Love the people!!

I can't even tell you how much we love these missionaries.  They are wonderful.  They are positive, they are committed, they love what they're doing.  This is a picture of our district as it is now.  One elder left for home, sad to see him go.  We enjoyed our time with him.  Now we have only three for right now.  We're waiting for the new missionary to arrive.

I am constantly amazed by their personal stories of hardship and courage.  Some have had hard lives, but through the gospel of Jesus Christ they have found happiness and strength.  At our recent zone meeting, each companionship told a little bit about themselves and their families.  The elders were jokingly asking if people had sisters and if they were married.  When Mark and I got up I passed a picture of our family and let them know that they were all single.  Bunch of whistles and jokes.  I then put each of the kids emails up so they could write them.  I don't think anyone took me up on it but one elder came up afterwards and said we were cool.  That it was really funny when I put the emails up.

Here we are heading home.

In Relief Society last Sunday we had a birthday cake for the sisters with birthdays.  This is Sister Barria.  She does it all.  She is a wife of the Elders Quorum president, mother with little ones, Seminary teacher and she is a counselor in the Relief Society Presidency.  The president has been gone for 6 weeks so Vanessa has to do it all.

I look at these faces and smile and have tender memories with each.

 Sister Katy is singing again.  She has a beautiful voice and we take advantage of her willingness to share her talents with us.  No, she hasn't had that baby yet.

Last Monday we went to a Family Home Evening with a family.  There are 4 families that live within a block of each other.  Everyone came.  We all crowded in Enyuri's home and had a great time.  I felt so much love.

We talked about prayer. How we communicate with Heavenly Father.  How He speaks to us.  We talked about how Heavenly Father can make our burdens lighter.  He doesn't always take away the illness, the sadness, the trial... but he makes us stronger to face it.  I know that Heavenly Father knows us individually and we answers our little prayers we can see His love.  He knows us.  He hears us.  He loves us.

We do it all!!

One of the things I love about the Gospel of Jesus Christ is that you can use and develop all your talents.  I have had many callings over the years to do things I didn't necessarily think I was good at, but I learned to do them.  I even have had the opportunity to discover talents I didn't know I had.

This is so true here our first month in Santiago.  These are some of  the things we are doing:

• We teach non members about the church.
• We have visited members who are strong and try to encourage them and tell them they are doing a great job.
• I have worked with people to find names of their ancestors and get them ready for the temple
• I have made chocolate chip cookies and brownies for Family Home Evenings and some branch activities
• We are starting an English class next week which will run 6 weeks.  We will have others after that.
• We are starting a literacy class for some youth who have a hard time with school
• We have been teaching some classes on strengthening your marriage for some couples who are having some struggles
• We are teaching a couple a Temple Prep class in their home so they can progress more as a family and get ready to go to the temple
• We are saving our coins to help a family get married
• Everyone we visit we share a scripture and have prayer. 
• Mark and I are both teaching Sunday School classes on Sunday, sometimes more.
• We encourage all our families to read the scriptures and to pray.  Individually and as families.

These are just a few things that we do.  Some we feel more comfortable with than others.  

I love it when we go out to visit people and there is a beautiful spirit and we feel we have been instruments in the Lord's hands to bless some of His children.  That's the best thing we do.

The two youth are members of our church.  This is a great family.  The father loves to read.  He has bookshelves in his home, which we don't see too often.  Very nice family.  This was the wife that told Mark if he didn't eat what he was offered he may not be offered food again.  I love her.  She's very traditional (told me they don't eat at fast food places).  At the party she fed us a delicious pork and rice dish.  This is at the father's birthday party.  We had a great time.

We had to go to Panama City this past week.  We went over Monday afternoon and had dinner with the office couple (on the right).  We went to Benihanas. We had an early morning appointment to get our government ID called a cedula on Tuesday morning.  We are now officially here.  They ask for your ID for everything.  If you buy something with a credit card they want it.  They often have road checks where they ask for your ID.  On Tuesday afternoon we went to dinner with our mission president and his wife (on the left) and the office couple.  We went to a Mexican restaurant.

