what a wonderful week

Hi hi hi. 

okay so this week was crazy amazing. so i'll try and tell everything in the time allotted.

Monday- after mailng we went to tamarindo. its the beach an hour away in our area. we went to the Spaulding's house because Sister Spaulding was leaving on Tuesday. so we get there and she has all these nonperishable items for us to take home like ranch dip packets and taco seasoning and cinnamon and coco powder and just amazing stuff and it was like Christmas. because it was stuff we don't buy and it was like home. She then fed us lunch and it was amazing we had real broccoli and cauliflower steamed and it was so good and fresh. And she made chicken and noodles and alfredo sauce it was like being in the states! Then for dessert we had chocolate and dipped strawberries and bananas. so that was so so sweet of her.She gave us sugar cookies and banana bread. needless to say she's a saint and I felt so loved. we had a really good talk about giving back and she's so awesome because her and her family really helped out this branch so much these past 9 months and i'm so grateful for their family. So after that we went to the beach. awww so pretty and the water was so warm on my feet. and just so nice to see the beach. the pictures i look rough because it rained and im always sweaty so just take it for a grain of salt. i look like i'm always camping... because i basically am. hah.

Tuesday- we got up at 3:45 am and took a bus to San Jose for my Check after the first month and it was such a fun day. We got to see all the sisters and elders that came in at the same time as me and it was amazing to see the growth in all of us. I was so stoked to see Hna Starke and Hna Boer. It was like seeing my best friends and we were all so happy and its still so crazy to me how fast the time has flown. Any how we had a meeting with President Wilkinson and he just really focused on studying and working as hard as we can with the time that we have. So then we went to his house for lunch and again amazing food because we had really chicken and ranch and then cake and ice cream because it was his daughter emma's bday. Oh okay so random their oldest daughter Mary had three friends from utah visiting because it was their graduation trip and i walk in and i know of them from the one time i went to efy so that was pretty cool and random. Then we took the bus home and got home at like 10. needlesstosay. buses are so much worse than nonreving. i literally spent 10 hrs on a bus in one day.. but i'm glad i´m in santa cruz so i don´t mind sacrificing a little bit. 

Wednesday- well two different people dropped us today. and it was really sad. all of our other appointments dropped except for one. so it was a really long day. The one appointment we had was with alex and it was so exciting because he brought friends to listen to us and he told us hes given up coffeeeee and hadn't had it since the last time we talked. so that was awesome. we also had a ward family night today and i finally feel like i'm apart of this ward. i love the people. i love the kids. and i love that i can understand and talk to them pretty well. hah. at least in this activity i felt connected because we were playing a game and i got really competitive so that was fun.haha.

Thursday- today we had a zone meeting. we got there early so the zone leaders gave us our mail. I had three letters i felt so popular. one from Jordan Clark one from Dayna Gomes and One from a friend from byu. So it was really nice and then we had President Wilkinson there so we got to have an amazing lesson. So we talked a lot about pride. and If i were you i would read beware of pride by ezra taft benson its a really great talk. and we also learned of the new mission standards. it is amazing he's raising all the goals and standards of excellence up really high and we were all so so so pumped to start working and moving this work along. then after an amazing zone conference we had lunch of pb and j. I wanted to cry. PEANUTBUTTER! yummmmm. and so as we were leaving we're one of the last and the zone leaders said do y'all want this jar of pb and a loaf of bread so we were able to take home a jar and now we have 3 giant jars in our house. i'd say we have the most pb than anyone in the central or south american missions. hah. we're lucky. we had two from the spauldings and one from this activity. as you can see in the picture. the sweet tender mercies of life.

then we went and did work. we taught some amazing people and then we went to the church building and met up with the bishop to teach some less actives. it was so nice because they live like 30 min walk away and they need the help and they need the support. this is a family of 9. and they're all super young kids. and one of them has spina bifida and so this past week he was taken by the government because they're too poor and didn't have a house fit for him. its so sad so we went and we're going to help her fix up her house. then after that Pres.Sancho bought us pizza and took us home. it was really really nice. the pizza isn't anything like the pictures stefan used to send home but it was good. hah.

Friday-So we had weekly planning and this is our goal for this week. We are really working on being a disciple of Christ. So we've fixed our appearance to not look slack-ish or dirty but to always have clean shoes and hair and kinda nice shirts and skirts and then we decided to clean our apartment and we've decided to really be clean and have the spirit with us. We've been memorizing scriptures in spanish every week so we decided to memorize 3 nefi 5:13 He aqui soy discipulo de cristo el hijo de dios, he sido llamado a declarar su palabra entre los de pueblo... something something...a fin de vida eterna i do'nt have it all memorized yet.. that's close though  i think.. i'm just going of memory there.. haha. but i really feel a difference with this charge and change of mind. we're really working to not just teach people the true and restored gospel of Christ but really and truly bring people unto Christ. 

Saturday- okay so this is crazy. so today we worked so hard we had a member working with us from 1-5 and then from 6-8:30. we were cranking out lessons and it was amazingly awesome. we got two people to accept baptismal fechas and we desafiamos todos personas a asistir a la capilla. it was great we were on fire. then we were walking from one area to another and we saw a guy with a texas shirt so hna o said hey love your shirt. and we were talking to him and just walking and talking and ended up talking about the church and inviting him to come and he said yea he really wanted to. so we were just really excited because we were expecting a lot of people to come to church. Then we taught Gilmer and Alejandro. Gilmer has been reading the BOM by himself and is already to Jacob. its been a week since we last talked to him. and Alejandro asked if he could wear his school pants and graduation shirt to chruch tomorrow.. this just means black pants and a white button up and they were both just so excited to go to church tomorrow.

Sunday- so we get up and we walk and wake people up and remind them about church and Gilmer and Alejandro and then another Joven  go to church on their own and then we picked up a lady and walked to church with her-. so we get to church and its literally like a miracle like mana from heaven. we open up all the same and use all the chairs that we can but we still have a hallway full of people standing because our church is too small. we had 13 investigators at church. and there were 135 people at church and only 28 were gringos. that means 105 members, less actives, and investigators. So one less active stayed the whole time, and brought her scriptures and was actually participating. i've been working hard with her so this was a sight to see. and one of the investigators that came was the guy we just talked to on the street. he was so cute he said this was an answer to his prayers that he had been looking to change and when we talked to him yesterday he knew this is how he could do it. so that was really neat and really powerful and you never know whose ready or needs the gospel to just talk to everyone. Then we had the leadership training video the work of salvation and that was so neat to watch. first off i saw some of my friends in the missionary choir so that was cool and then second off the whole thing was just so powerful and its such a great time to be a missionary. i'm so pumped and i love the work. our branch is on FIRE. really its so great and great things are happening. I'm blessed to be  here. 

I love yall soo sooo much!!! 

p.s. i need no shoe socks. they die so fast here. holes and mold and crap.... so just like at christmas time thats all i want... haha. 

A few funny things :

-so yesterday I felt an earthquake. were supposed to have them often now but yeah its cool to say ive felt an earthquake,.

-and two we almost got eaten by a dog on saturday so we were going up to a house we normally go to and its noramlly fine and as hna o started to yell the welcome the dog whose *asleep* gets up and starts chasing and trying to EAT us and because this dog got up the other dogs in the street start chasing us too and its the scarriest thing ive ever experienced in my life.... seriously. we all were screaming and running away and shaking afterwards. i hate dogs. with a passion.. ughhh.

-and lastly. cool fact. i saw three monkeys this morning my first monkey sightings. ha