Love you!! (week 10)

Hey momma, thanks for the pep talks; you have no idea how they actually really help me and I’m serious about that.  It’s hard, I’m not going to lie, it’s really freaking hard…by far the hardest thing I have ever done.  Luckily, I aint a wimp and you taught me how to work.  Mainly it’s the Spanish that is the roughest…it’s hard feeling kind of lonely all day…I’m not too cocky anymore haha…super rough and humbling.  Life here is still good though and I love every minute of it, which is just crazy, but its totally true.  I love you momma so much you’re the best in the world…miss u tons.  Thanks for the prayers…I pray for the fam also every minute.

I have like ten minutes to grind this email out so please ignore the typos lol…we never have enough time i swear.  Good times though and another week down…its going pretty fast.  I’ve been here for more than a month now so its just crazy stuff how fast time flies.  We had 5 investigators at church today so that was pretty awesome…i was pumped.  Well life is still good and I’m hanging in there through some really hard times but there’s super rewarding times too. Some of the hards are the language…you already know that.  Another hard is my unsettled stomach.  I don’t know what they put in the food down here but my tummy does not like it…sooo out of control, hahah, i guess it doesn’t like all of the beans, rice, and strange unnamed tropical fruits. 

Something funny that happened this week is we were walking down this random road and we heard this really loud out of control spanish music…like sooo loud.   So we decide to walk by, cuz we were wondering who could possibly be so obnoxious, and we take a look and it is our bishop hahahaha.  Turns out he’s an uber driver in the city part time so he has a boof little pimped out car.  The car has a little disco ball, a flashing strobe and disco lights…it looks sooo boof i almost died laughing.  But that’s the church down here for you…out of freaking control.  The leadership and stuff is so different than the states.  Another thing you have to understand about my area here in panama is that every family lives in a hut and makes like a dollar an hour.  So they all live in shacks but then they’ll have the biggest speakers you have ever seen in your life that are all shiny and chromed out.  Like i don’t understand…they live in practically cardboard houses but then have the fattest speakers with the biggest subs you have ever seen…just incredible sound systems.  Everyone is just way into music but they play the best music though too.  I looove the music down here…we hear it everyday all day from the street…tons of columbian music and tons of fun salsa and merengue music.  Another thing is that these people have literally 20 kids each.  Like there could be a young couple that’s around 25 years old, and they’ll have something like 10 kids that are all 6 months apart…kinda thought that wasn’t possible but I swear they’re straight rabbits down here haha.  Just know that I’m happy, I’m having super good times, and me and my comp are working really hard. 

I will send a better email next week…love u all!! --Elder call

This week... (week 9)

Hey fam and friends,

This week was good in panama as usual.  Times are still obviously sooo hard with the language and stuff but I’m getting adjusted well and everything is great.  My comp still knows no english, and I still know no Spanish, so that’s a bit rough. Besides that i still looove panama.  It’s so beautiful and green and the people are so amazing.  We had some rain this week and I’m NOT too excited for rainy season to get here but I’ll make the best of it. Well we have a bunch of new investigators so we’re teaching a bunch of people.  I teach a good amount, my comp is hard on me that way, which is good and bad.  We still have those baptismal dates but i don’t think any of them are going to pull thru…none of them have come to church even once.  That’s the biggest challenge so far for baptisms.  They all work or play soccer on sunday and we have to convince them that god and family is what is most important.  Our Mission Pres I haven’t told you much about but he is super strict.  Apparently the president before him was super lax and every single missionary was disobedient.  So when he left they sent in the big guns…and I mean the BIG guns!  My mission pres worked for the FDA and also owns like a drug testing company.. soo yeah…strict!  When he got here he literally sent like 30 missionaries home early right away.  He’s super strict and legend has it he keeps return home flight tickets in his pocket just waiting to be used.  Obviously that’s a missionary joke…but I’m not so sure anymore if that’s really a joke or not.  So that’s that, but he’s still a really good guy and our mission is really successful.  We are one of the highest baptizing missions in the world so the mission is doing something right.  My comp got bit by a dog last week and that scene was sooo funny it killed me.  But he was not happy with me laughing about it even though it was pretty darn funny.   I now hate dogs…all of them and I now will never ever own a dog.  Everywhere we go there are 100000000 stray dogs.  I used to feel bad for them all but I don’t anymore.  They bark all day and threaten to attack us constantly…it’s the worst!  I go to the city tomorrow for my 4th week new elders meeting and I’m super pumped for that.  Another quick story…I really had to wee super bad and my comp didn’t want me to because we were walking on the street.  I decide I have to go anyway so I go into the jungle a little ways off of the road.  After taking care of my biz I leave the jungle and when I get back to the street I look down and i am covered in 500000 ants. They were biting me everywhere and it was the worst…I kinda freaked out…lol…such a mean trick but the ants taught me to always obey my companion haha. 

