It's Cold in Changuinola

The river where we baptized Luis (see last week's post) is really rather close to us. We can walk to it from our house in about fifteen minutes.  What kills me is that we see people playing beach volleyball, fishing and bridge jumping all the time; however, this is the coldest place for missionaries in this mission.  The water is freezing just in our shower (we have no hot water) and I felt the water during baptism in the river, which even seemed colder.  I am happy to stay out of the water and out of trouble.

Where we meet to attend church is also about a fifteen to twenty-minute walk from our house.  The house we meet at is owned by an elderly man who lets us use his patio for our meeting.  He is usually cooking or watching tv and you can hear him in the background.  We play church hymns softly from a CD player to drown out all the other noises.  After Sacrament meeting, we hang up a cloth or bed sheet on a wire to create separate classrooms. There is also another classroom underneath a big guanabana tree.

There are many other different churches here in Changuinola and it seems like new ones are popping up every week.  It is beautiful to see the people share their joy of religious freedom.  In Panama they teach from the bible in school and even with all the many different church activities going on, it is hard to find someone who doesn’t believe in God. The amount of people we teach here is a lot smaller than when we were in Arrajian, but here we are finding many with questions about different views and opinions they hear.  I often get to share my testimony of what I have found has helped me become closer to God. This is common to most areas, but I heard that in the area of San Blas they walk door to door each day, many times (sometimes making two rounds) on the same day. They are still finding people to teach and are still baptizing like maniacs. So as an example, to me of those missionaries on that island, I am applying that same faith and as I turn to the Lord in faith for strength in abundance he blesses us with people to teach. 

For example, yesterday as we were doing cochechas, we felt impressed to look for a fifteen-year-old girl who had a family member with a taxi which seemed rather specific but okay, let's go! We had been walking about a half an hour when out of the corner of my eye one house caught my attention. We ended up talking to a girl who happened to be fifteen and in the middle of our conversation, the father left the house crossed the road and entered into a taxi as he was heading off to work.  We have found that there are many around us that are ready to hear this message that the gospel has been restored to its fullness.  If we pray for these experiences or opportunities you will see these miracles happen in your life.

At a conference in David where I ran into my cousin Megan's last companion.

This week we went to the city of David for a conference, which has a huge difference in weather perhaps comparable to the difference between San Francisco and San Diego.  It was a five-hour bus drive there and five hours back.  When we got there, we slept on the floor, had a wonderful conference and then headed back home.  It was two days of not really moving like we do and man I was feeling a bit stir crazy. Before my mission, I would have been happy to have relaxed, sit down and do nothing, but now I am so much happier to be working hard. Our bus driver decided not to stop and take a break and so my legs were cramped and I was so happy to be off the bus. We have been so tired this week that we crashed hard when we returned home.  

Fun fact: when my companion is really tired, he talks in his sleep. It has been a very entertaining week, to say the least.  I loved that night that he yelled out, “No, this is my soup.” And then he furiously slurped up this soup for about thirty seconds. Since then, we have not been able to eat soup without laughing.

I hope you guys had a good week and that Lauren's birthday was fun, it looked like a blast in San Francisco! Congrats Nathan on becoming an Eagle Scout and the cookies for the Court of Honor you made looked amazing. I think that Grandma had been watching too much Parks and Rec to be an FBI agent, but I love that you all had a Treat Yo Self day in the city. Oh, and yes mom, I am trying to learn Ngobe...but we are more focused on my Spanish. I love you all!

You definitely need boots here, my other boots had holes in them and my dress shoes were getting trashed.
 I just bought my second pair of boots here in Panama.

The Curse of Chino on 13th Street

This week we have run into a few troubles, one of the most pressing is that I have now acquired an addiction. I was recommended by a sister missionary to buy a type of milk, which is vanilla flavored and called Maria milk. It is like someone milked a golden cow and put it straight into the bottle. I can now say that milk is not the same and never will be. Nothing can replace this vanilla milk, and this past week we've been running around town looking in all the supermarkets and Chinos. Only one Chino in all of our area sells them. We now have on multiple occasions gone out of our way, or taken a long way home just to buy one of those 50 cent kid milk boxes. Why did you bring this to my attention, Megan? 

The second and most important problem is that we found out through first-hand experience something dreadful: 'The Curse of the Chino on 13th Street'. Yes, the Chino is on 13th street, well territory. But its real!! Every time we have bought a Duro or ice cream on a boiling hot day, one of us has dropped our ice cream on the ground. I'm warning you people, it is not worth it!! They sell their ice cream for less than the other Chinos, but that is probably because they know about the curse!!!

