More Adventures in Costa Rica

This Wednesday we went to the temple and Satan was sure working hard to keep us from getting there. First of all we missed our bus by 5 min. and it only comes once every hour. SO, we took another bus to the temple, and a car ran into us! Yes it hit the side of the bus and slid all the way down. The front was all smashed and a windshield ruined. I couldn´t see all the damage to the bus. Everyone on the bus was fine. It hit the opposite side that I was on but I could still feel it hit! It was crazy so everyone had to get off the bus and get on another bus. Then we realized the stop closest to the temple was still a 20 minute walk away up this huge huge hill. The sessions only run every two hours so they had 25 min before the session started. So we booked it up there. (Wade talking to a kid on a bike doing missionary work all the way) It was so hot and tiring walking but we made it in time for their session by like 5 min. Then they told us they don´t do baptisms on Wed and they didn´t have enough workers! Sad! But Wade and another boy with us, Dustin offered to stay and help and they found two more workers so we got to do them how fortunate!

So now for the funny story that you know had to come. So when I got done with baptisms I was walking down the hall and I remembered I hadn´t seen a shower in the dressing room so when I walked down the hall I noticed another door was open and so I went in and found the shower... took a nice long shower. Then I came out and started looking around... I wonder where this connects to my dressing room? hmm... there are other dressing rooms here... hmmm why is that picture of a MAN on the wall? That´s right, I was, in fact, in the mens locker room in the temple wearing only a tiny tiny towel! There was no one in there, thank goodness, so I paniced and ran out hoping I could make it into the girls dressing room without anyone knowing but I ran into a temple worker lady on my way out of the mens dressing room and she had a very puzzled look. I could barely find the words in enlgish much less in spanish so I managed to stutter ¨wrong room¨ I had no idea if she understood me. It was all I could do not to bust up laughing the whole time in the dressing room. I came out and Amanda was dying of laugher. She just watched me walk into the mens bathroom and didn´t bother rescuing me.

Amanda said the temple worker lady heard the water shut off and waited a minute and then came back to ask me if I needed another jumpsuit for confirmations and went into the dressing room and came out with a very puzzled look and then I ran out of the mens. So she had to get me a suit for confirmations and I just had to stand there in my towel till she got back and I had to face her again. Then after I changed I went out and she asked me, in spanish of course, uh, did you get lost? I stuttered yes and made her promise she wouldn´t tell anyone! ha ha. I think that would only happen to me, or possibly Maranda! :)

This last weekend we decided to go to the beach to scuba dive. We didn´t have exact plans of where we were going to stay or how we were getting there. We decided to take the public bus to the beach. The bus was full when we tried to buy tickets but we got on the bus and bought tickets anyway. I didn´t realized till later that we purchased standing tickets to stand in the asile for 2 hours! So we ended up sitting on the floor of the bus where ther open spot for wheelchairs is. It was quite the adventure. I enjoyed the spontenity and feel of it, but I was extremely grateful for my seat on the ride back!

So we went scuba diving and I got to see and TOUCH a white tiped shark! Pretty Awesome. I tried to post the picture and it´s not working. Sorry. We saw lots of cool things and it was great.

¡Pura Vida!

Hello everyone from Beautiful Costa Rica!

I have been in Costa Rica for about a week now and it is fabulous. I am staying with a family here and they are so amazing. They are very nice and I was worried about not being able to communicate with them very well but it´s great and if we don´t understand each other we resort to acting things out or my family guessing the words that they know in english. By the way they are so cute when they try to say things in english! My ¨father¨ was trying to say sausage the other day and it was impossible for him but so so cute. When we got here he said in english ¨I am your dad in Costa Rica!¨and it was in the most adorable accent ever! I have noticed that my spanish has improved alot. Actually I´m not sure if my spanish has imporved the most or just my cofidence in using it. I only speak in spanish to my family and it´s nice to get to use it so much. All the classroom practice of spanish just doesn´t add up to the real thing. They are so great to be too. Every day our mom washes our laundry, by hand, and makes us a fabulous breakfast and dinner and makes our bed and clean our room a little bit. I feel so spoiled being here! What an amazing opportunity it is for me to be here.

I was super worried about the food here just because I am so picky but I have like all the food that we have had here. My mom here is a fabulous cook. We have even had....yummy funeral potatoes here! I almost died when I found out we were having them for dinner. I love my life or in spanish Amo mi vida! Amo mi vida has become an everyday phrase for us!

Pura Vida is the national phrase down here. Directly translated it means pure life but it just means that life is amazing and everything is great. It´s on all the merchandise and everything, it´s kinda fun. You say good morning they say Pura Vida!

I know you are all wanting to hear a funny story from down here so here goes... As I mentioned earlier our mom does our laundry by hand. The first night amanda and I just had our underwear that we needed to wash so we put it in the hamper. We didn´t know that she did it everyday but we found out when we came home the next day and our underwear was gone. We were discussing for a mintue the idea that she probably had to hang them to dry but we wondered where but we didn´t think anything of it. So later that day our buddies Wade and Jeff came over to our house to visit with us and our family. Our dad took us out in the back porch area to show us his orchid collection. Then we went around the corner to see the aloe vera plant, which by the way have flowers, And there next to the aloe vera plant are two pairs of panties and one pair of socks. Amanda and I busted up laghing. I couldn´t help but be in awe of the awkwardness of the situation, there was nothing I could do but laugh it off. It took the boys a while to notice them, but they did. To top it off Amanda´s were bright pink and mine had lots of huge smiley faces on them! I was looking through Jeff´s pictures of the plants and there were our panties in the picture. The momory is saved forever for posterity! I thought I´d share it with you. :)

Costa Rica is fabulous! Pura Vida!