Week 12-- Transfers

Hola!

Well, transfers happened. I have 6 weeks left in my training, so me and Hermana Montoya had no doubt we were both staying. But no...Hna Montoya got transferred! She was bawling...so sad :( She loves nicoya! Has been here for 6 months. So yeah we were shocked! They called us Sunday night to tell us she´d be leaving the next day (thats how they do it here) so she said goodbye to who she wanted to that night and then packed up all her things. We left early the next morning to Santa Cruz, where other hermanas in our district are. Montoya left from there with other hermanas getting changed (it was pretty sad) and I stayed with another hermana. It was nice because I just got to relax in the apartment for a little bit! But my new companion got on the bus super late to come here, so i ended up having to go to Libera (2 hours away) to pick her up! And then we finally made it back to Nicoya at like 8 at night where our lovely neighbor fed us as she always does :) (our lunch cook) My new comp is Hermana Burningham from Highland Utah. She is ending her mission in 6 weeks! Which means i´ll get another comp in 6 weeks haha so weird! Its funny because every gringa missionary I´ve talked to has only had latina companions, and i´ve only had gringa companions!

So last monday we had noche de hogar with the ward! It went well, we ate yummy homemade pizza :) and David came with alejandra! That was a miracle let me just say. We´re going to do noche de hogar every other week, so that will be great.

We are working with a couple, Mariela and Andres, who are my age! They accepted a date to get married and later baptized!! :) Theyre great. We stopped visiting them a while ago because we didnt think they were progressing, but when we started again they were very accepting and they actually asked us to come and teach them more frequently - we were like, um, we would love to!! haha. It was cool because Andres said that he received his answer about the Book of Mormon through his grandmother who passed away - we wanted to ask what he meant but didnt pry haha. He meant like through a dream or something. Cool right? Its because she has accepted the gospel and his waiting for him to take his step on earth to help her receive the blessings of the gospel :) So awesome. But yes they are getting marriedaugust 30th :D they have a baby girl and she just told us she´s pregnant! So its way good they are getting married :) Then theyll get baptized on september 7th. It worked out really well because we have to find a lawyer to do the wedding, and theres a lawyer in san jose who´s a member and does it for a lot cheaper, but he only comes if theres two or more weddings - luckily the elders here are also having a wedding that day!! Un milagro! So that will be great. They dont have a lot of money, so we are going to make cinnamon rolls with Marielos to sell and raise money. Its a lot of work but the hermanas before me did that for another wedding and they raised a good amount. Please pray that it will all work out okay! Haha :) 

Dia de las madres was on friday - happy costa rican mothers day mom! We made some cards for some of the moms we visit. Also on sunday after church, the branch president served us all a mothers day lunch! It felt so good for them to do something like that without us being in charge - woohoo rama de nicoya! 

The weeks are going by real fast. Im almost to my three month mark! It seems little when you think about how much you have to go, but i really dont think about it that way. I think about how i already have 3 of the months down! Thats crazy. I only have this short time to use the authority of a set apart missionary to preach the gospel. When i think about that i feel a lot of responsibility which is scary, but I know that with the Lords help, and only with his help, I can do it. I have so many family and friends who have served, are serving, or are going to serve and thinking about all of you gives me strength and comfort :) Im so grateful for my family and the blessing we have to be an eternal family. I see so many broken families who dont have the gospel and wow, i am so lucky. And im so grateful for everyone who has helped me stay strong in the gospel - yw leaders, bishops, friends, etc etc. Seriously thank you.

well, all for now :) love you all! have a great week! pray always!

hermana geis :) 

        drinking out of a bag at noche de hogar! (They say only in costa rica)

              ​hermana montoya saying goodbye to denis, fernanda, and evelio

                 Weird fruit

              Happy mother's day mom!!!! :) :)

Week 11

Hola everyone! 

This week was pretty eventful! Im  just going to tell you about some experiences that I had.

So we had intercambios this week with other pair of hermanas  in our  district. Hermana Garcia came  here to nicoya, and my comp Hermana Montoya went up to Santa Cruz with the other Hermana. Hna Garcia has been out for 6 months and served a mini mission (5 months) in her country, Honduras, before coming to Costa Rica. I learned a lot from her! She got here at 7 am on Thursday, stayed the night, and then left Friday morning.  We had a lot of success that day! One thing she taught me was to alllways follow the spirit - if a scripture or experience pops into my head during a lesson, I need to share it. I really like that, because I always have ideas pop into  my head during lessons but dont always share them. 

