"And Yeah I got my Letters" (FINALLY!)

We received this email from Scott today.  He finally got all the letters everyone's written him! He said he's going to try and write back soon.  I guess it takes two weeks to get to Panama and however long for his Zone Leaders to pick them up from the mission office!  (I don't know if they even deliver mail to the houses there.)  Overall he's doing good...

HEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Everything's going good. And yeah I got my letters ha ha it was nuts!!!!!! They handed me a huge stack of letters!!!!!!! But yeah I'll be sending them soon. But it does take pretty long to send. Because I have to give them to my Zone leaders and then they have to give them to the Elder in the office who's in charge of mail, then he has to send them out. So it's kind of crazy and the Zone leaders don't go to the office very often so tell everyone that they're coming!!!!

 Anyways like I said everything's pretty good here. It's getting really frustrating with Elder Meyer though. It's frustrating because of how lazy he is and it's hard becasue we could be doing so much more!!!!! But he doesn't want to do much and I can't do much without his help...But Beth told me about a talk by President Uchtdorf and in it he talks about trying to find happiness in every moment. So I need to try to find the positives and then just pray and have faith that it will get better. We do have a baptism planned for this Sunday. We're baptizing a lady named Balbina who's 73 years old so that should be pretty exciting!!! She's a really funny old lady. Ha ha she thinks that I think she's crazy because I don't say very much when we talk to her. But I told her that I can pretty much understand what she says but it's just hard for me to speak. But she's really funny. My investigator who needs to get married is so close to getting there. He has everything he needs but his soon to be wife needs to finish getting her stuff put together. But we're going to baptize him next month so that will be really cool to see because it's been a struggle getting this all together. We also have a lot of investigators and a lot of potential baptisms for next month. So I guess we've been doing a lot of work, it's just that we could be doing a lot more too. 

Thanks for creating a photobucket account for me!!!!!!!! Unfortuneately I was dumb and forgot my camera at home today so next week I PROMISE I'll send some pictures.

There wasn't anything too out of the ordinary that happened this week, but i did remember something I was going to tell you but I didn't. About 2 weeks ago I was taking a shower and then when I was washing my hair I noticed that there had been a frog sitting in the corner of the shower the whole time. And not just a regular frog, it was HUGE!!!!!!!! Ha ha it was nuts!!!!!! It took us forever to catch it and stuff. Also yesterday for lunch I ate the most rice I've ever eaten in one sitting. Like I said, they normally give us a TON of rice, but yesterday was RIDICULOUS!!!!!!!! The plate seriously weighed like 2 and a half pounds and it was only rice and 2 little pieces of chicken. It took me like an hour to eat it all!!!!!! Ha ha it was nuts!!!!!! I'm used to only eating a plate that weighs like 1 1/2 pounds (ha ha it's funny that that's normal for me now!!!!) Anyways, nothing else too crazy has happened. Anyways, I hope everything's going good for you guys and I'll talk to you next week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"A Really Humbling and Spiritual Experience for Me..."

Email received 9/17/12...

HEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah everything is going good here!!!! We had 1 of our investigators come to church yesterday. Her name is Balbina. She's a really old lady and she said that she really likes church and she wants to get baptized so hopefully everything works out and we get her baptized by the end of this month!!!!! We'll most likely have another baptism this month too. There's this guy named Carlos that wants to be baptized, but he needs to get married first. He's been going to church for like 12 years or something like that but hasn't had the money to get married until now. Becasuse getting married here in Panama is a lot harder and it costs a lot of money (they have to have all kinds of doctors appointments and lawyer stuff they need to do and pay for) so most people just say that they're married and then just live together. But he's finally saved up enough money to get married. So we're helping him with the mariage process and we should have him married by the end of next week and then baptized my the end of the month!!!!!!! So if everything goes as planned we'll have 2 baptisms this month and that will make 20 for the Zone (the most any zone has had in a very long time) so that will be SWEET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My Spanish is coming along, slowly, but it's coming. It's really frustrating but I just have to have a positive attitude about it and work hard and it will come. Elder Meyer is doing good!!!! To tell you the truth, he hasn't been that lazy lately and we've gotten a lot of work done!!!!! Well a lot of contacting but not very many people want to listen...And that girl who was really excited about the Book of Mormon, her and her family have been out of town this week so we haven't been able to talk to her. But hopefully this week we'll get that opportunity and hopefully she had a good experience with it!!!!!!!! And that sounds cool if you guys send those testimonies!!!!!!! That would be a pretty sweet tool to use!!!!!!! Also about the letters, I haven't recieved any of them yet. But I was talking to Elder Tukia last P-Day and he said that he went into the mission office and saw that there was a ton of letters there for me. So hopefully I get them soon!!!!! My Zone leaders are kind of "out of it" as far as missionary stuff is concerned (they only have 2 more weeks left) so they are lazy sometimes and forget things a lot. So hopefully I get them soon!!!!!!!! I'll ask them about it today.

Alright so I wanted to share something with you guys that really made an impression on me. Yesterday we went and visited 2 recent converts Nichole and her sister (for some reason I can't remember her name right now) one of them is 12 and the other is 14. We went and visited them because they haven't been to church lately and we were going to see if everything was all good. Now I didn't know these girls too well becasue they were baptized before I got here but when we went into their house I was shocked. These girls are the only members in their family, their mom is a single mother who's also a dead-beat, their house is as big as our living room (just the area with the T.V. and couches), they don't have a bathroom or a shower in their house, and they share a bed with all the members of their family. They've had a rough life. They wouldn't tell us why they hadn't been at church and they kept saying that they were doing good. But you could tell from the look in their eyes that things had been especially hard the past few weeks. Man it was really hard sitting in that house talking them and talking to them. Because seriously, their lives have been SUPER ROUGH!!!!!!!! Elder Meyer had them read some scriptures in 3rd Nephi. They are in chapter 22:10-15. It talks about how the Lord is always there for you and that He will help you with anything you need. Man hearing them read those scriptures and then looking at their lives. Man it was  hard...But I know that becasue they are trying hard (and they really are trying hard. They're reading the book of mormon and praying everyday) the Lord will bless them greatly!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh man it really made me think of my life and even though I've been thorugh trials and hardships, nothing even comes close to what they've had to endure and I know they will be blessed because of it!!!!!!

Anyways, I just thought I should share that because it was a really humbling and spiritual experience for me. And sorry there aren't any pictures this time either...I'll for sure make it work next week and I'll send my pictures!!!! 

We've had Some Pretty Sweet Lessons...

We received an email this morning!  Yippee!!!  He seems to be doing well and working really hard. The language is coming but probably not as fast as he'd like. He hasn't figured out how to send letters yet and he should be sending pictures next week.  He's doing well...

Hey!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah I'm doing great!!!!!!!! we've had some pretty sweet lessons this past week and 2 of our investigators came to church yesterday!!!!!!!!!! So that was super exciting!!!!!!!! One of our lessons in particular was really cool!!!!!! We were contacting in this one area that SUPER Junglely!!!!! I'll take some pictures of it the next time we're there because it's SUPER sweet looking!!!!! Anyways we contacted there 2 weeks ago and one lady let us in and we taught her and her son the plan of salvation. Then we made an appointment and went back last week and she was actually there (which doesn't happen very often) and this time her daughter was there too. And we taught them the restoration and about the Book of Mormon. Then at the end of the lesson Elder Meyer asked them if he gave them a Book of Mormon would they read it. Then the daughter jumped up from the couch and said, "Da me lo" which means give it to me. And as soon as we gave it to her she sat down and started reading it. We're going back again this week so hopefully she had a good experience with it!!!!!!!!! It was a good lesson but I only wish that I can speak more spanish than I can. Right now I only bear my testimony a few times during the lesson which is good, but I wish I could actually help teach....

