Que Tal!

Que Tal!

   
    Well, i´ll answer the questions first so i don´t forget... I¨m all healed up now from all the rashes and my sickness - so no worries there. The things in the photo that we were making with the banana leaves were tamales. We made them a few times, once to earn money for our ward activity and the other to help this lady financially with this operation she needed, and we´ve helped to make tamales other times just to help because our lunch cook here makes tamales for a living. I did receive the laminated picture of the 3 of us as missionaries; i got it a long time ago but maybe i forgot to tell you, but thanks i really like it! It´s fun to show people and have them compare to see if we look alike. I haven´t gotten any packages yet but i´m sure there are some sitting in the office waiting to be sent.

   
   So this week in church we had Manuel come, we had Isabel and Doribel come, and this friend of the person that has us over for Sunday dinner also came, so we had great success even with all the partying that´s going on. This week and during the up coming week is all partying and parades with a bunch of holidays that are right next to each other. One is the independence from Columbia, one is flag day and some others that i forgot what they are but the point is EVERYONE is traveling or partying and we expected to have no one in church even though it was only an hour meeting. But surprisingly we had a decent number of people come plus 3 investigators and our menos activo. Isabel isn´t a member but her mom Doribel is and that´s the family that we are now renting our house from, and since we´ve started talking to her she´s started coming back slowly. Manuel now says that he wants to be baptized this Saturday and in the ocean haha - i´m not sure about the ocean part but if we teach alot i think we can get him baptized this Saturday. He is really enjoying the Book of Mormon and all the times he´s come to church. The friend of our Sunday dinner family is someone that we invited but doesn't live in our area so we handed him off to the other elders.
   
   This week i spent half the week working in Chitre on divisiones with an elder from there. I went there and his comp came to work with mine in Penonome. I really like Chitre except it is really hot there, way hotter than in Penonome, and one day we had to walk like 2 hours in the sun to get to this appointment (that wasn´t there), so i came out of that looking a little like a tomato, haha. I also ended up buying Mom her Christmas present while i was there from this member, but it´s really fragile so it should be interesting sending it to you guys. We had a good time there and some cool experiences, i just hope some people work out for those missionaries.
   
   The riots and chaos here has settled down with the government making some agreement with the affected people. And the American Presidential Election is getting alot of news here. Most people here don´t want Romney to win because they say that he wants to get rid of Latin Americans in the states while Obama wants to help them get jobs, so Obama won everyone here with that since they are all Latins haha, but I'm not sure if Romney really said that or if they just misunderstood but now lots don´t like him here and they don´t think he´ll win. I guess we´ll see what happens.
  
   Today we moved houses finally. Our new house is smaller but since there are only two of us living there it´s ok for me. Plus the new house is about a 2 minute walk from the church and 3 minutes from our lunch lady, so now we can cut out a lot of buses and waiting.
  
   Sounds like you guys are stressed out right now, except for Britt who is just going on vacations all the time, haha. Dad, I hope everything goes well with the lectures you have to give in Uruguay, i think it would be super cool to go there with you, but being a translator for all those big scientific words would be a challenge haha - being a translator would be tough especially since most things don´t translate over cleanly, especially expressions and jokes. Also Mom, good luck with all the trig classes, and just think of it as a blessing to get to relearn all that stuff you might have forgotten from when you last taught it haha. As for me here in Panama, things are going good. The change is wrapping up, this is my last full week here before i go somewhere else i think, even though i kinda want to stay here longer. Well i love you guys and i pray for you daily! Take care and take some time to have fun and relax!!
Love,
Elder Pfister