Week 54

Well kids, what can I say? MUCH has happened since last week but I´m at a loss at what I should say. I´m feeling... awkward? writing this email? But I´m very happy and peaceful. I´m living my truest dream.

The rundown is: San Blas is a strange and wondrous land. I love it.

I traveled here with a bunch of elders and one of them mega threw up in the car ride through the mountains. It was memorable and fun? Then all those Elders plus me and my companion and the other companionship of sisters that was here waiting for me with my companion all got stranded here for 2 days and it was wild to have 8 missionaries on this very small island (Carti Tupile). They only had the clothes they were wearing and rice bags full of food for the other islands so by the end of it they all basically just had beards and smelled bad.

My companion is Hna Lopez from Guatemala. She´s a fun and powerful lady. 

This place is very unlike the Panama I was in a week ago so I kind of feel like I´m starting my mission all over again but I´m not even mad. We spend most of our time teaching Seminary and Institute, cleaning and putting creams on peoples very shocking wounds and then singing to them, and reading the Book of Mormon with people. (The majority of the people here are already members of the church cause they´re high key Lamanites and already believe that a man in white came down from heaven and chose 12 men but then 3 of them didn't die).

The people here are very superstitious and believe in lots of crazy things so I decided that maybe every week I´ll be fun and tell you one of them and also a phrase I´ve learned in their dialect (called Dule-Gaya).

This week we went to visit someone and we saw that they´d put a bunch of these huge smelly leaves around one of the hammocks in their hut, so we asked what it was and they told us that one of their daughters had ´developed´ (she got her first period or is going through puberty? something like that) So when that happens the family has to make food for the whole island for a week and she has to sleep with the big leaves around her hammock. And then a bunch of the older women on the Island come and bathe her with ocean water and paint her skin black with this dye that comes from the middle of a fruit, and then they cut her hair and have to hold a chicha fuerte (involving much alcohol for all except the girl) for the whole island (cause if they don't then the island government fines them and supposedly their spirits will be punished when they die?).

Also my phrase that I´m getting really good at is asking people what their name is and saying what my name is.
Igi be nuga? = What's your name?
and then you say anuga _____ to say my name is _____.

Also wait I have a crazy miracle to share too that happened this morning:

We were walking to the church to teach seminary and I hear someone call my name. We turned around and saw this guy that I knew from Arraijan (the zone I was in for like 7 and a half months) but he wasn't from the ward I was in. I visited him two separate times on divisions and said hi to him at church sometimes cause his ward met in the same chapel. Anyways the other hermanas in Arraijan had placed a baptismal date with him for Jan 1st. Supposedly he was baptized here in San Blas when he was younger but they lost his registro, so the Hermanas invited him to be rebaptized but he had doubts and said he wanted to go back to San Blas to make sure it was really lost and not just in the office in Carti Tupile. I hadn't heard more about him until this morning and turns out he never got baptized cause he was convinced his baptismal registry was here on the Island. So immedietly we were like ¨Hey, lets go look for your baptismal registry right now!¨ so he came with us and we looked everywhere we could think of for it and bam, it wasn't there so we were like ¨ok soooo, wanna get baptized?¨ and he was like ¨well. yeah.¨ 

So yeah he's getting baptized on Sunday along with another girl, if the medicine man will let her leave her house.

Have a great week I love you alllll
Hermana Tolman

Mom's notes from the phone call:

• This is like living in Adventureland at Disneyland or the Polynesian Cultural Center, with a myriad of cultural activities to participate in every day, like husking coconuts, learning how to cook the native food, making crafts, etc.
• Most adult Kuna are church members but don't come to church on Sunday. The majority of church-goers are children. Only one member of the branch leadership attended and conducted sacrament meeting, one man was available to bless the sacrament, and one deacon was available to pass it. Hermanas Tolman and Lopez gave the two talks and Tolman led the music.
• Most adult Kuna do not speak Spanish. They speak their native language of Dule-Gaya. They also wear traditional clothing. Most youth speak Spanish because they move back and forth from the city and wear modern clothes.
• Missionaries use river water (from a hole in the back yard?) for laundry, dishes, and showering. They buy bottled water for cooking and drinking. They buy it at a little shop run by the island leader who plays western music. When it rains, the rain water can also be used for cooking and drinking.
• There are actually few trees on Carti Tupile. The palm trees and white sand beaches are on other nearby islands.
• Although most residents live in stick huts with blankets covering the walls, the missionaries are fortunate to live in a cement 2-story house with one light bulb and no running water. The outdoor bathroom consists of two wood blocks over a sand pit. This is where they "shower" (basically pour cups of water on their heads) and pee. If they need to go #2 then they walk to the church bathroom which is over the ocean. The beds are hammocks that are amazingly comfortable. Anne sleeps soundly all night long, except when she needs to venture out to the sand pit. 
• There is an LDS chapel on Carti Tupile with electricity, internet, and a nicer bathroom consisting of a hole over the ocean. The brightly colored tropical fish swarm in to eat the droppings!
• There is one Kuna man who prefers to wear women's traditional clothing.
• It takes about 5 minutes to walk from one side of the island to the other.
• There are no alligators on the island since it is a little too far from the mainland. There are many birds, bats, crabs, cats, and dogs.
• It is hot in the daytime but delightfully cool at night. Anne finally gets to enjoy wearing long sleeves, long pants, and blankets. She also finally gets to wear sandals 24/7 instead of rain boots.
• The missionaries have very little structure or supervision. There are no zone meetings or conferences to attend. Daily indicator numbers are reported through text and any baptismal interviews are conducted over the phone. A Kuna lady does their laundry so on P-day, once the little bit of shopping is done, they can nap and have more time for writing emails and calling home.
• Unless they are invited to eat with a family, the missionaries do their own food prep using nonperishable food that they brought with them in rice bags at the beginning of the transfer (lots of cup-o-noodles, canned food, pop tarts, etc.- a dream for Hermana Tolman who hasn't had that kind of food in a long time!)

