Día de Brujas- Regreso a casa

Hola,

    This past week was also very busy and stressful but very fulfilling too. I got some biggish news and random cool things to say.

    Starting with the biggish news... They changed my going home date to October 31st o sea Halloween, not that big of a change but a change nonetheless. 

    Other coolish news... We have a meeting in Panama (City) as mission leaders on Wednesday with Elder Ochoa of the Seventy and then on Thursday morning we will have a meeting with all the missionaries of the Bocas del Toro, Concepcion and David zones with him, but the cool part is that we are going to get to fly back to David from Panama in a jet with Elder Ochoa and Presidente Carmack. I`m gonna be flying on a plane with a Seventy haha, and we`re totally going to make a video of it and he`ll be in it, you`ll see. Also it`s going to be really weird getting on a plane and not go home, as i`ve had it in my mind the whole mission that the next time i got on a plane it would be to go home, haha. 

    Random favor that i am asking:  can you send me the Aebleskiver recipe we used to use at home? I found an Aebleskiver pan in my house and now  i gotta make them!

   Now on a spiritual side, more big news... A____ (from my old area in the other part of David) got baptized this last Saturday and he had me baptize him! It was super cool because i guess the sisters hadn`t really been visiting him, but he was still studying and praying on his own and with the family, and one day he just felt that it was time and he called the Bishop and told him he wanted to get baptized and the rest is history. The baptism was really special because the family shared their testimony how their family was a complete wreck and they didn`t even talk to each other and then the missionaries arrived, and the gospel changed their lives, and now they are preparing to go to the temple in a year. The gospel had worked such a change in their lives in like 2 months, imagine living it for a whole lifetime!

   R_____a and S____n are cruising along well. We went there to teach them and we were going to have them start reading the Book of Mormon from the beginning and when we started talking about it she says, i`m already doing it, i`m on chapter 18 already. She used to wake up at 4 in the morning not being able to sleep and she would watch tv, but now she wakes up and reads the Book of Mormon all morning and she is understanding it too. 

   So we have this guy named R_____ that we're teaching, and he is the boyfriend of a less active member, and this week we put him a fecha baptismal for the 28th and we put the wedding goal for the 21st of September, so we started helping them with that. He`s a cool guy and is really interested; he always has tons of good questions and stuff. 

   This Saturday Z_____ is going to get baptized finally - i`m pretty sure i told you guys about her, she was living with someone who didn`t let her go to church, so she prayed for help and he suddenly left. Well, we got a ton of appointments with her this week to prepare her. Every time we talk to her about baptism she starts crying she is so excited, so it should go well.

    This upcoming week is going to be a crazy week, we planned it and we have every minute planned out with appointments and meetings, and I`m busier than ever in my mission and it`s sweet. 

    Well i gotta go but just before I sign off I gotta say i love you guys and miss you. Stay strong in the gospel, because it changes lives for the better, and i`ve seen so many miracles because of it, and I know it`s true.

Love,

Elder Pfister

Qeu lo Que...

Que hay

    Well this has been a very busy week for us as Zone Leaders and missionaries. We decided to do alot more things for our zone and we started those things this week and we had some baptisms so it was a good week. 

   First of all, R______ and S_____ got baptized and it was one of the most special baptisms of my whole mission. This last week was an extremely tough one for them. So R_____'s other kid is actually an inactive kinda anti Mormon member baptized like 15 years ago, and this week Satan really attacked R_____ so that she wouldn't get baptized. Her own mother talked about disowning her as her kid because she said it was a stupid thing to do. R_____'s  kid talked about how this church is of the devil and that Satan himself was working on R________.  R_____ said one day that that morning when she would go to pray she would start but that something would kinda take over her and she wouldn't been able to think or say anything at all, and that she felt that something was blocking her from talking to God, and she wasn't sure if that was God saying no to her question about baptism or if it was Satan. Well, we shared the Joseph Smith story again and it really helped her a ton and she realized that it was Satan. She also never drinks coffee, never has, but this week she's had a huge temptation to drink coffee... coincidence? I think not, she has real potential in the church and Satan didn't want her to be part of the Church. It was a scary week for us because she would call us randomly and say elders you have to come over we need to talk and then she would say I'm not getting baptized because i can't take all this stuff that's happening to me, but we would share something and we gave her several blessings and then when we would leave she was wanting to get baptized again, but that happened pretty much every day this week. It's hard to describe but I've never seen someone so influenced by Satan in that you could tell that he was attacking her. Normally she's super happy always smiling and there were times when he had her just super-depressed. Of all my baptisms I've never seen Satan work so hard against someone like this time.  But the great part is that we defeated him, visiting her twice a day and sending members over there daily and having them call her daily, we were able to help her overcome all those temptations and trials, and i know that our Heavenly Father was working through her younger son S_____ because no matter what happened, he was always there saying, Mom don't say that we can't get baptized, please get baptized with me, don't let Satan win this Mom, we can do it together. I'm almost crying typing this thinking about this baptism and everything that happened. It was amazing, absolutely amazing, one of my biggest testimony builders of the mission. Like I had said in earlier letters, she was our true golden investigator, but what i hadn't realized back then is that with someone so chosen and prepared by God, Satan also has had his eyes on her to keep her back. But anyway i think you get the picture, it was an amazingly stressful experience, but a rewarding one. In the baptism we got alot of ward support and when she got baptized she started crying, and when S_____ got baptized he said that he felt something amazing in his chest that he couldn't describe but that it felt right. AMAZING BAPTISM!

