This last year has flown by

It's hard to believe that almost a year ago we were packing up our apartment, quiting our jobs and putting the items we saved into storage at my parents house. But here we are with just one month left of our time in Costa Rica. Part of us is going to miss the beautiful beaches, blue sky and great friends but part of us is ready to say goodbye to car issues, bumpy roads and constantly sweating.  Everywhere you go there is the pros and cons. And I am sure our the next chapter in our life will come with an all new set of them.

When you live in a country you don't always take advantage of it so now that we know we have a limited time left we have been trying to fit in all those things we have wanted to see. Here are a few pictures of Jehovah's beautiful creations we have been enjoying lately.

Rio Celeste. The volcanic minerals in one river meet with minerals in another river and it creates this awesome blue river.

Waterfall about 30 minutes from our house

Armadillo that has been hanging out in our yard

Awesome beach with clear water and tons of sea shells everywhere

One of the coolest things about being in a transitional hall is that we get tons of visitors from all over. It has been so fun showing them around and watching them see Costa Rica for the first time. Once you have lived here awhile things become part of everyday life and you don't even think twice about it.  So watching them see monkeys for the first time or having a cold coconut to drink on service break has been so fun for us. The service meeting this week talked about hospitality. Living here you not only get to show hospitality a lot but you also get to experience it by your worldwide brotherhood. These are memories we will cherish forever and the friends we have made we will never forget.

This week at meeting there were only 9 in attendance. So many of the friends got colds. I don't think Brian ever even sat down all meeting. I was impressed we still had 8 bible highlight comments which was pretty awesome especially on a reading which was a little harder.

 

Also last week Brian and I had an Asian child on the service meeting part. Too bad he was only 8 years younger than me. Hehe! This is what happens when you have a shortage of elders and children in your hall.

So I have to tell you about the other elder in our hall. His name is Bill Henderson. Bill is one of a kind. He has stories that you won't believe even happened. He is probably the best surfer in our hall as well. And I forgot to mention he is 73 years old. So the other day we go with Bill to a waterfall. Bill is leading the pack to get there leaving all of us "young ones" in the dust. Then he is doing cannon balls off the waterfall. He is the biggest kid in our hall. He was even doing chicken fights in the pool the other day with the 20 year olds.

And Two bug stories to end it. So we have lots of geckos at our house. We even have a few babies ones that are pretty cute. Or at least I thought they were cute until one day I am just laying on the couch, and the bugs had already been bugging me a lot that night, when all of a sudden something lands on my bare chest. Stupid little gecko decided to jump off the wall And happens not to land on my shirt but my bare skin. Not what I was expecting so there may have been a freak out moment til it flew off.

And here is the spider that came out of Brian's shoe when he tried to put on his shoe barefoot without checking his shoes first. Yikes!

The sunset we saw while surfing and a beautiful rainbow was on the other side. One of my favorite moments!

Rainy Season

So we almost through rainy season, which I am very excited about. There are things I love about rainy season like how green everything is, how close we got to everyone since our hall was so small and didn't really have any visitors and the cooler temperatures. But with that comes a lot of flooding, the ocean is dirty, clothes that wont dry, everything smells musty in our house including all of our clothes. So now I am ready for those hot days to come back and dry everything out. Plus our driveway is starting to get pretty muddy, not sure how many more rain storms we can last before we wont be able to get out of it.

As some of you know, the ministry is a little more challenging here. Being in a foreign language you don't get to do straight door to door as much so you end up not talking to as many people during a day in service. But lately we have had a couple of really nice experiences. Here is one of them.  We started setting up our cart at a new location. It is a grocery store that a lot of foreigners go to in one of the close tourist towns. With the new location we are finding so many different people then we normally find in the town. Usually we set up by the beach access. So last Friday Brian and I were doing the cart and I went inside to use the bathroom and was checking out what produce they had. I saw a lady that looked like she spoke English so I just tried to make conversation. We talked briefly and I went back out to the cart. As she was checking out she was staring at our cart obviously reading it and looking at the literature from a distance. After she was finished she came straight over to us and grabbed a bible teach book and says I need this for my daughter. She then asked if she could have magazines as well. I guess she has been trying to find a way to teach her daughter about the bible but there wasn't many options here in English. We told her about the website. And we are hoping to see her again at the grocery store.

