Reese in Costa Rica: Week 59 - Another Christmas miracle

Hey guys!

Sorry I couldn't write on Monday, we had the mission Christmas party so they gave us time to write on Wednesday instead. But now that just means I have to somehow remember everything from this past week, which already feels super far away, and as you've seen, I'm not the best at remembering everything from past weeks so we'll see how it goes.

Well one of the miracles we saw last week was an eternal investigator that finally decided to get baptized. He had been going to church with his wife as she reactivated herself and had thought about baptism, but wasn't sure if he wanted to do it yet. They also had to get married, and the thought of that was even further from his mind. It had been hard to get time to teach him, but last Tuesday, we finally got to see him and he started asking us to share our testimonies and why exactly we believed what we believe. He sat there for a few minutes and then started explaining that he had been praying and had received an answer that he needed to get married and get baptized and that he wanted to get baptized in January, but married in February. We explained that he needed to get married first, but he still felt like he wasn't ready, so we decided to say a prayer with him. We all knelt down and he offered one of the most sincere and heartfelt prayers I have ever heard. When we sat back down, he started pouring out his heart about how good he felt about getting married and how much he loved his wife. The spirit felt so strong and I knew he had received his answer and we had been witnesses to a true conversion. Easily one of the most powerful nights of my mission. He's now getting ready to get married and baptized the first weekend in January. Later that week, we had another lesson with him and when we got there, his 9 year old son came running up to us, yelling "I've got good news!" And then told us that he's going to get baptized with his dad. Going to be a really special new year.

And then later in the week, that same family came with us to go visit a new family we had found. We thought we would teach a little about the restoration, but they took all the time basically just testifying about how much the church will help them and that they need to go and find out for themselves and that they won't regret it and by they end the family we were teaching wanted to be baptized and come to church and everything was perfect, without us teaching anything haha so we'll see how it goes. Member missionary work! Go do it!

Also we helped make tamales with our cook. Elder Davis has the pictures so hopefully I can pass them on. But it was super fun haha -- a lot of work, but it was cool to make something new. It's a tradition here and everyone makes them or buys them so we've been eating a lot of them these past few weeks.

We had another zone service project and once again we went to an old persons' home, but it was really fun. Got to talk to some old people who had at one point in their lives spoken English, but over the years had forgotten it, so I didn't really understand much, but they all smiled when we just nodded our heads and laughed so it was all worth it haha.

Zone service project

Also the Christmas party was super great! We sang a whole bunch of Christmas songs that I hadn't heard in a long time and ate some amazing food and, after two months, finally got to open my package! President taught us about the origin of the town of Bethlehem, which was incredible, as always.