week 21 & 22!!! 2 great weeks

week 21
This week was really awesome and the best part was the sister missionaries' baptism on Saturday. It was super awesome and I wrote a ton about it and lots of other stuff in my journal. Speaking of journals, last week I filled the last pages of mine, and am now using my second one. Yesterday I went back and read some things that happened in the MTC (that I never would have remembered) and laughed a lot. Even though it was only a few months ago, it still was really cool to read, so imagine how cool it will be years down the road! Before my mission I never wrote in a journal, and now I realize how disappointing that is. I would love to read some entries from the young, irrational me as a 7 year old, hahaha

 

Anyways, here's some good news:
This Friday we are going to have our zone conference aaaannd bmdmbmdmbm WE'RE GOING TO THE TEMPLE!!!!! This will be my first time inside the Costa Rica Temple and I can't wait! I have been waiting for this day my entire mission!!

And of course here's the bad news:
Because of that we only get half of Pday today. At noon (in 10 minutes instead of at 6) it changes to a normal day and we will go out contacting most likely because we don't have any appointments scheduled. That also means that I don't have time to share with you the cool/funny stuff that happened this week, so it will have to wait until next Monday :(

 One cool experience: we were walking home from a fail of an appointment (the guy was super drunk and incapable of answering any questions without contradicting himself) when a young guy called out "Ay Elders!" so we walked over to greet them - he was with 2 other people. It turned out that those two other people were his brothers and he and his younger brother had both served missions! At the time we really needed to use the bathroom so after a quick talk we asked if they would let us use their bathroom and they said sure. In the house their mom was delighted to see us and offered us rice with milk (it sounds gross but it's a dessert and its actually super yummy) and we gladly accepted it. We talked for a bit and I was super grateful for nice people that just let us in like that. It made me think of mom and how she always let the Elders in or had them over for dinner and how I always thought about Haley or McKay when they came over. And now I totally understand how it feels to be the missionary. So be nice to the missionaries guys. We really appreciate it :)

Taco Bell

We sometimes eat at this place called Mas Que Pollo. MMMM

week 22

This week flew by and the highlight was what I talked a little about last time: THE TEMPLE!!! 

We woke up really early on Friday and were driving off to the temple at 6 am. The drive 

itself was so much fun with the whole zone crammed into a little tourism bus telling jokes 

and singing hymns! Oh and the bus had air conditioning, that's totally worth mentioning, 

haha.

It took a super long time to get there because of the traffic from Cartago to San 

jose, but when we got there it looked even better than I remembered it. We did a session 

in Spanish and as always it was the coolest thing ever to be in the temple.

I want to remind you all of the importance of temple work and you should take advantage of 

temples that are close by. I have been told lots of stories from the older folks here in Costa

 Rica about the time when the nearest temple was in Arizona and the members here had

 to travel, often by bus, through Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and all of Mexico to get

 there. They told me about how exciting it was when the Mexico City Temple was 

announced because it cut the trip in half, and later the Guatemala temple was a little 

closer. Now the Costa Rica temple serves the whole country as well as Nicaragua and 

Panama and the people here are so grateful. I really am so excited for my friend Manfred 

(and my friends at home) to go through the temple before his mission, and I can testify of 

the blessings and peace that it brings. That is my motivation here in my mission. I'm here

 to help people take their first step towards the temple, through baptism. In the temple we

 are reminded of who we are and it becomes really easy to understand why things are the

 way they are. Elder Utchdorf said 

“Just think of it! You are known and remembered by the most majestic, powerful and 

glorious Being in the universe. You are loved by the King of infinite space and everlasting

 time. He who created and knows the stars knows you and your name. You are the 

children of His kingdom!” 

I invite you to do what he said, and think of it! God himself said we are the reason He 

created the universe! (Moses 1:39, right). In other words, the huge expanse of eternity, the

 "glories and mysteries of infinite space and time" are all built for the benefit of ordinary 

mortals like you and me. Heavenly Father created the universe so that we can reach our

 potential as His sons and daughters. And part of that is done in the temple. I love the 

temple and I know that we will be blessed for keeping it at the center of our lives. 

I hope you guys have a good week and remember the temple! 

I took some more pictures this week so I hope you like them!

