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.
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Elder Hanks Irizarry in front. |
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.