    That was the great news, this week we have also been using the area book alot, which is the book where all missionaries write down a description about their investigators with their needs and where they live and how they are progressing so that missionaries that come in can look at it and go find them and know exactly what has been taught and what some of their trials are. Anyway so we did a week of ´´Carpet people´´ finding, carpet people because in Spanish it's the 'carpeta de area' and in spanglish it's the carpet book and people ha ha, we invented that actually but it works. I'm amazing at spanglish ha ha. So this week we found alot of really positive carpet people and we already think that there are a few that could be baptized soon so we'll work with them. 

    Sadly with M_____ we haven't been able to make contact or even see him. They are sealed off and I'm worried he may be lost for now...

    W_____ and H_____ haven't been able to see us lately because they are in a national competition for viola and are practicing like crazy. I don't know if i told you but they are super geniuses. W____ is going to graduate from high school at 15 years old with tons of scholarships and stuff, crazy smart! But the tournament is the 4th so after that hopefully they can see us. 

    Z____ just got back from Concepcion where she was working all week, so we'll meet with her this week, but we're pretty sure she'll get baptized the 14th and maybe with W_____ and H_____....´´si dios quiere´´ the great Panamanian frase. 

    So this week as ZL's we decided we needed to do some extra things to help people more. In our zone there are 7 companionships of sisters and 5 of elders and the thing is that there are so many new sisters coming in that they don't have enough trainers for everyone so new sisters are getting trained by other new sisters that don't know too much so they are really struggling, but the thing is as male leaders we can't go out and work with them or anything so we don't know how they teach or work and so we don't know how to help them. But this week we started a companion study with them, we take two sisters and we teach them like they were investigators and they teach us the same way, and this way we can help them out on a more personal level, but wow its been tough organizing all that and with so many its very time consuming, but its working great, we did it for a few of them and it turned out great. Also we are meeting with all the bishops of the stake to make sure everything is running well and that they are doing everything that they should be doing. This has worked well too because we now have the confidence of the bishops and they have told us the problems they have in their wards with the missionaries and the good things that are going on so now we can really help them out. We also implemented alot of programs that we had planned out with the stake president and the stake mission leader. In a few words, the coordination between the wards and the missionaries is about to skyrocket with these things that we are doing with the stake leaders, and I'm excited to see the results. But with all that it has been a very long and busy week, but it was totally worth it and we have going to continue doing it this week. 

    Thanks for the pictures, actually last night i realized i had around 50 days left too...crazy! Time is flying by! I was able to open all the pictures by the way so thanks! Try to fix Skydrive if you could, i can't from here because we have the mission cell that doesn't receive international texts. I wanna share the baptismal pictures with you and i have pictures on there that had been deleted from a memory card by a virus so i hope to save them. 

    I always feel that i have more to say but for now i can't remember so I'll close saying that I'm now almost completely healed and that this week was sweet, i hope the next is even better. Also this week as made me realize the reality of Satan and his power, but also the power of the priesthood and the power that we have inside us when we are doing the right things. Satan is real and wants us to fail and be miserable and every temptation that comes from him will make us miserable in the end even though the world wants you to think the opposite. I know that we have to do the small and simple things everyday, read, pray and keeps our minds turned unto God and when we do that, hell has no power over us and we will be able to help others come unto Christ. I know this church is true and that Christ lives and he loves us. I love you guys a ton, take care and be safe!

