Week 19 - Baptisms and an erupting volcano

[Ed. note - So, for those who didn't see the post we put on Reese's Facebook page, the Turrialba volcano erupted in Costa Rica this past week. After reading headlines like this:

Turrialba Volcano in Costa Rica Erupts on a Historic Scale 

...and seeing pictures like this:

...and learning that the volcano was only 30 miles from where he is, we were at least mildly concerned. And, of course, he knew that would be the case, so he decided to have some fun at his parents' expense.]

Family

I hope this email goes through. It's been really rough out here since the volcano erupted. There's ash everywhere, every once in a while a couple rocks hit the ceiling, and the sun is almost blocked out entirely. The air is tough to breathe and we're running low on clean water. The power comes in and out, if we're lucky we've got about 5 minutes of power before it goes out again. No days off through, and we've still been working through the storm. We can barely breathe, but we have to get out and work. I hope this isn't my last email...

Ok sorry, I wish I had a cooler story to tell but we haven't even seen any ash here. They closed the airports in San Jose, and it was pretty bad in some parts, but here in little ol' Siquirres, we're doing just fine. 

This week was absolutely fantastic. We had one baptism on Wednesday and then four more on Saturday! One of them was the mom of two kids Elder Duran had baptized before I got here, two were a couple we had been teaching since my first day, and the other two were twins who didn't appear in the system and so we had to re-baptize them (their dad is one of our investigators and we've been to their house a lot and taught all of them together). But Saturday was our Sabado Blanco for Zona Limon and our goal was that every companionship would baptize. We didn't quite hit that, but everyone planned as many baptisms for that day and tried to have members baptize too so there would be as many people dressed in white as possible. I was floating in the clouds the rest of the day haha. 

That night we celebrated Elder Duran's birthday too which was a lot of fun. Our favorite family invited all the Elders to their house for dinner and cake and ice cream. It was some of the best food I have eaten and we all stuffed ourselves way too much haha. And as part of tradition here, we smashed an egg on Duran's head, don't really understand that one, but hey it's tradition. Just hoping it doesn't happen to me.

But anyway, super super good week. Don't worry about us, we're all safe and sound, loving life. Love you all. Have an amazing week and share the gospel with someone. It's the best, trust me.

Elder Hansen