One Last Look

One last look at San Blas and the beauty of this colorful island.

Mission Complete

Last Week

This is the last week of my mission and being on this beautiful island and I spent most of the week just laying in a hammock. Actually, my companion and I have not been feeling our best.  He was out most of Friday and slept all day long, which allowed me to take a picture of him in his hammock. On Saturday, it hit me and I was out of it all day. Luckily we did finally find and receive some medicine so we are starting to feel a little bit better and by Sunday we were both getting back up on our feet.

I will be leaving the islands on Saturday, sailing to the mainland and heading in to Panama City. I leave on Saturday because it is the only day that the boats will be heading out this week due to the elections taking place on the islands. In Panama, they have seven political parties and five independent parties. It is really divided and so I don't know who will be elected. 

Quick shout out to wish my Grandpa a Happy Birthday!  I sure do love you!!!

Primary

Well this week I want to talk a little bit about the truths of God. Right. Throughout my life, I’ve heard a lot of different people ask a lot of questions about God, about the gospel, and about personal opinions. 

And as I look at it, I tend to find that there are two sets of real questions. Primary questions and Secondary questions. The Primary questions include: Does God exist? Does he answer my prayers? Did Jesus Christ die for me? Was Joseph Smith a prophet? Where do I go after this world? Etc. Etc. Secondary questions can be as basic as the priesthood restrictions, the first vision, the translation of the Book of Mormon.

Now a lot of secondary answers I take to the extreme end of comparison. Its like asking what type of nail, how thick, how long, what type of metal they used; to hang Jesus on the cross. While coming to the knowledge of these questions may build upon your testimony, knowing them by themselves won't give you a testimony of Jesus the Christ as our Savior. What matters most obviously aren't the nails, but him sacrificing himself for us on the cross. This is important to know so that we may overcome physical death, repent of our sins, and so that we can all make it back to our Heavenly Father. We need to know and understand the principles. The points of the doctrine most basic. We need to have our own personal testimony about them. Porque as it is said in 3 Nephi 26:  

"9 And when they shall have received this, which is expedient that they should have first, to try their faith, and if it shall so be that they shall believe these things then shall the greater things be made manifest unto them.

10 And if it so be that they will not believe these things, then shall the greater things be withheld from them, unto their condemnation."

Gaining our foundational testimony will make all other secondary questions become obsolete. You can tie back any secondary question, back to a primary question. While some may question the importance of the word of wisdom. The real question can be turned back to 'Was Joseph Smith a prophet?' If he really was then, that means he received the revelation, as prophets do, to guide us and give us this commandment in these modern days. Remember, knowledge is not a bad thing. But you can't do Algebra before you can even do addition. I encourage all of you to make sure your foundation is firm.

Also just a reminder to listen to the impressions of the spirit. You won't have regrets if you do so.

This week we helped clean a river clogged up with algae and seaweed that was rotting which was needed for the community. That was fun as we got in our boots and went to work. It smelled fishier than then the port in San Francisco where all the seals hangout in combination to what I would think a sewage treatment plant would smell like. We worked in shorts and tee-shirts and definitely got too much sun. I only have two pairs of pants here on the island. I will wear one of pants for a week and then wash it. But as we went on divisions to different islands, I didn't have the option to wash my pants last week.

This week was tiring from having a slight cold, but I've been working through it. How often do you get to be a missionary you know? We had a few prayers answered as we were able to work out a fiasco with the phones as we lost connection here. To contact people we tried using internet or Wi-Fi, but that was not working either. We were finally were able to make contact. We also had a baptism planned but he did not come to church on Sunday.  So, we were praying throughout all the sacrament meeting that he would make it. Then at last, in the last fifteen minutes he showed up and we baptized him. 

A lot of the kids love to collect and play with bottle caps here on the island. 

Who knew they were so much fun!

Divisions

Well you might say that this week was a little crazy, we went on a paseo to a few of the islands to do divisions. 

The first island we visited was Nargana. It’s always nice to see an old companion again, Elder Nelson, love that guy. Once there, I went on divisions with Elder Salam and it was good. We ended up having one service project after the next. We cut down coconuts, brought in tanks of water, completely destroyed a house and put  it back up again in a different spot. One family gave us a cold coconut to drink because of our hard work. They are having a lot of success there on that island and they deserve it. It is nice having missionaries that motivate you to stay focused and motivated doing this great work. 

While we were there, we had the chance to visit a family that I love. They have cooked us dinner every time I have gone over. While we were there, they were all putting on cosmetic face masks and they invited us to join in. So, three of us (all except Salavarrieta) put on our very first facial masks. I am going to try to visit the extended family when I get back home.

