Let's make up for lost time

March 31, 2014

Okay friends and family,

I realize that I have a lot of apologizing to do. I have been awful at writing these letters lately. I realize how much you all enjoy them so I am making a diligent effort this week.

Lets start out with this picture:

In Costa Rica there is a stomach ache called ¨pega¨ which basically is just indigestion. The funny thing is that it really only exists here in Costa Rica. None of my Latina companions have every heard of or had pega until they got here, but its common. If you eat a lot you get pega. If you eat too quickly- pega. If you eat something with a lot of oil (easily done in the country) PEGA! Luckily (and knock on wood) it is something I haven´t experienced yet, but almost every single one of my companions has had. 

When people get pega, they get little balls of greese in their forarms. The only way to get rid of pega is to message these little balls out of your arms (And sometimes behind the knees). The thing is that this is a VERY PAINFUL PROCESS. Usually middle aged to older women are the only people who know how to do it correctly. Every person who has to do this eventually is crying because it hurts so bad. 

My poor companion has had some trouble with her stomach until we realized she had pega. She is feeling MUCH better, but as you can see, its not a very fun experience. 

This week my companion had to go do her fingerprints for government papers, so we spent the night in the ¨sister house¨ of the mission. My old companion Hermana Escobedo lives in this house full time and so it was fun to have a sleep over and we even bought pizza from a recent covert of hers! 

A new sign that I put next to my bed to help me stay focused when I wake up. 

I can´t actually remember what this fruit is called, but in my mind its called ¨frog egg fruit¨. The first time I saw an elder eating this fruit, I laughed because it looked so gross,but I actually like it a lot. One of my favorite things about Costa Rica is the produce. We do most of our grocery shopping in the farmers market (which i love, because unlike the states,its so cheap!) and there is so many fun and different fruits that I have never even HEARD of before. It keeps life interesting 

We totally planned to be matchy this day..... 

Alejandro and Denise,two youth from our ward who are anxious to get involved in missionary work!

How great was the Womans meeting? I LOVED IT! The only bummer is when the cute General Primary president tells you to look to your side and give your mom a hug,and you feel sad, because your mommy is far far away. My companion literally started crying. Some of my favorite notes:

-Do our children (or we) understand that when we are baptized that we change forever? That we can not go back to what we once were? 

- Don´t be too hard on yourself, relax and rejoice! 

- In the gospel there are no age barriors,so dont put any up!

- We´ll build up his kingdom with earnest endevour 

- ¨Perfect¨ come from a ¨Complete¨

- We can not go through this mortal experience alone!  We receive help though the atonement, the spirit, and others.

- The best way to protect a current or future family is through keeping covenants

-Few of our Heavenly Fathers daughters have had the opportunity to know about and make covenants- what a blessing it is to live in the fullness of times! 

- As daughters of God, we are more alike than we are different. 

Okay, so remember that I had to translate some of that, so hopefully it all made since. This is a picture of all of the women in our ward who came. Afterwords we enjoyed Costco (Pricemart) Muffins! Yay comfort food from home! 

Hermana Xinthia and Hermana Mercado always give us so much love! 

Team Aserri-

Some of our favorite things:

- Shouting (and... in english!) ¨COME BACK!¨as desperately as the girl from Titanic when Jack dies.

-Teaching Hna Beltran funny things in english (including, but not limited too ¨Ain´t nobody got time for that!¨ ¨Whatever¨ ¨I´m going to beat you up¨ (and of coarse,as sister missionaries, said with the most love possible) ¨You can´t talk to me like that¨, ¨You´re grounded¨. ) 

- Eating churros from the churro place on Mondays

- Taking funny pictures

- Laughing and laughing when drunk men get ahold of our number.

 Because our chapel is being remodeled, the bishop rented a mini bus to take us all too and from the conference.

In this ward they LOOOOOVE having the missionaries over, which is great. There is a signup sheet and everything (Are we sure that I am in Costa Rica?). The Aburto Family had us over last night. They live close to us, so we looove visiting them. We always tell them all our funny stalker stories (which we seem to have a lot of these days..... but that´s for another time).









 Melanie and Niyeli came to church with us yesterday. It started out being a stressful experience because we got there late, but then it all was worth it because THEY LOOOOOOVED it!

Also, anyone who has ever seen The District videos (The missionary training videos) I always want to greet Niyeli like the sister in one of the videos ¨Niyeli! Hiiiiiiiii! ¨