Oh! Have you seen the CTR-like rings that have a temple? They're super cool:)

Week 20

This week literally soooooooo much stuff happened! And also I was better about writing in my journal, so buckle up, this is going to be a long email!
First thing's first: HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROZ!!!!!!! I can't believe you are turning seventeen! I still think of you as 13 or 14 and saying seventeen sounds so dang weird! And 17 is the last year of "official" childhood so enjoy it while lasts hahaha! But in all seriousness, i want you to always remember the good qualities you have had over the past 16 years and how your experiences with your friends and family, moving to utah, etc. have all helped you to become the amazing person you are. I love you and happy birthday!!!!

Tuesday
Today like all Tuesdays we had our district meeting and the highlight of that was at the end when we all watched the latest Book of Mormon video. If you would have peeked into the room this is what you would've seen: our whole district scrunched together sitting on the little-kid chairs with the lights out and the phone placed in the corner to optimize the sound. Those are some good memories!😄 Later today we had an appointment with a reference (named Stiven) with a super interesting story. We didn't exactly know what he needed so we were kind of going into this lesson a little blind, and what we learned about him was nothing we ever would have expected. His story is really strange; the earliest thing in his life that he remembers is himself in a hospital bed at 16 years old. He lost 100% of his memory because of something - he doesn't remember what - that happened when he was 16. He told us the only face he faintly recognized was his mom's. He didn't even know his own dad or siblings! His family told his what happened, who he was, what he had done in the past, etc. but none of it helped, and he wasn't sure whether or not to believe any of it. His dad (the one who gave us the reference) is the Elder's quorum president and his dad baptized him when he was 14, but he doesn't remember any of that and knows literally nothing about the church. In fact the constant persistence about the church steered him away from it and he truly became lost. He turned to alcohol and marijuana to resolve his loneliness/lack of friends and memories and he continued that lifestyle for years. Until a few months ago when, together with his dad who he has slowly been getting to know, he quit doing drugs and got a job working for his dad. Now he is 26 and ready to relearn about the church and maybe (if it's necessary because I'm not sure how that works) get rebaptized! So that's his story, and today we gave him his first lesson. Unfortunately he looked pretty skeptical, but he agreed to pray and read the Book of Mormon so I have no doubts with him. He lives like 40 minutes away so we got home kinda late and we always walk by this pizza place on the way home, and this time we caved and bought pizza for dinner. Que RIIIIIICO

Wednesday
Today we were supposed to clean the church, but when we got there it was already done! So we decided to do our language study right there in the church. But first we went to the store really quick do buy a whiteboard marker because everything is more fun on a whiteboard. It didn't turn out to be as fun as I expected though because what happened was that Elder Flores got all super sad again and said he needed to call his family. (I don't remember if I told you in the last email or not, but it turns out that he has pretty bad depression) So I did the language study by myself. Also today all of Cartago doesn't have water so we couldn't take showers wash dishes or anything! So we ate sandwiches for lunch.

Thursday
It's HALLOWEEN!!!!! Woop Woop! Except they pretty much don't celebrate it here...BUT technically it's a US national holiday which means I have permission to call home! Anyways, we were late for our appointment with Lourdez because I couldn't find her house (because apparently she moved...)  The last time I saw her was 3 months ago, in my first week in the field. So this time I was able to properly introduce myself and all that stuff. We quickly figured out that she didn't remember or understand what the other elders had taught, so we decided to teach her about the restoration again making sure she understood 100%. Then we asked if she would be willing to follow the example of the Savior and work towards a goal of being baptized on Nov. 30th. And she said YES!!!!!! She told us she didn't have a Book of Mormon, and we didn't have one either (I know we are terrible) so I gave her my Spanish triple to use until tomorrow when I would trade her for her own. We ate lunch at Al Toque, a hamburger place because our cocinera is sick and so she's taking a break.
Then we contacted our way back to the house and I tried to figure out how to call the family because it's Halloween. Eventually it worked and I talked to mom for like 6 minutes (international calls are expensive) and basically said Happy Halloween and we talked about how they are getting ready for Mckay's wedding dinner. Later we had an appointment with Martin and Fatima (we baptized Martin last month, as well as their daughter Belen) with the purpose of figuring out why Fatima doesn't want to be baptized. We ended up teaching lesson 1 again and putting a goal of Nov 30th, but she repeatedly - and politely - refused every time without giving a reason. So that was a little disappointing. On the bus back to guadalupe the phone vibrated in my pocket and I had 0 desire to answer it. But when I pulled it out and saw the number I almost had a heart attack! the number 0012086310108 has been ingrained in my mind for as long as I can remember because it's my mom's number!!! I almost didn't answer it because technically that's a no no mom, but it was halloween and I was gonna call anyway. So I answered it and this is what happened: she told me that they were finishing my brother's wedding dinner and they had all just finished giving their advice one by one around the table and that now it was my turn, and that I was on speakerphone!  I was like a deer in the headlights or whatever that saying is, that was me. So after a long Uuuuuuuuuhh I said something along the lines of "all problems can be solved with ice cream" It's true even if you don't believe me. This is for you McKay and Kandice.

