Week #21 in Panama!

I cant believe its already the 12th! This change is going so stinkin fast. I also think its because we have a TON of investigators and a lot of stuff has happened this change and also because my comp is <completing her mission and going home soon>. There are a few things I wanted to tell you guys about this past week though! It actually went super slow, ironically. It feels like last Monday was a lifetime ago. It wasnt the easiest week of my mission, thats for sure, but I learned so so much.

So lets see. First of all, we had four fechas all last week, which was super awesome. Its the most I've had at one time since Ive been here. Its great. We have like 11 people this week that we are going to ask to accept a fecha, so we are really excited to see what the week has in store. Anyway, of our 4 fechas, only one of them stayed in tact because only one came to church yesterday. But shes GOLDEN! Shes 15 and shes a cousin of one of the members and she is SO prepared!! The first time we taught her was a couple of weeks ago. Her name is M. When we met and taught her for the first time, we were actually there to contact her mom, because her cousin the member gave us the reference for her aunt. If that makes sense. But her mom was not interested haha so we taught a super brief lesson to M. and her older two sisters. The two older sisters were fun, but not super serious about listening to us, but when we asked if we could come back M. spoke up out of nowhere and said yes when are you coming? She is super super prepared. We were a little worried about her not understanding our purpose as missionaries and what it means to be a member of the church. But in our third lesson with her, we taught her alone and we could tell that she totally gets it and is so excited to accept the gospel into her life. She has a fecha for the 31st of this month, and she was the one who came to church yesterday, so shes progressing super well and super quickly! Her mom gave her permission right away, so we are just going to keep teaching her and make sure shes ready by her fecha. We are so excited. We are having a movie night to watch the prince of egypt with her and the other YW this thursday. Its going to be great. 

We have a lot of other really positive people that we are working with right now, too, so we are really feeling things happening and changing in this area. Its amazing. We have found some families, too, which is so great! Im excited to let you know more about them next week once we teach them again. We are going to the temple on Friday!! Yay! So far Ive been able to go at least once with all of my comps, so its been pretty awesome having the temple so close. My comps members from the island she was at before are coming in to do all sorts of different things there on Friday, so we will probably be there for the majority of the day. Perfect. We are actually going up to stay with the Hnas who work in that area on Thursday night after the movie night so we dont have to wake up so early on Friday. Its going to be great. 

Well thats about it for now. I hope you all are happy and doing well!! I love and miss you all TONS!!! 

Love,

Hna. Anderson

Week #20 in Panama!

Hello all!

We are officially in 2015. How cool is that? I love it. Im super excited for this year. Its our mission year Corson! One full calendar year that we will have in the mission. And its gonna be a great one. So Im going to send a lot of pictures today since I didnt get to last week and Ive taken a ton these past two weeks. But Ill just give you a brief little update on how things have been going.

My comp is teaching me A LOT. Its really great, even though its hard because sometimes I wonder what the heck Ive been doing for the last six months because theres sooo much that I still dont know haha. But Im working on being patient with myself and just learning as much as I can right now. We worked hard this past week and placed two fechas. One with H., whos the neighbor of the bishop. Hes in his twenties or so and its just him, he doesnt have any family here. Hes soo receptive and we are teaching him tonight again at the bishops house. He came to church yesterday, too, which was great! The other fecha is with a joven named A. Hes 18 and hes super receptive too. We only taught him once, on saturday, but he understood the restoration really well and we are excited to teach him again this week. He didnt come to church, but we know he will come this week! We have some super intense goals for this week. We have a goal to place 19 fechas, or at least ask the question because we cant control how they answer. We can only have faith that they will accept! We have that many investigators who have the potential of being baptized so we have made it our goal this week to teach all of them and attempt to place a fecha with each one. We should be VERY tired by the end of this week, but it will be a really great tired. =) Like after a day at the beach.

Okay the rest I can show you through pictures and tell you a little more about my week that way. I hope you all had an awesome new years and that youve all set some great new years resolutions!

I love and miss you all tons!

Love,

Hna Anderson

Week #19 in Panama!