My house is pretty nice.  And it's pretty huge. Well, huge compared to the houses here in Panama. It's about the size of Jose's old house. But seriously compared to the houses here it's pretty dang big!!!!!!!! We live with 2 other elders. Our area (Pedregal) is really big so they split it into 2 areas and the other missionaries who I live with work in the other Pedregal area. Their names are Elder Escalante and Elder Van Wessup. Elder Escanlante is from Columbia and doesn't speak English and Elder Van Wessup is from Utah, I don't remember exactly where from but somewhere up north. I think he went to Alta high school. Anyways they're both pretty cool. I see Elder Tukia a lot because he's in my Zone so I see him at district meetings and on P-Days. But other than him, I don't see anyone else because they are all in other Zones. 

Here's a picture I got online that is an example of a house in
the Tocumen area where he is.  

 We don't knock doors. The houses here are different. Pretty much every single house has an enclosed patio area with these big barred doors. So we just walk up to them and yell "Buenas" until someone comes out to talk to us. But yeah, we do that a lot!!!!! One day we had 5 appointments and all of them fell through so we contacted all day. And even the houses that don't have patios don't have real doors, they are those bar doors like I was saying. The houses here are way different to tell you the truth!!!!! And EVERY building is built out of cement blocks. Even in the main part of the city the hugh skyscraper buildings are made out of cement blocks!!!!!! The people are pretty nice towards us. 

P-days here are WAY better than in the MTC!!!! We actually get to do things!!!!!!!! Ha ha like last week we went to the temple (Which was SUPER COOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The temple is SUPER small--only one endowment room-- and they only have like 5 sessions per day) but it's so sweet inside!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was nuts!!!! We had to wake up at 4:30 in the morning to catch a bus and then take a taxi to get to the temple before 8:30. We've also gone around to different places in Panama and went to the church and played soccer and all kinds of stuff. Today we were going to go hiking but it's pretty stormy. We think that the tail wind from some hurricane hit here (don't worry, it's just windy and rainy and it's not doing any damage or anything) But I'm not sure what we're going to do. Tocumen is pretty cool. There's some really sweet Junglely places like I was saying before.

Anyways, it sounds like you all are doing pretty dang good!!!!!!! I miss you all so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! .  I love you guys and I hope you have a FANTASTIC week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Oh and I was going to send pictures but the computer is being dumb and it's not working. And I don't want to mail my SD card because I don't want it to get lost. Next week I'll try a different computer. And the picture of Max and Emma is pretty much one of the best pictures I've ever seen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

I'm Just Loving it Here!!!!!!

We heard from Elder Houghton today!!!

He sounds a little more settled this week and says, "I'm just loving it here!!!!!!"

So good to hear!

Enjoying some Subway sandwiches with President Ward during President's Interviews last week.

HEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Yeah it's all good here still!!!!! I'm starting to get used to the different lifestyle here. And yeah I'm sure the bite didn't break skin. It just left a bruise. My pants are fine and I'll try to stay away from dogs. My house is pretty good. It's really big compared to most houses in Panama but it's pretty disgusting. But it's all good. Yeah I sleep pretty well at night and no I don't need a mosquito net. There actually aren't that many mosquitos here. Well at least there aren't any right now. 

My investigators are doing good. We have 10 of them right now. 5 of them with baptismal dates, but it's been hard getting them to come to church. Also one of our investigators was in a really bad gun fight about a year ago. He got shot like 10 times, 4 times in the head but he lived. His left side of his body is pretty much paralyzed and he has a hole in his neck to help him breathe. And he's really interested and he wants to get baptized but the problem is the hole in is neck. He can't be underwater or his lungs will fill with water. So we're trying to figure something out but if we can't, he'll have to wait a year for the hole to heal up. And also, he's not coming to church so we need to get him to church also. 