Love,

Elder Pfister

P.S. Feliz Cumpleaños Papa!

La vida es buena!

Meto! (famous saying here in Chiriqui)

   Well, first things first, i`m feeling a lot better, nearly completely better so don`t worry. I went on some hardcore drug that this doctor gave me, and it made me super, super sleepy every day - and i was falling asleep in appointments and everywhere.  It was embarrassing but it worked so it was worth it because i`m better now. 

    So news on all our peeps... R_____a and S____ are progressing towards their goal of baptism for this Saturday; i put a picture of them on Skydrive and pics of the dinner they gave us. A very typical dinner here with patacones (fried and smashed plantains, pretty much a Latin french fry), a hot dog, a salad which was tomato and lettuce plus some aguacate this time. Anyway, so we announced their baptism this week in church, and we forgot to tell them that we were going to do that and they were really surprised to suddenly hear their names in sacrament meeting, but it all worked out, and it`s as sure as it can be that they are getting baptized this Saturday. They really are our golden investigators because since day one they have been progressing and understanding everything and they prayed and accepted a fecha the first lesson. 

   With M_____l it`s not so good... So we put a baptismal fecha with him, but when we asked his mom she apparently got offended because she felt that we were pressuring him;  we do push a little but with him we didn`t really push because he already had come to church for 8 Sundays, and he had told us he wanted to get baptized. We just had to ask him in front of his mom to get permission from her because he is not 18. Well i`m not sure what it was but i think they have very anti-Mormon neighbors, actually we know that but we think that the neighbors are telling them bad things about the church, because all of the sudden his mom won`t let M_____l go to church or even talk with us and when we go over they pretend to not be home.  We went over to apologize with sodas and other stuff but nothing worked.
    We have the two super smart girls named W____ and H____ that we are teaching but they are always involved in recitals or some activity and so we have lost contact with them for a week or so but we have an appointment today with them, and a we'll take a few young women from the ward to make friends with them. They could very easily be baptized on the 7th of Sept so we`ll see if they accept. 

    Also there is this lady named Z____ who has been going to church for a few months, but is living with this guy who didn't`t want to get married, so she couldn`t be baptized - but now all of a sudden after lots of prayer and fasting on her part, he suddenly left her. She had been praying for an answer because lately he hadn`t been letting her go to church and she didn`t know what to do, but the Lord helped by getting him out of her life so that she can not only go to church but be baptized too, so we put the goal for that baptism for the 7th of Sept because she is gone this whole week working or else we would just have baptized her this weekend, she`s so ready ha ha. 

   I think that`s all the big news for this week. Thanks for the recipe for pumpkin chocolate chip bread;  we are going to make it with our dinner on Sunday. Thanks for looking up all that stuff for USU, the closer going home gets the more stressful it gets too, ha ha. Mom I hope you had a great birthday and that you got my birthday email. 

   Everything is going great for me here, i think we can have lots of success here in the ward, we are really gaining the confidence of the members and they are helping out alot. I know that this is the work of the Lord because every time i testify of the truthfulness of it, which i do alot as a missionary, the Spirit testifies to me and my own testimony grows as well. This gospel is the best thing in the world, and I`m glad i was born into it and that i can help people to find it and enjoy the same blessings it offers to all. I love you guys, take care and say hi to everyone for me!

Love,

Elder Pfister

todavía enfermito

Hey hey hey,

    Well i´m still pretty sick, during this week i felt like i was on my death bed a few days and so we didn´t get that much work done this week sadly, but i feel that this week i´ll be feeling good enough to work hard again. Anyway i guess i can catch you guys up on what´s going on here.

    R_____ and her son S____ are our golden investigators because we meet them on a referral from a member and just from the first appointment they haven´t stop progressing. They had gone to lots of different churches, but they didn´t like any of the other churches, and one trip here to the LDS Church, and they already know that it is true. They read everything we give them and they actually try to re-read it a few times to understand it better and they pray and read together always. S_____ is only 10 years old, but he is understanding alot of it, as he is just really into it and always excited to go to church. They have a baptismal date for the 31 of August. Satan is already working on them because since the first appointment they have had friends and even her Mom come up to her saying that the church is crazy and teaches lies, but even so, with the very little knowledge they have, they have defended it. So even though i´ve been really sick, we´ve always gone to these appointments to keep them progressing. 

