Letter from Elder Pfister March 12, 2012

Hola,
Q' Xopa (whatsup?):
 

Well the biggest news from me here is that I moved areas and got a new comp. There were actually alot of changes, they took part of my old zone Chorrera and made a new zone called Chicamito which is funny because that's what you call the stores here where they sell chicemi but i don't know how to spell that haha. So yeah, both me and my comp got moved out and our house is the new ZL's house. 

I am now in Juan Diaz 1 in the zone of Panama. My new area is alot more city like than my old area. I live about 2 hours away from the main city by bus which is ironic because i am in the zone of Panama and we have to travel 2 hours every Monday and Tuesday for p-days and zone meetings because they´re in Panama City, but it was only a 45 minutes or an hour to travel to the same spot from my old zone haha, but that is partly because the traffic here is terrible. It has been a rough first week because the area i am in, Juan Diaz, was just one big area that they just barely split, and we got the part where there haven´t been missionaries for a long time so it´s pretty much opening a new area and the last week has been straight contacting. Like 7 or 8 hours a day just walking around talking to people, I now have giant blood blisters on the bottom of both my feet so that´s not cool and the people here aren´t nearly as nice and not one has let us in yet, but we do have a few return appointments though so that´s good. 

And actually we got this reference from our lunch cook and we went there, it turns out it is this family who is ready to be baptized and wants to be, they just haven´t gotten married yet and for some reason the elders stopped going to them so now we´re working with them so hopefully that works out. The bummer is that in the city we can´t help them get married, they have to do everything themselves, or else we would do all the work for them like we did in Chorrera haha. Another little bummer about this area is that the ward is really struggling and poor, and so we only have 6 dinner appointments a month and the rest we have to cook for ourselves, but we don´t have that much money because we have to use buses a ton to get around which drains us financially, so this should be interesting, I might go hungry a lot in this area haha. But there is still a lot of positive news.... 

My comp is Elder Brown from Alabama and he´s super cool. He only been in-country for 2 more transfers than me so we´re both pretty young in the mission and his Spanish isn´t amazing, so i am kinda worried my Spanish might go down a little.  But we work super hard and study and all like we should so the Lord will bless us i bet  :) He´s a super cool guy, We have  a ton of similar interests like, he loves scuba diving, the show Psych, cars, he likes most sports, and we´re both just chill people so its sweet. I´m super pumped for this time in this area and even though it´s hard, opening an area can be very rewarding and it feels good working really hard. 

My zone is also really cool and we work really closely with the other two elders in Juan Diaz 2 and they are both cool. One is new from Hawaii and one is from Mexico and he´s way tight! So overall, everything is great here for me :)

Dad, congrats on solving the great mystery on that plant problem in Brazil and getting a paper published and stuff, that sounds like a great accomplishment, so go out to eat and celebrate somehow :)

 Mom, i´m glad your knee surgery went well and that you´re not in pain now. I hope you heal up fast and that you don´t need a whole knee replacement at all, or at least for a long long time. But now we´re twins and knee surgery buddies :)

Well that´s pretty much all i got for ya for now, life is good for me here and already i´m loving this new challenge in this area! I don´t have much other news since things are so new here in this area, but you just wait, this is going to be a good change full of exito (success), i can feel it!! :)

I love you guys and i miss you tons! Never forget that Christ is always there for us to comfort and help us through the hard times is life and He will always be there. Being here in a really poor area, i can definitely see the way that Christ helps and changes people´s lives for good. 

Take care everyone!

Love,

Elder Pfister