Happy Birthday Charlie! (week 26)

Hey friends and fam!

Well the first week in my new area was sooo awesome.  My new area is called Cabuya, Tocumen and my comp’s name is elder Lefler.  He’s the freaking man and we are killing the game out here.  We’re working like animals hahaha but I can tell y’all one thing and that is my Spanish is not improving with an American companion.  This area is still pretty ghetto, but has more money than loma coba, my last area, so we get food from members and they help us a lot more with the work which is a great thing.  I’m getting fat down here though, dear heavens lol, because we take the bus a lot now because its really convenient so we walk a lot less than we did in Loma Coba. Our area is literally right spanking next to the Panama international airport so there are millions of airplanes flying over head every day.  I thought the planes were pretty awesome at first, but when your trying to teach, sleep, or do anything lol it sucks, suuuper freaking loud.  I’m talking like right next to the airport so I get to see planes taking off like every 5 minutes so I guess that’s kind of cool.  I’m getting used to taking like 10 second pauses when airplanes are taking off and we are trying to teach hahaha.  We had a baptism this week which is always nice.  Young Kuna kid…he’s like thirteen and his family was mas o menos members before his mom got sick and died and before his dad dipped out of their lives and hooked up with another girl.  The dad has another family with this other girl…he’s a little bit of a loser haha.  So the kid  lives with his 4 other brothers and sisters and with some of his cousins and the dad only gives all 5 of them 20 bucks for food every fifteen days so they are sooo poor and its a struggle for them.  None of them are in school and none of them can read (story of panama) so we found him and he loves going to church so we got permission to baptize him to make a long story short. So yeah that was the week.  I don’t have any pics, because I forgot to take my camera to the baptism, but my comp took some pics and I’m going to get from him.  I’ve only taken one pic of the area hahaha and maybe I’ll send that pic next week. 

Peace fam and friends…love u all!

Happy Fourth of July (week 25)

Hey Fam and friends!

Thanks for all of the love and support through your emails!  Well this week was sooo awesome with so many miracles in the mission and in our area.  We Baptized 4 people this week and it was sooo awesome. My comp had the chance to baptize all of them lol but i confirmed 2 of them in sacrament meeting. It was huge pressure confirming them in front of everyone but the spirit was super strong and it was good.  

Well, the miracle of the week for the mission was in San Blas.  The zone leaders went to the house of one of the chiefs of an island to talk to him and convince him that he should allow missionaries on the island.  When they got to his house he was out fishing in the middle of the ocean and so they were just small talking with the fam. While the chief was out fishing a black butterfly landed on his hand and in the Kuna culture and beliefs that’s a direct sign that you are going to get pure wisdom from god soon.  So he flies back to shore in his boat right after the butterfly landed on him and went straight to his house and the missionaries were there unexpectedly.  It freaking turns out that this syla (chief) just got elected to be the head syla of all the islands in san blas (350).  So he talked with the missionaries and believed everything they said and now he’s convincing all of the other chiefs to allow missionaries on the islands that we couldn’t preach on before.  So that was dope and sooo many missionaries are now in San Blas and are baptizing like crazy….super dope.  

We also had changes this week and I’m now in Tocumen, Panama.  It’s an hour and a half outside of the city in some ghetto.  It’s actually an awesome area and I’m super excited for this fresh start but I’m going to miss my old comp a lot too…he was the man!  I’m a bit disappointed because I’m with an American comp now and I really wanted another Latino comp again for the Spanish but its alright.   My new companion leaves the mission this next change so in six weeks I will have a new comp.  My new comp seems like the man though and I’m super excited to work with him. 

So that was my week.  I’m having a great time working my tail off.  It’s suupppeerrr hard work all of the time but its so worth it and I love it.  Moving to a new area in the mission is hard but I hear the people here in this area are great too.  

Much love and peace to all!