One really cool experience happened that day. We were with Fernanda and her family, and her mom Cyndi  loves us coming and is very receptive but doesnt have the desire to go to church or get baptized. We taught them about following the prophet, and after we ended the lesson with a  prayer and everything, Hna Garcia asked her why she hasnt taken the step of getting baptized. Cyndi said she´s  kind of waiting for a sign as an  answer that she should. Then Garcia pulled out a scripturein Galatians that says that the  fruits of the spirit are joy, happiness, peace, etc -- Cyndi has said that she´s felt all of that, so that was perfect for her to hear. Then we challenged her to pray again for an answer of if this church is true. I felt the prompting to invite her to kneel and  pray right now, with all of us together. But we had already said a closing prayer! So I was like, nahh  i wont we can do that next time...but then  I thought, no! Why not now. So as Hna Garcia was getting up to leave, i asked, ´Hermana Cyndi, could you offer a prayer right now, kneeling, with that specific question of whether you should get baptized and if this church is true?¨And surprisingly she was more than happy to do so. The spirit was very strong. After we left, Hna Garcia said that she had felt the same prompting to  invite Cyndi to do that! So that was cool.

The rain storms have started! They are crazy. Crazy thunder and lightning!! And the people here have tin roofs, so when it rains hard during a lesson no one can hear a thing. We were with new investigators that same day, and there was a crazy  storm. It even started hailing!! Apparantly that happens here!  Hna garcia was literally shouting  the invitation to be baptized to them - and they couldnt even hear it. That was really frusterating- Satan will do anything to prevent people from accepting the gospel.

We  had another lesson with Alejandra and David! We talked about the restoration. It went soo well. It was raining really hard so we all scooted our chairs really close together to hear each other haha. And guess what.....David accepted the invitation to be baptized!!!!! For september 20th. He said, ¨Do you think I´ll be ready by then?¨Thats  awesome that he asked that because that means he has the desire. Now they just need to get married. He didnt come to church, so  we´ll see if he´ll make the effort to come next week.
On Sunday afternoon we went over  to their house for their two year old son´s birthday celebration! It was so fun, we ate arroz con pollo, ice cream cones and cake, and there was a pinata and everything haha. We felt so special to be invited :) And we know practically everyone on their street (and teach a lot of them) so that was fun. I´ll send pics!

We had a ¨noche de hermanamiento¨ on friday night at the church, and it was way fun! last time, two people came,so this  time was a lot better haha there were like 15 people there. We shared a message and then played a game - everyone took off their shoes, put them in a pile, and divided into teams. We all went outside the room, and whoever´s team got all their shoes on first won. So simple and yet so fun. Haha its funny because it was mostly older people and a couple kids, and then us and the elders. Such a random group and yet we bonded together! Tonight we´re having a noche de hogar at someones house and I so excited! The relief society sisters are making pizzas, we´ll have a message,  and then play a game. This is so great because our little branch really needs to bond.

Here´s a funny story: we were talking to a guy on the street and he was talking about his family and how he just lives with his kids.  He said something like, ¨A lot of people think its the men who fall but this time it was the woman!¨ meaning that she left him. But he used a verb that apparently can also mean to die, and my comp only heard that word and so she was like, ¨I know that you will see your wife again!¨ And he  was  like, ¨No i dont want to see her again!¨ hahaha oh gosh...and it was the native speaker that made the mistake! ;)

I was with some kids that we´re teaching and they were all begging me to tell them my first name. Haha it was too funny. And they were asking in that Dominican way that made me think of you family hahaha. I told  them it started with an A and they were guessing all these spanish names...its super weird because they really have never heard my name before most likely - it will probably sound so weird to them! Heck it sounds weird to me now! Haha i told them i´d tell them before i leave!

well everyone, thanks for your love, prayers, and support. I love you all :) Pray every day, read the book of mormon, and trust in the Lord rather than in yourself. Have a great week!

Hermana geis :)

                            Alejandra, David, and their son Diron!

Week 10

Hi everyone! This week was loco.

Last thursday we had zone conference and President Wilkinson (mission president) came to talk to us. He wants a stake in our zone! And he gave us very detailed instructions on how it will be done. He wants to turn every branch into a ward! Except for our branch...we were really sad about that haha. Its just too small. But we are going to work really hard to help it grow. Our goal is to find future priesthood holders and families who are ready to accept the gospel.

