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My Darling Family, Friends and Fans....

Wow has another week gone by already?? Don’t get me wrong, I miss y'all but literally the weeks are just flying by. I know because once again I am here feeling the stress of writing this letter haha. this is the best, hardest, funnest, most stressful hour and a half of my week! I try to say exactly what I thought, saw, said, and felt in this last week so that our lives don’t grow to unfamiliar. But if I can’t say anything else, I love you all and am eternally grateful for you in my life!

bueno, time to start then. First of all, I got a package!!!! Oh mommy:) I don’t know how you did it. You would find the one lady coming to Costa Rica willing to deliver a package for you. Thank you thank you thank you|! I want you to know I literally shed tears, what a sweet surprise. I love everything about it and diligently and excitedly make a smoothie for hmna bojorque and I every morning using our adorable mugs, the powder and usually followed by a bite or 2 of chocolate... cause you know, we wouldn’t want to be tooo healthy or anything... To go along with this wave been really working on our healthy goals and have started running every morning *and by every morning I mean we started on Saturday... haha) but were doing our best! Maddle you would be proud of us, I am spreading your love of the infernal exercise to someone else. Were also sacrificing a whole half hour of sleep to do it so were obviously committed.

This week I wanted to let you all in on a secret. If you want to know what missionary life is really like all you need to do is read Alma chapter 26. It practically describes word for word my daily thoughts, words, experiences, etc. First of all there’s a group of missionaries all together and they talk about how wonderful it is to be a missionary. Of all the lords’ blessings, to be his representative is one of the greatest! After that it goes through a normal day.... teaching in houses and in the streets. Basically a lot of walking, being rejected, following the spirit, being rejected, being hungry, tired, thirsty, and well, being rejected. But we know our purpose, we have a plan and we have a promise. In verse 12 of this chapter the Lord says that if we are patient in our afflictions he WILL give us success. He never says how long we need to be patient or puts a limit on the kinds of afflictions we’ll have, he just says to be patient. And so we wade through it all, really I am beyond lucky... of all the things the missionaries of the book of Mormon suffer I have claim on hunger, thirst, fatigue and that pretty much covers it. I’ve never been bound with cords, through in prison, cast out of a city, stoned, not even slapped or spit on so I think I’m doing pretty darn good, but sometimes it still feels like I have afflictions. However the promise is the same, be patient and have success. I love that in this chapter Ammon says that when they had started out they had the hope of only helping a few people. Through all this tribulation they had the hope in their heart to save one or two. They had no idea what kind of success was in store for them and so they suffered, so they thought, for "some". If one or two maybe even three people were all who believed all would be worth it. There’s also a verse in there that says that these macho dream missionaries at one point had doubts, were discouraged, and even thought about going home. How is that possible you might think?? These guys are legends, but its true, and it comforted a little Hermana 2000 some odd years later to know that others had doubts too, but were patient and ended up baptizing thousands!

But not only baptizing thousands.. Retaining thousands! These people weren’t just baptized, they were converted!! We know this because at the end of this chapter these people were ready to be killed rather then sin against God again. Wow.. We cant even get some of our investigators to the church for 1 hour a week and these people were willing to die for their beliefs! If that aint conversion... well anyways yes, these people were whole-heartedly converted to Christ. Sometimes we cant see exactly how converted someone is right away or even how their progressing, but there is one key to know if this person is ready to accept that gospel and that is by how they treat the missionaries.... In the scriptures (alma 27) the people adored their missionaries! They were dearly beloved to them. It says that they treated them like angels sent from God to deliver their souls.     Don’t get me wrong, I’m not here to be loved, adored or treated like anything special. But we know how soft and open a person’s heart is to Christ by the way they treat his personal representatives. The truth is if these people want to progress they will want us in their house, they will want us to stop by, to call, they will want to keep their commitments, they will want to be baptized more then we want to baptize them! (And believe me when I say we want to baptize, bad.). With this realization we have been able to take a good hard look at our investigators this week and id like to share a few stories....

Ambar: amber is a less active member whose spouse, children and brother are not members. This week when we came to visit her she was so happy to see us! She shared openly with us and in her prayer at the end of the lesson she prayed that we could continually visit her family. True, she didn’t attend church yesterday, but it’s a process.

Daniela: Daniela is an investigator we’ve been working with for a few weeks now. She is thrilled to see us and her daughter knows us by sight. She greets us on the phone and tries to have us come by more often. She’s agreed to be married and is trying to sell empanadas to have enough money to pay for the marriage certificate thingy. This past week when we were leaving her house she demanded us to take her only umbrella because we had forgotten our. SHE was serving US!

Hathaway: this week we had a funeral. It was sad, but as an lds family they know it’s not the end, just a step. We didn’t have any part in the funeral, didn’t really do anything but show up, but the family came over personally to greet us and thank us for being there telling us that it meant so much to them to have us there and that just our presence strengthened them.

Wow. right???  Now compare these 2.

zorida and family: this family when we stopped by to visit them "weren’t home". didn’t answer their phone, texts, ni nada. didn’t keep any commitments and had to reschedule on us twice.

Vanessa and family: this family called us 10 minutes before our apt to tell us they wouldn’t be home either. this was the 3rd reschedule....

It’s sad really. were here to bless the families of Costa Rica! we have the knowledge, the tools to make their families happier, richer, closer and better in this life and eternal! To reject this.... que triste.

Anyways, moving on... this week we also had a multi zone conference! this was so awesome for us. First a moment of pride... one of the assistants asked me to say the opening prayer. technically I’m still "nueva"because I’m still in training so I was a little nervous to say it cause you know oh yeah Spanish and all 200 plus people listening. But I did and as I was sitting down President Wilkinson said "Hermana Kugath, please tell everyone how long you’ve been here in Cost Rica...." well, 2 months.. "And your Spanish is that good in 2 months? near perfect. Muy bien hecho hermanas! (trainer and student!)."       ahhhhhhhh:) yay! what a compliment!  haha sorry, prideful moment over. anyways, president taught us something that is called the cycle of faith. It starts when there’s a teacher who preaches truth (any kind of truth, because the spirit can testify of anything that is true.). the hearer listens and feels hope.... hope to change, hope to be better. This hope leads to an action.... and if this action is completed it leads to a testimony of this truth. 2 parts of this cycle are critical. 1. that the teacher is in tune with the spirit and 2. that the hearer acts. It’s like when you have anew year’s resolution. You have the hope to change! you have a vision of a different you, a new you. you set goals, make a calendar, get a running buddy , whatever... but if you don’t do the action, you gain nothing.


bueno, I hope some of this made sense, I know it’s really long and jumbled.. haha lo siento! But I love you all so much. thanks again for everything! prayers from Costa Rica:)

all my love,
Hermana Kugath

p.s. missionary mottos:
Alma 26:12
26:36 this work is my life
27:10 inquire of the lord and if he says go, well go!