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| For the Beauty of the Earth! |
Dear Family,
Ok so this week was freaking crazy and it was also really awesome. So Monday we had a really awesome party to celebrate the 4th of July. We bought 4 kilos of meat and made hambugers and I just have to say that they were the best hamburgers that I have had in the last 19 months and 3 weeks. We also watched the RM which is a really funny movie and I like it a lot because I am going to be an RM in like 4 months.
So Tuesday is were the adventure began, because in District Meeting Elder Sirrine, Rosales and I had the impression that we needed to go to Puerto Jimenez and look for Luis again. Luis is an investigator they have, but he had to go to Puerto Jimenez for work and we felt we needed to find him and get him married and baptized. So once again with nothing but my scriptures and the clothes on my back, Elder Sirrine and I took went on divisions for 3 days. So Tuesday afternoon, we took a 4 hour bus ride in order to get to Puerto Jimenez and we got there about 6 :00 at night. We spent the night in the church building there, which is actually just a house, but luckily they have beds. We had to wake up super early in order to be at the truck stop at 5:30. The only way to get to the place where Luis works is in this truck or with someone else who has a car. Well Luis didn't show up at the truck stop and we didnt know if we should go to Carate anyway, because he could have gone there with a friend or work companion. Also we had knew that he could also probably be in the house of his mom. We both felt that we needed to go to the house of his mom in order to find him. Well the only address that we had was that his mom lived in Ciudad Negra, which is just outside of Puerto Jimenez. So when we finally got there, we just started asking everyone if they knew where Luis´ mother lived and the fist lady we asked told us that it in front of her house there was a coconut tree, which didn't help us at all because almost every house had a coconut tree in front of it. Well after asking a couple more people we found the house and when we went to knock the door we saw a guy just inside the house who looked like he was sleeping. Well it was Luis and he wasnt sleeping, but really drunk. Due to losing his job again and due to some problems with his wife and stepkids, Luis had gotten really depressed and had started to drink again. Well Elder Sirrine and I talked with him for awhile and after talking to him about making some changes in his life and after giving him a blessing, he decided that he wanted to go back home and fix things.
So after taking a nap and after getting him ready we sent him on a bus back to Ciudad Neilly. While we were getting him ready, he asked us to put his boots on and as we were putting them on he looked at us and said, Ustedes son buenos (Translates to "you are really good guys"), and that just made both of us feel really good inside. We basically had to carry him to the bus stop and while we were waiting I looked at him and could just tell that he was not happy at all. My testimony of how the gospel brings us true happines and how alcohol, drugs and other vices don't bring us any true happiness at all was strengthened. After we sent Luis on the bus, we both felt really good about what we had done, because we are sure that if we wouldn't have found Luis and sent him back home, than we would never have found him, because he was drinking heavily and his brothers weren't a very good influence on him.
The next day we had to travel to Golfito to do a couple interviews for 2 Jovenes. One of them, Angelica, asked me if I would baptize her and I said yes. The next day, Friday, we had to travel to Perez Zeleon, which was another 4 hour bus ride, for zone conference which was really awesome. President and Sister Galvez, the APs and the ZLs all gave really good capacitations and also I got the package you sent me. Thank you so much for the pictures I have looked at them like 100 times!!!!! On Saturday, we had the baptism of Angelica and Stif. I baptized Angelica and the District President Castillo baptized Stif. It was a really good service, but we had to leave right after in order to catch our bus back to San Vito. So from Tuesday morning to Saturday night I was outside of my area, but had some really cool experiences. And yesterday for church only 3 people showed up--my companion, me, and a guy from Guam who is doing some work here in the Botanical Gardens. So we just had the sacrament and then we left. Due to vacations everyone is either at the beach or in San Jose so that is why no one came to church. So this week I calculated that I spent about 24 hours riding in buses and that is why I pulled out so much money, because we also had to buy food. So this week we are going to to temple and I want to buy some things for members and I am really excited.
WELL I love you all and I hope you all have a really good week!!!!!!!! Love Elder Anthony Smith
