He knows I will follow him, Give all my life to him

This is where I live. NBD.

Hey kids.
I´m going to be honest up front. This weeks letter is a short one.  I have a few good reasons:
1.       I only get so much time on the computer each week. Last weeks epistle took so long to write that I didn´t get to all my emails. I fully intend to read each email this week. (Also, if you are interested, I would love to hear from you alexis.patterson@myldsmail.net)
2.       Not nearly as much happened this week as last week
3.       I got the pictures from my sisters wedding this week and I will look at every. Single. One.

Sorry not sorry. Okay, that wasn’t very missionary like. I’m sorry if you are offended.

This week we sent our Emilia (Yes, it is spelt like that) off to Panama. It was tough. We had her as our next door neighbor for 5 quick days. What fun they were! We laughed, we cried, we laughed some more. We saw a silly side to Emilia that we did not think existed. Oh…. But it does.  She left Thursday, at FOUR in the morning. Oh what fun. Worst part. We didn’t even get to say goodbye.  Maximo told us to wait for him in the grocery store parking lot (I’d like to remind you, this is at 4 am) because a friend of his was driving them to the bus station in San Jose. We waited for about  30 minutes, got anxious, and decided to leave Emilia and run home to call Maximo to make sure we hadn’t missed anything. Of coarse, when we called, he said he had Emilia in the car with him, and that they were leaving and didn’t have time to wait. QUE TRAUMA as my companion always says. We said our good byes over the phone.  It was indeed traumatic. We both have a little hole in our hearts. We both randomly will say to the other, “I miss our Indigina!” and we will feel sad, and try to go on with our day.  We miss our best friend and Nicanor like crazy!
This week we learned a big lesson. DO WHAT THE LORD WANTS. Okay, we try to always do what the Lord wants, but this week was pretty incredible. To be honest, working with the members in this area has been a little tough. We think it’s because the branch is so small (about  50 people each week in church) and EVERYONE is a convert, and I think that this area has had some issues with “bad” missionaries in the past. We began to realize that the members just did not trust us. One day I decided to read a section about members in PMG and it was like a lightbulb went off in my head. This was the answer! This week we worked crazy hard to gain the trust of more members and the branch president. I can’t believe how quickly the work is hastening. We were grasping at straws to get people to help us out, and now we have more referrals than ever before. What a miracle. The Lord is the best. 
And now, Questions from our readers (my mom)

Why didn’t Emilia and Maximo just get married officially? Because Emilia has ZERO documents. Zero. Like I said, she doesn’t even really know how old she is. You can’t be married legally, if you don’t…. really exist legally.

Will Emilia and Maximo ever see one another again? Yes. Maximo is the one taking Emilia down to Panama because she can’t be pregnant, with a two year old, all her bags, in a bus for a day and a half. He will get her settled and then return to Costa Rica. Now that she is officially a member of the church, we have something to work with to get them married (in the temple) in a year.

What is their future plan? She lives in Panama for a year while he works. Hopefully after a year they can be married in the temple and he will probably move to panama with her.

Can you contact the missionaries in Panama to find Emilia and keep her fellowshipped?  Oh ho ho. We are ALLLLLLL OVER DAT. Trust me. We are workin hard to help her out. Our mission president is in contact with the mission president in panama and they are trying to figure something out.

Can she take lessons to learn to read and write? Yes. Maximo taught to to write her name, and she is trying to learn. Its super great.

How will this saga end?? I might not know until the Spirit world, but I what a happy reunion it will be!

Also, if anyone is interested, this week is going to be a doozie. We have a new goal from the President of the mission to have 30 LESSONS THIS WEEK. You might not realize it, but that is soooooo much. The most we have EVER had is 25 in one week and that was incredible. It’s the new mission standard and we are SO NERVOUS. But we have faith! SI SE PUEDE!
Love you all!
Hermana Patterson
 

Our Emilia- My first Baptism

I love this picture, but its a little embarrassing that it looks like I am totally posing all ¨model¨like. I can´t help that Im a model when I am not trying! ha. joke. 

Also- Emilia totally doesn´t look happy. I promise this is the happiest day of her life. 

