Week 9

My most Darling Family... Mommy, Daddy, J, Maddle, Sam, Brent, Joshie, Noser, Lijah, Mals, Tbonus, Canman, rummy, chorlotte, and rapunzel.... [FYI Maddie's unborn baby is Rapunzel]

And wonderful sweet grandmas, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, amigas, kam, paigeroo, and everyone else who may read this..

I love you all so stinking much!!!!! Thank you thank you for everything you’ve ever done for me. I miss and love you guys with all of my heart. I have been spoiled with the grandest family and friends in all the world. How is a girl to be so lucky? I love yall.

One of my favorite parts of the day is when people ask to see my family picture. Sometimes I even ask them if they want to see it first. I like to see their reaction when I say Somos diez, we are 10. Then I whip out my picture and watch as they first try to find me (people cant tell who I am cause in our fam picture I’m kinda cute, but here I don’t really look the same cause I’m always wearing glasses, never wearing make up and my hairs different.) So once I finally get them to believe that its me and we get past the if you look like that in real life why are you on a mission questions".... I point out each and every one of my family members, their names, ages, interesting facts and everything else I feel like sharing. It’s the best! Its probably more then they ever wanted to know, but if you know my family, then you know me and hopefully if you know me, you'll know the Savior also. I think about my family a lot. I miss you guys and am firmly convinced that I was blessed with the most incredible, adorable, talented, loving, did I mention good looking? family in eternity. I think about my brothers especially a lot because there are a lot of little boys here in Costa Rica. So far I have found at least 1 member or investigator to represent every one of my brothers.
Josh your investigator is Hans. he is 16 and pretty cool. he does his hair like you and talks like you, but it in Spanish so only kind of. he’s really smart too and all the girls like him.
Noah your twin is named oliden. He is exactly like you! he’s very sweet and helpful with his little bothers and loves them so much, almost to death. (the other day he grabbed me in a huge hug and kissed my cheek!!! even though that’s way against mission rules.... haha)
Lijah yours in an investigators named Minor. he’s the little brother of Maria. he’s super into sports and especially likes soccer. he likes to hang out with his friends and does cool handshakes with me.
Malachi yours is also an investigator, his name is moises (moses in Spanish). You’re both named after prophets who start with m! he likes to play ball and run a lot. he’s 8 years old and has huge brown eyes and curly hair.
Talmage yours is a recent convert. his name is Kendall. he is absolutely adorable! he’s a little bit older then you but he’s about the same height aka short haha. he’s super fragile but also super sweet. he looks up to his older brother and says the sweetest prayer I’ve ever heard.
canman yours is an investigator too. I’ll be honest, I don’t actually know his name because everyone just calls him Gordo haha.hes so so cute!! with huge sparkly eyes. he likes to sing the hymns with us even though he doesn’t know the words. he’s also 5 years old like you!
Hyrum you have a Costa Rican twin! he is a couple months younger then you and slightly less adorable, but I’m biased. He is the nephew of oliden. I cant remember his name either because we just call him guapo... he so sweet! learning to wave and stand. being at his house and playing with him make me miss you so much!

The children here are seriously beautiful!!! If I could I would adopt them all! they’re all very sweet and respectful but also silly and funny. they have gigantic eyes (like Kugath baby eyes!) with those long long lashes, beautiful curly hair and chubby cheeks. the freaking 3 year olds are prettier then me! and don’t even get me started on the adults..... of course id come to the one place in the world where everyone, and I kid you not I mean EVERYONE, has beautiful, wavy, long long long black hair..... *cry* I will not covet I will not covet. so difficult. Another funny thing the do though is all the women always wear super, super high heels! like crazzzy high. I’m like, honey, we're living on a mountain, in the middle of a jungle.. I enjoy me some heels but here? now?? It’s just funny.

