9-15-14 lots of great photos

Al Mundo!

As always, i want to talk to you about a couple of stuffs i learned, but i want to be more personal in this letter with how im doing, ill update those things at the end though. 

first up. moved into our new appartment a few weeks ago, just clarifying that up if anyone is still confused. keep in mind, this is a really really really really good appartment. it is better than the zone leaders and the secretaries to the president. this was newly built, and it 260mil for the 4 of us. so 520 dollars a month for the place. we do have to pay electricity and water after, so it will probably be another 40 dollars, but we did luck out with this. just wait tell my next transfer, and my living conditions will stink.

i realized, or at least i think ive realized, why there isnt any chocolate down here in costa rica. All chocolate melts in warm conditions like your hand, right? i saw a toblerone bar here in the store and freaked out, because its sweet and nothing here tastes sweet besides bread and sugar, so i bought 3 of them. turned out they were all somewhat melted, and they were kept in a store that was air conditioned. So ya, chocolate is hard to keep solid here.

I tend to get along with kids. Members of my family know this, that im good with kids, but i really can see it here. Ya i can connect with adults and youth, and trying to learn to connect with investigadors to, but in reality its the kids 12 and under that i really connect with. I can play with them, and im actually happy with them. Ill talk a bit more about happiness later, but its one of the few times, when im playing ball with the little kids, that im actually happy. I dont really know why i was given that gift, but i hope sometime in my future ill be able to find out. might not be in my mission, possibly not till i have kids of my own, but the lord gives us talents for a reason, and i just havent discovered that reason.

Any meal ideas for what i can buy. Its down to a egg sandwhich every morning, and sometimes a hotdog sandwhich (bread with mayo, mustard, and ketchup, with two hot dogs cut in half) for dinner about once every 3 days. so im finally getting to the point where im eating, but they dont fill me up at all. i cant buy too many things down here, resources are limited, but i can be creative when i have the money for next month. so send me all sorts of meal ideas that are possibly for a college student type situation, but with less resources and skills.

being starved with everything, you learn what your desires are. ive learned i miss music a ton. i always listened to music before, with homework, driving, parkour, everything basically except sleep and scripture study, so i really miss music. i also miss school. studying was really a nice work out for my mind. i mean ya i can study spanish, but i mean knowledge type stuff, science, mathematics, literature, memorizing words in spanish isnt really the same. 

everyone hates cats here. and its not like in america where people just generally dont like cats and like dogs better. but they hate cats. their are always stray animals, normally people just shew away dogs or kick at them if they get to close, but there are less cats here and people throw rocks at them. if a house has a cat, the kids will kick and chase after it to smack it with something. poor cats. ill still love you, even if the world doesnt respect you. 

Football is awesome, american that is. i enjoyed it in america, wasnt a huge fan but i enjoyed it. but here since everything is normal football, a football americano is awesome, and i actually have the skill to throw and catch it, unlike a soccerball. i love throwing the little nerf sized footballs with the kids. wish i had a mini plastic football of myown, but they dont send those here. pssh football americanos in costa rica, who would sell such a thing?

food is food. i use to hate brownies, everyone can attest to that, but constantly being starved, it doesnt matter what you put on my plate, ill eat it. so i love brownies now, dont love onions, but ill eat them, and all other kinds of stuff. i can understand how peoples tastes changed post mission. ohh and bread. bread here is super airy. i thing im going to pull a cj when i get home and make fresh wheat bread when i get back. that sounds so amazing. and i love bread. good times.

okay, my emotional levels. for the past 3 weeks or so my emotion levels have been really fluctuating. last week, i was getting to the point where i didnt know if i wanted to be in the mission anymore. It was just hard coping with all the demands on my body and my mind, and i wasnt able to understand the language either. i knew that the mission would require much out of me, but my emotions just wouldnt listen to the logic, i understood the concept of turning outward like christ when things get hard, which i was, but i was still depressed. when things got hard i would just work and serve harder, but my emotions were still low. i got to the point where i made a list of all the things that made me happy, and all the things that were making me sad, as well as reasons to go home, and reasons to stay. with one more category of what i would actually do when i got home compared to here. basically what i learned from that, was that the only things that were really digging at me here was that i missed listening to music, and missed playing board games with my family or games on the computer. when i got home, really all i could think of that i would actually do is listen to music, play games, work as a lifeguard since its in the middle of a school semester, and thats about it. nothing productive. on the other hand, being here is super productive, im learning plenty of life lessons, and i know that the gospel is true, so everything im doing progresses the lords work, after that, everything started to get easier for me. my emotions started to get better, and i was finding joy in my depression here because i knew it was all for a better cause. keep in mind this was a week ago. and every day after that just got better and better. 