This week has been kind of full of rejection. Lots of appointments falling through, people avoiding us, no one wanting to listen. But in last weeks email mom talked about looking for miracles. So thats what I´ve been trying to do. And here are some really great things that are happening:

The family that got married and baptized the first weekend I was here is doing amazing. Jacqueline is SO strong and is truly converted. She loves the song Families Can Be Together Forever, and loves to talk about the temple. She actually asked us if she could come with us to visit an investigator and asked us to talk about temples. It was amazing. I am so happy for her. They are totally going to get sealed in a year! And I will be able to go! :) 

One cool thing: someone called US to go visit them!! Haha a guy wants us to come teach him and his wife, he even gave us a topic to teach! Woohoo!

One funny thing: we were walking trying to find the house of a gringo that we met (i´ll take any chance to teach in english hehe) and this old lady comes out of a house behind us and says, "Hello! Come in!" Haha we were like, uhh what?? Okay! Haha so we went in and she gave us a snack and talked to us for a while. She used to rent out a house to some sister missionaries so she wanted to talk to us! She doesnt really want to learn about the gospel haha but hey we´ll try!

One really sad thing that happened this week was with Freddy and Shirley. They were all set to come to church, and we called them in the morning and said they were coming, and they never showed up. So we visited that night to talk to them about what they want from our visits and what they are willing to do. Unfortunately, they are not willing to take action to change. Shirley is afraid of people judging her, so she wont take the step of faith and be baptized. Freddy totally has the desire, he just wont put church above his work. That lesson with them was exhausting - i walked out of there with the biggest headache. All we could say was, we have done our part, now you have to do yours. I told them that we´re not there to invite people to come to church. We´re there to make changes in their lives and make the sacred covenant of baptism. Me and hermana Montoya are really sad about them. But I guess its just no their time. And there are other people who are prepared who we need to find!
Another thing happened with Rita: We went to visit her to have kind of the same conversation - she has not been progressing at all. She told us that she is moving to San Jose - and we could not be happier about that. Why? Because she cannot progress here. She is in a really bad relationship and doesnt feel safe here, so she´s moving in with her family in San Jose. We are seriously so happy for her. When we said how happy we were to get to know her she started crying. I just hope she can progress over there and always feel god´s love for her.

Yesterday was our monthly checkup for new missionaries! We went to san jose (3 AM) and President talked to us mostly about being exactly obedient. Im happy to say that obedience is really important to me and my companion but we can always improve and be even more exactly obedient. We then had lunch at his house - burritos! But with no rice and beans to give us a break haha. I saw people from the MTC so that was way fun! Then we walked around San Jose and looked at the souvenir stuff to buy. And I got subway for dinner so score! Oh and i washed my hands at Presidents house and it was hot water and I freaked out. I had forgotten what that felt like hahaha

One thing that really affected me this week was in Alma 1:46. It says that the preacher is no better than the hearer, the teacher is no better than the learner. That hit me very hard. Im not better than the people I teach and I know that I have to learn just as much as they do! 

Well thats all for now, thank you so much for the support and love! I love you all!!! 

hermana Geis :)



Making Chorreadas - a tortilla made only out of corn. You churn up the corn and then it turns into a batter and you cook it like a pancake. They are AMAZING!

                                    Marielos frying the corn batter

                             me churning corn to make chorreadas!

         the finished product of the chorreada! (half eaten)

               our primary class that we taught on sunday! fernanda and her brother denis

Happy Two Months!!

Guess what everyone! Its my mission birthday today (July 28th)!! Haha I have been on my mission for exactly two months. Woohoo! Mission birthdays are fun - my companion even made me a card haha. And since today is Pday we went to the beach! Woohoo! It was fun. And we ate at a yummy mexican restaurant. Believe it or not mexican food is very different than costa rica food haha so it was nice. It was fun because we went to Samara Beach which is very touristy, so I got to speak english to people haha.

I actually got to speak english a lot this week because of the fair in Nicoya. Lots of tourists in town. The 25th is like their fourth of july, so their was a parade and fireworks and lots of people in the park. It was crazy! It made me miss the fourth of july haha!

Speaking of English, I´m teaching people english! Im teaching one less active member in the branch, and a couple other people want me to teach them. I love it! It´s so much fun for me. But English is hard so hopefully im teaching them right haha. Theres a few people who want me to teach them piano as well! And i dont know why because i mess up enough when i play during church hahaha for real. But hey we´ll see how that goes.

This week was good but harder than others because not a lot of people wanted to talk to us! We get close to no referrals from members, so we went out knocking on doors a lot (knocking on doors hear means standing outside their gate and yelling hola or buenas or upe haha). Not a lot of success there, which isnt surprising because they key is getting referrals from members. The members just dont trust us yet apparantly! But we´re working on that :) so yeah everyone go give the missionaries a refferral! 

