Celebrating 28 years! (week 86)

Hey friends and wonderful family, 

Wow so it was another exciting week just like every week out here in the best place in the world.  Changuinola is the bees knees and the cats pajamas at the same time.  People are so awesome and the branch sucks but some members I freaking love and are so down to help. The more time you have in the mission the better relationship you build with the members and the more willing they are to help you.  So yesterday we went with an awesome member named Hermano Piti to do visits all afternoon.  I haven't been driven in a car for that long in a while and we got to know sooo many people.   It also taught me a lot of principles that are really important for me like we talked a lot about the quote by Jesus that "its easier for a camel to go through an eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter into heaven". It was interesting to hear his remarks and concepts on the story and it really made me think about the importance of not being selfish. Man the mission just teaches so much and yet there is sooo much I need to learn haha.  Wow so update is that these scabies are not going away!  I think its because of all the contact I have with these nbobes, who tend to be dirtier than kunas (which is really hard to imagine). So one guy was saying that the best cure for scabies is to get this type of leaf called "matarata" (not the best name hahha) and to boil a bunch of the leaves and rub them on my body. So I was in the shower last night probably looking like a crazy person rubbing bright green leaves on my skin. At the end I turned literally a tint of green haha and I pray these freaking things go away. I had to hunt the "matarata" down in the jungle for like 20 min so it better be worth it.  So finally we had a freaking BAPTISM!! his name is Christian and he's 17 years old. We found him living by himself in a house basically on house arrest. He had just gotten out of prison in David for gang violence and robbery, yup.. so it was a loong call with pres and it took a lot of convincing on my part but pres has a lot of confidence in me though so he got baptized yesterday. It was sooo awesome and in two weeks he's turned his life around...he hadn't abused drugs or been out doing things in a while before we met him.  He fully repented and it was soo awesome to see his changes and now we are talking about him going on a mission.  Only prob is he has gang tattoos still and there are a great number of people trying to kill him.  But he has really become a disciple of Jesus and I'm so happy for him and I will always write and support that kid...such a good friend of mine. Ya so all is well...love life and the mission and couldn't be happier. The people here are awesome as ever so ya that's all I got.  Love you all have an awesome week!!

Elder Call