Letter from Elder Pfister June 25, 2012

Qué Onda!

     So i don´t have that much time this week because we had to take this long missionary survey asking how well we know the doctrine and apply the things they teach us, stuff like that. So though it may be short i´ll try to make it sweet.

     I wish i could say that we had at least one investigator at church this week... but i can´t. It`s super frustrating that no one comes yet they seem so positive in the lessons. I feel like they think we are church for them, If they accept us, listen to us and feed us then they are doing all that`s necessary. My plan, which isn`t really working, is to bring members to all the positive lessons so the investigators can make friends in the church and maybe the members can help them get there. But our ward boundaries are huge and there aren`t any members that live close that are willing to help. It`s an up hill battle but oh well, we keep fighting it.

    We haven`t been able to find Shelby and Jorge yet and Bunny wasn`t able to talk to us this week so we don`t know how she is doing but i hope it`s all good. We were able to find a few families this week and teach them; i`m not sure if they are super positive but we are going to follow up to find out.

    I had to give a talk in church this Sunday. They called me at 10 o'clock at night saying how they forgot to call people for  talks so they need my companion and I to talk, so we threw something together real fast. I talked about the Atonement of Christ, and i think it went pretty well actually. The weird part was that they are renovating the church, so we had to meet in a class room for sacrament meeting, and there wasn`t a microphone so i just had to pretty much yell for everyone to hear me. I didn`t really enjoy that seeing as i don`t really like giving talks at all let alone having to yell them haha, but all is well that ends well.

     'Atuake (my former companion) had to take a bus for around 13 hours to arrive at his new area (Bocas de Toro), as it`s the farthest area in the mission from Panama City, but i`ve also heard it`s a fun one and really pretty. Bocas is where most the tourists go because it has the best beaches and things to see there. 

     We had a huge rain storm on Sunday that knocked out everything for a long while. We didn`t have water or electricidad all day. The wind knocked down tons of trees and power lines, it was a mess getting out of the city today with all the traffic jams that the storm caused on top of the already existing traffic.

     Though this area is turning out to be quite difficult, there still lots of things i`m learning from it and improving, and for that the mission is such a once-in-a lifetime experience. I feel like the mission at times can really bring a person down if you let it, but if you don`t let it, you´ll come out of those hard times a way different person for the better. Plus the mission is just growing my testimony everyday that no matter how hard life gets, our Heavenly Father is always next to us to help us out when we need it. I love you guys!

Love,

Elder Pfister

Great Letter on June 18, 2012

Que Hay!

    Well the biggest news is that.... we again had no investigators come to church. Super bummer, but oh well live, learn, and improve. The main people we were really hoping would come were the family of Shelby and Jorge, but they moved!! The dumb thing is that they didn`t move out of our area, so we can still teach them, but we called them to find out where they lived and they said they don`t know the address where they are living... so that didn´t help. We did pass by their old house and ask their neighbors, and they said they moved to a street to the right, and there are only three streets in that direction, so my mission for this week is to contact every single one of those houses until we find them, and hopefully we can find some other positive people along the way.  I don`t think i told you about Jorge yet. He is the boyfriend of Shelby the girl we met and taught and last Tuesday we had our first lesson with Jorge. We went over to the house actually to talk to Shelby, but she wasn`t there so we talked to Jorge and it was an amazing lesson;  the best part is that it was super simple but he was so prepared and the Spirit of the Lord was so strong. So Jorge had never talked to the missionaries before and doesn`t have a religion, so all we did was teach about Jesus and what He did while He was on the earth and that included when He was baptized - we read about that in the scriptures. Next we asked him why he thinks Jesus was baptized if the Savior was perfect and he said, maybe because He wants me to follow Him and be baptized too. At that point we were just like "wow," this guy had been prepared spiritually and is ready to accept Christ in his life. Then we asked him if he will be baptized and he told us, 'if that is what Jesus wants me to do then yes, and i believe it is what He wants of me.' We had only met this guy like 30 minutes earlier, but yet he was already wanting to do what is right. It was an amazing lesson, but it was so simple, that`s the part that gets me. We didn`t have a super lesson planned out, all we did was explain a little about the gospel, and then we let the Spirit do the rest. As soon as we got in the house talking to him,  we could tell the Spirit was testifying to him and softening his heart.