yesterday i was blessed with an increase in understanding with the language to. what i mean by that is i was thinking to myself, wow, i can actually understand a lot of the language. im about at the point of my understanding as i was at the end of the mtc, but mtc people spoke clearer and slower. so my emotions are much better now, and its great because i can focus harder on what is most important here in the mission and not worry about my self since im over that hump.

we also had the 1 month meeting with president today, and that just helped strengthen my motivation to be here and my happiness. I also found out today that my mtc companion went home last week, he couldnt take it, that was sad to here, but i was feeling the same way just a few weeks ago. 

Hope i can continue to feel good being here. i know its where i want to be, i want to serve a two year mission, but ya missions are hard. and for those of you who havent served a mission, i mean hard as in your mind is your worst enemy. you physical desires get pulled to the limits, and then on top of that lessons and progress from investigators can be really slow sometimes and it feels like you arent doing any progress, but you have to remember everything is in the lords time. 

but ya, as of now, loving the mission, actually mean it this time, and doing good. i guess you could say what i was having homesickness, and i still have a little, but im trying to put my focus on my mission, and not myself. anyways, tell next time

Elder Campbell


PHOTOS



Really there is only McDonald's and overpriced pizza hut here, so we took 5 of the youth in our area and bought them McDonald's. stuffed all of us in the same taxi, good times.

So we were giving service to this one lady, and she had us help dig her a whole for poop basically. The whole was about 1 1/2 meters when we got there, and we dug another 1 meter, the video and the pictures are at about 2 meters give or take. And since it was so far down, it was hard to dig. we basically used a 30 pound metal rod to break up the dirt, shovel it in a bucket, and lift it above our heads to our companion. Nearly impossible after 2 meters when soy was in the ground, because he had to jump to give me the bucket. so i basically shoveled the last half meter, that was wretched! 

So basically liberia is the city, for what you would consider a city in the outskirts of costa rica, and san roque is the houses outside the city. In our house in Utah. we have the house, a back yard, and behind the backyard is a park. here. we have investigators homes, their puny backyard, i have pictures, and then a jungle, pictures are as follows

we have also been working on building a fence for a service project here. Everything in guanacaste is brick or cement walls, dirt or cement floor, and lamina for roof, lamina is like tin sheets. For the fences you find a random stick in the woods, bring it to the house, dig a whole for it, and nail some nails in the wood to some lamina, the following are the pictures, and i also sent a video. we didnt build the shed, but we put all the fence on

this is a super light rain in guanacaste. Its still raining often, almost daily, which is still super rare, dont know what it means, but probably not a hurricane or something. the picture with the water in the road is 5 minutes after a rain storm. camera died after that

appartment pictures! keep in mind, this is a really really really really good appartment. it is better than the zone leaders and the secretaries to the president. this was newly built, and it 260mil for the 4 of us. so 520 dollars a month for the place. we do have to pay electricity and water after, so it will probably be another 40 dollars, but we did luck out with this. just wait tell my next transfer, and my living conditions will stink

the only patch of grass in san roque. dangit i want to go tricking and do flip,s by the way not sure if i said it earlier, but president wilkinson gave me permission to do flips anytime anywhere, even in church attire. so i only do sideflips and backflips elsewhere. i would do more but there isnt any grass, so im not comfortable. sad panda, guanacaste

walking with some of the members after one of the youth received the aaronic priesthood. and then a picture of a football field. normally people play in the streets, but this is a really nice field we found, the equivalent of gangs hang around this field, but less violent then the american connotation. but this field is where you can buy drugs, but also where you can watch some mean field soccer taking place!

