Soccer!

American style treats for FHE!  What a hit! 

View from the house

Hey everyone!

So I had a good week, I'll get to that in a sec. The guy I met in the park, his name is Enmanuel. Yes, Elder Brindis is a DL, I have been the comp of a DL the whole mission. Card game, we play one where you start with 11 cards and have to win with 12. You win by making at least a set of 3 or run of three, but you have to use all 12 cards ex) 4 sets of 3, 2 sets of 3 and run of 6, etc. To make platanos maduros, cut it, and cook it in butter or oil... that's it. Or if you want you can cook it with cheese as well or with sweetened condensed milk. You can also put that sweetened condensed milk on breads, in Coke, and stuff like that.  I never did make the caramel popcorn. We always eat with spoons because only in the fancy places are where they use a fork and knife. And it is actually easier to eat with a spoon (and fingers:) I think my little weight I've gained is from the food, and also muscle (in my legs) cause I have to hike these hills every day.

So this last week on Monday we had an FHE and it was pretty boring until it was my turn to do something, I took the refreshments. I took something purely gringo... smores :)  Everybody loved them and wanted more and more, it was pretty sweet. And then that night our ZL's called and told us that they wanted to do divisions with us, ok, cool right? And then said that it would be for 3 days! That never happens! Divisions are normally 1 day, but I ended up working here in Naranjo with a different companion, Elder Nape, for 3 days. There is something very true of the mission here, when a leader comes to work in your área, they bring a lot of luck. That Tuesday we were able to find a new investigator, and also place 3 baptismal dates, so hopefully those work out. Then, on Wednesday we had a day of purely lessons with investigators, that's really ard for us so that was pretty sweet. And we placed another baptismal date. Then, on Thursday we were able to find another new person, place 2 more baptismal dates, I was directed by the Spirit to teach what I needed to, and we just had an overall good day. My ZL said that I'm a great missionary, I plan very well, and I truly testified from the heart, so all of that made me feel pretty good. My goal for right now is to be ready to train in the next changes, which are in a week, so we'll see what happens. Then on Saturday we had some appointments fall through, but we were able to teach the boyfriend of one of my converts. He listened and seemed interested, ojalá!  We're going to play soccer with him and some of the Young men today in an indoor court, and hopefully he can make some friends. This is also going to be my first time playing soccer in Naranjo! Finally! And then yesterday we went and visited an old lady and she talked with us for a long time, it was good for her so I feel good. Also we got to see part of the Golden Cup (soccer) and the US won, yeah! And yeah, that's about it.

One other thing that we have going on is that we have a mouse in the house and we can't kill it, we keep seeing it, but it's just to quick. We are going to have to do a deep clean on the house and buy some traps for those mice...

Anyway, that's it for this week, tune in next week for some new stories.

Peace out! 

-- Elder Black

   Elder Hunter Black   

                                                                                                               

                                                                                                              

 Costa Rica San José  

                                                                                                               

                                                                                                                

          2013-2014          

Awesome Investigator

Answers to questions... my favorite food? I really like pineapple cake, rice with chicken (add salsa Lizano), and platanos maduros. Also, I like to put sweetened condensed milk on certain things too. Favorite juice? Everyone here likes Jugo de Cas, I've heard it's a fruit that they only have here. Other drinks that are good: it's, more or less, wáter with oatmeal and sugar, but it's good, also lemonade that they make here is really good, and pineapple juice... also rice with pineapple is a good drink too. Favorite fruit? I like those Manzanas de Agua and guanábana was pretty good too. Also I took the advice of all of you and now I feel a bit better.

 

This week was pretty average. We did get a cool new investigator. I don't know if you guys remember, or if I even wrote that about 4 months ago I was contacting in the park with a member and I contacted some random guy. Well, finally, after all this time, we called him and got an appointment. He is awesome! He asked us if there is some story about the guy Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. Uh... YES! Perfect question! He asked a lot of good questions like that, so we will be able to teach him lots. And the rest of the week was pretty boring, one day I went to Grecia to do divisions with the Elderes there in Grecia, and I got stuck with one that was sick and just wanted to stay in the house all day, so I wasted a day there, and that was lame. Bascially we wasted a lot of time in Grecia this week (area in our district, my comp is District Leader).

 

Now a couple random things. My comp and I play cards, I and said that I win a lot more than he does, and he didn't agree, so we've started to keep score... 26 - 12, yeah, I'm winning. Second, the recent convert, Rut, started to flirt with Elder Brindis, and he hated it, he turned all red, and was laughing, so then everyone pitched in and he was dying, it was pretty funny. I don't remember if I ever said that we normally just use spoons to eat, whether it's soup or meat, we use spoons. And I've only gained 10 lbs in the mission, just fyi.

