Una Gringa en Panamá: Vamos a P-dayar!!

Hi everyone J Before I get to Alyssa’s letter I have a request to all of you in the Salt Lake area. Brent has a sweet sister in his ward in Florida who joined the church a little over a year ago against her parent’s wishes. She has made the choice to serve a mission again against her parent’s wishes and because of it they are not willing to support her. She received her mission call and is leaving at the beginning of December to serve in the Utah Salt Lake City South Mission (yes this is the mission I live in). She is in need a women’s bicycle as she has to be able to ride it in a skirt. If you or if you know anyone who has one they would like to sell or get rid of one please let me know.

Okay my notes first!!

We went to a Christ statue on top of a little mountain or maybe a big hill, don’t know which one. But it was cool and the view was awesome, I will send pictures (: Last Monday was Panama independence day #1, and there were parades, well people were selling stuff on the streets and Elder Astudillo got his favorite food from Panama... Pig's foot... I literally almost threw up... Just watching him eat it was disgusting!! And the kid loves it!! Anyways....

Christ Statue

View from Statue

Hermana Chavez and Hermana Wandell

On Tuesday we had lunch at a place called Pio Pio.... Which is like a really mediocor (no idea how to spell that, sorry my brain is having a hard time with English lately.) Chick-Fil-A. The food is alright... the workers are….interesting. There is a special name for these people, Racatacas. I can’t do it justice to try and explain, so I will give you a Youtube video to look up, because it explains everything, just in Spanish... Look up "Bon Qui Qui and King Burger" on Youtube. You will understand... (I looked it up and thought it was funny, ofcourse the one I found is from MadTV so it was certainly a comedy spouf)

So on pday last week one of our investigators called us asking for money, well we can’t do that. She got mad and was like my family can’t eat. Well we called the branch president to see if they could give them food, well they couldn’t because they have to help members before they can help investigators. So we called her back and told her and said sorry. The next day she called us again and said I need you guys to give me money because I want to go visit my family... WAIT WHAT?? So your family didn’t really need the money for food, you just wanted us to pay for your vacation?... yeah no.

This week we met a catholic lady (okay 3\4 of the people we meet are catholic) but anyways we taught her and gave her a Book of Mormon... and get this, she read it, believes it, but she was born catholic so she is gonna die catholic... okay...

We had dinner with a member this week and she gave us tuna... yeah I can’t eat tuna... so Hna. Chavez was slowly but surely taking bites of mine off of my plate so I didn’t have to eat it. Well she has a really small stomach and can’t eat much so she was trying to put the food into a plastic bag in her purse but she kept laughing... so we just ate super slow until the lady said we didn’t have to eat anymore (:

Hermana Wandell and Hermana Chavez

There is something here called a duro. It is pretty much juice poured in a little bag and then frozen and then you cut off the corner and suck on it or eat it. They are AMAZING!! I have tried the coconut flavor, pineapple, rice with pineapple (surprisingly that is the best one), and papaya. They are super good!!

I got my visa stuff all done. So now I have permission to be here for a year and then I have to do it again next November.

Hna. Chavez is sick... L

We were at the service project for like 3 hours and that dog was asleep the whole time.

Elder Astudillo

Elder Bitter and Elder Quimiz

Elder Ulloa and Elder Weston

Elder Ulloa and Elder Astudillo

Elder Quimiz

They wouldn't let us do manual labor so we made juice instead. It is grapefruit juice but much better than the grapefruits that we have.

Hermana Chavez

Our zone loves to eat at the restaurant after district meeting. There are these little restaurants called Fondas everywhere here, and some are pretty sketch, but this one is fine (: and it is so good!! You can get a plate of rice, beans, fried chicken, and these plantains that are sliced and then cooked in butter and cinnamon sugar all for $3. It’s awesome!! but it is a TON of food!!

We made up verbs. For example Chinar, which means to buy food to eat at a chino. Pdayar or to have a pday. Fiestar is to party. Ulloar is to be really happy all the time like Elder Ulloa. Astudillar is to talk with a different accent. Yeah and there are more. Oh like machetear which means to machete the people with scriptures (: it’s a favorite among missionaries!!

DyC 6: 14, 32 Kinda cool, I liked them, so I thought I would share.

14 Verily, verily, I say unto thee, blessed art thou for what thou hast done; for thou hast ^ainquired of me, and behold, as often as thou hast inquired thou hast received instruction of my Spirit. If it had not been so, thou wouldst not have come to the place where thou art at this time.

32 Verily, verily, I say unto you, as I said unto my disciples, where two or three are gathered together in my name, as ^atouching ^bone thing, behold, there will I be in the ^cmidst of them—even so am I in the ^dmidst of you.

Cool story, apparently when president Monson dedicated the temple here, at the very end of the dedicatory prayer there was lighting really close and HUGE thunder!!! Then once the thunder stopped Pres. Monson with like the most calm voice said "The Lord has accepted His house" WOAHHHHHH CRAZINESSSSSS!!

A lot of people think I can’t understand them so they tell Hna. Chavez I can’t speak Spanish. She always says no she can, just try listening to what she is saying (she is a rock star) and then there are people that are like WOAH!! Where did you learn Spanish?? You are a Gringa!! Your Spanish is really good! Sooooo I’m confused... because I get both all the time....

Our goal is to strengthen our branch, so we are starting Family Home evenings with the families in our branch. I hope it works. This is the little profile thing I made to put on the bulletin board at the church.

One of our members have giant pigs!

Hermana Chavez

(Abby named this one Wilbur)

The other day something really awkward happened and I don’t remember if I told you or not. We were visiting a family and shared a scripture about the atonement, well all of a sudden the wife starts ripping on her husband and saying how they are separated. And Hna. Chavez flat out told her, I don’t know how you feel because I have never experienced this, but the Lord knows. And then Hna. Chavez was like honestly sister this is something that you and your husband need to discuss alone, not in front of your kids and not with other people. Well then yesterday her daughter was at church and she told us that after our visit last week, her parents started talking to each other again!! Woooooo!! So we will see how it plays out. We are going to have a family home evening with them next week.

Okay now to respond to your email.

Hna. Johnson is the one in the picture at the temple who is taller and super skinny. She is a sweetheart, she is from Lehi. (I asked who the other girls were in the temple picture from a few weeks ago)

HAPPY PANAMANIAN INDEPENDENCE DAY!!! AGAIN!!! I told you they celebrate all month... today is their 2nd independence day... yeah. Uhhh they have parades and they drink and they party and yeah..

No I haven’t tried those oranges. (some special orange in Panama that I don’t know how to spell)

Tell Sarah that when she feels homesick or worried, just to remember that every day she is here, her family is being blessed because of it. It helps. I can promise her that she is going to love it here!!