Well this has been an interesting two weeks with some positive and not so positive things and a funny story but all in all i enjoyed the last 2 weeks.
Starting with the story... Last week we got a reference from the sister missionaries for this guy who is supposedly really positive who lives way far away in this village called Piña (Pineapple, haha) which is located on the other side of the Canal in the middle of nowhere. So we call this guy named Vergara, and we set up an appointment for 4 o´clock in the afternoon on Thursday and that morning we called him to confirm and he said that everything´s good so we headed off. We get to Colon and take another bus that takes us out there, after about 2 and a half hours on the bus, with it driving fast we get to Piña and get off. We find the local phone and call him to find out where he lives like he told us to do and this is our conversation...
Us: ¨Hey Hermano we´re here in Piña, where do you want to meet us?¨
Him ¨Oh elders... There´s a little problem, it´s that I´m in Colon right now. We´ll have to do it another day.¨
Us ¨What? and you´re not coming home soon or anything? (Click.... phone call cut)................................. Crap. Now what?¨
So we decide to not waste this time so we go and work a little and check
out the beach for a few minutes, then go get a drink and as we´re
drinking the owner of the store asks what we´re doing here, and we explain
that we´re missionaries and she says "well be really careful, because
here there is a lot of crime and robbery. Do you have someone to
stay with here"? We say no that we´re going back to Colon right now and
she says "well you better run because i think that is the last bus over
there" (like 100 yards away). So we say thanks and break out running
towards the bus and it drives away but luckily someone saw us and
stopped it and we were able to get on... all good, right? Not quite.... We say
we´re heading to Colon and the bus driver says "no you´re not, the last
bus to colon left about 3 hours ago (before we had even arrived),
there´s no more buses going there." So we get off and just think... What
are we going to do now? We´re stuck here in this dangerous middle of
nowhere fishing town with no bus and like 3 hours away from the next
civilization when using a bus, so who knows how long it would be walking to get to Colon. We asked
this one guy what we should do and he was like "well you better get
started walking and ask for rides on the way and pray to God." So we did
just that. It´s about 6 o´clock and we start walking home and everything
goes well for the first hour then around 7 it gets pitch dark, we´re in the middle of the jungle on this little road completely alone with no
lights or anything. We couldn't even see where the road turned and so we just
walked on the yellow line in the middle. It was freaky! Anyway, we keep
walking and we see this light and a house on this hill and think, we´re
saved! We get to the gate and here come the dogs, lots of dogs
barking and growling so we back away from the gate and the dogs, like 6
of them, stop at the gate but we realize there is no way we are getting
to that house alive and it´s too far away to yell so we give up and keep
walking, when all of a sudden the dogs crawl under the gate and start
chasing us! We just turn around and start throwing all the rocks and
garbage we can find at them and they finally give up but it was way
scary because they were big dogs like Pit bulls and German Shepherds, the
perfect guard dogs. Anyway, we keep up the trek, and it goes fine for a
while, till yet again we hear barks and growls but this time there is no
light near by and we can´t see anything. This time it was actually
terrifying not being able to see the dogs coming, but hearing them get closer,
so we just got on our hands and knees feeling around on the ground for
more rocks, but we couldn´t find anything and the dogs were getting closer, so i just
went off the road and found a banana tree and ripped off two branches,
which aren´t too good as weapons because they are more like just big leaves,
but we used them and just started swinging like demons, and after some
close encounters where the dogs almost got our flesh, we were able to swing and
run and get away from the scariest dog encounter i´ve ever had. After
that we got into this part of the road where the moon shined pretty well so we spent
some time to gather rocks and real sticks to defend ourselves. At this
point we had decided that we were going to die if we kept going so we
were going to get to the next house, call if they had a phone and if not,
just sleep there with them if they seemed nice. So after like 3 hours
of walking, praying and fighting off ferocious dogs, God sent us help.
This bus for employees of the Canal Company passed and usually they aren´t
allowed to pick up anyone, so it just passed us by without stopping, but then
it finally stopped at the end of the road, and when we got on I asked why
he stopped he said he looked back and saw that we were Mormon
missionaries and he felt that he had to stop and help us. So he took us
to the Canal and we got a taxi home safe. The bus driver said that we
hadn´t made any real progress towards home, and that if we had walked the whole way it
would´ve taken like 10 hours. So that was our adventure of the week,
really scary, exciting, funny and testimony building, haha. But don´t
worry Mom, we´re not going back there unless we go with a member who has
a car to take us.
Now getting to real missionary work, S_____i is finally getting married today at 2 pm, so she is going to get baptized this Saturday, finally!! She´s been trying to get married for over two years now and it´s finally coming true. Also Yulma the other lady we were helping to get married has gotten a renewed interest in getting married and baptized, so we're working with her again.
