Well, it sounds like Hermana Noris already informed you guys
about the biggest news... Yep i´m now a Zone Leader in the Zone of Chiriquí in the
city of David, faraway from the city of Panama (30 km from Costa Rica). My comp is Elder Tanis
Reed from Houston Texas i believe. He has 23 months in the mission and
is going home on August 1st
so i have the pleasure of sending him off. Something interesting is
that Elder Collier is also in my zone with an elder that also goes home
on August 1st
which is before the changes, so it appears that Elder Collier and i are gonna
end up being comps again at the end of the change for a few weeks, haha.
So far i´m loving Chiriquí, it´s in the rainy season right now,
but it hasn´t been raining very much but it´s been really cool so it´s
felt great. Supposedly it´s really hot here when the suns comes out
strong but i have yet to see that so i´m happy. The people here are
really chill and the life style is more relaxed and easy going and it
feels like the size of Logan, big enough to have shops and stuff but not
too big that it´s a snarled mess so i´m diggin it. Yeah, the two coldest (temperature wise) areas
in Panama are close by Boquete which is in my zone and then there is this volcano that
is like 2 hours away so i´m excited to go feel the cold again.
The bus ride does take like 7 to 9 hours to get here depending
on traffic and it´s a pain but the buses are pretty comfortable but
traveling that far in anything is uncomfortable. And i have to go back
to Panama on Wednesday for the monthly ZL meeting so that will consist of leaving Tuesday night and traveling the whole night, going to the meeting Wednesday
morning and then heading off back to David to arrive here sometime
around 3 or 4 am; sounds exhausting, we´ll see how it goes
haha. The cool thing is that i will have a chance to meet Pres. Carmack.
During changes to say goodbye to President Ward we all just
gave him cards and pictures of ourselves with things written on them. At
the end of all the changes they both talked to the entire group, it was sad but they gave good talks.
Hermana Ward talked about how she has an eternal family and how she
wants to see all of us in the Celestial Kingdom with our eternal
families. Pres Ward talked about alot of things and pretty much just
talked about obedience and how much he loves us and has loved being our
president, and encouraged us to work hard and do everything
right in the mission and after. Well, Presidente and Hermana Ward should be getting
home today to the States....
I talked to Elder 'Atuake in the changes, he is ZL in San Miguelito
and he said he didn´t get the packages yet but someone told him that they
had arrived i think and he just needed to picked them up i think.
So my zone is half of the city of David and everything to the north.
We have 14 missionaries in the zone, 6 elders and 8 sisters. The areas
are Doelguita with us and 2 sisters. Las Lomas with 4 sisters. Lassonde
with Collier and his comp and 2 sisters, and we have Boquete with sisters
there.
My area is sweet so far because we have some way cool
investigators and they are all families that we are helping so here we
go, the rundown....
There´s D_____ and J______. D_____ is
already a member but inactive for 20 years. He´s a very successful lawyer
who has some impressive stories of standing up for what he believes in
in his job. For example he works with land and this politician wanted to
take this beach front land from some poor people to build a hotel and
when they went to D_____ to tell him to allow it he said he wouldn´t
do it, so the people he was dealing with said you will do it or we will fire you and he said "fire me
then", and that´s what they did, they fired him, but he took them to court
and won. He has quite a few stories like that because the government and
other powerful people can be corrupt here i guess. So he is really smart and stands
up for everything, so he would be a great leader in the church. i really like him, he is really cool. And one funny
part is that he´s starting a screen printing company on the side and i helped
him set up some of the stuff that they weren´t familiar with because that
is exactly what i was doing with Jason in the Logo Shop. Anyway,
J_____ is his girlfriend of 13 years and is not a member. She is
really sweet person too and when we explained the Book of Mormon she
accepted it really well and she has a desire to read and study more.
We´re trying to help them get married so she can get baptized because
she does like the church. Lots of her family are members but
their problem is that they have always invited her to church and talked
about the church but they never explained anything about it so she needs to be taught and guided into the Church.
Another part member family we have is N____ and A__ L____. AL has been a member for a long time with a few times going inactive but
right right she is really active. He husband doesn´t come to church
because he went once and was just bored so yesterday we talked
to him and explained the difference between going to church and doing
church stuff and being converted to the church and how with everything
we do with God, we have to do it with faith and a sincere desire to
learn and progress or else we won´t go anywhere. After helping him
understand that he has to put a mental and spiritual effort in and not
just physically showing up, he kinda had a light bulb moment and was like wow you´re
right and got really excited to start reading and going to church again
but this time with his new way of looking at things and studying. So
that was last night, and they are not married either and he never wanted
to get married... until this morning when she called us and said, hey
my husband wants to get married, what do we have to do? We were in shock
but then like, um ok well this and that. We´re heading there today or tomorrow to start that whole process, exciting!
We have a few more people and families but i haven´t
really gotten to know them so i can´t say that much but as time goes on
i´ll let ya know what´s up. My ward has about 80 people coming every week
but we have one of the best Bishops in Panama, he is way awesome and
way involved in the mission work. The stake president wants to split the ward, but we hope that doesn't happen for alot of reasons.
One cool thing is that Elder Collier lives in the apartamento of some
gringo from Texas and we live close to them so they are inviting us to a
4th of July
party. I´m way pumped for this change, we´re 4 missionary gringos way close and
good friends so it´ll be a party on that U.S. holiday (we'll talk Church to the non-member gringos too). Also my
comp is going to play tennis for BYU so he wants to go back in shape so
we´re starting to wake up at 6 to do exercises so i can get back into
that now.
Thanks for all the news from home, i can´t respond to all of it
but i read it all! I´m glad to know everything is going well for
everyone. I was thinking about when i would like to come back here and i
think i would prefer before school starts like December but if it´s
not possible that´s cool too, whatever works. Well i think that wraps
things up for this short week.
Working so much with families here has
been awesome because it´s helped my testimony alot about how the
families can be eternal and how that is our purpose here on the earth,
get a family and raise everyone in the gospel. There is no greater joy than
having a family centered on Jesus Christ and when it is centered on Him,
it´s a happy and united family that can work through any problems and
always coming out winning like champs! I´m unbelievable pumped to help
all these families reach their dreams of being eternal. And i gotta say,
thanks a ton Mom and Dad for raising our family with the gospel and
making us an eternal family, it´s always a comfort to know that we will
always be together forever! I love you guys, Take care!!
Love,
Elder Pfister
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