Members!

All this week, we went to members showing them a short video of a family sharing the gospel in their daily lives, and after we invited them to have a... Group Night, I guess it would be called that in English. It's a Family Home Evening but where they invite people who haven't heard the gospel, and we just help them to get to know it a little bit in a low-pressure situation. The video is magic. It was part of that missionary broadcast they did. Everyone loves it, and is so enthusiastic to have Group Nights after! Starting tonight, we have differing group nights with different families every night. I can't wait. This area's about to take off like crazy.

The other day I was served a particularly nasty drink, and tried to drink it really fast and all at once, especially the squishy chunks at the bottom. But I did it way too fast and it all came spilling out onto my face and shirt. Somehow nobody saw except my companion, when I stood up to try and clean it up a little bit. It was kind of funny. Also, I'm worried about my debit card account. The original one, not my mission one. I hope it doesn't close after a year of no activity or something. I don't know if maybe you should buy something with it or deposit money so they don't close it? If you haven't up to this point in my mission haha.

I'm still thriving on My Turn On Earth. I always belt the beginning of that song that starts with ''I have a plan!'' at random times. Good quote not related to that: ''We must put God in the forefront of everything else in our lives. When we put God first, all other things fall into their proper place or drop out of our lives.'' --Ezra Taft Benson

So crazy that Alex is leaving this week! Warren gets home tomorrow. I'll tell him to post info about his homecoming on my Facebook wall. I feel the same as you guys about hitting my year mark. In certain ways, it's flown by, and that last supper at Wendy's feels like yesterday. In other ways, as I've mentioned before, everything before the mission feels like it was just a dream. I think I'm at the peak of that feeling, and that it'll slowly start to go away as I forage through the second half of my mission. Golly, you guys will have to start planning your trip in awhile here! Maybe in my next interview, which won't be for a couple months, I'll ask President how we should go about that, if it's bad for me to stay with you guys a couple days after, etc.

Things are still going great with training! And yes I'm still District Leader too. We now have permission for cell phones but I think it'll still be a couple months before they get them into our hands. All members and investigators have phones.

An Area Seventy I think is coming in October, and I think our next trip to the temple is in September. I hope the length of this letter is a little more satisfying haha. Love you guys! Enjoy the last piece of summer. 

--Elder Hampton

I'm a Daddy!

That's right, I'm training! His name is Elder De Leon, and he's from Guatemala. Basically grew up in the church. It's been so fun so far. We get along great, and we're learning a lot from each other. This is going to be a great thing for me. Definitely inspired. It's definitely what I need at this point in my mission. We lost contact with B---- which I'm super depressed about... I always have my eyes out for him on the streets though.

That picture of you guys with Elder Baca is one of the weirdest I've ever seen. Worlds...clashing... Yeah, all of my comps have been Latino after Baca. There are occasional gringo companionships, but the majority are the mix. For example, I think it's always that way in our area because we'd get assaulted more easily if we were two gringos.

Sorry to be so short! I'll send a few pictures. Know that everything is going great and that I love training! Love you!

--Jake

Jake and Elder Lundberg with their "sons"

Jake is and his new companion in Heredia.

Turning 20 in Costa Rica Isn't So Bad.

AAAAAHHHHH! Wait. First things first. I realized that I may not have ever directly said ''Happy Birthday'' to Mom last week, and I feel terrible. I hope your birthday was amazing, Mom! Elder Morales saw a picture of you and said you look 29 years old. Second, I did get the package last week and it was so amazing and wonderful and perfect!!! I'd totally been wanting the music on those CD's, and everything was just so great. All the people in the pictures look so different than when I left! Also, I laughed out loud really hard at the Scott thing. I didn't even need the explanation to know what it was about haha.

Normally a few times a week, kids ask me to speak English. It's almost always so they can marvel at the fact that there's a gringo talking in front of them, so I usually say something like ''I can speak English all day long if you want, but it won't even matter because you can't understand a word that I'm saying.'' That's what I said this week to this teenager who wanted me to speak English, except he was like ''...but I can.'' He turned out to be totally fluent.

Lightning struck like 50 feet in front of us yesterday. I'd never seen anything like that. Also, we have this amazing investigator. She's going to be a great member someday soon. Hopefully August 17 if all goes well. She came to church yesterday and said she has a big question for us next time we visit her. 

It does feel weird to be 20 and not have teen in my number. But yeah my birthday was fantastic! Elder Morales called the whole world while I was showering in the morning and everywhere we went all day people already knew it was my birthday and gave me food and sang to me.

I'm so psyched that you guys are going to Elder Baca's homecoming! There's one Utah missionary in our district right now. Hermana Roundy from Bountiful. The work is picking up here. We had six investigators in church yesterday. We've had to walk a ton lately for lack of money, but we normally walk a lot anyway because the bus routes aren't very convenient. Gotta go. Love you guys!

Love this quote. ''Nothing is going to startle us more when we pass through the veil to the other side than to realize how well we know our Father in Heaven and how familiar is face is to us.'' Don't remember who said it.  A prophet. and it was quoted in this past conference.

--Elder Hampton

 

 

 

 

...if I'm excited for Friday? What's Friday?

P-Days are for some reason often kind of rough emotionally... for most missionaries it seems like. I was feeling like that towards the end of the last P-Day, and partly because we didn't have any good set plans that night. We'd been trying to contact these members whose names we didn't recognize, and I tried calling just one more time at the end of P-Day before going out to work, and the lady answered and was all happy and said to go over and gave us the address. Somehow it was just the think to make me feel better. I just stood up and shouted ''YES.'' for like ten full seconds. It turned out they were inactives of four years, and now we're going to start helping them come back.

There are lots of Subways here (as in the restaurant), but it's ridiculously expensive, like 10 dollars for a big sandwich. The other day they had this special offer though and I totally got a $4.80 footlong! Couldn't believe it. Day-maker.

There's this great album a lot of missionaries have called The Work. It's by a group called the Nashville Tribute Band. You guys should check it out, it's all about missionary work, and it's like country music. Also, I bet one of the songs on it called ''Bless My Son'' will make mom cry. A missionary in a house I went to this week has My Turn On Earth on his iPod, and I was all over that. But what's up with that depressing last song about places you'll never go, pages you'll never turn, and words that you never will learn? I only heard that part of the song, and it like haunted me haha. Maybe it's a more positive message within the song as a whole.

Like I told Mom, that meeting this week is cancelled. But we're actually going to the office right now so maybe my package will be there. Glad girls camp was great! I'm good on clothes and all that! I haven't told anyone about my birthday, and I'm not going to. All they'll do is smash an egg on my head. An annoying tradition they have here. I have to do the baptismal interviews for the whole district whenever they need them, so I get to do lots of exchanges and I love it. Just our companionship lives in our house though. 

The next changes are August 8, when Elder Baca goes home!!! Warren goes home just a couple weeks after. I'll find out his homecoming talk date. as well as Elder Baca's if you guys for some reason want to take a weekend trip to Vegas. Sorry, you'll never hear the end of that from the girls now. thanks so much for running to the bank mom! Love you! Love you all, and miss you! Thanks for the birthday wishes! I'm sure it'll be a good, normal day which is what I want haha. 

--Elder Hampton

Facebook, Heredia, and Wonderful Surprises.

