FridayJan.30th

Pics: Ken Nelson holding the sloth. He's like Crocodile Dundee!

2nd: Me,Chaz and Carmen

What a great day! This morning we met for the field ministry and everyone (there was about 25 out) went to Jaco – about an hour and a half up the coast. First we stopped at a really good bakery here in town that apparently is open 24hrs and is a great place for your sweet tooth. I got a coffee (their coffee is actually expresso with hot water added and then milk and sugar if you like or as they call it at Starbucks, an Americano which costs about $2.50 in the states) and a big piece of what I would call a pound cake. It costs me 800 colones ($1.45) total. Then we were off to Jaco. About halfway there I notice up ahead two cars had pulled over on the side and a man was waving at us and making a “camera gesture” to us. I didn’t know what he was wanting but I slowed down to see and there on the side of the road, climbing up the embankment was a sloth! We all bailed out of the car and started snapping pictures. It was the coolest thing I’ve seen yet here in Costa Rica. It’s apparently very rare to see one up that close down on the ground. Usually they are high up in the trees and most of the time curled up in a ball sleeping if you see one. Anyhow, the circuit overseer – Sean Scribner and Ken Nelson pulled up next and came running over to see it. There were two local guys there watching it but not daring to touch it because their claws are very sharp and though they are slow, if they get their claws on you they can really tear you up! But Ken just walks over, bends down and grabs the little guy from the back and holds him up so we can all see him. He was so cute trying to grab ahold of Ken, but Ken knew how to hold him so that he couldn’t get him with his claws. After we all took many photos, Ken took him over to a tree away from the road and set him free. What a delight! We were all thankful that we had come out in service today, otherwise we would have missed such a wonderful treat! We worked pretty much all day in Jaco, until 2:30pm and then on the way home we had stopped to look at the ocean from this really beautiful spot and we looked up in the trees and there were 4 scarlet macaws. They are so beautiful! After we arrived back at the house, Brandon, Megan, Ork and Amanda all went to the beach for about an hour or so before the sun set. Chastity and stayed home to rest up.

Thurs.Jan.30th

<-This picture is of Chastity trying to straighten her hair and it worked!

This morning we worked in the ministry just north of town. It was me and Chaz and two other brothers, Santiago McFollin and Fred Rohrmoser. We stopped at around 1pm and went and had lunch at our new favorite soda – Cubannita. It’s one block from the kingdom hall and run by a sister in the Spanish congregation. The food there is amazing. I ordered the consada con pollo. It is a huge plate that comes with a chicken filets cooked in this really tasty sauce, a serving of black beans, rice, yucca, steamed mixed vegetables, a sweet fried plaintain, a green fried plaintain, and this other big vegetable that I forgot what it is called but I would liken it to a large fried green tomato. It’s all you can do to eat it all and it costs 1900 colones, or $3.45! After lunch, Chastity and I went home and rested while the others went back out in service for a couple of hours. We had our Congregation Bible Study at 7pm and then the circuit overseers talk. After the meeting we went home and Chastity, Megan, Amanda and I played cards. Brandon and Ork were pooped and went to bed.

Wen. Jan28th

The ministry this morning was in Manuel Antonio. It was the first territory we worked last year when we were here. We had a large group out because there are a lot of visitors right now and the circuit overseer and his wife are here. Brandon and Oriana worked the table at the beach again and had a really long conversation with a man who took a tract. In the afternoon, I went back on Luis, a young guy from Parrita, but who speaks really good English. He is a bartender at the Gato Negro restaurant who had taken the “Do you want to know the truth?” tract last week from me. I showed him the Bible Teach book and then explained our free home bible study program and he said he would like that. He is moving into a new place this week and will be really busy so he said I could come to his house on Feb. 9 for his first study. So we’ll see where it goes. We had our pioneer meeting with the circuit overseer at 5pm. There was a total of 18 pioneers at the meeting. It was a very encouraging meeting, to continue in the full-time service no matter what happens to us in a financial way. One of the statements that he made was, “it would be foolish to reason that Jehovah had the power to sustain us and provide for our needs before, but now that the economy is getting really bad he’s not going to”. He made the point that this whole system is about to collapse, so why stop putting our trust in Jehovah now. Actually, now is the most important time to be trusting that Jehovah will take care of our needs.