One thing I really love are the people here. We have made so many awesome friendships that we will have long after we leave Costa Rica. This past week we started to get more visitors so I thought I better have everyone over in the hall before it gets too big and it wont be possible. We invited everyone over after meeting. We had 22 people in our small house. About an hour into the get together the power goes out. Its pitch black since it is nighttime. But then all of sudden you see headlamps turn on, flashlights and cell phones. And everyone just continues on with their conversations. I loved it! Everyone stayed another hour even thou the power never came on. We are all so use to inconveniences that it just doesn't stop us.

This month we have really had some challenges. Between broken down cars, a car that wont sell but continues to break down as well, a few minor health issues and unexpected expenses we feel Satan's target is on us. It all seems to come right after the moment we started to make ourselves available for Jehovah to use more fully in his service. But we are confident those challenges will pass and Jehovah will direct us where he feels we can be of the most help after we leave Costa Rica at the end of January.

And a funny story to end it all. Brian made some pasta for lunch and was trying to hurry out the door since he had to walk to his shepherding call since our car wouldn't start. So he grabs the pasta out of the strainer I threw it in. He saw black dots on it but thought ohh Nicole must have seasoned it. He is super hungry so he is chowing down. When he is halfway thru his bowl he sees a bug on a noodle he is about to eat. Then he looks closely at what he thought was seasoning and realizes that it is filled with little dead ants. I guess the ants had gotten into the dried pasta in the bag and eaten part of the noodle before we bought them. Guess we should look a little closer next time. Extra protein thou right :)

Here are a few pictures from the last month :)

Walking to meetings and service this week since our car wont start

My favorite spot in the house

Visa trip to San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua

That the main road and up ahead is a bridge except you can't see where it is.

Exploring: We rented a dirt bike on our visa trip in Nicaragua.

So proud of Brian. We didn't have a speaker so after doing the Watchtower first he got up and gave an impromptu public talk and he did awesome thanks to Jehovah's holy spirit.  

Low tide at the beach near our house





 

Pictures from the last two months

Rainy season has turned everything into a jungle

Went exploring in the hills above our house. This was the view

We didn't have power at the hall so we had meeting at a brother's house

Add caption

Loving our GoPro camera. Playa Conchal

Waterfall Cortez

From Behind the waterfall

Hot springs with Brian's parents in Arenal

La Paz Waterfall

Convention in San Jose. 800 in attendance on Sunday

Watched this turtle lay his eggs. Now she is burying them in the sand

So awesome to see all the turtles coming up to lay their eggs in Ostinal

Helped with the painting on the Coco Kingdom Hall for a couple of days

A visit home and pioneer school in Costa Rica

I am sorry I have been a terrible at keeping up this blog. Part of it is our internet is so slow here but part of it is me just being bad at keeping up with it.  So my apologizes I will try harder. Especially for those who don't have instagram.

 

 The last three weeks have flown by and have been filled with so much activity. We were able to go back home to Seattle for two weeks. It was such a treat to see a lot of family and friends who we miss so much. We also had the privilege of helping serve food at the assembly hall to the delegates on their tour for a couple of days. Then to top the trip off we attended Friday and Saturday of the international convention. It is amazing to see 30,000 + of your brothers and sisters sitting all around you from 40 different countries. It was a convention we always remember. Sadly we weren't able to attend Sunday's session since we took a red eye flight back to Costa Rica to make it back in time for pioneer school on Monday.

 

 

Jehovah's organization takes care of us so wonderfully. We had 6 days filled with wonderful lessons, workshops which included demos, interviews, and lots of laughter. Our class had 45 people in it. It was filled with need greaters, missionaries, special pioneers and local friends who are serving in foreign language (English). It was a great diverse group. Both of our instructors had moved to other countries when their children were younger. And now that they are grown they are both couples special pioneers and sub CO's. One of the couples just got their permanent CO assignment to Mexico. We learned so much from their experiences since both have been in foreign countries for over 10 years. Here is just a few points I enjoyed:

As pioneers we are the pace setters in the race and we need to keep up with Jehovah's organization. They encouraged us all to use the new tools we have been given especially the website in our ministry. Also the brochure Who are doing Jehovah's will today? 

On the section of prayer they encouraged each one of us to make a schedule for our prayers. Making sure that time is scheduled everyday. Also we were encouraged to look up the 180 prayers written in the bible and meditate on each one of them as a study project.

SUNDAY SERVICE. SUNDAY SERVICE. I can't even tell you how many times they encouraged that during the school. It is the day people are home and most religiously inclined.

I loved the quote " Love is not known until it is shown." Such a great quote for our ministry.