This was the LONGEST week of my mission. For so many reasons. Mostly because it was Christmas week and my leg was nasty. Anyway, I will start at the beginning. On tuesday we had a normal work day and my leg was kinda hurting but not unbearable. Then we got home that night and it started to burn. Like fire in my leg. Then it started to burn in my ankle and I realized the infection, which started in my knee, was moving down my leg. So we called the mission nurses and asked them if we should be concerned about the pain moving down my leg and my leg swelling a ton. They said that we needed to go to the hospital right away and not wait. So I started to get nervous tummy because Ive never gone to the hospital like that for something. and we are in a foreign country. So we had to call the ZLs to go with us because it was super late and we were going to ghetto Colon where the hospital was. But we went and they gave me an IV and a prescription for antibiotics in pill, cream, and butt shot form. So I was good to go. So when we finally got home we had to call the nurses back to let them know what happened and they banned me from working. That was sad. So I wasnt allowed to work for the rest of the week. On Wednesday, we had a zone meeting so we went to that and then went to the rey to buy christmas eve snacks and the lines were terrible and I about died standing there forever and then I understood why they banned me from working haha. So for the rest of that day, we were in the house studying spanish and just trying to pass the time haha. We were supposed to go do the caroling but I couldnt so we just went to the christmas dinner at the members house the night. Then we came home, ate junk, and opened gifts. At midnight the fireworks started and we went outside along with quite a few other people in the neighborhood to watch. Everyone was all feliz navidad feliz navidad! it was fun. Then the next day we skyped! Yay! That was fun. A little tough. but it was cool. It kinda takes you back to that world for a bit, which is hard, but it was good to see and talk to everyone. I wasnt satisfied afterwards though, but everyone tells me all missionaries feel that way after their first call haha. So apparently Im normal. So friday was a blah day. The day after Christmas always seems to be that way. And its even worse in the mission. Still couldnt work. Saturday we spent the whole day in the chapel for an activity for the ward. We helped decorate, we were there for the actual activity, and we helped clean up. So it became an all day thing. It was great though and a lot of people came. Yesterday we got to work!!! So that was great. We had a few really good lessons. And now we are here! So Im ready to begin a new week and I am SOOO excited to 
start 2015. I cannot wait to get out of December. This month has been sooo stinking long. Im ready to move on! So I was talking to my comp this morning and we were talking about her going home in like a month and a half and I was saying how something I imagine will happen when I finally hug my parents after the mission is that I think I will physically just collapse because on the mission you just feel so strained in every way all the time so that moment when it comes to an end will just be like letting out a big breath. I dont know if that makes sense haha but it totally did to my comp. Anyway, thats about all I have for this last week. It was long but it was quite the experience. I hope everyone had a GREAT christmas!!!

Hana Anderson

Week #18 in Panama!

Helloooooooo!

I hope you are all doing well and getting excited for Christmas. I cant believe how fast the time is passing. But shoot it seems like every day my mission changes completely all over again. So I am now with Hna N. She is from California, but her parents are latinos so shes fluent in both languages and has been her whole life. So Im back to speaking English with my comp again. Which just means I have to work a lot harder to always be improving my spanish, but Im going to do it! N. dies (goes home) this change so I am here until at least March 18 and I will have had 4 companions in my first area. Thats not super normal haha. But its good and Im content with it. 

Hna N. works very hard, which is awesome. We have a lot of very specific goals for this change, so we are really excited to begin our first normal full week. Shes a lot like me in the attitude area haha so thats fun. We laugh a lot. But shes teaching me A TON already and I know this change is really going to be mission-changing for me. And probably life haha. I say that because she is all about bettering yourself and she has changed A LOT in her mission, for the better of course, and shes very interested in helping me change too. Which is great and what I need. Shoot its humbling though to have someone tell you very specificially things you should work on. Only after I asked her to of course haha. Shes great and I feel super blessed to have her for this change. 

Ummm lets see what else. Last week was just a lot of teaching and introducing N. to everyone. We were always busy and completely dead when we got home every night which is the best. We didnt even have talk time to get to know each other better until Saturday night haha. We are going to kill it this change. We might kill ourselves doing it too haha. We dont have any investigators progressing right now, because two of our most positive live with their boyfriends so they cant be considered progressing until they get married so we are working on that. We did have an awesome lesson with two brothers though who are friends of a family in the ward and have been like life-long investigators but havent actually been taught by missionaries in a very long time. So now its our turn. And we both feel really great about them and are excited to continue teaching them. 

So thats about it for last week. Oh! I finished my first journal Saturday night! Super crazy. Ive documented all of my mission so far and I will for the rest of my mission. I love it. Okay so Ill let you know our plans so far for this week. So tomorrow we are going to go bake a little with a member in the morning which will be fun. I have only baked once on the mission, I miss it soo much! But then the rest of tomorrow will be normal. Then on Christmas eve, we will have our zone meeting in the morning and exchange our secret santa gifts and do something Christmas-sy. And then we will go to lunch maybe get in one visit and then after that we are going to all of the areas of the missionaries in our district and caroling/contacting for the rest of the day. And then all of us are going to eat a Christmas dinner at a members house. She lives in the area of the ZLs and shes the best. Itll be lots of fun. And then that night Im going to buy my comp and I some soda in glass bottles and some goodies and Im going to open my package and we are going to exchange gifts. Im pretty excited. Im a little nervous, but my plan is to stay busy. On Christmas day we will skype!! We dont have any citas yet, but we have a ton of people who have invited us to come eat at their houses so we will be getting real chunky that day. So we have lots of plans, dont worry mom! 

I hope you all have an AWESOME christmas!!! Dont be sad, enjoy it like we always enjoy it. Christmas is the best! I love you all soooo sooo much and I cant wait to skype on Thursday! =)

MERRY CHRISTMAS! FELIZ NAVIDAD!

Hna Anderson