The Week of the Family

Two weeks ago was the International Week of the Family.  Each branch of the church was encouraged to plan activities throughout the week.  We had a cultural/talent show on Friday night.  It was so much fun.  We had lots of dances.  The Relief Society did an Arab dance (I'm hoping that doesn't translate to belly dance :))  We had lots of fun at the practices.  The youth did a couple of folk dances.  Some people sang and our resident musician played the violin.  Mark has a video of the Arabic dance.  

(I'm way in the back)

On Saturday we had all sorts of activities at the Church.  We had relay races, an activity to make a Family Home Evening assignment chart and we played all sorts of games: board games, volleyball and football.  It was supposed to start at 2 p.m.  It didn't really get going until 3:30 but lasted until about 9 p.m.  

The first relay race was blowing flour out of a cup to get to the candy.  Mark did not win.

We had so much fun all afternoon and into the evening.

The young woman in the middle, Susana, with the pink tank top is getting baptized this Saturday.

We finally made it to the beach on our last preparation day.... Mariato

The water made such a cool sound as it would come up over these rocks and go back out.  It was a sort of clicking sound.  It poured before we could get to the other beach.  

Mark and I were able to go to Panama City this past week to the temple.  It is such a beautiful, peaceful place.  There's a Jewish cemetery next to it, so it really is quiet and peaceful.  On the temple grounds there is a chapel for weekly worship.  There is also this building behind Mark which includes a Guest House and store.  The Guest House is beautiful.  They have rooms so that people who are traveling to the temple can stay overnight.  We stayed in one of the rooms and it was beautiful.  There was a queen size bed, little dining table, kitchenette and bathroom with HOT water!  There is a cafeteria on the main floor but it's mostly for people to do their own cooking.  There are gathering places all around.  There is a Family History Center on the main floor also.  We had a great time.

I've mentioned before that it is hard to find addresses, they are more like poor directions, "Behind the school, house #35"  problem- there are a few schools and most of the houses don't have numbers. The way to find people is to get in the general area and start asking if people know the family.  You can go around in circles before success.  We had this experience last week.  We were trying to find members in this one area.  We actually found quite a few.  One woman was so sweet.  She was almost tearful at our coming.  She said she hadn't seen anyone from church for a long time.  As I was standing there with the sweat pouring down my brow, I was humbled by the opportunity I have to bring a word of comfort, a message from Heavenly Father to them.  You never know who is out there praying for something.  The Lord answers prayers through people.  We are the answers to prayers sometimes.  I'm so grateful for a Father in Heaven who hears and answers prayers.  Who loves me, who loves the people I meet.  It is an honor to serve him here in Panama.

It's springtime!

I know I put that it was winter so you're probably wondering.  The daily temperature is between 93 and 100 every day.  The only difference is now it is the beginning of the rainy season.  When the rainy season is in full swing it should rain every day.  For the past few weeks it has rained a couple of times a week.  Perfect.  The cool thing is that things are turning green, trees are blooming.  It's spring!  it has been interesting to see the transformation.  Some of the trees that looked like they were dead are now sprouting flowers.  They're beautiful.  Flowers are popping up.  I'm really enjoying it.

So we've had two great activities at the church the past two weeks.  The Primary (for ages 18 months to 12 years old) had a really fun activity last Saturday.  We had a great turn out and I think all the kids had fun.  We had relay races, the older kids had a meeting about Faith in God and we had fun refreshments.  We have the cutest kids here in our branch.

This past week has been the Week of the Family.  We had a cultural night Friday night and Today we had games, a FHE assignment chart activity, dinner and lots of fun.

I was sick with food poisoning we think on Thursday night.  It kept me down for about a day.  Glad to be feeling better.

A Mighty Change

This has been a special week.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, we do many different things as missionaries.  We visit members and try to offer support if they are going through difficult times in addition to teaching people about our church.  Our purpose is:

"To invite them to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel 

through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, 

receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end." 

This week we have seen the hand of the Lord in a few lives.  One involves a young man who truly wants to change.  This week we saw the difference the Lord can make in a life when they turn to Him and invite Him in.  

At a recent General Conference of our church, Elder Uchdorf shared his experience in Germany during WWII.  He commented on the total destruction of Dresden and especially a church there.  He recently visited Dresden and the city had been completely rebuilt.  He also commented that the church that had been reduced to rubble, was built again. 

"As I pondered the history of Dresden and marveled at the ingenuity and resolve of those who restored what had been so completely destroyed, I felt the sweet influence of the Holy Spirit. Surely, I thought, if man can take the ruins, rubble, and remains of a broken city and rebuild an awe-inspiring structure that rises toward the heavens, how much more capable is our Almighty Father to restore His children who have fallen, struggled, or become lost?

It matters not how completely ruined our lives may seem. It matters not how scarlet our sins, how deep our bitterness, how lonely, abandoned, or broken our hearts may be. Even those who are without hope, who live in despair, who have betrayed trust, surrendered their integrity, or turned away from God can be rebuilt. Save those rare sons of perdition, there is no life so shattered that it cannot be restored.

The joyous news of the gospel is this: because of the eternal plan of happiness provided by our loving Heavenly Father and through the infinite sacrifice of Jesus the Christ, we can not only be redeemed from our fallen state and restored to purity, but we can also transcend mortal imagination and become heirs of eternal life and partakers of God’s indescribable glory."

I know God lives.  As one of our missionaries in our meeting yesterday said, "I know God's voice".  I too know His voice.  I know how to recognize his Spirit.  He lives.  He loves us.  He loves me, he loves you.  I'm so grateful to have this opportunity to serve Him.

PS  I can't help but include pictures of our wonderful, sweet members. :)

Winter has arrived!

This is looking out our front door.  When it rains it pours.  Our front yard is flooded every time.  I'm hoping it won't overflow and go into our house.  The title for this post is "Winter" has arrived.  In Spanish the word "invierno" translates to winter.  At least that is what I was taught.  What it means in Panama and many other Latin countries that don't get cold is that it is the rainy season.  

We have been told that in the rainy season it will rain every day.  Sometimes all day.  It hasn't rained every day yet but it has started to rain a few times a week.  The good part is, it gets a little cooler.  Sometimes right before it rains it is so humid.  But once it rains it's nice and fresh.  Everything is starting to get green.  Some of the trees that were just branches and you thought they were dead are now blossoming.  It is getting really green and beautiful.

We had a zone meeting this week.  I love seeing the other missionaries.  There are about 23 of us in our zone.  We meet about once a month.  I just love these missionaries.  I love hearing their stories.  They come from all over Latin America.  Most of the missionaries in our zone are from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.  When we get together they love to kid each other and joke around.

This is a picture of some of our missionaries in our zone.  This was a service project that they helped with in Chitre.

One of the things I love about Panama is that they love color, at least on their houses.

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!!