I Never Thought I'd Ever Say That in My Entire Life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Email received 11/28/12

Hey!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Things are going good here still!!!!!!!!!!!! We have some SUPER sweet investigators, all old ones. But Carlos is getting baptized on the 8th and Davis and Katia should also be getting baptized that day too!!!!!!! And we'll probably be baptizing 2 of one of our recent convert's grandkids too!!!!!!!!!! So the Lord's work is moving onward!!!!!!!!!!! Also Ruth (that girl we just baptized) got confirmed this week at church and it was SUPER COOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Also I ate pig tail on Sunday. Yep, I never thought I'd ever say that in my entire life!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ha ha but yeah it was SUPER gross!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Also for thanksgiving I had mondongo (cow stomach) Ha ha yeah only the Panama zone got to have dinner at President's house. But it's all good :) 

Anyways, I'm SUPER GLAD everything's going GREAT for you guys!!!!!!!!!!!! Tell Max Happy Birthday for me!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'll write him a email on Monday because I don't have time right now. But I love and miss you guys SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Everything's SUPER GOOD Here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Email received 11/19/12

They had transfers but he got to stay in his same area, Tocumen, but has a new companion.  He is so happy that he didn't have to leave the area because he's been working with a lot of investigators and has established some great relationships with them.  He looks and sounds really good!

Elder Houghton and Elder Meyer (his old companion) with the Torrentes family.  He said they were one of the many amazing families he's met.  I love it!

HEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Everything's good here!!!!!!!!!! I'm still in Tocumen but I did get a new comp. His name is Elder Harr, he's from Cedar Hills, and he works like an animal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ha ha seriously he doesn't stop!!!!!!!!!!! Ha ha so needless to say we're going to get a lot of work done this change!!!!!!!!! We should have a least 4 baptisms but we could have as many as 12 so I'm pretty excited about it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah the riots died down a few weeks ago and they never made it to Pedregal which I was kind of dissapointed about. I wanted to be able to say that when I was on my mission I had to stay in my house for a few days because it was too dangerous to go outside. That would've of been a SWEET story!!!!!!!!!! But it's all good :) {Seriously!?!}

Anyways, my investigators are doing really well!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We have a lot of them and they're pretty much all progressing!!!!!! And then yesterday when we were walking home from church yesterday this girl just walked up to us and told us that she wants to get baptized so we should go visit her house and teach her. Yeah pretty NUTS!!!!!!!!!!!  So we're going back there Wednesday. Also we had a SUPER good lesson with this lady Maricruz. She owns the laundry mat that we wash our clothes at. Anyways, we sang a hymn at the end, "Mas Cerca Dios de Ti" (Nearer My God to Thee) and the spirit was SUPER STRONG and she started crying and said that this is what she was supposed to be doing. So yeah she has a fecha for the 1st. Also, Carlos, my investigator we were waiting on for his marrige is FINALLY getting married on the 28th!!!!!!!!!!!! So we're FINALLY going to baptize him!!!!!!!!!!!!! But yeah our investigators are doing good

So SUPER funny and SUPER embarrassing story. So Saturday night we were eating dinner and I totally threw up. It wasn't because the food was bad it was because I'd eaten too much that day. You know, I'm kind of a light weight when it comes to eating anyways, and when I have to eat pounds and pounds of rice everyday it's too much. Ha ha but Hermana Rios was cool about it. I came out of the bathroom and she told me "Ha ha Elder, I've told you this before, you don't have to eat all of the food. If you can't eat it all stop." And then I told her that it was so good that I just wanted to eat it again and she laughed really hard. Yeah it was SUPER embarrassing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But it was cool because I actually made a joke in Spanish!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Ha ha anyways, everything's SUPER GOOD here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And yeah that guy in The District I think his name is Hepworth, anyways, he's a funny dude and yeah that's exactly how it is. Elder Harr was telling me the other day that he's never going to correct me on my spanish during lessons because he said that he doesn't know if the Lord needed me to say it the way I did. And I thought that was cool because it's true, you never know. A lot of times it takes some random Gringo with broken Spanish to get them to get baptized. Anyways I thought it was cool!!!!!!

Also, Harr is a singer and during 2 lessons already, I've sang solos...Yeah for some reason he likes singing a solo and then for me to sing a solo. Yeah not going to lie, I never thought I would ever be singing hymns in spanish in a random Panamanian's house :)

Anyways, I love and miss you guys SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He took this picture to show the 3 ties he got for $2 but I'm excited to see that he's been keeping his journal!

We Had a Baptism Yesterday!!!!!!!!

The email we received November 12th...

HEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hope you all are doing well!!!!!!!!!! Everything´s been going good here!!!!!!! We had a baptism yesterday!!!!!!!! We baptized our Investigator Ruth!!!!  It was really cool!!!!!! And the baptism went really well!!!!!!!!!! 

Ruth is the beautiful young lady next to Scott.  She looks really happy!  

Elder Meyer, Ruth and her little son, and Scott.

