This week's email I may offend a few people, but let me let you know, that is not my intention...
This week I am going to write about a religion that I have discovered here that I have never heard of before, probably because it's psychotic haha! And let me say again, I do not intend to offend anyone that shall read this because I don't believe that any of you are of this religion, if you can even call it a "religion". It is called Bahá'í, I pronounce it like bahai, exacly as it's spelled. These people...I generally am still trying to figure out exactly what they believe in. It seems to be that they believe in God, or some form of a God, and Jesus Christ, but I'm pretty sure they more consider Him as a prophet or just a really great guy and teacher! The reason I talk about this is we found a lady a long time ago actually like 5 weeks ago, and she was talking to me in English, perfect English actually. I was very shocked. Then she talked to Aguilar in Spanish, but I would respond to her a lot in Spanish. She asked us if we could get her an English Book of Mormon to read and study, because apparently a long time ago she had one and also the Pearl of Great Price haha wow...so she has lots of questions. She was born in a city here in Panamá called Colón, so she is full Panamaña but she married a guy from New York. Gringo of course, that was in the Air Force for like 30 years, who is not a member of that church of her's. So weeks go by and we don't hear from her, told us she will stop by la capilla some Sunday to get the Book of Mormon in English, but she never came. So random out of the blue on divisions with my DL we had a reference from other elders in our district of a lady who wanted a Book of Mormon in English, so naturally I thought, 'hmm that's interesting because I've only heard that request one other time.' Found the house where this lady lives, and what do you know, the same lady that got our attention in the street weeks ago. Found out about her "temple" which is shaped like an egg up on a hill, quite funny actually. (I say it's the lair for the ocho huevos un dólar guys hahaha!) She's a really nice lady, named Sonia Raquel, which is definitely not a Panamanian name in my opinion, but oh well. She is very hospitable though, been over there a few times. Once to do service for them when I actually got to meet the husband, really funny old white guy who walks with a cane and all. I'm sure he was glad to talk to me, because although his wife speaks English, I'm sure he hasn't talked to another American for awhile in normal English. She says that her church believes in Joseph Smith, but that he was just a vidente, or seer, not a prophet like we do, obviously. She reads her prayers from a book of prayers and all for every different occassion of the day, like "This is my afternoon 3-5 oclock prayer". Its quite strange, but really we are respectful to her beliefs, whatever they may be, because she is a daughter of our Heavenly Father. We are working with her, trying to get more time to actually teach her instead of just passing by and eating her popcorn haha. She right now is fasting, for a month she told us. But in their religion a month is not the traditional 30 or 31 days. No, a month is 19 days for them, 19 months of 19 days is the year. And naturally I did the math for that, which adds up to 361 days, so I don't know what they consider the other 4 days, haha.
It really is a testimony builder though for me, my testimony in the apostasy and the real need for as it says in the scriptures multiple times, "a restitutioin of all things" or in Spanish I believe it says "restauración de todas las cosas." But that is all I will say about the Bahá'í.
This week we have our second set of cambios, and as of now I still don't know if I will be staying or not, or getting a new comp. We're here with the ZLs and I will make them tell me later today! I'll be sure to let you know next week, or maybe later tonight. This change has gone by incredibly fast. I feel like I was just sitting in changes finding out I was getting a new Mexican comp, haha. And now here we are again this Wednesday. I think the group of elders coming this change is not very many, only a few, so there won't be many new trainers either.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BUDDY MAX! The big 20 years old that's awesome! I feel so old cuz I just passed 19 and a half yesterday also. Time is passing by so freaking fast.
What I'm really learning here in the mission, (among millions of other things), is how efficient and better the lessons go when there is a member present or more that just one in the lessons. Seriously like Max says, people here will just nod their heads at what you're saying, not really listening, just thinking that if they nod their heads enough, eventually we will leave them in peace and they can get back to living in their sins! But with a member, they look at the member a lot more, especially if its a friend of theirs, cuz they naturally trust the friend alot more then they do us at the beginning. We are teaching that guy Javier with his friend, and future wife, we're supposing once he gets baptized then they will get sealed, haha. Those lessons are way better cuz she's there with us to bear strong testimony.
We had a cool 'clase de inglés' this week, taught all about el cuerpo humano, haha. I drew a little drawing with a bunch of arrows with English and Spanish, I learned a lot like what the word 'waist' and 'eyebrows' are in Spanish, which I forget right now actually. I've really enjoyed doing those classes. Something I will definitely incorporate in other areas I serve in.
I've heard that there are 2 areas where the people here says "hace frío", haha. Which I don't believe that it's actually cold there but it's supposedly a lot cooler, Volcán and Boquette. I would love to go to to cool down a bit. But I want to savor that for farther in the mission!
Lastly I would like the end by talking about Panameña haircuts and music. The hairstyles here are something else, it's nuts! Like the ungliest hair I've ever seen. Everyone has like mohawks where the middle part is insanely long and curly because everyone's hair is curly, and then it's like long rat tails and stuff. Or they just leave it long in the very back, like bottom of your neck. Look it up in google, see if you can find them because its pretty funny.
2 scriptures for you all again, both really good, one about us all being children of our Padre Celestial waiting for His glory in D&C 78 17-18, and the other saying that God is literally in all things, section 88:41.
I love you all very much, thank you for the prayers, love, letters, todo, estoy eternamente agradecido por el amor que yo recibo de ustedes todos los días. Yo sé que nuestro Padre Celestial les va a bendecir en todas las copsas y todos de sus deseos que son en Su voluntad. Oren mucho por ustedes mismos, y Él les va a responder y contestar sus preguntas que tienen.
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