Cavernas Fila de Cal: Lessons from a hike in the caves

Gringos go to the caves, but they take a super long trail on the hill instead of going through the river. I don't think you'll ever go there though, Mom. A little bit of a rough trail for ladies :P

Hey so the video (below) I just sent is a super awesome lizard here in Zona Sur that walks on water. So we managed to record it one time. Whenever I see them I feel like I'm in Jurassic Park haha

Hey mom! That's super cool about Sherry in the play.

Hello from the jungle!  We just went to some super awesome caves!

I really did go into the jungle today! We went hiking and went to explore some caves here in our area with one of my favorite investigators, Ruma. It was a really wonderful experience. After walking about 40 minutes into the middle of the jungle (it's not really even a trail, we just went up the bank of the river), we got to the entrance of the caves. When you enter the caves, you just enter a whole other world. From the bright greens and blues...to blacks and grays. There were these little 6-legged spider looking thinks which I'm almost sure were blind, and little grashopper looking things with giant antennas (the antennas looked like big daddy long leg legs). Then, after we got in a little farther, we saw some cool stalagmites & stalactites, a river that goes through the cave, some really cool rock structures that the water has formed through the years, and "ELDER CHILD" written on the cave wall (that one really made me laugh). But honestly, when we turned off our flashlights and saw just how dark it was in that cave, Elder Ferrin made an interesting comment:   "Just imagine the Nephites for 3 days like this".

It might have been just a side comment for him, but it really made me think a little bit.

My whole mission has been great and has helped me so much become a better person and learn more about the scriptures and the gospel, but I have been able to have a very unique experience here in Zona Sur.

Zona Sur has brought physical conditions that I've never been in before! Let me explain myself.

I had never lived in the heat before. Nor a realy humid place. Nor jungle! I had never visited people who's life is cutting palm oil plants on the farms. I had never "mowed" a lawn with a machete! It's honestly just a different world!

But the special part is that this world is helping me to understand the scriptures in a personal way. When I spent 30 seconds in the pitch-blackness of that cave, I really started to understand how the people felt in 3rd nephi when the land was covered with darkness for 3 days. That's insane! I never had really imagined it until I lived it, even though it was just for a second.

I had never though about Peter walking around, whining about the heat before, but Jerusalem and all that is a pretty hot and deserty place! And now I feel that, walking around in the heat all day. When I fast here and stop sweating because my body just doesn't have water to sweat anymore, it really helps me to ponder on Jesus's 40 day fast.

It's a great help for me to really understand the scriptures in a personal way.

Apart from that, I'm really happy with this week. Elder Nuñez and I really weren't achieving our potential as a companionship, but we put a new plan in practice to manage an area so big in a more orderly manner, and we really saw big results this week. It helped a ton and now I do feel like we're realizing our potential. I love this work. Tough days exist, obviously, but I feel like every day I fall in love a little bit more with the missionary work. There's nothing else I'd rather be doing.

I love you all. Keep safe and have a great week!

-Elder Henry

Check out these Christmas lights! It's a TON of little birds that were all grouped up on some telephone cables one day. It was super strange haha. All the white "lights" are their bellies.

Missionary activity! We watched Meet the Mormons (more people arrived after I took the photo)

An epic rooster picture.

Shiblon, tired after doing some serious pushups.

We went to the hospital! President Meza, the district president, was sick and asked us to go visit him.

A cool little gecko (people say that if one falls in your food, it poisons the food and you'll die. But they're cool and, well, never fall haha)

Playing with Shiblon :-)

HOT! hot hot hot!

Screen shot from the video Javier posted on Facebook since "someone" forgot his camera cord ;)

 
Goodbye November! Crazy how time flies when you're in the jungle.

Well today in Panama I bought a new umbrella but I'm not sure how much I'll use it, it looks like we're entering the dry season. Which is really saddening, because dry = HOT! hot hot hot! And the hottest part of the day is like 11-3, right when we start working haha.

So this was a super great week. I think that last week I wrote about 2 great investigators that we had found.

