Una Vida Linda en Costa Rica: Ants, Lizards, Dogs, Frogs and Men...Week Two in Costa Rica!

Dear Mom and Everyone!

Wow, there are so many things about Costa Rica I want to tell you and so little time!

First off the boring part, I'm doing great mom! I bought another pair of shoes here already, and I think they will be much better. I'm just sad we practically waisted $150. The addresses in Costa Rica are CRAZY. For example the mission office address in like´turn right on the corner of mcdonalds and across from the super market...´´ So if you ever send packages (Which you don´t need to because it's really expensive, but thank you anyway!!!!) always send them to an address that I haven't given you yet...It's still at home a forgot again! But I think it's the mission office address, though i'm not sure. Sorry! Next week i'll bring it for sure!

Okay now for news on Costa Rica!

The third or fourth day I was here I was about to climb in bed when I saw bird poo on it! Turned out a bird had climbed underneath our shutters and taking shelter in our window shield. Then about two days ago I turned on a light in our dressing-storage room to see two dead lizards in the light fixture! There are also ants EVERYWHERE. Yesterday there were 5 floating in a drink an investigator offered me. I tried not to drink them, but I'm sure I drank some of them...There are also a bunch of dogs, and they always bark at you, but so far none have tried to bite us, which is a relief. However there is dog poo everywhere, and I ALWAYS step in it. Also there are a lot of frogs here and I see huge ones flattened and dried up on the road a lot! Lastly half the men here walk around with out shirts on all day! It is not a pleasant picture! They always cat call at me too because there are hardly any Americans. That's another thing, I can't say I'm American because so are they, I have to say i'm from Estados Unidos :)

One thing are mission president challenged us to do is contact a bus. Contacting a bus isn't very good to get new investigators, but it is great for erasing fear of talking to everyone. When you contact a bus you are supposed to ask permission from the bus driver and then afterwards stand up and give a 3 min message about the gospel, then we are supposed to go and talk personally to as many people as possible, getting references, handing out pass along cards, etc. I told my companion about it, because she had never heard of contacting a bus, and we decided to do it on Tuesday. We were really excited, until the time came to actually contact it! Ahh, so scary, but we stood up and she gave a short spiel about Christ.

However, evidently she didn't understand my broken Spanish when I explained the concept because she hurried and gave people pass along cards and then sat down. I just followed suit, and didn't talk to anyone. So we didn't actually contact a bus, but we tried! Next time we will do better hopefully :)

We haven't visited very many of our investigators yet because we've had to take trips to San Jose and Tuis for paper work or to have lunch with members, and it takes a lot of time out of our day. However Rosa, our main investigator is progressing really well, and if all goes as planned will be baptized this Saturday!! We aren't sure though because she still smokes two cigarettes a day, but we are praying she'll be able to stop completely. She has a really humble heart and a desire to follow Christ.

We also taught a new family this week ´´Casa de Mapas´´ The father is a minister in the Catholic Church though, and the whole time dominated the lesson about christ, the crucifixion, etc. Next lesson were are going to try and but in more. They are really great people, but we aren't sure how long we'll teach them since they aren't to open to our message about the restoration, only want to hear about Christ.

I don't have much more time, but I have a request for you all! When teaching it really helps if I have personal stories to tell, so any of you that want to, and they aren't too personal, please send me your conversion stories, whether you were born into the church or not! Right now I can only share mine, and it's pretty boring when testifying.

Also Mom, could you send me our document of recipes? That would be so great! We have the option for someone to cook for us, but they would just feed us rice and beans, and my companion, who's been here 8 months, is sick of that. So i've been cooking breakfast and lunch for us, since she doesn't know how, but I'm running out of things I know how to cook without a recipe. I made the avocado and tomato dip, she LOVES it. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

I love you all, thank you for you support!

Happy Birthday Tiffany!

Hermana Bratt