Butterflies

I'm not really sure what changed this week, but we had a lot of involvement with butterflies this week. 

First, this AWESOME picture of a huge butterfly on my hand (I was trying not to freak out long enough to get the picture) and we have a HUGE black pet butterfly in our bedroom. We aren't really sure how she got out, but she left us this morning. #sadface #slash #itkindoffreakedusout

My favorite part of the week was a Multi-zone Conference we had with President Wilkinson this week. The man is a spiritual beast. I basically knocks our socks off with the power of his testimony EVERY TIME. We basically got our heads chopped off for everything we are doing wrong  and I basically have a LOT of repenting to do. Not that I was disobedient or anything bad but the spirit was so strong and I have never in my life had so much desire to change. I am looking forward to a new week to make those changes. I cant say I learned anything new and spectacular, because it was always available to me in Preach my Gospel, but wow, it still changed my mission.

The worst part of the week was when I met a once endowed- real life Coriantumr  (If you know what I mean) .  I could almost feel the spirit being sucked away. It was awful, and I am not sure if I will ever want to return even though I should. 

I wanted to take a few minutes to mention of few of my new favorite progressing investigators (Who I will have to try and get photos of them this week).

-Maria Jesus and her children Belinda and German. We love them! They are progressing nicely, and with the best of luck (and the help of your prayers) They will be baptized asap.

-Arturo and Maricela, a couple who are reading (and if their text last night indicates anything LOVING) the Book of Mormon. Lets get them married and in the water.  

Holy...... cow. I would totally write more, but time has gotten away from me.

Your all very beautiful people. 

Peace and blessings

(And prayers for the Philippines/ missionaries there)

xoxo 

Hermana Patterson 

This week's letter is brought to you by the letter "F"

This is the city crest for Escazu. I wasn’t joking. They are serious about their witches apparently. 

Okay everyone, tell the truth. Are you so bored of my weekly letters? I feel like I say the same things everyweek.

¨Time is flying by!¨

¨I love the mission will everything I have!¨

¨The mission is the hardest/best thing of my life¨

¨My companion is so great¨

But, What can I say? All of the above is so true.

This week we had a goal as a companionship to take 2 pictures everyday, it was a miserable failure. I am sorry! Some day I will be better. But at least I have a couple, right? 

This is a picture of one of our families. 

 From top left: Me, Michael, Misha, Gretel, Brandon, Donaldo, Hna Garcia, Joshua, and Krishna. 

This weeks letter is brought to you by the letter ¨F¨ for Faith. I am realizing, that maybe my faith is seriously lacking. I didn’t ever think of it as a problem before, but its so weird.  Sometimes I don’t have faith in myself, but then other times I rely too much on my own abilities. Its something I am working on.

As I have realized this weakness in myself, I have been praying to the opportunity to strengthen my faith.

For the last couple of weeks we have been eating with a members family for lunch. This Saturday, they forgot to feed us, and left the house. Apparently they have a middle aged Mexican woman who lives in an apartment behind their house (that we didn’t even know was there). When we were waiting at the door, she came to tell us that they weren’t in the house, but that we could come and sit down at drink some mango juice while we were waiting (I love Costa Rica).  We accepted, but didn’t plan on spending too much time talking to her because she had a big huge rosary around her neck and instantly starting telling us how she does to mass every single day. As we chatted, she told us about her family, her new found catholic faith, and her new job when she began to cry. She has been having troubles at work that make her feel unhappy. She lives in her beautiful apartment all alone with no one to talk to. She told us that she was really hoping that she could talk to Noelia (the member) because she just didn’t know what to do. As we talked we bore testimony to her that her Heavenly Father is listening to every single prayer and he knows her specific circumstances.

At one point, the spirit told me ¨Tell her about the book of mormon¨. I looked down at my bag, where my Book of mormon was sitting, and thought ¨No way, this woman is SUPER catholic. I don’t want to offend her by trying to push the Book of mormon on her¨.  But as my mind and my heart where in an internal war, I just did it. Almost in the middle of her sentence, I interrupted and asked ¨Margarita, have you ever heard of the Book of Mormon?¨ and plopped my give away copy on the table. In this moment I internally flinched for the angry words I thought I was about to receive. Instead, she looked puzzled and kindly asked for more information.