Tuesday - Jan. 27

Today our group of 6 and our neighbor Dan and his 2 yr. old son, Jayden, were the only ones out in the field ministry. Being that we couldn’t all fit in our vehicle, Megan and Amanda volunteered to return home and work on the congregations phone territory cards. The rest of us went to our territory in Esterillos Este. We again worked a road that runs right along the beach. We found quite a few gringos who owned houses here. One lady, Ana, that Dan and I talked to was from the same part of Chicago that Dan is from. She was very nice and we talked to her for quite some time. She said she was a Catholic and attends a Bible class in Chicago. She accepted the Bible Teach book. I told her that I would return to answer the question of what was the “kingdom” that Jesus taught his followers to pray for. She readily agreed and even said that if we wanted we could bring our swimming clothes and spend the day at the beach there. I’ll let you know how it goes on the return. Tonight was our meeting and the congregation had the circuit overseer visit. He and his wife are a young couple who were missionary’s here in Costa Rica-they graduated in the 119th Gilead class. He is originally from Michigan and she is from Bogota, Colombia – Sean and Ingrid Scribner. We had an attendance of 40! One of the ministerial servants and pioneers that has been away for the last couple of weeks was there – Santiago McFollins – what a nut! He is originally from Toledo, Ohio. He is here for 9 months, then he will return home and work for 3 months and then back again. We were talking to him after the meeting and just crying laughing. He had this thing were he wanted to guess all of our ages. Most of us he was pretty much right on but Chastity and Megan he guessed both at 27. Of course, Chastity tried to make Megan feel better about it by explaining that because she had her hair up in a “very mature way” it made her look older. He looks like he’s in his mid to late 20’s but he’s 33. He was asking how all of us were related and just for kicks Megan puts her arm around Amanda and said “me and Amanda are sisters”. Without even cracking a smile he was like, “oh yeah, all mine are white (by the way, Santiago is black), I have 6 other brothers and sisters and they are all white.” Megan was like “what?” and laughed. “Yeah, you see my mom and dad are both half black, half white so they were like, 1st kid’s white, 2nd white, 3rd white, 4th is white, 5th is white, 6th kid..oh my God” That’s just one of the many hilarious things he said. We’re looking forward to getting to know him better. Should be a riot having him AND Brandon around. We went and watched the soccor game and had ice cream after the meeting again with Jaime and Ana. Seems ice cream is one of our favorite past times here.

Monday - Jan. 26th

Today is most of the friends day off so if you want to go out in the ministry you have to make your own plans so that’s what we did. We worked the town of Paquita, just outside of Quepos. Went to the beach in the afternoon. Pretty decent sized waves today, but still not big enough for surfing. Oh well, they’ll eventually come. We went to the internet place were we get the gelato and made some phone calls with the computer. Amanda was able to connect to her mom and sister via Yahoo messenger and we both hooked up a video cam so that we could talk AND see each other…..wow, her mom Lisa was soooooooooo excited to see her daughter. She was practically screaming with excitement. It will be a sad day when Lisa finds out that Amanda isn’t coming home, that she’s decided that she’s going to live here permanently…….ok, ok…..I’m just joking Lisa. She’s coming home. That was a bad joke.

