A Funny Easter Sunday

It all started with a pancake breakfast and an Easter "bag-scet" hunt.  

I thought I was soooo funny for calling them bagscets :)

Fruit Loops for her, homemade popsicle maker for him!

It was a little hard for me to forego my Pinterest-inclined Easter ideas for this year... you better believe T would have had egg hunts all week, a dress sewn by yours truly, and cute bunny treats for sure...  but, this year, I shared my testimony with T (via a note for her collection), we ate delicious, fresh food, and best of all, we shared a meal and a night walk on the beach with good friends.

You give and take when you live in Costa Rica, so this year I am happy to take a tropical fruit centerpiece instead of tulips!

And although this picture makes it look like T isn't wearing anything at all... she is in fact wearing a super cute glittery Baby Gap dress from Auntie Beana.

Then off to church.  Here comes the funny story :)

The bus was running a little late today, so instead of arriving at 10 til, we got there at 9:01.  Scott was changing into his white shirt as I found our seats in the chapel.  The man conducting was just sitting down and just kept staring at me with wide eyes. It was in that half-an-instant that I remembered a conversation I'd had with the branch president during Sunday School last week... It was all in Spanish, and no matter how much I told him that I don't really understand everything, he continued to speak fast and go on assuming I had complete comprehension.

Anyway, the Branch President had asked me "Puede llevarle musica?" which I understood as "Can you/are you able to lead music?"  Obviously he was asking me "Can you/WILL you lead the music?"  And apparently in Sacrament meeting was implied, even though he asked me during the 2nd hour... anyway, obviously I was confused.  Whatever happened, I found myself frantically flipping pages and walking to the front of the congregation, handing T off along the way.

Once I got to the front, I realized that I had no clue what song it was.  In fact, I still don't know...  I've led music before and am normally completely comfortable doing this, but today was a different story. You see, in the Nicoya Branch there is no pianist.  So there I stood at the front of the room, my hymn book open, looking to my right, then to my left, then back to my right... Scott cracking up all the while... :)  Traditionally, the person leading the music sings the first 2 lines of the song as a solo, then begins leading the congregation.  Well since I didn't know what song it was, couldn't translate the words (or even pronounce them correctly in Spanish), and couldn't read the music, I just sort of stood there at a loss.  Nothing was happening and it was a very awkward moment.  Few moments, actually.  Then, I just decided to sing that first word really loudly, and hope everyone had pity on me and joined from the get-go instead of making me sing a solo... and an Easter miracle-- it happened!  One sister in the front row clearly saw my plight and sang with extra gusto to get me going :)

I sat down, recovering from the situation, and scrambling to make T a bottle and get settled.  In small branches like ours (we have about 50-80 people each week) there aren't too many announcements, so before I knew it, time for the Sacrament hymn!  Ahh!  So there I go again, unprepared, and clueless as to what song I am leading.  Somehow I made it through without embarrassing myself too badly, and sat beside Scott begging him to "please figure out the next two songs so I can start us on the right note next time!!!"  The intermediate hymn was "More Holiness Give Me" and we closed with another familiar song.  What an epic day of music.

After sacrament meeting was our Primary class! They had asked me to teach, and said Scott could come too...  So I prepared the lesson outline and translated some key phrases beforehand, downloaded some pictures, came with paper and colored pencils... but once we got there I said my one line that I knew to say and then got stuck.  So basically Scott took over.  Even with my planning, the lesson lasted about 3 minutes, so Scott did a bit of improv. And we extended coloring time :) We only had about 6 kids since lots of people were gone for Easter.

 There she is with the best of 'em!  See all that hair in the back?!?  It's growing!!!

T loves coloring!  I am quite surprised that she can make scribbles on a page and figure out which end of the pencil writes... She spent most of her time collecting everyones pencils and wandering around handing them to other kids.

 T had a special fascination with Lady who felt quite threatened at the prospect of T stealing her treasures.  Rightly so.

Easter Sunday was our shortest Sunday yet!  Church totaled 5.5 hours! Easy Peasy!  The air con bus that is only 1 hour instead of 2 makes all the difference!

For dinner we had Angelo, Cassie, Harlow and Gwenna (and of course the dog Pepper!) over for a lovely meal. The Hiltons have become such good friends to us and we really enjoy their company.  I totally dropped the ball with the camera for the appetizers of: sliced bell pepper, the sweetest best pineapple you've ever tasted, watermelon, and "Scott's Pura Vida Pico" which was out of this world.  Recipe will be given in a future post.  For the entree we served homemade basil pesto linguine with julienned carrots and toasted garlic bread.  Everyone loved it, even Pepper!

And this was the best dessert I've had since being in Costa Rica.  Cassie and Harlow made oatmeal cookie ice cream sandwiches with, wait for it.... homemade sprinkles.  So intense.  The cookies were so chewy and delicious and the whole thing was such a treat.  

Happy Easter to all!