    Another good lesson we had was with Bunny, the lady with the son who has lots of problems right now. This lesson was as good as the one with Jorge, but it was still amazing in different ways. We had been praying for help on how to help her and her son with everything, and our appointment with her was on Sunday. Well, come Sunday we had no idea what to teach her that could help her situation, so we decided on the atonement to teach because with that we have the knowledge that no matter how hard it gets in life, Jesus is there with us and knows exactly what we`re going through and can help us overcome it. So that was the plan, but once we got there and sat down she went off again about her son and his girlfriend, which we expected. But at the end she started saying how she has no idea what happened, but that her son's girlfriend has suddenly dropped out of her son`s life, and that things are gradually looking up again. At that point i realized that our Heavenly Father always helps us and answers our prayers, just that sometimes He works in unexpected ways. In this case i have no idea what happened, but now things are getting better for the son and he wants to listen to us too, and we have an appointment with him later this week. So our actual lesson with Bunny was pretty good but nothing spectacular, but the whole situation with the son, that was the real blessing for Bunny, because now she says she is alot more relaxed and can enjoy life more now that she isn`t constantly worried about her son.

    Those were the two lessons that really impacted me and helped to grow my testimony and really helped me in that even though these investigators are not coming to church right now, the Lord is still working on them so maybe in the future things will start to come together better.

    I`m glad everything is going good on the home front. Sounds like some fun plans in the future with traveling to Uruguay and all that fun stuff. I knew that as soon as i left for my mission you guys would start doing all the fun stuff haha ;)

    So speaking of  Elder 'Atuake (my former companion), he is no longer in my zone; they got an emergency transfer arranged and he got sent to Bocas del Toro (northern Panama, near Costa Rica). Apparently he and his companion had some issues with each other because his comp was doing disobedient things ('Atuake says he stayed out all one night), and well they both told me different stories so i´m not sure what the truth is, but i know that 'Atuake got moved which is a real bummer, as i really enjoyed having him in my zone. His Spanish is coming along, it isn`t the best but considering that 'Atuake is learning Spanish via a weak second language like English, his Spanish is pretty good.

    This week has been a great week for me spiritually. It helped me see how much influence the Lord has on our lives everyday. I know that our Heavenly Father listens to our prayers and is always there to help us out and comfort us. I know that when we put our trust in Him and have faith, He will lead us out of trials and into the light, and though sometimes at first it may appear harder to follow Him all the way through with faith, if we do, the end result will always be better and there will be blessings where we need them the most.

     I love you guys and i`m super grateful for everything you do for me. The best part about this gospel is that, even though i`m away from you guys for two years, which right now is tough, in the long run it doesn`t matter because we have all of eternity to be together.

Love,

Elder Pfister

Letter from Devin June 11, 2012

Hola Fam!
    Que hay!!  This week wasn´t the best week because we both were sick part of the time and that slowed down the work alot, and we had the worst luck in the world! We have 5 people who we are hoping can get baptized in the coming weeks and we had appointments with all of them, but every appointment fell through because they weren´t home or were sick. We went back everyday to try to visit them and set up new appointments, and none of them were there any of the times, so it was super discouraging. I can´t remember if i told you, (sometimes i get confused what i tell you and what i write in my journal) but a new investigator lady found us this week. She had been talking to the missionaries about a year ago but she moved and since then she hasn´t been able to find us till this week when we walked by her house and she called to us to come in. Well, she told us how she wants to start coming to church again, and wants to be baptized and all that fun stuff, so that was sweet. She also told us how she wanted us to come pick her up for church on Sunday, and she lives amazingly far away, but the mission is all about sacrifice, right, so bueno we did it. But after we made the long trek Sunday morning to her house, she decided not to go, and all she said to us was, I don´t really want to go to church this week. She didn´t even make up an excuse, she just totally blew it off. So that didn´t really help our moral. But, no fear, we won´t let this get to us or discourage us.

