Home

Alright I know you guys have been wanting to see pictures of our house. But I wanted it to look nice and today we finally got our dining room chairs and yesterday we cleaned everything so here they are:

 This is the living room. we finally have furniture in it. The couch is a day bed.

 Here is Alyvia's room I would have taken the picture when it was cleaner but this is about as clean as it gets and theres no denying that.

 Here is my room. It is super-duper tiny but that just makes it easier to clean.

Finally the kitchen. That white door in the corner is to my room and directly to the left of this picture is the doorways to: the bathroom my parents room and Alyvia's room.

Hiking

After a couple studies one Saturday I went hiking with two other need-greaters. We hiked up in a national park to a beautiful waterfall. It was around 200 feet high and was picture perfect. It looked like something straight out of National Geographic! I was going to swim there but we were so high up the water was FREZING- seriously it felt like liquid ice cubes.

Costa Rica!!! You'll want to read this one.

Alright so every six months we have to leave the country for 72 hours and get our passports stamped- which is our visa. Since Costa Rica is the closest country most of the brothers and sisters in this half of the country run over to Costa Rica for the three days. We stayed with a family that had an extra little house behind their house that lived 15 minutes from the border town. Those three days turned out to be more adventurous than expected.
The family is in a congregation that preaches to the tribes and most of the tribes are in the mountains so on our second day we went in service with them. But little did we know they were going to go on FOUR-WHEELER!!! Here are some pictures:

 The mud was crazy. We got covered in the mud especially when we were riding on the four-wheeler since it spattered it up onto us. But none of the pictures show that sadly.  

 They got stuck quite a few times and had to figure out how to get out I think the brothers had to pull this time.

 This is mom with the father of the family we stayed with and his daughter looking over the valley where a lot of the people lived.

 Me!!! Alyvia stayed with the sister that we were staying with to do studies and I almost did to but once I saw their means of transportation I had to come.

 Here we are at lunch. They strapped it onto the front of the four-wheeler and then at lunch time we sat under a tree and ate. The sister that we were staying with was a wonderful cook and so we ate good: chicken rice and beans too I think. All very flavorful.

Costa Rica was beautiful. Though it was right across the border it was so different. The mountains had more fields than here. The money was Colonies- 500 colonies to $1. And the roads were horrific. We had a wonderful time there but we were glad to be home.

School

Every Thursday my mom and I along with either my dad or Lily (another sister in our group. Since Lily has been in the States my dad has been helping) teach at a little school that can't afford a religion or English teacher (both of which are mandatory here). So we use the Enjoy Life brochure and their English book to teach both basic English and the Bible to two different groups of students. We separate them into grades for instance first second and fifth are in the same classroom so Lily teaches the first graders (who can't even count amazingly enough) I teach the second graders (who are geniuses compared to the first graders. Some how one year makes a huge difference) and my mom teaches the fifth graders (which aren't really that smart). Then in the second classroom is- third forth and sixth. (I know- not really thought out). So Lily takes third (who are smarter than the fifth graders in the other classroom) I take forth (who are super duper smart- I am happy with both of my groups) and my mom takes sixth (who are so smart that before we came they could already translate basic English and put things together for harder stuff). All in all its pretty fun and we enjoy it eminencly though it is very tiring (I'm not sure why though- we only teach for 30 minutes in each class). So here are some pictures. Most of the kids belong to the tribe of Nogbe so they look Indian. This is our first group- I don't have pictures of the second group yet.

 This is the classroom- well one of them anyways

 These are the first graders- since Lily has been gone mom took over her groups and let dad have the oldest kids since the youngest ones are hard to control.

 Here is my group of Second Graders the girl covering her face is a good student but I guess she doesn't like pictures.

Here are the Fifth Graders there aren't very many of them. The pink dress is a traditional dress of the Nogbe- this school lets the girls wear either their traditional dresses or school uniform. So the girls came differently each week.