May 21, 2012

hey mom!

yeah sorry i should probably do some explaining when i send pictures home. but yeah it can look fairly cool here but it´s actually really hot, the sand would just scorch your feet, especially since it was like black sand. i`m not sure why there weren`t any people. it was kind of a long way from most of the civilization, but there were bars and shacks and stuff so i´m sure people go there, maybe just cause it was a monday and no one goes on mondays? the family i was with was back in my last area. that family, the mom and most of the kids, cooked us food almost every day, and they were just a cool family. i hope to go back there one last time before i leave so i can actually talk to them, cause i knew no spanish those first few weeks! i do remember the canal in washington, but yeah the one here is just bigger. it`s actually not really all that cool, it`s just cool to say "the panamá canal" haha.

that`s nuts brother (now bishop) beeson took over for dad! i never would have guessed! it seems like i`ve already been gone forever, i hardly remember anything! but he`ll be great, he sent me a little letter a few weeks ago, he`s a good guy. and congrats to dad! i`m sure that would be a bitter sweet parting, he probably will go crazy with all this free time! even when i have like half an hour on a pday to do nothing i don`t know what to do!

but i should probably tell you about my week. it was actually really good, and then a few not so fun things. so i`ve told you a little about joselyn i think, we`ve been teaching her trying to set up a baptism. and so tuesday we had a visit with her in the church, and the only thing we hadn`t taught her was tithing, so we had the financial secretary there, and he`s an RM of about a year? and so it was way good. he was able to answer a lot of her little questions, things that i didn`t know exactly where the money goes and stuff, but anyway it was way good. she still wasn`t sure about getting baptized that weekend, but we still just encouraged her to pray and think about it. she said she`d call us wednesday night and tell us for sure.

so now it`s wednesday, and that was the day i turned 6 months old in the mission! it`s crazy to think i`ve already been gone 6 months! 6 months is a long time, a quarter of the way there! it really was just a normal day, but we went to dinner a little early so i could burn a tie, and we bought some ice cream and had a little mini party. it was a lot of fun. the tie was actually really hard to burn though. it mostly just melted and turned to plastic, but it would never really catch fire. i`ll have to try and send some pictures home right after this. but anyway we went back home and were waiting for her to call us, and it got to like 9 45 and she still hadn`t called, so we just decided to call her. i didn`t talk to her, but she said she was gonna call, and my comp was just like it`s no big deal, and he asked her, and she said she wanted to get baptized on friday! so we were way pumped, it was really soon, we hadn`t planned anything, but we couldn`t tell her not to get baptized haha. so anyway we planned the next day, just set up a little program with speakers and hymns and whatnot, and then went out trying to invite people to come see it.

we spent a lot of time thursday and friday trying to invite investigators and members to the baptism, but for some reason like no one was home. it was kinda frustrating. a few people did say they would go, and we just tried to tell everyone so we had decent hopes that someone would come. so it`s friday night now, and we had it scheduled to start at 6, but it was just pouring outside, and so no one really showed up til like 7 15, so we started a little late but it`s all good. of course no investigators showed up, and not too many members, but all the ones we had in lessons with her came so it was good support. and so it went by smoothly, she gave a good testimony of how she came to know the church and how when she went to this last conference she just knew it was true, so it was way cool. i know the numbers aren`t a big deal, but it was a good first baptism. i gave her one of the "HLJ" rings and she was pretty pumped. she wore it to church the next day and we confirmed her and it was great! we were really blessed to be able to teach her and everything. she was already prepared and accepted everything, it was good to finally see a fruit of all this hard work.

but the rainy season has finally started. it had been a little off and on, but now we`re getting some huge storms. i can`t believe how much water comes down. there are like rivers in the streets it`s so bad. i`m gonna need to buy an umbrella cause we just get soaked! we did have one other little cool experience though if i can tell it real fast. so there`s this ex-missionary in the ward, and he had to come home for medical reasons. he`s a super cool kid, but for some reason has just been having a rough time lately. he`s been having family trouble, and health issues, and just a ton of things have been going wrong. we went over to his house to invite him to a lesson, and he ended up just telling us all the things that are going wrong in his life. it was hard to listen to. i wanted to help but i don`t really know how. he talked for like 15 minutes, and we just listened. my comp shared a couple things, and then i shared a quick story. i talked about how my first few weeks were just horrible. i told him how i wanted to go on my mission to a foreign, cold, english speaking place, but i didn`t really get that. and then getting here and not understanding anyone, having a rough time with the food, the climate, everything, it was just hard, and i didn`t know why i was being tested like that. but i told him when trev sent me Mosiah 23:21-22, and that scripture has just become my favorite. i told him i don`t know everything he`s going through, but i went through hard times, and i still am, but i can understand people now, i don`t loathe the food anymore, and it`s hot but i`m getting used to it. it takes some time, and we don`t understand sometimes why the Lord tries us in such hard ways, but if we put our confidence and trust in Him, He`ll lift us up. it was just a super spiritual moment. i haven`t seen him since, but i hope he`s doing better. he`s a good guy, i hope he gets through it.

but that`s pretty much my week. it was a lot of work, but there were a lot of good moments that helped a lot. i`ve said it a million times, things are still hard, but it`s fulfilling and i´m learning a lot. we have changes next week, and i`m hearing all kinds of rumors. my district leader said there`s a chance i`ll be training, my zone leader said i might stay with my comp, who knows? we`ll see how this week goes, hopefully we can find some more cool people to teach! i hope everyone else at home is doing great! thanks for everthing! talk to you next week!

much love,

elder paskett