Here's a rundown of some of our investigators. I'll start with our most recent convert: E---. First, flashback: After the baptism of H---- and J---, we were walking through the city, when a man stopped us and asked where the Cartago chapel was. His name was G---, and he was an inactive member. He'd grown up elsewhere, but had just moved in with his girlfriend in Cartago.

 

He brought her to church that week, and she loved it, and they got married to obey the law of chastity just a couple short weeks later. They have a little baby daughter. E---- was baptized this Thursday, and I hope to be able to attend their familiy's sealing in one year. I love them so much.

 

I loved the broadcast! However, missions like ours are the reason they said those new tools will be implemented ''in the coming months AND YEARS.'' Haha, we don't even have cell phones in this mission, and that's not because we get robbed. It's because we can't handle it as a mission. People abuse that stuff. Maybe if I'm super lucky I'll get to start using that stuff a tiny bit towards the end of my mission, but I very highly doubt it.

 

There are four big cities in the middle of Costa Rica: San Jose (where I basically started my mission), Cartago, Alajuela, and Heredia. I now am familiar with three of those four cities, because I had changes. I'm in Heredia. Our specific area/ward is called San Francisco, but we're practically in the center of Heredia. My new companion's name is Elder Morales, and he's from Colombia. He's only been a member for about a year and a half. I was excited because he's a hilarious, great kid.  I love the kid so much.

 

We only have one investigator in Heredia, named C----. He should be getting baptized on July 20th. We just started to teach him yesterday. I'm still district leader here, which I'm a little nervous about, but I'm already great friends with my district now and have found my place in Heredia.

 

To give you an idea of how safe I feel, Mom, the other night right after in our companionship prayer I prayed that we'd be safe throughout the night, literally as I finished saying the word ''Amen,'' a gun was fired nearby. And we didn't think much of it because it wasn't out of the ordinary. But like you say, we have the protection of the Lord. There are areas far more dangerous in this mission anyway. The worst thing that could ever happen to me would be give up what I'm carrying, which would be scriptures and maybe 10 dollars. So I actually don't feel that unsafe. We just have to be careful. 

 

''To believe in God is to know that all the rules will be fair, and that there will be wonderful surprises.'' I'm in love with that quote. I just am.

 

Love and miss you all!

 

Elder Hampton

 

 

 

 

Ah! No Time!

Sorry! The buses took forever today going to the temple, and now we're left with hardly any time for internet! I'll just give you some very quick and short highlights:

1. I tried Mondongo (cow rectum) this week unknowingly because of a setup by Elder Baca. It wasn't as bad as I was expecting, but I still hope to never have to eat it again.

2. The Light of Christ is amazing and awesome when you really study it to find out what it is and its function in our lives.

3. Being a missionary and teaching feels more natural than ever. I'm so content to be here. Not content to the point that I don't want to learn and progress, but I like where I'm at, and want to keep improving.

4. A man fainted on our bus coming from Big Fish Village yesterday and we had to stop for 40 minutes and wait for an ambulance in the middle of the mountains because everyone thought it was a heart attack.

5. What's up with this Ice Age Live business? Is it happening in the states too? Looks ridiculous.

Love you! The gospel is true and I know it. We went to the temple today and I received some great revelation. Also, a family I was close to in Vizcaya is getting sealed on Saturday. Hopefully Elder Baca and I can go! You'll hear from me again on Monday! Changes are next Thursday.

--Elder Hampton

Unconnected Thoughts...Again

Whenever I see or hear gringos in the street, I just shout the word ''English!'' Though they rarely react. I realized that probably makes me sound like someone who doesn't speak English, so I'll have to start yelling something to make them realize I'm gringo. There are lots of Ticos that look gringo but are definitely Tico and don't speak a word of English. I did meet four gringos in two hours the other day! In Big Fish Village strangely enough.

We were in an inactive member's house the other day, and there was this frail, black, grandfather in a wheelchair in the corner, and he yelled random phrases in English every few minutes. Nobody ever explained who he was or why he was there. I used to be one of those people that's like ''AH THERE'S A BIG BUG ON ME'' when there are big bugs on me, but now I just calmly grab them and toss them away because it happens so often. Roaches, mosquitos, ants, other insects I've never seen before...

People here love the Red Hot Chili Peppers and it really annoys me since I do not like that band at all really. Oh yeah, happy father's day dad! I really do hope it's awesome for you. Relax and don't worry about anything and just think about how great of a father you are, because you're amazing. Turns out we actually are going to the temple really soon! Next week! On the 19th. I'm assuming that'll also be our P-Day. Yesterday I had a genius movie idea: the guy who made that weird Romeo and Juliet, Moulin Rouge, and the Great Gatsby, makes his interpretation of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat. Sorry, short on time today. Love you guys!

--Elder Hampton

 

 

"Here are the Juice Box Shirts! Jared, you should totally put this on Facebook on the Juice Box page!"

"Some members went crazy and spent like 20 minutes brainstorming Juice Box logos haha"

 

 

 

 

It's About to Get Moldy Up In Here

Last Monday was a big step for me. Throughout the day, and especially in the night, I had another click. I've mentioned that a few times on my mission so far. Every now and then, I just make a huge chunk of progress. I had one of those on Monday, about the mission and about life. I'd kinda been wallowing in the weeks before about the National concert and other little things that were getting me down, but on Monday I had this shift where I had a desire to be a sort of martyr as a missionary. I can't even remember what sparked it, but somehow I got thinking about the sacrifices people make for their testimonies, and I realized that if so many people have remained faithful to the point of death for the gospel, I can miss a concert and not be sad about it. I know it seems like a really obvious principle, and it was something I'd always known, but had never truly internalized till this week.

There's a new exclusive Costa Rica line of Juice Box T-shirts being printed as I type this! Haha, Elder Baca put it together. He made a logo for Juice Box and let everyone in the zone know about it. Twelve people are buying shirts! Our whole zone knows what the band is and always makes the hand signal that Elder Lundberg made up. It's been great. This week has been great. I'm just missionarying it up all the time. I literally shouted a baptismal invitation down the street one night.

I've changed a lot in Cartago. A lot. In good ways. I've learned more in these four months than in my whole life. Maybe. I'm just a much more rational person. Most of the time at least. Unfortunately, the rain season also began this week. It's been rough and soaked. My Bible is all soaked and half ruined. Obviously the Book of Mormon held up just fine though. It gets kind of cold here sometimes. Also, We can deny it as much as we want, but I feel very strongly that the foot fungus is about to make a hideous, full-throttle comeback. I still have heard nothing about this earthquake so it must have been nothing haha.

 

We found lots of new people to teach this week, which was awesome since we were struggling with that. I'm guessing we'll go to the temple again around the time of my birthday. I'll be in Cartago for my birthday if I don't get changed in three weeks. I'm jealous about all these summer trips! I hope you find the 80's music, and I'm totally gonna use FrontRunner like a psycho when I get back. We have zone conference next week. They happen once a month. Anyway, guess that's it for this week. Love you guys!

 

Elder Hampton

 

Denzel's Baptism

"Chillin' in the streets with Moises."