I don't know how I haven't brought this up, but I feel like I'm in the Bible Belt of Panama. Since Panama is the Belt of North and South America, I guess that makes us the Bible Belt Buckle. Never have I seen so many people with a firm testimony of God. It's genuinely beautiful. Of course, there are many different pastors who have a desire to throw everyone else under a bus and explain why they're right and everyone else is wrong. Others who realize that we are all on the same team. Let's just say I have learned a lot about many different sects of religion and their beliefs. For the first time in my life, I have actually had to defend my faith. I felt very blessed to have this student of the scriptures as my companion, Elder Reyna. I am learning a lot and my testimony is deepening and building in many ways.  It has been really interesting to see how much we all have in common, but see what little details people fight over. I have also learned how to hold my tongue.

Who is more scared?

We had a conference at the stake center, in which we needed to take a ten-minute taxi to get there. We have a lot of investigators that want to go to church. However, for a family of eleven, that would cost twenty big ones just to go to church. However, this family is golden and have genuinely been a miracle. When we explained about Joseph Smiths first vision, the father exclaimed, "Wow, how blessed is this young man." Normally we get a lot of strange and skeptical faces. Then we explain that every single prophet that we read about in the Bible are known for their 'fruits' (Matthew 7: 15-20). Then we invite them to pray because God will not lie to us and he wants the best for us. Prayer is very powerful, and when we turn to him with questions he will always answer them.  Getting back to this family, as we left this meeting the kids in the car were just so excited. Hey when is the next session? When is the next time we can come back? 

To respond to your emails, apparently, the Winter Olympics don't exist here. It's ignored so much that I haven't heard one person talk about them, it has not even been in the news, which is probably because the news is still focused on Carnival. I don't know if its because they are just too busy thinking about the world cup, or that they don't have snow to practice anything....but I mean the Jamaicans have a bobsled team soo...I actually forgot that they were going on until it was mentioned in an email. 

We Gotta No Banana's

To answer a few general questions about Changuinola, yes we are completely surrounded by Banana Plantations. I will have to send you a picture of a map we have here, just to give you an idea. It has been amazing, you see people driving around tractors pulling trailers of people to work on the farm; all carrying machetes and sporting rubber work boots. Just about everyone has a bike and it's a big thing here to customize your bike. I have seen bikes extended, lowered, or with tanks of pressurized air on the side so they can have fog horns. 

There isn't a day that goes by where you don't see a pickup truck piled with bananas.  We are so close to the Chiquita Banana production line we get them for dirt cheap. It is like 10 cents a banana if you buy them one by one, but you can get them for less if you buy them by the branch. Yes, that's very common and we had a member cut off a part of her branch and gave it to us and we are now waiting for our 30 bananas to ripen. But that's Bananos, Bananas. There are so many different types of bananas, the most popular being Mal'duro. That's what they use to make Patacones and there is no way to eat Patacones other than with Fried Chicken. Oh, I'm living the dream and I finally understand why they say Panamanians only eat deep-fried food. Here in Changy I don't doubt it; I could live off of Patacones as they are cheap and delicious. 

Banana Plantation

This week we decided to open up Finca 4. We started with Cosechas (or proselyting) and felt strongly to go down into a specific area. We started walking down this gravel road and after a little bit, it led to an endless trail. I mean I felt like Dorthy when she was first told to follow the yellow brick road; it'll get you there. There was nothing more than the eyes could see but the endless banana fields and no houses. It was at that moment where we both were like, I don't feel anything...  The spirit just dropped. Strange! 

We turned back around and headed for the entrance of the trail. As we made our route back, I just kept thinking, why were we here. I felt strongly to be here and as I was in my thoughts it ended up being that a teacher was leaving the school. She left just as soon as we passed.  We walked and talked and she was very interested. She was an English teacher here in Panama from New York. Apparently, she had a lot of families who were members but on the side of her sister in law. The work of the Lord was beautifully planned that we were in the right spot at the right time. That's one of the many blessings I have seen during this past week.

Where we attend church.

We had a baptism of Luis this week.  We live close to a river, and well we don't have a church building or baptismal font. (The closest building is about 40 minutes away.) We have special permission to hold church at the side of a house. We have our church outdoors sun or rain and the spirit is just very strong, no matter where you are. The blessings you have at church are so strong and so irreplaceable, but I have to admit its so much better outdoors.

