This Week

A few of you have asked to see a picture of where we are staying now. It's a crazy little cabina with a mural covering the whole outside. It would fit in perfectly in Portland...oh but wait, there's tropical plants and the beach is 5 minutes away - but we still like it! Finn has a little sandbox he can play in and thanks so much to his grammie! The other day he came in the house to tell me a snake was also playing in the sandbox but that he hadn't touched it. His grammie drilled into his little brain that he wasn't allowed to touch snakes, frogs and spiders in Costa Rica. So Janice, thank you for your dedication to Finn's safety!

Today I worked a few little towns way south of here, about a 2 hr drive. There wasn't much in the way of a break spot, but when you have coconuts you can have a snack and you can refill your water bottle! Lesson learned - always bring a machete with you! This weekend is our circuit assembly in San Jose, I will definitely have more to post next week.

Beautiful Tamarindo

This has been a full week for us, lots of new sights and experiences! For all of you who know Jeff and Carlee Snethen, we finally drove up to Tamarindo to visit. Tamarindo has a Spanish and English Congregation and it was so fun to spend the day in a new environment. Before the Samara English group started, Tamarindo English was responsible for the whole Nicoya Peninsula. Now we have partnered up with them and are responsible for the lower half of the Peninsula from Samara down to Mal Pais. They started their mapping project close to a year ago and are now old pros! So Marty and I went up to learn all the tricks of the trade and report back their method to the group here.



We also met some of the other brothers and sisters at lunch and had a fabulous time, thanks so much guys for a wonderful day and all your hospitality!

Mapping Punta Islita

The other day a group of us piled into "baby blue"

 and headed south to do a day of mapping. We were sent to Punta Islita which is a resort town about an hour south of Samara. Our territory incompasses the entire south end of the Guanacaste peninsula, which makes mapping English territory a hugh job. We have to drive up and down every road we come across looking for people that speak english in order to map their location for a territory to be made so the preaching work can be acomplished thouroughly. It is a long and dusty process, but very fulfilling knowing we are contributing to the organizing of Costa Rica. I went with  some of the pioneer brothers and sisters from Michigan { I still have no idea where that is, supposedly it looks like a hand, I can't find a hand on the map, so your guess is as good as mine. } We spent all day driving and barely put a dent in the territory, we have so much work ahead of us.

What's a Cloud Forest?

The cloud forest in Monteverde is a pretty amazing place. Instead of being a rain forest it's a cloud forest because of it's high elevation. It is green, cool and rainy and eerily hidden in the actual clouds. This is one of the most eco diverse areas of Costa Rica and a 3 hour drive from us. In the early afternoon, before all the clouds come rolling in, you can also see the volcano from this elevation.

Yesterday a group of us went up to Monteverde to explore this beautiful reserve. Of course, we had to do the zip line! This is one of the highest and longest zip lines in Costa Rica. On one line we got to fly like Superman high above the clouds and forest, so fun and exciting!

I also posted a picture from this past weekend, Ruby and Finn are so cute! The congregation always seems to have an impromptu beach party after Sunday meeting and I can usually get some great pictures of the kids.

I hope everyone enjoys them!

Difference Between English and Spanish Service

Sometimes it's easy to forget the different lifestyles that the Ticos have from the Americans. The Americans here have all really simplified, but at least we all have cars for our long service days. English territory usually requires a lot of driving since our territory covers neighborhoods in many different towns. The Spanish brothers and sisters have one motorbike between them. They walk ALOT. We meet for service at different locations throughout the area so that it isn't such a hardship for the brothers and sisters who don't live near the Kingdom Hall. Many times the English car group will fit as many Spanish brothers into their cars and drop them off in the territory they are working, then come back through at noon to take everyone back home.

