Elder Ethan Crisp

Well today i left my home of the past 5 months. There were some huge changes that were made in the ward here--they put in new counselors and a new mission leader. Just in time for the change haha! But it was pretty tough to leave behind the people that ive had to love for the past 5 months. I am now in Costa Rica--you may ask "why the heck are you in costa rica--its like 1000s of miles from here?" But i´m in a little ranch like a half an hour out of culiacan thats called Costa Rica--me and Elder Johnson from Arizona are the zone leaders of the El Dorado Zone in the El Dorado District. We have a ton of investigators who are really prepared--we should have 2 baptisms this week. But i´m super excited to get down to work here in Costa Rica--everyone says the members here are super awesome. Of course its a little ranch so it´ll be different--i´ve been in the city for the past year (well La Paz was like city/ranch). But i´m ready to get down to business here and ready to speak a lot of english--E. Zufelt didnt like speaking english that much but E. Johnson has no problem with it :) Healthwise i´m good to go (i´ve been able to drink coke and eat bread without pain so thats good haha). This week E. Zufelt got sick too with a cold so we couldnt work as hard as normal, but oh well. I left with many desires to be better--to work harder and smarter. Hopefully i can do just that....

Thanks for the emails--they are always encouraging and help me to move on week by week. I really learned alot in these last 4 transfers. They were some of the toughest 5 months of my life--a lot of stress because of the assignment, and alot of struggles in the area but this area was my mountain. I got the chance on thursday to work in a ranch called Navolato in divisions--this past transfer was the first in 4 years that they had missionaries there--i worked with E. Larkin,who is now in his last transfer and i learned so much from him and his desires to serve until the end. He was branch president for a time in San Blas (where i started) and he called it "the getsemane of his mission--" when he struggled and when he became the missionary that he is now. I remember the scripture in Luke 22: "42 Saying, Father, if thou be willing, aremove this cup from me: nevertheless not my bwill, but thine, be done. And there appeared an aangel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an aagony he prayed more earnestly: band his sweat was as it were great drops of cblood falling down to the ground." Christ recieved the help that he needed to keep going--because God knew that he was going to have to suffer a lot more. I feel that my time in Villa Verde was a Getsemane moment for me. I feel like my "suffering" here has helped me to move forward and i am ready to work here--as Christ did. I of course did not suffer what he did, nor will i do the things that he did but i have a mission and this time will be a time that i will look back on and say "I needed that to be what i am today." And i am grateful for that.

Well, thats all i got for ya´ll today. I´ll have some news on our investigators here in Costa Rica and all that next week--maybe with baptism photos :)

¡Que tengan buena semana!

--Elder Crisp :)