 

Congrats to Kassandra and Briona! How did Carter do in the state tournament?

 

Love you all!

Elder Black

                                                                                                                          2013-2014          

Hard Times, Staying Strong

Manzana de agua.  Anyone recognize the fruit?

6 Month tie

6 month tie in flames!

6 month tie burned to a crisp!!!

Hey, I'm just going to answer the questions. First of all, an AP was with us that one day just to see how he could help us, and get to know the área. Yes, I'm still writing in my journal, but I'm a few days back... but I've already bought a new one cause I'm about to finish my first. It feels like I've been gone longer than 6 months. I am so tired everyday so everyday feels longer and longer, but I gotta keep going, so hopefully it will get a little bit easier for me. My mission is not what I thought it would be. First of all, I thought I was going to the jungle... I'm not in the jungle. Second, I thought they you change areas all the time... I haven't been changed yet. Third, I thought the people would be dirt poor.... they're not. Fourth, I thought people would accept us... almost everyone rejects us. And Fifth, I had no idea that I would be walking so much... And there are many more reasons, but I'm going to stop there. And am I happy? Depends on the day, the truth is that I've been pretty down lately. I just keep hoping that my Heavenly Father will help me out cause I just about feel at my limit. But the work must go on.

This week was pretty boring for us too, so this is going to be really short. Pretty much all throughout the week we had appointments fall through, we contacted but nobody wanted to listen, we tried to do divisions, but those fell through. We just had a pretty rough week. Until Saturday at least. On Saturday we decided to work really hard, and we contacted and I didn't leave unless we shared a message. So all in all we had 17 lessons on Saturday. Hopefully we will be able to return to some of those houses and actually have investigators. Due to all of our work on Saturday, the church attendance went up a little bit, but we're still missing a lot to be able to be a ward here.

Other than that, it's been raining quite a bit, but not too much. I got completely soaked one day, but luckily I didn't get sick. It's been pretty hot these last couple days, so I'm good and tired all the time. Anyways, love you all!

-- Elder Black

                                                                                                                        2013-2014          

6 Months!

I'm already a fourth of the way done with my mission! Crazy right?! First of all, tell Ryan congrats, that is sweet! (and I don't know if you guys have heard about that mission, but I've heard that you can't preach unless invited, in other words, no contacting...) And now to answer questions: Oh wait, no one has questions for me... but it sounds like all is good there, so just keep it up.

 

So this last week... it was pretty average. We have problems getting new investigators that will actually progress. We are finding people, but they usually decide that they don't want anymore after just one or two visits. Also, one of our investigators called us and told us that she didn't want to have us anymore... and she was the one that seemed to be the best. We decided to go back anyway. She already decided that we could come back, but that she's not going to change. But we have some hope for her =) Also, we recieved a reference from a kid member. He is 11. And he listens well to everything we say, the only problem is that his mom already said that he can't be baptized... But, thanks to magic tricks, we are continuing to get return appointments with that family =) So thanks Bro. Scott for some tricks, and also thanks Dad for those magic sticks. Also, just an fyi, I've learned some magic tricks out here too =) That's actually really helping us to get some return appointments. Other than that, we've been working a lot with some recent converts to return back to church, but it's pretty tough due to little things that my converts aren't coming. So I've been a little down cause they're all my converts that aren't coming to church, but Elder Brindis is convinced that we're going to get them all back to church, so we'll just keep working hard. Also, this week we had one of the AP's come and work with us for a day... and just so you know, that never happens, it was pretty weird, but cool. But we were pretty excited, cause whenever a leader comes to work with you, they always bring good luck. So we were working with Elder Johansen and walking towards the house to drop off his stuff. And we were passing a members house and we stopped to say hi. Well, she was talking with her mom, and had previously mentioned that her mom is against us. Elder Johansen really wanted to teach her so he asked if we could pass by later... "No." "Really? Cause we're going to pass by later!" "No." He tried and tried, but nothing. So as we were leaving he said, "Ok, but we're going to pass by your house later!" The thing is, we didn't know where she lived. Later in the day we went with a youth member, Andres, to find an inactive youth. He wasn't in his house, so we decided to pass by another less active youth. Turns out, that's where the before-mentioned lady lived. "Look, we said we were going to pass by, so we're here!" We accidentally found the lady's house just like we said we would. We ended up getting 4 new investigators that day, it was pretty cool.

 

Now for a random thing this week. Mom told me to eat healthy, well... this last Wednesday, for the first time, I ate Mondongo. They were in big pieces, smelled of dog food, and chewy like gum... it was awful, I almost puked. That was the day that I had started to feel better too, so needless to say, I didn't feel so great the next day.

 

Love you all!