Its been hard to get our investigators to come to church. One couple we´re teaching, Shirley and Freddy, have a lot of potential. Freddy reads the Book of Mormon and really wants to get baptized. But, he works every sunday as a soccor referee. We didnt know what to do about that until we found out he´s the manager and can easily get it off - but he wont! His wife Shirley has anxiety and its hard to get her to come. She´ll flat out tell us that she wont come because she´s lazy. Its interesting. Its just disappointing because they´re a very rare couple - they dont drink coffee or alchohol or anything, and they have been married for 35 years! That is unheard of here. So its just frusterating to see them throw away this opportunity to accept the gospel by not coming to church. Its crazy how much I have realized how important church is. Its important that we go every sunday, for all three hours. Because its showing we´re willing to keep the commandments and sacfrifice our time for the Lord. Thats definitely something i´ve learned, because I definitely had days when I didnt want to go or had a bad attitude at church. So stay strong everyone :) 

I also got to make a comida tipica this week! Chorreadas - a tortilla made only out of corn. You churn up the corn and then it turns into a batter and you cook it like a pancake. They are AMAZING. I´ll send pics.

Well i love you all and thank you for everything!! 
Love, Hermana Geis :)

Week 8

Hello everyone!
This week was kind of crazy. On tuesday, me and my comp had to go to San Jose. Again. I had to go to do my fingerprints for my citizenship or whatever haha. So we left tuesday night, slept over there, and then did my fingerprints in the morning and left that afternoon back to Nicoya. It was hard because we lost pretty much two days of work! But it all ended up okay. Especially because i ate subway again ;) By the way, we were all freezing and it was probably like 70 degrees. I might die when i get back to Utah...

Here´s a cool story: Rita, the one who I felt prompted to go talk to in her house, has been hard to go visit because she´s been busy or sick. So we got to her house to go teach her the Restoration - my favorite thing to talk about! It was kind of crazy over there - lots of people around, we were sitting outside and it was loud, etc. So I told Hermana Montoya, we shouldn´t teach the restoration today because I´m not feeling the spirit! And that is such an important message so I thought it would be better another day. But she told me that because it is such an important message, Satan is always trying to prevent us from sharing it. So we need to share it! So we need. We started talking about Joseph Smith and the restoration. When Hermana Montoya was reciting the First Vision, when Joseph saw Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, she was looking at a little painting of it and she stopped us in the middle and said, ¨Ahh I have chills!!¨And i could see that her whole body had goosebumps. So that was really cool. And a lesson to me that we need to share the message of the Restoration no matter what. Because that is the most important - the fact that we have Christ´s restored church on the earth.

One thing that Ive realized here is that i have completely taken the gospel for granted. I am so so lucky to have grown up with it in my life. So I challenge you, don´t take the gospel for granted! Take advantage of it and share it with others! It is such a blessing! 

Another thing that I learned this week was something about the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I learned WHY Christ suffered for our pains. In Alma 7:11-13, it explains it beautifully. He suffered our pains and sorrows so that he could be merciful to us - so that he could understand what we´re going through and be able to be compassionate towards us. Also, to be able to know how to comfort us. I just love that - he suffered for our sins so that he could know how to comfort us.

So we taught Alejandra and her boyfriend David on Saturday, and as Alejandra suggested, we taught him the Plan of Salvation. It went so well - we were laughing and getting along, and the lesson went well. We were soo happy and I was all, wow, he is totally going to get baptized! And then the next day...he totally ditched the appointment. That was super dissapointing...Alejandra said, well he´s obviously not here because he doesnt want to be, so I guess he is choosing his own path. It´s super hard because she wants to continue in the gospel so badly but she cant have all of the blessings without baptism, and he is keeping her from that. But everything will work out eventually, because Heavenly Father won´t let Alejandra be kept from the gospel because of someone elses actions. We´ll just have to help her along.

Today was fun because there´s a huge fair thing in the center of Nicoya! To celebrate their day of independence or something. I bought you your christmas presents family so be excited! Hahaha. Oh and there was a pizza hut truck so that was a bonus.

Well thats all for this week!! Love you all and thank you for all the support!!

Hermana Geis :)

                             Eating pizza hut!!

Week 7

Hello everyone!!

This week was good. I was thinking about you all a lot this week with the wedding and everything, and the day of the wedding i felt nothing but happiness - I was so grateful for that. We had some really powerful lessons this week. We´ve both been feeling the spirit a lot in the lessons and ive been able to express myself and explain things better in the lessons so thats really awesome. We´re trying to work hard, and Hermana Montoya said that this week was a lot more successful than her past weeks so that is so awesome!! We both have the desire to work hard. Even though we get tired and are weak haha the Lord helps us out.