 

The Month of May

We have been slackers this month and have not gotten up the past three emails from Jake! He is doing great and loves his current area, Cartago. Here is a short summary of the emails we've gotten from him:

Fasting rules! I sometimes forget how powerful it really is. I don't know why I don't fast for more things. I've seen time and time again how powerful and quickly we can experience blessings from fasting. I fasted this Saturday/Sunday that one of our newer investigators would be able to come to church on Sunday. We called him Saturday night with no answer. Then on Sunday morning he called us to ask if we could meet him in the central park to show him where to church was, because he was already walking on his way there! We went to the park and he was all dressed up in a suit and carrying his Book of Mormon. Great moment.

This email will basically be a bunch of short, unconnected ideas. Last week, some investigators asked me where I was from again, and when I said Utah they were like ''That's it! Oh my gosh! There was just a huge tornado there and a bunch of people are dead!'' So I thought you guys and everyone I know were all buried under wreckage and bleeding while they turned on the news and waited for the international part just so I could find out the investigators had mistaken Oklahoma for Utah.

 

Speaking of families, we had a couple get married this past week so the wife can get baptized! The husband is already a member. Kind of returning from being inactive. I'm so happy for them. I love their family. The guy speaks English. I can't wait for you guys to meet them someday! I went on divisions to Los Santos (Big Fish Village) this Friday unexpectedly, and we had this great moment of eating pizza in an empty little wooden restaurant while it poured rain outside and 70's rock played in the background.

 

Elder Hampton

 

"The view from the missionary apartment in Big Fish Village."

"Just one of those pics."

"Me and piglet."

 

A Titanic of Converts (Women and Children First)

Back in the days of Ventana, I had a constant supply of Oreos. I've fallen back into the habit here in Rica. It's kind of comforting sometimes, except I've almost forgotten the way Oreos are sold in the states. Here, you can't buy a pack of cookies lined in a plastic tray. You can only buy packs of a bunch of individually wrapped 4-pack Oreos. There are so many things like that here. They almost remind me of home, but there's just a weird twist that remind me more than anything else that I'm in a foreign land.

 

The other day we were walking across the central park thing of our area and a huge flock of pigeons suddenly descended and landed all around us. I started laughing wondering what Morgan would do if she were there. People here do the whole light hug with a kiss on the cheek thing to greet each other here. Occasionally, someone (who's meeting us as missionaries for a second time and doesn't understand that we have rules about that stuff) tries to greet us like that and we have to awkwardly reject it. Totally happened to me with this middle-aged lady the other day. I just stood there and she was like ''...no?'' It took us a good five minutes to recover from it socially and get the awkwardness out of the air.

 

I was wondering the other day about the Joseph Smith Building at Temple Square. Do they still show the Restoration movie there, or is that a tradition long past? I think I must be getting pretty subconsciously well-focused on the mission! The majority of my dreams are literally about teaching lessons and having baptisms and seeing people make changes in their lives.

 

So yeah the single mom and one of her seven children are getting baptized this week! I'm baptizing her, and Elder Gutierrez is baptizing her 10 year old daughter. I'm kind of nervous because I've never baptized an adult before, just teens and kids. And I'm already awkward enough doing those baptisms. We'll see how it goes. There are also two 13 year old twins, boys, that should be getting baptized a couple weeks later if they're willing to change their punk attitudes a little more. All the kids in that family love the missionaries. They're obsessed with that tie trick where you tell someone to blow on it and you make it look like the tie is melting. They make me do it every time I go, and every time they jump up and down and shout like it's the first time. they're gonna be a great, huge family of members.

 

Yesterday, as sacrament meeting was about to start, none of our investigators had shown up. I then realized that the 16 year-old boy we baptized the week before was sitting up on the stand, ready to bless the sacrament for the first time. It filled me with such joy to see him already being able to receive and excercise the priesthood. That was just the beginning of a beautiful chain of events. After, our biggest investigator family showed up just in time for the meeting. They're usually about 30 minutes late. The boys in that family had brought a friend of theirs to introduce him to the church.
 

A bit into the meeting, a man walked in and sat down a couple rows ahead of me. It was a man we've been visiting who'd been inactive for twenty years and was returning this Sunday for the first time. Then even further into the meeting, an ''eternal investigator'' who'd basically dropped us a couple weeks earlier also walked in and sat down. We had a total of seven of our investigators in church, which was the most I think I've had in this area! This area is considered one of the hardest, if not the hardest in the mission. I got teary eyed as I watched everything come together so perfectly and ponder on the mighty change the Lord is working here in Cartago. I know that no matter what circumstances we're given, if we're obedient and give it our all, we will see miracles in our lives and recognize the blessings the Lord has given us.

 

This probably won't make much sense to you guys, but to people who like Pokemon, it'll be hilarious maybe. There's this member here that has decided I'm a Pokemon, and when he greets me he always goes ''Hampton Hamp!'' in this voice that sounds like it'd be a pokemon shouting its name. I'm a fire type. He asked me what Mom's maiden name is, and said that means that I evolve into Kitchen, with more powerful oven burning attacks. Only nerds are gonna like this paragraph of the email, but leave it in.

 

Glad that Syd made it to Florida okay! I still love living in a house of 4 missionaries. I didn't find Tazorac but I've been trying a Mexican brand of stuff they sell in the pharmacies here. It may or may not be working decently. Still no news on Mother's Day. I'll know next week for sure, and send a quick message as soon as I start Internet to let you know when I can do the call and all the info, so you guys can reply in that same 90 minutes that I'm using internet.

 

We probably won't get to go to the temple again for at least a couple months... But yeah! Have a great week! Love you guys!

--Elder Hampton

Being Myself

There are three sisters from Orem in our zone, and I have connections with all of them! One of them knows the Sopers, one of them knows the Reeves, and one of them is the sister of a girl I went to EFY with. Weird. I love our zone though. There's an Elder that's also pretty determined to make music someday, and he can't believe that I'm in a band that's already finished and released one album, and always treats me like a celebrity and shakes my hand with two hands and announces to everyone in the room that I'm a great man. Fun times. I'm making so many friends in the mission, and it's pretty useful that Utah is all Ziony meaning that a lot of missionaries will end up there after the mission at some point and we'll totally hang out.

Obama is coming here on May 3. Wonder what kind of ruckus he's gonna cause. Just kidding, I've never been enough into politics to have a strong opinion about the president. What's up with Korea? Aren't they threatening the states or something? J---s asked me to baptize him yesterday, which made me super happy but I'm also stressed now because nobody is going to do anything about the font problems and I'm going to have to scramble to figure out how to get it full. But yeah, he's getting baptized this Saturday. If everything goes absolutely perfectly, we could baptize at least one person every weekend of this month! J----n did indeed get confirmed yesterday. I'm so happy that he is a member. The first thing he said to me when we were changing after the baptism ordinance was ''Just one more year till I can wear a plaque that says Elder G------s.'' He's gonna be an awesome missionary.

I'm not necessarily overwhelmed as District Leader. There are eight missionaries in our district, including my companionship. I just have to get everyone's numbers each week, do baptismal interviews, and teach District Meeting each week. I teach my first one tomorrow, but I feel prepared and fine about it. I still don't have any details about the Skype call! I'll let you know as soon as I know. Well, the Monday after I find out haha. Tell Alex I say congrats on his call! That's so awesome. Leaving basically exactly a year after I did! He's gonna be great. I totally dig the carpet in the family room. I'll definitely lay on it first thing when I walk in the door one day. I miss carpet. It's super rare here. We actually have it in our bedrooms in our house right now, but it's the hard, classroom type of carpet that hardly counts.

