First Day of Church - Michael

We went to church today. I enjoyed it, because everybody was so friendly. The rest of the family seemed to get bored, because they basically sat through 3 hours of not understanding hardly a thing. Given that, I was impressed with how well the kids behaved.

We are in a decent-sized rented building in downtown Puriscal. There were 9 of us in priesthood, after the two young men's presidency members and one young man left. Julia was one of five in the young women, but we hear there can be as many as 15. Caleb, Dylan, and Jonah doubled the primary. Including our family of six, there were 45 people in sacrament meeting. The second counselor said that there are usually more but numbers normally lower on Fast Sunday.

I got to help bless the sacrament, which was passed to the congregation by two people. Hannah got to read a few verses in Relief Society and in Gospel Doctrine. She did well.

After the sacrament, since it was open-mic Sunday, the branch president asked me to stand up and introduce myself and the family. It was nice to be able to do that.

Everybody was so nice and helpful. The young women are going to go to the temple in San Jose this Saturday morning to baptisms for the dead. That should be a good experience for Julia, and I'm hoping to go as well.

Apparently the branch has been anticipating our arrival, because our home teacher has already been assigned. Wayne Richardson, who moved here from Montana after retiring a few years ago, is our home teacher. He visited us after church. That should make the branch president happy, because there was a bit of discussion about the need to do home teaching in priesthood (some things don't change no matter where you go). He had a lot of helpful information about various things and simply about understanding - from an American perspective - how things work here. He used to be a dentist and took a look at Caleb's teeth, because one has been bothering him. It turns out that it is a baby molar and likely has the permanent tooth coming in behind it.

One thing that was nice yesterday, was that the branch president showed up at the house, saying, "I was looking on the Internet last night for a car for you guys..." We had run into him in town on Friday and told him that was something we needed to figure out. I thought it was so nice of him to do some searching and show up with some recommendations. Unfortunately he wasn't able to get a hold of either car sellers and recommended that a Tico (Costa Rican) make the call, so we didn't make much progress. Still, his thoughtfulness was awesome.

There have been times over the last few days, where I wonder if this is going to work out. Then a branch member or nice neighbor checks in on us or we run into them, and we have a great conversation. They provide insight into something I'm concerned about or offer some type of help, and it reassures me that my family will be okay. I'm extremely grateful for these good people around us and hope to learn from them to be better. They remind me of our good ward members in American Fork.

A highlight for me has been the last two evenings. After a long day of various stuff yesterday, we had a nice evening (it gets dark at 6:00 pm) of playing card games and watching Gnomeo and Juliet (that's a fun movie to watch with the kids). We did something similar this evening and had a great time.

Tomorrow is Labor Day, so it is a work holiday for me, although it probably won't make much difference for what we do. There are a number of things we still need to set up, including getting a gas tank for the stove. If it weren't for the crockpot and the Blend-tec (with how much I promote that thing I should really be getting some type of compensation), anyway without either of those, we would be eating uncooked rice and limes from the back yard.

At this point there are only two main concerns: finding a car we can afford, including a way to go check it out; and the kid's starting school. I'm sure the kids will be fine, but it stresses me out to think of them having to start at a new school, in a new country, in a language they don't understand. I've been very impressed with their attitudes about it all. Hopefully it stays that way.

p.s. - This was a long post. Knowing me, in a few weeks the length and frequency of my posts will start to decline. Hopefully the others keep it up.