Oct 26, baptisms, changes

Well this week had a lot of great success and a lot of wasted time. Lets take time to explain. First with the good. We had two baptisms this week, the inactive/ non member/ member, and one of the young boys. Our district leader said the young boy was awesome in his interview. Like I expected. He is super smart and remembered everything. He has given up drinking coffee, although his older brother and inactive mother still drink it. So, I dont feel as bad baptising a young boy like him, because he has a testimony and knows his stuff. The other baptism is a good story. If you remember we were waiting for Salt Lake to check to see if he had a register for one of his two names, right? HE had had his interview and all, but we had to wait a little more. So, he called us and told us that he was going to be moving like two days before we were to find out if he had registers or not. So, doing what every good missionary would do, we baptised him anyways, without knowing is he had a register or not. Mostly it was a ¨just in case¨ baptism and confirmation (moslty it was our bishops idea). We had the new register ready in case the old ones didnt appear, but if they did we would have thrown away the new register. We baptised and confirmed him at 7 in the morning on tuesday, two hours before he left to work for 6 months. We found out that yes, our prompting to baptize him was correct and they didnt have any register. So, there we go. As for the other investigators, we have a few dates for matrimonios and baptisms, one of the couples is suiper strong and the other is hesitant. Also we are going to put more dates for a marriage and baptism this week hopefully. As for other investigators, things are slow. Its tough finding the ones who are genuinely interested in Christ. But we are moving along. Now to the good stuff. Or bad. We had changes today. I actually cried last night when Garcia was saying goodbye to some members. It was sad. He got moved from trainer to zone leader and I got my new companion. I am basically an unofficial trainer. Usually a missionary gets a missionary older than him to help him out and all, but no. My companion now has only a month and a half in Costa Rica and doesnt know a lick of spanish. I have no idea what the AP´s and president were thinking. HIs first trainer failed miserably in teaching him so basically im his trainer. Im freaking out. But, revelation is real and I have something to learn from this and I need to help him a lot. Its just crazy that wIth my second companion, Im senior companion and pretty much a trainer. I will be teaching alone, contacting alone, handling planning, ward business, and everything. Yikes. He is super awesome and actually, he is the Elder that the president had me call to help him with Spanish. So yup. Thanks president. Haha. Nuts. Crazy. Anyway. Thats whats on my mind. Till next week.
Elder Smith
Pray for me.

Subject: 19 de Octubre 2009

Hey there. What a week. First with the important stuff. We had to postpone the baptism of the inactive nonmember member because we are checking his registers in Salt Lake. Apparently he is under witness protection from Guatemala. Like I said his family got killed and he had to leave the country. So, the changed his names and he got baptized under a different name so we are checking the two names right now. It takes like a week they said. So, we’ll see what happens. Either way it’ll all be good cause he’ll get his register found or a new baptism either way. As for our other investigators they are doing great. We have the two brothers’ baptism this week, they are doing great. One of them is really excited and the other one is way shy. So we are working with them. The two couples are doing alright. They are still golden; we just have to wait for one of the couples papers and passport and divorce. It’s possible that we will have their marriage and baptisms this week, but more likely on Halloween or after. The other couple said that they want to get married the 20th of November on his birthday, so we are trying to push them to do it now, but being careful with them. We picked up 3 more really great investigators. They are an unmarried couple and the sister of the man. They are like 35, 50, and 45 years old I would guess. They have been progressing really really well and the two women have described to us that they have gotten their answers about Joseph Smith. We gave them Books of Mormon the other day and they are good. I think we might put a date for them soon. They are a pretty funny story too, but ya had to be there. The man is very evangelical so the first time we went Elder Garcia said the opening prayer for the lesson and like 3 seconds after he started to pray, this guy started to say his own prayer too. He did it correctly though, it was just weird to have two prayers at once. Then at the end of the lesson I explained -in depth- what is prayer and how it´s done. All was great and they said they wanted me to pray. So, I started to pray and then he started to pray too. So i stopped and let him do it. The sister and I opened our eyes and looked at each other and she sorta laughed too. They are really nice though and he has learned since then. They understand everything really well and this last visit we had they gave us one of their old irons, sweet huh? I often think to myself that our investigators are cooler than our members. They give us food more and they give us free things. But that’s about it for the progressing investigators. We are still waiting on permission for two others, and are trying to work with the members more. Our contacting has really sucked lately, but it’s only because we don’t have much time for efficient contacts. We are super rushed in between appointments and that means the contacts arent very great. And also my companion isnt very interested in getting new investigators because he’ll be leaving this week. Our changes are like the 26th. This Monday. Wow I didn’t realize it was so soon. The mission feels like it’s flying by. Every time I check the date it feels like Im living in the future or skipped a week. I hope my new companion isnt a butt. Anywho, my companion and I had a good experience with the Word of Wisdom this week. We both drank a big glass of iced tea. But we didn’t know it until after. A member gave it to us.. can ya believe it? So we’ll be needing to give them a good head chopping. Also, this week we had stake conference with a seventy. We had 4 investigators and 4 recent converts and an inactive with us. It was incredible. He talked about the importance of Family night, family prayer, and family scripture study. He related it to 1 Nephi chapter 5 verses 9,10,11, and 21 and 1 Nephi chapter 1 verse 1 till 4. *Everyone who is part of a family should study those scriptures and look for 1) what did the family of Lehi do to strengthen their family and 2) What blessings did Nephi receive from doing those things. I’ll talk more about it the coming week to explain what this Seventy explained. It was really cool.
As for me personally I’m doing really well. I love what Im doing, I love my dumpy area, I love our members, and I love our investigators. Im healthy, don’t have many problems with Spanish, and am working hard. I don’t know what more to say. I am not an illegal immigrant anymore, got my residency, and Im learning a ton. Mostly from the bad examples of others but it’s still learning eh?. Hope all is well.> > Elder Smith

