June 13, 2009- Saturday

Today was a day to remember! We went to Cuesta Arena, and took a little nature hike to the river; that was awesome. On the way I saw how people were living. It just made me feel bad because they barely have anything. Those kids were loving and kind. Then we went to another little town and had juice and crackers and taught a lot about God. Then we went to eat dinner and tonight we’re having a sleepover with one of the girls from Los Cocos. Today I was looking forward to a cold shower that we take at our mission house(I was really hot today so that’s why) I’m looking forward to another good day and I’m going to learn a lot tomorrow too. –Sydney, age 11
This morning we got up and went to Cuesta Arena. We spent the day playing with the children. We took a walk to the river. It was incredibly high and the current was very fast. While we were out in Cuesta Arena, Estella, who sold us the church the original property, asked us if we would be interested in buying more land. The guy that sold her the property owns more on the other side of Guillermo’s brother’s house. He has heard about everything we are doing and has offered to sell us more land. I don’t know how much land or how much it will cost but we said we were definitely interested. We’ll see where God takes us. We left Cuesta Arena and went back to the Pastora’s house and had lunch and prepared the lessons for the afternoon. In the afternoon, we went to the church. While we were waiting for church members to show up, we were able to climb up to the second floor and see the construction. They have completed so much. All the walls are up for the second floor and they are working on the steeple. The only thing they have left to do is put up the roof. It is amazing how quickly they work. Guillermo and Domingo have been working hard on the church! We then went to Guayabel. It is new community that the bishop has asked Pastora to begin working. It is a little more affluent community located on the way to La Vega. They have a pastor to oversee the weekly activities and then they will bring the members into the service on Sunday in Santiago. Today was the first day for the church to work with the children. It was raining a little bit but even with the rain we had about 60 children. Lizabeth, the daughter of Wendy and Juan Manual, came with her grandmother. She is a little older than our girls and really connected with them while we were in Los Cocos. She spent today with them as well and became very close with our girls. The girls asked for her to spend the night so she came back to the Pastora’s house to have dinner with us, then came back to La Islita to sleep. She’ll come with us to church tomorrow and then go home from there. Tomorrow is a huge blessing. Tomorrow the bishop is coming to preach, having lunch with us, and then coming out to Cuesta Arena to see what is going on. It is such an honor to have him come out and spend time with us as well as see all the work we have been doing. -Sarah