Hermana Starke: Silver Linings

Dear all,

Today is a very special day here in Costa Rica, Día de los Niños! What's
that you ask? Well, it's a holiday here completely devoted to celebrating
children. Kids day! Now, please tell me why we don't have this in the States?
All the kids dress up as princesses or whatever they want then sing and
dance in parades! They go to school...but not to learn...to party and eat
food! How great is that?

Holiday or not, the days are passing so quickly. I have 5 months in my
mission and 5 weeks with my awesome companion, Hermana Ochoa. We are loving
our time togther.

At first I thought that since I had a Latina companion the stares would
decrease because 2 gringas weren't walking the Costa Rican streets anymore,
only one. But I was wrong! She is beautiful and we are missionaries dressed
in missionary clothes and plaques...haha so I don't know what I was thinking.

You know that scene from mean girls when Regina almost gets hit by a bus?
Well that literally happened to this creepy old man in a purple belly shirt
this week. He was so busy starting at us he almost got hit by an on coming
bus. We had to turn around to hide our laughter.

Haha we have lots of laughs together. And also lots of yummy treats. We
always find ourselves stopping at the bread shop on our way home after a
long day. And everything is half the price after 6pm. How could we not? It
just makes the day so much better.

And along with all the good times and the laughs, this week we have also
had our fair share of tears.

Tuesday night we recieved a call from our district leader telling us that
he and his companion had emergency changes and were leaving Orotina at 5am
the next morning.

At first, through all the panic, I thought he told us that WE had changes
so I started hyperventilating and crying because it was just too much to
handle. But then once I made sense of his words, my sadness quickly turned
into fear as I realized exactly what was happening.

Ever since I arrived here in CR this branch in Orotina has been blessed to
have a set of Elders and Hermanas, 4 hard working missionaries. But as I
have mentioned, the members here are prideful and hard to love. They are
not giving us the help and support we need to be successful so President
took action and took out the Elders.

So what does that mean for us? Well, our area just doubled and we are now
responsible for ALL the work here in Orotina. We will now be doing
everything alone and making all the decisions. Who will plan all the
activities? Us. Who will deal with the members? Us. Who will each lunch
together and enjoy pdays together? Yep, just us. Us again. Just assume that
everything from here on out is our responsibility. So please, send your
love and prayers this way. Because it's not going to be easily.

In fact the last few days have been some of the hardest, ever. We had a
zone meeting and had to travel to a place called Puntarenes. After the
meeting, everyone left, and once again we were left to wait ALONE for our
bus that came much later. With our luck, we accidently took the wrong bus
back. The one that makes lots of twists and turns and stops. Or in other
words, "to grandmother's house we go". Once we took off, we looked at each
other, realizing what just happened and laughed and laughed. And I taught
her the song "ridin solo". I thought it was rather appropriate. Don't you
agree?

Sometime during our journey I looked out the window up at the clouds and
around the edge of the clouds was a bright, beautiful silver lining! I
thought a sliver lining was just a clever phrase people say. But it's a real
life thing, and especially beautiful here in Costa Rica. I got such a
peaceful comforting feeling that the Lord is aware of me. He knows my time
here is a crazy rain strorm, one might say, but there is always a silver
lining. Things will get better. My efforts are not wasted. The Lord is my
light! He is ever with me to comfort and love me.

And Saturday was a stressful, happy day. Genesis, Jesus, and Kiara were
baptized! We were so worried we would not have enough preisthood leaders
(due to the lack of elders and support of the members ) but our prayers
were answered and everything worked our just perfect. The spirit was felt,
and 3 more of Gods children were baptized!

During the baptism, Jesus could NOT stop smiling and Genesis could not stop
crying. As for me, I could not stop praying. My heart was filled with so
much love and gratitude for the Savior who is helping me do this everyday.
I am so grateful for the chance I have to be here and to learn and grow and
be pushed to my limits. To do the impossible. To be given the opportunity
to excercise my faith and rely completely on the Lord for his help. His
help to go forward and to love the members here that arent so easy to love.
His help to better myself as a person and a missionary.


With all my love,
Hermana Starke