 
WHAT A LONG WEEK!
That makes it sound like it was bad. It wasn´t. Surprisingly. For those of you who don´t know, my dear sister Lauren got married this Wednesday. I am super happy for her and Casey, but the selfish side of me was really sad and held a little pity party for myself because I couldn´t attend (Are pity parties legal in Costa Rica? Probably not……).  When I first realized that my baby sister would be getting married while I was on my mission I cried. It´s a total bummer, you know? On top of that, just weeks later 3 of my dearest friends in the world also announced their weddings would be in May or June. Honestly, if the prophet had not changed the missionary age to 19 in October, I would have turned 21 in April, and waited to serve a mission until July or August. I always knew that the Lord must need me now, and have been waiting to know why.
I was SORELY disappointed when Wednesday morning came, and I felt I did not have an answer. We had a super great lesson with our most progressing investigators Adriana, and her family Alex, Mauricio and sister Yanette. It was great. The spirit was super strong, and we left feeling great. But this wasn´t my answer.
Next, we ate lunch is San Marcos with the Elders, and then took a bus to San Pablo to visit Emilia. Sweet, sweet Emilia who can´t read, yet knows the church is true and that the BOM is the word of god. For each lesson with Emilia, we have to find pictures of the principles in the Liahonas and we tape them to her wall so she can understand. She knows every principle and wants to be baptized so very badly. The problem is that Emilia is from a tribe in Panama. In her tribe in Panama, she is married to Maximo (via a ritual, nothing else). Her tribe has absolutely zero records. This girl doesn´t even know officially how old she is. She thinks probably 20.  This makes things complicated because without documents, you can´t really be married by law. If you are not married by law, you either need to separate from your partner or be married to be baptized a member of the church. So you see our problem.
We always love to visit Emilia. She lives AT THE TOP OF A MOUNTAIN. Visiting Emilia means spending the entire afternoon to visit. We luckily can take a bus to the top of the mountain (usually, when it decides to run) teach our lesson, and walk for about 2 hours DOWN the mountain to catch our bus to San Marcos. In totally its usually about a 5 hour ordeal. We always do happily because we love her so stinkin much. We were a little sad to make the trip this time around, because Emilia is leaving to move to Panama this week and we probably wouldn´t get the chance to visit her again. As a going away present, I decided I would buy a cheap note book and paste in pictures from the Liahonas of every single principle of every single lesson for her to take with her to Panama. My hope, was that one day, in her small, rural tribe she would run into other missionaries or members of the church and find a way to be baptized. It was a stretch but it was all we could do.

When we gave Emilia her notebook she was SO HAPPY! Our usual quiet and stonefaced, but sweet Emilia came to life. I explained that I wanted her to share the gospel with her family and most especially with her kids. Nicanor, her 2 year old was immediately interested in the pictures and me and my companion teared up as Emilia showed him each page with care and explained ¨this is Joseph Smith, this is the book of mormon. We need Faith in Jesus Christ, then we need to repent, then we can be baptized….¨And so on.

We then took this silly photo, with the three of us in her usual garb. Totes cute.

They want to be sealed in the Temple one day. Its adorable.

We left feeling more than a little sad. Our Emilia was leaving us, my family was on the other side of the world enjoying my baby sisters wedding, it was POURING rain, my socks were wet and cold, and we had to walk down a mountain for 2 hours. We walked in silence, holding back tears, and I couldn´t help but ask  myself ¨Why am I here now? Why couldn´t I come in June? Why can´t I be with my family this special day and enjoy the mission later? Should I have prostponed?¨ On top of everything else, my companion was more than a little homesick and sad herself. We were a sad looking companionship.
Exhausted, we returned to San Marcos where we attended our weekly Correlation meeting with the Elders and the Ward Mission leader. We talked about each of our investigators and when it came to Emilias turn we talked about our day and how sad we were that she was leaving, so ready and couldn´t be baptized. We talked about how sometimes its hard to follow rules and laws and such, because each case is just so different. The moment we left the chapel, my companion turned to me and said ¨ We are calling the AP´s (assistance to the president of the mission) . We have to get Emilia baptized.¨ We both felt strongly that there just HAD to be a way.
We called the AP´s and explained. They listened and gave us permission to call the President of the Mission. We called at 9:30 night. We talked about our problem, and he said he understood how hard we worked with her, how badly she wanted to be baptized. He said he would write a letter to the Area Presidency about Emilia and see if there was anything we could do. We cried together a whole lot that night. We sat on the floor next to our telephone and talked about how it wasn´t fair that someone who WANTED to be baptized, couldn´t be. We got on our needs and opened our hearts to the Lord. We begged to see Emilia baptized. We had a tiny pool of tears on the floor. The spirit was so strong that she NEEDED to be baptized, and now. We just weren´t sure how. We called the Elders, our district and zone leaders, and our new hermana leaders. We called our faithful members of the ward and asked them to fast with us for Emilia.
Our response from the Lord came faster that we could have expected.  The next morning we spent more time on our knees, and studying. We called Maximo and told him we were doing everything we could to get Emilia baptized, but we just needed more time before she left for Panama. He said he would do everything he could to change their travel plans. And then he said something VERY important.
Maximo: ¨Hermana´s, You know that Emilia and I don´t sleep together, right?¨
H. Hernandez : ¨What?¨
Maximo: ¨Hermana, ever since you taught Emilia about the Law of Chastity last month, I have slept on the couch. Emilia doesn´t want to live in sin. And Hermanas, Emilia is leaving next week for Panama, and I am not going with her. We won´t be living together anymore.¨  
This is something we could work with. We made the round of calls once again to the AP´s, the Mission president  who contacted the Area Presidency.  We got a speedy response that we could baptize Emilia, only if we did it NOW, and she moved out of Maximos house before she left for Panama.
The next two days were a blur. Crying with joy, more prayers or gratitude and joy followed. My answer had come. This is why I was here NOW. Emilia didn´t have until June, July or this fall. She needed US, NOW. 
Luckily we live in an apartment owned by a member. The apartment next to us is also owned by this member and is empty. We talked to her, and arranged for Emilia to live in the empty apartment for the next 5 days. We arranged emergency exchanges with the district leader for the Elders so that Emilia could have her baptismal interview the next morning and be baptized in the afternoon.
We travel back up the mountain to share our good news.  Never had I seen Emilia so happy and full of life. She cried with Joy. We cried with joy. We had a miracle! We couldn´t believe it was happening.
The elders dropped everything to help us (that dang swimming pool needed to be blown up again!). Litterally. Elder Mancera left for cartago without a change of clothes or money so that our District leader could be with Elder Roberts for the interview. They helped us move Emilia from her shack at the top of the mountain in San Pablo to our next door neighbor in San Marcos. Choice members were a god-sent. They sprang to life helping us getting everything set so that Emilia could be baptized. We were thrilled.

