A visit back to Ometepe Island

Unless you are a citizen here, you are required to leave the country every 90 days and get your passport stamped again. So, this past week, we made a trip back to Ometepe Island. The timing worked out well since our good friend Josh Eyre was here visiting us and he was really wanting to see the island as well. I will start with some not so good news....I was hoping to have several awesome pictures from our trip to post with this blog. Josh is super into photography and happens to have an incredible camera. He took some really great pictures of us with the volcano behind us, pictures of our friends there, our adventures on the scooters that we rented for the day...ahhh....just so many great photos. Well, the reason I cannot post any of them is because on our last leg of the journey home, sometime in the last hour of the last bus....yes, his camera was STOLEN! We all just felt sick about it and it really put a damper on the end of our trip. He had been so careful with it the entire trip, guarding it with his life. I guess on the bus, there must have been someone just waiting for that moment of opportunity to swipe it and get off the bus. To add salt to the wound, his passport was also in the camera bag! Oh man...we were all so upset by this. Luckily his camera is insured so he will be able to replace that, but the pictures he had taken were priceless and getting a new passport before he has to leave the country on Tuesday is not a fun process.
Oh well, enough of the downer news. We still had a great time and have the memories to keep forever.
SO, going across the border this time was actually much easier than the first time, since we each only had a small bag with us. It was nice to also have Josh as an extra set of hands and eyes to help us with the girls. The border is not my favorite place to be, but I made it into Nicaragua without too much contempt for the situation. It was only on the return trip trying to get back into Costa Rica that I felt a minor temper tantrum building up inside me. Explanation: Emma had to go to the bathroom. Those 7 words are not the words a mother wants to hear when you are in a place that is filthy and the procedure is not easy. We left Lane and the rest of them who were in line at the immigration desk and we went to wait in line for the bathroom. We were the only ones standing there at first. After about 5 minutes of Emma doing the "potty dance" it was apparant that there was no one in the bathroom coming out. I turned and looked at the woman behind the counter who had been staring at us the whole time. I asked her in my broken spanish if we needed a key. She said "yes". Well, can you please give it to me??? "yes". so she unlocked the door..by now there was a line behind us. We went in and quickly noticed that there was no paper in the stall. Ok, I am a little frustrated. We go back out, tell the lady there is no paper. Emma is dying by this point. The lady says, "yes, I know. You have to buy it." ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? could she not have told me that before? ugh...I actually didn't have any money with me at all, it was with Lane so I conveniently pretended to not understand a word she said but just pointed to Emma who was full on dancing a jig now. The lady rolled her eyes and reached under the counter to hand me a small wad of whole wheat toilet paper. I will end the story here because you don't even want to know what the bathroom looked like. Anyway, I wanted to have a little tantrum but I pretty much kept myself composed and to make a long story short, we made it through both border crossings without too much trouble. And in this woman's defense, I am sure that her job is not fun, so I will forgive her for the eye roll.
OK, so it was fun taking the ferry over to the island and remembering our trip on this same ferry just almost 3 months ago now. As soon as we were off the ferry, the smell of the island brought all those memories flooding back. Let's just say, that Bath & Body works will not be coming out with a new scent called "Island de Ometepe" ha ha
We found a decent little hotel, walked around a bit and saw several familiar faces from our week there before. We ate at a pizza place that was actually good and then we went to bed.
The next morning we wanted to do some exploring as well as be able to go to the town of Los Angeles that is about 4 miles up the road to visit our dear friends Leyla, Emerson and their 2 children, Jairo (11) and Melissa (3). Lane had the idea to rent scooters for all of us. We would have one adult and one child on each scooter. Well, my children apparantly have NO FAITH in me whatsoever because they all had this fearful look in their eyes concerning which one of them would receive the death penalty by having to ride on the back of mom's scooter! Thanks alot kids. They do not realize that when I was 13 years old, my brother and I had a little motorcycle that we used to ride all over the fields by our house. I have skills.
