Fechas!

Buena Buena!

   Well, this was a good week for us! We only had one baptism but it was a good one and we´re going to have another one this Saturday. We baptized C_______ or Nino as we call him. It was cool because we went to his house this week to see if he wanted to get baptized this week, and before we even said anything he told us, "I decided i want to be baptized, i want to be baptized this Saturday." It was a great baptism because we did it with other missionaries and overall we baptized 9 people as a zone, including one elderly man who is missing a leg and is in a wheel chair; it was difficult to baptize him but he was crying because he was so happy. We plan on sending Nino to the temple with the ward this next Monday so he can do baptisms. 

    

    So we found a potential gold mine of baptisms, as we contacted this lady who works for this community home where they put children who´s parents don´t want them. She works there as a mom and she used to go to church along with her kids, and they all came to church with us this week, nine of them, and she said she wants to be baptized, and E_____ a 15 year old young man also wants to baptized soon. There are 2 others that are of age that i think will be baptized. E____ was super emotional about how much he wants to be baptized, and how much he wants to help other people. He´s a really cool guy. 

   

   The family P___F____,  including J___ ,N___ , Y___ and V____, are slowly progressing towards baptism. The problem is that she is pregnant and she is often not feeling well enough to attend Church on Sunday, but we did take her to the baptism and she said she liked it and she really wanted to see how the LDS do it. N___ is super ready to be baptized, she even said in a lesson that she would be baptized outside in the pool that very second she´s so ready, but she wants it to be a family thing and they aren't all ready.  We hope they´ll be baptized this month.

   

    The lady E___ R___, who accepted the fecha after reading some of the Book of Mormon, wasn´t home either time we went to visit her which was a downer, but we talked to her daughter and left her something to read before we meet again. We also put some other random fechas during the week with some other people we taught, so we´ll see how they progress. We have the goal to baptize 5 this month but to be honest we have like 15 people  that could be baptized in the next 6 weeks or so.  

  

    We have this family that we call the D______s, the dad is a member but less active. We have taught them and the daughter really wants to be baptized and the mom has shown a little interest, but the problem is that they are well off financially and they seem to not be in rush at all to do things because they already feel super blessed. 

   So Elder Christofferson (the apostle) came to talk to us as a mission. It was really special because just from the way he talks and the spirit he projects, one can tell he is an apostle of God and a special witness of the Savior.  He and others gave us a few talks on the mission work, and then Elder Christofferson answered questions that we had about the work here in Panama.  And yeah i got to shake his hand and talk a little with him and the others with him. 

   The mission video the Elder 'Atuake told you about is just a video the AP´s did about Elder Perez and I. I will forward it to you.   It´s embarrassing and not that cool that´s why i didn´t mention it,  haha.

   It´s great to see that the baby Porter is doing good. Wow Mike, what a video- and what a tradition, the drinking of the first urine hahaha very nice!   He looks super cute and chubby. Are you feeling good Britt? And is your stomach still big? Giving birth is weird. 

    Well as normal for this change i´m loving it and i´m doing great, so no worries! Take care and i love you!

Love,

Elder Pfister

Ofi Mo,

    Well, i don`t even know where to start because we`ve had a lot of things happen with our investigators.  So in the last two weeks we`ve found some really positive people and a few of them have accepted baptismal dates and we plan on putting quite a few more dates with people this week. The most positive is a family of 4, N___ is the mom, J___ the dad and two kids. We were contacting in this neighborhood and we decided to go to the end of the street to look at some houses that collapsed from all the flooding, and from there we decided to start contacting and we were going to contact the people in this one house, but the lady was dead asleep on the couch so we passed it by, but then my comp said "no we have to contact this house, i don`t care if she`s asleep." So we contacted them and they are super positive. We taught them about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and then on next appointment we put a fecha (baptismal date) with them for the 26th of January. They have been able to come to some activities and they really enjoyed them. 

    

Also our first week together, Elder Perez and I found this other family and taught them and it was ok, they said we could come back and teach some more, but we got busy and couldn`t make it to the next appointment and we kinda forgot about them for a week, then while we were planning one day i remembered them, and we decided to go see how they were doing. We got there and they were busy, but we put another appointment together, and this time we showed up and we were able to teach them. We got there and there was a new person there who is super into religion and goes to bible study all the time, and after some initial discussion, when we started teaching about the restoration, she went completely quiet and just sat there listening intently. We finished teaching and asked if they would like a Book of Mormon to read, and everyone said they wanted their own personal one, even the 12 year old kid wanted one haha. It was cool because many times people just fight you on everything you say, but they accepted everything we said and they want us to come back to explain more. The family consists on the grandma E_____, the niece Q_____, the nephew, and the daughter M____. Plus they all have other family members that we hope to be able to teach.

