Mom note: James sent us an
audio recording of his last week. It was highly adventurous, so I
transcribed it and put it on here for you to read. The actual recording
will be on his blog with lots of pictures he sent:
eldervandermeyden.blogspot.com. He really struggles with his english and muc of it is spanglish (spanish english). It's quite funny. So go check it out!
Audio:
This
week was a little
crazy. Started out Monday of last week. We were planning on going to San
Jose so
we could get to the (mission) conference on time. The last bus from our
area leaves at
5:30, so we had our day planned out just right. So about 10:30am we get a
call
from the zone leaders telling us to sleep in Guapiles and travel to San
Jose in
the morning because the mission home was a little full. (we were
planning on sleeping in the mission home originally) All the
missionaries
from Guanacaste Zone, Puntarenas Zone, and Zona Sur were staying there
because none of them can make it there
in the morning, but from Guapiles, you can. So the day went okay, we had
lunch, I taught some people how to play scrabble. We didn’t have the
instructions, so I made
some of it up, but it turned out well and made sense and we had fun.
Then we
went to do internet which was awesome. I want to say thank you all for
the
support you all give me for writing me so often. We were an hour into
internet
and got a phone call from the zone leaders saying we had to go to San
Jose that
day. At that point it was already 5:30 and we had to run to the bus stop
where
the bus left us, so there was no bus from Cariari to San Jose that
night.
Moreover, we had no bag to sleep over and no suit coat jackets, so we
ran to the house to
get that, because there was a bus leaving from Guapiles, but at that
point it
was 5:45 and the last bus leaves at 6pm supposedly, but it’s not
possible to
make it to Guapiles in 15 minutes. Even by going by taxi super fast it
takes
about 20 minutes. So we were stuck out here with no plan, and no way to
make it to San Jose. We made lots of phone
calls.. packed our stuff. and trusted in the Lord and had faith. The
branch
president had a great suggestion that we
sleep in Siquirres and take the first bus from Siquirres to San Jose. The thing
is we had to be in San Jose by 8am in the morning the next day so we could make
the picture of the whole mission. The first bus from Guapiles was at 5:30am.
The reason we had to leave that very same day, because the route goes through
Zirqui, but the pass is not as safe as it would seem because a bridge fell (due to flooding),
wohoooo, so now we have to take a bus through Turrialba which adds another 2.5
hrs to the route, so if we took the bus at 5:30am on Tues. then we would show
up around 11am, three hours after when we needed to be in San Jose. But the
first bus in Siquirres leaves at 4:30am, so we decided to sleep in Siquirres that
night. I got to see a few good friends, like Hermana Magaly and her family. It
wasn’t just us that did that (sleep in Siquirres), the elders from La Rita as well were stranded. So
our entire district went to Siquirres to sleep, it was pretty cool. We were dead
tired. We woke up at 2am to get to the bus stop at 3am. Just following our
leaders suggestions. The zone leaders and the assistants told us that we should probably be
there at 3 in the morning even though the bus didn’t open til 4 and the bus
didn’t leave until 5. But we did it anyway. We were really tired that day. Moreover
I couldn’t sleep in the bus, for some I reason, I don’t know what it was.
Turns out we were trying to get there by 8am. There was lots of traffic for the
last 15 minutes, and we made it there by 8:07. Good news is that the president
hadn’t showed up for the picture yet, so we luckily made it for the picture.
The conference was really cool. It wasn’t a goodby
conference for President Wilkinson, it was a hello conference for the new
presidents, even though they are not here, they are coming today in the noche.
It was President introducing them and giving last words and telling us to be
obedient to the new presidents. Don’t try to defend what he taught. I really
like when he said, if for me it’s black and for the new president it’s white,
for you it’s white.
One note from the conference, he gave us a really cool thing
teaching us about how to stay active in the church.
He said if we do these 7 things put a goal and keep to them we
will never fall away from the church. We will always feel the spirit and will
never worry about ourselves in the eyes of the Lord. Super powerful.
This week was a cool experience on Saturday. On Saturday, we were
just walking and I felt we should talk to this person and so we went and
talked to him. So we did and just like that and he let us into his house. I don’t
know why we were told to knock on his door because he wasn’t very
receptive to the spirit but he said we could come back at anytime, which is
good. We are going to go back. We left him with a proclamation to the family
to the world. The most important thing in his life is his daughter. He wants
her to grow up to be a good person and if he reads it he will get a whole bunch
of ideas that will help him.
This week we went out with our branch president. He took us
to an area far away and it has a little group of members and that is really cool. To be honest, some of
them are partial families where not all of them are members. We had an activity
Saturday. We couldn’t eat there. But I made snow cones – but the snow cones
here are different. They are called granasaldos or colpos. First you put the
shaved ice first , then the syrup then powdered milk, then more shaved ice,
then more syrup then condensed milk over it. It’s actually amazingly delicious.
I suggest each of you go home and try it. If not, when I get home I will make
sure to make a few.
I love you all,
bye
Elder VanderMeyden