Sun. Jan. 25th

Today we slept in, got up and studied our Watchtowers and off to the meeting at 2pm. Brandon did a fantastic job, his first full length talk. I had the privilege of conducting the Watchtower afterwards. It was the Vermont show today. We had a total of 25 in attendance. There was a new family their from Portland, Oregan - Bruce, his wife Cristina and their daughter Fiona. They are looking at Quepos or Tamarindo (the next English cong. about 3 hrs north of here) to permanently move to. We have the circuit overseer this week so it will be an exciting week for us. Chow! (Costa Rican's don't say Adios, instead it's "chow")

Sat. Jan. 24th

Today we went over to Ken and Kim Nelson's place. They have a nice house overlooking the beach that we go snorkeling at. Ken took us (and all 7 of their dogs)on a short hike down their property to a secluded beach behind their house, but first we looked at a sloth sleeping up in the tree next to his house. Cool! He also told us about some great hiking trails farther up the road from them that are some spectacular hikes. First we drove Megan and Chaz back home because they weren't feeling very well. I was just going to drop them off so I stopped the car and without hearing Amanda get out of the car decided to pull up a little closer to the house when all of a sudden Amanda starts yelling (not really because Amanda never really yells) "back up the car, back up the car, it's on my foot!" Fortunately it scared her more than hurt her though her toe was sour for a little while afterwards. Boy, I tell you, I'll not doing to great with this driving thing here. I think I'll going to have to retire from it soon.

On our hike, me, Brandon, Amanda, and Oriana saw white-faced monkeys, several varieties of colorful butterflies, walking sticks, frogs, flocks of pelicans, tons of beautiful flowers, some papaya trees with small fruits on them, and at the very end a whole bunch of squirrel monkeys! They are so tiny and make this cute little noise. We stopped on the way home and watched one of the spectacular Costa Rica sunsets. We went downtown for dinner at the local Soda Sanchez, one of our favorite places known for it's great tico food and cheap prices. As we were eating, Jaime and Ana walked by headed to the post office. They came and joined us and afterwards we all walked over to the ice cream shop across from the soccer field. We grabbed some ice cream and all went and watched the soccer game. It was a much better game than the one we saw the other night, I think these guys were professionals

Friday Jan. 23rd

Service this morning. We went back to the same territory that we ran into the witnesses the other day when Pedro came with us to show us were the man named Jim lived....well today we ran into Pedro again. He was out in service with 5 other brothers and sisters. Four of them were riding their bikes and this couple in the picture were on a scooter. They are all from the Parrita Spanish congregation. It's amazing the zeal of the friends here, riding their bikes from door to door in this heat. We are so spoiled! After service Chastity, Megan, Amanda and myself went snorkeling again. This was Megan's first time and she was just as frightened at first as her brother, but in the end she LOVED it. We were suppose to have dinner at Jaime and Ana's (they are the couple from Toronto) but we were all so tired that we just called it a night and took a raincheck.

Thurs. Jan. 22nd

BEFORE YOU READ TODAY'S BLOG...SCROLL DOWN AND READ JAN. 20 AND 21?

