Kaylie's 1st Email from Costa Rica! So hard! but so funny!

Kaylie’s 1st Letter email from Costa Rica ~ Monday July 12, 2010

Hola Familia!!!

I am here in my first area it is called San Carlos!! It is nice, it is I believe 3 hours north of San José! It is nice here but very poor. But I like it! People just look at me it is funny it makes me laugh sometimes but I feel like such an outcast because I am so different but oh well.
Ok so I will start from the beginning and tell you everything. So My flight was awesome the Elder I was with is not my favorite cup of tea but it was still good. The flight from Dallas to Costa Rica was so long it felt like. When we got off the plane we had to go through customs and then we walked outside and there was my Mission President and his wife. They are so cute I love them. I gave my mission presidents wife a huge hug. So from Monday till Wednesday we were doing paper work and getting our visas squared away. I stayed at the mission presidents home. I was with 5 Elders for a couple of days because no Hermanas came to this mission. So once again I was solo and it was hard because the 4 other missionaries were from Honduras, Nicaragua or Panama and I had no clue what they were talking about!!! I am not going to lie I was really lonely. But at night I would help my Presidents wife learn English she is so cute. It helped being with her to dull the pain a little bit. But like you said in you emails, I couldn’t really believe I am in Costa Rica.

So on Wednesday we had a cambio meeting where the trainers came and got us. and My Companion is a POWER HOUSE I LOVE HER!!!! She is from Honduras her name is Hermana Vega. She only has 6 weeks left and I am her last trainee. So I was sitting in the meeting and she comes in with a flower and gives me a kiss on the cheek and gave me a flower so cute huh? but..... she doesn’t know a lot of English which at times is so frustrating. But she is so great!! And patient with my Spanish .Everyone that I have meet says she is awesome. She helps me out so much and at night I say prayers in Spanish then I make her say prayers in English so she can learn English. So I love her and she is so cute Heavenly Father has really blessed me.
So that night we had a 3 hour bus ride to San Carlos and then we went to work we dropped my bags off and went to visit families that are preparing for baptism. One family is a couple who is not married and that is common, almost every family we see, they are not married. It is frustrating but this couple is so close to being baptized they just need papers saying that their residence is here in Costa Rica bc they are from Nicaragua and before they can be baptized they have to have them. But they live in the most humble circumstances. Their home is just a tin shack and they have dirt floors. I cannot believe the poverty here. Peoples homes are just shacks and wood with tin for the roofs. And they have nothing when we go into the houses they don't have anything. But hopefully next week they will have there papers and they will be baptized. They both want to be so bad and well... before we have to marry them, but they want to do that as well.

My mission is fun but tiring and at the end of the day I just flop onto my bed and I just fall asleep.

As for the language it is so hard!!!!! It sounds like they are just saying one big word. I sit in the lesson and probably look like a deer in the head lights. I have no clue what was going on. Like yesterday after church we went and knocked doors and a family, well older couple, let us in. And my companion and a ward member was teaching them and I thought I was understanding but after I asked my companion so what? Do they want us back bc I thought they were really interested and she no they didn’t want anything to do with us lol! I just have to laugh to stop from crying bc this is so so so hard not to understand anything. I just wish I could know this language. Seriously they taught me something else but not Spanish because the language they speak sounds like Chinese and not Spanish. Sometimes I think why did Heavenly Father send me here, with the language so hard, but I am trying to be positive. Especially yesterday at Church, holy cow my head hurt trying to understand everyone!! But I did bare my Testimony bc It was fast Sunday here. So that is pretty cool. I know I will learn it. I just wish sooner than later bc I feel so bad that I can’t help out my companion more. So keep me in your prayers or maybe fast for me to have strength. But it is getting better. I do really love it. Costa Rica is so beautiful!! The area is pretty! A lot of rolling hills and close by is a huge volcano which is pretty.

So you know how I said in Israel they have 80% of all the cats well Costa Rica has 80% of all the dogs here. They just walk around everywhere. But I do feel like a Missionary! It is weird how people look at me most of the time they dont know what to think I guess bc I am tall! American! then I am a Missionary and I noticed people are a little afraid of us. They dont like to talk to us but I think we are the same, if someone came to our door we wouldn’t really want to talk to them or we would avoid them on the street, you know. It is so funny though the members or people we meet will talk about me in front of my face to my companion and I can understand a little so they will ask my companion, well where, pointing to me where is she from or what is her name. LOL!! I think it is so funny then when I answer they look at my companion and say oh!! LOL!! It will get easier.

So my apartment is nice but it is a shack I will send pictures soon. But I have a funny story. So in my bed I found poop like mouse poop and I told my companion one night and she came into our room to look and she came in and screamed and me and her both ran out of our room. and I said ¿Que Pasa? and she in Spanish said there an animal on our ceiling rafters. And I looked in the rafters and I saw two eyes! so we both ran out of our apartment and got our land lord and he came in got a huge knife and started whacking at this creature and he killed it. I don't know what it was but that is how they get things done here. They just bring out a huge knife and kill things. LOL It was so funny! Then yesterday we get home from tracking and my companion tells me to come in our room and on her bed was a rat creature and we ran out of the apartment and got our landlord again but his wife was only home. So she got a broom and crashed it around our apartment and was just whacking at it!! Then she set her huge rottweiler on it on my companion and I were laughing so hard.

I do love this work it is hard and scary!! But I know the lord is watching over me. I know that he does perform miracles everyday in my life. I love the Atonement and my Savior. Bc when I have times that I want to come home I think of him and I know that he has felt my fears pains and loneliness. I love you all! Thanks mom and dad for your emails. They were exactly what I needed to hear!!! I love you and I am so blessed to have the family that I have.!! Yes my P day are Monday!! Oh and on Wednesday our zone gets to go to the Temple so I am excited for that. I love you all!!! Thanks for loving me and praying for me!!

Love you always and forever Hermana Turnbaugh or Hermana Toonba in other words

No regrets!!!!!