Correo Semanal

Woah what a whirlwind week. Wow, what a large amount of words that start with "w", haha,

This week was pretty cool, had a lot of spiritual and crazy experiences, as to be expected from mission life. But before I get into all of that, I want to thank you all again for all your letters. I spent this week writing 10, yes count em, 10! letters for you all. So basically if you have ever written me a letter here on my mission, you'll have one coming to you as soon as possible. I promise I haven't forgotten about all you, my family and loved ones :) It's ridiculous how much my hand hurts, but you all are going to be getting good letters for sure.

This week has been one of lots and lots and lots of rain. Thunderstorms with lighting and giant bangs of thunder, almost constantly. It really is crazy how it will be perfectly sunny at one moment, then you'll go inside for about an hour, then come out and it has clouded over completely and you hear thunder, see bright flashes of lightning, then the downpour comes. One word that people use here a lot for that is aguacero. It's pretty funny, I even started using my little windbreaker rain jacket this week because it just got out of control weather-wise.

Another crazy thing that happened this week is hearing about 30 gun shots, balas, during church. Really close gun shots. Turns out that no one was actually shooting at one another, for once! They were celebrating some holiday or remembrance of a tragedy with an explosion that happened years ago. So they were just shooting into the air. No one even bats an eye anymore here as Panamanians when they hear gun shots, it's just like 2nd nature. But it made me jump as I'm blessing the Sacrament and I hear bap-pop-bap!!! Haha, don't worry, nothing bad happened. I'm still alive, that's how I'm writing you :)

This week we did divisions with the ZLs for the first time, and I knew that my ZL would try to work me to the bone! It was pretty fun though; gringo named Whitcomb from Boston came to Veracruz with me, and Bradford went off to Bella Vista in the city with the other ZL named Eceverría from Guatemala. I enjoyed it. We ended up teaching quite a few people and I went to bed physically and spiritually exhausted. We're really working on trying to set baptismal dates, fechas, with lots of our investigators. At times we feel a bit nervous to throw out the baptism question right at the beginning, But it is true that they should know about it in the beginning and have a date so they have something to work towards and strive for, otherwise they aren't going to progress. We've set quite a few fechas with the investigators we have lately, it's just getting them to come to church where they fail to follow through with their committments. It really is as simple as that, if they don't go to church, they can't be baptized. But yesterday we had a ton of those kids come back to church for the 2nd time, and 2 of them want to be baptized! So this week we will be working with them and teaching them with the 19-year old guy who found them for us, Edwin. That should be awesome. Also, Enrique, whose family we taught with the 11 people, has decided that he wants to be a missionary and advance in the Priesthood, woo! Bringing inactives to missionaries and active... gotta love it, that's what I live for as a missionary. We were teaching him in the chapel and explaining the difference between the Aaronic and Melchesidek priesthoods, and helping him practice the Sacrament prayers. Turns out that he doesn't know how to read pretty much at all. So we are also going to be helping him learn how to read as best we can. It is really exciting having stories like that on the mission. You expect one thing when you sign and turn in your mission papers and get your call, but I never would've thought that I would be teaching people how to read in their own language on my mission, it's really awesome!

Because of working with less actives so much and having lots of new investigators in church, the attendance is slowly climbing. We had 52 yesterday, and everyone seemed really happy that so many people were coming. It is something special to know that what we're doing here is having a bit of an effect on those around us, be it members, less active, inactive members, or investigators.

Lastly let me conclude with an incredible experience that Bradford and I had on Saturday. We had just met back up in Albrook to change companions back and leave when a guy came up and tapped me on the shoulder, talking to me in English. This man introduced himself to us as Fred from Miami, Florida, here on vacation. He then began to ask us, question, upon question, upon question about the Church and missionaries. He said that 2 Latin missionaries had come up to him the day before and were talking to him in Spanish because they didn't know English. They were contacting him and explaining a bit about the temple. Since he didn't understand them entirely, we explained what they were saying to him. This man knew A LOT, and by alot I really mean A LOT about the Church, stuff that a random passerby definitely wouldn't know. He said that he was Christian, but liked to research about other religions. We ended up talking to this guy for about 40 minutes there in a busy pathway in this mall. Clarified any crazy ideas he thought about LDS people and explained to him why we were on missions. He was really respectful to us and made sure to say multiple times that he in no way wanted to offend us. Then we said, "Have a nice day", and he went off. That experience was crazy, something I will remember all my life. I truly hope that man Fred decides to actually visit the church and see what we're all about.

2 scriptures for you all this week as always, first being Moses 7:48-52, which are really crazy scriptures where the earth actually speaks and also God covenants with Enoch that he will never flood the earth again like he did with Noah. Lastly, 2 Nephi 9:28 that is a machete scripture to people who believe that they can rely on their own intelligence and not need Gods help, haha.

I love you all very much. Hope you all have a wonderful Mother's Day. Tell and show your own moms that you love them. Like with faith without works is dead; love without demonstration of it, the works of love, is also inútil.

Love you, have a wonderful week!