The swimming pool had problems. Lots of them. We only got it to stand up half way, so the baptism was done sitting down. Such a crack up, but we didn´t care.

My first baptism was Emilia Fransechis Montezuma. She was one of my best friends in the Premortal world, I KNOW IT. I promised to share the gospel with her back then, and on May 25,2013 we fulfilled that promise. It wasn´t easy. It was super hard. I gave up a lot to fulfill that promise, but it was so worth it.

Sick-Os

 

Hola todos!

Each P-day seems to come faster and faster. The days feel like weeks and the weeks feel like days. I guess that is the true sign that ¨missionary mode¨ is in full swing!

First item of business this week- we got super sick this week. There is a virus going around Los Santos and because we visit and see so many people, we got it. Stomach aches ALL WEEEEEEEEK LOOOONG. Hardly eating. Regretting it when we did. It made working hard. Most days this week we could only attend one or two appointments  in the day without feeling absolutely horrible and returning home. One day we couldn´t even leave the house and got premission from the mission nurse to take the day off. Being sick is not fun when you can´t watch  tv or surf the internet.

But guess what Sunday was??!?!?!?! MOTHERS DAY!!!! One of the best two days of a missionaries year! For those of you who don´t know, LDS missionaries get to email home once a week, and only get to call/skype our families twice a year. Mothers day and Christmas.

 

 Honestly, I was a little worried about it. I had some pretty homesick days in April, and I felt like I was finally getting a handle on the emotion  train. I was worried seeing and talking to my family would un wind it all, but it totally didn´t! I was sad to say goodbye and everything, but It actually felt really good. I loved seeing my family through skype and hearing everyone´s voices. But I didn´t fall apart and cry myself to sleep the way I thought I would.

Right after we skyped our families, we went to visit a member- Susette, who is the Relief Society President (Organization of Women in the Church) for our branch. She only just returned from her mission in 2011 from Peru. She showed us her mission pictures and journals and we ¨mission talked¨. It made me so happy to be here! In just the 3 months I have been away from home my life has already changed in so many ways. My priorities are different and I met people every single day that change the way I look at the world. The mission feels so natural for me!

This week we have ¨cambios¨ or exchanges. Me and Hermana Hernandez are not going anywhere because I am only 1/2 done with my training, but it is probable that one if not both of our Elders with change. Because of the changes we had a Zone activity in Cartago today (about 45 min bus ride). Me, my companion, and the two elders in our area ( Roberts and Morales) arrived in cartago super early. We were to meet the rest of the zone at the ruins of an old Catholic church. 

 

This church has been rebuilt multiple times and every single time it gets knocked down by an earth quake. Finally the people of Cartago took it as a sign that, clearly, God did not want a church build on that spot. So they keep the ruins around and built a garden inside. Um..... RIGHT UP MY ALLEY.

 It was really cool. At first, we just admired it from the outside, because it was all gated up and no one was allowed in. Then my companion got determined to get inside. She found a grounds man and asked how we could get in. He said we would have to get permission from some city officials across the street. An hour later, and after talking to about 10 different people, we had a police man escorting us into the church ruins. TWANIES (cool/legit)! It was so beautiful inside! I am glad I have a strong willed Latina on my side to get me into cool places!

For our activity we visited the nicest mall in Cartago. After the Walmart disaster, I wasn´t expecting much. But it was really great. The only American store (other than places to eat) that I recognized was Hallmark (random.). But all of the stores were super similar to what you would find in American Malls. The Candle/ lotion stores, Forever 21 wanna-be and endless surf/ skate shops with zummez, hurley and roxie. I felt like I was back in the states! We had a wonderful time buying candies, playing in Toy stores and looking at clothes. Im sad that we had such a good time together today and that exchanges are this week! Well... the life of a mission I guess! And it will be good to meet new missionaries too! 

The elders had a baptism this week! Hermana Carmen. She is the mother of one of two YW in our branch named Julie! She is golden! Hey thanks for taking the time to read these emails everyweek! You´re the best.

No questions from our readers this week!

Have a good week everyone!

Xoxo Hermana Patterson

You can write Hermana Patterson at:  alexis.patterson@myldsmail.net

You can leave a comment here and I'll copy and paste it and email it to her.