Elder Ryan R. Nunez

Costa Rica San Jose Mission
September 2008 - September 2010

Monday, April 27, 2009

Hey-lo

Talk about a busy, busy week. Wednesday we had divisions with the Zone Leaders. I went to a town called Naranjo with my ZL Elder Cook, who was also trained my MTC comp Elder Trost. Once again travel killed me on money. I had to pull out $40 from the home account, and when I got back to Cañas Saturday morning I only had about $3 left. I´ve come to hate buses with a passion. =P
But those couple of days I was in Naranjo was really fun. Elder Cook is from Bear Lake, Idaho, and he´s only 2 days older than me. =P We planned it that if we´re in the same zone when September rolls around we´re gonna have a birthday division. =D I had fun though, which is key. Divisions are suppose to be fun, as I´ve come to learn. However, I got eaten alive by mosquitos. By the weird thing is my left arm only has 6 bites, where my right arm has 37. ...Riddle me that???

A missionary cookbook would be GREAT!!!!! I´m tired of just eating eggs. Plus, as you´ll remember, I still can´t crack an egg without destroying it. I´ve tried, and I just shatter the poor thing in my fingers. We should be getting money this week for the next month, so I´ve put together a list for food that won´t cost me much and isn´t too difficult to make.

Ummm, there was something else I was gonna say...but I don´t remember what that thing was. Hmmm, no sé. Oh well, I do remember one other thing. Could you see if you can figure out my Priesthood Lineage? Over the past week I found that when teaching about the priesthood it´s helpful to have that on hand it explain how the Church can trace priesthood authority, and no other church can.

Well I don´t have too much else right now. As far as Mother´s Day goes I´m not sure. More than likely I´ll call a few days before to set up the call like I did for Christmas, but as for what day I´ll call no sé. I´m betting Sunday, but as to what time and all that we´ll have to see.

Anyway I love you all and I hope you have a great week! No worries about me as per usual, I´m doing fine and loving life. I´ll talk to you next week!

Your Son,
Elder Nunie =D

Monday, April 20, 2009

HEY! =D

Wow, I'm not even going to recognize the house when I get home am I? Tell Dad thanks for the fotos! It's always good to see pictures of what home looks like. I do miss the scenery of home. I haven't seen anything here that really puts me at awe just yet. =P Glad to hear everyone is doing great. Wow, the school year doesn't have much longer for you guys does it? Ashley has Prom this weekend, Derek's down to like 2 weeks of school left. That's nuts! Have I really been gone that long?
I can honestly see that whole story about Moses happening, that's a very Dad thing to do. I'm glad the porch has finally been started as well, I know you've been waiting for that for quite some time. =P

Well, what have I been up to this week...well last week on P-Day the four of us here in Canas went to Tilaran, a little town in Elder Valerio and Elder Litchfields area. We had a good time, it was a pretty relaxed P-Day, which I've been in need of. The heat is still getting to me, giving me headaches and the like here and there. But, I've finally made use of that Excedrin Migraine you sent me in the MTC. =D

With Elder Pliego, my spanish is coming along. He came up with a game to help me practice: Listening to spanish music and writing what I hear. We used that spanish CD you sent me around Christmas time, and it was not easy task figuring out what was being said. Mainly because the people singing on that CD have Argentine accents. I had to fight to understand but I got it. It was pretty good practice. Plus talking with Elder Pliego everyday is in and of itself practice.

We didn't end up buying food this week on the account that we have no money to do so. I have 3 mil 400 to my name right now which is almost $7. Our downfall was Tuesday, we had interviews in San Ramon, which is a 2 mil 500 bus ticket one way. So Tuesday, I dropped 5 mil on buses. So we're gonna be scrapping by for the last half of this month. We have a little less than 2 dozen eggs to eat for breakfast and dinner sooooo we should be okay. =P We get food from the members every once in awhile too so all in all I'm not too worried.

The work this week has been a little hard. Not because we couldn't teach anyone, we teach plenty. But there are other reasons. One of the numbers we report every week to the Zone Leaders is the number of contacts for the week, or in other words the number of people we've talked to in the streets about the church. Mission goal is 20 contacts every day for a companionship, 140 for the week. With Elder DePriest, I never had a problem making the goal, we always did without question, contacting every soul in the streets. With Elder Tagliaferri, I never made the goal. Tagliaferri didn't like contacting in the streets and would only contact in the park, which was virtually empty. So from what I learned contacting in the park is a bad idea. However, my contact numbers with Tagliaferri were better than they have been right now wit Pliego. Elder Pliego doesn't like contacting at all and therefore we just don't contact. The Zone Leaders called Saturday night and I talked with them for a little bit. They're getting one us and I'm trying to light a fire of animo under Elder Pliego to contact but he has one area left, 4 months left in his mission. The man is trunky and is content with how he's doing things, which is usually the case when an elder is so close to the end. I'm trying to keep the ZLs off our backs but as junior comp I can only do so much. Elder Pliego calls the shots and he says he's contacted the whole world here, so there's no point in contacting more. Just one of those things that happens in the mission. Every missionary has something they slack off in, you just have to try and work with it.