    So the reason why i was sent here to this area is because in my old area we were working with pure families and families with lots of marital problems, and in a lot of the cases we were able to solve problems, or help out a lot, and to me that joy of seeing a broken family get fixed with the gospel was the best in the world and it got me super pumped to go find more families like that to help them. So when i get here, i was talking to my comp and he was telling me how they were thinking about dropping a few families because... take a guess... they had marital problems. But i arrived super pumped and prepared for just that so now we´re doing work in that area. I know that God was preparing me in my last area to come here at this time and help these families we have right now and i´m really hoping i can do some good. 

    M______ (the determined kid) is this 12 year old kid who comes to church on his own every week for the last 8 weeks or so. We finally had a formal appointment there with him and his mom and she was telling us how she has noticed a big difference in his behavior, as he´s a lot more respectful to everyone and does better in school and everything now that he is going to church. His mom also said that she was looking in the Book of Mormon for something to prove that it is wrong and she couldn't find anything like what she was looking for, and she kinda admitted that she thinks the church is true, so we´re hoping that the baptism of M______set for the 31st can help her to progress, and what's more she told us how her husband is shy but would like to learn more also and M_____´s little brother said he wants to hear the lessons too, so there you are, through this kid coming to church and allowing the gospel to change him, a whole family might find that joy and peace that there is to find in the gospel. 

 

Questions: Is Mckay going to go to the same mission in Ukraine? Can you guys send me the recipe for pumpkin chocolate chip bread that we make every Christmas? When are sign-ups for class for spring semester at USU?

    

Anyway i think that´s all for now; i am getting better health wise so don´t worry too much, but keep me in your prayers. I know that this is the work of the Lord and i´m pumped to be an instrument in the Lord´s hands to help bring families to Him and make them eternal. I love you guys and miss you, take care!

Love,

Elder Pfister

¿Cómo va todo?

Hey fam!

   Well this change is going great so far, but this letter might be short again, i`m really sorry it`s just that being a ZL I have to report all the numbers of everyone online, plus take pictures and put them online of all the baptismal registros and that usually takes half an hour or so - just so you know why i can`t write too much lately - and now our zone went from 14 missionaries to 26, little bit bigger haha but it`s cool, other than reporting things i like having a bigger zone. 

    To answer the questions... My comps name is Levi Wright from Pleasant Grove i believe. Elder Collier is still in David, and Elder Stegelmeier is actually in the same ward as me so we have church and a few lunches together. I got the package you sent last, and in thinking about it i can`t really think of anything i need that i can`t get here... 

    So we have some really positive investigators right now and a few have fechas for this month. Next week i`ll make sure to write a better letter and explain in detail everything but for now a quick overview. R_____ and S____n are like golden investigators that we just found, but are going to get baptized already. M____ is a cool determined young man who wants to get baptized and through him we might be able to baptize a whole family of 5.  And yet again we are fighting the government bureaucracy because we have 3 people who would get baptized right now, but they need to get divorced from their past spouse, and married to their current partners, so we`re in that struggle now. Those are the most positive i can think of for now. 

   Overall my comp is cool, the ward is nice and my area is sweet, really hot sadly but oh well, i`ll lose more weight sweating alot. Right now i`m actually really sick with a terrible cough but nothing else, my comp thinks it is bronchitis because he had it earlier in his mission and it was the exact same thing, i went to the doctor and they gave me some meds which i`m taking, so this week is the test to see if i get better, but the bummer is i think i may have to take some sick days and stay in because in the house i feel fine but once i go out to work in the sun is when it hits me hard. We`ll see but don`t worry too much i`m not going to die and i won`t do anything dumb like work myself beyond my capacity. 

    Anyway, I know that this is the work of the Lord because I am already seeing a purpose for me being in this area, remind me to tell you next week about that story. I love you guys and you are always in my prayers! Take care!

Love,

Elder Pfister

Hola Familia!!

Hey hey hey!

    Well this week is full of surprises! This Wednesday are changes and in theory i was supposed to get a new comp but they are changing me. What happened is that there were two zones here in David but now they are making them into one zone and they are sending me to be ZL but working in the other ZL area so i already know who my comp will be and where i`m going. I will be in Barrio 2 here in David with Elder Wright a gringo that i think is from Utah, but i`m not really sure. I`m always excited to have changes and meet new people but this time i`m really bummed too because i`m not going to get to work with A____h to get him baptized - and the new missionaries won`t know him so it`ll be hard for them to get to know him like we do, just a big step backwards in his progress i think because even if we explain everything it`s not the same because of the confidence and trust we've built.  But it will work out ok I hope.

