Mi Correo Semanal

Oh...ya me bauticé en su iglesia, hace (oooooooooh) tiempo, años atrás allá en San Blas"...
........

That's how im going to begin this entry for you all, San Blas, the REAL Kunaland. I cannot tell you how many times I've heard that sentence from people in Veracruz. If Kunaland is San Blas, than Veracruz would be like the parking lot to Kunaland, or like the stands that sell food at the amusement park, haha, o sea, hay muchas kunas en veracruz.

As I've expressed to you all before about menos activos and how many there are in Veracruz, I will be talking about them more in detail later in this email. But first let me say, HELLO! Hi everyone, how are you? I love you all very much, thank you for reading these emails, and sending me letters and all that you do, it really helps, let me tell ya.

I want to begin this email about testimony meeting yesterday in church. Ever since I started preparing for a mission, back like 2 years or so ago, I decided that I should start bearing my testimony more in front of the ward or branch. I did it a couple times before I left which were really powerful experiences, but before that, like the first 17 years of my life I never did it, unless motivated by my dad during Sacrament meeting that he would give me a Snickers bar for doing it haha. Which is delicious let me tell you, bribery works, but that shouldn't be the reason for bearing one's testimony. You bear a testimony when you truly have one, it shouldn't be something that someone has just told you all your life. There needs to be sincerity behind the words that you say, and I definitely know now what it means to bear a testimony. A sincere and genuine testimony of the truths that I've come to know. I've surprisingly never born my testimony here in Panama in the 2 areas that I've been in, only at the end of talks. But yesterday I felt the need that I should. As it was for my farewell speech. You all know, when I share my testimony in a public setting like that, I really do get moved and it's hard for me to talk. I never thought that I'd be like that, but it's because I know the truth behind the words that I claim. It's my testimony and it's what I have to fight against the adversary when he lances his arrows at me while I stand on the wall defending the truth.

So yeah, church was really good yesterday, more people came, menos activos are coming out of the woodworks and starting to be active again, working hard with them still, but now finding new and more people. Lately we've now decided that we need to work with the families of the jovenes that we've baptized, obviously. A baptism will be hard to keep active if the parents and siblings aren't members or don't know what their child or brother does every Sunday morning at 9:00. The families of these guys are great, some actually seem interested in what we have to say, and I'm looking forward to starting teaching them more in this coming week, before I most likely leave my area.

This week I did divisions with my ZLs again, gringo Whitcomb again, but I got to go to his area this time in Bella Vista, center of Panama City. Best part of it all, besides working like dogs and teaching a bazillion lessons, finding a postive family contacting at 7:30 at night, is something even better.. (haha not): A hot shower! Oh my goodness, I forgot how amazing hot showers were! The ZLs and the APs live together and they have hot water and air conditioning in their bedrooms... so spoiled, haha. We had a really funny contact during divisions too. Get to a really huge house and decide to contact just for fun, even though rich people are almost guaranteed to reject us missionaries. She even had like a speaker box thing at her gate, like we were at a drive through, haha. We said "Somos represantes de Jesucristo y tenemos un mensaje bien importante de Él y el amor que tiene para usted" and she reponded through the voice box, after we said jesucristo "aye, no..." hahahaha, and the best part is that she even had a cross on her door and a statue of the virgin Mary. Freaking "Christian" hypocrites, can't even spare a few minutes to talk to us, true representatives of Him. But that's all part of la obra, some people will listen, others won't even open the door to you in order to slam it in your face, haha.

I had another experience with a drunk guy this week, a couple days back, at like 2:00 in the afternoon, already wasted, he began the conversation as we passed by the house with "oye! vengan..." oh how polite, haha. It was basically just me talking to him, defending myself and the US because Saavedra sat back and did nothing. He was saying how "oh all Americans are so rich, I KNOW that you have a huge house and tons of money back where you live in America" and I was asking him "why do you think that?" and he just said "soy una persona analista, yo analizo a las personas, y yo te veo así, que tienes mucha plata".  I'm not usually confrontational, especially with drunk people because they don't know what they're saying, but I've really advanced in my Spanish and I can defend myself, my religion and my country in 2 languages now! And through it all he just kept saying, "wow you speak really good Spanish," haha. Crazy drunk people.

Ok back to, ya me bauticé en su iglesia. After we taught family of one of our jovenes the entire Restoration lesson, that's when she tells us that sentence, and before we asked WHY she was inactive, I knew the answer to why she hadn't been to church in so long, and couldn't even remember her own confirmation when she received the gift of the Holy Ghost...because she was baptized in San Blas, the islands in Panama with all the Kunas. I'm convinced that the missionaries out there baptize anyone and everyone, just to dunk them and forget them, plus Kunas are notoriously more lazy than even the average lazy Panamanian. I think the conditions are better now, but man, how can you forget that you were confirmed a member of the church??

Every experience like that though really motivates me to ALWAYS, let me repeat that with even more emphasis, ALWAYS be active in the Church. Like Holland said, if you've made convenants...keep them, and that's what I plan on doing.

Last week in Veracruz, this week will be one of getting Saavedra ready for a change without me babying him and wiping his Latin toosh by planning everything we do, haha. I have much hope for Veracruz. Someday it will be a Ward, with hard work and dedicated members.

I have 2 great scriptures for you all, one about the Word of Wisdom being instituted waaaay earlier than I even thought with Joseph Smith, Leviticus 10:9-10, read it, sounds a lot like the word of wisdom huh? :) Secondly a great scripture I have marked in D&C 45:8. Read the first sentence, it's awesome, and the rest is great about how the Lord gives His power only to those who accept Him.

Happy 4th of July this week, eat extra hamburgers, hotdogs and steaks for me, go all out!! Love you all very much, stay strong, always be worthy to hold a temple recommend and use it as much as possible. I want to see those bar codes rubbed dry from going so often, haha :) Have a wonderful week.