Well……I wish I would have stepped in dog poop instead…..don’t worry, you’ll understand by the end of this. This morning Brandon , Oriana and Chastity decided they would “man” the literature table that the congregation sets up once a week at Manuel Antonio beach. The rest of us along with Ana were going to be working door to door, but first I had to drive(I’m the only one legally allowed to drive the car, we would have had to pay extra for other drivers) Brandon and the girls down to the beach with the table and literature. I parked on the street, quickly unloaded the table and literature and then as I was about to leave they remembered that they had to get the lunch out of the back of the car. So Brandon and I run to the car, I jump in to pull it up so that we can open the back door and after I put it in “park” I bailed out…..it was in REVERSE not PARK! Brandon yells “the car’s rolling” and starts trying to push against the door to stop the car. I go to jump back in the car but before I could hit the brake….BAMMMMM!!!!! I jump out and within seconds there were about 10 locals all yelling stuff in Spanish and one guy bent over holding his back and leg, yelling something in Spanish. I’m terrified, ‘the car must have hit him’!! Then an English speaking guy comes running over and tells me that he saw the whole thing and that “that guy didn’t get hit, he’s faking”. I asked if I could use him as a witness and he agreed and wrote down his information. I looked at the “hurt” man, and shook my head at him and said..”NO!” He backed down pretty quick and said “ok….ok” and then took off. The car I backed into had a big dent in the hood and had been shoved back into some other mans little cart, but thankfully it didn’t even scratch our car because it has a spare tire on the back which took the hit. They both were talking to me in Spanish. I didn’t know what to do but go find a phone and call the insurance company, the rental company, and the police. A nice girl named Lydsey came up and started translating for me what the two men were wanting. She said the man with the car would take $200 cash and the man with the little cart wanted $30 to fix his bent wheel. Being that I have like a $1000 deductible with my insurance I decided that was my best choice. I drove back to the house, got the money, and paid the guys. I was so depressed at this point that I just wanted to go home and call it a day but the other sisters were still waiting on me downtown to pick them up and I was already 45 minutes late. I decided that the only thing that would make this day any better was to go out in the ministry. That I did. We had a great day in service. I was able to talk to an older man from Iowa for quite awhile. There was really no interest, but at least I was able to have a nice conversation. We stopped service at 3pm and went home. I was so drained, my neck was sore from all the stress earlier in the day and so I decided I was taking a nap. At 6pm, we had our weekly family study and read a portion out of the 2009 yearbook, tryed to memorize some new scriptures for the field ministry, and then practiced our Spanish. When we were done we went outside and were talking to our next door neighbor from Wisconsin. He, his wife and son are also here for 2 months to serve with the English congregation. While we were talking, brother Dave Barnett came driving up. Dave is staying in the other side of the bamboo house with the brother from Wisconsin. He is originally from Los Angeles, but moved here with his wife as missionarys. They were asked to go into the circuit work and are now serving one of the Spanish circuits outside of San Jose. He is here with his wife and mother who is visiting from the states. They are taking a week vacation. Anyhow, when he pulled up we saw smoke coming out of his hood. Riding with him in the car was a local mechanic. I guess the story is that earlier in the day his car started to overheat. He figured it was the water pump. He got this guys phone number and had gone to pick him up so that they could drive the car around to see if it would overheat again. It did and now they were stuck back here at the house with no way to get the car back to the mechanics shop across town. I told Dave I would be glad to help. The mechanic had a tow rope back at his shop so the three of us jumped in our car, went and got the rope and drove back here. Now I had to tow this car from our house here in Manuel Antonio DOWN the mountain to the other side of Quepos. I was soooooo nervous because it is so hilly and the people here drive like maniacs and it was a really short tow rope. As we started down our VERY STEEP driveway, I was sure they were going to slam into the back of our car because they couldn’t run the car so he didn’t have any power brakes. Thankfully we had brought our walkie talkie’s with us on this trip and they really came in handy because we were able to communicate while towing the car. When we finally got to the shop, Dave and I got out and pushed while the mechanic steered it back into his shop but while we were pushing it back Dave stepped in the drainage ditch that runs between the street and the houses……no it’s not a rain water runoff…it’s the sewer! Dave said….”Oh no, I’m sure that’s not good” and it splashed all over my leg and flipflops. On the ride back home, Dave was telling me all about how he wasn’t worried about the car, that Jehovah always provides. He was just thankful that it didn’t break down up in the mountains in the middle of no where when he was headed here a couple of days ago and that at least it broke down at the house were he could get a tow by me. So anyhow, when I walked into the house, I had taken my flip flops off and was hopping across the tile floor to get to the bathroom to clean up and telling everyone what had happened….then Brandon just started laughing and says…..you should start today’s blog out ….”I wish I would have stepped in dog poop instead”. Oh well, it could have been a worse day I’m sure.

