Week 50

Gallardo, one of our super old recent converts that we visit

Strange Trees

My nightgown says ¨Passion Childhood Wonderfil. For, Happy Star¨

Blonde streaks in my hair from the sun

"Yeah I'll work on area book while you're in the shower" she said

A funny snippet from the mission newsletter

Nachos and a water fight for Hna Pday!

Some pictures from last Hna Pday I forgot to include!

Foot tan line

With Valerie, a fun girl in our ward

With Leandro and Helamán

Our growing mission family tree

Divisions with Hna Manayay!

Week 49

Well friends,

This week was only just, SHOCKINGLY hardiliterallythoughtiwasgonnadieacoupletimes but we were able to have a baptism 

and also I saw the first cow I´ve ever seen in Panama.

The boy that got baptized is named Leandro. He's 11. He goes to church with his neighbor friend who's a member and a couple weeks ago went to a baptism and felt the spirit and said ¨Missionaries I want to be baptized. Everything about this church calls my attention¨ and his mom was like ¨Dele esta bien but you better prepare him real good¨ and we said ¨dele¨ and prepared him real good and he got baptized. 

He bore his testimony after about how all the bad things have been washed away and he feels like a new person. It was tender and I said ¨wow¨ at the whole experience cause this boy just knows what he needs and goes and gets it even though he's just a joven. And guess what? He's even gonna go to young men camp next week and his mom signed up for the self sufficiency class at the church. Also yesterday a whole bunch of kiddos who we didn't even expect came to church and brought friends so I guess you could say we were very blessed at the end of a hard week.

On one of the really hard days this week we decided to splurge on lunch and go to Dominos. While we were waiting for our food we heard COLDPLAY. It was a tender mercy for Hna Montero because Coldplay is her absolute favorite band and it was a tender mercy for me because I NEVER hear familiar english music. We almost cried

Divisions in Veracruz! 

Hna Montero's funny drawing of a jaguar

Hna Greenman has denge so her and her companion have been living with us for a few days. I thought this picture was a good representation of how chaotic its been haha

Hermana P-Day watching Prince of Egypt in Spanish!

Hna Montero trying to catch a picture of me sleeping on the bus

Week 47

A spoonful of peanut butter to celebrate my baptism anniversary cause we realized it too late in the day and it was the only sweet thing we had in the house.

With Genesis, an old friend from my first area, Vista Alegre!

Another friend from Vista Alegre, Rebeka, who has since moved to the Cáceres ward. She speaks fluent english and is engaged to a Canadian so you can imagine I loved having her around my first transfer

Holaaaaa soy yoooooo,

I´m trying to repent of my SLACKER emails cause I remember when I was at home and the missionaries I knew stopped writing letters it made me soo mad and here I am doing the same. The truth is that this week was, I daresay, inspired. I feel an overwhelming peace and hope for the area I´m in and I´m realizing what a privilege it is to be a full time missionary and to get to know and lead the Hermanas with the assignment I have. God is very good and panama is a very fun and interesting place. Next week I´ll think of some wholesome stories to share cause I´m having a great (but occasionally very stressful) time. 
Also yesterday we realized that it was my 12 year anniversary of my baptism and we had candles that we bought like 2 months ago when I reached my halfway mark that we forgot to celebrate cause we were busy so we opened them but it was the last day of the week and also the cambios [transfers] (lol, no changes for me or my companion this time)) so we had nothing good and sweet in the house except peanut butter so I put the candle in that. But like, if theres anything worth celebrating it’s the day that I started on the covenant path back to Heavenly Father and My Eternal Family sooooo yeah that’s like way more exciting than halfway through a full time mission. 
Probably most of you kiddos back home also got baptized when you were 8 and don´t think much of it, but one of the biggest blessings that I´ve had in my mission has been having my eyes opened to the things that have eternal value and the things that come and go and eventually pass away with the earth. If there's anything stopping you from progressing on the covenant path, stop it. Do everything you can to get back on the path because in the end nothing else is worth it. I know and promise that there’s nothing and no one that Jesus Christ can´t recover through his atonement if you´ll just have the faith to believe that. 

I hope you all had a good week! Love you all!

Me and Hna Beckstrand with Eda (a less active member) and her daughter, Keily. We LOVE them

Eda and Keily with Hna Montero and I.