    So this week the mission work has been tough because we`ve been going back and forth from my area to Elder Collier`s so it slowed us down alot but everything is pretty much the same. A___h is still on the fence on whether he wants to get baptized or not. I____ doesn`t think that she will be able to go to the temple for work reasons but she`s doing good and will go in November on the next ward visit. N____ is being tough especially when we went with the hermanas, as he doesn`t take the sisters as seriously as he does the Elders for some reason, so that`ll be tough. 

    My finger turned black in Colon when we were doing a service project. We had to get cement blocks from one side of a little river to the other so instead of walking that whole distance we started throwing them. A crazy Tongan would throw them to me and i caught them so they didn`t break, but one time he didn`t throw it hard enough and i went down to catch it and my finger got smashed  and it did hurt. But the fingernail just barely fell off recently. 

    We have actually gone to Boquete nearly every p-day this change, it`s amazing there because its cool and fresh, i don`t sweat constantly over there in the mountains. We usually eat and then just find a hike or something to do. 

    The last bus ride to Panama city was ok, i was able to sleep a little. None of the bus rides are really that great but oh well. Luckily this time i don`t have to go, they are only paying for one of the zls to go and i think it'll be Elder Wright not me for the next meeting. 

    Speaking of mission blogs president just send me the link to his blog this week here it is...

http://sunshineinmysoulpanamamission.blogspot.com/

    Well i gotta go but i`m excited to see my new area and what it has in store for me; they say that it is a cool area and i know that my comp is chill. I know that this is the work of the Lord and that if they are changing me it`s for a reason and i have a purpose there! Love you guys!

Love,

Elder Pfister

Buenos momentos aquí!!

July 29, 2013

Hola,

    Well this last week was the most stressful ever but it paid off big time! We had two weddings go through and a baptism.

    So the first wedding was N_____ and A____ L_____. She is already a member that is reactivating herself and he is not a member. They got married on Friday after a whole week of complications with the medical papers; first they didn't show up then the papers were missing a doctor's review and then turns out that they hadn't done one of the more important tests and wow it was a big mess and we had to pull every string possible to make it work, but with help from above, they got married! I put fotos on Skydrive so you can see.

    The other wedding which was sweet, was A___ and I____, & they got married on Saturday and it was a cool wedding. For one they were way pumped to get married when 5 weeks ago they weren't getting along at all. Also when the judge said 'together till the death separates you', he corrected her and said, nope we'll be together for all eternity. Then a few hours later I____ and V____ the daughter got baptized. A____ still isn't sure if he's ready but I am sure that he will get baptized soon. In the goodbye of  Elder Reed we gave our testimonies and A____ was crying a little and he said how much the family has changed and how he wants to go to the temple with his family and not just go but enter too. He will get baptized i know it and they will get sealed in the temple for time and all eternity and it will be awesome! 

    As for D____, we went with the Bishop and it was a sad lesson. He opened up finally and he has big problems with the church even though he says he knows its true. We also talked about him getting married so his girlfriend can get baptized and he threw out a bunch of excuses.  They have some big problems between them but the sad part is that the girl J_____ really loves him. Anyway the bishop just said that that visit made him really sad after because of the potential this guy has but its gonna take a miracle to change him. He's convinced himself that he doesn't need the church and that he knows better than everyone else how to be close to Christ. 

    So this is my comps last day with me, tonight he goes to Panama to chill there and now i'm gonna be with Elder Collier again for a week or so, it'll be a party!

    China looks sweet! Nice fotos that you put up. McNabb is an eagle again???  We got to A____ house right as the Gold Cup (soccer) was ending so it was fun bugging him a little cuz he's a huge soccer fan. yeah thats amazing about Patrick getting gored in Spain, and the sweet foto that he has now.  By the way, last week i got the package with the ties and candy; thanks a bunch but one of the ties already got ruined a little because of the huge rains we're having here. 

   Well i'll end by saying that my testimony has grown so much about familias eternas working with the A___ family because they have captured the vision of having one and they are working towards it, and while I was testifying of it to them, the Spirit testified to me that it is true. I know that families can be together forever through the temple! Love you guys and take care! 

Love,

Elder Pfister