    One interesting thing that happened was our investigator Bunny, she really opened up to us this week and told us all her family problems and wow, this is going to be tough to help them out. All the problems are coming from her son who is with this girl and this girl is all bad. This girl and her family are all into drugs, stealing and beating up the people who get in their way. So this guy is blindly in love with her, says his mom even though the girlfriend beats him and all this terrible stuff. The girl makes him steal things and makes him pay for her drugs, and one time he refused to pay and gave his money to his mom to guard it, and the girlfriend took a knife to his man parts while he was sleeping to punish him. Once Bunny the mom found out about this, she went over there to try to get her son out of this situation, and the friends of the girl threatened to kill her.  Now they´re saying that if he leaves this girl they´ll kill him. It´s some intense stuff going down.  She completely opened up to us about it. I really have no idea how to help her and her son, and i have a feeling she is not going to progress in the gospel until this is over. I feel bad for her, she is so stressed out over it. It´s been going on for over a year she said, and it´s just getting worst with time. I really want to help her, even if she doesn´t end up getting baptized, just because i feel so bad;  no one should have to go through that kind of stuff. Though this whole story is very depressing to me, it has also really helped me as a missionary. It has shown me first hand all the terrible stuff that is going on in the world and it makes me want to get rid of it, and i know i can´t do much but i can bring happiness into people's lives through the Gospel and the message of the Church.

On a happier note, we had a way fun p-day where we went to this nature reserve park and hiked through the jungle. It was super fun, we saw some cool insects, and this pond filled with like 30 big turtles that we spent the whole time trying to catch.  Then we had races with the turtles, and mine won :) Turtles really aren´t all that slow, when they want to they can really scoot along. We also had a blast climbing the vines of the trees like Tarzan or George of the Jungle, we got pretty high and don´t worry, i got pictures.

Sounds like the weather there is bipolar switching so much. The weather here is very consistent right now... Hot in the mornings, then a rain shower, then extremely humid. I decided i really don´t like humidity, i don´t mind dry heat, it´s the humidity that gets to me. I´m constantly wet with sweat, it´s pretty much like just getting out of the shower and putting my clothes on without drying off first. But i´m used to it now, haha.

So what is this stuff about Real Salt Lake playing a Panamanian team in soccer?  I hope i have that RSL jersey to brag it up when they beat Panama, haha 

As for the packages, thanks for everything you have sent, it gives me something to look forward to and good news, i got the camera card last Tuesday so that didn´t take very long. But it was just a letter so we´ll see about a real package. I am putting together a package for you guys, it´s just a slow process so bear with me. As for stuff i need, i´m good on everything pretty much. I can buy most everything i need.

Anyway, i hope this upcoming week is alot better than the previous one, and i have a feeling it will be. I have a lot of things that i want to accomplish this week so that´ll help push me along and get things going. I am determined to get someone to church and baptized, it´s gonna happen!

Anyway, i´m going to reply to your individual emails in separate emails to each of you. I love you guys!
Love,
Elder Pfister

P.S. To answer your question, my companion is Ezra Ramos and he is from Guanajuato, Mexico, just north of Mexico City.