This week I went on divisions with Elder Alvarez, and apart from being really dead (this next change he ends the mission), we had a wonderful experience with them.

So the father investigator is, I can't really explain how he is, but we thought we were gonna have a pretty tough time teaching him honestly. It just seemed like we were gonna be trudging through mud getting through his questions and everything. But on Tuesday we went with them and decided to explain a little better the Book of Mormon, and how to feel their answer that it's true, and then put a baptismal date.

So we start explaining Book of Mormon, and they just aren't really making any comments, just accepted everything. Really abnormal for them. But we keep going and they're nice and interested and they had read a few pages and connect the dots from what they read and what we explained. 

Then we start to explain how an answer from God feels. They're really well educated about the Bible, and the wife told us that she knows that the Book of Mormon is the word of God, because when she reads it she can feel it and she doesn't feel that desire to put it down that a bad book would give her. that was so awesome to hear. It was just incredible to enter into a house where I'm ready to "trudge through the mud", and they're just accepting it! Then we invite them to baptism and he says "yeah!" and we put the date and he says "Yup!". After explaining that we would be there to help them prepare she says that she would too, because she "didn't want this to just be a thing of one month and then she never comes back". Then he tells us that he wants his daughter to be baptized, too! She doesn't live there right now but might be coming back soon. 

It was just so incredible to see how the Spirit works. They are the living example of the Spirit softening the hearts of the people. I love seeing miracles. and I love being in a work of miracles.

Apart from that, I went to Puerto Jimenez again this week, and scored some goals in the soccer game. And to Panama & bought some new soccer shoes! It was really a great week in the whole zone. This week are changes, we're going from a zone of 10 people, to 14, and 3 areas have changes, so half of the zone will be new (including my companion)! it's gonna be exciting and really, really, crazy hahaha.

Have a great week everyone! I love you all so much.

-Elder Henry

I'm My Father's Son

Panama taxis! Yellow taxis seem so weird now haha

Divisions with Elder Ferrin! Hanging out in his new hammock hahaha.

I had a pet cat for a day

Mommy I'm scared! (NOT)

Happy Monday, everyone!

This last week was a productive one. We were able to find a lot of new people to teach, and the best part is that they're families! :)

      So the week was pretty standard, just that on Tuesday I went on divisions with Elder Ferrin. I love the guy so much. You sure do get to have a lot of real great friends here in the mission.

     After that it was to the brete! Brete is how they say work here, I've only heard the word here in zona sur.

     We got to cross a pretty legit rope bridge this week. Javier was super scared and did not appreciate me jumping up and down and side to side and running on it haha. I sure am my father's son sometimes.

     But on the other side of that bridge live some pretty awesome people. First we met a lady and her handicapped son, who is pretty lucid, has conversations and everything, and is super nice. He used to be able to walk alone but not anymore. So his mom and his grandma take care of him and live off of selling what they have on their little farm. They've got pigs, chickens, some crops, ducks, and this other type of duck who's got bed head haha. It's hair sticks up on the back of it's head. But yeah they're really cool and I just really love them  a lot. Really humble and the mom has a really positive outlook on life even though she's got to work really hard.
     After we met her she told us that her brother lived down a little trail, so we headed out to contact him.  He's a pretty cool guy. within five minutes of knowing him he looked at us all serious and asked who was the great whore of all the earth that Revelations talks about. But he understands the Bible really well and is really interested in the Restoration. He understands perfectly the Apostasy. It's pretty fun to teach him :)

     So yeah, that's the rundown. This week I'll hardly be with my companion, as we'll be on divisions 3 days of the week, and next week we hit the road to San Jose. Crazy how time flies.

-Elder Henry

Walking to the mini farm.

Pig on the mini farm..

Don't cry over spilled milk.

Look, a river! (the rivers are all brown because it's rainy season)

Hello, gulf! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golfo_Dulce,_Costa_Rica

A member in Puerto Jimenez works with a little airplane company to ship people down from San Jose.

Beach!

