Semana 62: Semana de Milagros: Independence Day Edition!: 9/18/17

Hello everyone! Happy Monday y Pura Vida!

This week was the semana de milagros for the month of September and it did not disappoint in terms of miracles! The biggest and most exciting news that I have is... We have a baptism on Wednesday!!!!! I still can't believe it either haha. Her name is Sara, she's 14 years old and we met her on Tuesday (less than a week ago). I'll try to explain how this happened exactly, but honestly it was just a flat out miracle. Missionaries had met with her and her family before, but her parents always work on Sundays (meaning they can't go to church) and Sara didn't have much interest in going to church by herself. But, Sara has family in another part of Costa Rica that are members of the church (one of the areas right next to Santo Domingo) and she had gone to church there a few times before and liked it.

Now she is interested, went to church in Naranjo on Sunday, and is getting baptized on Wednesday!!! If that's not a miracle then I don't know what is.

Another cool thing that happened this week is that we had committed 20 people to come to church on Sunday!! Did 20 people come? No, only 2 haha. But, it was super good and important that the 2 people who did show up were there. Even though I was expecting more than 2 investigators to come, it was still really cool that we had committed 20 investigators (people who aren't members of the church) to go to a church they had never been to before. We had never committed nearly as many people to go to church here in Naranjo before, so even though they didn't end up going, it's a step in the right direction. And since the majority of these people are new investigators, I still have the hope that they'll come this next week!

I know that the Church is true, and that this is His work. The Lord truly works miracles in our lives, big and small, every single day. We just have to keep our eyes and ears open to recognize them.

Hope everyone has a fantastic week!

Elder Smith

Pics: Semana de milagros activity en Grecia, me and my comp while we were contacting the other day, our zone activity in San Ramon, this guy did not want to put on the glove I was offering him...

Semana 61: Ask and Ye Shall Receive: 9/11/17

Hello everyone!

I hope everyone had a great week this last week! This week was a good one, but as always in the mission and in our lives, there's ups and downs. The good thing though is that there's always more ups than downs!

Sundays are always good, and this one was no different. Although we didn't have too many
investigators at church this week, we were able to meet and get to know 2 less active/inactive
families that we had never met before! We found them through the list of members that supposedly live in Naranjo. The attendance has been around 40 people on average every Sunday, but according to the list, there's like 350 members here in Naranjo... I knew there had to be at least one person or family out of this large group of members not attending that had the potential of coming back to church. And that was proved right yesterday. I basically just called every person that I didn't already know that had a phone number by their name, because directions here are basically useless. Out of the people I could actually get ahold of, only 2 agreed to have us come visit them. Although we will start to work with both of them, one family especially stuck out to me. It's a family of 6 and they're super awesome. They stopped going to church like 5 years ago, but now seem totally ready to come back and want one of their nephews, who barely just started living there a few days prior, to get baptized!

The best part of the week by far though was on Friday. We had our zone conference and then went on exchanges with the zone leaders. I went on exchanges with Elder Larson from California who has one more transfer in the mission than I do and it was super good! He's a great guy and I learned a lot from him even though we were only companions for a day.

In the zone conference we talked a lot about receiving revelation from God and following the
impressions of the Holy Ghost. That's something I still really struggle with so it helped me a lot. Many times we have trials and difficulties in our lives and we just don't know what to do. But have we asked God for help? Have we asked Him what He thinks? Have we tried to follow the promptings of the Spirit? Or do we let our pride get in the way and let ourselves think we know better and can get by without His help? God loves us and wants to hear from us, but more importantly, He wants us to hear Him. If you really think about it, He actually wants to talk to us a lot more than we want to talk to Him. But when we pray and ask for His guidance, are we really taking the time to listen? Prayer is a two-way conversation. It takes a sincere effort of asking, studying the scriptures, being worthy, and having faith. It takes effort on our part, but I know He is always willing and wants to speak with us. "Ask and ye shall receive, knock and it shall be opened unto you."

Love,

Elder Smith

Pics: Elder Larson and I, the view from this family of 6`s house

Semana 60: Naranjo Round 2: 9/4/17

Hello everyone! Pura Vida!

Well today is transfers day... And I will not be having transfers! Neither will my companion, so that means I will be "killing him" (be his last companion) since he goes home this transfer. I'm super excited to get to work with Elder Islas here in Naranjo one more transfer and continue to see the miracles that we've been seeing! Naranjo is definitely an interesting place to be, but I'm super excited to help it grow and flourish and be the strong unity that I know it can be through hard work and dedication!

Well the highlight of this week was definitely yesterday at church. We've been struggling all transfer to bring investigators to church, but this Sunday we had the blessing of having 4! I know we can have many more than that, but that was definitely an improvement for us this transfer and was exciting to see. It was especially exciting because a family we found basically our first week in Naranjo (Rodrigo y Estefanía) finally came to church this week for the first time! And they actually have quite a bit of family that are members of the church here in Naranjo so everyone was really surprised but happy to see them.

Another great experience from this week was our district meeting. The assistants came to talk to us and train us and it was just awesome. They explained to us that everyone that we visit and teach has problems and challenges, but what is the thing that helps them overcome these problems and challenges? What do they need? The gospel! Exercise faith in Jesus Christ, repent, be baptized, receive the gift of the holy ghost, and endure to the end. It doesn't matter who you are or what challenge you may be facing, the gospel of Jesus Christ will help you and is the best possible thing for you. There is nothing else in this world that will help you more than the gospel can. But our job as missionaries is to identify the way in which the people we teach will understand this. Because every person is different, we need to identify what the person would like to change or accomplish (their need) and then help them realize/understand that the gospel is the solution. Some people may want to have a more unified family, others may feel the need to change some negative life habits. What will help them accomplish these things? The gospel! Then, as a natural result, they'll ask US when they can get baptized and begin to prepare themselves. Why? Because they now understand that that is the only thing standing in their way of entering the gate and having this more unified family/changing these negative life habits/accomplishing the things they want to accomplish and receiving the blessings they want and need to receive. 

I'm sure I could've explained that better, but I hope that made sense to you all. But if not, to sum it all up... want more blessings? Follow and live the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's as simple as that, it honestly is.

I hope everyone has a great week this week!

Elder Smith

Pics: Some of my best friends in the mission (Elder McCay goes home, and Elder Millward my MTC companion), Elder Amundsen and I (goes home as well)