 

Elder Black

   Elder Hunter Black   

                                                                                                               

                                                                                                              

 Costa Rica San José  

                                                                                                               

                                                                                                                

          2013-2014          

July 1, 2013

Rut's Baptism

Baptism of Rut 

This is a cockroach!

First of all, like I said, changes were this last week... and... I'm in... NARANJO! Still! With Elder Brindis, still! I'M GOING TO BE HERE FOREVER!!! I'm going to complete my first 6 months in the mission field in my first area... But I guess it's alright. Other answers to questions. It's been pretty dry this last week, it's hardly rained, but everyone says it's going to start pouring any day now. We were able to have 2 baptisms in June, and no, right as of right now we haven't gotten the baptisms we were hoping for, but we will! (hopefully). Yes, my shoes are still working okay. And no, I don't have requests for my birthday... about the only thing I want right now is another pair of shoes, just for walking around, and I can buy those here. So yeah...

Also, congrats Carter, mom hadn't told me that you guys had taken 3rd, that's pretty sweet! And have a fun 4th of Julyeveryone... I'll be here, doing normal things, cause it's not a holiday... And I'm glad to hear, once again, that everything is going good now that I'm gone...

Anyway, now to my stuff. To start out, I was almost 100% positive that I was going to have changes, so I had started to say goodbye to people. And at the same time, we were preparing Rut for baptism. On Tuesday I went to San Ramon with one of the zone leaders. They have such a nice área... it's a Ward, not a branch, it's flat, it's cold, the members help a lot, and buy food for the missionaries... it's sweet. So we went and me and my companion for the day got to play marriage counselors for a couple in their 50's... that was interesting. And other than that we taught normal lessons. But when it came time to return to the house, I actually got cold. I had goosebumps for the first time here in the mission! And then a member that was doing visits with us bought us hamburgers, and another member bought us candy! I love San Ramon! Then in the morning we got up and made chocolate pancakes, ate candy, and ice-cream. How's that for breakfast =) Then I came back to Naranjo and went to lunch and had Shepherd's Pie. Yes, sometimes we eat gringo food. And then we made some other visits and in those we ate in 2 houses. I stuffed myself and almost puked... so naturally, I got sick the next day, and I've been sick with a cold since that time (Wednesday-today). We good news from those divisions we did, Rut passed the baptismal interview! She decided to be baptized on Saturday. So we were working for that, to get members there, to have to church clean, etc. So on Saturday, we were there, Rut was there, and her mom... and that's it... we had a baptism with 4 people... I directed the program, the hymns, I gave the 2 talks on baptism and the Holy Ghost, I was a witness... I did everything but baptize! (Elder Brindis baptized) One funny thing from that is that Rut got in the wáter and was shivering so bad that she couldn't tell us her full name to be able to do the baptism, we had to ask her mom what her name was haha. And then yesterday at church we confirmed and in the church we had an attendance of 40 people... the worst I've ever seen here. So we'll keep working to get more people to go to church. Also this week, we were able to have a lesson with an investigator named Bernardita, and she has a daughter and son-in-law who all seem golden. She has 3 titles in the evangelical church, but left cause she doesn't like all the noise that they make all the time. It's pretty cool, so seems awesome and had already started reading the Book of Mormon before the second visit. Hopefully she will be baptized in the coming weeks.

Well that's my story for this week, hope you all like it. Tune in next week for more.

Random thing: that photo in dropbox... that's just a big, ugly cockroach that was in our house.

Love you!

Elder Black

         Elder Black         

 Costa Rica San José  

          2013-2014          

Poco a Poco

This is an ant!

Handmade silk ties for $6.00, what a deal!

They call this fruit guava.

It comes in a pod in fuzzy white "pillows"...

Poco a Poco, what a wonderful phrase, basically it means... "5 years please" But, as far as us missionaries here, we are increasing the work here, poco a poco. We were down in the dumps for a while, but we're starting to come back.

Questions/Answers: Things with my comp are still good, we're doing really good actually. It's just that a lot of the time he doesn't get when people are joking... and I'm always joking. And I didn't get to finish watching the zone conference, we had an appointment so we had to go early. But I can tell you right now, during the time I'm here, my mission president won't allow Facebook... or at least I don't think he will, we'll see...

So this week we started to get some new investigators, and hopefully we'll actually be able to visit them in the future. One that we contacted on Tuesday, Bernardita, said that she loves to read and would read the whole book of Mormon before we come back... we passed by her house yesterday and showed us that she had been reading, and I think she was already in 1 Nephi 15 or so. She seems like she will be a good investigator. A different day we were contacting and came across a preacher/missionary for the Jehovah's Witness. He agreed to let us come back. Also, we have that other preacher from a Pentecostal church (where Ascencion and Juana are attending right now) who wants to talk with us... for some reason we can only get pastors/preachers... So it looks like we'll be able to have some good new investigators in the coming weeks.

