The Ultimate Champion...

 Today felt like a breath of fresh air in rest, Spanish, and just a much slower but really really good day. This morning we woke up a bit later than since today was H@ngout day. We all ate breakfast and then went to the park for some worship. Worship was SO good, Matthew lead and did it very well. It felt nice to be intentionally present with the Lord in nature and just admiring his creation. Every now and then I get really fascinated by everything around me that the Lord has created including people, plants, animals and everything in between those, even rocks. It just felt really good and felt like a good start to our day. After worship we walked back to the house and immediately made our lunch to then take to H@ngout. We then got an Uber which I found out is actually illegal here??!! It's not really enforced though so it was all good :) It took about 25ish minutes to drive to Heredia where the university is so we got to admire the city on our drive which was really cool, especially to see all the mountains from a better view. 

Immediately when we got to the university I realized I forgot a piece of hair in my pony tail, so my hair was just like that all day! I was lazy to fix it lol 

    Once we got there we met up with Lagos, Ana, and Esther where H@ngout is held on campus and set up. There were already students there, but didn't join us until Lagos and Ana arrived. Rachel and Tania also joined us which was so fun! I met Tania and her brother last year, that's when I learned how to play a game called chancho which is basically spoons but so much better! For lunch everyone ate nachos. The students that I was personally able to meet were Jose Carlos and Celeste. There were a few others that came, I was not able to hear their names hopefully next time though! All of the conversations were so fun, Jose talked about how he loves to help people and has been teaching English to people for about a year now. OH, he also graduated yesterday!! Big congrats to him! It was very cool to hear part of his story too. While we were sitting down there were many many ants and different types of bugs. YALL the ants are gigantic here like close to thumbnail size!! There's also many little trails that have been formed by the ants carrying things like leaves and stuff to and from their mound wherever it was. Anyways, after a while a few of the students had to leave because they had class to get to. It kind of felt like it went really fast, I'm hoping to next time be able to move around more and talk to more of them. Please be praying for those opportunities to come up for me or any of us to talk to them. 

A beautiful picture of the city. 

Everything is SO colorful, I love it!!

(Photo creds to Tesla of literally every one of them on this blog, I'm a moocher I know, please forgive me 😅)

    After most of the students left, Jose showed us around campus, we went down an epic muddy hill to get to where we needed to be. The university is so colorful and filled with nature everyone. There's nature inside the buildings and it's just so cool to see the architecture of everything even outside the university. For a little bit the few of us that walked around the university found a spot and just sat and chatted. It was really good. We then walked back to the main entrance where Ana and Lagos were chillin' and then we chilled some more. I learned that Spanish Wordle exist! I don't actually do wordle at all but it was fun trying to help Ana get the wordle. Katie got the wordle before both Ana and Lagos!! Crazy! Apparently it might be a competition now between Katie and Ana for the Wordles, we'll see how that goes. Sam and I then begun to throw around a baby avocado and saw Matthew and Jose playing "Finger Fencing" which is where you hold each other's hand while pointing your pointer finger to then try and tag the other person only with the finger anywhere on their body except the same arm that is with the one your holding the other's hand. So, Katie then suggested that her and I finger fenced. We did that last year and I won so she wanted a rematch and guess what, I won again. Sorry not sorry Katie 😆😎. Then Sam suggested Tesla challenge me and well I also won. Then Sam suggested Cassidy challenge me and welp I won again. Then I looked at Ana and said want to try? and at first she was hesitant, but then she gave in and we fenced and welp I won again. I'm not trying to boast at all, I'm just stating facts here. You know being honest before the Lord lol ahh I'm just messin' around :). Anyways, someone then asked Tania if she wanted to try and she said she didn't know how so we taught her and then she challenged me. Now, Tania is definitely much stronger than me (I was real life nervous), y'all she plays soccer and is so good at it so yes she is strong and athletic. It was a hard fight that lasted almost 2 minutes. She was aggressive, strong, determined, but ultimately the champion still remained... me😎. Now, I am currently undefeated against the women. Well I haven't finger fenced with Esther so until then, if we do, it remains as it is. 

