Week 60- Miles de Milagros

Hello everyone!

Ok so I have a TON of miracles to write about...

Remember Andrea?  The reference we received from the guy in Utah.  So she's been amazing and a complete miracle right? Well on Thursday this past week we got a text from her saying that she was very thankful for all of our time and for all that we taught her, but that she had decided to go back to her other church.  When I read that, I was just like ¨no no no....¨but we were not about to accept that as the end.

So we went to her house that night, and she wasn't there.  So we went back the next night, and she was there!  We were with a member who is 24 years old and served in El Salvador.  She let us in, and just started to listen to what she had to say.  Andrea said that she felt extremely confused, and had just been crying all the time the past few days because she didn't know what to do. The people from her old church came and visited her and talked to her about everything which made her really confused. But she said that even after she had sent us that text she kept reading the Book of Mormon and was still keeping the Word of Wisdom and everything.  Darim, the member, really helped her and said a lot of awesome things. We read a scripture about Christ, and how he wants us to come unto Him, and not unto anyone else.  So we needed to ask God what we should do and not any other person.  It was really special, because at one point Darim said, ¨Can you feel the love that these to girls have for you?  It is INCREDIBLE the love that they have for you.  And that is because they are representatives of Jesus Christ, and they can feel his love for you.¨  And its true. We love her so so much.  And of course Satan was going to try to get her off the right path. But he never wins unless we let him win.

So at the end of the lesson, we said a kneeling prayer and she said it, but she could barely say it because she was crying so much. It was such a special experience. When we left, my comp and I said to each other, ¨We didn't lose her. Satan tried, but we didn't lose her.¨

I was really thinking about her during studies the other day and was trying to figure out how we could help her recognize her answer.  When we were first meeting with her she was suuper happy and suuper excited and loved the Book of Mormon and she said in every prayer that she knew that this church was true. Those feelings of happiness and joy come from God. 

When the people from the other church came and started talking to her she started to feel confused and sad - those feelings do not come from God.  Because God never answers a prayer through fear or sadness - we must always follow what God tells us through those positive feelings.

We went with her again last night and she was super happy!  And wanted to read and pray and do all these things - I was in awe from the change from the night she was crying and confused to last night. She is coming to church on Sunday and is excited about the gospel again.

So we didn't lose her!!  The spirit always wins, if the person is willing to listen :)

Another miracle: Like 2 months ago, we did a contact with a guy and his son. He said we could pass by but for some reason we never called him - until two days ago. We were surprised he even remembered us, but said that we could pass by the next day!  So we did, and it was awesome. He lives with his 18 year old daughter and his 8 year old son.  And they are super prepared to accept the gospel. They want to come to church and are just ready.  But the miracle is that like the week after we had first talked to him, he went to Nicaragua to go bring his daughter here to Costa Rica. He was in Nicaragua for a month!  And he didn't have his phone or anything. So if we would have called while he was in Nicaragua, we would have called a bunch finding that the phone was turned off or didn't exist, so we would have just given up and not called again. But we didn't!  For some reason we waited, and called right after he had gotten back!

And even more miraculously - the day that we talked to him was a super crazy day, and all of our plans that day had fallen through so we had no idea what we were going to do. then a lady in a far away town called us and said that we could go over, so we decided to go. We like ran to the center to catch a bus, and needed to do a bunch of contacts so we saw him and did a super fast contact haha and so the point is, if all of our plans hadn't fallen through, and that lady (who we don't even visit anymore) hadn't called us, we wouldn't have even met him!

Another miracle: Yesterday when we went to go visit Andrea and she didn't answer the door at first so we assumed that she wasn't home. We really needed some new investigators so we talked to the people who live in front of her but they didn't let us in- haha. 

So then we started to leave the street. But something just told me that we should go back. So we did and we talked to some other neighbors of Andrea. the lady let us right in!  She said that she had seen us leave and then come back and had wondered why, and that ALSO we had walked past her like a week before and had said hi to her - and I totally remember doing that but not feeling the need to talk to her more. AND that a few days before we were talking to someone who lives by her, while they were on the phone with her!  and they told her that they had just talked to some ¨Northamerican girls¨ haha.  So basically Heavenly Father kept on putting us in her path until we were able to teach her!  Sooo crazy!  And she said that they weren't even supposed to be home then, and that they had neever let missionaries come in before. I hope this story makes sense...because its just crazy to see God's plan.  And as we left, Andrea called us and said that she was just sleeping and didn't hear us knocking the door. So if she had been awake and had opened the door we wouldn't have even gone with her neighbor....

So as you may be able to tell it is hard to explain these crazy miracles!  But I hope you could just understand that God has a plan, and that we are just His instruments. We just need to follow the spirit!!

This week was also crazy because we had a Multizone conference on Wednesday with President Hayes and Elder Duncan, the Area President. And on Friday we had the Leadership meeting also with Elder Duncan. So lots of learning and improving!  At the Multizone conference,  Hermana Chatwin and I got to sing "I Know that my Redeemer Lives", in Spanish. Hermana moon played the piano - the really pretty EFY version!  Thanks for sending me the sheet music mom. I also got to sing that in Sacrament meeting this Sunday as well, and I cried at the end again...haha... pretty much everyone in the room was crying.  Music brings the spirit.

Anways I love you all :)

Con mucho amor,

Hermana Geis

At the Multi-zone Conference with Hermana Chatwin

The leadership of the Costa Rica East Mission

We actually did plan to match this day haha

With an awesome member who is like our big sister, Graciela :)

With Gleny, the most amazing convert ever!

Carlos got a white shirt and tie!!

Week 59- Miracles Every Day

So this week was really good!  We are continuing to see miracles every day. 

On Sunday night as we were walking home we were trying to do a bunch of contacts on the street. We talked to a mom and her two daughters and they said we could totally go visit them.  So we put an appointment for the next day excited to meet their family! 

So we went the next night and found out they are a family of 5!!  We were so excited!  And we also found out that they had received the missionaries like 7 years ago and went to church A BUNCH and loved everything, but then the missionaries got transferred or something so they just stopped going to church. But they were excited to have missionaries again and they all accepted a baptismal date. We were way excited.

So we called them a few days later and the mom, Lorena, told us that something horrible happened and her husband left them. So when we went to visit them they said they were okay, and Lorena said that she knows that it wasn't a coincidence that we showed up right before this all happened - as in God sent us right when this was going to happen to help their family and show them the way. So that is seriously awesome. We are hoping that Lorena and her three kids will get baptized this month.

Andrea, the reference from Utah, is just amazing. In all her prayers she thanks God for the church and says that she knows everything is true. And when she talks about her old church she says ¨my church....well it's not my church anymore, the church that I USED to go to¨ haha she's so awesome. She went to church on Sunday and she said it was really different from what she is used to but that she knows it's true nevertheless.

This weekend was super crazy here in Cartago because it was the ¨Romeria¨. don't know how to say that in English.  It's a really big Catholic holiday. People WALK to Cartago from ALL of Costa Rica to the big Basilica or Catholic church that's here in the center of Cartago. So there were THOUSANDS of people in exercise clothes in Cartago haha- it was insane. The main roads were shut down because of all of the walkers and we had to walk like 3 miles to our house at night on Saturday night because there were like no buses. So that was super interesting! --pictures attached haha

This week we are going to have a Multi Zone Conference and also the Leadership meeting, both with Elder Kevin R Duncan, the President of the area of Central America. We are way excited! 

Well thanks for all your support, I love you all

Hermana Geis

The Romeria

We kind of might have slipped these chicharrones (deep fried pig skin/fat) into this bag while eating at someone's house...