Another great week with some good highlights. A long detailed email was requested, so skip around if you'd like.
Ukupa = promised land
Life has been great recently. We have some great relationships with the members, some great services lined up, and are teaching a lot of youth. We would like to teach more adults, but they are either already baptized and inactive or don't want to be taught/ change their lifestyle. But overall, everything is going great.
Magebgandi
We are also working to open up a new area and it's awesome. We took a boat ride to a village called Magebgandi and talked to all the chiefs about building a church there. Apparently, a while back the Baptist church worked out a deal with the Kunas that in the fine print said that if the Baptist church was already in a village, no other church could set up there. In November they're going to have a big meeting to get that fixed. In the mean time, we can hold sunday school classes in their big chicha fuerte hut, (where they make their traditional alcoholic beverages to get wasted. Us being there is probbly the holiest thing to have happened there.) We had 62 people there, and we think we'll be able to get more the next weeks when we can do personal visits and lessons. Super cool experience to say the least.
Water situation
Well, currently some people have been stealing our water because they don't want to go to the river and get their own. We would go to the river, but we don't have a boat and only have minimal water storage. Usually we don't need to because we have two massive tanks at the church that collect rain water. Unfortunate situation.
Jungle
On our way to get some coconuts, a massive bird takes off, shaking all the trees around us. The guy we were with instantly turns around, tells us to wait for him, and takes off running. He then came back with his gun. He couldn't find it again, but after we had done the work we came to do, the bird flies overhead. We dropped what we were carrying and then the guy disappeared into the jungle. We waited silently until we heard a loud BANG. He came back with a bird they call "guama" and a huge smile on his face. He cooked it up into some dule masi. It tasted like turkey. If any of y'all know (ethan), hit me up.
New congreso hut
They just built a new massive hut where they sing their oral history and discuss certain things going on in the village. Because it's new, a bunch of chiefs from a bunch of different islands came to participate. We were able to get a good seat and hear the chief go off singing in Dulegaya. I understood nothing.
Ibeorgun
A really cool part of the history of Guna Yala is that they beleive a white God descended from the heavens and taught their anscestors. The crazy thing is that's exactly what the Book of Mormon teaches. The Book of Mormon teaches that after His death and Resurrection, He visited His people in the Americas to teach them, give them His priesthood, and establish His church their. The Kunas have a ton of stories about him that resemble a lot of what takes place in the Book of Mormon. How He's God's son. How a nele (wise person or prophet) would come to help them. How he said the Kunas have "white brothers," how he taught them the symbol of the cross is good, and more. Super cool connection
Well, thats all I can think of
Elder Nelson
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