Tuesday, February 17, 2015

HOLY COW 6 months in the mission!

HOLY COW! how do I have 6 months! my mission is going by way to fast!
Wow... haha the land of desolation is good... The map is super cool of the land of desolation from the B of M!  haha I can believe it, that Costa Rica is part of it. Its a beautiful land!

Pital is well... it could be better when it comes to a lot of things. This week, we had an attendance of 18..... 18 people! Super low. We did have two investigators in church, but that is also on the lower side. Here in Pital, at one point we were able to have 12 investigators in the church. But, the attendance was a little bit lower, because it was raining pretty hard and the people have to walk to church. We are going to work hard to raise the attendance.  :o)
 Right now we don't have a set group leader, so  my companion and I are basically the leaders here. That is a good learning experience, but man there are so many things that we have to do here. Sometimes it just feels like we are running and getting nowhere.... One thing I know is for sure, we need to change some things here in Pital---so that it can start to progress some more. Anyways, my companion and I started a new thing where when we plan at night.   We always count up the key indicators. Well, we have added our own key indicator--- Miracles! We always set a goal of miracles that we want to see the following day, and since the time we have started, we have done just that. We have always surpassed the goal. Every day we have had many miracles!   Sometimes we don't even realize them  until we are planning at the end of the day and then we see more of the miracles!
Picture of volcano here in Pital.


One thing I have learned is that usually we find the people in times just before something incredibly bad happens and without the gospel they would be destroyed.  For some of the people, the message saves them and for others not-- because they refuse to accept it. But one thing is sure, God knows when we are going to have our trials and  He is always preparing us for them. It’s our choice to accept the preparation or not.

Right now we are still working with investigators to help them get married. Some problems we have run into is that a lot of people are from Nicaragua, and some of them are illegal.... soooo first we have to get them legal.... then married...... then baptized! haha.
This week we found 2 families and they are both married----- already! That is truly a miracle!  I can count on one hand the families that we have found that are already married here in Pital. We are super excited to work with them. They both already have baptismal dates and sound excited to learn more.

I have been getting along well with my companion. This week we did some house hunting. We are searching for a new house to have for the church services. Cooking is good we found a blender outside the house in the shed infested with cockroaches, and we cleaned it up,  and repaired it and now we have a blender!  Whoot whoot! haha so that’s cool.  Actually, yesterday we made papaya shakes. They were soo good!  I haven't had a chance to find the ingredients yet for the recipes that I have,
  Anyways I love you all tons and hope you all had a great valentines day!


Su Amigo Elder Caleb M. Adams
Delicious! 

                                               CTR ring in Spanish--thanks Mom  :o)

These are the roads my companion and I travel daily in Pital.  It ti quiet, peaceful and beautiful!





Animal life here in Pital

This is how we hang our socks to dry here :o)
This is our "church cat".  She crawls through the bars of the windows at night and curls up to sleep, so she can be out of the rain, then meows for food in the am when we awake--reminds me of home and our cats there.  :o)


Oh so happy to serve . . . Feb 9, 2015

Anyways I forgot to mention last week but our president has been having issues for the past while with health and then the 1st pres told him he needed to have a surgery to continue as pres. so he has been in Utah for the past 2 weeks recovering and getting well. so we have been a functioning mission without our president for a while which is pretty cool, but we did have one of the 70 come to help the mission while in his absence. He should return soon but keep him in your prayers. 
So today in zone conference we got some news from the 1st pres for our area. which is kind of shocking.... first off they said the lord is hastening his work. and then they gave us the new assignment to visit all old investigators and ask them about the Book of Mormon and if they are reading it or don't have the desire to act we have been asked to take the Book of Mormon and go give it to someone who is preparing to receive the gospel. They don't want unused Book of Mormons getting dusty for no reason when there are people who need to hear the message. so I hope all of you are using the gift of the Book of Mormon as well. It is also to help[ people realize that without the Book of Mormon they will be missing some peace in there lives. Anyways it was a bit of news to me. 

This week was good though. We are working to try and get some marriages done. Talking to lawyers and things. A lot of people here in Pital are from Nicaragua, so we have to work with them to make sure they are legal in the country first and then we have to get them married, and then.... finally they can be baptized. 

