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.
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| 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!
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| 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. |