Week #52 in Panama!

Hi all!!

So this past weekend has been soo wonderful! Elder Nelson went to Honduras to have a conference with the missionaries and it was broadcasted here on saturday morning for us, too, and to all of central america. It was amazing. He is so great. I learned so so much and the spirit was so incredibly strong. And then, in the afternoon, there was a relief society broadcast from Honduras in which Sister Nelson also spoke to us. Im pretty sure that talk changed my life. It was AMAZING. She spoke to us for two hours and we didnt want her to stop. The spirit was SO strong and the things that she shared with us were absolutely incredible. She is an amazing woman. So Saturday was a very spiritually nurishing day for us sister missionaries. This past week was a really good one, too, lots of work!! Its great and I am still so very happy to be here in Chorrera. I hope you all have a fantastic week!! Love and miss you all tons! (Sorry for the short email, no time left)

Hna Anderson

Week #51 in Panama!

Hey!

I have zero time left but I wanted to send a quick update! This week has been another really good one. We are working hard to find new investigators, since that is something we are lacking, and we have been able to find a few. We found a woman whos name is Daniela. She is fantastic and so positive. She has her husband and two little girls. We havent met her husband yet, because we have only had one lesson with her and he wasnt there, but I feel really good about it. She listened to us so intently and at the end said that she understood everything so clearly and that she has been waiting so long for someone to teach her in a way that she could understand. Shes really great and we are excited to keep teaching her and her family. Thats about it for this week since I dont have time, but I hope you all have a great week!! Love and miss you all!!

Hna Anderson

Week #50 in Panama!

Hey all!

So I have a lot to share and very little time to do it, but here goes. So Im a brunette again haha. We may have had a little highlighting accident last monday. And I may have had a member in Panama just color my hair brown to cover it all haha. But I actually really love it and it looks a lot better than it looked even before the highlighting accident. So Im happy about that. The member was fantastic and only charged me half price even though she worked on my hair for 3 hours. So sweet of her! 

We went to the temple on Tuesday and it was amazing. I felt such a peace in the Celestial Room, I cant even descibe it. And I have felt so peaceful and SO happy ever since, which is a really huge answer to my prayers because I hadnt really been feeling like myself for a couple of months. The temple is a wonderful place, nothing can replace the experiences that you have there and the things that you feel there. Go to the temple, everyone! 

We also got to go to a BYU-I dance performance that came to Panama on Tuesday night. We had to contact 15 people in about 5 minutes to be able to go, but we did it and we went and it was awesome! I loved it, even though it may have made me slightly trunky for a moment. But then it passed. =)

We had a really good work week. Working a lot with the other hermanas in our zone and helping them out. I love doing that. Im really enjoying everything about this area. I got some REALLY great news on Saturday. I called the elders on Ustupu to get Dixanas phone number and they told me that one of me and Moss´s investigators, Yanice, got baptized on July 18th which made me SO happy! I also found out on Saturday that the Carti elders baptized one of me and Patricks investigators, Yabelis, too! She only had like one more lesson and one more church attendence to go when we left the island, so we told the elders to work with her and they did and she got baptized about a week ago! Such great news. The elders are working hard on both of my islands, which makes me so happy and brings me a lot of comfort too! ALSO. Best news of all. I talked to Dixiana on Saturday and she is doing really well. Her and the girls are still going strong in the gospel and she also told me that her oldest son was getting baptized on that same day! So he got baptized on the same day that I called her and now ALL of her children, aside from her six year old Leydi, are members (theres six kids in total). This same son of hers was at her baptism and said he was baptist. Apparently the missionaries have been teaching him ever since and he got baptized! I was on cloud 9 all day Saturday! She is going to have her eternal family! All thats left is her husband, but I KNOW he, too, will accept the gospel and they will all enter the temple together to be sealed. I cant wait for that day!

Thats what my week consisted of. Its been a great one. I hope you all have a great week this coming week. Love and miss you all!

