2 May 2011

Nice Tri-colored Heron in this beach picture.

This week has been really rainy. These next four months are supposed to pour. I have been really going through umbrellas here. They are not the best quality, so they break a lot. I also have a bad habit of leaving them places since I am not used to carrying one.

We had our zone conference on Thursday with Arrejan and Chitre. I had fun talking with my trainer Elder Voss and saw Elder Monterosa who was in the MTC with me. It is always interesting to see the statistical reports in the mission and in each zone. Our zone had one of the highest baptism date statistics. President Ward showed some of the pictures of the toes of the Elder that had a ping pong table fall on him inbetween sessions. They looked pretty messed up, and I was not surprised amputation was opted.

I have already said this, but I will say it again that the bishop here is amazing. He has planned a rescue program to visit the goal of 100 families that have left the church during the week of May 8 to 14. He has everything organized really well and has mobilized practically every able-bodied person in the ward. We are excited to participate in the plan and anticipate a lot of success in bringing people back to church. With families that have been away from church for longer periods of time, there are often children that have reached baptism, priesthood ordination, seminary, and institute age.

In the missionary preparation class we participate in, we received pupils that we are going to mentor. We are going to help prepare them in any way we can and some are even going to come study with us in the mornings.

We were teaching a lady that lives on the far outreaches of our area a couple days ago. My companion told me that she went to conference, so we were really eager to find her, but did not have any luck until recently. She is one of those awesome people that are completely prepared to hear and accept the gospel. After the lesson, she asked a blessing on "our current prophet". We were blown away. We have only taught her once. So, of course, we are really excited about working more with her. It is so fun to find people like her. Have a good week.