Wen. Jan. 21st

This morning we went out in service and loaded up our car with us and another couple, Jaime and Ana from Toronto, Canada, and worked some territory near the beach in Parrita. After working a gringo development, we decided it was time to take a break and get some water. We went to the local store in the little village nearby and while we were drinking and eating our snacks outside, two nicely dressed women were walking by. We figured they must be witnesses because of their appearance so Ana asks them in Spanish is they were Witnesses. They were and they came over and greeted us all. Ana and Jaime speak a little better Spanish than any of us so they were trying to communicate with them. Finally one of them understood that we were looking for the English speaking people in the area so she said that there was a man named Jim that lived down on the beach and that her 15 yr. old son could show us were. She invited us to her house, which was stone’s throw from the store. Her son Peter, who was also out in the ministry, came with us. He spoke very little Spanish but was able to direct us to this man, Jim. Jaime and I went and talked to Jim. He was a very nice older man who has seen a lot in his lifetime, he was a medic in Vietnam and so his biggest question was why did God allow that and all the other suffering we see to happen. I read him the scripture at 1 John 5:19 and then pointed out the chapter in the Bible Teach book, “Why does God allow suffering?” . He told Jaime and I that we could come back to discuss that chapter with him next week. So we’ll see how it goes. On our way home we stopped at a roadside “soda”, a local eatery, and had a great lunch. When we got home everyone passed out from exhaustion and took a half hour nap. Then Brandon, Amanda, Chastity and myself (Ork and Megan decided to stay home and sleep) headed to a beach just down the road known for really good snorkeling and lots of monkeys. This was our first encounter on this trip with the monkeys. They stayed up in the trees and never came down, though we were sure they were throwing stuff at us. Brandon and I swam out with our snorkeling gear and a ziplock bag of crackers to some rocks a ways from the beach and were surrounded by all kinds of beautiful fish! It was so much fun. Brandon was sure that a shark was going to appear at any second and devour us. At one point we even saw a large amount of flying fish. They came shooting out of the water and “flew” about 15 to 20 feet. It was so cool! When we would drop a cracker in the water the fish would literally just swarm all around us, it was actually kind of spooky feeling, but great fun. Brandon once again overcame another one of his fears. He said it was one of “scariest but at the same time one of the most amazing times of his life”. We’ll be back here soon. Ork, Amanda and I went into town afterwards , bought some more groceries and went to our favorite ice cream shop that has free wifi. We called Chastity’s mom and stepfather, Donna and Gary, and also my brother Blake and his wife Brandie, using Yahoo messenger and we were able to hook up our webcams and talk to and see each other. That was pretty cool to see that it actually works good. Back at home and in bed at 10:30. Night!

Tues. Jan. 20th

Today is Sunday and the service group meets at 9am so we slept in a little longer than normal. Right after the field service meeting, Brandon noticed a monster grasshopper on the bars of the Kingdom Hall. It was huge!!!! Probably 6 to 7 inches long! Brandon decided that these must be the “locusts” that John the Baptizer survived on in the wilderness. The 6 of us checked out a territory about 45 minutes up the coast just before the town of Jaco. We found a few Gringos and most all of them were very friendly. Part of the territory was a road that ran right along the beach, which had some amazing sized waves and no crowd. As we were driving Amanda yelled to stop! She had spotted macaws up in the trees above us! We all jumped out and started shooting…..calm down, not with guns…with our cameras. They were unbelievably beautiful….and LOUD!
We came home at around 1pm and worked on the phone territories that we started on Sunday. Later we went down to the beach for a nice late afternoon cool down…..it’s a great way to end the day. Got our meeting tonight at 7pm.