Something I've encountered here in Costa Rica has taken rise with quite a few of our investigators lately. The ticos call it "viviendo libre". In other words, they live together, call each other husband and wife, but they're not married. Somehow, I haven't figured out how, ticos have practically removed the institution of marriage from their society. Right now we have 3 families with the same issue: the "husband" is interested and wants to be baptized, but the "wife" isn't that interested and doesn't want to commit and get married. In this situation they have 2 choices: One needs to move out or they need to get married. Every one of them has at least 2 kids together, so moving out isn't really the best option. If they're not married, they can't get baptized. That's the Law of Chastity right there. I'm praying and trying to find someway to help them realize that "living free" isn't what God had in mind when he placed Adam and Eve in the Gardn. I could use all the prayers I can with these situations. =)

Something Elder Litchfield has caught my attention. It's this little reference book calld the "Missionary's Pat". I heard about it in the MTC but I didn't know what it was then. More or less it's a reference book for every topic imaginable and plausible in the gospel. I don't know if you'd be able to find this, but if you can, it would be pretty handy to have. =D

Alright, well I don't have much else to report for this week. I'm fine and loving life. I hope everyone is doing well and in good shape. I love you all and I'll talk to you next week. Ciao!

Your son,
Elder Nunie

P.S. Enjoy the fotos from last week. =D

Monday, April 13, 2009

Iguanas anyone?


Wow, you guys have had quite the week. Glad to hear the bbq had a great turn out, that´s awesome you were able to do that! Sounds like things are going well back home, which I´m glad to hear. =) And no worries about the package, send it when you can, I don´t want to be a bother about it. You guys still have other things to worry about back home so no worries, the package can wait for it´s own due time.

Well I don´t have a whole lot to touch on about this last week, with the Semana Santa going on all Elder Pliego and I could do is visit menos activos. Semana Santa is pretty much Spring Break for Costa Rica. Schools out, nobody works, and come Friday only chinese restaruants are open. =P Since working Friday would´ve been pointless they changed our P-Day only for last week, so instead of having P-Day Monday we had it Friday. So we went 2 weeks without P-Day, and come Thursday Elder Litchfield and I were both dead tired. The only nice thing about the change was we could still email Monday. Another thing that made us happy was we had P-Day Friday and then comes today, hey, it´s P-Day again! =P

I surprised Elder Pliego with how quickly I mastered the Rubix Cube. He´s now teaching me a new way to do it, and I´m back to going to bed at night with a headache. =P We´ve been having a lot of fun together though, Elder Pliego is really cool and really funny. When it comes to teaching he knows his stuff and I´m learning quite a bit from him. I think it helps that he´s a convert, we´ve talked a lot about what helped him most while he was learning about the church. He was baptized only 6 years ago, and here he is now 4 months from finishing his mission. Incredible.
Elder Pliego has been teaching me how to use the Bible more in teaching. With a lot of the people we´ve been teaching they´re all very skeptical about the Book of Mormon, and many of them have visited with missionaries in the past. One guy in particular comes to mind, Nixon, one of our baptismal dates. He told me that before, all the missionaries used the Book of Mormon but almost never used the Bible, and it gave him the impression we put the Book of Mormon above the Bible. But, when Elder Pliego came, that changed. Nixon saw that when both the Bible and the Book of Mormon are used as equals, everything makes so much more sense than with just one book. Everyone needs something different to help them on their spiritual journey, and for Nixon he just needed to see that both books are equals. As missionaries we´re taught to focus on the Book of Mormon and the Restoration because this is our unique message to the world, but at times we can forget that the Bible is there to help us teach about this message too.

No worries about food, it´s not like I eat a whole lot anyway. =P No but really I´m fine. There´s a sister that makes us lunch every day and members offer us dinner here a lot more than they did in Tibas. =P We´re going grocery shopping either this week or next so I´ll be okay, no worries. I need to eat breakfast in the mornings though, that´s a habit I´ve never really had. When I was with Elder DePriest he always made breakfast so I got into the habit a little, but neither Elder Tagliaferri and I knew how to cook much besides eggs and I´m a little too lazy to cook in the mornings in the first place. =P