--Fantastic letter from Devin June 4th, 2012

Hola,
    Well this week was an interesting week, we had changes on Wednesday and my old companion Brown got sent to Colon and i have a new comp named Elder Ramos from Mexico. 'Atuake (my MTC companion) also had changes and he´s now in my zone haha so that´s cool. Elder Ramos is pretty cool as well and obedient which is awesome. He doesn´t really know much English so i´m trying to help him out with that a little and he´s really helping me with my Spanish, mostly just because it´s pure Spanish again during the week. He was kinda hard to understand at first because he talks quietly with a mumble and really fast, even some of the Panamanians have had a little struggle at first, but i´m warming up to it and now it´s all good. He has been on his mission for one year, so he´s not all that much older than me in the mission and i kinda feel like senior companion with him because i do everything, and surprisingly i talk alot more than him during the lessons and when contacting. In fact it´s kinda funny because there have been a few lessons where he´s said pretty much nothing and i said everything and it just seems reversed, usually it´s the Latino doing all the talking and the gringo just chillin,  haha. But i kinda like it this way because with Brown as well, we shared senior comp responsibilities and now i have pretty much have all of them, but Elder Ramos is always willing to step in and help if i need it. So pretty much i´m going from 50% senior with Brown to 80% with Ramos and eventually to 100%, but it´s better than 0% to 100% in my opinion, so i´m liking it and improving alot i think. On the non- missionary side we get along well, he loves sports and from what I've seen is just a pretty chill guy so we have some things in common. I have high hopes for this change.
    I don´t really need new shoes because they´re doing good overall, it´s just that the back inside part is falling apart a little. On the inside the fabric is peeling off and the stuff that the shoe is made of is breaking off slowly, but i think a little duct tape will fix it up. I hope you understand what i said, it´s kinda hard to describe; overall my shoes are doing great. For the most part they´re still waterproof too, like if i step in a puddle or something they´re waterproof, but if it starts raining while we´re contacting there´s no hope for keeping my feet dry because the streets usually flood and there´s like half a foot of water everywhere so it´s a hopeless fight when it rains hard.  Even for my boots too the water will be too high, because it just rains too hard and soaks my pants then drains into my boots. Pretty much for puddles, my shoes do good, when we go somewhere that isn´t paved i use my boots and they work great and when it rains i give up haha.  i would need knee high rain boots haha. I think one of my shoes may last through my whole mission and the other pair of shoes may last most of it, we will see.
    My face fungus is all gone from what i can see and right now there´s nothing wrong with me so i´m just enjoying this pain free time of life waiting for the next trial to come my way :)
    As for the missionary work, we sadly didn´t have anyone come to church again! It´s super disappointing because we met 4 people this week who we think we can put baptismal dates with soon but they need to come to church! I think the problem is that our church is so far away from where we are working right now. It´s about a 30 minute bus ride from our house and the area we´re working in right now is about 20 minutes away from our house, so for our investigators it´s like a 45 minute to hour long bus ride one way. It´s frustrating because with a few of them if they came to Church, i know they would like it and would want to come back again - but the key is just getting them there the first time. So that´s the biggest problem we´re working with right now. My plan is to go teach them on Saturday and give them something to remind them of church so they have no excuses on Sunday.
    As for the investigators themselves, Bunny the lady with the son with the funny story, is seeming more positive every time. She likes to drill us with questions that she believes a true church of Christ would or wouldn´t do and she is liking all of our answers. We also found this lady named Aris and after talking to her for a while she has agreed to be baptized, the only problem is first she needs to get married and her boyfriend doesn´t know if he wants to get married yet... Marriage here is such a pain!! Another lady that we found we taught about baptism and she agrees with everything about how we need to follow the example of Jesus and be baptized and by someone who has the proper priesthood authority, so i think this next week we are going to try to invite her to get baptized. Emma is still progressing slowly, we´re going to bring a member over to her house with us so they can testify of the need to come to church because that´s pretty much all she needs to do i think then she will be ready. So overall we have two people with baptismal dates that just need to do a few more things and two people who are almost ready to set a date with i think.
    It´s so weird to hear about all my friends leaving on their missions, it´s still hard to believe sometimes that i´m on my mission. I remember when i was little thinking how the mission would never arrive and BOOM, i´m on the mission. Time flies by super fast!
   Sounds like things are going good for you guys at home, i wish we could go camping here, i loved those scout campouts in the rain, haha. Lots of good memories with that.
    Britt, does Mike´s family own a cabin up there (Idaho mountains) or why is it that you get free access to an awesome cabin all the time? Sounds like a good time though! And tell Mike good luck in the marathon! I´ve been running here a little too, so maybe if i keep it up for the next year and a half i´ll be marathon ready too, haha.
   That´s cool that Alex is in Switzerland, that would be fun! And that makes me laugh to hear that Cody Merrill bought a cross-bow, that sounds like trouble waiting to happen, but doesn´t surprise me at all knowing Cody, haha. Also that´s so weird to hear that Taylor is getting married to Bryce!! Holy cow i would have never seen that one coming!! Haha.  As for packages, the jersey one still hasn´t arrived but we have a meeting tomorrow so maybe i will get it then. I´m going to laugh if i get the other package first haha.
    Well i´m super pumped for this change, as i have a Latino companion who is obedient and willing to work hard which is the perfect combination and kinda rare in this mission so i´m counting my blessings right now! With a good comp the mission is the best, i love it so much! Even with a not so great comp the mission is great, just a little more difficult, but that´s when we really learn some good life lessons. But i know that this is the right thing for me right now, i´m learning and growing so much and i know that this is the work of the Lord and that it´s true. Everyday we can witness little miracles and the hand of the Lord helping us out in everything. I know that He´s always here to help us and guide us along and i´ve felt that everyday and i know it´s true.
    I love and miss you guys but i love your letters and hearing from you! It´s great to hear about all the things going on in your lives, makes me feel like i´m at home again, haha. Thanks for everything!
Love,
Elder Pfister

