Hermana Amy Geis: Week 56- Count Your Many Blessings

Hola everyone!

So this week was pretty crazy.

On Wednesday, we had a Zone Conference with President Hayes. again, he is SO awesome. We had the meeting in the mission office. Then we had interviews, where he just got to know us and gave us some good advice. Then we ordered pizza and ate it as a zone :)

After the meeting, we started divisions. I went to a place called Turrialba with Hermana Perez, mi hija! Aka the Hermana I trained in Nicoya :) so that was pretty fun haha. And Hna Perez´s companion went to my area with Hermana Moon. But Hna Moon and I did not want to go on divisions because we just have lots of fun together haha. But anyways after the meeting we split up and went to catch the buses to the areas. But all the taxi drivers were on strike in San Jose so it took a while to be able to get on a bus, and we ended up getting to Turrialba at like 8 30 at night. I was there all of Thursday, and then Hna moon and the other Hermana came to Turriabla on Friday morning and we all studied there, and I got to watch their weekly planning to see how it was. So overall the divisions went good - there's lots to improve, as always, so its always good to learn from each other and help each other out.

But yeah I was really happy to get back to my area - I love Cartago!! I have been in Cartago for 6 months....like what!? I honestly feel like I have been here for ONE MONTH. So I can't even believe its been six. Which makes me feel a little pressure, because I don't know how much longer I'll be here and I want to help Cartago in every way that I can. But I really love it here.

So yeah with the divisions the week flew by and it didn't seem like there was enough time to get everything done! But it all turned out well. We've found some good new people and are getting some really good references from the recent converts - its awesome.

Today was the ¨chequeo de mes¨ for the trainers and new missionaries, which is when we all meet up again with President and the Assistants a month into training (even though its been like 6 weeks - so weird) to see how we've been doing, and really talk about obedience a lot. It was way fun. We all went to President Hayes´s house! Its in the other mission boundaries haha so that's kinda funny. He talked about obedience and he mostly talked about being HAPPY. Which is actually something that we talked about in my interview. Because I told him that I was really happy! But that at the beginning of my mission I wasn't. Because my first District Leader told us, ¨If you aren't stressed, there is something wrong.¨ So I spent a ton of time thinking that was true! But then Emily Sciammarella, my cousin who served a mission in Brazil, sent me a letter and said that we should never feel stressed, because the Lord is in charge.

So I came to realize that stress is really BAD. That is something that Hermana Chatwin and I really learned together as well - that we should feel the opposite of stress. We never felt stress together, and we saw a lot of success and worked really hard. But we didn't see it as work - we saw it as spreading the gospel and bringing people to Christ. And that is exactly what President said today in the meeting - he doesn't want us to feel like this is WORK, but that we should see it as fulfilling our calling as disciples of Christ. And that is something that I have felt my whole mission: that if we see this as work, something stressful that we have to do, we are not going to enjoy it. If we really love God and the people here, it will be something that we WANT to do and something that brings us joy.

So yeah President Hayes is just AWESOME and we can just feel so much that he really loves us. We just feel like we can talk to him about everything and he is super approachable. Then HE cooked us hot dogs and hamburgers and we had a delicious American lunch! :)

So anyways things are going great and time is literally just disappearing. Its so weird.

Its pretty rainy here right now, and pretty cold! Now I'm totally used to the cold and when we were in San Jose today it felt way too hot.

People are feeding us way too much...its a problem...but its okay ´cause Hna Moon and I run a bunch every day ;)

Well I hope you all have an amaaazing week! And please, count your many blessings! That is one lesson I've learned this week and what we have been trying to share with people - if we focus on what we don't have, or all that is going wrong, we are going to be miserable. But God gives us so many blessings every second of every day, that we can be happy in any circumstance. So look for the things that you do have and forget about what you don't have.

Ok well i love you all sooo much!!

Con mucho amor,

Hermana Geis