This week was another great week but a little uneventful. Lot's of lessons, working hard, learning random words in kuna, etc.
A long day...
Well, one day this week, just wasn't our day. We had nine lessons fall through and a lot of doors slammed in our face (and those without doors would just give us a disgusted look and throw their arms in the air and walk away.) We finally caught a break when a Kuna family let us teach. We brought one of the members who speaks Kuna and he translated our message. It was a good, simple, 30 min lesson that I couldn't understand. Hopefully he taught what we said, because I'd give him a simple sentence and he'd talk for five minutes. After all that, they told us they liked our message but were just gonna go to the church next door. At least it was a cool experience.
Jorge
One day we went around contacting houses up a massive hill. Not too much success, but we pushed through until we got to Jorge, who told us that he's already a member. He moved from Nicaragua to Panamá a while ago but never got back into church. We read the Book of Mormon with him and he loved it. We left him something to read and he read that and 13 more chapters. After our second lesson with us, he told us he wanted to show us a painting. We followed him and he showed us a "real life painting" or, in other words, his window. Through the window was an amazing view of the beautiful nature found in Panamá. In the distance, almost like it was in the horizon of a painting, was the church splitting the canopy of trees with it's spire. The Spirit was super strong as he shared his testimony and his experience when we came to his door. He came to church yesterday and it went very well.
Día en la finca
As mission panamá is the canonized best mission in the world, we always try and do some crazy stuff every now and then. Over the past few weeks we've been perfecting how we find those prepared by the Lord. Different programs namely 5 familias, Rey Lamoni, Proyecto Abish, Rey Benjamin, and Hablar con todos. This day is called "day at the farm." Basically you go finding the entire day, by contacting and speaking with everyone. We left the house at 10 am took a 30 minute break for lunch and then didn't stop working until dinner that night at 8. We had 66 contacts, 13 lessons, and 9 new people to teach. We walked faster than Forest Gump on his cross country run and taught as efficiently as humanly possible (well, as much as a gringo can try to.) It basically showed us we can be working harder and doing more. This day was a day to show the Lord our desire. Tracting in humid Panamá is rough, no matter what anyone in Resistencia, Argentina will tell you. And talking with everyone usually allows you to meet some interesting characters. And many people don't really have manners at all. Or standards. Or a clean vocabulary. But as we push through the hard times and show the Lord that we'll give our all, he will show us miracles. Us as God's servants can only do one thing and that's work. Work efficiently and work hard. Work on ourselves as disciples of Christ and ourselves as missionaries of the Lord. Only God can control the outcome. As we improve ourselves in the process, God will change us into the person he wants us to be. That's it for my soapbox (for now.)
Cerro cabra (Goat Hill)
Today our district decided to climb the small volcano in our area (one of the two volcanos in Panamá as we've been told) and it was a rough climb. So many steep slopes. And my comp and I are in an area called loma cobá (loma = hill,) meaning that we had to assert our dominance as the fastest hill speedwalkers in the district. Mission accomplished. Was it worth it? Probably not. There were also a bunch of spiders that can kill you (apparently.) Our legs may have died, but the view was amazing. We could see the city, the canal, into the jungle, and more. Super cool. And the climb that took 3 hours to do only took 30 minutes to get down. Probably because we ran down all the slopes and didn't take any stops. Today is our last regular p day before transfers so it was fun to do something like that.
Yeah that's basically it. Not much else to it. Hope y'all had a great week. Pray often (but as Presidente Nelson says, not a shopping list prayer.) Read the scriptures daily. Get to the temple.
Elder Nelson
nelson.lincoln@missionary.og