It was good for her because she´s had a pretty hard life so I was happy to see at least something in her life go well!!!!!!!! Also this week has been pretty crazy!!!!!! On Saturday we went over to Ruth´s house to help her uncle do some yard work and I totally picked up a crab!!!!!!!!! It was just walking around outside and I picked it up and threw it into the trees. Yeah it was pretty much one of the coolest things I´ve ever done!!!!!!! Also, Friday I went on divisions with Elder Van Weezep.  When we were walking down the street this random guy stopped us and was telling us that he was scared to die and what he should do. He kept saying, ¨No qiuero morrir!¨  which means I don´t want to die. So, we gave him a Plan of Salvation pamphlet and he was really excited about it. Also, we went and visited Laundry Lady (the lady that owns the lavamatico where we wash our clothes) and we had a really good lesson with her and placed a fecha with her!!!!!!!! She´s really excited about the church and she said that she´s going to come to church. Shé couldn´t come yesterday because she was in Los Santos (2 hours from Pedregal) but she said she's going to come next week and if she likes it, she'll continue to come. And I'm pretty sure that she'll like it. She was telling us that she's been going to other churchs for a few years now trying to find the right chruch and she said that none of the churches were welcoming and the pastor people didn't even want to talk to her. So yeah, it's a good thing that Mormons are generally welcoming people!!!!!!!! 

Changes are this Thursday and I'm pretty sure I'll get a new companion.  I hope I get a latin companion so my spanish can improve!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyways, that's all that's going on here.  I hope you all are doing GREAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love and miss you all SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Elder Tukia (with the apple in his mouth) was Scott's companion in the MTC.  This is a picture I got off of his mission blog.  This was taken during a Tocumen district training.

Everything's Going Pretty Dang Good Here!!!!!!!!!!

{Here's the email we received Monday, November 5th.  He usually emails in the morning but we didn't get it until late afternoon.  I was starting to worry then realized how blessed we are to have email and we don't have to wait weeks at a time to get letters.  He seems to be doing well and is happy.  He finally sent some pictures with him in a couple!  He went on a hike for P-day. I wonder if he ever feels like "whoa! I'm in PANAMA!" It is a beautiful country but different from Utah for sure!}

Our handsome missionary... He looks good, huh?

HEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Everything's going pretty dang good here!!!!!!!!!! Today we went hiking to this "lake" (it wasn't a real lake. It was a waterfall with a little pond at the bottom) But it was still pretty dang cool!!!!!!!!!!! And just so you know, it took me all the self control I had but I didn't climb up any of the cool rock faces there. But yeah it was pretty dang cool!!!!!!!!!!! That's also why I'm here at internet in the afternoon instead of the morning. 

Anyways, our investigators are doing great!!!!!!!!!! We are having a baptism this Sunday. And we're either going to baptize 1 or 3 people depending on a few things. Our investigator Carlos is getting married this week so we're going to baptize him and then Davis and his girl friend Katia might get baptized. They are both SUPER ready, the only thing is Davis is a cop and Novemeber here is NUTS!!!!!!!!!!!! There are holidays all the time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For example the past 3 days have all been holidays and there are 2 or 3 more this month. And they get pretty crazy!!!!!!!! For example on Saturday we got stuck at our Cocinara's house until like 5 because there was a HUGE party right outside of the neighborhood where she lives. This party was NUTS!!!!!!!!!! There were thousands of people and they were all SUPER drunk, some of them were naked, it was just all bad. So we stayed in her house until the party was over. And then President told us to be in our houses by dark these past few days because everyone is SUPER CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!!! And it gets dark here at about 6:30 so we just had to go straight from lunch to dinner and then go home so we couldn't get anything done. Anyways, I totally got side tracked...Now back to Davis. He's a cop and on Saturday he is working at a parade in a City called Los Lajas. And it's really far away from Pedregal. Like 3-4 hours. So if he can get back in time we'll baptize him and Katia (they want to get baptized together) on Sunday with Carlos but if they don't we'll have to baptize them next week. But we also have another investigator getting baptized next week too!!!!!!!! Her name is Ruth. She's the niece of a guy in our ward and she's talked to the missionaries before but they stopped coming about 3 months ago and so we're just picking up where they left off. So anyways she's getting baptized the 17th. She's really cool and she has a pretty strong testimony too. 

But yeah that's how our investigators are doing right now. So look forward to some SWEET baptisms!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Like I said the past few days have been crazy and it's been hard to get work done but we've made the most of it and have done as much as we can. Also, this is SUPER funny!!!!!!!!! So Elder Van Weezup and Elder Barrie got robbed last night. But all the guy took was chiceme (this weirdly good corn drink) And he was SUPER excited about it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They were saying that he was saying stuf like öh man I love Chicheme!!!!!!!!! Do you have to add sugar to it or is it already good to eat? and stuff like that. It was pretty funny!!!!!!! Other than that nothing too out of the ordinary happened this week. And the Sink, it's still broken. Elder Barrie bought some glue and we're going to try to glue it tonight but I don't know how well it's going to work. Oh another funny story!!!!!!!!! So the other day Elder Meyer and I went and visited that old lady Balbina because even though she's not progressing we go and visit her every once and a while because she''s SUPER old and nobody else visits her. But anyways, Elder Meyer totally fell asleep while we were there!!!!!! Ha ha Balbina thought it was SUPER FUNNY and she was laughing SUPER hard it was HILARIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

It sounds like you all are doing pretty dang good!!!!!!!!!!!! So the elections are this week right? That's pretty NUTS!!!!!!!!!! In a few days we'll find out if we are going to have a Mormon president!!!!!!!!!!!! All the members here are freaking out about it. It's kind of funny!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Anyways, I'm glad you all are doing good!!!!!!!!!! I love and miss you all SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Some things never change!  Boy, we love and miss him!