Hrm. Anderson

Week #49 in Panama!

Hello all!

So this past week was a really good one. We worked hard, and Im starting to learn the area more which I really like. I dont like not knowing my area! But It takes time to learn, so Im trying to be patient with myself. =) We have started analyzing the work here, how missionaries have worked in the past, what we should continue to do and what things we should change. Its been really good and we are starting to get our rythm as a companionship. Hermana Barrera is from El Salvador. I dont think I mentioned that last week. Shes great. Right now we have three really solid investigators (we need more but we are working on that haha). We have Yira who is really awesome. Shes a single woman in her fifties. The missionaries were teaching her a while ago, but they dropped her because she wouldnt go to church. And then like a week or two before I came here, she came to church all on her own and is super positive now. She accepted a fecha and is progressing so well. She will definitely be baptized very soon! Then we have Andres and Elias. They are twins and missionaries have been working with them for over a year. They are 17 and were going to get baptized last fall, but their dad wouldnt give them permission but they are going to turn 18 next month and already have their bautismal fecha set. They are so solid and so faithful and are already preparing for their missions. They are awesome. This area is awesome, this zone is awesome, its great. I love it. Theres a lot of work to do, but we are doing it and we are excited to see the results! Tomorrow we get to have a dia en los cielos and spend the entire day in the temple with the stake. I am SO excited and so ready. I love the temple so much and to spend a whole day there is going to be amazing. I hope you all have a great week and that you remember that I love you so much!!

Hna Anderson

Week #48 in Panama!

Hi everyone!

So this past week has been a really good one for me. So on Tuesday morning we got the call with changes. They did end up closing our island to hermanas and putting in Elders, so we officially closed San Blas to hermanas. Its sad, but it was necessary. Im sure it will reopen to hermanas soon. So Hermana Patrick got sent to Colon, which she wanted soo bad and I wanted for her too because I LOVED colon and I wanted her to get to experience it. She actually got sent to the area that borders my old area, which is really cool. I got sent to La Chorrera as Sister Training Leader. I was really happy because I wanted to experience what itd be like to be STL because Ive had such good STLs in my mission and I wanted to be able to do the same for other hermanas that mine did for me. And I had only heard really great things about Chorrera so I was really excited about coming here. So I got here on Wednesday and met my comp. She has ten months in the mission and is serisously the best. She is sooo chill and soo focused on the work. I love it. She is really really obedient. I am very happy to have been put with her. 

So this ward, Barrio 1, used to have the two sisters and a pair of elders too. Well this change they took out the elders so we now have the whole area and its HUGE. I think it stresses my comp out, but I came from a tiny island that you could cross in less than five minutes so to me, huge is great. Shes excited to work in the elders area, though, so it will be good. The members here are amazing and the ward is soooo organized and ran so well. A big difference from the islands. The bishop actually had me go up and bear my testimony in sacrament meeting yesterday. That was really cool. I know I am just going to love the people here so much as soon as I get to know all of them. 

We have a ward mission leader! Its the best, Ive missed having one. And hes on fire! He is 23 and his wife is 22. They just moved to the ward about a month ago and they are both returned missionaries and love being a part of the work so they are SO helpful and so animated. They are always willing to do visits with us. Yesterday we went on vists with our WML and he was telling us how he wants to continue his schooling at BYU-I and he and his wife have already learned English and everything. He said hes already finished all the paperwork and he just has to take an SAT or something like that and they will be good to go to move to Rexburg! They want to move there in January. I think that is so cool! Ill probably be up there when they are up there too! My little piece of panama in Rexburg. Itll be great. 

So thats whats been going on here. I am VERY happy and so excited for whatever lies ahead. I hope you all have a great week! I love and miss you all lots!

Hrm. Anderson

Week #47 in Panama!

