Week 2          4-(3-15),2023

We have completed our MTC training and last night, arrived in San José Costa Rica. Our time in the MTC was so uplifting, encouraging, educational and spiritual.  It is so great to be surrounded by people all in the same situation as we are.  We would greet each couple with “where are you from? Where are you going?”  We met couples going to Ethiopia, Ghana, North/South Carolina, Florida, Arizona, Peru, Arkansas, California, New York, and Australia to name a few.  Our district was made up of four couples; The Stoners, going to Calgary, Canada, The Pendleton’s going to New Zealand; and The Harris’ going to New Delhi, India.  We built an amazing bond with our district couples as we shared our experiences and our testimonies and had too many opportunities to role play with one another. There was a lot of laughter during the two weeks and tears as we said goodbye to our new friends. The first week we had Preach my Gospel classes from 8:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m with an hour for lunch.  We had two great teachers, Brother Nathan Weller in the morning and Brother Alexander Black in the afternoon. These young, returned missionaries were amazingly knowledgeable of the doctrine and had a sincere love of our Savior.  They made us excited to go out and share the gospel!  The second week we had classes in the morning on Family History, Security, Welfare, and MLS responsibilities.  Our morning teachers were all couples who had served missions previously and were called to teach MLS missionaries in the MTC.  The afternoons were on teaching techniques, using social media and teaching through Zoom.  The afternoon was taught by another young returned missionary, Brother Ryan Anderson.  As with the first two young teachers, Ryan was so enthusiastic and seemed genuinely excited to be teaching us old people.  Ryan served part of his mission (during Covid) in Arizona and loved it so much he wants to go to ASU for graduate school and would love to live there after his schooling.  He also was a pole vaulter in High School, so he became one of our favorites.

Our favorite evening devotionals were the Characteristics of Christ where we were able to listen to a talk given by Elder Bednar at the MTC several years ago.  We were all surprised at how enthusiastic and humorous Elder Bednar can be. He mentioned in one of the talks that he feels it necessary to be more serious when he speaks at conference and there is a vast difference between Conference Elder Bednar and MTC Elder Bednar. He spoke of the most important characteristic of Christ was that He looks outward and never inward, always focusing on others and never on Himself.  Another great speaker was Brother William Jackson of the Quorum of the Seventy who shared scriptures that pertained to missionary work.  Before he spoke, he had us stand and sing Called to Serve and at the beginning of the chorus we were to raise our fist in the air and shout “GO”!  It was so powerful to stand and sing that song with a whole congregation of young and senior missionaries.  I wish I could’ve recorded it, but we were asked not to record or take photos so it will just have to remain in my memory bank. Kristin Yee, 2^nd counselor in the RS shared her thoughts on covenants.  We were also excited to hear an apostle of God address us on our last Tuesday there.  Neil L. Anderson shared several conference talks and how they spoke of missionary work.  When his talk ended, he said he would stay and shake some hands and asked us to remain in our seats. He had a few of his grandchildren with him and he asked them to come and shake hands as well.  One of the younger grandkids, looked to be around 9 or 10 and he enthusiastically went up and down the aisles shaking so many hands.  Elder Anderson came to the row in front of us and raised his clasped hands together and told us to clench our hands together and pretend it is him shaking our hand because it was time for him to leave, but as he looked right behind me he saw a young sister missionary crying so he told her don’t cry and he walked up to shake her hand and as he came back down the stairs, Doug called out his name and he turned and looked at me and, reading my tag, said “hello Sister Waldie” and shook my hand.  I had no idea that shaking hands with an apostle would have such and emotional effect on me, but I hope to remember that feeling.

Our one and only P-Day was so fun, it was the first warm day since our arrival.  The first three days it snowed and then gradually warmed up.  By Saturday, only the mountains were covered in snow, it had all melted off the streets and sidewalks, so we decided to walk to Burger Supreme, Doug and Drakes favorite hamburgers in Provo. Since Doug felt that walking all the way to get burgers was TORTURE, I reluctantly agreed to rent the electric bikes that dot the sidewalks around Provo.  We then rode them to the mall where we saw the movie His Only Son about Abraham and Isaac. We then rode over near BYU, parked our bikes and walked to the Bookstore and to the Cougar Eat.  We ended our P-day with ice cream ad then prepared our lesson to teach a “non-member”.

We left the MTC at 2:45 AM to catch the shuttle to the SLC airport. We arrived before the employees were even there, so we sat and waited for the ticket agents to arrive.  Our plane left for Houston at 7 a.m. and arrived at 10:30. We had a 5 ½ hour layover in Houston then, finally, we boarded the plane to our mission!  After passing through immigration and customs, we walked outside where we were greeted by President Cates, two of his sons, Ethan (13) and Julian (7) and the two office missionaries, Elder Jackson and Elder Roldan.  We shoved our suitcases into the back of the Presidents car and headed to his house to meet his wife and pick up our car.  With Doug behind the wheel of our mission vehicle we weaved in and out and around the narrow streets of San Jose to the mission office and finally to our apartment.  We were quite surprised and touched to find that President and Sister Cates had filled our refrigerator with food!  We were so exhausted from our 1 a.m. wake up that we crashed into our bed around 11 p.m. 

After a good night’s sleep we awoke to get ready for our first official sabbath day as missionaries.  We were told it was a 10-minute drive to the church so, knowing how crazy the roads are, we left 30 minutes early.  We made our way back to the security entrance of the apartment complex only to see an excavator (Britton and Riggs would have loved it) digging up the road right outside the entrance.  The security guard came over and said that we would not be able to leave until later in the afternoon.  Doug, remembering how horrific walking to Burger Supreme was, tried calling the office elders to see what our options were.  Unfortunately, they didn’t answer so for our first official Sunday, we stayed in our apartment, studied and unpacked.

We are so excited to be here in Costa Rica!  They call it Pura Vida. We are excited to meet with the people and leave our mark on this great place!