But yeah, out of time, love u all! --Elder Call

pics i have, me cuttin open pipas, green coconuts. Also we had a garbage bonfire last night which was dope. The people burn all there garbage or litter it. Like were talkin garbage everywhere its kinda sad. and its always smokling plastic cus they dont care what they burn its great. kuna BOM there language is nuts, and i might have to learn alot of it. and a huge spider cant see it that well but its a massive banana spider

Panama! (week 8)

Hey fam and everyone, thank u for all of your emails. Wow this week was soo nuts but now that i’m writing this email i’m forgetting so much of this week already haha. Super crazy here and the language is rough so i pray that catches on soon. the investigators are awesome though…all super nice and most of the time they will help me.  I still get made fun of alllll of the time but that’s chill…really not that big of a deal.  it’s suuuper humbling though and its so crazy how much u have to rely on god and just beg u can pick up the language so u can communicate. its frustrating sometimes with a latino companion too because we don’t understand each other…still great though but it takes a ton of patience.  The language is by far the biggest issue right now.  Life is good though, super hard but good. Crazy times!  we got two baptismal dates this week so that’s awesome…baptism dates are for the 25th of the month.  we are teaching a ton of investigators and walk everywhere to meet with them…super draining and soo frustrating with the language.  i have a quick story but probably don’t show the kids the whole thing. so we met a member at a chino and she bought us maltas. She was from the D.R. and was super funny but a total nut…in her fifties probably. So we reluctantly go to her house which is literally a shack and she’s a straight horder. Crap everywhere it was soo gross. but me and my companion are laughing the whole time because she’s a nut…all of a sudden she starts slapping chicken feet on the stove and i almost thru up just watching it.  I was laughing with my comp about it when she wasn’t looking, but i had a bad attitude about the situation cus we were supposed to be doing cosechas (certain type of tracting we do).  so then she starts talking to us more about her life. she grew up in the dominican republic and when she was 14 she was raped by a bunch of policemen.  she ended up getting pregnant at FOURTEEN and having TWINS…one was black and one was white.  from the time they were born they were always fighting and never once got along.  she ended up working on a boat and making a little money, then got in a car accident, and got injured bad enough to lose her job. She was broke and had to move to panama.  Here in panama she barely scraped by begging and trying to feed her kids. She ended up having two more kids and was homeless with her kids her whole life.  the kids are all older now and her daughter has cancer and the other son lost his job.  tons more has happened to her but basically she’s had the saddest life ever.  I’m crying just writing about her.  after she told us those stories, suddenly the chicken feet she gave us started to taste a little bit better and my troubles seemed a little less.  My judgment of her went down 100,000 percent and all i wanted to do was help her and give her all the money i had in my wallet.  moral of the story…never judge anyone no matter what because we have no clue what people are going through…always feel blessed for what u have.  our struggles may be hard but the rest of the world’s struggles are 2,000 times harder.  So that’s all i have for now because I’m kinda out of time…sorry that story was a little longer than i wanted it to be.  It’s SUPER crazy and awesome down here and i’m loving every minute of it, even though its by far the roughest thing i have ever done.  i have a bunch of pics and i will send them all out.  Love you all, Elder Call

first morn waking up in panama. took the pic from the hotel in the city. wow has my life changed since that day

snip bit of our crib, thats the kitchen lol prob the best part of the crib 

just a  pic of me bein a man of the jungle

my comp, me plantin yuka with a kuna, they are everywhere, majorty of the people i am with are kuna in my area. super awesome i loove them. they love all gringos but thats a story for another day 

e today on pday with the bucket and a tupper wear. we dont have running water like half the time so we have to shower with the bucket lol it sucks. gets so hot we have to air out with the fan lol

