Dule Gaya - Kuna Language

Today is the last transfer of my mission. I am going to finish out my mission on the beautiful island of Ustupu for the next six weeks. My companion Elder Dudley after serving on the island for one year has gone back to the main land. We now have four Sister missionaries serving here and three new Elders on the islands. They will replace the three that finished out their mission here. My new companion will be Elder Salavarrieta. Today I downloaded a few pictures of the Dule Gaya script that we study from here. As well, here are a few more pictures with Elder Dudley.

Elder Dudley doing service by bringing bananas to someone's house,
 teaching English and moving bags of sand for others. 

Dios Es Crante

Sadly, there was a death on the island this week. It is not the first time, but it was the first time we were invited to participated in the ceremony. From where we were standing, they tore down the side of the wall of the stick hut and just let everyone walk in. Outside were waiting benches so that others could rotate in. Everyone gathers round the person who has passed and then started to mourn and wail. When I say that, I mean they actual go on wailing throughout the day. It is custom to hear a traditional saila prayer chant and the following day they bury them in the monte (mountain). After those two days pass, they follow up with a big party celebrating their death and the life they lived. In San Blas when they have a party here it just means that there is a lot of food. With the wall of this hut still tore down they use the inside to make some arroz a liquada for the entire community. It is common to do this for the next year and every additional month of death until they reach the two year mark depending on the person.

It was a nice surprise lunch in which we did not have to pay for. However sometimes here they just rinse out the flavor of the food with water which I forget about every once in a while. Most of the time I drink this cup of water and then I notice that everyone else just spits it out on the floor and then I catch on and just follow along. But this time I drank a little bit and a little bit and that is when I realized that they were all just backwashing into the same glass. I basically drank a full glass of backwash water. Yuuup! But other than that, it was a good meal. I have officially decided that I may have to adopt this tradition. At my funeral, it will all be catered by Wendy’s and backwashed Frosties.

I have loved how my companion has been trying to teach our adopted grandpa how to solve a Rubix cube. Every time he is able to match up a few more squares or sides he just gets so excited.

Oh, and because the Kuna alphabet has like 14 or 16 letters, they tend to spell things just a little off which I always find amusing. One that I heard this week is and please don't ever forget this guys "Dios es Crante" (or Dios es Grande) which means God is Good!

Elder Dudley and I

Mowgli

Well another day and another can of chicken. We had the opportunity to go down to Nargana to do divisions with the other Elders. It was actually quite a different island, because the island was very civilized. (They are really one of the only islands that have separated completely from the native traditions). They actually had a bank, library and full on jail. As well, there was electricity lines running through the island with post lamps. The major part of the houses were made of cement and more than half of the people had cable. The funny part was they still do not have running water. Everyone who needs water has to take a kayak with huge barrels to the mountain where they fill them up in a river. (I can’t tell you how many times we helped move barrels of water from the docks to someone’s house just in a single day).  What’s interesting is that water is only used to shower. Their drinking water is bought in bulk from cargo ships. The Elders there are doing great and are finding a lot of success. It was a great surprise to them when we were able to finally drop them off a stove.

Highlights of the trip were of course:

1.    Making a new friend who was the most adorable monkey. You would sit by her and she would just run over and hug you and then sit on your lap. It was hilarious, I think she was climbing around all of us looking for food to snatch. She got Elder Dudley’s water bottle and a granola bar. But my favorite part was that she checked each of us to make sure we didn't have lice. I'm officially convinced that every doctor’s office needs a monkey to do free lice checkups.

2.     The boat trip we took was gnarly. The waters raised and the boat only had one half broken motor, and we sat in the front of the boat (i.e., the part where you get the least wet, but can feel the crashes the most). The waves were so high that as we were on our return trip we got just soaking wet and covered in salt. 

3.    As we dropped off people in Achutupu, there were so many boats that we had to stop by the 'gas station' dock. That’s when we saw a box just sitting on top of one of the gas barrels with the name Elder Dott’s written on it. We asked the driver what was in that box and so he went over and pulled out a Book of Mormon. We ask him if we could have the box and after the driver asked around a few people they said that it was okay to take. They had no problem so we planned to take it back to Ustupu. While on the boat, we inspected the box and found that it was around two years old and was air shipped in. While this was going on the driver came up and asks if he could have one of the Books and so we gave him a copy. (This was the same boat driver that invited us into his house to eat Dule Massi a few weeks back). If we get permission again to go to other islands, he will definitely be one of the first people to visit.

After the trip to Nargana, we came back and realized the house was kind of a mess. So that same night we pulled out trash bags and started cleaning and sorting through all the extra stuff that we didn't need. We ended up burning some of the old clothes that were stained, trashed, and had ripped holes in them. Surprisingly it is more common than you'd think to light a fire in the middle of just an entire civilization built upon dried out leaves and sugar canes. They do it all the time with very few problems. 

A lot of what we do here in San Blas consists of 'Attitude and Effort' in the words of the former missionary Elder Seaman. “When we just bring ourselves to a positive attitude and give our best effort, we feel better. Even when we fail, because we gave it our best” and it’s true. After having a week that had not had as much success, we started praying constantly and giving our best effort but still not getting what we wanted. Yet we still can feel satisfied with the effort to do good. But this week after putting in a great effort, God sent a few new people here to the island Sunday morning. Two of them who have never been to church before in their lives, wander into the church building after a long trip. I love being here on the mission, because even when my effort isn’t enough, a lot of the time I get to see the hand of God edifying my work.

Chillin' In San Blas

This week was a fast one. Today we did dome great service by doing some church cleaning.  Anytime you start putting your own needs first or simply just feel a little down, go out and do some service. It always is a helpful cure. Maybe its just reaching out to someone. Maybe its baking something for someone. Maybe its manual labor. But whatever it is, do something. 

Technology in the mission now allows many different opportunities. They now have a very awesome training videos. And we can weekly call the family. What a huge blessing.

Today, we (his parents) were able to talk with Jacob on Google Hangout which was great. He was able to give tell us more about where he is living and what it is like. He mentioned that there is about four thousand on the island and probably three thousand of them are under the age of twenty. Right now it is there summer break and so there is a lot of noise from the laughter and joy of the kids playing around the church. They love to play there because this is one of the only basketball courts on the island and there is also cement there and so they can ride their scooters around it more easily. 

The children there love to run up and down the walkways and ask them what are names are over and over again. He said that it is like they have a short attention span but it could be because they just like to hear them talk rather than listening to the answer.

Lately, at night, he said that he is starting to get cold even when wrapped up in his huge hammock. He thinks that he will be freezing when he gets home to air conditioning. 

He mentioned that the tides are still high and so they don't really get around to the other islands like they would like right now. At Christmas time, when they came to the city, they held a plastic tarp up behind them and the waves were so big that they would splash over them.  Luckily, the tides should be going down in April and May which is great for when he will be heading home. Sadly, this is when the Mango and Crab season begin. Which he hopes to get a little taste of before he heads out. As for right now, it is avocado season. He said that the avocado's there are huge and are about seven inches long.

Elder Nelson and I (last companion)