Yesterday was quite an eye opening experience for me! I usually get assigned to work with and English car group since that's where I'm going to be the most useful because i'm not fluent in Spanish. Yesterday though, Emily and I (a sister visiting) got the privilege of just working with 5 of our Spanish sisters. I came home exhausted! I think I walked about 4 to 5 miles in the hot blazing sun and got totally sunburned on my arms and chest.   Everyone who knows me knows I love to walk, but I think I met my match!

The day was very encouraging, the Spanish culture has a great respect for the Bible. Almost every householder asks questions and allows you to read at least one scripture. Usually you have to kiss them first on the cheek then take a seat on the porch before you begin your presentation. The Truth Tract is a great introductory publication because it allows the householder to point to the question that interests them the most. It seems to me that "what happens at death" is the most popular. Depending on interest, many publishers come back with a Teach book on the next call and go right to the chapter the householder was interested in and start their first bible lesson ...or start it right there that day on the porch.

English territory too is very exciting. It is different don't get me wrong, but it amazes me how many people will talk to you in their "vacation home" that wouldn't give you the time of day back in the states. Some  are still rude, but I also think they are curious how we found them, they thought they were safe in Costa Rica! There have been no bible studies started in english...yet, but the english group has placed a bible, a ton of magazines and quite a few books these last few weeks. It's an exciting time to be here because the English territory is just starting to open up and there is a lot of work to do! I feel that we are in an extra special position because we can continue to learn Spanish and progress with our language skills and also work a territory that the local brothers and sisters cannot reach. I hope I have encouraged some of you to come visit me, I miss you all!

Bon Fire

You've heard of a one horse town... well this is a cow town. We have to literally wait for the cows to cross the road daily. We have to honk and push our way through with the car to get by. It makes me laugh every time.
Last night we had a going away party at the beach for 3 pioneer sisters visiting from San Jose. The moon was so bright that we played volleyball and soccer until late. We roasted marshmallows and hot dogs and had a lot of fun. After soccer everyone jumped into the waves and cooled off. The next morning I met for service because i had plans with Tenessa, the sister from Michigan to accompany her on a few Spanish bible studies. On our way out of town her van broke down. We had no choice but to start walking home, even though it would be a few hours before we made it. Fortunately, a Tico family saw us walking and pulled over and told us to jump into the back of the pickup for a ride to Esterones, the town we live in. I took a picture of Tenessa while we were in the back riding on the rim in our service clothes. We jumped out from the back once we got to the town pay phone and gave him our presentation and a track in Spanish. I needed 1 hour that day to get my time in, and it all worked out!

English Service

Since the Circuit Overseer visit last week the English group has been finally given much needed direction. Before we would go out in service with the Spanish Congregation and talk to English households when the opportunity arose. Now we have all been given a very important assignment. We need to map out and create actual english territories. Our area spreads out over a few hundred miles, so this is a very in-depth project that will take I think at least a year. I started helping with this project on Tuesday and was in charge of drawing the map with roads and adding the houses. The roads are all gravel and bumpy and by the end of the day i couldn't even read my own writing. There's a lot of driving involved, we drive to a town and just start taking every gravel road to see where it will lead us. Sometimes there's a house sometimes it just a dead end, but with a beautiful view. At this point we aren't even trying to figure out if they speak spanish or english yet, we just need to know where the houses are in each little town. Once a territory is created, a group works it and then writes down next to the house icon on the territory whether they speak english or spanish. So you can start to get a feel for how long this project will take! But up until now, english has never been worked beyond a 20 mile radius- and even that has never been worked in an orderly fashion with any sort of records kept. With at least 12 visitors here to help english right now, the CO feels we can focus on this and get a lot accomplished in a short amount of time.
I'm finally posting a picture of the kingdom hall and a little peek inside during meeting on Sunday. Most of our meetings will now be in english except the Theocratic Ministry School on Thursday. There's enough visitors right now to support our own meeting, which is awesome because I won't be speaking or understanding spanish anytime soon! David was brave and signed up for the school to do a bible reading. His spanish is pretty good, I'm very impressed - we're all jealous.