Church

Okay, this is another one of those stories that just has to be told. Well, the closet LDS church to where we are staying is in Puntarenas, around 30 miles from where we live. It doesn't sound that far but when you take into account the bad roads, the buses, and the ferry it takes to get there, it ends up being 3-4 hour trip. It took us 5.  Remember those stories in primary about the pioneers and such who would travel all day to get to church?  Well you can count me in with them now ;)

So here's how the very long, very challenging day went.  We got up at 5:30 (late!) and packed our church clothes, water, diapers, snacks.  All the important things for a long day out.  Then we hopped on our bikes for the 4 mile ride to the bus stop.  The hilly, bumpy roads here are already a little challenging, but this morning was very muddy so it took even longer.  I was pushing my body as hard as I dared to get there as fast as I could.

About half way there Ivan said "we're not going to make it, what do you want to do?"
"Keep going" If you know me you're not surprised, I don't give up easily.

About 3/4 of the way Ivan looks at his watch and says "we missed the bus, and my nice pants are covered in mud, what a waste, I wish I hadn't gotten out of bed." This made me angry.  I started yelling at him about his attitude, I had told him his pants would get muddy so why is he whining?  Maybe the bus is late, or we'll catch the next bus, or we'll go to the local Catholic church, why does he give up so easy? Then I ride even harder till we get to town.

As we are locking up our bikes Ivan asks "Where is the bag?"  My Ivan rides the bike with the baby seat, so I usually wear the backpack.  My mouth dropped as I realized itt was still sitting on the sidewalk at our apartment. At this point we could either laugh or cry.  I started to cry.  I was covered in mud, sweating like crazy, we missed our bus and the final straw, I forgot the bag.  Completely dejected, I silently got on my bike and rode back up the street a few blocks then I sat down on the sidewalk and bawled.  When Ivan caught up to me he said "It's okay, it's okay, we don't need the backpack. Let's just go ride the ferry." I knew there was still a good chance we could make it to part of church.

I imagined walking into church covered in mud and sweat in these ugly rubber shoes,  and ugly clothes and I cried.  Today God was going to humble me or make hypocrite out of me.  And if you know me, you know how I feel about hypocrites.

"Fine" I said quietly, "lets just go." Ivan stopped and grabbed some diapers and snack at the store. Back at the bus stop, I still cried until the next bus came 45 minutes later.   Max slept on the long bumpy ride. And I sat and thought how obvious it was that I was being taught a lesson.  At home I resent the distraction church had become for me.  I've mentioned my struggle several times to various people.  In my married student ward all the young beautiful girls are so stylish and well dressed.  I felt the need to compete.  I found it hard to make real friends because I wouldn't let down my facade. I felt very distracted by who wore what, or cut their hair, etc... God wanted me to know that church is not about what you have or what you look like. I was grateful for the lesson, but terrified of walking into the church looking like this.

I was done crying almost 2 hours later when we got the the ferry.  I was enjoying some new scenery. We caught the 9:00.  There were SO many tiny fish swimming around the edge of the boat, thousands! A few big ones too.  Max yelled "bote, bote, fish, fish!!"  During the 1.5 hour ferry ride, Max made lots of friends of all ages as always, people are just drawn to him. He's learned to say "hola" and when people talk to him in Spanish he just stares at them.

We got off the ferry, Puntarenas is very different than the boonies we live in.  It is very urban. There is a big beach with mostly Ticos, not too many foreigners.  We rode 2 buses to the church (we are lucky Ivan remembered the way because the directions were in the bag.) There were loooong stretches of beach on the way.  I wished I'd brought a swimsut.


Finally, with 45 minutes left of church, we arrived, mud and all.  Ivan greeted the elders, one Tico, one from Pleasant Grove, Ut. He asked where we were visiting from and looked very surprised when we said Utah.  I don't think he believed us until he heard us speak English. We are getting very brown and starting to look very local, haha. I apologized for having forgotten my clothes. No big deal, he said. He and Ivan continued to talk.

Max and I went to Primary, a class with all of the kids under 12. The primary teacher was a beautiful sister about my age, with curly hair, neatly styled, a really cute silk top with a pleated skirt and gold jewelry.  She was helping the kids color.  She smiled when I sat down and told me they didn't have any paper left for Max to color on.  He had run off and found the younger kids playing in the corner anyway.

It is so cool how kids don't need language to socialize.  Max just started following what they were doing; crawling under chairs, playing school, etc...  A couple of times sweet Max was trying to hug the 2 boys closest to his size (probably about 3 and 4) while they would try to pry his arms from around their neck, haha. They weren't mean about it though, it was pretty cute.

All the kids seemed to enjoy singing time and sang along.  They played a CD with the piano music on it.  They sang Popcorn Popping, I Love to See the Temple and If You're Happy and You Know It.  When they got to Once There Was a Snowman they started singing about a monkey.  Later when it occurred to me I started laughing SO hard when I realized that they have never seen snow!! Of course they wouldn't sing about a snowman!

Afterwards we shook a few hands. A man who studied at BYU stopped and talked to us.  A very kind woman rubbed my tummy and asked about the pregnancy.  She spoke too fast for me to understand so I nodded and smiled. It was all over very fast after all the time it took to get there.  It didn't matter though because the real lesson of the day had already been learned.

We spent a little time in Puntarenas, walked to the beach and around a few stores, it's a little ghetto but I really liked it, to visit anyway.  We had some delicious fruit tarts at the a panaderia the hopped on a bus back to the ferry and the long trip home.  Our bikes were still locked up in Cobano.  It started pouring rain on the way home and we climbed the last little hill as the final light of the day faded.  Our bag was still sitting, wet, by the stairs where we left it. I was exhausted.

The day was kind of a complete failure...  and kind of not. I'm so grateful for the knowledge that God lives and effects my life and I can grow from my challenges. I don't know where/who I would be without that, but I doubt I would be as happy or strong as I am.