Great reminders on how Jesus is the head of the congregation and how he will take matters. We all have the tendency to talk when things aren't being handled correctly. But our instructors reminded us "Don't you think if it bothers you it bothers Jehovah and Jesus and that he will take care of it at the right time."

And the most important quality we can cultivate is HUMILITY.

There were so many awesome points. I hope you all get to attend the new program. It was a great privilege to attend with my husband this time. Also one other cool thing they mentioned was is soon all Kingdom Halls worldwide will have the JW.ORG sign on them like the one where we attended school at.

 

Brian and I both had demos during the workshops. And Laura is the other pioneer that attended pioneer school with us from our congregation in Samara

Brother and Sister Lamy. They served as need greaters and special pioneers for 10 years in Nicaragua before substituting as our COs here in Costa Rica. They just got their assignment as permanent COs to Mexico starting next month.

We stayed with a couple for pioneer school. We are not sure what they put in their toilet but the toilet accidently kept running and when we walked into the bathroom this is what we saw. HEHE!!!

Now we are back in our little town of Samara. It was so great to see everyone at meeting on Sunday. With our hall being so small we have become very close to so many of the friends really fast down here. So even thou we miss our family (especially my little nephews) and friends back home we are thankful Jehovah has provided us a spiritual family to fill that void until we are able to see our family again. So true are the words at Mark 10: 29. 30.  We are excited to be back out in the ministry this week and to put into practice all of the new techniques we learned.

 

If we didn't get to see you while we were back we are so sorry. It doesn't mean we don't love you.  It was nonstop the entire trip. Much Love, Nicole

A much needed new motto

A much needed new motto

The challenges have definitely been coming our way. Lately they have seemed non-stop. That's when I realized I needed to adjust my attitude or we weren't going to last living down here. The thing is the challenges will never stop, there will always be something but it is all in how we deal with them when they come. So we are "learning to surf them" and I mean learning cause trust me there are still those days where it feels like I am being pummeled by the waves.

Most of our challenges come from owning a car down here. Having an older car, being a pioneer couple who drives constantly in service and surrounded by dirt roads that are not maintained means lots of breaking down in service. Thank goodness Brian knows some things about cars because somehow we always make it to the mechanic even if it means sputtering in. So our car will be in the shop for awhile now (needs a rebuilt engine) so we have been borrowing some bikes and riding them. So far we just got caught in one rainstorm. By the time we arrived home our service clothes were caked in mud. All we could do was laugh.

 

Riding to meeting

Last Sunday I sent Brian to the store since I was doing hospitality for the speaker. He took the bike along with a long list of groceries. As he was riding there he hit an area before the river crossing which is just huge mud pits. He decided to walk his bike but then his flip flops got stuck in the mud and broke. Now he doesn't have any shoes to where so he continues to ride barefoot into town. He goes grocery shopping barefoot and mud all over his feet. Good thing we live in the country and people probably didn't even look twice at him. He now has a backpackers backpack full of groceries and needs to make the 30 minute bike ride back to our house. He carries his bike thru the river, walks thru the mud pits and gets close to our road when he gets a flat tire. Here I see my husband sweating, covered in mud, no shoes on walking his bike up the driveway. Poor guy!

 

Favorite bug story recently- We get home from meeting and see cockroach in our kitchen. Brian is chasing it around trying to catch it but it is fast. It keeps going under and on top of our table. I am watching from a distance. Brian then can't find where it went. He turns around and I see it on his back. I start yelling "IT IS ON YOU" but all Brian hears is screaming so he assumes that it is coming towards me so he starts coming towards me. About this time the cockroach crawls up his back and touches his neck. At this point Brian starts to jump around and arms are going everywhere. He flings it off his neck and it lands on his pants. He grabs it and gets rid of it. Then we just started busting up laughing.

 

We did our visa trip to Nicaragua. We had a lot of fun. We rode the local buses and went to a couple of the local markets. It always nice when you get to see the local areas. Nicaragua is very poor is certain parts. It was a reminder how fortunate we are but also how much we really need the new system to come.

 

Local Market. Cheese for sale

 

Local Market (they don't refrigerate eggs here)

 

Loved all the doors in Granada

 

Laguna De Apoyo- Lake that formed in a crater of a volcano

 

Drink to go?

Our congregation has had most of its visitors leave. We are down to about 17 people now (We just had 3 move in this week that are staying awhile). I love when the congregation is small. We have formed some great friendships here and we are looking forward to spending even more time with them during the rainy season. Also I got trained to work on territories. So that has been fun to help out in that way. 

 

Here is a few surfing pictures of us girls from over a month ago. Back before rainy season.