Some Peace of Mind

July 12th email

To answer your first question, no, San Vito isn´t a poor area. In fact this is the first time (not counting Escazú because they were all gringos) that most of the members have their own car. I´ll be honest, if the church was better established here, I would have no problem living in San Vito. It reminds me a lot of John Day, Oregon. Yesterday we continued with a depressing church attendance: 14. We visited three families Saturday evening, an not one of them came to church.

Things continue to be a struggle, but I´m dealing with it a little better now. There´s only so many things we can do for the members to get excited about the work, and we´re doing just about everything. We visit everyone during the week. We call those who are assigned to give talks twice a week. We call everyone Saturday night about church, and a few special cases Sunday morning. What we fault more than anything is bringing new people to church, and it´s been a dead week in trying to find new investigators. Every free minute is dedicated to looking, and I pray we find our golden family soon. We´ve been placing pamphlets (is that how you spell it??? I don´t even remember) in every grocery store, bookstore, and copy shop we pass through with our names and number. The Lord works through small means. I can only hope and pray these small means lead to the results He wants.

President Gálvez called me last night as well. I was kind of taken aback at first, I mean come on, my mission president called me. There´s some pressure in that. He asked me how church went, how the members are doing, and what we have planned. I won´t lie, talking with President Gálvez gave me some peace of mind. I don´t feel like a chicken with it´s head cut off anymore. He agreed with what we´re doing and gave me some advice in other things we can do to strengthen our candidates for branch president. Everything just feels better when you know President is on your side.

Today we spent the day in Ciudad Neily with my district and the zone leaders. We went to a waterfall in the area and then played soccer with the youth. I´m looking forward to playing some soccer on the weekends when I get home. Although I doubt the games will be as intense as they are here.

My new district leader is Elder Perez from Honduras. This will be the first time I have been the only gringo in my district. I do feel my english is only going to get worse in the coming months. I´ve already found myself struggling to pronounce certain words correctly when I was trying to talk with the gringos that came to church yesterday. I couldn´t even remember the word "downtown". I just say "centro".

I dare say my father language is killing the mother language.

Alright well not much else to tell you guys about this week. I hope you´re all enjoying summer vacation and staying safe. Take care, thank Grandma and Grandpa for the money, and know that I am safe and happy. Thank you for everything.

Tu Hijo,
Elder Nunie