Our next island visit was to Irgandi, and that was crazy. We had plans to go to Playon Chico and then the following day take a big canoe down to Irgandi. Since the water was pretty calm, we asked the chauffeur if he could take us directly there. Irgandi is a pueblo built on the coast so it does not have a port. We arrived in our panga and normally you organize someone from the pueblo to come meet you out in the ocean and take you back in with a canoe. We did not have time to organize some one to make a last minute pickup for us, so we pulled up to an old coral reef and jumped out of the boat onto the reef and hiked in the rest of the way.  It was super nice of them to being willing to drop us off.

The island Irgandi, consists of almost forty houses. Thirteen of them are traditional cooking houses and you can walk the diameter of the pueblo in under a minute. Actually, it is no bigger than just about as far as you can throw a rock and that’s it. One might say its small, but it feels like everyone is just one big extended family. Even if some of the people don't want to talk to you, they are still at island activities and will serve you food with a smile. 

Irigandi, is a fun and beautiful island. They are in the mountains, and actually have running water which they tap from a river. And, since they are so close to the river, the water flows out warm. This is one of the few areas in the mission where you can actually take a warm shower. However, they have no bathroom. There happens to be one public bathroom for the entire island which is for the teachers but it has a lock. Conveniently, they have not realized yet that we have a key that works which also happens to be our house key. That being said at the same time any teacher could just use their bathroom key to break into our house. I think that you could just use a pair of kindergarten scissors to literally get in. As for everyone else, they just use the beach.

I went on divisions with Elder Hanks Irizarry, and we finally got everything sorted out. Its official, we are 8th cousins! I know... with the same last name, you'd think we'd be closer. Q'Sopa Mopri. Anyways that was really cool to after 18 months of wondering about this mission and finally figuring that out. Shoutout to Elder Hanks, we an ukubir sabdued ai. He's really such a good missionary and being creative with his new role as Branch President. He's making sure everything is running smoothly, learning Dule Gaya, making sure that everyone has callings, surveying the pueblo what time works more conveniently in order to have more people at church, and just staying positive upbeat and diligent as he makes his circles around the island. It’s really motivating to see someone magnifying their calling to the fullest.

Elder Hanks Irizarry in front.

Sign that shows the cost of items with money or if you paid with coconuts.

I think that Irgandi was probably my favorite island as of yet. Then we went on divisions with Playon Chico. Ukupseni. That was great they actually have an old sign hanging up there which was cool. I went on divisions with Elder Randal which was really nice and I realized during our divisions that I was relying too much on my own experience rather than the spirit. So, I will try harder to rely more on the Lord which I’m working on. 

As I visited the islands, I explained what we need to do to avoid hitting that mental wall here on the island, because all missionaries here in San Blas hit that at some point. All of us have said or thought, "I've talked to literally everyone." I explained that he just needed to keep being positive. To have a positive mental white wash every morning before you leave and just keep doing exactly what you're doing. It’s hard to try to motivate or teach missionaries when President only sends me the best missionaries. And so, you literally just end up talking about common problems every missionary has. 

Fun new Dule Gaya word of the day. “Chit”- which means, 'Don't Bother Me'.

From Jake's cousin Megan, currently serving in Colon: 

So many of you (especially those of you who read Jake's blog) have heard a little bit about the Kuna culture. They're an indigenous tribe from the San Blas islands that have managed to maintain the great majority of their cultural roots and customs. Many families have begun to move inland, and depending on how many generations live in Panama depends on how familiar they are with the culture. We have this really cool family full of first and second generational Kunas that we've been trying to reactivate. The dad was baptized in San Blas, and then as he got older and got married, converted his wife and taught his kids. He grew up with missionaries in San Blas and the Book of Mormon, and he told us about some cool connections he and an Elder made nearly 2 decades ago.

We were talking about the islands, and I mentioned that my cousin has been out there and he asked how it's going with the language. I said I think it's been going okay but one of the last emails I read talked about how he and his companion got invited to a tribal council of elders (not the missionary kind) and didn't understand anything. He laughed his head off and explained it's because the tribe elders use a lot of ancient, outdated words that even the normal population of native Kunas don't understand. He then explained to us that the tribal council meetings were originally more like church/religious councils but now they're more political.

He also has some very intriguing theories on how Book of Mormon stories became warped and are now legends passed down from generation to generation. In Kuna culture there is a legend about a man named Ibeorgun (some say a prophet, some say God) clothed in white that descended from the heavens and taught them the Kuna culture. They word "Ibeorgun" has now been associated and attached to the meaning "God" and now it is normally viewed as the ancient, outdated version of the word "God." When Christianity was brought to the islands they adopted the words "Pab Dumat" and "Pabmachi" which are "God" and "Jesus", and many people have blended together the character "Ibeorgun" with "Pabdumat" instead of "Pabmachi", or Jesus. According to legend, Ibeorgun taught the people how to make "chicha fuerte", an alcoholic drink all the Kunas are addicted to. It's this member's theory that "chicha fuerte" is a distorted ideal recipe that came from the institution of the sacrament, and now it's become a highly addictive party drink, that comes with it the tradition of bring one closer to God.