Lora drew the unlucky straw but made me take a practice run first down the street. Ok, so it was a little intimidating to take a test drive with like the whole town watching me and I admit that I was a little wobbly. I felt like I was in a parade or something! sheesh! Once I got used to it, I could keep up with them and even took the lead a few times. ha ha
It was a ton of fun to ride around the island for the day on the scooters and you will just have to imagine how cute we all looked in our helmets, since we don't have any pictures to post.
We went to this incredible place called "Ojo de agua" (eye of the water). It is a natural spring with sparkling clear water in the middle of this lush tropical jungle. It was seriously beautiful. We didn't have suits with us but Josh and all the kids swam in their clothes. Such a fun and beautiful thing to see.
After that we went to visit Leyla and Emerson and it was just......JOYFUL! We love this little family so much. It is hard to put into words. They were so surprised and so happy to see us! It was nice that our spanish is better than it was when we were there the first time so now we could actually talk to them more. Lane had the idea of getting them set up with an email account so that we would have a way to keep in touch with them. Neither of them had ever had ANY experience on a computer before so they were a little hesitant, but we assured them it would be easy and they could do it. Thankfully the internet cafe is right by their house and so getting there would not be a problem. Anyway, we spent at least an hour with them there and set them up with a gmail account and taught them how to use it. We had some doubt as to whether they would actually be brave enough to try it on their own once we left, but at least they had the tools now.
We arranged for them to take a taxi into town and meet us for dinner that evening and then to a branch activity that we had planned with the missionaries that we had run into the night before.
We rode the scooters back to town and shortly after, met Leyla, Emerson and kids for dinner. (pizza again). They had obviously put forth the effort to get dressed in their best clothes and look as sharp as they could for their evening out. It was very sweet. We had a great visit with them during dinner and then we all walked to the church where we were met by the missionaries, the Branch President's wife and one other sister in the branch. We sang some hymns and the missionaries taught a simple lesson. The spirit was there and we were so thankful to once again be able to have this sweet family have an interaction with the church.
After the short meeting, we walked them back to the bus station and waited with them. It was yet again a tearful goodbye. We have a bond with them that is just very intense. I sometimes wonder if I knew Leyla in the pre-existence and promised to find her and share the gospel with her. Emerson just loves Lane and is very sincere in his feelings for our family as well. It is hard to say goodbye because we never know when or if we will see them again for sure. The only thing we know for sure is that we all love each other and will be friends forever.
So, we went back to the hotel and went to bed. Sometime in the middle of the night it must have rained hard because we awoke in the morning to the floor of our hotel room flooded. We were thankful that all our bags and things were up on a table and nothing of ours got wet. A quick breakfast and off to the ferry again for the journey home. After just one full day there, we were reminded of how hard it was to live there and thankful that we were headed "home" to Costa Rica to a house with AC, clean sheets and fresh air to breath.
Aside from the theft on the bus, all went well and we were back home safe and sound by nightfall.
I am happy to report that I was pleasantly surprised with an email from Lelyla the next day!! We were so proud of her! Her email contained the wonderful news that they had met with the missionaries the morning we left and the three of them want to be baptized! You can imagine our joy at this news! I could not contain my tears. I guess we will be making another trip back to Ometepe Island in the near future and this time hopefully we will have a picture to post of this beautiful family dressed in white. I would cross the border 100 times over to attend this event. We will all pray that they will progress in their learning and will actually be baptized soon.
Please add your prayers to ours.
We have had a great week here. Josh has been a great houseguest and we have had lots of fun at the beach playing in the surf. It was so nice to have a face from home come and visit us and also come with something we have all missed...fruit leathers from Costco! Thanks Josh.
We have had a great Sunday today....got to feed the missionaries, the Branch Pres. and the RS President and Josh... Our house is happy when we are surrounded by such good people.