The church here is good. I don't really understand what's going on when I go but it seems to be good :) the members are really cool!!!!!! Most of them are really strong in the church and they help out a ton!!!! They also feed us dinner every night. And we have a concinar that cooks us lunch everyday except for P-day (since we're out doing stuff) so we never have to cook our own meals. We pretty much just eat rice and spaghetti. Ha ha they also usually give us some salad and some fried plantains and some kind of meat. But it's mostly just the rice and spaghetti. Yeah I've been taking pictures. I just noticed that the computers we use have a slot for SD cards so I'll remember to upload some pictures next week.

I'm glad everyone is doing great!!!!!!!! Ha ha I think it's funny that out of all of my shirts cole could wear, he wore my attache shirt! Ha ha I just thought that was funny. 

That's so random that Cole is playing the harmonica!!!!!!!!!!! Ha ha that kid is a fool!!!!!! Sorry for the short e-mail this week. Nothing too crazy has happened. Anyways, I'm doing good and I don't need anything and I'm just loving it here!!!!!!! Tell everyone hi!!!!!

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

Always Remember the Church is True!!!!

 We received our first email from Panama!!!

He's safe and sound and working hard...

Hey!!!!!!!!!!! So so i made it to Panama alright and let me tell you, it´s so hot here!!!!!!!!!! I´m constantly sweating and the first few days it was hard to breath because of the humidity. But I can breath now and it´s all good, just SUPER hot!!!!!!!! So anyways, yeah I´m in Tocumen and yeah it´s pretty green. Panama is SUPER different than I thought it was going to be!!!!!!!!!!!!! I thought it was going to mostly be like the rich area you know, pretty nice houses and stuff like that. But that´s only one area. Most of it is pretty dang run-down. And it´s funny they don´t really have much of a trash service so there´s just big trash piles all around the city. Oh man, it´s so  different here you have no idea!!!!!!!!!! Also, I´m pretty sure there are no traffic laws. People drive so crazy here!!!!!!!!!! Oh man I hope I´m never an AP because I don´t ever want to drive here!!!!!! Also, there´s these buses here called diablo rojos that we ride all the time becasue they´re only a quarter and they are nuts!!!!!!!! They pack like 50 people into these buses and they drive SUPER crazy down the streets. It´s nuts!!!!!!!!!! 

Alright so now I´ll tell you about my first week here. It was pretty dang nuts to tell you the truth. The first night we stayed at the AP´s house and there were like 20 people there becasue people who come from far areas during changes stay there so there was people sleeping EVERYWHERE!!!!! And then on Wednesday I met my companion and then went to my area. My companion is named Elder Meyer and he´s pretty cool. He´s really good at spanish and he´s from Texas. I´ve already helped teach like 5 or 6 lessons. I didn´t really understand what was going on (which is SUPER annoying!!!!!!!! I hate not being able to understand anything that´s going on or to talk to people in Spanish!!!!!!!! Ha ha on Wednesday we were at the food court in this mall and I ordered Iced tea on accident because I can´t understand anybody!!!!!!!! Oh man it´s SUPER FRUSTRATING!!!!!!!!!!) anyways but during lessons I´ve been bearing my testimony and stuff. And we were teaching this one older lady named Rosa and I put a got her to commit to a baptism date so that´s pretty sweet!!!! Also, this last Saturday we had a baptism. We baptized this kid named Jordan I didn´t really have anything to do with it, he was taught all the lessons before I got here but it was still cool to see. And we had 8 investigators come to the baptism and they all really liked it and if everything goes as planned, we´ll have all of them baptized plus 2 more (Rosa and this guy from New York that we met that said he was taking the disscussions and almost got baptized but he got deployed to Iraq before he could) baptized by the end of September. So we´ll have 10 baptisms in one month.
 It´s a big goal, but I really think we can do it. Our investigators seem really interested and they want to get baptized. So hopefully that all works out.