As we explained about the Book of Mormon I almost couldn’t believe that she was accepting this so easily.  The spirit was strong as we testified of the reality of its truthfulness and I even felt prompted to invite her to read a specific chapter that talks about the Plan of Salvation and how we can turn to Christ in affliction (2 Nephi 2- One of my new favorite chapters).  She said that we were angels from Heaven and that she had been praying for an answer from the Lord and knew that we were her answer.

As we left, I can honestly say that I felt proud that I put my doubts aside and did what I know that Lord needed. As we walked away from the house, my companion thanked me for having the faith to do what she had doubted. We both realized we have a lot of work to do, and need to rely on the Lord a WHOLE lot more. We are anxiously awaiting our next visit with Margarita.

And now, Questions from our readers:

How many areas have you had?

2. Los Santos, and now I am in Escazu

 How big is it?

Um….. mas or menos big? Like a city? But we share it with a pair of Elders. There is still a lot to do!

 Have you been to any zone conferences yet?

Oh ho ho ho. Yes. We have Zone Conference every month. I love Zone Conferences. I am actually really excited because this week we have a Multi Zone Conference (only the 2^nd in my mission so far) and the last one was SO great.

 Is it super warm in Costa Rica?

Warm? Yes. Hot? Luckily no. Basically beautiful weather or rainy.

 Is it still really rainy or is the rainy season over?

It rains a lot. A also bought a new umbrella this week, but it already broke! $20 down the drain…. Urg…..  But yea. Apparently the rain will last until Christmas.

How is your new cell phone?  

I actually don’t even really enjoy it.  Its super convenient, which is such a blessing, but I thought I would enjoy it more. Neither of us ever want it in our bag. Haha.

How do you feel that Mom and Dad bought Rick a dog?

Suprisingly for everyone (including myself), not even bitter. I thought the name Lucy was pretty dumb, until lauren explained that its like Rick and Lucky from ¨I love lucy¨ which is totally cute.

Escazu, The city of the Witches

Note from Lexi's mom:  sorry this is late.  I'm a little behind in posting her letters.  She'd love to hear from you!  Send her an email at alexis.patterson@myldsmail.net.



Hey everybody!

Another week has come and gone.

I heard that Halloween was good. From the pictures I saw I am so impressed with the creative costumes everyone had this year.  #goldstarforeveryone

I honestly cant believe that fall is happening without me. I am pretty sure that fall is my favorite time fo year, and Costa Rica is still so…. beautiful and rainy. The usual.

My Halloween was THOROUGHLY  unexciting.  I got all festive and wore orange and black that day.  We even considered buying little Halloween treats to bring to everyone, but luckily we didn't.  When we got to the first few houses we were so excited and said ¨Happy Halloween!¨ and immediately got ¨Halloween is of the devil¨ responses with judging faces. We learned real quick to stop wishing everyone happy Halloween. Haha. Honestly we thought it was kind of funny.

Its ironic because this week we learned that apparently Escazu is known as ¨The city of the witches¨.  When I first got here I notices that little cartoon witches were everywhere, and the word ¨bruja¨(witch) is used all the time. For example, there is a plaza call Bruja plaza, a restaurant called ¨La Bruja¨and so on and so forth. I asked my companion if she knew if our area had a history with witches and she had no idea. We asked around and APPARENTLY Escazu is known for witchery.  Everyone from Escazu has a little witch sticker on the back of their car that lets everyone know that they are from Escazu. As missionaries, we couldn't exactly say we were thrilled to hear that our area is known for the witches, but being the week of Halloween, it was very festive.

Alright people, I know this is incredibly boring, but I am having to WORST writers block. I feel like I have nothing interesting to write about.

Toodles.

Hermana Patterson