The ultimate challenger!! 

(I tried uploading the video, but didn't work... sadness)

    While being at the university, it was really cool to see all the friendships forming between the team and everyone. I'm excited to see all the Lord does through the friendships forming and all the conversations we have. 

    Lagos then suggested getting coffee and we all said absolutely. So we went to a coffee shop called Don Mayo. On the way there I got to talk to Esther more and hear more about her story and just how the Lord is leading her life which is so cool. During our conversation I mentioned somehow that I'll be here for the whole 10 weeks and she said she is excited to get to talk to me more throughout the summer. My heart literally felt so excited and happy! Can't wait to know her better :) At the coffee shop Lagos and Ana ordered french press coffee and pour over coffee (Idk the correct term for it), I ordered a iced caramel latte, and majority of the rest of us ordered smoothies. This coffee shop literally has everything form coffee (obvi) to pizza to wings to dessert to cool looking colorful drinks and many other things. Lagos taught us how to properly drink black coffee and it definitely made a difference. I think I like black coffee kind of now, that I know the right way or I guess the better way to drink coffee. Here I'll share how. You first take a sip of coffee and then don't immediately swallow hold the coffee in your mouth and then breath in deeply with your nose. Be dramatic with the inhale too, you'll get it once you try it. Trust me it makes so much difference when drinking black coffee. 

    We hung out at the coffee shop for a while and then got a bus back to our house. When we got home we thought about things to get for dinner and everyone decided on tacos. We all kind of did our own thing. Some watched a show called "Inventing Anna" it seemed muy interesante, but I felt I needed some alone time. I don't actually really feel socially drained, I do get fomo very easily so it was a bit difficult to leave the kitchen and come to my room but I made it. Instead I started this blog and then after a while, we all needed to plan for the devotional and think of English lessons to do with the kids for tomorrow at the CDI. Matthew had a spectacular idea of creating ways for the kids to self practice English when they are at home. Instead of immediately starting a random English lesson tomorrow, we're going to ask Georgen (I think on my previous blogs I've written Jordan, well it's actually Georgen I was just hearing it wrong) if we can start English next week so that we can plan better and feel more prepared. That's all for today, at least that I remember. Be sure to check out Katie and Sam's blogs because they'll definitely remember things that I might have forgotten or have cool stories that I may have not been a part of. 

    There is a few things that I am excited for and realizing while being here. 

• I'm excited to form deeper friendships with everyone.
• Realizing I feel really comfortable here and feel somewhat at home minus the people from home.
• I also realized today that I tend to exist and live life where I am which is really good, but can also not be good especially for connections back home or away from wherever I am. 
• I just feel really happy and in a good place here. 
• I am realizing, however, that I've felt the Lord a lot, but I haven't actually spent a ton of time with him. It's actually a bit hard for me to remember that I can spend time with him anytime throughout the day and that He loves anytime we spend with him. I just tend to be a routine or have a quote-on-quote formal way of doing things. Please be praying for me in that, I greatly appreciate it. 

I think this summer is going to be really good, really stretching, and filled with the Lord's goodness. I'm looking forward to it! 

Prayer Points:

• For the Lord to provide more opportunities for deeper conversations with everyone, but especially with the college students.
• For planning the English lessons.
• For Sam, Matthew, and now Katie to prepare and share a teaching well at a church service sometime in the summer. I forgot to mention that in my blogs, Lagos and Gomez have asked them to do that which is really cool but also really scary. 
• For more language barriers to be broken.
• The mobilization of Latin America! 

Thank you everyone that has been praying for us here on this trip, we all greatly appreciate it and just feel the Lord answer so many of our prayers already! Keep on keepin on! 

As always (well if you're and Aggie) Thanks and Gig 'Em!