Tuesday, November 13, 2012

La ultima carta desde Penonomé

¿Cómo Estáis? 
      Well as for our baptism of Manuel, we decided to move it to this upcoming Sunday so that he isn´t as rushed and can understand things better which is kind of a bummer for me because i´m getting changed (transferred) and I won´t be here, but my comp is staying so i´m sure he´ll get it done. The Mission President told me yesterday that i´m for sure getting changed but i still don´t know where i´m going so i´ll find all that out Thursday. They changed the day of changes for some reason, now it´s Thursdays in case you wanted to know. I´m kinda sad to leave Penonome because i really like it here but it´s always exciting to go somewhere else and get to know a new part of the country. 
     We didn´t have any investigators in church this week because Manuel had to go to some family thing and our other investigator slept in... But it was an interesting sacrament meeting anyway because it was the primary program, and it was somewhat less organized than we'd see in our ward.  One highlight was these two kids who recently got sealed as a family (the dad passed away around a year ago) and they shared their testimonies about their experience in the temple and their talks weren't planned but it turned out to be the best part of sacrament meeting, because though they are only 6 and 4 years old they still got a grasp of how important it is, and how spiritual the temple is. They realized that because of what they did there in the temple, they are now an eternal family. 
    While in Chitré on a split with another missionary, my comp and I were looking for this family that they were teaching and when we showed up at the house this teenage girl came out and said that everyone was asleep except the kids and her, and my comp decided to just teach them a little lesson so he started teaching the little kids and the girl couldn´t really get involved so I just started telling her what my comp was explaining to the kids - and then her boyfriend showed up and I just started teaching those two alone (we weren´t really alone, we were all on the front porch but my comp was kneeling down with the kids on one end of the porch, but he was explaining things in a way that is boring for adults so i just started explaining things for the girl and her boyfriend) while my comp taught the kids. Anyway before i realized it, I looked over for my comp and all the little kids were gone and i looked across the street where one of the kids lived and they were all over there; they introduced my comp to their parents and he started teaching them all, so it was interesting because i´m sitting on one side of the street teaching this couple, and he´s on the other side teaching this completely different family, ha ha. It was strange teaching alone and just being more than 10 feet away from my comp while teaching. So the spiritual part is that while talking to her i found out the girl I was teaching had no idea what the purpose of her life was or what was waiting for her after this life and she had always wondered. I explained how we´re here to prepare ourselves to return to our Heavenly Father and we do that by doing certain things like repentance and being baptized. Well near the end of the lesson, i had no idea who these people really were because i had just met them (I had no idea what the other missionaries had planned to teach them) but following the Spirit, I challenged them to be baptized and they both accepted and they said that is this is the way to return to God and that they wanted to be a part of it. The part i like that i may have forgotten to mention is that in the beginning the girl didn´t really want us to teach anything but she decided it was ok if we would just talk to the kids about some random church things and sing a song, but by the end she wanted to be baptized. That´s proof that the Spirit touches people´s hearts and opens them up so they can accept the gospel. Sadly i´m leaving this area, so i probably won´t be able to find out what happens with them but i hope they follow through and get baptized. 
     One thing that is funny that happened to us is that our new duenos of the house where we live brought us over coffee for breakfast and we had to explain to them how we don´t drink coffee and why we don´t, it was kinda awkward but they understood and the next day they brought us hot chocolate instead, ha ha. They are really cool house owners and constantly talking to us and making jokes and stuff and making sure everything is great for us. Too bad i´m leaving now and won´t get to enjoy their great hospitality much longer ha ha. 
    It´s strange but it feels like the weather here in Penonome is cooling down a little, it has felt amazing lately! It´s been cloudy skies but without any rain and a nice breeze which is perfect and i think it was like 85 or 90 F here. I love this weather because usually here in Panama, it´s way too hot or it´s raining cats and dogs so it´s been nice to have a break. I think it´s going to get a lot hotter though because we are going into the hot season where it never rains and it´s always just super sunny all day. Like they say here, in Panama it´s either hot and sunny or hot and rainy, not too much variety here. Now that you guys are talking about how it´s snowing and stuff, man i miss the snow and cold weather. I was talking to this person who was telling me how much they want to go see snow and go sledding or skiing and it made me super anxious to go skiing. Even though i will probably freeze to death when i get home, i´m excited to get to experience cold weather again next winter. I used to think that hot hot weather all the time would be the dream but i realize now how wrong i was. Having seasons like Utah is the best ever, you get cold weather and hot weather and everything in between. 
    So i received some packages! I got my Frisbee, the socks and a package of skin medicine but i only got one package with medicine so i don´t know what happened to the one with the vet meds in it. But oh well it felt like Christmas yesterday getting packages and letters ha, ha - thanks for everything! The Frisbee is perfect and the socks are wonderful, my old ones are still going super strong too. I haven´t had to use the medicine yet, luckily, hopefully i won´t have to but i´m sure i´ll be grateful to have it sometime in the future. 
     Yesterday i hit the 13 month mark which for some reason hit me hard... I´m realizing how fast the time is flying and i don´t feel like i´ve done enough yet. I used to have the conflict that i was excited to go home someday, because well it´s home, but at the same time i thought that if i were to go home at that moment (not that i´m planning on going home early, mostly just reflecting on what i´ve done) anyway i realized that if i were to go right now i would feel super unfulfilled and it brought me to the realization that the only way to go home feeling good is working your guts out and giving 100% of what you have because i always feel that i give like 95 or 90% but never the full 100% so that´s my goal for my new area, give everything and more and hit the ground running hard. 
     Well to wrap up, if there is one thing i´ve really learned here on the mission is that God really does love us and He wants the best for us. He always gives us the chance to be happy and to progress just that sometimes the oportunidad is hidden and hard to find, but i know that when it´s hidden and it costs us something to find it, the reward at the end is greater than we ever thought possible. Always look for the good in life and other people and everything will turn out better! I love you guys and pray for you daily! Take Care!
Love,
Elder Pfister

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