A quick video demonstrating how you can see both ends of the island from our house

Some cool birds we always see that remind me of kites

A video that shows how small and close together the Carti Islands are

A sea creature in a chip bag. It was alive and squirming!

Every Saturday is Tarde de Cocoa (Cocoa Day) for the island kids. We prepare the cocoa and blow a conch shell to summon the kids. They come running with their own cups and when the cocoa is handed out, we put on a movie for them.

Sharing Prince of Egypt with them 

Rosa making avena (kind of like watery oatmeal) for all the kids on the island. Not my picture but it's a common occurance so I felt like I should include it.

Did some service helping an old kuna lady cook her plantains over a fire. She didn't speak a WORD of Spanish but she seemed happy to accept our help and explain something to us in her dialect.

The Church! It's over the water!

The view from our porch

We picked these seashells up ourselves!

Some patita de gallina (chicken feet) that a member made for us

Church manuel in dulegaya

Week 53

Hermana Tolman has been transferred to the San Blas Islands!! This is her dream come true. These are quintessential Caribbean islands with white sand, palm trees, and turquoise waters. She will be working with the indigenous Kuna people in very primitive conditions. The missionaries live in huts with no running water and sleep in hammocks. It's a very different lifestyle from the one she has had in Panama City the past year--much slower and focused on humanitarian service. She is so excited!

No letter this week, she is so busy getting ready to go! But here are some pictures:

A humble meal to celebrate her one year mark

Cat looks like it's throwing up in the trash can

Elder and Sister Teixeira

Elder (Brian) and Sister Taylor

Hna Tolman was lucky enough to see her MTC group at a Mission Conference on February 13th- her one year mark!

One of the last sunsets in Cáceres B

Hna Montero has a talent for taking really good pictures of the moon on digital cameras

Gisela (left) is Leandro's mother and will soon be baptized.
She is so sad to say farewell to Hermanas Tolman and Montero! She has taken good care of them. 

With Blanca, a recent convert

With Familia Amaya! They fed us lunch every Sunday

With Vilma (a member in our ward) and her daughter Valerie. Her husband was our ward mission leader so we had many meetings at her house.

Week 52

Hello! I have two happy things to share.
So on Tuesday we were having one of those AWFUL days where literally nobody is at home or if they are they don´t want to receive us so we were just walking all day in the sun, but we went to visit Leandro cause we were close by and his mom goes ¨Leandro´s not here! He got up at like 5am and went to the temple with the young men!¨ and then we asked his neighbor friend´s mom and apparently he got up super super early and got all dressed and called his member friend like 90 times and then they went to the temple for the whole day to do baptisms for the dead. It was so heart warming on Sunday to talk to him about his experience and how he wants to be able to go to the ´upstairs part´ one day.

The other happy thing is that we´re teaching this family (one of Leandro´s friends saw us in the street once and said ¨Missionaries! Come teach my family too!¨ and turns out they received the missionaries like 7 years ago and always went to church and everything but they never got baptized cause they took the missionaries out of this area for a while? algo asi (Translation: something like that). But it's also crazy cause the missionary that taught them in like 2013 is the very same missionary whose blog I read after I got my call. Small world. Anyways.) The mom is a very laughy sarcastic person and a little while ago we invited them to pray about if Joseph Smith was a prophet and they STILL hadn't done it so we were like "Would it help you if you did it right now, with us, so you don ́t forget?" and she accepted. So she said the prayer and then we all sat in silence for like 5 minutes. And she looks at us with tears in her eyes and goes ¨Hermanas. I felt something. And I´m confused cause I´ve always prayed but I´ve never felt this feeling before. It's like. Peace? Do you feel this peace every time you pray?¨ and it was just the best time. It was one of those experiences that I always hoped to have before my mission cause you see it in The District and stuff like that but anyways. Yeah.