I'm really happy to be here. I think I was a little occupied before trying to figure out how to be a missionary, and losing part of me. Now I know how to be a missionary, but instead of being a missionary called Jacob Hampton... I'm Jacob Hampton, a missionary. I don't know, this probably all sounds stupid. I'm just happier because I know how to be myself and a missionary at the same time now. Maybe that wasn't a balance I shouldn't have ever had to try to find, but I did it, and I'm glad. I also think in my first area, the struggle to understand people and sometimes to speak caused people to kind of write me off as the serious, quiet type. But in this area, I can finally show people my personality, and they actually want to talk to me! It's been a self-esteem booster.

Hope you guys are having an awesome week! Getting close with LOST? Love you all!

--Elder Hampton

"Finally, here's the baptism picture from last week. I realized I don't have any photos with Elder Gutierrez. We'll have to take one for next week haha. "

The Four Baptisms.

So there I was, walking down a dirty city street, shivering in the brisk Cartago breeze because all of my clothes were wet, lugging along another big bag full of other wet clothes, starving from fasting all day, and feeling slightly embarrassed and inadequate... yet it was all okay, because I got to be part of helping someone take a huge step toward the Celestial Kingdom. How did I get to such a position? Let's rewind to a few days earlier. We told J----n that he would have to wait a week between his baptism and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost because he had to be presented in sacrament meeting, so we invited him to be baptized on the 13th with J---s. He said no. He couldn't wait, and still wanted to be baptized on Sunday.

Suddenly we had a baptism to throw together. Meanwhile, Elder Velazquez was leaving the area and had other things to worry about. I struggled for a couple days to contact our mission leader and make a program without success, which left me scrambling to find last-minute speakers the night before the baptism. Sunday arrived, and I felt that things weren't quite planned out well enough. Oh how right I was. Where did things begin to go wrong? I believe with the font. We turned the water on about three hours later to give it plenty of time to fill. Things seemed to be going fine so we left the font alone and watched conference. An hour later, we checked the water level and were filled with horror to see that there's no way it was working normally. Water must have been escaping somehow, because there was nowhere near an hour's worth of water.

The bishop had the idea of finding a big stone outside, and putting it on top of the drain in case that was the problem. We did that, and it worked a little bit. But only a little bit. Fast forward to the scheduled start time of the service, and we're looking at a water level about knee high. We tried postponing as much as we could. The member J----n had chosen to baptize him was all ready and dressed in white. At this point we decided to take photos. About five minutes after the photo was taken, the bishop saw the member ready to baptize and freaked out. He said he had to make some phone calls, then talk to the member. Meanwhile, everyone kept approaching me all expectedly and asking when we were going to start, or wanting to do pointless things that were stressing me out. I hated it. I got so overwhelmed.

The bishop finally came up to me and told me the member couldn't baptize J----n. I said... ''I can do it.'' I don't know why, the words just came out. I had to go break the news to J----n that the member couldn't baptize him, then checked to see who he wanted to do it. He said it was fine if I did. I wasn't planning on baptizing yesterday, so I didn't bring a change of clothes. We'd brought white pants for the member, so at least I was able to use those. I had to keep my same garments and white shirt though. Meanwhile, the font hadn't really made any progress. The speakers did a great job, and the time for the ordinance came. We decided to do the baptism with J----n and I kneeling. It was awkward though, and I almost fell over with him. I was like what is this? Mosiah 18:14? That was only the first time though. I had to do it three more times. Once because he didn't get all the way under the first time, and two times because I said the prayer wrong. It was humiliating. But at the same time I didn't care, because J----n was finally baptized.

Elder Baca and I got a kick out of the fact that there was a twitter thing in the corner during confernce. #ldsconf. ''Mr. Jones'' by the Counting Crows plays ridiculously often in every business of any kind in Costa Rica. I hear it at least four times a week. Oh yeah! I was so into telling the baptism story that I forgot to mention changes! My new companion's name is Elder Gutierrez. Also from Mexico! Monterrey. He's always been a member. He came to the country with Elder Velazquez, so he has ten months. I did get my package at changes! I love it! Thank you so much for sending it!!! Oh yeah, I don't know if they showed the same in between conference things on TV as the internet broadcast, but Saturday between sessions they talked about D. Todd Christofferson in Central America and showed a couple of shots of him shaking hands with Elders in our mission. Guess that's why they filmed us!

Can you believe we get to talk on Skype again in just a month? I don't know which day exactly I get go talk, but we'll have to coordinate as soon as I find out! Unfortunately, J---s couldn't come to any conference because he was working. People have to come to church three times before they can get baptized, so we'll have to postpone his baptism till the 20th. That's a bummer that Grandma and Grandpa can't go to Sweden anymore, but I'm so glad they still get to serve! You guys are going to finish LOST so fast! Definitely be sad. The journey suddenly feels so short when it's over. I'm so glad you enjoyed it! Sorry that this email is so lopsided and mostly taken up by that baptismal story. Oh yeah! I'm also Senior Companion and District Leader now! Weird. It has me kind of freaked and stressed out, but I was fasting yesterday to be able to do a good job. We'll see how it all goes! Anyway, gotta go. Love you guys!

--Elder Hampton

This Is No Prison

I'm alive again this week! P-Day is today because changes are tomorrow... and the results are... I'm not training this change. Elder Velazquez does have changes though, so I'll be getting a new companion tomorrow. I'm also hoping that my package has arrived so I can get it at changes. I'm assuming they have them in the states since it's an English word, but Taco Bell came out with these new types of burritos called Grillers, and I'm absolutely addicted to them. We eat there way, way too often. I don't even want to say how often because it's so embarrassing. In other awesome news, J---s is going to be baptized on April 13! That's not all, someone else is getting baptized that day. Someone who has been condemned by countless missionaries and members as an eternal investigator who has hit a permanent wall. Shame on all of them, because J-----n is getting baptized on April 13, and I couldn't be more happy about it.

There's actually a fun story behind that. Last Saturday, we had a lesson with him in the house of his friend who's a member, and we had planned it as the last shabang. We wanted to discuss all his problems and give him a final, direct invitation to be baptized. I went into that lesson with such earnest prayer for guidance and the present of the Spirit. He knew what was coming. After chatting for a few minutes, we were able to get an opening prayer in and begin to discuss why he's been going to church for a year without baptism. I did my best to be patient and follow the Spirit. However, everyone in the room was not doing that, and the conversation kept getting blown away into little side topics that didn't matter, mostly by the member's family (who aren't members). Eventually, I felt that I should just speak up a little louder and more directly, and told J----n that we're only so persistent because we love him and want him to have all the blessings of the gospel, then told him we'd ask him one very last time: ''Will you be baptized?''

