That one metaphor about the two wolves that are fighting and the one that gets fed is the one who wins has been on my mind constantly since getting set apart as a missionary. One wolf is doubt and bitterness (doubt that I can actually do this and bitterness against circumstances or mean people) and the other one is Hope. I’m learning that we feed the Hope wolf by preparing the way for the Lord to pour out his miracles to you- by DOING what he’s asked you to do, by LOOKING for people and things to love and for needs to fill, and by not hesitating to resolve what we can resolve because burying and glossing over things is the opposite of hope.
Anyways.
HELLO everyone! I´m here in Panama!! We got up at like 4am last Tuesday (March 26th) and took the train to the airport. It was so weird to pass by South Jordan on the train and see the Oquirrh Mtn temple flash by... like that part in Willy Wonka where they're in the scary tunnel. Or maybe it wasn´t. I can't remember.
Anyways. Being in the airport was a wild ride cause all of us hadn't been in the real world for 6 weeks. Also it was an adjustment to have everyone staring at us and our name tags very indiscreetly and also an adjustment to take people staring at you as an opportunity to start a conversation. It was funny. We went to Chick-fil-A in the Atlanta airport and they asked for my first name and I forgot that was a thing so I panicked and said Anne and the worker raised his eyebrows and kept looking back and forth between my face and my nametag trying to understand. I think he thought my first name was Hermana.
We talked to this guy on the plane to Panama who was headed here for a Bachelor party and left him with a Book of Mormon. Also flying over Florida was super cool cause there was a thunderstorm and we had an aerial view of it. I remember seeing the lights from key west slowly disappear and just flying into the darkness and feeling like that was profound in a way.
Ok, ok what next.
We landed in Panama and the APs (assistants to the mission president) came and picked us up and took us to a hotel. They straight up looked like the Temple Run guys. The first things that hit me when I left the airport were how HOT it is here and how LOUD the birds are, even at 11pm.
Anyways. I´m getting impatient with writing about the first 24 hours so I'll just sum up by saying I was super happy and super sweaty. Also I woke up at like 3am and started getting ready for the day and then realized it was 3am and went back to bed and then did the same thing like 2 or 3 more times throughout the night.
My trainer is Hermana Strong. She just barely got done being trained so both of us are learning a lot together. Also we´re opening this area together. She was in Madrigals in High School and likes Youtube just like me. It´s funny cause we have a lot in common but it still took a while for us to connect. And by a while I mean like 4 days. But that felt like 20 years ago. Lots of things that were super new and weird to me 6 days ago are just the norm now. Like I could make a trash Buzzfeed video about all the types of catcallers. Everyone warns us about how unsafe everything is but my trainer always just says it's safer than her last area so I guess it's fine. It's relatively close to Panama City because they like to keep all the new missionaries close to the city for Visa purposes. Half of our area is super Urban and kind of reminds me of like a sketchy residential part of New York (there's a ton of taxis) but with palm trees and then the other half is super rural feeling and hilly and jungley. Like one time we were walking in the Rural part and stopped to ask for directions and there was this shirtless old man listening to Island Sounding Hymns while picking mangoes from all his mango trees and he gave us some.
Another funny thing is we don't knock on doors or clap at gates, we just yell ¨BUENAS¨ but a bunch of people have pet parrots and so a lot of times there's nobody home but we stand there forever cause we think someone's there but it's just a parrot yelling Buenas back at us.
The physical adjustment has been surprisingly no big deal. Maybe I'm just disgusting or maybe all your prayers are just blessing me to not be bugged. But yeah things are gross. Like our fridge was super black and moldy and had dead cockroaches in it and so did our shower but I just kind of shrug and move on. I understand a lot of what people are saying and can follow conversations but I feel like the listening part of my brain is so overworked that everything else is just mush. Sometimes throughout the day I´m just on the verge of tears for no reason but it's never about anything specific at all. Just stress I guess.
OH. also I am SO sunburnt even though I put on so much sunscreen every day.
I have a MIRACLE story (actually like 3) that I want to share but I have like 2 seconds left to write so maybe I´ll just save it for next week so that it will actually make sense and not be super scattered. I love you all and I´m sorry if I don't respond to any of your emails this week! I only have an hour to do everything on the computer and I'm still figuring out how to manage my time. But I´m gonna take pictures of all your emails so I can read them and respond next week.
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| Hermanas Strong & Tolman |
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New Arrivals from Provo MTC
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| Comparing our tans |
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| Mango Trees in our area |
There's these frogs in our area that live down in the drains on the road and they sound just like Pacman!
These same frogs also get run over by cars so there's flattened frogs all over the roads that I call "Frog Jerky"
I see these ants carrying leaves around all the time all over our area. It's funny cause I always call them "hormigas" which is the word I know for ants but apparently they're not "hormigas" they're "zompopos" which I always mix up with "pompis" which means booty
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