Our wonderful mission president, President Carmack, finishes at the end of June.  The office couple finish in August.  We will miss them.  They do so much work.  The office couple, The Brinkmans are fantastic.  She is the mission nurse.  She's had to deal with Zika, rabies bites, etc.

The mission president has a heavy load.  They supervise and organize 200 missionaries from all over Latin america and the states.  The president is the ecclesiastical leader for 4 districts across Panama. He has responsibility over buildings and leadership in the districts.  He's also involved in the youth from Panama getting ready to go on missions.  Mission presidents leave their jobs, maybe not to go back to, for 3 years.  They do have living expenses while they're here.

I've always said you couldn't pay me to do the work I volunteer to do in the church.  Mark and I are paying our way to do this wonderful mission.  The church did pay for our trip down and will pay when we go home.  It is worth every penny!

Here's the poster we had made to hang outside the church for the English class we are going to teach.

Mark just got back from a service project in Chitre.  They did work at a public school.

My fingers are sweating

It is very hot here in Santiago right now.  For the past two weeks it has been to the mid to high 90's.  Today it hit 100.  Most of the time there is a nice breeze so if you're in the shade it's not too bad.  Not much breeze the last week.  Today it rained a little bit for the first time since we've arrived.  It barely got the road wet but it rained!

We just love it here.  I can't say enough how wonderful the people are.  They are so warm and friendly, and very hospitable.

The couple to the left are a young couple recently married.  She's the primary president and he's the branch clerk.  They are Brenda y Javier.

This is our wonderful Branch president and his lovely wife.  She is from Peru.  They met online and started corresponding.  Fell in love, he went to Peru to meet her and they were married three weeks later.





This is the S family.  They moved here a few months ago from Venezuela.  Just love them.  Myrna gave me my first plant cuttings.  We're going to cut more so I can get ready for the rainy season and plant some plants.  His parents also moved here but right now, they're visiting family in the states.


 

This is Katy and Tomas.  He's a musician and she sings.  She is due to have a baby in a couple of weeks.  She's the one we had a baby shower for.  We just love them and their sweet family.  They have two children already.  He is quiet.  She is energetic and fun t be around.





We leave the members to feed the young missionaries.  Occasionally we'll be visiting someone and they bring out a huge plate of food.  They give us way to much food for a serving but we eat it.  It's great because with the heat I don't really cook much.  I probably cook a meal a couple of times a week.  To tell you the truth, when we get home we don't really feel like eating much.

I love the fruit!!!  I was looking forward to coming and enjoying fresh fruits and juices from the tropics.  We get lots of watermelon, mango, pineapple, maracuya (passion fruit) and other types of fruits that we just don't have in the states.  We usually make fresh orange juice each morning.

Here is a member climbing a tree to pick ciruellas.  They look a little like grape tomatoes but they're a fruit.

 One of the families gave us these platanos.  They're not bananas.  They're more of a carb.  I love them.  Mark-- gag.

Here are the oranges we buy for juice and maracuya (on the right)

We've had some funny experiences with the food.  They make this corn drink, called chicheme- they cook the corn a long time until it's real soft, they use the corn and water it was cooked in to make the drink.  They add water.  Here's a link to a recipe http://www.cocinerita.com/chicheme/.  I've had it three times.  The first one was not so good.  The second one was ok and the third one was delicious. Poor Mark just can't handle it.  Mark is not really good at hiding his feelings so he about gags when he tries to drink it.  I feel bad for him but I don't want people to be offended.

There was a baby shower for one of the sisters from church.  It was a fun time.  She had invited a few men to help her husband cook the meat for the party.  One of the games they played involved the four couples there.  The women were blindfolded and had to feed their spouses baby food from a jar.  As I was feeding Mark, I could hear him gagging.  I didn't want him to be sick all over me so I fed him slowly.

I make chocolate chip cookies or brownies and everyone loves them.  The first time I bought chocolate chips I left them on the shelf in my kitchen and they melted to liquiid.  Not just melted but liquid.  I keep them in the freezer now.

I feel so blessed.  My health is great.  We are working hard.  I love the people.  They seem to love us. I am so grateful to my Heavenly Father for this opportunity to invite others to draw closer to their Savior and thus help them and support them through trials and difficulties.

I LOVE PANAMA!!