Costa Rica..cried when I left

I hesitated when I found we would be staying in the Mission Home. It is difficult for me to stay with strangers, it is even difficult for me to stay with close friends and family. I don't know why this is, but it is, and it has been a lifelong struggle for me as I have battled feelings like this all my life. So it has been with a great deal of trepidation that I knew we would be doing this from time to time. When we were called on our mission I was very concerned about this particular aspect. I continue to feel like this, but things have changed a lot in 5 months. We were asked to stay in the mission home when we were in Costa Rica, and almost from the moment we arrived I felt comfortable. Costa Rica, unlike Guatemala City, is not dangerous. Anyone can go anywhere, eat anything, drink the water, etc. It is a wonderful country (but I still love Guatemala the most), and we saw a lot of it. President and Hermana Arbizu were wonderful. The house is set in an ordinary neighborhood, but it is beautiful inside with wood floors with something like in-lay. Houses do not have heat or air conditioning and San Jose is almost as high as Guatemala City. It was so cold. The Arbizu's had a little section of their house with a bedroom and bathroom for guests and kindly had three wool blankets, in addition to the other bedding. We used these in the car as we drove from coast to coast and piled them on our beds at night. For some reason, we thought Costa Rica would be warm, but it was colder for some reason than it had been for years. I almost did not take a coat, but as we were pulling out of the parking garage I made dad go back into the apt. and get a jacket. Oh, I'm glad I did.

Dad did health lectures for three zones and in the evening we went to both coasts to do apartment inspections and give everyone's glasses away via small clinics in wards. There was a fourth zone, but it was so far away that they televised the lecture to take to this zone.

Pizza is sort of a traditional lunch for zone conferences around the world, but the Arbizu's provided a Thanksgiving Dinner all three days with mashed potatoes, huge chicken, gravy, and everything else that goes with Thanksgiving Dinner.

We learned to love the Arbizu's in the five days we were there. They left us alone when we needed it, were there to talk to us and counsel us other times and I cried when we left on Friday morning. For some reason I felt this sister and I were friends in some other time and place.

We came home to COLD weather in Guatemala. Everyone has worn coats and gloves and scarves to the office and it never warms up. I found a little heater in the clinic and it has helped. We had Thanksgiving Dinner with the Senior Missionaries yesterday and the weather warmed up nicely. It was a good thing as the dinner was held outside on the Patio.

We are working hard as Wednesday we will leave once more for another 6 day trip up by the Yucatan border. We will caravan, as we did last Saturday and Sunday when we took the mountain trail into the Guatemalan mountains, but this time we won't be going on dirt roads and will be able to take our own car.

How grateful I am for the many blessings we enjoy. We have learned many lessons while we have been here, not the least is that if we are "weak" as Ether discusses,and yet we want to do something of service, that the Lord will help us in unimaginable ways. We do not know of our family's challenges, joys and struggles for the most part, but we pray constantly for all of them, and feel confident that the Lord is looking after them.

Among those blessings are the glasses everyone has so generously donated. They are a miracle to us and to many others. Perhaps these little $1.00 glasses won't last forever for these recipients, but they will last for long enough. I don't even question this. Somehow we know that even a glimpse of what better vision can do is enough. I will leave it to the Lord.

We were able to clean our apartment, but it will be needing it again when we get back home. Once we get home on the 9th, we won't be going anywhere until January and I am glad. Our little apartment is warm and inviting when we get home from somewhere. We put up our Christmas lights day before yesterday. We have decorated a plant we have always had with Guatemalan dolls and white lights and played Tabernacle Choir Christmas music and it was lots of fun.

We have been watching Venus and Jupiter do their wonderful dance in the southwest sky and it has been spectacular. On Thanksgiving evening the two planets met the crescent moon just before they set in the West. We watched until a big apartment building obstructed our view, but the planets were, and continue to be, beautiful. Orion comes up about 8:00 and when it is not too cloudy , takes our breath away. Betelgeuse has to be one of the most beautiful stars in the sky - likewise, the belt stars.

We are, by the way, at 17 degrees latitude.