I'm in Panama and it's absolutely crazy, and this keyboard I'm typing on is crazy too so this letter will probably have a million mistakes but just bear with me.
Flight here went well, got in late on Monday night last week around 10:00, met President Ward, he's really nice. Then the group of us nuevos, including like 10 elders and sisters from the Guatemala MTC went to the AP house, (assistant president), and it was a pig stye, haha and has all of us sleeping in the same tiny room on our suitcases, haha.
The next day we did driving around Panama, taking care of some legal papers, and it was so terrifying because I couldn't understand anything that people were saying. So we did all that, then spent the rest of the day at Pres Ward's house and learned about the area and how to spend p-days like today and what not. Then spent the night again at the AP's house, then drove to a stake center here in Panama City and had a big meeting with all, or most of the elders and sisters here in the mission and they did transfers, and I got my companion! woot! His name is Elder Jarquin, doesn't speak any English, haha which is pretty nuts cuz I can't even try to speak to him in English cuz he has no idea. He's from Nicaragua and he's my trainer. He's been on his mission for almost 23 months haha, so I'm his last companion that he'll have! So then we all got assigned our areas, and I'm in Panama City, the outskirts of Panama City in a city area called San Miguelito. All I can really say is it's pretty crazy. Those first 2 days with Jarquin were tough cuz he wanted me to teach part of the lesson with him or start the lesson, which I would do ok, cuz I can speak Spanish ok, but the hardest thing is understanding people cuz they almost never pronounce their "s" in the word. But its all a work in progress obviously, and I'm definitely having fun, it's quite an adventure.
I've only taken a few pictures here cuz Jarquin told me I shouldn't bring it with me to avoid being robbed haha. But I have the feeling that I'm gonna learn Spanish very quickly if anything I want to or need to say has to be in Spanish to my companion haha.
The weather here is as crazy as I expected, crazy humid, it's not that hot though, but at totally random times, it'll start pouring like crazy and we're tracting haha. We've done so much tracting since I've gotten here because we're opening up the area, which means we're some of the first missionaries here in San Miguelito, and it's a pretty tough area because people aren't really interested in hearing about the gospel, but Jarquin is great at contacting. He said that him and I have done more contacts than any of his other companions in other areas, which is awesome. It's something else being in an area where there is nobody that speaks English at all, so you have to speak Spanish or drown! Haha.
So I'll talk about our investigators, we have a girl named Sara Medina who is 9 that is set to be baptized this Saturday, Christmas Eve, which should be really cool, I'll take pictures. We've taught her personally like 4 or 5 times, and I'm really getting the hang of it, and paying attention to what the people are saying, cuz it's really easy to doze off and not listen when you can't understand.
What else...I hope everyone is well back home. The food here is rice, so much freaking rice! People here have massive guts cuz they eat huge portions of rice for all 3 meals, so I've had a ton of rice. But the great thing about our area is we have a member hermana who cooks lunch for us almost everyday which is really awesome and almost every day we have a member for dinner, too.
So I only have an hour to write both you and President Ward so I better hurry this up. I love you all very much, awesome to hear about Chris Garcia's mission call, tell him I'm very excited for him. Spanish is something else, I'm really learning to love the language and the people here though. It really makes me appreciate what I have because they have so little, and are still crazy happy for the most part. We contacted this lady in particular the other day with her daughter, I believe and she had so much questions and I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to understand, but literally I could understand almost everything she could throw at us saying we don't use the bible. ¿Quien es Jose Smith? All kinds of stuff like that, but Jarquin and I are the power team, equipo de los sueños baby haha. Its funny that he is at the very end of his mission and I'm just starting, so he's like crazy tired and out of shape, and this area we're in has a ton of what he calls lomas, or hills, so my legs are getting crazy strong climbing up these hills everywhere, but this country in beautiful. When we get to the top and just stare down at all the metal roof houses, it looks like in the movie Rio in Brazil. Then you stare out at the cityscape with all the massive buildings, it's just gorgeous.
Church here was cool too, la capilla, or chapel, is actually like a really new building, looks better than ours back home haha. But the majority of buildings here are so run down and ugly, but I love it. One testament that can be said about the gospel is that even if you can't understand the language perfectly, I promise you you can and will still feel the spirit, because I have multiple times and I love it and I love that about this gospel. So since this is a new area in the mission, and people are hard to talk to here, we don't have many investigators, but we contact every day,and we're trying to get some more. The money here is funny that you can use dollars or dolares for everything, and the stuff is relatively cheap, especially souvenirs cuz I want to buy a sweet Panama bolsa to carry my scriptures around.
Everyone, I love you, continue to pray for me, I know that God is there to listen, you just have to put your effort in first. I love you all have a wonderful week!
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