about a week ago during the semana de milagros and she said we could come by and visit her this week (and she actually meant it!).  Mario is her husband and he has a few problems, but they both have tons of questions and interest and I´m super excited to continue to teach them.  Also cool to see that someone I just talked to in the street one time, turned into a new family of investigators! Always have to open your mouth and talk with EVERYONE!

Also, one day this week, we had like 5 people come up and talk to us! Normally it's always the other way around.  Granted 2 of them were drunk guys (missionaries are magnets to drunk people), but we didn't realize they were drunk at first haha.  BUT, we also had these 2 girls call us over to talk to them.  It turns out, missionaries previously contacted them, but never came by to visit them! So we'll start teaching them hopefully this week!   

And on Tuesday, we had zone conference and it was super good! But, the Assistants to the President were there and they had some "advice" for us... In the mission we would say "nos cortaron la cabeza" (they cut off our heads) haha.  It was pretty rough, but had an impact on me.  I feel like I try hard to be a good missionary/ representative of Jesus Christ, but with everything we do, there is always more room to improve.  We should never become complacent and stop trying to improve.  There is always something more we can do, an extra effort we can give.  And if we do, we will receive the blessings.  

This leads me to my spirtual thought for this week.  There´s a scripture in the Book of Mormon that I came across this week that I really like.  It´s in 1 Nephi 16:28-29.  It basically says that, by small means, the Lord can bring about great things.  But only according to the faith, diligence, and attention we give unto Him.  Applying this to us in our lives, by doing the small things (praying, reading the scriptures, going to church, etc.), the Lord will bring about great blessings in our own lives, and in the lives of those around us. But only if we are actively using faith, diligence, and our attention. Maybe the blessings won´t come right away or be obvious at first, but I promise that if we always do the small things (not only sometimes) we will be greatly blessed for our efforts.   

Love,

Elder Smith

Pics: Sunsets are super cool here when we see them, other pic of sunset, The HAKA (we do the haka in the mission now as missionaries to pump us up haha) that we did with some of the youth in our ward

Semana 38: Semana de Milagros and General Conference: 4/3/17

Hello everyone!!

This week was crazy because we had so much to do but it was super great!

We have the semana de milagros every month, but this month we saved it for the last week of the month.  It's technically only Tuesday-Friday but each day we do something a little bit different and our goals for the day are way higher than normal.  The purpose is to see "miracles" obviously but we don't always have quite as much success as we would like.  This was one of those weeks haha.  We spent a ton of time contacting, looking for new people to teach, but didn't end up finding too many people.  BUT, all is well don't worry.  We had another carwash to end the week and it was super great! We had it at the church in our area of Santo Domingo, but the city government people kicked us out haha.  The church is on a super busy road with like 4 other carwashes, so we think somebody got a little mad at us for washing other cars for free... The point was to wash their cars, and then while they´re waiting, we take them on a tour of the church.  After we got kicked out, we went to another area´s church building and didn't get kicked out! Lots of people showed up and it actually went really well! I didn't end up washing one car because I was doing the church tour the whole time.  It was super great to explain to people how the church is and correct their misconceptions of the church.  We have another semana de milagros next week, so get ready for that as well! 

Other than that, this week was General Conference!!! I love Spanish and all, but listening to people talk for 10 hours in Spanish is a little difficult to pay attention to sometimes... I could honestly understand everything they were saying (super cool to see my progression from last conference when I couldn't understand anything) but if I got even the least bit distracted, I was lost for the rest of the talk practically.  Nevertheless, General Conference is the BEST and I'll share what stuck out to me this conference.  I couldn't narrow it down to just one talk, so I'll share 3.  First, I really liked M. Russell Ballard´s talk when he talked about goal setting.  He said that Heavenly Father has His "plan of happiness" for us, but we should always be setting goals for ourselves within this eternal plan and goal that our Father in Heaven has for us. If we never set goals, we will not progress or succeed as much as we would like, or as our Heavenly Father would like.  I also liked Dieter F. Uchtdorf's talk when he talked about fear and the pure love of Christ.  I didn't quite catch everything he said, but he basically said, "don't fear, and come unto Christ." We should always strive to have the pure love of Christ with us and we will be strengthened to overcome our fears and weaknesses and become more like Christ.  I also liked Gary E. Stevenson's talk (understood every word).  He talked about the Holy Ghost and how it has 3 functions.  It warns us of danger, comforts us, and testifies of truth.  If we trust in the Spirit, and always listen to it's promptings, we will never be lost and we will receive the help and guidance that we so desperately need in this life. 

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

Elder Smith

P.s. One year ago I received my mission call to Costa Rica! The mission has been the best decision I have ever made in my life and there is nothing else like it! Also, super crazy how fast the time goes...

Pics: semana de milagros!, I contacted a bus again this week but didn't take a video, so here´s from when we contacted another bus, Carwash!, I ate cow stomach this week!!! (tasted good!), and General conference with the zone!