Dear Mom, 

Thanks for the care package, hope it comes sometime soon, as in the next 4 weeks. 

 i miss rasberry jam. things that are sweet are super expensive here. for example, the same size rasberry jam jar here is 12 dollars. ridiculous i know, its a luxury to have a pbj&J

 i miss little kids from utah. little kids here still play, but its with dirt and cochroaches, i miss good old clean play, like pillow fights. ill talk a bit more about kids in my letter to the world.

and yes things will be different when i return, i can already feel my desires change, i hope i dont play as many computer games or stay on the computer as long. after seeing what a family means here, im so glad i have my family back home, and ill want to connect with them more.

Well, more details are in the world letter, this one will be long and personal. Until next week

Elder Campbell

9-8-14

Al Mundo

The past couple weeks Elder Soy and I haven´t been putting our full times worth into our days, because if waiting to move, or problems with money transactions and waiting around to get them, But, now we almost have everything taken care of, still waiting for Elder Soy´s money, but we are working longer and harder now. Had my first baptism this week on Saturday and Sunday. I didnt do any teaching for these 2 baptisms, but i did talk to them and befriend them for 3 weeks, so it kinda counts? not really, but i baptized them both anyways

Shortly putting it, we only planned to have one baptism, marcos, who is 13. Once he got there, he kept saying that he didnt want to be baptized that week, but the next week. Up until 10 minutes after the start of the baptism, his other friends were waiting for the  start of the service. One of his friends who was his a investigator came to us and asked if he could be baptized the same day. I dont know the specifics, but apparently he was qualified but just didnt have a date. His name was Hansel and he is 12. Once Marcos realized his friend was being baptized, he decided to be baptized to. I did both the baptisms, but had to say the first one three times and the second one twice. The prayer itself was easy, but saying their super long 4-6 name names with spanish names im not familiar to hearing or saying was hard. bleh.  Here they get baptized on friday or saturday, and confirmed during sacrament meeting on sunday. I didnt do either of the confirmations, but i did participate in the circle.

There are some picture i sent home of a burger, and yes thats a burger. It costed 3,500 colones, which is about 7 dollars, but it was a 4 by 4 or 5 by 5 burger, cant remember which. The thing was huuuugge, and i couldnt finish it either. Good story though

Okay things i learned this week:

Before my mission i hated coca cola,and mc donalds .But being here and not eating a lot of food, you are really hungry. And since most of their spices are only salt or tobasco, other flavors start to get nice. Of and their flavored drinks they everyone has at home taste like crystal light drinks, but really watered down, so they are pretty nasty, but we drink it anyways. If anyone wants to give you a treat though, they will open some sort of pan and give you a glass of coca, which actually has flavor. And as far as mcdonalds, meat is rare here, no one ever serves meat. Out of my 3 weeks here with my cocinera for lunch, i think ive had meet 3 times, and it was pork, pork, and some sort of chicken. So ya, mcdonalds isnt meat, but its the closest you can get. Im fine eating food here, but it doesnt leave you feeling heavy or full or stuffed like it would in america, hard to explain, but even when you cant eat any more here, you still feel like your body needs food.

Im learning what ill actually eat and cook in college. Cereal here is nasty. For example, they have corn flakes, but they taste like they have absolutely no sugar, so i add my own sugar to them. And even then, i am never filled. After three bowls, im sorta full, but i feel like ive had too much sugar and need real food. So that being said, dont know how i did it at home, maybe it was the same, but now that im working and sweating a ton here, sugar just doesnt cut it for me.

Camelbacks are like a thing from the future here. The word germaphobic doesnt exist here, so everyone drinks water from the fossit from their hands or shares everything. For the water at church, there is a sink, and 2 nossels in the washing room. There are 3 plastic cups, one above each water source, and the people just fill up the cup, drink, and put the cup back down. The next person uses the same cup. And generally the dont swap out the cups unless they break or are lost. So, Elder parker got a camelback with his back pack in the mail and didnt want it, so he gave it to Elder Soy. Every investigator we talk to or little kid in the street is super curious what the hose is coming out of his bag, and when they say its water, they are all stunned and want to try. America, land of the lazy.