...he said ''Let me ask.'' Meaning he wanted to keep praying about it. Like he always says. I felt let down. We finished the lesson, and I was almost even to the point of feeling silly for thinking anything was going to happen. Before leaving, we made plans to meet up with them that night for dinner. We went about the day, and a bunch of other things happened and built up, and by the time we met up with them for dinner, I was completely sad and angry, and it was hard to act all happy and social. Once we were inside KFC, I found myself alone at the table with J----n while everyone else was up getting food and drinks and what not. I didn't really know what to say to him. Luckily, he spoke up first. ''Can one be baptized on a Sunday?'' I was a little taken aback, but didn't really think about it much before telling him ''Yes.'' ''Okay then, plan my baptism for April 7.'' I didn't even know how to react. I shouted that I wanted to hug him. That moment turned around the whole night for me. I didn't care about any of the stuff that had happened earlier, because in that moment I felt my missionary-purpose meter just overflowing. That is the joy of this work. Since then, we've changed the date till the 13th because of conference, but still! He told us later, ''So many missionaries have tried to get me to do this, but somehow you guys were the ones who finally did it.''

I'm glad we had the highlights of setting two baptismal dates this past week, because Holy Week is pretty lame with the way everything shuts down and everyone goes on vacation. Holy Week ends with Easter Sunday, but it's not really anything more than the end of Holy Week. They don't celebrate Easter with anything remotely similar to the way we celebrate it. At least not that I noticed. I'm glad you guys had a great time in Moab! I really will have to go there someday. That's way too high-end that Sydney got to sing ''Some Nights'' for choir. I'm super jealous and wish I could have heard it. The only April Fools stuff that happened to me here was Elder Baca and Elder Lundberg dragging me out of my top bunk, swinging me around, and throwing me on the floor. I wasn't really fooled though, just attacked. Anyway, I don't think April Fools is celebrated in Latin America since nobody else did anything.

We don't do much on P-Days here. Maybe this next change I'll go to the Irazu Volcano, which is apparently super famous. I think it's the one the Grants told us about. I've heard from other missionaries though that it's kind of expensive to go and isn't all that cool. There's a cool big mall nearby that we went to a couple times already. I like having relaxing P-Days though. I don't like long stressful days of a boring activity where we don't even get to use Internet by the end because it took so long. Conference will be broadcast in our chapel, but I think we might be watching it somewhere else as gringos. Elder Velazquez is the only one in our house that has changes, leaving us three gringos and whoever my new companion is. We'll see what happens, but I know I'll get to see it in English somehow. We're on the same time as you guys now, because they announced the sessions as being broadcast at 10 and 2!

It's been a great week. You'll hear from me again on Monday when I have my new comp and all. Love you!

--Elder Hampton

On Bus People, Death, and Unreturnab​le Shavers

I've been officially told that I can email my friends, so if you want, you can post my email address on Facebook! On Wednesday, we had an appointment with one of the bus pamphlet guys. The catch was that he brought two friends from his church with him. They're all our age, and they're Evangelists. They're super well-read in the Bible and think they can use it to prove their church is the only true one. The guy we contacted on the bus was actually pretty calm and cool. One of his friends was absolutely silent, but the other... Man. He read a scripture that said contention is bad, but then read another scripture right after that says contention is good if it's to clarify the things of God. He didn't listen to us, just tried to tell us why his church is better. Bus guy had some sincere questions but we couldn't bring in the Spirit with his clowny friend there. He even whipped out a lap top at one point to try to use the Internet to prove some stuff. Luckily, the lesson was happening in the house of some members, and when G--y (she's the best. she's like a Tica April Ludgate) saw that he had a computer, she turned off their Wifi. Another member of the family, J--e, stepped in at one point too to tell the guy he wasn't listening to us, and that we had something important to share if he'd pay attention.

So that whole thing was kind of rough, but we have another appointment hopefully alone with bus guy this Tuesday. We'll see if he brings the ring leader again... But I was feeling kind of discouraged after that whole fiasco. However, we stayed for the family's FHE afterwards, and J--e gave a super powerful lesson about missionary work. I felt the Spirit so strongly and regained confidence in my authority and calling as a servant of the Lord. Everyone always asks me if I dream in Spanish. I've never really remembered or noticed, until this week. I had a dream that I definitely remember being completely in Spanish! That's probably pretty good. It's weird that it's happening when I'm in a house with two other gringos though. We speak in English all the time.

I also really learned how to effectively study Preach My Gospel and apply it to lessons this week. Sure, I learned that stuff in the MTC, but it really just clicked with me on a new level this week. The mission in general clicked with me on a new level. Love it. I studied super hard to be able to teach the Plan of Salvation clearly, simply, and powerfully, and I felt the Spirit helping me do it as we taught the lesson. Perfect Spanish grammar that I sometimes have to think carefully about came spilling out of my mouth like it was nothing. This week a guy called us and said he wanted to be baptized. We were freakin' the freak. We went to his house, and he's a dry member, meaning that he's not baptized, but knows everything about the Church and has read the Book of Mormon five times. Supposedly. His nephew is supposedly from our ward, and supposedly returning from his mission in a few weeks, and the guy wants his nephew to baptize him. We felt something weird though about the whole situation... and we asked members if there were currently any missionaries serving from the ward, and they said no. Then we looked at his teaching record and it says ''Be careful.'' at the end. Weird. We're going to continue very cautiously and aware of the promptings of the Spirit.

I already know that one day when I give my Homecoming talk, I won't have to prepare it at all to be able to fill the time haha. Yesterday we taught combined Relief Society and Priesthood on relatively short notice, and I had no problem talking in front of so many people on the spot for awhile. Oh man, we have an investigator our age called J---n, who is also basically a dry member, but hasn't been baptized yet for various reasons I still haven't been able to find out. Anyway, he received a phone call during sacrament yesterday and learned that one of his best friends had been found dead under a bridge near D----l's house. Elder Velazquez got the prompting to go out into the hall just before J---n got the call, then came back and informed me of the situation. We went outside, and J----n was behind the church, sitting on the ground, and sobbing. I've never been in the situation of comforting somebody right after a death. Neither had Elder Velazquez. We didn't know what to say. I prayed silently, but nothing came to my mouth. We just sat on the ground with him and hugged him for about five minutes. It was a super powerful experience without any of us saying anything. I think that was what he needed, just people to be with him. He left a little while later to go to another friend's house about the matter. We're going to see how he's doing tonight.

Last night we had our first lesson with the other bus pamphlet guy. In a park. He also came with a pack of friends. This time there were five of them total. We found out though that they're actually Seventh Day Adventists or whatever, and religion has nothing to do with the friendship between the bus pamphlet guys. However, these people are just as learned in their religion. BUT they are way cooler about it and even acknowledged the fact that maybe they're in the wrong faith and that God sent us into their lives as a sign. However, they also want to teach us about their church. I feel good about it though, they're way more rational. They're basically Mormons with some weird tweaks and no priesthood authority. We're going to have a more formal appointment with them on Saturday.

Sounds like it's been a fun week with Miharu! It's been cool living with another companionship. We share the ward. We haven't done splits yet though. I think the condition for D---l is that he has to be perfect for one week in his schooling and chores, and he keeps doing something that displeases his dad in one of those areas. The thing is, he doesn't even want to change that badly. It's frustrating. That might be the most frustrating thing in the mission. People who don't want to change. So I guess I'ma terrible electric shaver shopper and accidentally bought a trimmer, that can't even shave close enough to do anything to the hair I grow in one day. and... the store I bought it at has a ridiculous return policy which is basically that returns aren't allowed unless you say ''nevermind'' right after the receipt prints. It's fine though, I think it'll come in handy after the mission, and it was only $25.