Hey! So this week has just been a filler week as we have just been waiting for changes so I dont have much to write about. We have just been doing divisions with the cardenas hermanas all week in their area. This area is pretty tough. They have a lot of money here and there are a lot of gringos who live here too because its really close to the canal so they are very willing to listen. We knocked a lot of doors this week, not something Ive really had to do much in my mission because we almost always have investigators and days full of appointments. But the work isnt like that in this area, its a lot like a mission in the states from what Ive been told. The Lord knew that I wouldnt be able to do that all day every day for 18 months so I think thats a big reason why I didnt serve in the states haha. We got rejected about 90% of the time this past week, and we even got rejected in English a couple of times. Last night one guy refused to come out of the house because he was afraid of me. He said that americans kill everyone who isnt white and kept rambling about how many people have died recently because americans killed them. That was interesting. We just left him a card and walked away haha. I missed Colon a lot being here this past week haha! Watch, we will get the news for changes and Ill get sent to Cardenas for my next area. Hahaa I guess we will see! We will find out tonight whats going to happen! So exciting! Im going to try and send some pictures really quick. I love and miss you all and hope you have a great week!
Hrm. Anderson

Week #46 in Panama!

Hello!

So guess what? We are in the CITY!! And I cant tell you all how happy I am to be here haha. This past week has been a bit of a rough one. Tuesday and Wednesday were pretty normal days on the island, but on Thursday I started feeling really sick. I was super nauseous (I have no idea how to spell that word) and I was having to go to the bathroom constantly throughout the day. I just felt yucky. So we called the mission nurses and they told us to go to the centro de salud out there. So we did and I literally had to stop walking every five steps and sit down in the dirt because I was so weak that I thought I was for sure going to pass out if I didnt rest. The centro is on a neighboring island so we had to take a five minute boat ride to get over there. Boats and sickness dont blend. So I felt worse when I got there and then the doctor just sent me on my way with a couple pills and some pedialyte. So we went back to our island and I just laid down all day and sweat because it was so stinkin hot that day. I ate some ramen eventually, but I really had no appetite at all. I eventually got a fever and one thing led to another and here we are! The nurses just wanted me to get to a legit city doctor here, so the next morning we headed to the city. And I told President that I didnt think I could go back to the islands, so he and the doctor and the mission nurses agreed that we probably shouldnt go back out. So since changes arent until next week, we are staying with the hermanas here in Cardenas in the city until we get our new areas at changes. I am very happy to be here, and even though I loved my blas experience and everything that I learned out there, I definitely reached the point this past week when I was ready to come back to civilization. Im feeling MUCH better, still not 100%, but Im getting there! Heavenly Father definitely was watching over me. So thats been the craziness of this week. I hope you all had a little less crazy of a week, but a good one too! I love and miss you all lots! Have a great week!
Hrm. Anderson

Week #45 in Panama!

Hey!

It has been an interesting week. So a big group of gringos came to the
island and have been here for about a week. They are doing some sort
of service project thing so they have been here just hanging out. Its
super weird and kinda has made Patrick and I not want to go back to
the states just yet. They use lots of words that burn our ears a
little after having heard only Spanish for a year haha. But Its been
fun and the people who they are staying with are our friends so they
have been giving us their American food a lot which has been GREAT. We
had REAL hamburgers this week from a COW! It was so amazing. Best
thing Ive eaten in a really long time. That was about it for this
week, everything else was pretty normal. We slept in the house of
congreso last night. That probably doesn't make any sense to you guys,
but it was super cool haha. Congreso is kinda like a church for them,
for the kuna culture. The sylas sit in their hammocks in this huge
house and sing in kuna while everyone sits around and listens. Kinda
boring actually haha, but cool for the culture aspect. Anyway, we
ended up sleeping there last night because of a big old long story
that Ill share with you all some day when I have more time haha. But
yeah, that was our week! Another week on Blas. I hope you guys all
have a great week this week! I love and miss you all tons!
Love
Hna Anderson