Oh yeah, I meant to tell you all a pretty neat experience for Sunday. A brother here, Ken Nelson and his wife Kim found an older gentleman in the door to door work a few weeks ago in Jaco, about an hour away. As they talked, the man told them that he was from Florida and had been married to a wonderful woman who was one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. He had been greatly opposed to her being a Witness. Then she died and he went into a depression, started back smoking again after having quit for many years and decided he wasn’t happy. So what did he do, he sold his house and business and moved to Costa Rica, confident that he would find happiness here in “paradise”. As you can imagine, he wasn’t any happier, even though he was living the “good life” here. So when Ken and Kim knocked on his door that day, he accepted a Bible study. He said after just a few studies that he had found the truth and wanted to make whatever changes he needed to worship Jehovah. He decided to move to Quepos, because there is no English congregation in Jaco and he doesn’t want to miss any meetings or studies. Sunday was his first time to attend the meeting and he loved it! He is spent the weekend with Ken and Kim and found a place to rent here and will be moving at the end of April. He also stopped smoking cold turkey. I thought that was really encouraging and a nice example of the progress here in Quepos.

Jan. 19 - Monday

Jan. 19 – This morning me and Chastity got up at 6am and went for a long walk in the pouring rain and I was able to find a coconut tree that had coconuts low enough that I could reach and pluck one off, the coconut water is so good and I understand good for you. We were absolutely soaked by the time we got back. Today we had decided to take the day off and do the zipline tour in the rainforest. Me, Brandon, Oriana and Megan decided to go, while Chastity and Amanda decided to stay home and rest. While we were waiting down at the end of the road for the tour bus to pick us up Brandon saw a father, mother and their 2 girls pushing their broke down car, so we ran to help them push it over to the side of the road right in front of the driveway we are staying on. As we were walking away they were saying “Gracias, gracias!” and I noticed a Kingdom Melodies songbook in the front dash. I said, “you are testigos de Jehova”? They looked surpised and answered, “yes!” I responded, we are your “hermanos!” and the mother threw open her arms and gave us a big hug and kiss on the cheek (that’s the traditional greeting here). We tried our best to converse with them, but being that none of us really know much Spanish it was very hard. I told them that there are other witnesses that live up the road and brought them up to meet Carla and Jeiner who live just next to the house we are in. They were so happy to help. As we were walking back to the end of the driveway to watch for the tour bus one of our neighbors had climbed up a coconut tree with a machete and cut off a whole cluster of coconuts for us. They gave them to us and told us that if we wanted more just let them know and they would get more. Wow…the warmth of the Costa Ricans is just amazing! The locals will sell you a chilled coconut with a straw at the beach for around a dollar. They are so good, especially when it’s really hot out. Next we were off to the rainforest! Brandon and Oriana had a great time. Fortunately it didn’t rain this time so I got a lot of good photos and footage. After returning home we all loaded up and went to one of our favorite restaurants, Barba Rojo. Tomorrow is Brandon and Oriana's anniversary so Brandon suprised Ork with a beautiful painted piece of tile. We took them to Barba Rojo because we knew they would love it! Their nachos are to die for. A great way to end the day.

Jan. 18 - Sunday

Jan. 18 – This morning there was a large group meeting for service, about 13. Brother Phinney said “we will be doing something totally different today”. He went on to discuss the importance of phone witnessing and described how they have been working on phone territory for the congregation and that all who wanted could help with that. Four of the friends went out in the door to door but the rest of us went back to our house, turned on the a/c and began searching for English sounding names in the phone books and entering them into a database. We stopped at 1pm to get ready for the afternoon meeting. At the meeting there a quite a few visitors who are all here on vacation. We probably had about 40 in attendance. We lost power about 5 minutes into the brothers talk. He said, “well it’s too hot up here on the stage so I guess it’s going to be a 20 min. talk instead of a 30”, and he did just that. The poor brother’s shirt was just soaked by the end. We had to sing the middle song with no music….whew, that was tough! We gained power about 15 minutes before the meeting ended. Brandon found out at the meeting that he would be giving the public talk next week, his FIRST FULL LENGTH TALK! Looks like he’ll be at the house working up the last half of his outline any chance he gets. After the meeting we went with the speaker and a few others to a little ice cream shop across from the town’s soccer (football they call it here) field. $1.50 for two scoops of great ice cream….beat that Ben & Jerry’s! We sat and watched the soccer game for awhile after our ice cream break.