    

So while on divisions with the ZL`s we contacted this one lady but she didn`t have time to listen, so we just left a pamphlet and said we would come back in a few days. I went back with my normal comp and we asked for the lady, but her daughter came out and said that she was busy cleaning and didn`t want us to help  her, so we asked the daughter if she knew who we were and we started teaching her. Turns out she is married and has a family of 4, but that she left her church because it didn`t seem like the type of church that would lead her to salvation, and she is super interested in the Book of Mormon,  We have another appointment with her this week and i think we`re going to challenge her to be baptized too. He name is V____, she`s cool and super positive.

    

Sadly one of our fechas, M_____, who came to church and everything, is now in the hospital because they have to operate on her because she has some messed up ____ and she needs surgery so we don`t know how long she`s going to be there, but we plan on visiting her with some members to see how she`s doing. 

    

We have one investigator, N___ is his name, who is definitely going to get baptized. We taught him once and he came to church once and then he went out and bought a white shirt and tie and is calling himself a Mormon already. He came to church again yesterday, and we asked him how our church compared to the others he had visited, and he said that our church was like a real church where you can receive eternal life. He really likes the church and is making some friends.

   

So Elder Perez and I randomly decided that we wanted to have a group night, so that all our investigators that couldn't come to church could come and meet members and have a good experience in the church. We planned the group night for this past Thursday. It went pretty well, none of the investigators we had in mind could come, but we had some other investigators there and quite a few members and it was fun. We mixed some messages in with some games to help them understand, and then we made cookies (made by me and delicious) and some Tang (made by my comp and nasty, haha) but it was a good time. 

Well, you wanted me to share more about my comp... He is super tight!  He works hard, is obedient and just a way chill cool guy. We get along super good and that`s super lucky because this change is a really long one because of the mission office modified changes during Christmas time. This change is 9 weeks long, the MTC all over again. I`m teaching him English even though he already knows some but it`s fun. I`m loving this change so much, we`re working hard and having a good time. Things are going really well, so now if i can baptize some of these positive investigators that`ll make it even better. 

By the way i got the camera card and my debit card so you can activate it, it is safely in my hands now, haha. Thanks for the pictures and letters, i`ll send back my camera card loaded with photos and cool videos, like my one year shirt burning and the tire-throwing Olympics on video where i almost hit Elder Brown, haha. 

  

New Years Eve was pretty cool here. It was on p-day so as a zone we went to the beach to hang out and we built a sand castle and made a doll thing like all the Panamanians do, and we put the doll in the sand castle and we blew it up with fireworks inside of it, it was sweet. Then that evening, Elder Perez and I went to the store and we pigged out on snacks, and we went to this high bridge to watch the fireworks at midnight. For New Years Day we went to the branch president's house for breakfast and after that it was a normal work day. 

So the random questions, to dry my wet laundry, here i hang my clothes up inside the house and put the fan on them, plus it`s so hot in our house they dry even without the fan. And i don`t have any health problems right now, all is good. 

That's all i got for you this week, i hope it made up for a super short letter last week. One thing i`m learning here is the power of sharing your testimony because with everyone we have been sharing our testimony, but not in a shy way, but in a way that they realize that we have the authority of the Savior, and we know without a doubt it is true, and lots of times that`s all that is needed to help someone, the nudge from a strong testimony. I love you guys and i miss you. Brit, i hope everything goes well and that the baby comes out fast, painless, and super healthy! I`m prayin for ya!

Love,

Elder Pfister

Sorry...very short letter

Hola family,

    Well i got cut short on time today because of the holiday here. In 1999 when the US owned the Panama Canal, the Americans didn`t allowed the Panamanians to put their flag up, so some people protested and ripped down the American flag and put up the Panama flag - and apparently the US soldiers shot and killed some, so it is a national holiday here, so everything is closing up early.

    Just writing to let ya know i`m doing great, we didn`t have any investigators in church on Sunday, but we have 5 baptismal dates planned, and we plan on putting 8 more dates with various people this week;  so the work is cruising along here, it`s great.

  Take care and i love you!

Elder Pfister