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!