Saturday Jan. 17

Jan.17 - First, I wanted you all to know that I won't be posting anymore pics to this blog. It takes too long to upload them. They will be found at: http://picasaweb.google.com/lancetaylorVT.
Today was our first day in the ministry. We had a territory very close to our house in Manuel Antonio. The one street we worked was about 98% English-speaking. The houses were unbelievable! Most of them were not at home. Those we did find at home were very pleasant to talk to. One driveway we went down was so steep, Chastity was sure that the vehicle was going to flip head first. No outstanding experiences to share. We stopped service at around 12:30 and headed to the beach. Brandon and I were exploring some huge rocks were there are thousands of crabs crawling all over them. There was a hole about 3 feet in diameter that went from one side to the other. Brandon asked, “do you dare me to crawl through there?”. I told him their was no way he would because of all the crabs that were hiding in the crevices and because of it being such a tight space…….well he went for it! He’s crazy, he was yelling the whole way through. I guess he felt he had to face his fears. We’ll be going out in a boat later on this week to do some snorkeling, another bigger fear he has that he will have to face…..he’s sure there are sharks that will attack him! Just after Brandon got through the cave I noticed someone that I thought I recognized a few feet away. It was Bryn and Nancy Cernudo and a friend of theirs! We met them last year here. They lived in NYC and decided to sell their house and move to Quepos to help out in the congregation here. It rained this evening like crazy and made it really humid.

Day 3 and 4

Thursday: More beautiful weather in San Antonio de Belen. National Geographic said this town had the “best climate in the world year around”. We tend to agree. After a nice breakfast at our motel, we toured the branche offices of Jehovah’s Witnesses about a mile away. Rudy was our brother that gave the tour and it was a really thorough tour. We went down to their little orchard and saw many of the fruits on the property. He even gave us a personal tour of the assembly hall that is there. After the tour we headed out to Quepos. We stopped a few times on the way so it took us 5 and a half hours to get to our house. It was so nice to see all the friends that live on the street we are staying on. The weather is much more humid and hot here in Quepos, but we do have 3 a/c’s in our place, though we are not running them much. Our house is beautiful! No phone, no TV (there is one here with a DVD player but no antenna). It has a nice porch on the front and a side porch off the kitchen with a huge sink that we can wash our clothes in. Should be a comfortable visit.

Friday: This morning was our first morning in our new place. We decided to sleep in and get settled in today. We went to the grocery store, hardware store, etc. to purchase what we needed. After getting everything situated at the house we went down to the beach at around 1pm and spent a few hours in the water. It was actually cloudy skies the whole time at the beach. We noticed that the water was much clearer than last year, maybe because there hasn't been much rain to run off into the oceans. Tomorrow will be our first day in the ministry. The group meets here at 8am so it's off to bed. Note: The pictures I just posted are from Megan's amazing new Canon camera....WOW!

Day Two 1-14-09

Well we made it safely to Costa Rica. The weather was just amazing, 81 degrees, sunshine and a nice breeze. We got to Dollar rental and were pleasantly surpised when they drove up with a BRAND NEW 2009 Mitsubishi Montero for us! It´s so nice I´m really nervous driving it here with all these maniac drivers. We are staying our first night at the LaRiviera motel, a really nice place recommended to us by the friends at the branch office last year. When we were at the rental agency I noticed that the bottom of my carry-on bag was wet. I opened it to find that the water bottle I had laid on top had opened and half the bottle had emptied onto all my books, folders AND MY LAPTOP! I immediately took out the battery and opened it to let it dry out. Fortunately it was ok after a few hours of drying. Whew! That was a close one! I´m sure there will many more mishaps to come.

Day One - New Jersey

Hello All! We made it successfully to our hotel at the Newark airport today. We will be flying out tomorrow morning and should be landing in San Jose at 12:30. Feel free to leave any comments on the blog. We hope you enjoy it!