Friday
In the morning we walked to Lourdez's house so I could give her her own Book Of Mormon in exchange for mine, but we got there and Upe-ed a hundred times and called her and there was no answer. I'm going to hope for the best and assume it's because she likes my BoM so much that she doesn't want to give it back. After that we headed to Manfred's house, contacting the whole way. One lady reluctantly let us in and we gave a quick lesson and she was uncomfortable the whole time and said she would call us back 😢. Anyways I stopped and a pulperia and bought a yogurt for Manfred because he just got his wisdom teeth out. At his house we ended up making Mac and cheese because we didn't have lunch (Hna Andrea is still sick) and it has never tasted so good!!!!

 Later we had an appointment with Keylor that went long and I was getting really antsy because I didn't want to miss Mckay's wedding ceremony and so after the lesson we left at and in-between-jog-and-run speed which gradually increased to a full run towards the church. I BARELY got there in time and was able to videocall at the church and be a part of the wedding! I loved the part when Grandpa Tim - the ring bearer - went up to them and gave them the rings with the biggest turtle smile ever and I laughed and almost cried because I love that old guy so much. Then they did the vows and stuff and kissed!!! me and Elder Flores were like OOOOOOOHH! and laughing and smiling. Afterwards I got to be in a few pictures using my mom's phone and then I had to say bye to go to a meeting.
The rest of the day doesn't matter in comparison, haha

Saturday
Today at 6pm was the first session of Stake Conference, but we don't have permission to go UNLESS we bring an investigator with us. We worked all day, but none of our investigators could make it so we couldn't go :( later our appointment with Ramón fell through so we decided to contact and one lady let us in and we gave a super awesome lesson about the gospel of Christ and she really liked it, and told us when we could come back! I left her house all excited with a hop in my step and that awesome feeling of I CAN DO ANYTHING!!!! Back at the house I ate the rest of Elder Flores' cantones ( a HUGE mistake that I didn't realize at the time) for dinner and we got to listen to a live Mariachi band because the people that live below us were having a party. I even snuck a little video of it! Anyway, we took advantage of the music and danced like it was our own party, haha

Sunday
Today was the stake conference and we got to hear President Aguilar speak! He made us missionaries stand up and had everyone look at us to know who to talk to after church. After church we ate lunch and waited in the church for Manuel to come - he had scheduled an appointment with us - and after waiting almost an hour we asked where he was and he said my bad i thought i said tuesday in the message 😳😰. We walked home and had some other plans, but my stomach started hurting and it got worse and worse until I was curled up on my  pretty much crying. Ill save you the gross details, but let's just say it was really bad. Fortunately today I feel much better and i think it was because of the freakin leftover cantones.

Quote of the day:

All of our decisions will not be perfect. We will feel hopefully only temporarily, regret. But let us never wait for perfect clarity. It will be a rare decision indeed when all of the data in perfect clarity is apparent before the decision is made. Some of our greatest growth comes from the mind-stretching exercise of filling in where information is not available and weighing that which is incomplete. Sometimes there must simply be a leap of faith. —Hugh W. Pinnock

I love this quote so much! We all make bad desicions in life (like me eating those leftovers:) and that is just part of the process of learning. He's kind of saying that even when the answer isn't clear we don't need to be afraid to make decisions because that is how we grow. If we take that leap of faith trusting in the Lord, everything will be alright. There's a scripture that says something about that:
 "Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee"
Deutoronomy 31:6
That's a super encouraging scripture right? So let's do our best to be worthy of the Lord's help every day.
I hope you all have an amazing week!
Elder Hilton