Another Great Letter from Elder Devin May 29, 2012

Hola Fam,

    So this week went great for us here! We met our goal of 50 lessons, getting 53, and we met a lot of really positive people in the process. The best news is that we were able to set a baptismal date with Emma, our most positive investigator right now. If all goes well, she´ll be baptized on the 22nd of June. The bummer is that she wasn´t able to make it to church this week again, so that´s gotta change, enough of this sluffing church stuff, haha.

     One of the people we met this week was telling us about she doesn´t really have a church, but she´s gone to alot but none of them really caught her attention. Her son also has gone to quite a few churches and he told us this really funny story about one he went to. So it´s one of those evangelical churches where the pastor will call people up and have them speak in tongues (more like just gibberish), and they cure people from the demons inside of them by hitting them in the forehead, you know the type i´m talking about right? So anyway her son went and the pastor called him up and told him that he had a demon inside of him controlling him. So the pastor starting hitting him in the forehead and throwing oil on him chanting, be gone demon, stuff like that. And the kid told us he was just thinking, "what is he doing hitting me? This kinda hurts and i´m sure i don´t have a demon in me." Then the pastor starting saying "fall to the ground" and just kept throwing more oil on him, and the kid told us he just kept backing up to get away from the oil, but the minister followed him throwing it then finally the young man just fell over so that the minister would stop throwing oil on him, hahaha. He said it was super annoying and he didn´t enjoy it at all, and the only reason he fell to the ground like the pastor said he would is because he didn´t want the guy to keep throwing oil and hitting him, haha. We all enjoyed a good laugh over that, and we explained how we don´t do things like that- and he and his mom are gonna come to church next Sunday to check it out. Her name is Bunny and she seems really positive. She kept telling us things she didn´t like about other churches and it was all things that Mormons don't do, and she said some things that she thinks a church ought to have, and we explained how we do believe in all that, so she was really excited to learn more.

