July 25, 2016

Last week was hard because my companion and I kind of had a struggle and we had to repent for the disobedience. Man have we paid the price, it sucks. We have 0 people that are truly progressing and it sucks to have that feeling over your head. But we are now going to be working really hard to keep our heads up. I have been super stressed and I lost a little bit of the love I need in the mission. I working on that love again, I took a look around and I just got in tune to who I really am. I'm not a perfect servant of the Lord but I am working on perfecting Elder Hansgen! I laugh at things I think are funny and I make jokes to try and get people to laugh. I have spiritual experiences and I love being with a good friend all the day long. I'm trying to be myself.
This week for Sunday lunch we went about an hour away from our house with an American Family. They are the Wilkinson's and they are incredible and they love helping the missionaries! They have been all over the world and they decided to retire here in Costa Rica. We went to a place called Orosi Cartago, AND I FELL IN LOVE! They have a river behind their house and it was really cool. Its incredibly beautiful here in this country, and I don't think I want to ever leave.

I like this area, it is really cold, yesterday it was 68 Farenheit so that was WHACK! hahaha
This PDAY was really cool, we took an hour bus ride to go play soccer with a bunch of members and investigators. I only took one picture because my memory card ran out but it was an amazingly, terrible field in an amazingly beautiful place. The ground was hard and there are mountains surrounding the entire place, it was fun.

I have learned a lot of things in my 8 months here and the most important is to be myself. If you're not being yourself I encourage you to start. It makes life A LOT easier.
So if there were three things I would want you to put into practice after reading this email they are:
1-Be Yourself
2-Try to better understand the reason we do things in the Gospel
3-Love the trials that are placed in your life, you can learn a lot.

Love Elder Sam Hansgen