I feel like I haven’t told you guys anything about my life here! let me give you just a quick run down... every morning I wake up at 6:30 and work out for like 30 minutes. then my companion and I switch off taking turns showering and eating breakfast. (you guys would be so proud of me. I shower dang fast, throw on some mascara and clothing and can be ready in like 30 minutes flat. I know what you’re thinking, the gospel changes people... its true haha). For breakfast i usually scramble some eggs or have cereal. Then we have personal study for an hour *I usually read my book of Mormon, we have a goal to read the whole thing before Christmas as a mission and my one page a day (family are you keeping up?? day 62 I believe...)* then we have companionship study where we share what we learned, study the missionary handbook and plan our lessons for the day. Another hour of study follows this where we practice the basics of being a missionary i.e. baptism invitation, how to contact, etc. this is called '12 weeks"because its suppose to be only the first 12 weeks, but president has us study it every day. then I get a whole hour of language study. I read, write and speak Spanish during this hour but also help my companion to learn English. I love this hour!! It’s practically the only hour of the day when I understand Spanish... (jk I’m getting better, more about that later). then after study we go to our cocinaras casa. she cooks us lunch every day and I continue to study while we eat, by this time its about 1 in the afternoon.

The house I live in is a lot like the house, well shack, that I lived in in west Yellowstone (for those of you who remember those dark days of my life.......) but its better! I still only have a mini fridge and stovetop thingy but now I have a kitchen sink! Oh the blessing of a kitchen sink!!! It’s bigger then my WY house too so really it’s about perfect for 2 hermanas who are hardly ever there.

For the rest of the day after study and lunch were out in the streets contacting, teaching lessons to investigators or menos activos, or having meetings or FHE's with members. This is the hardest part of the day because it’s unpredictable. We can plan for it all we want but our planning never has us prepared for what’s going to happen. Were always backing at the house before 9 and plan for the next days activities. then we get ready for bed, practice my baby piano (thank you thank you thank you Brent!! I love the piano,. best 15 minutes of the whole day.) write in my journal and then go to bed. that’s a typical day at least.

This week I have to say so many thank you for those sleeping pills mommy! I’ve used them a lot this week because this week there was a festival to celebrate Santa Ana and nobody wanted to sleep. they were doing fireworks at 5 in the morning one time (so my companion tells me, I don’t really know because I was asleep haha!!). Also this week the bugs decided they were hungry and Hermana Kugath was the best tasting thing there was. I haven’t had a problem with the bugs until this week, which has been weird... so I finally broke out the bug spray, thanks again momma!

So I don’t have tons of time but I wanted to tell you guys about my day yesterday. I was having a really hard time in Sacrament trying not to cry because the past few days id been feeling very alone. My Spanish was struggling and I felt really frustrated about things. But I was listening to the sacrament prayers and thinking about Christ. When he was in the Garden of Gethsemane he literally had no one. He was alone in his agony... As alone as I am in this country, where nobody even knows my first name, I have the support of so many. my companion, my missiona president, the other hermanas and elders here. And especially my family! I may not be able to write you or be in contact with you as much as id like, but I know your there. I know you know me and love me. I know I have family and friends who will always be there if not here. And I have my savior. I have him in my hardest moments, when I want to give up when I don’t every want to hear another word of Española, when I think I cant get up or walk 1 more block. He always reminds me when I’m at the end of my rope that he’s there.

Yesterday was one of those days. I felt awful and frustrated. But miraculously I had an awesome day! I actually understood allot of the Spanish in church, we had an incredible lunch with a family from the ward and they helped us so much! they gave us a map of our area (which is actually like 3 times bigger then we thought it was... ) and helped us figure our who in the ward was active and inactive and where everything was. It was a huge blessing! And.... they speak pretty darn good English, so I understood practically everything. I love our ward members! Our candles were relit and were excited to get back to work.

Sorry I don’t feel like this letter was super informative, but I’m running out of time. I love you guys all so much and really look up to every one of you. Thank you for your influence in my life and the lives of my family! you’re all wonderful!

All my love,
Hermana Kugath

p.s. URGENT!!! Mommy, maddie, Jesse, grandma, aunt Kim and kam: I need smoothie recipes. I have access to every fruit in the world and I brought a freakin blender with me and so help me I WILL use it. so smoothie recipes pretty pretty please!