Pics-

1. new crib…its a dump (expected nothing less)

2. new comp (sorry only pic i took)

3. saying bye to last comp

4. Last Sunday dinner in area…by far my favorite members in Loma Coba…going to miss them sooo much love them to death.  If I come back to visit panama they will be some of the first people I visit.  Their other daughter just left on a mission last month to Honduras.

5. Family we baptized. super awesome love them too sooo much

6. girl we baptized…we reactivated the whole fam and baptized her…super inactive before

7. just your classic pic of me in front of the church

 

Summer is the best (week 24)

Hey fam and friends! How yall living? well as for me it was a grind of a week but wow another week down and learning more and more every day. Next week is changes dear heavens so crazy, feels like i have more time here but i have 4 months in the days in panama and in loma coba specifically. Well as for the week it was aite, lot of ups and downs. the down was that the baptism we had planned got pushed back to this friday, but the good news is we are going to baptize a fam this friday and like 2 other people. Lot of miracles are happening in the mission and my testimony just grows and grows. Im guna be honest the mtc my testimony freakin shot up sooo much, panama is different because ur not surrounded all day by amazing other people and u dont get general authority's every week. But it just grows and grows and im so honored to be a missionary in this time. Well highlight of the week was playing monopoly with my comp today haahah downer of the week is i was CRAVING a diet coke (i know im wierd, And my dads son) but i never found one and i was soo sad. But life is good, inv. are all good and my spanish is hanging in there. Ready to dip from this area hahaha love it but scenery here is old now. Hey maybe i will head to san blas like pops and grandpa early on in the mission (prob not). Well yeah thats all i have love u all and i will let u know if i leave this are or not, Peace out---Elder Call

only pic is of comp and i gamin monopoly today lol

It's Hot (week 23 )

Hey friends and fam!

Wow, my bad for not sending a group email last week.  I was super busy and our pdays got shortened for the month…we start working earlier on pdays now.  Life is good…hard but always good.  I’m still in Loma Coba and there is 2 weeks left in this change.  Time is flying and i can’t believe this change is almost over.  I just looked at the date and holy cow I’ve got 5 months in the mission as of yesterday.  

So this week was awesome and we had a baptism which is always good. The girl is only ten but soo special and I’m so excited for her. Her Dad is in prison and her mom left her to go back to the San Blas Islands, so she has been living with her grandparents.  They were really inactive so we reactivated them and had her grandpa baptize her.  So that was sooo awesome.  

Well today we had pday with our zone elders so we all played soccer and afterwards we had pizza (which is like the 2nd time in all of my mission).  Me and my comp Elder Gonzalez got lost on the way and we ended up walking around our zone for like an hour looking for the church where they were playing.  

This week we had divisions too.  Our district leader is on the “little slower” side and they ended up getting locked out of their house after divisions and had to sleep at our house hahah but it was a ton of fun.  Divisions were good and I’m doing alright.  Just grinding every day hahah every day is a new grind.  I loved hearing about my Warriors. 

That’s about it…love you all…I’m outtie! --Elder call 

--sorry pics are kinda weak first is of the baptsim obvi. and one of them is with one of my favorite members down here hermana erutina. Last is of this monkey i saw that was out of contol in his lil cage hahaha poor guy.

You are the Man! (week 21)

Good week out here and wow the 2nd week of this change went sooo much faster than the first.  My new comp is a good guy; but we are pretty opposite in all things especially interests and personality.  He’s a good guy though and we are working hard.  We should have a lot of success this month together so I’m looking forward to it.  We have some great new investigators and we dropped a lot of the oldies who didn’t want to progress.  The highlight of this week was definitely today.  I finally climbed to the top of the mountain in my area and it was sooo legit.  Straight jungle and sooo long of a hike…took us round trip about five hours total.  But it had such a good view at the top and you could see Panama City, the ocean and my area.  You can’t really see in my pics because it wasn’t the clearest of days but the view was awesome.  Of course at the very top of the mountain we still managed to find a bunch of drunk Panamanians…like where do they all come from?  hahaha But all is well with me, I still really love my area but our ward is still trash (sorry) but working hard to help fix that.  Sorry my letters are kind of trashy too but time is not what I have.  I’ve got some good pics to share this week. 

