Lincoln Mission November 14-20 2023

Habla mo,

Life's been good over here in God's country (Panamá of course,) and we're workin hard cada día. I know some of you are wondering why title of this "email" is the well-known star wars character, Anakin Skywalker. Well, let me tell you. I'm him (as the kids these days would say.) My comp has kept calling me Anakin because I was born for the purpose of being a missionary, but have a tendency to bible bash. I often hear the voice of my wise Jedi Master (Obi Wan) scolding me for my unwise contention, which is just Elder Johnson being an absolute legend.

     I'm working on it, it's just that when you're explaining the Restoration and some guy interupts half way through to ask, "what day do you guys go to church?" it's frustrating. We already know what's going to happen. We just sigh, lean back in our seats, and brace ourselves for an hour lecture about how we've never read the bible. Then I learn forward, flip open my bible, continue to show him that he has no idea what he's talking about, and walk out leaving him speechless. "Anakin, the bible unchecked in your hands only leads to contention, etc." I then have to go repent.

Falling in the jungle... twice

We took one of our jungle short cuts to get to one of our lessons and it started pouring. We were caked in mud and trying our best to get out of the jungle quickly. Before I knew it, I slipped on a puddle and landed straight on my back. Elder Johnson died laughing. Apparently I looked like a cartoon character slipping on a banana peel. Near the bottom, we were getting close to the road. Steps away from safety, I fall again in the same way. As I tried to get up I only succeeded in dragging myself more through the mud. When I could finally get back to my feet I was caked with mud. We got a good laugh about it and we only had one more lesson for the night, so I could go back and change. I don't know if that white shirt will ever be completely white again.

English Class

Our English class is always a highlight of the week. We always get a lot of members to come and even some of their friends. This week I don't know how much they actually learned to be honest. Elder Johnson was diligently helping two kids write English on the white board, and the other 15 people are surrounding me looking at my phone as I show them hilarious photos I've taken. Mom, I only took up, like, 5 minutes, so it wasn't horrible. It started with this one shy kid that I was trying to make laugh and grew into the entire class. My faithful, patient, Yoda of a comp, Elder Johnson got the class up and going again, so we finished it off learning how to say the date and the time. Super fun.

Church 

I always love church. We had a 13 yr old give an absolutely amazing talk that was memorized, one of our friends came to church, a less active member came to church, and we had a good lesson. After, I was told by a recent convert, "I love you," in English. I just laughed, acted like I didn't hear anything and all the sudden had lost my ability to speak Spanish. Very uncomfortable.

Noche de Hogar

We had a super fun noche de hogar with the Sanchez family and they participated and had a great time. We taught the 10 hand signs to memorize the 10 commandments and they loved it. We then ran over to our other friends house and got arepas! Soo good and made with Venezuelan love. Amazing. We also celebrated a birthday with them on Sunday with really good chocolate cake!

Other than that, just working hard, laughing a lot, and living the missionary life. It's definitely hard sometimes but I 200% recommend. We are doing a motivational video from a 10 min motivational speech and it's gonna be fabulous (shout out to High School Musical.) We're not having a ton of success, but as we're obedient, work hard, and trust in the Lord's will, we can have peace of mind and know we'll be blessed for our faith and sacrifice. Love y'all and ojalá que tengan una fantástica semana!

Elder "Anakin" Nelson

 

Palmer Mission November 14-20 2023

Whats up yall...I hope yall had a good week cuz ours over here was just insane. Lets just say...Rip to my homie San Martin and we will leave it at that but it was actually a good week despite the challenges that came. But lets get into it...

ET

Ok so, first up on the list of crazy things that happened to us, started last sunday...basically our friend Maira, who got baptized last saturday, has an ex boyfriend who apparently "never wants to see her happy" so anyways....this chick fell in love with my beloved companion Elder Dion Sanders and always wrote him love notes no matter how many times we told her to stop so anyway, this ex boyfriend shows up to Maira's house to drop off their kids and snags her phone while shes sleeping and puts her fingerprint in while she sleeps and leaves to a plaza to continue to harrass us and threaten us (well he was threatening me cuz he got our names mixed up) so lets just say Elder Dion was in trouble so we hit up Father President Barlow to clear this all up and boom emergency transfers the next day. It was sad to see my best friend go but I would rather he leave this area than leave this earth so I guess its for the better..nos vemos sin ballena en uno. BUT here comes the exciting news...Elder Meza is my new comp! Its his first transfer as a leader of a group larger than 6 so Im kinda showing him around but he was already prepared before and I just gotta show him how its done and yeah he'll be ready to take on Posadas. He is super dope and we are already grinding and doing our best to be 100 obedient. Les go

Spiky Baseball Storm

Alright, if that 1st one was a banger just wait, we are not even close to done. Numer 2 on the list is Spiky Baseball Storm...its 5 am and all of the sudden something starts banging on our roof and then a lot of somethings start banging our tin roof...Elder Meza in his first night here says "what is that?" As if it was normal and I said "uhhh I think its hail" so I start videoing right and I go outside and boom I get hit with hail the size of a baseball that richocheted off the other roof so I go inside and just wait it out but the next day, cars windows were shattered, water tanks busted, houses and trees destroyed, it was insane. Luckily our roof just dented so it wasnt bad but for others it was really bad. The hail was literally the size of a baseball and spiky...like a evil snowball...shoutout that one episode of Studio C when the world was ending...McKay will understand

Ghostbusters!