I´ve eaten a ridiculous amount of rice since I´ve been here!!!!!!! We eat it every single meal!!!!!!! We have a cocinar who cooks us lunch everyday and then the members feed us dinner every night so we never have to cook. Anyways, I have rice for every meal. And not just a little bit of rice, A TON OF RICE!!!!!!!!! I´m not even exaggerating when I say this, but I´ve eaten about 3-4 pounds of rice since i´ve been here. Each meal is about 3/4 of the rice that can fit in my rice cooker I had last semester. It´s down right ridiculous!!!!!!!!!!!!! And they also feed us a ton of spaghetti!!!!!!! And often times both in the same meal!!!!!!! Oh man, it tastes good, but it´s just SO MUCH RICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 
Also something else crazy that happened. I got bit by a dog last night. We were visiting a recent convert who hasn´t been to church in a while and her dog out of no where jumped up and bit me in the butt right as we were leaving. It didn´t break skin or anthing though so it´s all good. 

Oh and that Earthquake, I had no idea that even happened. Nothing happened here.

Yeah so sweat up the yin-yang, ridiculous amounts of rice, a baptism, and a dog bite. A pretty crazy first week if you ask me!!!!!!!!! Anyways, I love you guys so much and I miss you guys a ton!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks for everything!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And always remember the church is true!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm SUPER EXCITED

Hey Everybody!!!!

Sorry, this letter this week is going to be a little shorter than usual.  I have to pack today and a billion people wrote me this week!  (Not complaining!)

So, anyway, everything's going good.  I'm SUPER EXCITED to go to Panama on Monday!!!!  My lessons have been going really well!!!!  We've been having really good success with inviting Spirit!!! It's been pretty exciting!!!!  And we taught a few days ago at the TRC (it's where volunteers come in and we just teach them as themselves) and the lady we taught, at the end, burst into teach and told us that we're ready to go to Panama.  The Spirit was SUPER strong and it felt really good to hear that!!!!

Anyway, like I said, I'm just getting read to leave.  I'm so excited!!!! And I'm pretty much done with the food here! There isn't anything too appetizing here anymore.  The eggs here taste like those eggs that we had at Escalante.  But it's all good.  I'll be eating real food in a few days!!!!

Anyway, I love you and miss you all SO MUCH!!!!!  I'll be calling home on Monday!  Talk to you soon!!!!

I love you guys!!!!!!

Just teaching this Amazing Gospel!!!!

Hey Everyone!!!

Everything is very good here!!! I'm SUPER excited to get to Panama though! Mostly because of the food.  Like I said before, the food is getting pretty bad.  But it's all good.

We found another kid going to Panama leaving the same day as us.  We didn't even know he existed until the other day.  He's in an advanced district (advanced in Spanish). But anyway, like I said, I'm really excited to go to Panama, get real food and teach real investigators!!! Nothing too significant happened during our lessons this week.  Just teaching this Amazing Gospel!!!!  We're getting on of our investigators ready for baptism so that's pretty sweet.  But other than that it's just normal teaching.  Our other investigator is pretty hung up on tithing so we're helping him work through that.

 Um nothing really too crazy has happened.  It's pretty sweet!  I see Allen like 30 times per day so that's sweet!  Also Ethan and my old roommates James and Landon are already out of here which is pretty nuts!!! Also my roommate Braden put his papers in yesterday!!!!! So, he should receive his call here pretty soon!!!!!!

I'm doing great here!!!! Here's a scripture that has helped me when I've been down that I feel like I should share.  It's really good and I highly suggest you read it.

D&C 31:3-6, "3 Lift up your heart and rejoice, for the hour of your mission is come; and your tongue shall be loosed, and you shall declare ^agladtidings of great joy unto this generation.

 4 You shall ^adeclare the things which have been revealed to my servant, Joseph Smith, Jun. You shall begin to preach from this time forth, yea, to reap in the field which is ^bwhite already to be burned.

 5 Therefore, ^athrust in your sickle with all your soul, and your sins are ^bforgiven you, and you shall be laden with ^csheaves upon your back, for the ^dlaborer is worthy of his hire. Wherefore, your family shall live.

 6 Behold, verily I say unto you, go from them only for a little^atime, and declare my word, and I will prepare a place for them."

So anyway, I love and miss you guys a ton!!!!!!