Just Burning My Soul

So its been a great week here in Puerto Armuelles. I'm still getting to know the area because it's HUGE. Plus the heat is deathly here. Being right next to Costa Rica and having the salty ocean so close makes for a salty hot and humid combination. You would think there would be a good ocean breeze too but there almost never is one. Now I can say I've never sweat so much in my life. here we live about 2 hours away from everyone else or the city of Concepcion where everything is. So we have to go there every week for meetings.

It's very different here from parts closer to the city. The people actually are a little nicer here, like a small farm town type of nice. Most of them are elderly and everyone has bikes. It's a little funny to see a 90 year old guy riding a bike but the people are in crazy good shape here! And some bikes or most don't have working brakes. 

 In the states some people want to see how many people can fit in a car, right? Well here the question is how many people can fit on a bike, scooter or motorcycle. There is always someone riding with someone sitting of the bike frame or they have a little holder behind the seat that they sit. It just makes me smile, haha.  This week I don't have really any golden stories but I'll see what I've got. 

So here the missionaries do everything because there aren't very many members, so we teach all the classes and do all the activities and everything which mean the members don't  have us over for meals too often, so we have to cook. Yes cook and I'm   getting the hang of it now.

Right now we are visiting a guy who lives alone and is around 50 years old and had one of his legs amputated a few years back. He's is awesome. In his wheelchair he does everything. It is like a mountain terrain wheelchair too, so he can make it round his yard to pick fruits and vegetables in his garden. Plus he rakes the leaves, cuts the grass and everything.  The first time we taught him we left him a pamphlet of the restoration at the end for him to read. As we left I turned around to shut the gate and when I did I saw that he had pulled up to the table outside in his wheelchair, put on his glasses and began to read. I got my companions  attention to show him and the feeling we had seeing that was so joyful. 

Every Thursday night here we have a group night in the church for all the members to come and we are in charge of it. We just share a short message and then have a fun game after which this week we played team hang man and as I told you the branch is pretty elderly here and it got very intense. Old people love their hangman! haha, almost just as much as bingo. 

We spent Saturday basically walking all day and it was the worst heat I've felt in my life. We have to walk around with umbrellas from the sun because it's so bad. There is never anyone in the street walking here without an umbrella if the suns out. At the end of the day the hermanas in our branch had a baptism! They asked my companion and I to sing a song during. It was the when I am baptized song from primary, its called cuando me bautice in Spanish. 

It was a really good week and the work is just warming up out here. The truth is some days it's a little hard walking literally right next to the ocean and not being able to go swim. Its pretty nice to look at though haha.

When Sunday came we were so happy that we had fruits of our work for this week. We walked 30 minutes to go help and investigator come to church, her name is Diana and her son Richard who's 4 came with her. Well when we almost got there we realized we totally forgot money to pay for a taxi to get to church. After searching our bags we found a dollar which is only enough for one person in the taxi. So we sent her in the taxi and told her we had to go pick up someone else so she didn't feel bad that we had to walk back. She had a great time at church and said she felt so peaceful. We are working with her and her husband right now to get married. Here in panama it's such a pain to get married so I understand why no one does it even though it's a commandment. 

So sorry everyone it took me a few days to write this week. Right now there is these huge festivals called carnivals here in Panama but in the city of chitre. So right now everyone has a few days off from work. The people either head to the carnivals or everyone goes to the beach and we are the only people left here, it's like "who wants a Book of Mormon" but we will find someone to teach . So the internet place has been closed until today. I hope you all have a great week there in the U.S. of A!

Elder David

 

1. What we have to do to visit some people here. Just the casual bridge!