Subject: hey oct 12

Well this week has a whole lot more appearance of success. It was a good week and we have been doing basically the same things, but we have gotten a lot more who are ready and a lot of good news for the progress of our investigators. The 2 couples that are golden are going strong. They both have doubts about marriage but have lived together for 1 & 6 years, so all the difference is a piece of paper and rings. They came to our ward this week which is a lot bigger than the one they were going to so it was different for them, but it´ll all be fine. Our bishop talked with the two that are more doubtful and he has practically the same history as them and a super strong testimony of how living the true gospel will improve your marriage exponentially. We also watched Together Forever with them last night, and they are looking good for their dates of the 24th of this month to get married and baptised. We are waiting on divorce papers for one of the couples and doubts for the other. Also, the two brothers of the inactive mom that I talked about a while back came to church. They were going to come the week before last but couldnt so we picked htem up 1.5 hours early to make sure they could come. They live in a shack in a field and the mom doesnt have a job so they literally live off the fruits and sugar cane that is in this field. One of them is super stoked about his baptism, but the other one is super timid aobut this stuff and doesnt want people htere watching him get baptised. But they love the bible and have been reading the BoM so we´re going to get them baptised the 24th as well. We had 11 investigators in church and 2 newbies that a member brought so this week was great. OUr other baptism for this month (the 7th) is a man that has 40 years, his family was killed by a gang or something like that in Guatemala so he is here living with a member family. He thought he was baptised, but he had been inactive for like 20 years so we had been trying the ´reactivate´him. But turns out he didnt get confirmed or baptised or something happened and he has no records. So we had been teaching an ínactive´that really wasnt a member. So he watns to get baptised this week, and we taught him L2 and L3 this week. He is super smart, knows Japanese Portuguese espanol and english but all of his titles and records from university burned in his house in a fire so now in Costa Rica he doenst have any title and had been looking for work and barely found a nighttime security guard position. He is really positive for how badly his life has sucked. Kinda like a weird Job. Its not a werid weird, its a smart weird. But weve got his baptism this week. So that is 7 these nexts two weeks that we are working on. We have two others taht are waiting only on the permission of their mothers, and about 10 more that are promising for November or December. Its sad that my companion will be leaving me this month though. We dont know for sure but this is his 6th month here.> As for everything, Im doing well. I think Ive hit my plateu of weight. Havent lost or gained anything in a while.> The lightning and thunder here are so much cooler than in utah. The thunder is like 3 times louder and the lighting lights up half the sky. And it happens more often. There was a black red and yellow snake outside our door in the bamboo this week too, I got a picture of it that I can send home. Everything's good. Hope all is well.
Harrison

Recent Pics Of Harrison's Mission

10-05-09. Subject: Conference Week

Not a whole lot this week. Conference was awesome! We had 6 investigators come including the 4 that are golden and practically members already. But man, what a good conference. I watched all of it in Spanish too. And an African spoke, how cool. I wondered if that was the first time in Church history? Anyway, our investigators are chugging along well. With the 4 we just have to get one divorce and 2 marriages. So we are working with them to get that all worked out. The mom of the girl still hasnt signed the papers, but we are having the missionaries where her mom lives go to talk to her and teach and answer questions. We think shell get baptized this month. We also are going ot start teaching the niece of the recent converts that is practically a member. She comes a ton but we just have to find a time and place to teach. The other one thats progressing is still slow. We can only meet with him about 1 time a week, so its tough. My companion is still awesome, but its almost 100 percent sure he´ll be leaving. I hope I dont get a weenie. I think I forgot to tell you that about two weeks ago we got a new music rule that we should only listen to music with the logo of the church on it. So, I erased everything. Everything but MoTab, BYU choirs, el Libro de Mormon en voz alta, and some spanish hymns from the church website. No more Jon Schmidt or anything. Hmm what more. I got a package from Chelsea, it was awesome. I finished eating the Charleston Chews that day, and the chocolate was gone quickly thereafter. Thanks cuzzin! That´s about it. Sorry it´s shorter than usual. Love ya.
HARRISON