Saturday, June 25, 2016

June 25, 2016

Well hello there everyone! This week was pretty great!

We have been teaching this family from Nicaragua named Bismark and Tatiana. They are a golden family that just understand everything we teach them! They have a baptism and Wedding date for the 17th of July! Right before our birthday! WE also found a family named Jeuel and Scarlett in the mountain of Escazu! They were being taught by Elder Kepo´o and Elde Acuña a year ago. Actually, when I was in Santa Ana, I visited them on divisions but they never got baptized! 

Well, President called my Companion and I into his office yesterday and said, "Elders, I have received revelation from the Lord. You have been in this area for too long. You will now be switching with the other Secretaries to San José Central to work still as secretaries but in a different area!" Its the HUGE city in the Center of Costa Rica! BABYLON here I come! Ha,ha 

This week was normal! Ha,ha. But with lots of twists and turns! I am getting ready to take Elder Bullecer to the Airport in 2 weeks! This will be my new area. It goes ALL the way through the center! It´s huge! 
Inline image 1

Well, I will be in this area for only 3 more months! Then I will be coming home. I love you all! Have a great Week!!!!


My new Costa Rica Jersey;)


Snake



Art Show at the church

My favorite!!


Saturday, June 18, 2016

June 18, 2016


Elder Frederiksen and I before our video conference with Guatemala!

This is my new hat

June 11, 2016

Hello Everyone! I hope that you all had a great week. Lately it has been RAINING like CRAZY here in Escazu. Lots of water and lots of wet shoes and pants! Fun right?
This week some unexpected things happened. While we were having our Multi-Zone meeting with President, the lawyers call me and say "Hi Elder Black, We need 6 papers from you as soon as possible. We know it´s unexpected, but Migration is asking for them right now!" So I had to talk to President and tell him what was going on. 
I had to call in 4 Missionaries from their areas and made them come to Escazu as fast as possible to go the El Salvador and Guatemala Embassies. I had to get paperwork done, forms signed, and pictures taken to take to the embassy. It was crazy. The lawyers didn´t think I would have had it done until this week, but I went a step ahead of them and got it done in 2 days! Now on Wednesday, All I have to do is go to the Mexican embassy because it takes more time!

If you remember who Miguel Aguilar is, he was the Branch President in Santa Ana when I was there a year ago this month! He is President Laboriel´s Best friend from Honduras. He came to ANOTHER multi-zone conference that we had this week and talked to us about his book, Quetzalcóatl, el Mesias Judio. It is a book that I bought from him a year ago that HE wrote about the Mayan people and the visitation of Jesus Christ in Central America. He showed us pictures of the temples in Honduras and Guatemala, and Mexico. There are tons of things that we learned! We even saw some things that the Lamanites practiced thousands of years ago that have to do with the Temple!!! Crazy! I will have to show you some of the things that I learned later.
Nothing really huge happened this week! ha, ha it was an unsuccessful week that´s for sure. We didn´t find anybody that was ready to hear the gospel this week...keep praying for us! 

I love you all, if you need anything just let me know!!

I made Dr. Pepper Marinated Steaks!


SELFIES! And new haircut!







Monday, June 6, 2016

June 4, 2016

Buenas tardes mi querida familia,

If I were to describe this week in only one word, that word would be TIRED!!!!!!!! I can´t explain all that went on this week. This was the most crazy changes week that I have ever had on my whole mission. Let me tell you why!

Monday: We had a meeting with President Laboriel talking about the results in the mission. We worked so hard as a mission this month! We ran, fasted, prayed, suffered, worked, sweat, burned and over all just sacrificed for the month of May. In the last couple of months, we have gotten around 40-60 baptisms monthly. Now, with all of the hard work that the mission did in May, we achieved 116 BAPTISMS!!!! The most that this mission has ever had since the split! We went from 66 baptisms to 116 in a month of hard work. We are very very proud of the work, but not satisfied because we know that it´s not enough. We have the potential to have more! Elder Bullecer is now training elder Frederiksen to be the new secretary. He is from Idaho and will be my comp in July!

Tuesday: The new missionaries came. At 8:00 am, 3 Latin missionaries came. and Also the old missionaries came to the office for their last interviews with president. I got all of the paperwork done for the news, and then we had to run and get lunch for them. Then, I had to go to the Honduras, Colombia, and El Salvador embassies here in the country. I had to take each of them to the embassy to fill out MORE paperwork. Very stressful but I took care of it. Then I had to take them also to get their fingerprints taken. We got back around 6:00 pm and then went and had 1 lesson with our recent converts. At 8:00 we had to go BACK to the office to wait for the new North American sister. Then I had to do migration stuff with her. It was a crazy day.

Wednesday: Well, I thought that I would have been going to the temple that morning, but the APs called us Tuesday night and said "hey you guys aren´t going tomorrow." so we couldn´t go. I didn't ask why, I didn't argue, but I wasn´t happy either. After everyone got back from the temple, they assigned the trainers and I had to bring the other missionaries to their embassies. After we got out of the office, we got a call from the APs saying that there was an Elder that had been in the airport since 8:00 am and it was 7:30 pm. So I made some phone calls to see what the heck he was doing, and it turns out that he was an elder from the Panama mission that got deported because the Migration secretary in panama didn´t do his job correctly. So that was fun. After that, I had to go to San Jose to try to sleep in the other secretaries house so I could go to the airport in the morning with the old missionaries. I also got an email from President telling me to by a plane ticket for a missionary that would be going home that morning! So I had to wait for the plane ticket to arrive!

Thursday: I woke up at 2:00 am to go to the airport. I had to take all 13 Missionaries to the desk to get their bags checked and weighed. Then we left them to go through security. It was a little hard seeing Elder Dale leave. He was there for me in my first area. He helped me a lot, now he is back in Utah. He had 4 months when he trained me, so now I only have 4 months. I was so dead after dropping them off. We went and ate breakfast, and then went back to the office in hopes of sleeping, but I had more work to do. I had to go to the Argentina Embassy and do paperwork. Then when we got back,, we had to set up everything for the Leadership counsel. Tables, chairs, flowers, food, tablecloths and a whole bunch of stuff. After, Elder Contreras and I had to drive the APs back to Heredia at 8:00 pm. (No, I didn´t drive don't worry). I didn't get to sleep the whole day. And then on Friday, I had to wake up at 5 do go to the Leadership meeting!

As you can see, this week was crazy!!!!!! I am still very tired, but it was all a very big sacrifice. Thank you for all that you all do! I love you all so much! Keep praying for my investigators! I love you!!!!

Leadership Counsel


Pink ties


"DEADS"