Monday, July 12, 2010

World Cup Mania!

Dear Family
Hey I hope you all had a very good week, I did. Nick, it sounds like you are earning lots of money from Baileys. Spencer, I hope you have a ton of fun on Jamboree. One piece of advice, don't spend your money on food--spend it on souvenirs and other cool stuff. Julia, I have probably watched more soccer this month than I have my entire life. Here in Costa Rica and the rest of the world, everyone is obsessed with soccer and so for the past month, it's been soccer or as they call it here, footbal (but we all know that real football is a ton better--ha ha). So while we ate lunch yesterday, we watched the World Cup final and Spain won. I was hoping that Netherland would win and actually my favorite teams were Argentina and Germany. So now I am at least a fan of watching soccer. Landon, keep having fun with your summer vacation because its almost half way over. Mom and Dad, I have some questions that I want to ask you about your missions.
  • How long did it take you before you could speak and understand the language?
  • Did you ever train?
  • Were all you companions japanese and how many comps did you have?
  • How many areas did you have?
  • Dad, were you ever a district leader of zone leader?
  • What did you do on P-days?
These are just some things that Ive been wondering about now that I know how a mission works. Also, that's cool that you got to speak with my branch president, President Sanchez.. He is super cool and thanks for the stuff that you are sending.
This week has been really good. We have had to start knocking a lot of doors again because we didn't have a whole lot of investigators. We have started teaching one new family and they are super cool. When we first contacted them, we asked them if they had any questions or any doubts in the past and they did. They told us that for a long time they have been searching for the answer to the question, "What happens after this life?", and that they had not yetfound an answer that sounds right. So we had a super awesome lesson about the Plan of Salvation with scriptures from the Bible and Book of Mormon. It was a super good lesson and they are a way awesome family. Vamos a ver que pasa con ellos esta semana. Haha have fun translating that. Also we are working with a less active family that has a nine year old daughter and the dad wants to baptize her. Also the dad of this family, Sergio, helped move equipment and stuff for Aerosmith when they came to Costa Rica this year. He was able to watch the concert from backstage and got some guitar picks that they used during the concert. Sergio had about 5 picks and he gave me one because I said that I like Aerosmith (not right now though, I love the Mormon Tabernacle) and like playing the guitar. So yeah, that was pretty cool.
So time is flying by so fast, I can't believe in a week I will be completing 8 months in the mission. In one month it will have been a year since I got my wisdom teeth out, nick broke his leg and I recieved my mission call. Honestly, it feels like all that stuff happened a couple months ago. I've got to keep working hard because this won't last forever. So I hope you all have an amazing week and Spencer--stay safe on the Jamboree--it will be a ton of fun!!!!  Love Elder Smith