     Another person we met was the exact opposite. We knocked on  his door and he came out and was like, Oh the missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. And we were like yeah, what do you know about us? He said, well i talked to the missionaries a few years ago and they gave me the Book of Mormon and since then i´ve read the entire book, I've seen the movie about Joseph Smith and I've read a few other books. This entire time i´m just thinking to the myself, GOLD! We STRUCK GOLD! and the next thing he said to us was.... " So i´ve read all that and i don`t believe any of it...." Duh duh duh... But after talking to him for a while, we found out he´s never prayed about any of it so we gave him that invitation and we´re gonna go back to see what happens, but it was a super let down.
    So an exciting thing is tomorrow is cambios (changes)! Wahoo! Maybe... We´re pretty sure Elder Brown is leaving and that i´m staying,  so i really hope i get a good companion because this area is kinda tough, and with a bad comp it will just make the time until the next transfer miserable. I also hope i get a Latino so i can polish up my Spanish some more. With Brown my Spanish didn´t really get worse, it´s just not as smooth as it was, and it actually improved alot in some areas because with two young gringos, we both had to pay attention and participate, instead of with a Latino companion, a gringo can rely him for alot of language and interpretation. So i´m alot better at paying attention to everything because there were alot of times when Elder Brown didn´t understand something so i had to understand and say something.

    This past Saturday we had this ward activity that we planned out called a Noche de Recetas, or Recipe night.  It was pretty much just a pot luck dinner but where everyone brought their recipe and explained how to make it so everyone could go home and try it. The activity turned out really well, we had about half the ward there and some really good food! :) I now have some Panamanian recipes i want to try out and get good at. The dumb thing is people proved that they can cook really good food that isn´t rice and chicken.... so why does everyone only ever cook rice and chicken for us!?! Oh well, i guess it´ll make me appreciate the good food more when it is made. I cooked the no bake skillet cookie recipe that you guys sent me and they turned out ok, i think i messed them up because i put too much rice krispy cereal in them so they didn´t stick together at all but they still tasted pretty good. I learned this really good desert from another missionary that´s really easy and super delicious! I´m excited to make that one. It´s like a pudding pie thing, but not a normal one, extra fluffy and tasty, i´ll make it for ya :)

     Remember how i needed a hair cut when we Skyped each other? Well, there´s this member who always is bragging to us about how good her son is at cutting hair and she told us he´ll do it for free for the missionaries, so i thought why not. I went there and told him i don´t want it too short, and tapered on the sides, and all that good stuff. Well he said ok, i know what you mean and takes out his buzzer and starts. There wasn´t a mirror nearby so i was just hoping he was doing a good job, i mean he took like 45 minutes to cut it, so i assumed he was. But when i finally got to the mirror and looked, he had buzzed me clean! I barely had a centimeter of hair left, it took him 45 minutes of careful cutting, and all i got was a buzz, haha. I was kinda shocked at first but now i don´t really care, it makes doing my hair really easy in the mornings because i don´t have to do anything to it, just wake up, get out of bed and it´s good to go! Haha

      Well, this past week has been an amazing week. We worked super hard and it paid off big time. I feel great going into this next change with lots of new investigators and a really big desire to work super hard, hope my next companion is ready for that. It proved to me that when you do your part and put your all into it, the Lord will come through with His part and help you out with blessings. That is something that applies to all aspects of the Gospel, when we put the Lord first and do what He wants, we get blessed and the things that we put on the back burner turn out even better because we get His help with them.

I hope all is well with you guys and thanks for everything you guys do, for your letters and everything, they really do help alot :) I love you guys and miss you!