Panama Baby!!! (week 7)

Yo what’s gucci fam?  You’re catching me in some crap internet cafe right now that is run by chinos (asians).  this first week was hectic starting tuesday night when i first arrived in panama.  I got off the plane and of course immediately lost my passport lol…accused a bunch of panamanians of stealing it then 15 min later found it in my bag lol.  totally something i would do…some things don’t change.  the office elders probably hate me now.  Wow…the first thing here that hit me was obviously the humidity and heat.  sooo humid and hot u are just constantly sticky and hot.  sucks but i knew it was guna be like this…swamp nuts real quick!  So we stayed in a hotel in panama city the first night and the next day we went to the president’s house.  It’s in panama city obviously and holy cow panama city is awesome…pretty dirty of course but so hectic fun.  First impressions of the city were awesome.  then got my companion elder martinez.  He’s from honduras and doesn’t speak a lick of english haha.  He is the freakin man…honestly sooo dope.  super grateful for him and his patience hahaha.  He’s a convert, his dad is dead, and he’s super poor.  He’s so funny and super hard working too.  Learning tons of spanish but still know absolutely nothing.  Frustrating and lonely but I will learn it fast.  So then we hopped on a bus that morning to run some errands and to get to our area.  For dad- the first bus i went on is called the diablo rojo.  the buses are all old and soo crappy, but u definitely know that already, and the inside was velvet red with shiny red seats with tons of vulgar things on the walls.  They were bumpin columbian music and all dancing haha. That was my first experience with the people and i loved every second of it!  I looooove the music down here and the people…everything u described dad was true.  The people are all soo fun and loving and understanding…so awesome!  My area is called arraijan and it’s about thirty minutes by bus from panama city.  I loooove my area so much it’s an awesome first area.  Anyway, so then we get on a different bus to head over to our area and walk to our house.  Wow…i saw our house and almost dropped down and died.  It’s the crappiest thing i have ever seen in my life.  I didn’t think anything could be so crappy.  All cement block obviously, with no windows just shapes in the walls, so your basically outside if that makes sense.  cement floors with a tiny crap kitchen that we had to buy a little portable stove for.  There’s barely any running water of course and none hot and obviously no ac.  The shower is just a little spout in the wall that dribbles out cold water. The bathroom is all moldy and gross hahaha.  If that sounds bad just think of the house i described in your head, and then twice as bad as that, and that’s my home where i live.  i’m sleeping in a hammock now cus the mattress wasn’t even a mattress…springs were all like sticking out and crap.  The area is awesome though.  The people are super great.  down below where we live is super poor but still ok.  everyday though we go up in the mountain that they call the nubes because its real high up in the clouds and the further you go up the mountain the more poor it gets…like we’re talking poor times 10 up there.  all of the kids are just naked and playing in the dirt.  they live in like cardboard huts and they are lucky if part of their house is like scrap metal or cement. These people have absolutely nothing…soo shocking to see on my first day.  I can’t even describe how poor it is just insane.  for dad again- lol first day i got like 3 boobs whipped out on me hahaha soo shocking how they feed their kids…super distracting but funny.  There’s tons of kuna indians in the nubes so that’s awesome because they are great.  I guarantee you remember pops…all beaded out wearing like nothing.  Nobody wears clothes here…too funny.  So as far as my spanish goes its rough.  I know nothing haha.  luckily its the dry season now so there’s not much rain but in a couple of months it will be raining non stop they say.  Our investigators are awesome and we taught tons of lessons this week.  some investigators came to church yesterday so that was super cool.  I will give you all more of that side of things next week.  Idk if i can send pics this week or not but i hope i can.  In one pic I’m planting yucca with a kuna indian lady hahaha…but all of my pics are great.  Well…everyone just be grateful for what u have u are all lucky as heck…trust me.  Its crazy how life is down here, from the trash to the poverty, but it’s just nuts how nice the people are even still and they’re soo humble.  Kk love u all.  i will probably send a bunch of pics next week…peace.   Love, elder call

cant send pics rn but i will u are guna love my pics. My area is literally straight jungle and sooo beautiful. It will give u a better perspective of the house and area and stuff. I love it here tho, I literally barely know spanish but i want to tell u so much but i just cant. Next week i will send some fire pictures. give u a taste of the poverty and my comp and area.