Semana 53: Semana de Milagros: Where "Miracles" Happen: 7/17/17

Hola everyone!  I hope everyone had a great week this last week!

This week was the Semana de Milagros for the month of July (my 11th Semana de Milagros) and well... Miracles happened as usual.  Nothing too noteworthy during the week honestly but it was a ton of fun.  The first day, we went to a park in Heredia and had the goal of contacting 300 people in like 2 or 3 hours.  We dressed up as people from the Book of Mormon and we completed the goal of 300! Nobody had any idea who we were dressed up as, but I wasn´t expecting anyone to really know haha.  Joshua also went out to visit people with us twice this week and he´s just awesome.  Doesn´t talk in the lessons still haha but he loves going out with us and maybe he´ll get to talking one day.  We also had a talent show on Thursday in Santo Domingo! Wasn´t successful in terms of finding new people but it went well and strengthened the investigators that we already had.  Then, on Friday, we had another open house, but this time in San Rafael.  It went super well and we ended the day with 101 lessons with the help of the whole zone!! We had a culture night as well and this time the U.S. made smores for our typical kind of food/dessert haha.  

The best part of the week though, hands down, was the wedding and baptism of Frank on Saturday!!!!! I don{t know how we did it, but it everything went smoothly, people came, and Frank got married to his wife Clarisia, and then got baptized immediately afterwards! It was without a doubt one of the best days of the mission so far and I just can´t believe that he´s now a baptized member of the church.  It still blows my mind and I´m just so excited for him and the rest of his family.  I had the privilege to confirm him a member of the church on Sunday! 

One thing that I noticed this week in my studies of the scriptures is the great love and mercy that our Father in Heaven has for each and every one of us.  First, I read in Lucas 23 (the atonement and crucifixion of Jesus Christ) and then in 2 Nephi 4 (Nephi´s lament).  It´s truly amazing how much He loves us.  How much He forgives us. And how much He wants us to return to live with Him. He loves us despite our sins/ weaknesses, and forgives us when we truly repent unto Him.  He understands that we aren´t perfect, we´re humans.  But He expects us to come unto Him, repent, and follow Him.  I invite everyone this week to read these 2 amazing chapters from the scriptures and truly ponder how merciful and loving He is with each and every one of us.  

Love you all and hope you have a great week this week!

Elder Smith

Pics: Elder Parma (Nephi) and I, "Smith" (cat of Frank and his family) and I, the sisters of Santo Domingo gave me a donut on my one year mark, Elder Parma on his birthday this week!, Wedding day!!!, Elder Parma, Frank, and I 

Semana 52: 1 ANO!!!: 7/10/17

Hola everyone y pura vida! I hope everyone is doing well and had a great week this last week!

Well to start off, like it says in my title, I have officially completed 52 weeks in the mission!!! But I don't technically complete a year until Thursday, the 13th. It's truly amazing how fast the time goes by in the mission. This year has been one of the hardest but one of the most rewarding years of my life.  It has not been easy, but I couldn't be more grateful for all of the things I have seen and experienced. It has changed my life completely and I'm so excited to see what this next year of the mission has in store for me. I expect it to be at least a little bit easier because I can actually speak Spanish now haha. But I'll see you all again on June 28th, 2018!

Now for this last week! First off... I have great news! Frank passed his baptismal interview this week which means he is going to get married and baptized this Saturday, July 15th!!!  I couldn´t be more excited and hopefully everything goes smoothly. He has changed so much in these 2 months that I´ve known him and it has truly been a miracle watching him progress.  He currently doesn´t drink or smoke at all, whereas before he drank and smoke pretty much all day, every day.  He´s only missed one Sunday since the day I met him, and now, his future wife, daughter, and other members of the family are coming to church with him as well.  His daughter also wants to get married and hopefully baptized as well here soon. Joshua and Naihyell passed the sacrament for the first time this last Sunday and it´s just amazing watching how the Gospel can change people´s lives.  

This week we also had a zone conference and learned a ton.  One of the things that stood out to me most was a training on the parable of the 10 virgins.  To explain the parable a little bit, there were 10 virgins, 5 of them were ready with oil in their lamps, and 5 were not.  5 were ready when the Lord came, and the other 5 were not.  I don't have much time to explain, but basically they said that there are 3 types of lamps: empty, half full, and full.  We obviously always want to be that lamp that is full of oil (love, diligence, faith, obedience, and discipline).  We need to be a light for the rest of the world and have our lamps ready, full of oil, for when the day of judgement comes. Is our lamp burning, full of oil? Or is it on the verge of being empty? What do you need to change so that you are always full of oil (love, faith, diligence, discipline, and obedience)?

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

Elder Smith     

Pics: Las Pastoras (one of the areas we visit most in our area), when our zone leader, Elder Lopez (one of my first zone leaders in the mish) came to do the baptismal interview, Santo Domingo centro, they gave us aprons to eat spaghetti on Sunday haha, Elder Parma and I with our aprons 

Semana 51: I Found Jesus' House!: 7/3/17

Hello everyone y Pura vida!

I hope everyone had a great week this last week and are enjoying summer vacation back in the states!  I just realized that everyone´s out of school over there when I realized 4th of July is tomorrow... Sad to be missing out on 4th of July just a little bit, but I´ll be back home for the next one :) But happy birthday America! 

This week was a pretty good one, but again nothing too out of the ordinary.  The best parts of the week lately have been with Naihyell y Joshua and their family.  On Monday, we watched The Restoration (the movie about how the church of Jesus Christ was restored) with Frank, Naihyell, y Joshua and it was super great.  The plan is still on for Frank´s wedding on July 15th and the baptism the same day, or a day or 2 after.  His future wife, Clarisia, went to church for her first time this last Sunday which was super awesome.  We have been inviting her for weeks and she finally came.  She told us that she had a super spiritual experience with God this week and promised that she would start going to church if He helped her.  Well He did, and now she´s way more open to listening to us and going to church! And Frank´s brother and his family came to visit them this week (all of them are members of the church, but inactive) and his brother and daughter came to church with them as well.  From this family alone, there were 8 people that came to church! It was so cool seeing them walk into church yesterday morning! I love this family and am so excited to see how the gospel will continue to bless their lives. 

Lately, we have also been finding a lot of great young men to teach.  First there was Naihyell y Joshua, and now we´re teaching two others named Josue y Tristan.  They´re both 13 and both super great.  I´m not sure I´ll be around to see them get baptized, but I´m grateful for the chance that I have to visit and teach them and help them draw nearer to God and our Savior, Jesus Christ.  

For my spiritual thought this week, I don´t have a scripture to share, just a thought.  I´m almost positive there´s a scripture that accompanies this thought but I didn´t have time to look it up.  We had a lot of small difficulties with people this week because they were all focusing on the tiny details that they didn't understand, and not the big picture.  They couldn´t understand how to move past or overcome these small doubts that they have.  Us as humans, there are a lot of things that we don't know about God´s plan for us.  We don´t have all of the little details or know how all of it really works.  But we have the faith that it is real and that if we are faithful and obedient, we will accomplish God´s plan for each and every one of us.  All we really need to know is that God lives, that He loves us, and that He has a plan for us.  We don´t need a perfect knowledge of things to have/receive a testimony of this plan.  If we have doubts, all we need to do is pray and ask Him.  I know He will respond and that He answers our prayers, but only if we have faith.  

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

Elder Smith

Pics: I found Jesus´ house, He didn´t answer :(, chifrijol, Elder Parma made a super sandwich