Week one in Guacimo! (8/6/2012)

Hola Familia!

So I have to make this fast because I don´t really have that much time for emailing, but I am here in Costa Rica! And sorry if my typing is bad, Spanish keyboards stink! So I’m in a town a couple hours north east of San Jose called Guacimo!  It is supposed to be one of the hottest places in Costa Rica, and yes it is extremely hot. I am the sweating Gringo that all ticos see and try and speak English with. The people here aren’t very well educated so it’s kind of hard to understand their Spanish. They can understand me, but it’s difficult for me to understand them.

So we should be having 2 or 3 baptisms this weekend! 2 for these two brothers, Justin y Jeremy. Justin is 12 and Jeremy is 15. They are super awesome and Justin just has this thirst for the gospel. Oh yeah I forgot to mention, all the stories we heard about Costa Rica are wrong. There isn´t rainforest and machetes. Sad I know.

But I am in the campo, or rural jungle part so that’s pretty cool. Oh yeah my trainer is Elder Nape, a native of Veracruz Mexico! He doesn’t speak a lick of English hahahah. So I’m using the little Spanish I know 24/7! Which is really cool anyway! He’s a great trainer and an amazing teacher! I am really learning a lot from him.

About the food, the food here is really good... most of the time. I hated rice and beans before but our lunch lady is super super good! But yes, since were in the campo we have a ton of bugs in our apartment. And a gecko who eats all the bugs haha. Oh and bats in our ceiling, which is kind of freaky to hear early in the morning and late at night. The only bad things about Guacimo are: no warm water anywhere, and its hot as heck! But I love it here.

Our investigators here are super awesome and we should have a bunch of baptisms this month. We found two super interested families last night, but one is a pareja. Costa Rica is famous for their parejas: when a man and woman live together for life and don’t get married. And it’s really hard to get them to get married, so there aren’t that many baptisms in Costa Rica as you would think.

I’m going to try and attach pictures in this message too, because it really is beautiful here. I have felt the Spirit so strongly in our lessons and I am super excited for this weekend with our baptisms. Oh and they also play basketball here. I actually broke the rim at the church dunking this past Friday haha,  all the little tican kids loved it. Oh and I have seen some funny things here. First , Costa Rican women love to breastfeed in public in front of everyone. And Costa Rican dogs like to try and mate with cats. It’s very different here.

Its super humbling to see how much I have, and how little these people living in little cement huts have. But like dad said, they may be poor, but they all have cable and TVs. Latinos love TV here haha. I love my mission and I miss all of you. Sorry that this is so short, but I have a lot of stuff to do! I love all of you and I want you to know this church is so true! Love you, bye!

Adios,

Elder Taylor



P.S.

Oh I ran out of time, and I forgot to mention this. I saw my first sloth the other day! He was huge! Everyone here calls them oso perisosos, which means lazy bear! I didn’t have my camera sadly, but I will touch one!

Everyone here is afraid of them because they hurt a lot of people I guess, but it is still my goal to touch one! So tell Eric and Shelby this, cuz it was super cool! okay bye! Love you all!