Week #17 in Panama!

Hello!

So I may have used all my time talking back and forth with my missionary brother. Oops. So this email wont be too terribly long. Sorry about that. But not all that sorry because I love talking to my missionary brother  hahaaa. Anyway! Im getting a new comp today. Thats a story and a half. But I am very happy about this surprise change. My new comp is Hna N.? Something like that. Shes ginga latina, which means her parents are latino I think but shes from the states. Which means shes speaks english haha. Which is easier but not so good for my spanish haha. But we are going to set serious goals to keep working at my spanish and speak it as much as we can with each other! I havent met her yet but Ive talked on the phone with her and she seems really great. We are going to meet up in a little while and sleep in Panama tonight and then head back to Colon tomorrow. Im really excited about this change. Also, this is my new comps last change in the mission. She goes home after this change which means I will be in this area for at least one more change following the one we are in right now. Which ends March 18th. Almost half of my mission in one area. Super crazy but I feel good about it. I think its going to be really good. Shoot I have to go because I have to leave like right now, but know that I love you all SOO much and Im sorry that this email is so short and that Im not sending pictures this week! Talk (vie email) to you all on Monday!

Hna Anderson

Week #16 in Panama!

oloooooo¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡ 

One of the crazy elders put that thing above because hes waiting for me to get done so he can write. Silly Mexican. I dont know what it means. Anyway. I had a pretty cool week this week. First of all, Im sorry that I dont send many updates about the work. There isnt a whole lot to tell because right now we are working with a lot of investigators, but none of them are coming to church, so we dont have any progessing. But we have faith that eventually they will!

So this week was pretty normal, just the same old stuff of contacting and teaching lessons. This email probably wont be very long, but I will try and share what I can remember. Ive been super bad about remembering to check my journal before I come here. PS!!! After this I get to see HNA P.!!!! Her comp is dying (going home) this week and Colon was her favorite area so Theyre here today visiting and we are going to see them after this!! Im SOO EXCITED!

Anywho. The week was normal as far as the work goes. Worked hard, No one came to church. Sad day, but going to keep praying and working hard! BUT on Saturday, we had our Chirstmas conference for the mission which was super cool. We all went to Panama and went to an orphanage to play with the kids there. It was sad but it was cool that we were able to help them feel the Christmas spirit. We also watched Ephraims rescue. It was AWESOME! Ive never seen it. You all should watch it. I got to see J. again and almost all of my CCM friends which is always fun. So that was Saturday.

Yesterday we got to watch the Christmas Devo in English! That was pretty awesome. However, I could feel myself holding back from thinking about it too much to keep from getting trunky haha. I do that a lot right now with Christmas coming. Also, we were at the stake center with the whole stake watching it, everyone else in Spanish obviously, and we had an investigator show up totally unexpected! It was awesome, and really showed us that Heavenly Father gives us tender mercies.

So those were the highlights of my week. We find out changes tomorrow and Ill let you know next week what happens!! Im nervous because I really have no idea what is going to happen. Please pray today that the president will be inspired to make the decisions that the Lord would have him make!! Love and miss you all soo much!!! Have an Awesome birthday mama and Brenny! I love you lots!!!

Hermana Anderson

Week #15 in Panama!

I dont have much time left, but Ill write a quick gen email.

So Tuesday was fun because we have consejos in Panama at 5 so we got to go and see everyone and I saw Hna J.!! Shes the best. I actually just saw her again a few minutes ago because we are in Panama again today. And we will be back again on Saturday for the mission christmas party, which Im really excited about! So that was Tuesday. It was also an extra awesome day because I got my GIGANTIC package. Everyone was freaking out about how big it was and telling me that my family LOVES me. I just said I know hahaa. It was awesome. We got home super late that night, but the next day I had my comp open it to get the decorations out and I decorated!!! Ill send pics! Thanks so much for the package and the decorations!!! I LOVE my tree and the cards and the santas and the balloons. I love it all. Tell gunnar I understood ALL of his little card to me, which made me feel good about my spanish haha. Thank you all for the other cards, too! Im so excited for Christmas eve to be able to see what else is in the big ol box. Everyone thinks Im crazy for waiting, but I know itll be soo worth it and itll make that night a little easier I think. 

Sooo skip to thursday. I wasnt really sad because I prayed A LOT not to be. And like corson said, its a lot easier when you just work work work and not think to much. And thats what we did. And then we went to The chirus for dinner and the made us a thanksgiving dinner!! It was sooo good and I was so happy! I didnt get to make my pumpkin pie, but we had apple pie which was good too. Ill send pics. They are the BEST. It definitely made the holiday a lot better. And I told them how I knew you guys were in the stores at that time and they thought that was so funny.

Thats about the jist of my week. Ill send pics now. I hope you all had an awesome thanksgiving!! Love and miss you all!!!

Hermana Anderson

Week #14 in Panama!

Hello mis amores.

What a week this had been!! So last monday night my comp was feeling sick again, but she didnt have a fever so we went to bed hoping she would sleep it off. When we woke up the next morning the first thing she said was for me to call the nurses. She was feeling rough and burning up. So we headed for the hospital again. We got there at 830 and were there until about noon. She had to have an IV and all that jazz. Shoot, am I grateful for the nice clean hospitals we have in the states. you guys, we are SO blessed to have all that we have. Anyway, it ended up being something with her bladder. Another infection I think because she doesnt drink enough water. So we went home and stayed home again that day. The next day she was still feeling rough and I was really stressed about not having been working in our area since sunday and having SO much that we needed to do, so we called the Pilon hermanas, which is the area next to ours, because we knew that one of them was sick too and couldnt leave the house, so we went to there house and the two sicklies stayed home while the other two of us went out and worked. We worked in Pilon, so I was still worried about my area, but I was grateful to be able to get out of the house and teach. The healthy pilon hermana came home with me that night and I left my comp with her comp (super confusing, sorry) so we could work in my area the next day, thursday. We had a cita on Thursday that was really important because it was with A., who is our investigator who came to church and is super positive. We had a really good lesson with her that day and then taught her again on Saturday. Shes really great and always asks a lot of questions which is awesome because it means she wants to learn. 

M., our investigator with the fecha to be baptized on december 6th, left town for two weeks for work, so we arent sure if he will be able to make his fecha. Theres only one more sunday left before the fecha and he still needs one attendance. When we talked to him, he wasnt sure if he would be gone for the full two weeks, but we are going to hope and pray that he will get home this week so he can go to church! He said hes been reading the BOM though, and hes also been drinking less coffee which is good! Hes so great. The reason we want him to meet his dec 6th fecha is because this change ends on the 10th and we dont know if we will both still be here next change. Prayers would be greatly appreciated! 

A member made us MAC AND CHEESE on Thursday!!! I was so excited. I just wanted to share that haha. I have pictures to share too. American food, oh how I miss it. 

We have a LOT of new investigators. We have been contacting a lot to find new ones and we did find some really positive people to start teaching. Families, even, which is best. We are really excited. The biggest struggle we have, though, is that we can only visit people once a week if at all because casi everyone here works all day every day expect one day out of the week. Some people get a day off every two weeks. Its tricky to help people progess when we only teach them once a week, but its not impossible! We are hopeful!

Thats about it for this week. ENJOY THANKSGIVING AND BLACK FRIDAY!!! Family, I dont know if you knew this, but one month from TOMORROW we get to SKYPE!!!! Im super excited about that! I love you all sooo much!! 

Hna Anderson