Hard Work & Happiness

Bridge to Heaven!!!

The Scooters from off one of the ships taking on water in December. 

The kids on the island received these for Christmas and are now 

leaning  how to ride them on the sand.

This week was interesting as the New Years came. On the island there are many, many things to do to pass the time. The sports are all divided by street, so all these little kids have their 'street gangs' (like los lobos or los mosquitos) and the streets go head to head in soccer, basketball, or volleyball. All these kids now have scooters and roller skates. Many woman sow mola. Many of the men go shooting up in the monte. On New Year’s Eve and day, there was a lot of drinking. I was surprised when we saw people the next day 12:30 in the afternoon still going. That added up to be at least thirteen hours.

My new comp Elder Nelson came this week. I knew him before when I was back in Boquete, so I was like what a crazy unexpected twist of events. He is a great missionary and has improved even more since the last time I saw him. It is great, as we are working hard to find and invite people to come unto Christ and get baptized. We found many and by Sunday morning we were just scrambling to get them all  to church. Many made excuses but we had five new investigators at church. One who had been so nervous that her husband and family would make fun of her that we literally had to walk in with her almost pushing her from behind. She had been wanting to go for a while now and will be going back next week. Another investigator was the cousin of a recent convert and he brought along his best friend. The last two were our neighbors who came to the island to visit. If everything goes well, a majority of these people should be baptized this week.

Nothing is more exciting than seeing people taking some of these first promises with God, coming to repentance, and taking upon them the names of Christ to always try their best to follow him.

This week the scripture that hit me is Moroni 7:33. "And Christ said: If ye will have faith in me ye shall have power to do whatsoever thing is expedient in me." Sometimes this means stepping out of our comfort zone or doing something hard. If we turn to the Lord, he will help us if it is his will and his work. We've been helping a lot of investigators learn and understand this concept this week and its helped a lot.