Love,

Elder Pfister

Letter from Elder Pfister May 22th, 2012

HEy hey heY!!
     I´m sorry to hear that it was a rough week for ya (at work);  this week was kinda rough here too but for very different reasons. To start out, we have this investigator named Emma who we met a week or two ago, and the past visits with her have been super spiritual and good, so spiritual that she cried during one. She is really into her family and she wants the best for them and is ready to be a good example for them and the best part, she doesn´t have a church right now but she said she´s looking for one to improve her life and to help her kids. So that´s all super good and i have high hopes for her; the downside is she didn´t come to church after so many good lessons, and neither did our 5 other investigators with whom we had good lessons last week, and they all promised that they would be there in Church on Sunday. Well we had zero investigators, zero recent converts and zero of the less/non active members there who we had been focusing on. It was a super bummer, disappointing, and kinda killed our spirits. But we are re-grouping, and decided that since this upcoming week is the last full week we will likely be companions, we wanted to make it the best, so we made a goal of 50 lessons this week which is over double of what we´ve been able to complete on our best week here so far. We´re kinda off to a bad start because the week started off weird with us having p-day on Tuesday but we´re determined to get this goal even if it kills us.
     Our other investigators are Watson, the old frail lady, but we haven´t been able to visit her lately because she can only have visitors at certain times of the day and those times have been super busy for us. We are also teaching Florencia, who is still struggling to recognize the Spirit and says she´s not receiving answers to her prayers, but we have a great lesson planned for her. We have the Moreno Family who are just working to get married, then most of them will get baptized and we´re hoping the example of the rest of the family will help the dad to get baptized too. The sad thing is that they´re moving, so i don´t think we´ll get to see what happens with them, hopefully everything works out for them in their new area. Those are our positive investigators for now and we plan on trying to set baptismal dates with all 5 of them this week.

     So as you probably noticed i´m writing this a day late because we switched our p-day from Monday to Tuesday so that we could go to the temple since it´s closed on Mondays. So yeah, today we went to the temple, which was amazing as always. I had kinda forgotten how peaceful and amazing the temple is after not having gone for a while, but i loved it. Then we went to the canal which was pretty fun. We got to see three ships go through, one small one and two huge cargo ships. It´s amazing how fast they do everything for the size of stuff they´re working with.

We haven´t played baseball once yet, i´m guessing because you need bats, mitts and all that but we have played kickball, but to be honest, i´m not a huge fan of it. As for soccer, i can keep up pretty well with the average latino and i´m better than the average gringo but there are some locals that completely school everyone and some are only like 14 or even 12 years old, it´s amazing!

Pouch letters usually get to me about 2 or 3 weeks. Well yesterday i got the Dearelder version of your email that you sent on the 30th. It´s alot faster since i´m here in the zone with the office elders so i get them as soon as they get them. But if i leave for some other zone, especially out of the city, it usually takes alot longer for anything to get to me.

Thanks for the music and the other stuff that you´re sending but don't stress out over anything, those were just things i had in mind for my birthday, haha. One other thing i thought of that i can´t find here is black duct tape, for fixing my shoes. And as for the shaver, i´ll just look around for something cheap. I have plans to send some packages home, one for sure will have boring stuff -just things that i want to keep from my mission but i don´t want to haul around with me. But i also plan on sending home some Panamanian stuff that i think you might like. Anything specifically that you can think of that you like to buy when in foreign countries?

One funny  thing that happened with our service project putting in the floor (for the lady with the little cafe) was while we were excavating the backyard there were some banana trees that she wanted out too. So to set up the scene it goes her house, then our  muddy hole about 7 feet deep, then the trees, then the  rest of her yard, hope ya understand. But so the first tree we just  took out with a pickaxe and it was super easy because as you may know banana trees are kinda soft. So with the second one i decided i wanted to try to tackle it to see how my football skills were and to see if i could. I started at the back of her yard and got a pretty good running start at it but i kinda didn´t think about the fact that if i did mange to take out the tree, we would just go tumbling down to our muddy deaths in the hole... which is what happened.... but we didn´t die... well the tree did, i didn´t, haha. So yeah i hit the tree and it broke and i just went flying down into my super muddy hole and the tree just came down with me. Once i got up i was so muddy and covered in banana tree juice, which does not come out of shirts by the way. It was super funny to experience and my comp and the lady were laughing pretty hard, and it was fun too. I showed that tree :)   Anyway so on the topic of the floor, we finished it finally and it looks good. I´m just waiting to see what big project she has for us next, because she always seems to have something.

I went to the doctor on Monday and he told me that i have a skin infection and he gave me a prescription for some antibiotics and a creme that is supposed to heal me up good. The weird part is that he told me i need to put the cream on from head to toe and everything in between, it´s kinda difficult, haha. But now i´m all healed up, i still have a few little scar things on my chest but they´re going away too so i´m ready to go!