Thanks so much for sending the package! I'm so excited for it! I think I can get permission to go to the office next P-Day if it's arrived. Love you guys! Have a great last week with Miharu. Hope the temperature continues to climb! Thanks for all the nice things you always say in your emails to me. You guys are in my prayers.

--Elder Hampton

Carthage

Fun fact of the week: Cartago means ''Carthage.'' Like the jail.

This week, I had one of those awkward moments where you say ''See you later'' to a blind person. The silence that follows is so painful, but also hilarious. There was a night this week where we were on the bus going home, and this guy walked up to our seats and asked if we were the Mormons. He proceeded to tell us that he's talked to missionaries before but lost contact with them, and wanted to learn more. He started asking us about some points of doctrine, and before long about five people were joining in on the conversation and listening to us, and two of them asked for pamphlets! We're going to start teaching them this week. I'm starting to learn my way around here. WAY faster than I did in Vizcaya. I think the mission's helping me with that stuff a ton, because I've always been awful with directions and orienting myself in big places. One thing I don't like is that although the area is so big, there are buses that can take us to whatever part of it, so we hardly walk at all. On top of that, we eat fast food way too often, so I'm probably going to put on some major pounds. Or maybe I should say kilos.

Elder Velazquez's parents joined the church when he was three years old, so he's basically been a member his whole life. He's only been in Cartago for one change before I got here, so sometimes it takes us awhile to find things. There are four of us that live in the same house. It's a pretty average-sized house for Costa Rica. It would actually be super super nice if it wasn't so nasty and poorly maintained. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a front room thing, a kitchen, and a back patio. We do have a warm shower! I'm hoping that I don't ever have to deal with a cold one again. We eat lunch at the mansion two days a week, three days a week we eat lunch with another awesome family in the ward, but for all other meals we're on our own... so we eat out a lot. It's bad. We don't pay anyone to do our laundry, but there are nice members with washing machines that let us use them, then we have to take the wet clothes back to our house and hang them to dry. Tell Miharu I say hi! She sounds super fun and nice. I'm sad I can't meet her, but I'm sure you guys will have a great two weeks. The gathering at the Neilsen home must have been beautiful. What a great man. We'll always remember him.

I bought an electric razor today! We'll see if it helps me much. Unfortunately, D----l decided to not do some homework this week, and now his dad says he can't get baptized. It's frustrating on both of their parts. They say that Cartago sure lives up to its name as a spiritual prison, that it kills missionaries' enthusiasm. Mormons are to Orem, Utah as Catholics are to Cartago. Everyone's super Catholic and nobody wants to change. I'm determined to maintain a good attitude though. All of our investigators are kind of in limbo, but we're going to work really hard this week to find some new ones. This change, 8 missionaries went home, and 28 came. I think the big influx is going to come more gradually with a ratio like that for the next few changes. There was probably at least one missionary from Orem in all of those, but I didn't recognize anyone! Man, before I thought you guys were going to be able to send the package with someone who was coming to Rica, but if that's not the case, don't worry about sending it. Isn't it completely out of control ridiculously expensive to send it the normal way? Don't worry about it if you don't want to, I don't need anything desperately. But if you do send it, I can't think of anything more I would want! Thanks so much for all you guys do for me! I love you, and think about you every day! Sorry the emails a little short. Hope you guys are doing great and loving LOST! Know that I'm alive and very well.

Till next week,

--Elder Hampton

Pictures: (top) - a famous cathedral in Cartago; (bottom) - the Costa Rica San Jose mission with Elder Christofferson who came to visit about a month ago.

 

 

OH MY.

This has been the craziest week of my mission so far.

I had changes. I'm now in an area called Cartago. My companion's name is Elder Velazquez. He's from Cancun, Mexico, but he's actually half Spanish, half Guatemalan. There's a twist though. I live with Elder Baca!!! What? He's a zone leader here, and we share both the area and a house. I guess you just can't ever truly get away from your parents (father = trainer in the mission). So that's been fun. Anyway, I love Cartago. iloveitiloveitiloveitiloveit. It's a city. It's pretty big. In my area before, McDonalds was like the big fancy place, and the closest thing to the States. Here, however, right in our area, we have not only McDonalds, but also Wendy's, Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut, Burger King, Carl's Jr., and many more. They say that it's easy to get fat in Cartago. Two days a week, we eat in this RIDICULOUS mansion owned by some members that apparently have an I'm a Mormon video. It's one of the nicest houses I've seen in all my life, and they have a huge yard surrounded by a huge wall to accompany it. It's great. This is a great place. I'm so happy to be here. The members are super cool, and we received a couple references at church yesterday.

Elder Velazquez is district leader. On Thursday, we had to travel to another area so he could do baptismal interviews. It was about an hour-long bus ride through the mountains to this group of towns called Los Santos. It was super cool! It's just this sudden little, peacefully sitting in the mountains. A little too peacefully perhaps. It was almost eerie. The streets were so clean and tame, and the occasional car or pedestrian was just so weirdly calm and perfect. It reminded me a ton of the town that the guy finds in Big Fish where they throw his shoes on the wire and stuff. It's weird to not be the ward pianist anymore! This ward has one. It felt odd to sit in the congregation and sing with everyone else. I hadn't done it in months! We're going to baptize a kid named D----l on hopefully the 9th of March. He wants me to baptize him! I think he's 12 years old. He's the sweetest kid and wants to be so righteous. Love it. His parents aren't members, but understand the serious nature of the baptismal covenant, and are making D----l show them that he can behave super well for a week before they give him permission to get baptized. He'll do just fine though.

My whole time in Rica, I've been wondering if I've gained or lost weight, and the only scales I've ran into to be able to weigh myself are in kilos and I don't bother to do the math. Today, there was randomly a scale in a store that used pounds, so I stood on it and I've lost 13 pounds since I left the MTC! Maybe I'll gain it all back in this area though... Wow, this email is so short but I already feel like I'm out of things to say! I love this area. Elder Velazquez and I get along super well. We're already great friends, and we have lots of fun with the members and investigators. We're able to work well together. He has two more months than me in the mission. It's weird that Elder Baca's still such a major part of my mission after only one change apart. It's cool though. Elder Velazquez and Elder Baca's companion were also companion's at one point too, so our house is full of past connections and history. It should be a reality show. But not really. I know you want tons of details, Mom, but I don't have any more! I've mostly just been getting to know the members so far, but this week we're gonna totally dive in with tons of teaching.

Saying goodbye to Vizcaya was a little weird, but I'm super excited to be here in Cartago. Love you guys!

--Elder Hampton

Jake's new companion, Elder Velazquez

Jake and Elder Baca--reunited once again!

Of One Fold and One Shepherd

 Hello Everyone!
I've discovered that a notably large amount of people here specifically mention the movie Seven Pounds as one of their favorites. In the MTC we used to have Seven Pounds vs. Pursuit of Happiness debates about which is better. I was always on team Seven Pounds, so I'm very pleased to discover that the Ticos have my back concerning that. This week we found one of our investigators crying when we showed up for our appointment because she was going to get kicked out of her house the next day because her employer couldn't pay her on time, so she couldn't pay the rent. We gave her a blessing, read the story of the brother of Jared and applied it to her situation, and had a great prayer with her, and everything worked out okay and she still has her house! She has a ton of faith. I think she'll get baptized in a couple weeks.

