McKay C.A.R State Meeting

McKay joined Children of the American Revolution and was able to go to their August state meeting. 

They played a game to get them excited to do the state philanthropy "Save Our Shores."  McKay was pretty cute with the kids. 

All of the new kids. 

Everybody.

The air hockey table was the hit of the day.

Our society. 

We did a group donations of Goldfish crackers to a local food bank.

Helping clean up.

We went and cleaned up a park. 

These two found a boat battery.

It was pretty challenging to bring back to the trash dump site. 

They made it! It was a good day!

 

Lincoln Mission July 30-August 5 2024

 It really was another great week here in Panama. Life is good right now and we're seeing the hand of the Lord here a lot. 

 

Baptism

Our friend Arjen got baptized! He's 9 years old and his family are off and on inactive members of the church, but he is super cool. Loves reading, asks amazing questions, and loves meeting his goals. Surprisingly mature kid. He was super excited for his baptism and just had a huge smile on his face. Absolute legend. We're really excited to continue working with him and helping him to become a lifelong disciple of Christ.

 

Honestly that's the main highlight of the week, but I'll throw some more on here

 

- got a lot of fish

- testimony meeting was done 90% in Dulegaya which was cool

- we have some more friends that want to be baptized

- we might get wifi back in the church today

- we get our transfers soon

 

That's pretty much it. We're working hard here and doing what we can to progress the Lord's work. It's been an amazing once in a lifetime experience. I'm just trying to take it all in and enjoy it all.

 

Elder Nelson

 

 

Hunter Mission July 30-August 5

This week was absolutely amazing (which is saying something cause i've loved every week) but this week in particular had so many miracles and tender mercies.

The language is still difficult as always but little by little I can understand more. It's nice to finally see a little progress because it moves so slow it doesn't seem like any progress at all. But I've been loving it. The language will come with time and already, even though I can't understand them, i love this people. So many people will smile and wave back at us whenever we show them love through a wave or even a simple "buenas." We even have a cop car that will honk at us whenever they see us because I thought it would be smart to wave to them as we crossed the street. Which probably could've ended badly i've heard a few stories where they'll pull over and try to ask for papers and all that, but these ones were nice so were chilling.

Oh and we also had a huge miracle this week with our friend Tamara who loves the church and everything we teach but she has a Family with an awesome guy named Gino and they aren't married. So this past week we talked to them about all the blessings from baptism and the fact that they would have to be married beforehand. First of all it turns out he's already a member and was baptized when he was a kid, and then secondly the huge miracle was the fact that she was super ready to be married finally, so she was baptized. The reason this is such a huge miracle is because Gino has been trying to get her to marry him for 7 years. He later came up to us and said, "the fact that you got her to say yes in 4 days when I couldn't in 7 years is a miracle." So hopefully he will start coming back to church he already committed for next week and an activity tomorrow. But anyway the moral of the story is... me and my comp are basically Cupid bringing salvation to all jajaja. In all honesty I love these people and have high hopes for them.

I also had my first rainstorm here in Chile which is a very different experience when everywhere you walk is a dirt road and the gutters don't work. So that was an experience we had a bunch of the roads flood and our rivers that usually only have puddles were overflowing, it was actually super fun to just not care about getting soaking wet and then using the excuse that we are freezing and need shelter to get into peoples houses to spread the gospel , gotta use all your resources God gives you and rain is one of them. 

Overall was an awesome week and so glad to be here working for God. Hopefully I'll be able to speak Spanish soon but it's all God's timing. He knows perfectly what we need and what we can handle so as we look to him for help and hope he will give it to us in the way that will best help us grow. Once again I love all yall, if you need anything let me know and I'll send my prayers!

Elder Nelson