Depending on how cloudy it is, but normally not, its always crazy hot outside in the streets. And we have to walk about 15 minutes from our appartment to our cocineras house, or 25 minutes to the chappel, so you get plenty of time to cook. And since a drinking fountain doesnt exist here, no public places offer any kind of water except a bottle for $2.50, its hard to get a drink, and your always super sweaty. So, at the apparment you always have a big fan on you, whether your sleeping, reading, eating, or studying. Even though we have AC in our appartment and it can be cold compared to outside, you always have a fan. I havent had a pillow either for these past two weeks, so its been hard to sleep. I use a towel and some clothes for my pillow, which sort of work, but i half my planket for the rest of the pillow. That being said, im not completely covered with the blanket over night, so depending on where im not covered, normally my arms or legs, i get tons of bites. And the bites here get huge, like anywhere between a bebe to a quarter of inflamed skin for a day or up to 4, and they huurt. i currently am waiting for my cash from Elder Soy, so i cant buy any bug spray either. And for some reason, only the gringos get bit, everyone else doesnt have to worry about it. But i should get a pillow when i go on for my 1 month interview in san jose next week.

All the floors everywhere are super dusty. Most houses have either tile or concrete, they just collect mad ammounds of dust. Probably because everywhere outside of the house is dust so you bring it with you in the house. But even if we dont bring  our shoes in the house, a ton of dust accumulates. I underestimated my parents when then said "even if you cant see the dust when you vacuume, its there, so go slowly over everything", ya i never listened to that, now i realize i was wrong.

Well, nothing else, keep in touched for next week
Pura Vida

Elder Campbell

9-1-14 Photos of new area

a la mundo

So every week there are things i write in my planner that i think about that are super different from american culture, and so this week i have a couple of those ill list, and that will be my basic letter.

first off are the houses. Like i said in my last letter things here are expensive/cheap depending upon what it is. For houses, they are dirt cheap. Long story short one night we slept overnight in basically the equivilant of a mansion here, it was really really nice, and i asked how much it was cost. In US dollar , it was about $160,000 and it was ridiculously nice here. So if you are willing to spend more then $200,000 on a house, which is pretty cheap compared to Utah Standars for a house, you can live in a mansion. the other houses are normally about $40,000 and have one main room, which is about 10 feet by 20 feet, and two small bedrooms, just barely bigger than a king size mattress. one of the photos home was of my cocineras house, and its a really nice house compared to the others.

Its true when they say they drink coca cola in latin america. So a typically store for goods and markets would have say 4 shelves of drinks. 1 to 2 of the shelves will always always be coca cola, and generally the most popular is a 2.5 litre for about $2.50, another shelf will be fruit drinks. its not like all these crazy awesome smoothies and what not, as those are just as uncommon as they are in utah, but this fruit drink shelf is normally half tampico, and then little juice boxes. The last shelf will have variations of sprite or other drinks similar which they just call fresco here, its kinda like the basic western family sodas in a harmons or something. They have like grape, cherry, and orange. rarely youll find a rootbeer, but they dont have any other american drinks like dr pepper, mnt dew, gatorade, or other famous ones. sometimes youll see a pepsi, sometimes a lemonade, but they are rare. i miss dr pepper here, i need to find one somewhere in this city XD

It normally never rains in guanacaste, but apparently that was when its the dry season. Past 6 months before i got here, hardly ever rained, maybe once every 2 weeks, this past week though, holy crap has it rained. Now is the beginning of the wet season here, and let me tell you. when it rains in costa rica, it rains hard. its rained every day this week, and the streets flood within minutes and stay that was for almost the whole day. luckily we have been sticking to the same 2 streets this past week so we arent outside much, but the rain is hard. its like when people from california say to utahns, of ya i know what snow is, we have it here in california. us utahns laugh and say no, you dont. same thing for rain here, i really didnt know what rain was until i came to costa rica.

The american dream is real. ill explain but it might take a little. it hurts to say but people here really have no future. School doesnt mean anything for these people. some kids go to a preschool or elementary type equivalent, but it doesnt do anything for them. high school is from february to december, about 8 hours every day, (which most of the kids sluff anyways) and you graduate at about 19 or 20. If you graduate, whoopty doo, doesnt mean anything here. A diploma is worthless, doesnt help with jobs, actually it might help get into the college here, but besides that its pointless. The university of san jose is super expensive for ticos, so not a lot of people go there. (i dont know if its expensive for us standards, but for these people it is) 

I havent asked directly because i dont want to embarrase them or anything, but from what ive heard talking to the other missionaries, members, and what ive seen, these people really dont look forward to the future. They dont dream of working for this or doing something when they are older. The youngins get boyfriends and girlfriends from about 12 and older, and the adults just sit around in their houses all day. There really isnt any jobs to do here though, you either are a taxi driver with your own car, work for the basics like police or fireman, or work for one of the big harmon/smiths type stores, or you manage your personal little mini store on the side of your house. rarely is their jobs for other things.

