Our First Week

We are here!!! I can't believe it has already been a week. We are in our home and getting all settled in which is really nice. The day we arrived we were able to buy a car which actually went really good. Buying a car here in Costa Rica can be a really big stress. Since you have to pay a lot more for not as nice of a car and you have to go through a lawyer to buy it. But we found a decent Montero with 4 wheel drive which is needed for the roads around here. We spent one day in San Jose before making the 4 1/2 hour drive out to Huacas where I use to live. As soon as we left the city our check engine light came on. The car seemed to be running good. But it still made for a very stressful drive, along with the already crazy driving here in Costa Rica.  We have already seen two roll over accidents and a semi that back end was jack knifing but somehow he saved it.  Our check engine light now goes on and off now when we hit bumps. One of the local brothers was like ohh cars always have that light on.   It was so nice to get to see all my old friends and make some news ones as well. Were able to spend two days  in ministry. We got to do witnessing with the cart for the first time in one of the tourist towns close by. Which was cool since our hall at home didn't have one yet.

On Saturday we made the almost 2 hour trip to our new home. After getting a little lost we found the kingdom hall. Everyone was there doing hall cleaning so it was a perfect time to meet everyone and jump right into helping. Our hall has about 30 people in it right now but only 16 of those are more permanent (that's including us). They have 2 elders and Brian will make 3. At our first meeting Brian was asked to do the public talk in 2 weeks, bible highlights tonight for CO visit, me a talk in a week and both of us an interview tonight. Its nice to hit the ground running.

Sunday one of the couples in the hall did a big super bowl party. There were 8 people from Seattle so we were pretty exciting since the Seahawks won!!!! There were some funny moments with bugs after the game ended. This brother who they were calling the "bug whisper" caught a Chinese cockroach which is basically a huge cockroach. He tied a string around it and walking it around like a little dog. We couldn't stop cracking up. Then they also found a tarantula spider. Some were even holding it. But definitely not us!!!

 

 

The last few nights we have been hearing the howler monkeys. Poor Brian didn't know what it was at first. But when I woke up I was like "ohh we have monkeys here." He is like those are monkeys!!! Howler monkeys sound a little bit like lions, hence how they got there name. We saw a bunch of them hanging out in the tree this morning. It was super cool, even some little baby ones.

We have a basic two bedroom tico style house. It has all the basics and all we really need. I am still getting use to the cold showers, which hopefully I will eventually. I figured out the best time to shower is mid day when it is so hot outside that the cold water actually feels good. There is a mango tree right outside our door and some banana trees so I can't wait until they are ripe.

Our Casa- Our car is so dirty

We live about 10 to 15 minutes outside of Samara and in order to get here we have to cross a river and all the roads are dirt. However once rainy season starts we will have to drive around since the river will be too high which can take 45 minutes just to get to the small town.  We heard everyday in service is 4x4ing. The bad part of that is it takes a toll on all the cars. They constantly are having problems. So I am sure we will have lots of stories in the future.

 

This week is CO week so it will be busy and it will be nice to get out in the ministry here in our territory. Let the adventure begin!!!