And yesterday, in church, 1 of my 10 converts were in the church... Why? Gossip. Things are pretty bad with gossip, it really kills relationships... don't gossip!!! We are trying to repair things, and remind everyone of the real reason that they are in the church, but it's so hard when there are bad feelings one toward another and so basically we just have to be patient until things blow over. But it's just so hard, it would be much easier if people just wouldn't start to spread these things before it gets bad. Anyways, there was a scripture that I found in Mormon that applies well to all this, it talks about "learn from our mistakes", we can see that in the Book of Mormon that gossip, lying, etc. lead to destruction as well.

We are working hard and I'm hoping that in this next change Naranjo will have 6 or 7 baptisms, whether I'm here or not. We'll see, changes are this week. But no, I don't know right now. I'm doing good, I'm happy, life's great, I know some cool magic tricks, I feel pretty legit, all's good.

Keep being awesome, choose the right, and read the Book of Mormon!!! You will find so many answers when you read, and whoever is reading this and is preparing to serve a mission, read the book... it has every answer you need.

Love you all!

Elder Black

Finally, a Good Week!

Hey Family, Friends, and Followers!

Hey, I finally have some questions to answer. Parker, just be smart, in other words, PS4, I'm sure you can wait, it will be higher quality, you will still have 3 or 4 years with it... just wait. If you don't wait you will ask yourself, "Why the heck didn't I wait? I could've had this cool, new PlayStation.." Yes, I remembered it was Father's Day, it's way bigger here than there. Everyone was celebrating so it was a little harder for us to have lessons.  On that note, immediately after I wrote the last time, I realized I didn't say Happy Father's Day dad! And HAPPY BIRTHDAY PARKER AND VIEJA! Mom, you're like 50 now right? And about the branch president, he is the only active one in his family, so he doesn't have a ton of support there, and also, the church leaders could always use prayers right? My suggestion about writing the talk is the advice my teacher in the MTC gave me... "I could give you the answer, but I don't want to rob you of the experience of learning for yourself, you learn more when you search for yourself." So there mom, that's my suggestion. And sounds like all of you are doing good... so just keep doing that.

Ok, right now we have the goal to teach at least 30 lessons every week. So we tried to do that, but what happened is that we basically had 2 P-days. Last Monday we had a normal P-day, so we didn't teach that much, and then on Tuesday, we were told that Wednesday would be our P-day because we were going to the temple. So with that, today we don't have P-day =( But like I said, we were trying to get 30, but we only got 25, but we almost did it! Also, we were working quite a bit more with the members to get references, and we've already gotten 5 references, and we've also come upon quite a few new people. So things are starting to pick up again, and for that, I think I'm going to have changes next week, just as everything is picking up again. Anyways, also like I said, we were able to go to the temple again, and there wasn't room for us to do a session, so we did baptisms. I did everything, checked off names, confirmations, witness, baptize, be baptized... yeah, everything, it was pretty cool. And when we finished, we were told that there was room in the next session, so we hurried and changed, and went to the session. And I didn't use the translation, I went straight up in spanish. Yeah, I'm pretty legit. The only problem was when you sometimes need help to say things... the guy helping me was awful, he mumbled and had a heavy accent, it was really hard... but all is well. Also, the pastor was with Ascencion and Juana again, and we were with a young man who gave in to the pressure to argue with the pastor *face palm* and the pastor made 7 comments about things that "aren't in the bible" such as: supposedly we aren't all children of God, Jesús wasn't a prophet, priesthood doesn't exist, etc. The following morning, in one hour, I, an 18 year old, found the scriptures for all those things that the pastor said, and I can prove him wrong. Yeah, I'm pretty awesome.

Cool experience for the this week. I have mentioned that we have talked with some drunks. Well one of them is named Melquisedec, I think I've said that. Well he gave us his phone number, but when we called, someone different answered, so we figured that he had given us a false number. Well, we were teaching Milton and Blanca when the same man walked in the house! We asked, "who's he?" and Blanca said, "Oh, he's my brother!" WHAAAAATTT!!! So it turned out that somebody had stolen his phone or something, so he gave us his new number and we'll be having lessons with him soon. Pretty cool right?

Also, one random thing, I can totally impersonate an evangelical pastor... I practiced in our house, my comp said I did pretty good, I'll have to take a video.

Other than that, I learned a couple easy magic tricks with cards, so hopefully I can do the tricks right. And yeah, this week went quite a bit better, we had lessons, found people, got references, can prove a pastor wrong, yeah, just overall better. It just goes to show that Ether 12:6 is for real.

So yeah, love you all, thanks for your support, keep the faith, be good. Amen.

Love,

Elder Black