It looked like Northwest beach to me! It made me feel cold haha but the water definitely isn't cold there.And yeah mom if we come to Costa Rica, we're hittin' up the Zona Sur beaches. Way better than the standard gringo Guanacaste route. No gracias!

A little mud bumblebee home that was on the ground!

A really, really big plant haha. it's like 15-20 feet tall

 

 Hello, porcupine!

Hello, Paso Ancho! Long time, no see!

My adopted nephew here haha

Christian & Javier!

Zone meeting came included with lunch this week! Chicken & fresh tortillas :)

A picture in las fincas (the farms).

Other shot of the fincas (the first one was that line of houses you see in the back).

A bunny sleeping with a dog. whaat!

We were in the jungle here in Rio Bonito!

Jungle shack! Outside of that window, it's a cliff haha.

Sunset.

A paper mache minion!

A pretty normal looking house here in Zona Sur. La Abuela, she always gives us lunch every Thursday :)  (what a blessing these generous people are, to make sure my son is nourished!)

Just gettin to know our area here...

"Can you fish in that river?"

So the river flooded a few weeks back, and all the rocks you see there weren't there before. It was river before! Crazy stuff.

If you look good there, you'll be able to see that the bridge's support is basically gone too, from the flood. (sketch!)

Just getting to know another part of my area! (FYI: All these parts are part of the Ciudad Neily itself, not other places. It's just jungle everywhere!)

Jungle selfie!

Javier drinking some stream water (don't worry Mom I didn't drink it)

He grabbed a moth!

The home where we have the group meeting in the fincas(farms)

So, this week was interesting. My first normal week here in Zona Sur!

     It was pretty good. I had a few experiences which I felt that I could really learn a lesson from.

The first one was actually the last one, but it's the one that impacted me most. Yesterday in the morning, we made pancakes (uush, Sunday morning pancakes). So, to go along with the pancakes, I wanted to make chocolate milk. So I put the water and the evaporated milk in and blended it, and put the milk in, and it was SOO delicious. So put more in, so that there would be enough for everyone. But as I put that all in, I turned the blender around to see the measurements written on there, and the blender unscrewed from the bottom. So when I realize, there's chocolate milk all over the counter. So I think "Oh dear, I gotta get this thing to the sink!" Thinking the rubber sealer had broken. So I lift up the blender and BOOM! All the chocolate milk comes rushing out of the blender, as if a high pressure tube had broken.

I was so disappointed. First off, I got chocolate milk all over my khaki pants and alllll over the kitchen, which was frustrating. But after getting changed and cleaning up, I was just disappointed! I was making this great delicious chocolate milk, and I had already tasted it and it was delicious, and I lost it all! Ugh! and there was no more chocolate, so I couldn't make more.

     It would've been ironic if, in that moment, the phrase "Don't cry over spilled milk" had come to mind.

     Sometimes in life we work so hard to make or do something so great, and it just doesn't work out. Is a blender full of chocolate milk important to my salvation? no. But I took great pride in that delicious chocolate milk! It was something that I was really happy about. That can happen about a lot of things. Maybe we lose in our high school football game, or maybe our homemade fruit canning project goes wrong, or whatever it may be, things just go wrong sometimes. I realized that you just gotta keep going on, and stick a smile on your face. It's ok. It was never in the plan that everything went perfectly in this world.

     So that was a good take-away for me.

So yeah, just a few experiences like that.

     Apart from that, I got to know some more parts of my area today. Pure jungle; super awesome. I was checking out the map and I realized just how small our area is. Like, it's huge, but there's basically not people hahaha.

     So that's the week this week! I hope you all have a good one :) Stay happy and don't cry over spilled milk!

-Elder Henry
     PS Mike & Shavonne oh man! Your new HOUSE! it looks suuper nice.
Things are going well with Elder Morales! And Javier is great!!!
    As for things for Christmas, I don't really need anything... so yeah :/ I know I've always been lame to buy presents for. Just remember, if it's eatable, I'll love it. hahaha (he can purchase things in Panama inexpensively so we're planning to have him do that for himself and the children in his area if you'd like to contribute).