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
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