The D________s came to church again and the wife said that she was dropping coffee and that she wants to plan a temple trip to the visitor center, which i took as she is getting ready to get baptized!! She still says it´s not her time but she´s getting there slowly but surely.
This one night when we were walking home from dinner this girl in the street called us over and when we went over she explained how she wanted to learn more, so we gave her a little folleto and said we´d come back the next day. When we got there she had read the folleto and answered her own questions about it o sea, she is really positive. Then her dad came out and started talking to us and explained how he´s a preacher for a church and he started tearing down the Book of Mormon and the Church, and normally i´m not one for Bible bashing, but he made me kinda angry so i just threw out a few scriptures and tore down his argument haha and he just stood there in silence because he had no idea what to say, and then we just left because we didn´t want to argue. A few days later we went back to talk to the girl, and while talking to her, her mom came out and said how she doesn´t want us to preach to the daughter because she wants her daughter to follow the traditions in her church and that we can´t come back. And that was right after the girl said she was looking for a church of peace that focused on families, which is exactly what our Church teaches and provides, so that was a super bummer, but we hope we planted the seed with her.
We have another really positive new investigator named Ezequiel who is the friend of this ward member who brought him to the General Conference and he liked it alot so she brought him to church this week and we were talking to him and he seems really positive. We have an appointment with him this week so we´ll see how it goes but i have high hopes.
Also we found this Colombian lady who is our neighbor who happens to be the sister-in-law of this member and this member is the son of our cook Noris, haha, it is a small world. Anyway when we talked to her, she had alot of really good questions about religion and she is looking for the true church sincerely; well she found it, she just doesn´t realize it yet haha.
For conference i was able to watch all of Saturday and Priesthood sessions in English, but on Sunday we had investigators to go get, so we missed some talks. All of Sunday sessions were in Spanish. And to answer your question, the subtitles for the music are in English even here in Panama, haha.
Well, that´s what´s going on in my life right now. With some luck we should have some good baptisms this month. Even though we´ve had some rough days of pure contacting without any lessons, the blessing are coming into view. Love you guys tons! Take Care!
Love,
Elder Pfister
Now getting to real missionary work, S_____i is finally getting married today at 2 pm, so she is going to get baptized this Saturday, finally!! She´s been trying to get married for over two years now and it´s finally coming true. Also Yulma the other lady we were helping to get married has gotten a renewed interest in getting married and baptized, so we're working with her again.
The D________s came to church again and the wife said that she was dropping coffee and that she wants to plan a temple trip to the visitor center, which i took as she is getting ready to get baptized!! She still says it´s not her time but she´s getting there slowly but surely.
This one night when we were walking home from dinner this girl in the street called us over and when we went over she explained how she wanted to learn more, so we gave her a little folleto and said we´d come back the next day. When we got there she had read the folleto and answered her own questions about it o sea, she is really positive. Then her dad came out and started talking to us and explained how he´s a preacher for a church and he started tearing down the Book of Mormon and the Church, and normally i´m not one for Bible bashing, but he made me kinda angry so i just threw out a few scriptures and tore down his argument haha and he just stood there in silence because he had no idea what to say, and then we just left because we didn´t want to argue. A few days later we went back to talk to the girl, and while talking to her, her mom came out and said how she doesn´t want us to preach to the daughter because she wants her daughter to follow the traditions in her church and that we can´t come back. And that was right after the girl said she was looking for a church of peace that focused on families, which is exactly what our Church teaches and provides, so that was a super bummer, but we hope we planted the seed with her.
We have another really positive new investigator named Ezequiel who is the friend of this ward member who brought him to the General Conference and he liked it alot so she brought him to church this week and we were talking to him and he seems really positive. We have an appointment with him this week so we´ll see how it goes but i have high hopes.
Also we found this Colombian lady who is our neighbor who happens to be the sister-in-law of this member and this member is the son of our cook Noris, haha, it is a small world. Anyway when we talked to her, she had alot of really good questions about religion and she is looking for the true church sincerely; well she found it, she just doesn´t realize it yet haha.
For conference i was able to watch all of Saturday and Priesthood sessions in English, but on Sunday we had investigators to go get, so we missed some talks. All of Sunday sessions were in Spanish. And to answer your question, the subtitles for the music are in English even here in Panama, haha.
Well, that´s what´s going on in my life right now. With some luck we should have some good baptisms this month. Even though we´ve had some rough days of pure contacting without any lessons, the blessing are coming into view. Love you guys tons! Take Care!
Love,
Elder Pfister
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