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