Being Touristy and Enjoying Family!

The Internet is working at the house now! Yay! First, I'm sorry that I didn't do the blind copy on the last email. That must have been annoying to scroll through! :( I'll do my best to remember from now on. Second, for those of you who know Spanish, sorry if mine was wrong! I'm working on it! :-D I did my first "touristy" thing yesterday. After work Ana and I went to San Jose. We went to a museum where I was able to learn a little bit of Costa Rican culture. One exhibit was the history and connections between Costa Rican money and Ecuador(ian?) money. It was really interesting. The cool thing about spending time with Ana is that she helps me with useful everyday Spanish. As we walked around she taught me how to read dates (which included more numbers). Even though I don't remember everything that she teaches me a lot of it sticks. Already I'm understanding more in conversations and I'm able to add to conversations (a little bit!!). We rode a bus, which really was not as exciting as I'd hoped. We went to a bank to get out a little bit of money. Ana was appalled that Orlando had been waiting to let me get Colones (Costa Rican currency). She said that it was important for my independence. I really appreciate her a lot. We understand each other and have started talking to each other through looks, it's really neat to be able to communicate with broken Spanglish and facial expressions! After going to San Jose we rode the bus back to Alajuela. Alajuela is the town that I'm actually living in. It's hard to distinguish town from town. We live about 20 or 30 minutes from San Jose. All the towns are so close it's like one big one. We waited at a mall for Christian to pick us up and take us back to the house. While waiting Ana taught me the tenses for "Conocer" (to know). It's so nice that she is teaching me some grammar along with just conversational! When we got home I went up to Erica's house to talk about teaching English. She teaches English and gave me some fantastic resources. Teaching is a bigger deal then I imagined. My students are paying to come and many of them don't go to Church. This will be an evangelism tool as well as teaching English. I will be teaching about the Creator as I teach flowers and shapes etc. I'm not sure exactly how to do this, but I know that God doesn't call us beyond what we can do (through Him!) and that he will give me the words to say. I'm much more confident now that I know more about what I'll be doing. November 1 is going to be an enrollment day and then November 8 is when I'll actually start teaching. Later, Ana, Christian, and I went back to San Jose for worship practice. I'm not singing in their praise team yet, but on the way home Christian asked if I would be interested in leading worship with Ana and him in November. I'm SOOOOO excited about that. He is excited about letting me help pick songs and it may be a bilingual service. Both Christian and Ana are extremely talented. Ana has a gorgeous voice and Christian plays the keyboard well (he also has an amazing voice). We got home around 11 and ate Chinese food. It was really late and so I just went to bed exhausted! Saturdays are restful days around here. We got up and I played with the girls for a long time. We threw a ball around the house for awhile. Ana kept saying that she didn't know her daughters and that they were crazy. I told her that it made me feel at home because my family was crazy too. She laughed and said "yes, I remember that pictures." Fabiola was hilarious this morning. She likes to dance and especially likes to "break dance," where she goes on all fours and sticks her butt in the air. It may be the cutest thing ever! Fabiola acts just like I did when I was little. She is loud and in your face, they have stories about her that sound just like the stories about me. It's really fun! Today we had breakfast at Orlando and Ligia's house. It was really fun. I sat in the kitchen with Ligia, Ana, and Juanita. They talked and laughed a lot. I followed some of their conversation but not much. They talked about me and I have no idea what they said! :) We ate Gallo Pinto (rice and beans). The food here is AMAZING! I love all of it! I honestly have not eaten one thing I didn't like. At two I'm going with Orlando and Ligia to the Church. They have asked me to speak at a Global Teams meeting about my call from God and why I'm here. That should be good!