I have been getting along well with Elder Acuna. We are pretty good friends. When he found out that we didn't have cake or do anything for my birthday he was a little shocked and said that the 16th of Feb we are going to buy a cake and celebrate a little haha so that's awesome. He has already made my bed a few times, shined my shoes, made breakfast, and I have been trying to do the same and that has been helping us to stay good friends. I just hope that we can start to find more of the chosen people because we are finding at least 15 new investigators every week but they are progressing very well. Some of them say yes, but some of them have so many challenges. I am hopeful though that they can change with the Lord's help.

Well I love you all!  Pital is good and thanks for all the prayers! 
Oh yeah we changed cocineras because every day we had to walk 30 mins to eat and we decided it was better to just buy our own food and eat in the house....... sooooo if you have any super super super simple recipes and things that might be good that you didn't send me before I will gladly accept them. 

I love you all tons!
Elder Caleb M Adams

 
Picture of the Last Supper that hangs in one of the churches here.


Sunday, February 1, 2015

Waterfalls!


        So this week went well, We had kind of a busy week working hard with one of our investigators to prepare him for his baptism. One cool experience is we were doing divisions and I was with the District leader to go and do the interview with him for one of our investigators baptisms. and we were doing some LPE's and then the simple LPE turned into a lesson in the street and the lesson turned into setting a baptismal date with them. I don't know if anything big will come from it but we followed the spirit and set the dates.

So we were able to find some new investigators this week. which is good. We still need to work with the members more. But we are struggling because as of right now there are not that many members to work with in Pital. But we were able to find 13 new investigators not quite the goal of 15.
      We also had the baptism of an investigator, It went well my companion got to perform the baptism. We had to work pretty hard with the investigator to make sure that he would be ready for the big day but it all turned out in the end. Then we got a call from two Americans, and they asked for me and I talked with them in English and had to give them directions to the Pital church house. it was interesting at first because we didn't know who they were, but then on Sunday they called and were able to come to the church and they were super nice and they had live in Costa Rica for about 6 months about a year and a half ago. and were just passing through for about 3 weeks. ---- So on Sunday we were supposed to have the confirmation of our investigator. and we found out that he has to move to a different area and will be attending church with some other missionaries in San Jose after this Sunday so it was a must that he came for the confirmation and we called and he said he was coming and everything and then we were sitting and waiting for him in the meeting and he still wasn't there so we called him and he said that he missed the bus and  he lives about 15 mins outside of Pital. so he wouldn't be able to get there until about the end of sacrament meeting. but then my companion had an idea to ask the Americans if we could use there car and he said yes and he drove us and we got the investigator and brought him to church and under the direction of the bishop we were able to confirm him in the end of the meeting and I was able to preform the ordinance. it was a pretty cool miracle.
    My companion and I  found a shortcut this week and it involved crossing a small river. My comp took a video  of me crossing I will have to send it some time.

This is me crossing the river----whoah it was slippery!

It was super cool and big.

It was an  an awesome experience! Here is Elder Cordoba, the hermanas and me

We had a group p day yesterday! It was fun. We went as a district on a hike in the mountains and deep in the jungle and found a waterfall that one investigator  lead us to.
My rocking district!

 The waterfall was so very beautiful!!  It was    like a picture out of a movie only better!


Here I am in in the elements of Costa Rica.


 The scenery here is breath taking!

 I had the opportunity to be like Tarzan for a little bit.... haha there were some vines hanging and so we practiced swinging on them. It was a pretty fun experience.

Thoughts to consider:
Mark 2:1-5, this group of scriptures has soooo many principles that can be learned. here are some of the things I  learned this week:

--We need to find the best way to people to Christ, as a team.
--We need to go '"above" the normal in order to get our investigators to him

--If someone is not doing their part or not "lowering the rope" equally with the others the investigator is at risk to fall.
--Are we strong enough to "stand" for whats right when others are crippled by disobedience and bring them unto Christ.
--Christ was preaching and someone was brought to him. he stopped in the middle of preaching and instead of assigning an apostle he healed the man.

-Su hijo, hermano, y amigo. -Elder Adams