So Fernanda, who got baptized this week, has a grandpa who´s been at her house a lot and we have been teaching him! We gave him a pamphlet of the restoration, and the next day he had read the entire thing and was spewing off all the information about it - that never happens! People rarely read anything we give them haha.  He was asking sincere questions, not about whether it was true or not but like detailed questions about what happened and it was awesome. he already knows its true, and he has a baptismal date. The only problem is he doesnt live here all the time so we´ll have to see what happens.

Another girl we´re teaching is Alejandra. We were going to stop visiting her a while back because she wasnt progressing or doing anything about our lessons, and right when we were  going to have our last lesson with her she accepted the invitation to be baptized. she came to church on sunday and said she knows that this is right, but she lives with her boyfriend and he doesnt want to get married. She knows that she cant get baptized until she´s married so she can live the law of chastisty, but he doesn´t want to. However!! We taught him yesterday! Haha he is a little hesitant but Alejandra  really knows that this is true, and I think that he will come around one day.
These two experiences have taught me that not everything is going to go smoothly. There are some really big obstacles that are in our way, but everything will work out in time.

Church on sunday was great because the chapel was  completely full!! With investigators and less active members. It was awesome. Its been hard to work with the members because something happened a while back where the members got super offended and that is all they talk about. We went to visit a member last night (because we were trying to find someone to give us food hahaha) and she talked for like a half hour about the same thing - i  finally had to tell her that we dont want to hear or talk about these things, because it distracts us from  our purpose. Hopefully everyone can just move on and realize that Jesus Christ is the head of this church and if HE forgives everyone, so should we.

here´s some random things about life in Costa Rica:

Me and Montoya are both terrified about bugs. luckily our house is pretty nice and we dont get a lot of nasty bugs. But a few nights ago there was a huge flying cockroack in our house and we were like screaming and running away from it and had to get our neighbor to come and get it out. hahaha it was hilarious.
It is REALLY HOT here. Like really hot. It has been soo dry, but at this moment it just started pouring rain haha. and i dont have my umbrella...oh well pura vida.

I miss the US!! going grocery shopping today made me miss it especially...everything is so expensive....and there is nothing healthy to buy....but hey it all works out haha.

Good thing i practiced piano because i´m going to start playing in sacrament meeting! they only have a keyboard so we´ll see how it goes. they might not like it because they sing the hyms reallyy low...they are not musical here haha its painful. But they still love to sing their hyms!

Im just so grateful for this gospel and the happiness it brings! My testimony has grown immensely and i could not be more grateful for that.
I love you all lots and thank you for everything!! Have a great week!

Week 6

Well I´ve now been in Costa Rica for over two weeks! Crazy right. Yesterday we took a 6 hour bus ride to San Jose to drop off Hermana Christensen. She soo does not want to go home haha. And guess what we ate for lunch...SUBWAY. I was in heaven. Thank you Heavenly Father! :)

So on Saturday a little girl we´ve been teaching got baptized. Her name is Fernanda, and she is ten years old. She is adorable. Her mom says she is always reading her book of Mormon, and when we set her baptism date she clapped her hands for joy. She is an amazing example to all of us to be so excited and passionate about the gospel at such a young age!

I also had a really cool experience last week. We were walking home after a lesson and we passed a house that we pass everyday, but this time the door was open and the lights were on. I kept on looking back thinking we should go talk to them, but they looked like they were eating so I didnt want to bother them. But I kept feeling like we should go back. So I told them we should go talk to them, and we did, and it was awesome. They were super receptive and invited us back, and the mom and the two year old son went to church with us on Sunday. My companions said they were so happy that I followed the spirit because neither of them felt that impression. They said that new missionaries seem to have the spirit stronger with them, but I think it should be the opposite! I hope that the spirit grows stronger the longer that I am out. But the only way it can become stronger is if I follow the promptings I am given. If I dont follow them, I´ll stop getting promptings.

It has been so extremely hot here. Its supposed to be rainy season and it´s rained like twice since I´ve been here! It´s really weird. 

here´s to answer some of your questions mom: We teach probably about 3-5 times a day. Our area is a long ways from our house so we walk a lot, and are supposed to make 20 street contacts a day. We have around 10 investigators, but some arent progressing. In a typical day, we get up at 6:30, exercise, and then do various studies from 8 to 12. Then we have lunch at our neighbors and head out for the day. We dont go back home until 9 or 9:30. And no one feeds us so if we want food we have to buy it, which we dont have enough money for every day! buut its okay because obviously the lord will bless us and provide a way for us :)

Well i´m out of time but I love you all!!

Hermana geis