Ok, number 3 is even crazier....that same night we had gotten a call from our District Leader at 1 am and we have to be asleep by 11...but we didnt hear the call so we see our phone in the morning and call him back cuz it was for sure an emergency and anyway he tells us this crazy story about the Sisters in Jardin so we call the sisters to see whats up and if they were ok but they then tell us the story in more detail..but basically the sisters had recieved a reference (someone interested in Jesus) from the Sister Training Leaders and bascially the reference says they want misionaries to pass by to cast demons out of their house. So the sisters decided to pass by to check it out...well its a woman and her daughter and they claimed to see a shadowy figure at nights sometimes and one time it choked the mom in the night and explain stories like that and basically the sisters started getting uneasy and feeling really scared and bad and then one sister felt something touch her arm so she jumped and the mom said it was just a mosquito but the daughter said she saw something else touch her...so they felt worse and they felt like that the whole day and so at night they put their mattresses on the floor to br closer together in the night and turns off all the lights except the bathroom one. And then they go to bed, then one of the sisters wakes up cuz she felt something touch her and so she tried to grab whatever was touching her and there was nothing so she waited again and felt something touch her again but she waited to see if it moved and it didnt so she tried grabbing it and there was nothing there so she woke her companion up and told her they were gonna go to the church and they open their bedroom door and all the light were on....so they run to the church and called our District Leader and he calls us, the APs and President and no one answered so he called our convert and our convert got them an uber to the pension of other sisters...so we spent the next morning going to their pension to dedicate it and give comfort blessings to send away and bad feelings or spirits...so you could just call us the ghostbusters....

Miracles

Ok so the spiritual part! We saw miracles! We worked super hard and taught a family on saturday about going to church and 2 of them went! Then our friend Alan (friend of a member) also went and participated in the primary program and also went to a baptism!! Super epic, and 4 converts came to church! It was super amazing cuz its a miracle that that many people came especially on election day. Later that night after almost being robbed in the boonies and rejected super hard, I felt inspired to talk to a dude in the street and turns out he was a less active member who wants us to pass by and his family isnt a member and they live in a house we already contacted...miracles

God lives, Jesus does too. Our Heavenly Father provides miracles if we do what he asks and he did that this week...I know Im a sinner but as we get better and try our best...he heals us slowly and helps us come unto him. This was a hard week but with Jesus we got through it! We learn to accept the consequences and move on and take changes with gratitude in life...the Book of Mormon is the solution to any problem you have...it gives me peace and comfort cuz it testifies of Jesus!!

Love yall! Elder Nelson...sorry its long

 

Lincoln Mission November 7-13

 Q' xopá y'all? Nuenganbi around here. Todavía anyer dulegue y tutu suliti. Not too much happenned this week, but as y'all already know, my email will probably be long. Blame it on laundry wait time and the fact we again will spend another p day in buena vista. We have a few friends progressing and are working hard to do the Lord's will! 

José is still suprising us with his faith and preparedness. We explained the restoration and the Book of Mormon and he tells us that it all makes sense, especially the Book of Mormon, AND THEN he quotes John 10:16 and said he's always wondered about that. Miracles. He is busy with work because he has to go all the way to zona libre (huge city like trading market.) We'll meet with him later this week and see how it goes. I love being able to see these people see that this message us from God and that they actually pray about it. When I can have some effect on someone's life it makes me feel so good. God has blessed us so much as we work hard and do as He asks.

Mahli is doing great as well! She came to church yesterday and asked for a part to read in the Book of Mormon. Being able to speak english is fun and she has learned a lot. We are coming to a point where the decision needs to be made if she wants to take a leap of faith or stay where she's comfortable. This process of faith has come up a lot in my short time in Panamá, and my comp and I were talking about it yesterday. We have what we're familiar with, we have the friends we know, the habits we can deal with, and the situation with which we've learned live. The problem with this standard of complacency is that God can't work with us. He asks us to change, to be better, to let go of things of the world, and ultimately to jump into the unfamiliar, promising to catch us. It's been hard to see people choose to stay where they're at because in the end they will end up fallen and will miss out on what could've been eternal joy but they traded it for a moment of comfort. Sorry for my soap box.

We had a small parade for one of the independence days of panamá (there are two, both in November, one from spain and one from columbia.) There are quite a few days to celebrate but with the protests it was small this year, but nonetheless a good experience. Lots of horses, a jeep, sombreros pintados, traditional dresses, and salomas (panamanian yells)

Another miracles just happenned as a random guy contacts us and asks us to come over and teach him. It's been such a blessing to be part of the Lord's work and to see that He really  tool He can work with. Hopefully our friend, Jairo, is fuego 

Friday was a really hard day and it took a lot out of us, but we continued to do what we needed to and got through it. But now the inside joke is, "we don't talk about friday." 

Other than that we've been just workin hard and having fun. I loved to read the article put out by the church about Elder Ballard. His example is amazing and he was just an overall a great person. It's amazing how the Lord prepares and qualifies whom He calls. The lives of the prophet and apostles are so fun to see. Christ really does lead this church and is in the details of all of our lives. I hope y'all had a great week and that you can trust in the Lord!

Elder Nelson