What else? ...I was bit by my first dog last week. =P I just laughed, how typical a missionary gets bit by a dog. Last week was really windy, which I was perfectly fine with. The heat is a beast in the afternoon, both Elder Litchfield and I are dying come lunch time. Doesn´t help that all the houses here are built from cement. Every house is an oven, I swear. Wednesday night we were invited to a members house for dinner. They gave us so much food! I looked over at Elder Pliego and said "Elder, this is more food than I´ve eaten in the last week." His response? "I know." He didn´t think I could eat it all but I got through it. Then they gave each of us a mango double the size of my fist. I love mangos, and every time we leave a house someone gives us one. It´s awesome! =D
Also, remember when I told you about the lizard that came up to me at church? Well we were walking home for lunch Saturday and about 5 feet in front of us was an iguana the length of my arm! I just stopped walking, staring at the thing. Elder Pliego just laughed and said "That´s normal." It was so HUGE! It moved really fast too, because as we got closer it got scared and booked it through a chain link fence. Such a huge lizard. There´s a neighborhood in my area called Barrio Berolice that reminds me so much of Fort Hall. The only difference is there´s no grafiti. =P But everytime I go out there it´s like I´m walking around Fort Hall, helps make the area feel like home. =)
Elder Valerio is from Valdivia, that´s the one. He´s so funny, we taught an english class together on Saturday, it was pretty fun. His english isn´t bad, he just needs practice, but he understands pretty much everything. He only speaks to me in english so he can practice, which is nice because I have a hard time understanding his Chilean accent. =P Elder Valerio has been teaching me some Chilean words and phrases too.
Well that´s all I got for the week. I hope life is well back home and everyone is okay. Take care and I´ll write next week! Love you!
Your Son,
Elder Núñez

Monday, April 6, 2009

Welcome to the Jungle

I tried to email this morning but internet wasn´t responding. =(

Whew, talk about a busy week. Well here´s the update on what I´ve been up to. I went from being 10 minutes from San José centro, living in a pretty big house with a fridge full of food and the hustle and bustle of the city all around to being 4 hours from San José, my apartment is the size of the laundry room back home, and I´ve been living off peanuts and cashews that Tom´s parents sent me last week. =P
In other words, I´m once again loving life in Costa Rica. =D =D =D

My new area is Cañas of Guanacaste, a small little campo town a little smaller than Clarkston. And talk about HOT! San José is located in a valley, and it´s pretty cool most of the time. Some parts can be down right freezing even. But here? Freak, it´s so humid and hot I had trouble sleeping my first night here. It´s all good though, Cañas is one of the sickest areas in the mission, so I give thanks for that. =D Saturday morning at the church building a lizard about the size of my foot ran up to me and just stared. I laughed, nothing like that happens in the city. I´m gonna have a good time here.

The people here are also a LOT more nicer than the people in the city. The city slickers tended to be really rude at times, but the country folk are really nice and willing to listen. In my 3 days here we already have 2 fechas for baptism! YAY!

My new companion is Elder Pliego of Mexico. He´s so cool! I´ve been teaching him card games and he´s been showing me the ways of the rubix cube. I´m gonna have a good time with him, I can already tell. Also, Cañas is split into 2 areas, so Elder Pliego and I have the smaller part of Cañas while the district leader and his comp and everything else. My district leader is Elder Valerio of, guess where, CHILE! In fact he´s from a small city around Orsorno. I can´t remember where right now, I´ll have to ask him again, it starts with a B I think. Anyway, to add to it, Elder Valerio´s new companion is my buddy Elder Litchfield from the MTC! So pretty much I get to chill with an awesome group of missionaries every day at lunch. =D

Whew, so about conference. I have to say it´s a lot better in english. Elder Litchfield and I didn´t get a whole lot out of it, because they´re speaking in english but the translation is right over the top of them speaking, and it´s just a jumble of nonesense. I tried to focus on the spanish but my mind kept listening for the english and it was just hard. I was surprised, however, at how many speakers gave their talks in spanish. When that happend they zero´d the mic and it was the speaker on recording but in spanish. Elder Scott and Elder Christophersen, along with Elder Costa and another member of the Seventy gave their talks in spanish and I followed them fine. Both Elders Scott and Christophersen speak really, REALLY good spanish. Had I not heard Elder Scott speak at the MTC I might not have realized it was him speaking.
Alright so now that I´m in the campo it might be awhile till I get any letters, packages, or anything of the like. Anything like that I´ll probably get at Zone Conference or Changes Meetings. That´s a plus side to being in the city, you get your mail every week. In the campo it´s a different story.

Ummm, what day is Mother´s Day exactly? I was thinking it´s the 10th of May, pero yo no sé exacto. Also this week is going to be EXTREMLY long. Here in Costa Rica it´s Semana Santa, soooooo that means for the whole week everyone is gonna be at the beach. They changed our P-Day to Friday so we´re gonna be working today, and I absolutely hate it when they change P-Day on us. By the end of the week I´m dead tired and Monday is the day to recharge my battery. Buuuut now I have to wait till Friday, and all 4 of us here in Cañas have no idea how we´re gonna make it. It´s gonna be quite the week.
Alright I better jet but I hope all is well and everyone is doing fine. I´ll talk to you next week! Love you!
Your Son,
Elder Núñez