If there's any Tazorac laying around the house that you could send in this package, that would be lovely! Sometimes there are moments of hilariously modern poverty that I marvel at, and I love it. This week, it was watching a little girl use an old broken PlayStation controller cord as a jump rope. Sometime for Family Night, you guys should watch a District 2 episode! You can find them at lds.org in the video section, under ''Missionary.'' They're super well-put-together and can help the family see a little bit of what the field is like.

I feel like I'm seeing so many gringos everywhere lately! There were two at church yesterday. I didn't get to meet one, who is our high councilman. The other was called Lane Gould. Actually, he's not gringo. He's Tico, born in Rica, but was adopted by a couple in Delta, Utah when he was four years old, and he just moved back here a year ago. I learned that he knows my old roommate Richard. It was super cool because I actually know more Spanish than him, and he had to have me help him converse with the members. He was just visiting our ward.

I've been reading in Mosiah this week. Chapter 4, verse 22 makes me want to never deny someone a coin if they ask for money, unless they explicitly say it's for drugs (yes, we get people saying that often). We were able to borrow a copy of The Testaments this week, and we've been using it like crazy. There are three kids who have been coming to church with their Grandma, but they're not baptized because their parents refused to give permission. Yesterday, the parents showed up at church on their own. Our ward mission leader invited them and us over for dinner, where we watched The Testaments. They felt the Spirit and cried, and now we're going to be able to begin teaching them as an entire family. Well, Elder Loredo and some other guy will. I still feel strongly that I'm getting changed. We find out tonight or tomorrow.

No pain or health problems this week. Elder Loredo and I are getting along. We're way more natural friends now than we were for the middle weeks of this change. I haven't bought an electric shaver because I haven't had a convenient opportunity haha. There's plenty of money in my account though, so thanks! I hope St. George was a total blast and everything! I'm pretty anxious to find out about changes. Guess we'll see what happens! Love you and miss you all.

--Elder Hampton

Another Email

I always want to have creative email subjects, but I can never think of them in the moment. I saw Todd Ulrich in a video we watched this week about asking inspired questions. I introduced abbreves to Elder Loredo and now he always says ''estupes,'' short for ''stupid'' in Spanish.

There are a ridiculous amount of Jehovah's Witness down here. It seems like 90% of the time we find someone who first appears to have a ton of potential as an investigator, they quickly reveal that they're a J-Dub. It's super annoying. They have their local members tract in the neighborhoods too, so they often ruin our contacts by covering all the area and freaking everyone out and not wanting anything to do with religion. Crazy news: We got our shower fixed on Saturday! Yesterday I took a borderline Jacuzi-temperature shower. It was amazing. Can't wait to do it again today. I almost lost my only pen yesterday when I dropped it and I was like ''Oh no! My pen!'' and then it rolled into the gutter which happened to have water flowing through it, and it started floating downstream, so I ran after it and stomped into the water to step on my pen. I saved it, then turned around to see the bus we had been trying to catch parked there full of people staring. They'd be staring even if I wasn't running around like that though.

That's so great that Grandma and Grandpa got their MTC date! I'll look for a shaver down here. That's so great that you guys got a car! Sometimes I miss Fran (the Taurus) and wonder if I'll ever drive her again. I try not to though, because that's straight up trunky. We drink tap water, Mom. It's super clean and safe and all that. Supposedly. I believe it. Oh yeah, I might have to go to the doctor this week and get my toe cut open so they can squeeze pus out! I had an ingrown toenail, and took care of the nail part, but unfortunately it got infected and now there's pus in there. I'm going to see the nurse at zone meeting on Wednesday so we'll see what happens. Other than that, the only other health issue would be the cough, and it's not even an issue. It's practically gone.

In this mission, each area covers the same boundaries as one ward. So Elder Loredo and I are in charge of the Vizcaya ward. I really hope I don't get changed in three weeks! I just want one more change here. I don't feel ready to go yet. I'll express that to president in my email. Of course, whatever the Lord has in store is what will happen, and it'll be for the best. I'm bothered right now because this computer is telling me that my iPod is corrupt and there's nothing I can do about it. I hope it's just the computer though. We'll see next week. Thanks for getting those CD's Morgan! That fun./Tegan and Sara tour sounds heavenly!!!!!!!!!!!!! Jealous. I hope lots of people I know go and have a jolly time. Anyway, Elder Hampton: out. I'll probably never say that again.

Better and Better

Hello! How is everyone?

Things are going as great as ever down here in this Central part of the American continents. There was a 5.4 earthquake the other night around 1 AM. I was sleeping on a mattress on the floor of the apartment of some other Elders, and I just kind of lay there all tired and enjoyed all the violent shaking going on around me. It was the strongest one I've felt here so far. Too much fun. My health is fine in all aspects, Mom, don't worry. Haha. Sounds like Cali was as fun as it's always been! Glad you guys were able to escape the frozen tundra.

To answer some of your questions: Elder Loredo's family are active members and completely supportive of him serving a mission. He's from an area of Mexico called Tampico, which is basically along the border of Texas. I don't even know how to spell the name of his area before Vizcaya, but it's in the zone Cartago, where Elder Baca is now Zone Leader. I've been keeping in contact with Warren through email recently after a few months where we didn't hear from each other, so that's been awesome to be talking to him again. As for finding new people to teach, we've been finding quite a decent amount! It's still about the same percentage of people that slip through the cracks and don't have anymore interest after a couple visits, but now we're working with way more people so we're able to catch more of those people who are prepared and willing to discover the truth of the gospel.

Thank Brother Krommenhoek for me! That's super thoughtful and cool of him to do the whole testimony thing. I'll be sure to translate that. Hey, I think you guys have asked me several times about the food here, and I've never said anything too specific. I still don't have much to say about it, but I don't know if I ever told you about the fried bananas we have during the majority of our lunches. They're SO good! Probably my favorite new thing I've tried here so far, because I haven't really tried much. I live in a suburb where people mostly prepare pretty typical foods.

So I don't know if you guys have any advice for how to fix this, but shaving every day has been a bit of a trial my whole mission, and especially lately. More than anything because of my neck. I've tried so many different methods of shaving, but my neck gets extremely irritated every dang time I shave. Does an electric razor help with that? If so, maybe I'll ask for one of those as an early birthday present in this next package or something. Oh! Speaking of things that come through the postal service, I got mail from five different people today! We had a lame zone party at a park, but it was worth going since the leaders brought our mail. It made my week! I'll be replying to all of them ASAP.

Church yesterday was amazing. We had seven investigators there, and people left and right asking for us appointments and giving us references and asking to be baptized (okay, that was only one person, a twelve year old kid who always comes with his grandma but hasn't been baptized and asked us what he needs to do. Pure heaven for us)! Things are going great. Love you guys. Let me know how LOST is going. Until next week,

Elder Hampton




Jake and his new companion, Elder Loredo.

 

The view from their apartment.

Two Changes In!