Other than that, this week this member who´s Kuna [indigenous people of Panama] invited us over to try this soup they eat in San Blas that has coconut, plantano, yuca, and fish all mixed together. It has a long complicated name that's not English or Spanish. I surprisingly really liked it.

Also in our zone we took a picture of the Hermanas in order, from North America to South America. 

Our very diverse zone of sisters! We even had a sister from Panama but she had to go home for medical reasons so she's not in the picture. :-(  But the order is USA, USA, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina.

Me and Hna Greenman on Divisions in Vacamonte!

One thing I forget to mention is that a LOT of people burn their trash in their front yards. It took me a while to realize that because of the humidity the fires never spread or get big (a very foreign concept to a Utah girl such as myself)

This week at church, one of the members who's not even in our ward gifted me this notebook. He taped an Audrey Hepburn quote in it that says "Nothing is impossible, the word itself says IM possible" and wrote his email on the back of it. He also tucked an origami rose and a San Blas painted feather in it as a gift.

Dogs think they rule the world

Bus stop in Bique

With Nana, a Kuna in our ward who feeds us every week

Week 51

Today I have some GOOD news to share.

Number one is that we have this mission newsletter and as a part of it they put pictures of baptisms that week in the mission and last week I saw that Josid (the boy who we helped get baptized in like, July, in my other area) ´s Dad got baptized!! 

Probably none of you even remember or care but I was just the most happy when I saw that cause we taught him but he was struggling with a lot of doubts and baptism seemed very far off and distant but LOOK now they’re on their way to being sealed in the temple. What a true miracle to see.

2. is that Leandro (who got baptized 2 weeks ago) went to young men’s camp and passed the sacrament yesterday. He didn’t have a white shirt and tie and he was so sad but then one of the other young men somehow found one for him and lent it to him so he could pass the sacrament. It was tender.

3. We had a baptism! 

Me and my daughter Hermana Ruiz on Divisions.

It was very out of the blue but the story is that on Christmas day I was on divisions (that’s another story..) and we went in a taxi and started talking to the taxi driver so we could, you know, share the gospel and we come to find that he actually got baptized like, 5 or 6ish months ago but then he never got confirmed because his work situation got complicated and desperate so he started working on Sundays. We were like *what* because we had no record of him at all so it seemed a little sketchy (even though there was a big switch up because we share the ward with elders and they got whitewashed and changed the boundaries so half the registries are in their house and half of them are in our house and so it actually makes sense that something like that would get lost in the confusion) so anyways we wrote down his phone number and address but for some reason whenever we tried to contact him it just didn’t work and we asked the members about him but turns out we just asked the wrong members about him cause they were like "oh yeah, Juan! I remember him! Don’t know where he lives tho, sorry" And to be honest after that we kind of got swept away in busyness and forgot about it until BAM he shows up to church and says "my heart is changed and I have repented, Baptize me plz" and we were like "hmmm" and thoroughly made sure he understood the commandments and doctrine and that this time around he was committed to enduring to the end and here we are, two weeks later and he´s baptized. I didn´t know this before but turns out the Elders Quorum President had been putting him on the temple prayer roll for all this time and then suddenly he showed up to church so that was a cool miracle. Right in the middle of his baptism the power went out so it was PITCH black and everyone just used the flashlights on their phones. It was very memorable. To me it was powerful when he was being baptized and they said "Having been commissioned of Jesus Christ" because it brought to mind 3 Nephi 9:14 where it says that anyone--that ANYONE--who repents and comes unto Christ with real intent will be welcomed with open arms.

I´m learning every day that The Atonement of Jesus Christ applies to all of our little shortcomings in character and discipline, and it’s a joyous opportunity that means you don’t have to be stuck the way you are. The only difference between being or not being a disciple of Jesus Christ is your dedication to daily repentance and hope in Him. Don´t lose your faith in the reality that we have a Savior and that he suffered so we don´t have to! 

Anyways. That´s my lil message 4 all u hoy.

Also today we visited a monument near the Bridge of the Americas that commemorates 150 years of China's presence in Panama.

See the temple there on the left?

Hermana Nielsen, the mission nurse, preaching about the superpowers of bananas

Juan's Baptism!

Me with Albaro, a Golden Investigator

Some cool plants that grow in the driveways in our area

I saw something in the corner of my eye and upon closer look it was a bunch of ANTS carrying a dead baby COCKROACH

We heard this funny parrot singing it's heart out somewhere in the neighborhood