Chapter 21: Is it Halloween or Christmas?

Happy Halloween! We are not really celebrating Halloween this year, that and all the people are already taking out Christmas stuff here. I actually helped someone decorate their house this week. Halloween is not celebrated in Cariari from what I´ve seen.They do have pumpkins here in Costa Rica, but mostly in San Jose (I haven´t seen any here in Costa Rice). But I´ll see what I can Carve out for Halloween :)

This week was so much better with my companion. I really enjoyed the week because we had many people that we visited show up to church. Mostly less actives, but the less actives brought a non-member as well. :) Plus, we received a great reference of a family that are married and want to learn more about the gospel. The received a baptismal date following the spirit and I hope that we´ll be able to help them progress. :)

My week went by slow, which was very strange, but very enjoyable. WE actually had a great moment when we found a Less-active that I had tried to contact with Elder Coronado over 4 months back. What was funny is that we found his wife so long ago just doing a contact, but she said her husband is a member and he had actually been lost from the list of members because he moved from one part of Cariari to another. We tried visiting him again but he wasn´t there, but now we know his schedule so we´re going to visit him when he should be home. :) He´s part of an entire group of members that were youth at the same time. From what we can see is that those that went on missions came back with honor and those that didn´t got girlfriends outside of the church and started living with them, then had children and went less actives. It goes to show the power of the mission and the change that it can have in the lives of the missionaries. :)

For p-days, we´ve actually been writing here in Cariari with the entire district (they come here because the internet is better and less crowded than Guapiles). We normally plan Soccer games after the internet and eat pizza as a district sometimes.

We´ve been cooking for ourselves this week for the most part. We had Spaghetti, fried chicken, tacos from fried pork, fried chicken, salads, and tacos from fried chicken (we bought a bit to much chicken so we had to cook it all this week, but I didn´t get sick. :P  ) One day we ate in a soda (a restaurant similar to a fast food joint, but with more options) and while eating we talked with our cook and after we finished and were waiting to process the food I was thinking "how great would it be to eat some ice cream, I think I´ll come back here in an hour to buy some" when the lady that served us came out with two bowls with Ice cream. It goes to show that if you have a good relationship with the cook you can have more perks. ;)

With Grateful month (November coming), my mom asked me some things I am grateful for: The first thing that I am thankful for in my life is the Holy Ghost and how it helps me in my life. Also the Atonement of Christ. But other not-so-spiritual things would be the blender that we bought this week. We´ve been making fruit drinks and smoothies every day this week and they are delicious. :)

Have a great week!

Elder VanderMeyden