Wow! In two days I'll have completed two changes in the field. Crazy. We find out tomorrow what the plans for changes are, and then changes happen on Wednesday. I'm both excited and nervous. It's going to be an interesting week! I'm pretty jealous of your guys' spontaneous California excursion! Definitely miss those kinds of trips. Hope it's a great time! I do write my mission president every week, but it's just a few sentences to let him know how everything is. I think he just skims them unless we mark them as super important. There isn't much to what I write in those, so I'll just keep doing things the same way I have been.

As for CD's... I would love to have everything The Lower Lights have ever released! I love the four songs you guys gave me, and I totally want the rest! According to the bishop's wife, I have bronchitis, and she's all concerned about it and says I need injections. I don't know if I do, but if I'm still coughing like this and happen to see the nurse at changes, I'll probably mention it to her. Most missionaries make it their whole mission without a doctor's appointment though, and I've already had one, so I really don't want to become that guy who's always going to the doctor for every little thing. Our new pool of investigators is going pretty well. None of them came to church, but they're actually reading and praying, and deserve the proactive title of ''investigator.'' To answer dad's question, we normally teach between 5 and 10 actual investigator lessons every week. The perfect Catholic family said they couldn't meet again till this Saturday, so me and my new companion will be hitting that up! So excited.

I bought a backpack at Walmart this week! The school year here starts in February, so there was a big back to school sale and I got a decent one for like 15 bucks. It was really cool to have Elder Christofferson with us on Saturday! We all got to shake his hand before the meeting. As the agenda was announced, I learned I was saying the opening prayer, so that was a little nerve-wracking, praying for a room of hundreds just a few feet in front of an Apostle. He speaks perfect Spanish, too, so it's not like he had no idea what I was saying. Despite all the speculation, he didn't come with any big announcements or changes to the mission! He actually just let us ask him questions the whole time, which was awesome. He said the questions should pertain to missionary work, so we didn't get into too crazy of stuff. In answering what he expects of us, he talked a bit about how for these two years we're set apart with the same apostolic duty and authority he has. Awesome. There were people filming the whole thing and taking all kinds of pictures. Guess we'll probably show up in the church news or something!

I love to hear your temple goal, mom! I really just love the temple. I've come to see myself easily going once a week when I get back. It's too important of a thing to not go often. Love your guys' addiction to LOST! Don't worry, there's definitely no ''It was all a dream'' twist. Some people misinterpreted the ending to be that kind of cheap twist, but it's not what it is. As long as you're watching every single episode, paying attention, and loving the characters, you should understand and be satisfied with the ending. So just keep plowing and enjoying it! The Spanish is still improving every day. I understand most people most of the time. I wouldn't say I dream in Spanish though, because I still talk with Elder Baca in English all the time. If my next companion is Latino though, my Spanish is going to skyrocket.

Loved the message you shared about getting rid of the little things, Dad! It's inspiring to me, and I'm going to start making a bigger effort to identify those things. Yesterday was some sort of area conference, and the stake choir sang ''I Am a Child of the Lord of the Rings.'' At least, that's what Elder Baca and I named it. They sang ''I Am a Child of God'' with several 30 second interludes between verses of the song ''In Dreams'' from Lord of the Rings played on a flute. I guess the people of Costa Rica aren't familiar with Lord of the Rings, or aren't fazed by the fusion of hymns with blockbuster theme songs, because only Elder Baca and I were looking around in disbelief at what was happening.

We had a pizza party today as a district since it's the last P-Day of the change, and probably about half of the district will be changed this week. The pizza was from some member's pizza store. Hopefully this offers a little more detail for you, Mom! Don't know what else you want to know, haha. Things are going great, though. I've really become confident with calling this place my home for these two years.

Love you all.

--Elder Hampton

January 7, 2013.

Hello all!

Don't freak out if you don't get an email from me next Monday. I think changes are going to be next Wednesday, and President will probably make P-Day on Tuesday next week. Elder Christofferson comes this Saturday! I'm super excited about that. I hope he has huge news for us or something. We did a ton of contacting this week. We were pretty much down to one investigator, but now we have about four! Church attendance by the members is going back up, too. We contacted this perfect family the other night! They're way catholic, but they won't be for long. It's a somewhat young couple and their little boy. They also had a daughter who died in her infancy. The mom asked us what we believe happens to children like that, and the Spirit was so strong as we told her the truth. I think that's going to keep them interested more than anything, since their church leaders probably tell them their baby is in hell. They can't meet with us again for a couple weeks, but I can't wait to go back and teach them more about how they can be an eternal family.

We haven't gone to the Modern Family with the killer dogs in quite some time, because only two people were really progressing and they both left to Nicaragua. I never thought I'd say this, but I can't wait to face those dogs again, because it'll mean that M---o has come back from Nicaragua. My foot fungus is doing just fine! I just have to put on that weird animal cream every day or two and it keeps it dead. The weather has been super hot here lately. Sounds better than the weather you guys are having, though! I've been using my card to buy food and things like that since I found out how much Christmas money was on it. Thanks so much! I haven't bought a CD player, because I'm thinking it'll be better if you just send me CD's and I use computers to put them on my iPod, so I can still have all my music in one place. I don't have much to say this week either, but I love you guys! Glad to hear everyone's well. Excited to hear some updates next week!

--Elder Hampton

Happy New Year!

...and so 2012 ends. So quickly. I opened the rest of my presents on Christmas Eve. Thank you so much for everything! I loved it all. I'm so glad you sent that Conference Ensign. It's been my favorite part of my scripture study. We had three dinners that night... I was dying by the end. Christmas night, we just went to one house and tried to sing a little 80's karaoke but it was awkward. It didn't feel like Christmas at all this year. I think that makes it a little earlier though. I tried not to think too much about what I would be doing if I was at home.

We did some divisions this past week, but for the first time I was the missionary who stayed in our area and had to lead me and the other elder to all our appointments and lead all the lessons! I was a little nervous, but the Spirit totally guided me. That day, I learned that M---o will be coming back from Nicaragua! It won't be for a few months, but maybe I'll still be in this area. If not, I'll make sure whoever replaces me knows to keep up with him and get him converted. It's almost given that Elder Baca will be transferred this next change since he'll have almost eight months in this area. It's weird to think that I'll most likely have a different companion so soon.

I haven't had the chance to get mail in a couple weeks, so I still haven't heard anything about the ward package... I'm dying. I depend a little too much on mail sometimes. It's like I have a mail meter as one of my needs like a Sim. I love to get and send mail. It's an addiction. As for New Year's Eve, we're still expected to go to bed on time. We're just going to be passing it with some members, like we did Christmas Eve and Day. Christmas was basically another P-Day. Maybe we'll play a little more Skip-Bo than usual tonight. We'll see.

Our ward starts at 9. Things have been super rough this month. Everyone uses the holiday as an excuse to become inactive, or if they're not members they use it as an excuse to not give us the time of day. Things have slowly started to turn around a little in the past few days. Hopefully this week is way better. I'm pretty used to the area. I hope there's not a freak thing where I get transferred instead of Elder Baca. I'm just getting comfortable making my way around here and talking to the members! I hope your guys' Christmas was amazing. Sounds like it from what you told me. Happy 2013! Love you!

--Elder Hampton

Jake's description: "Me Mr. Krabsing as I eat yet another tamale. I've had way too many. So glad the season's over."

For Keili: "Hello Sidney."