1. Start of the hike 

2. Big old spider we found up there hahaha

3. My area from like half way up the mountain

4. A little of the view…I have more of the city and stuff but they’re not clear enough to send

5. Funny sign outside of a members house…just your typical Kuna grandma hahaha.

Memorial Day (week 20)

Hey friends and fam! 

Wow this week was pretty long and so nuts.  I probably got lost with the new comp 50 times…my area is so freaking huge now.  But the week was aite.  Panama is eating me alive, literally…just an absurd amount of mosquitoes, heat, and humidity.  But the new comp is good, he doesn’t talk much and there’s no one like my old comp.  Always an adjustment with a new comp but hopefully this week goes a little smoother.  Pretty sad this week too because we had two baptisms planned for next Saturday but they got pushed back cuz they suddenly left to San Blas for the month... wish I could say that isn’t typical hahaha. 

I don’t really have a big highlight of the week.   Wait, actually I do…one day this week was especially hard and not much was going my way.  The day felt like it was a month long and it was so flipping hot and my Spanish was sucking.  So at the end of the day I went to a chino (corner store) and got a huge thing of grape nut ice cream which is straight cash money down here.  I swear I finished it all in less than a minute.  It’s the little things that make you happy down here haha.  Well, out of time, which is the story of my life. 

Bye friends and fam, sorry my letter is so weak lol. 

Pics---

1.  The ice cream hahaha sooo fire.

2.  My comp on a road I haven’t had the time to go down.  Its literally just straight jungle…I’m maybe going to explore it next pday.

3.  First macaw I have seen in real life too.  Wow they are dope, so much bigger than I thought.

4.  The last is of a nice sunset, guna be honest the sunsets are like that every night though hahaha.

Big Changes (week 19)

Wow…another great week in Panama friends and Fam!  This week was hectic.  We had changes and a lot has happened.  So I’m with a guy from El Salvador right now and his name is Elder Gonzalez.  He seems pretty cool and I’m fortunate to be with another Latino comp so I can continue improving my Spanish.  So this week I have a ton of things to say, but as always, my time is short.  We did some service last week and helped build a house for some of our investigators.  It was the first time I have built a house Panamanian style and wow…it’s no joke.   It just involves a whole lot of crappy cement and a lot of blisters.  Building the house was pretty fun work and the investigators fed us some good stuff too.  It was really funny to learn how they build their houses down here. 

So today was changes and it turns out I’m opening up another area.  So before the change today the zone leaders were in the area right next to ours, but now they are moving to a different part of Arrigan.  So I now have their area along with the area I’ve been in so my new area is huge with a lot of land.  But it’s going to be really fun…going to be a crazy adventure for sure.  So last week the zone leaders assumed this was going to happen so they showed me their area and where their investigators live and all that stuff.  So pray that I remember where they all live because I’ve got a lot in the old brain right now hahaha.  Send your prayers.  Well now at least I’ll get dinner with members almost every night where before we only got one meal every week which was weeaaak hahaha.  I’m excited for this next change and I’m expecting a lot out of myself and my new companion. 

It was really sad saying goodbye to elder Martinez my old comp.  Love the kid and I’m really going to miss him.  He taught me sooo much about the mission, about speaking spanish, and just about life.  I’m going to miss the kid…clicked really well with him.  That’s all I have for you this week.  Please continue sending your prayers my way.  I always pray for all of you.

With much love, Elder Call.

Photos----

1.  My new comp…seems like a good guy so far

2.  The last night with elder Martinez celebrating together with one final malta hahaha.

3.  My fave little member of our church haha, they were one of the only fams that ever offered to give us dinner. Love them soo much.

4.  Huge weird fly thing in our house hahaha nasty.