Hey family!!
I made it here! I love you so much!! What the mission president here does is he posts a picture on the mission blog for the families to see. I guess he is not very good at letting families know about it though. I made it here just fine. After I finished talking to you on the phone I had an awesome missionary experience with a lady at the airport. I was able to give her a Book of Mormon. She is from Argentina. I hope she reads it.
I am in Perez Zeleledón right now. It is a canton (or county) in Costa Rica. San Isidro is the city. It is about 3 hours south of San José. So I am at the bottom of the country. My companion is Hermana Remero from Guatemala. She speaks only a little bit of English so we have been teaching each other our native language. She is super sweet and she has only been in Costa Rica for 12 weeks!! She just finished her training! We definitely have a lot of work to do here, and I don’t know where to start, but it is good.
I have been home sick at times... mostly in the mornings. Despite it, I am learning to Love this place more and more. The food has been really good here. I think I have had only had one thing I didn’t like. There is a set of elders in the city as well, so we work with them on occasion. There are only the four of us in our district. The other two elders are from Mexico and Honduras. So I am the lone gringa here. The elders have been very kind. The one from Mexico studied English before his mission so he has been helping me too. At times I can understand everything everyone is saying and other times I have no clue. A lot of the natives are surprised by how much I know. Many times when we first meet someone they assume I don´t know any Spanish so they turn to my companion and will ask a question about me and she will say, ‘ask her yourself’, and then I will answer their question.
Ok, a little about the country, the first thing I noticed (and it surprised me), was how much this country is like the U.S. For example, you see teenagers walking around everywhere with their face stuck in their cell phone. Also, the clothing they wear is similar. Every house has a TV, some things that are different too. Most of the milk you buy doesn´t have to be refrigerated, (they do have cows here). Eggs aren’t refrigerated here either. They have gates in front of every house and every door and window. I will send a picture sometime soon to show you. Homes generally have doors and windows open to let the wind come in. the people are all very nice here. I have gotten a bunch of frescos here (drinks generally consisting of one or more fruit. super yummy.) Oh, and the water is clean here so the mission president told us not to worry about it. I get warm showers if I turn the shower on correctly. It is interesting because there are wires in the showers to a heater to warm the water; you can see the wires as your shower. All the cars here have the exact same car alarm so everyone pretty much ignores them because they go off so frequently.
Next week I will tell you more about it here. Today we went to an investigators house and she did acrylic nails for us. She is learning how to do it and needed the practice. I will have to show you a picture of that as well. She did a good job... it just took forever!!
Yesterday we went to Tierra Prometa to contact a previous investigator and ended up having amazing experiences. We met two beautiful families willing to listen; we will see what will happen. The branch here struggles a lot with retention so we have a lot of work to do with the less actives; the members who do attend are awesome. I am excited to be able to work here. I have definitely had my ups and downs, but I think I am starting to feel more comfortable. I love you all so much. Don´t forget all the blessings God has given you and don´t forget to thank him often. I love you!!!
Hermana Jenkinson
Oh and I only get an hour and a half to write you and the mission president. I will be emailing you earlier in the day next week. The nails took a lot longer than expected.
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