So this week i got some nice Christmas cards haha. I got a letter from Dad, Bishop Anderson and a few other people and they were all from Christmas.  They were postmarked Dec. 11 so it only took over 6 months for those to get to me haha. That proves how slow sending mail to the Marbella address is. Speaking of which, could you give the better address in Carrasquilla to anyone that may write to me so that i can get it before i finish my mission haha.  But i still enjoyed getting them, thanks!

 I¨m super excited for this last week before changes (transfers) because of the goal we set. I´ve already had many personal testimony builders that when in the service of the Lord and as we commit ourselves more and ask for Him for help, He will come through and help us if we keep pushing forward always, even when it seems pointless, the blessings will come in one way or another. I¨m going to put my faith to the test this week and do all i can and i know the Lord will help with the rest.

Thanks for everything you guys do and all your support! It´s always a boost to get to read about what´s going on at home and in your lives. Thanks and i love and miss you!

Love,
Elder Pfister

P.S. Dad, i think you should go through with the biker boy look with the pony tail and all, it´ll be a good look on ya i think :)

Letter from Elder Pfister May 14th, 2012

Hola family,
     Well, having talked on Skype on Saturday, i can´t think of too much to say since it´s only been two days haha, but Skype was great! It´s amazing to be able to see you guys, i feel like i was sitting in the living room just a few weeks ago. The biggest change i noticed was Dad´s hair, or lack of it. I didn´t notice at first but once you showed me it caught me off guard haha. Dad, just grow your beard out really long now and buy a leather jacket and you´ll be one of those motorcycle gang guys who are bald but with huge with beards, haha. I think it´d be awesome, not sure how Mom would like it though :)  I wish Skype could´ve been a better connection. It was good at the start but once more people came into the internet place it slowed down alot and made it difficult to understand you guys. Next time i´m going to look for a faster internet, maybe with a member so it can be like our Christmas session which was amazing.

It´s weird to think the next time i see you guys or talk to you, i´ll be over the one-year mark with my mission and i´ll be on the final stretch. Time really is flying super fast. It´s kinda bitter sweet how fast time flies, i really want to get home and see you guys, but at the same time i´m loving my mission so much, and everyday i feel like i´m becoming a little bit better missionary and i´m learning something new and i don´t  want to leave all that.

    Question for you guys, are we as a family planning on coming back here to Panamá after my mission on our next all family vacation? You guys talked about it a little but then you´ve also said things about Roatan in Honduras, or Belize, so i´m just wondering?
    I have a doctors appointment today so i should be getting some stuff to heal my face (face fungus) up soon and i hope it works fast, i´m sick of my face hurting, haha. Pretty much everyone at church yesterday said something to the extent of, Wow what happened to your face?! But hey now i can say i got some weird disease during my mission and i survived it haha.
   I bought an MP3 player on Saturday and it works good. I haven´t had a chance to put any music on it but it came with a few songs and everything is working good so far so i´m happy about that and it´s an 8g so it should hold all my music on my mission.
   Sounds like things are going great for everyone at home. It´s always hard to say goodbye and get back to working after the Skype sessions, but i loved being able to see you. It makes me feel like i´m not that far away from you guys. I love you guys and miss you!
Love,
Elder Pfister
  
These are the things i can think of that i would like in packages, but none are really important

Music:

-Soundtrack from "Prince of Egypt"
-Soundtrack from "Tangled"
-New EFY songs, if there are some. I have up to 2010
-The Nashville Tribute Band
    *The Work, a tribute to missionaries
    *Joseph, a tribute to the prophet
    *Trek, a tribute to the pioneers

Random Things:
-Real Salt Lake Jersey
-Electric Shaver
-Multivitamins
-Vitamin C (The walmart no name brand one, which is member´s mark, with flavor of orange juice tastes good)
-Take 5, a candy bar i´m craving that is not sold here

I also love surprises :) and i´ll just let you know if i think of anything else.