It rained the night before and so the river was very full, so this young man was being pulled downstream with the current. My companion was literally holding him in place. It was a beautiful ceremony and he is one brave little man. Shivering and Freezing, he refused to leave the water until he was baptized without being torn away by the raging tempest current.

Now my companion is a convert with a powerful testimony. He has a photographic memory, which combined with his passion for reading makes his scripture knowledge astounding. I learn something every day. It also comes in handy because we have been teaching lessons and in my two weeks here we have had to Machete quite a few people. Meaning that we show them scripture evidence where it proves this belief over that. Of course, it depends on the person and the situation.You have to take a good gage at that, but my companion plays one of the strongest defense I have ever seen. Which makes me feel more at peace with the many many different sects of religions here. 

My companion happens to know a little bit of street magic. He has been able to fascinate kids and gain more attentive listening by offering to do a magic trick after our lesson.  However, one Grandmother called him out saying he was a magician who practiced dark arts and had beasts. Without hesitation or fear, he told her, oh maybe I do have a beast, who knows. But is that all... I mean I have heard so much worse, let alone the doors slammed in my face, or the water being thrown at me. 

We were able to finish teaching and by the end of that lesson, she was attentively listening. When we were leaving the Grandmother said to me, I want to get married. Now I don't know what that means. If 1) She was referencing before when she said she didn't want to get baptized because that meant she had to be married or 2) I now have someone waiting for me to return home. Either way, WOOO!

Elder Irizarry

Changuinola

I live in a Banana plantation, and it is beautiful and tranquil. (To get here, I got up at 4:00 in the morning to leave Colon and got to here at 9:30 at night - very long day of bus travel.) It is so different than Colon; there isn't loud plena music blasting your eardrums into oblivion.  There aren't people yelling at you in wali, wali.  I love it here. Our house is small, but it actually is the nicest house I've been in yet. Oh, and yeah I don't know if I told you, but we are told we cant drink the tap water; it's a nice yellowish green and unnaturally cold to shower in. All the natives drink it just fine, but many missionaries get sick here from the water. We've been given a little bit extra money to buy gallons of purified water. 

Leaders of Changuinola here have an area that touches Costa Rica in which they would need to drive thirty miles in a bus. I am not sure if I will ever be there. 

I find that I can't teach in the same way or use the same slang here that I learned in Colon. Here there are a lot of the Ngobe tribe. Kunas, and Emberas. Oh, my! Its crazy the differences in their culture and wow is their dialect the most complicated I've heard yet. While I am here I am supposed to learn it. It has been quite an experience to teach them and learn about their beliefs. Kunas are by far the easiest to teach, and Ngobes are the hardest. They don't talk a whole lot and you end up talking really slow and ask a lot of questions.

My companion is Elder Reyna, he is one of the strongest converts I have met in my life and he has a firm testimony. He is from Peru but also lived a few years in Argentina. He has completed 18 months of his mission and is very well rounded, very easy going, but determined and dedicated to the work. I feel honored to be his companion. He has taught me so much in just a week's time. I also feel so special to be here in Changuinola. There are not a lot of missionaries or members here but the members help out with everything they can. We have members with cars and they go past other members homes and pick them up to go to church without even being asked, which is really amazing. We are a small branch and we sit outside a house on a bunch of cold metal chairs and have our meetings.The best part is that is is actually cold here!!! It rains a lot and when it's not raining the sun doesn't have a grudge against you!

This week, we have found a lot of success in getting permission from parents to baptize their kids. This has been a big problem here, along with getting married and drinking coffee. The Ngobe traditionally drink coffee like Panamanians eat rice. When your not full have another plate of rice, or when you don't know what you can have as a side, you eat rice. For some people who drink coffee 12-15 times a day, it's hard to give up. 

When we walked by our investigators home to bring them to church it was so funny. Here there are a lot of different churches and oddly enough in Panama, they call their reunion and sacrament meetings... Cults. Yup that's very normal here and it's utterly hilarious. We actually hear many people say, "oh I'm going to a cult that starts in an hour". You will see signs that say cult has these hours on these days. There are many Jehovah's Witnesses here and the other day we stopped by a home right as Jehovahs Witnesses were talking to the parents of some of the members here. Elder Reyna and I jump out of the car, and when the kids saw us, they all ran over yelling, "We're ready to go to church." I have never seen anyone's face so confused and astonished as that man when he turned his head to see who was taking them to church.

This week we were able to give two blessings of health. One we gave to a baby who was sick and another to a thirty-year-old man who was literally lying on the floor coughing up blood.  Both experiences were very powerful.

Elder Irizarry