Well everyone, I celebrated my first month anniversary in the mission!! And one week in Costa Rica! haha.
First of all, thank you so much to everyone who as emailed/written me. Reading everything today on my first Pday in CR completely lifted my spirits. So thank you!
So who wants to hear what I had for dinner my very first night in Nicoya...PIGS FEET. It was the most disgusting thing of my life. I was just trying to force it down, trying not to gag. And its not just the meat from the foot, is the entire foot. Bone/toes and all. And it is just pure fat. My companions foot had hair on it....she ended up waking up in the middle of the night and throwing it all up. I wish I was that lucky...haha but really it was awful. The food here is definitely not like Cafe Rio! :( haha. They eat white rice (weird) and beans with everything, and everything is fried in oil. So yeah thats hard. We get fed lunch by our neighbor everyday and then we never know about dinner - there´s not sign up sheet at church or anything so we either get it randomly or we dont. And usually I hope we dont get fed because its so unhealthy!
So. Let me try to tell you everything about Costa Rica. Where I am in Nicoya is suuper hot. Like really hot. And no air conditioning. But I am always cold and I hate being cold so I´m really okay with it! We live in a house thats totally better than I was expected, and bug wise we only have cockroaches every once and a while (luckily my comp is brave and gets rids of them while I go hide in another room) and lots of ants (just like the DR) and some geckos haha. So yeah I am pleasantly surprised about the bug situation. I´ve gotten bit by mosquitos like twice, which is a miracle - I guess they dont like my blood! There is no hot water in my house...but the cold showers actually feel soo good. That was something I was super worried about because hot showers are my favorite thing ever, so Heavenly Father is blessing me by making them enjoyable haha!
This whole area is super poor. Different from the DR because there, there were really nice houses and what not but here there isnt any at all. Mostly dirt roads, etc.
My companions are Hermana Christensen and Hermana Montoya. Christensen is from Arizona, leaving in a week, and Montoya is from California! But her parents are from Mexico so she´s fluent in spanish and what not. Teaching wise, its different from what I expected because I´m so used to teaching at the MTC and teaching a whole lesson in like 20 minutes but here we teach like not even half of the lesson in like 30 minutes. Thats really hard for me because I just want to teach them everything! And its hard to feel like we are progressing with them. But my comps told me that that is just how it has to be done here - they process these things more slowly so we have to teach it little by little.
Church was different from what I´m used to of course! Very small branch, but a nice chapel. Going to church made me miss my home ward so so much! So tell everyone hello for me mom! Sundays are definitely not relaxing like back at home, because we still go out and work. I have been thinking about the missionaries back home a lot and thinking how lucky they are to have people like you and dad, mom, who reach out to them and love them! They really appreciate it i know! :)
So guess what happened
on saturday! We had a WEDDING and TWO baptisms!! ! It was so amazing. Jacqueline and Gustavo. It was really stressful planning everything for this wedding because we had to buy stuff for it, get a lawyer to come marry them, get them clothes because they have no money, make sure they were actually going to show up, etc. But it all worked out! And they looked so happy ¨:) Their son pablo was baptized the week before, so all three of them were confirmed
on Sunday, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. They looked even happier then.
Today we went to the beach! It was so gorgeous...Im pretty sure I want you guys to pick me up mom and dad because mostly everyone has their parents come! We can talk about that later ;)
Btw let me explain how mail works: first of all if you send a package it should get here fine, just never declare what you put in it. Declare it as missionary supplies or something. They said that letters/packages usually get here in two weeks (maybe longer for packages if they get held up at customs) and then I get my mail about once a month.
Well I guess thats all for now. I love you all so so much and miss you so much!
Have a great week everyone!
Love, Hermana Geis
Before their marriage! (they also have an adorable 7 year old girl not in the picture)
Pigs feet!!
At the beach with the hermanas from my district