Its also because the people here are super lazy. like i said with the pura vida last week, no one cares. so that being said, no one bothers to get out of their house. Some people watch TV, but i really dont know what people do for fun here. Makes it nice for contacting and lessons though. That being said american dream is real. in America, maybe you cant dream of being a millionair and it will come true, but you can dream of going to college and getting a career, and its actually doable. Here, planning and the future and almost inexistant.

Modesty doesnt exist. Its not like girls walk around shirtless, but they all have the 4 inch short shorts just barely longer than their butt, and wear tank tops. The church here doesnt say anything about modesty, so the young women will wear that kind of stuff to church to. During this last sunday, baptisms are on saturdays and they are confirmed the following sunday, so yesterday our investigator was a mom and a big lady, and just sitting next to me pulled down the side of her shirt and started breastfeeding here daughter who looked about lilys age. No towel or anything to cover up, and she was next to the isle so everyone could see. speaking of clothing, no one wears shoes. flip flops are sort of common, but all the little kids walk around barefoot. The roads are like really bad dirt roads, no thorns, but rocks and sticks and plants. Looks painful, but apparently they dont care. The floors for houses are cement and are always super dirty since all the ground here is dirty.

Ha, funny story, so our branch for church has about 75 to 150 people. Only 2 people can play the piano, one hardly comes, and the other is a 16 year old girl who can only play the treble part of the hymns, i think she just barely learned to play the piano, its like she chicken pecks the keys, and sometimes its the right note. Oh and its also on an electric piano so its super quite. How they start hymns on the other hand, is there is a lady that walks up to the front and starts singing, without the accompany of the piano. Wish i had a picture, but she looks super strong, like a tongan war heroine. Anyways, i think she was an opera singer once upon a time, so she walks up there and is crazy loud, and sings the hymns in her opera voice. The rest of the congregation joins at somepoint, normally the end of the first verse, and is super quite.

What ive learned about spanish verse english is that spanish is spoken with your lips. A big big big big big amount of the people here sound like they are mumbling whenever they talk, and never annunciate. Yes its probably because i cant understand some of them, but i have heard people that speak spanish, and i can actually hear them make distinct sounds and what not. Annunciation for one, really isnt a word here, and 2, people dont do it. It makes it hard listening to people. People that learned english first, and then spanish, like a good amount of the missionaries, i can understand most their words, and the only reason i cant understand the others is because i dont know what the word means. The rest of the people, the majority of the people, i cant understand them because i cant even hear them say anything distinctive. My companion for example, has learned to slow down and annunciate with me, but when he is talking to taxi drivers or other people, he just mumbles. And i dont mean slurring things together like we do in english ( for example instead of saying --i do not want to do it-- it sounds like --i dont wanna do it--) i legitimately mean the mumble.

Directions are weird here. I cant remember if i talked about it last week, if so ah well. But there is no north, south, east, or west, or even names for streets here. Its up, down, left, right, and big buildings. Oh my house is 200 meters down and after the 2nd left my house is the one 3rd from the corner with the green paint. some of the houses have house number/letter combos, like 45C, but normally they dont. That being said its super hard to find houses or directions, even GPS doesnt know how to get to some places. In san jose, GPS will put you on one way roads and put you on the longest route possibly. I miss american roads, and i miss utah gps system.

The only personal thing ill say in this letter is ive found my hardest thing adapting being a missionary is my social life. Ive never been use to talking a lot to people and being super social, and so for 1. its hard with the investigators to small talk to and get to know them. i cant understand them, and im not use to doing it in the first place. luckily elder soy is super social and talkative, so that helps me out. 2. it makes it hard in the companionship and now in the new appartment. We moved and are now living with elder parker and elder cuevas from hawaii and chicago. It doesnt help that i dont talk since i cant understand their spanish, but even if they are playing soccer in the appartment, ill join but its hard for me to, i really dont know how else to word it, but party it up with them in the appartment. Thats one thing ill learn sooner or later being here.

Anyways, doing good. The best anti depressant here is hard work, so thats what ill do.

Elder Campbell

finally real food