February 9, 2009
Hello,
No I haven’t been robbed this week. I did go on divisions in one of the most dangerous places in the country. It’s the Leon XIII / Garavito area, which is in our zone. That is where our zone leaders were robbed at gunpoint last week. When I was there for divisions we went deep into the most ghetto part of the area where people live in tin shacks (Nica Shacks) and we went there at night, when it was dark, but nothing happened to us. The day after I went on divisions there though, our district leaders were assaulted. A 12 year old kid told them his mom wanted to talk to them and so they followed him and were ambushed by two guys. The first guy said ¨this is an assault¨ to Elder Depriest and then punched him in the face. He blacked out for a second but then tried to fight back and the guy backed off. The other robber pulled a knife on Elder Nunez and stole his bag. When the robber guy tried to take Depriests bag he just laughed because his bag is all ripped and dirty and not valuable. Then the Elders just walked away. Anyway I’m not worried about being robbed because the chances are minimal, but it does make a good story.
By the way during divisions we walked around the whole area all day and set up a few appointments but didn’t have much else success. We use the bus almost every day to get out to our farther away areas and then we walk the rest of the time. Since I got here our goal has been to work a lot more with the members and we’ve been visiting them a lot. Lately the members have gotten better at helping us out. Yes, we have peanut butter but it is really expensive. Lately more members have signed up to feed us but sometimes we don’t have time to eat. Eating at the China restaurant isn’t bad because the food is good and it’s pretty cheap. We also can eat when we get home at night anyway so it’s not a big deal.
We have a shower in our little house. It’s usually cold but it’s a shower. . The weather is pretty good. A lot of the time there is just a light mist of rain, and other times it is really rainy, or really sunny but the temperature is pretty comfortable most of the time. The last couple of days it has been really windy and rainy. Everyone here thinks its sooo cold including my comp Elder Bonn, so when I run around without a jacket or umbrella they think I’m crazy, but I just haven’t been that cold here yet. The other day we got super soaked though and no one would let us in there houses. I have a little more fun with the contacting we do every day in Centro and I’m getting pretty good at it, except for we don’t have much success, so I guess I’m actually not very good at it. *Ü*
We taught a lesson at a member’s house the other night with just candles because there power went out. We taught the family with just two candles for light and I threw in the light of the world symbolism in there at the last second too. We have about 6 investigators still. We hope to set fechas (dates) with 3 of them this week. Two of the investigators are a mother and daughter. Helen is the daughter (she’s about 30) and Vera is the mother (older lady). They are both ready and want to be baptized except for they have to marry there ¨husbands¨ first. We’ve contacted a lawyer that can do it cheap and they might be married this Saturday. We also are teaching Helens sister Andrea.
A nice dog followed us all day today as we walked around Coronado, which is in our zone. It was with us at the church when we played soccer and basketball (its P’day) and it followed us to a restaurant where we ate lunch. Other dogs were following us around too. This is the first time that dogs have followed us because they like us. Our whole zone gets together every p’day and we ate lunch at the same restaurant (Taco Bell). About the earthquake (before I came to Costa Rica) I hear they were eating lunch when the earthquake happened. My comp elder Bonn freaked out and got up to leave. Everyone else stayed seated and when the earthquake stopped I guess they all laughed at my comp. The earthquake wasn’t super strong in our area and there wasn’t any damage that I’ve seen. In Alajuela, north of San Jose, it was strongest and it destroyed most of the city. Other than that I don’t know much about what happened. Anyway thank you everyone for the letters. I miss you all. Sorry I can’t write you all separately but I’m already past my hour of email time. Peace.
