That's really cheesy Gregg, stop trying to make jokes when you're not funny! I'm sure that really doesn't make any sense to any of you back home because you haven't seen my watch, but I changed it. I had originally bought a dinky little watch at a store here that was a Toy Story watch, 2 bucks. I had taken it apart and turned the little picture around and written the scripture in Mosiah 4:9-10 which is one of my favorite scriptures, to always remind me that God is in all things and the world was and is and will be because of Him and His Son. I decided that I could take that little piece of paper out of my watch and put any picture in there, change it up. Well...I cut out a really small picture of the temple and put that in there, so now I have the picture of the Panama Temple on my wrist at all times. I showed it to a few people and they went crazy asking me where I got that and how they could get one too. I've made myself two of them now, and made 2 more for a treasure hunt we did today for our p-day.
We changed our p-day to a ward activity that Elder Ortiz and I planned out completely because today here is like the Latin equivalent of Labor Day I believe, everyone had the day off. We've been planning this ward activity all week full of games, prizes, scavenger hunts, etc. It was set to be all day, from 9am to 6pm. Obviously no one was going to come right at 9 in the morning, it's Mormon Standard Time, and even later being LATIN Mormon Standard Time. People started coming around 1030-11ish, but they certainly showed up. I think in total we had around 90 people there, quite the turnout. We got there in the morning and hid out treasures all around the church with pieces of papers that had scriptures on them that they needed to read and try to figure out where the treasure was going to be, due to context clues. They were cool scriptures, like one from Exodus with Moses and the burning bush, and we hid a little HLJ (CTR) ring in one of the bushes, or the scripture about "ye are the light of the world..." and we hid another ring up in a lightbulb, haha. We made sure to hide our hidden treasure really well so that it would take them all a really long time to find them. There were 2 that stayed in their spots for a while until I helped people out a bit. In the end we didn't do like 4 or 5 of the activities we had planned, it turned into a day full of dancing in the Cultural Hall to sweet music (not planned) and playing sports all day (also not planned). Everyone was happy with those. You give a Panamanian a soccer ball, they'll keep busy for hours. It was a good success though, we even had 2 investigators there, which was really what it was all about, getting people to meet members of the church and have some fun doing so.
One guy we're teaching got himself all set up and went to town helping cook this giant pot of soup called "sancocho", it's great soup, like chicken noodle, but much better. I didn't play much sports, but I did have fun making a fool of myself dancing in the Cultural Hall to music. We did an awesome game too that I want to incorporate back home, a gospel doctrine question game that ends up with getting whip cream in the face if you get it wrong, called it tortaso. That was fun too, but sad how members of the church don't know really basic answers to church history, haha. So many people got whipcreamed in the face.
Yesterday and the day before we had ourselves a Stake Conference here in David; lots of people there. I told you all that I was singing a bit in the stake choir at night times after we had been to all of our appointments. I wasn't able to go to more than half of the practices because we taught till late and couldn't make it to the church. I show up for the adult session of Stake Conference on Saturday night, sit down towards the back and the choir director tells me to come up front and sing with them, haha. I hadn't practiced much, but luckily I can read the music enough to know where the notes go up and where they go down. The worst part was that I had just choked on some food for dinner right before and then I had completely lost my voice, I go up there and start wailing like a cat that got its tail stepped on, raaawwwwrrr!! :P
We sang really well though, President Ward commented on that, and Hermana Ward said we sang really well as a choir. I'm really going to miss those 2, they're leaving on July 1st. I can tell that they want to go home because 3 years is a long time to be away from your family, but they seem really sad to be going too. It's rough let me tell you, you definitely get attached to the lifestyle. I feel like the mission is never going to end, that I'll just keep getting up at 6:30 and putting on my white shirt and tie for the rest of my life until I'm dead, then I'll just wear a white tunic like everyone else. It was a great Stake Conference, lots of really good talks. Glad to be sitting up on the stands being in the choir looking out at all the faces I recognized. I learn faces a lot quicker than I learn names, that's for sure.
I really like it out here in David, it's hotter than the center of the earth, but it's really nice here, lots of positive people. Prepping up a few peeps to get baptized coming up here in May. Scriptures for this week are Alma 62:45 and D&C 6:36. The last one is used to solve any problem that can possibly come in your path.
I love you all, the Church is true, if not, why are so many thousands of youth leaving their homes and family to go talk about it? Riddle me that unbelievers.
No comments:
Post a Comment