June 25, 2012

hey mom!

well sounds like things are going pretty well! lots of stuff going on! as far as shoes go i think i`m ok. i haven`t seen any inserts, but i haven`t really looked either. i usually try to walk in the grass or the dirt just cause i figure it`ll be softer and easier on my feet, but i guess that may just wear my shoes down faster, who knows? for now though i`m surviving. i`m trying to be aware of how i`m walking now and i think it`s kinda working. i just need more people to let us in so we don`t have to walk so much! :) i`m not quite sure what to think of karissa staying home alone though...but oh well, i guess i`m down here so i can`t do anything...:) speaking of pasketts, i was gonna see if i could get all the cousin`s email addresses when they go in the mtc. i`m too lazy to handwrite, plus it takes forever, so if you could somehow get those as they slowly trickle in that would be great.  me and my comp were actually just talking about boating and it made me miss it a ton haha. i hope the boat is still alive by the time i get back, you better tell them to take good care of it!

i`m afraid this week wasn`t really too exciting. it really was just kinda long and slow and nothing really happened. for pday we just played basketball and soccer at the church. i`ve lost all of my basketball abilities but have picked up some soccer ones. not to brag or anything but i`ve had some pretty sick goals haha. we try playing basketball though and i can`t do a thing. it`s gonna take some time to get it all back!

we did meet someone kinda cool though. we were just contacting and walking down the street when some guy yelled at us to come back. so we went back and talked to him for a bit and he ended up telling us he was actually a member but hasn`t been active for like 15 years, and he just moved into that house like 4 months ago. so we asked if we could come in and talk and he said sure. it`s just him and his "señora" and a little 3 year old, and the mom isn`t a member, but they`ve met with missionaries a ton. we talked a little bit about getting married, and the mom was just like "we`ve had like 4 sets of missionaries try to get us married but it`s never happened" and me and my comp were like "well we`re different you`ll see :)" and so i`m not exactly sure how to get someone married, but we told them they had to do the first step and we`ll do the rest. and so we went over yesterday and the mom had done her part but the dad no, but the mom said she would just go do it that day. i think it takes like 8 days to wait for paperwork and stuff to get done, so it might take some time, but they`ve at least started so that`s cool. we`re also teaching the mom trying to get her baptized, so who knows right now but it could be cool.

we`ve been visiting sabrina and her family all week and she`s still doing awesome. she shares way cool stories with us everytime. so i gave her one of those "HLJ" rings and she just loved it. we went over tuesday and she made sure to show me that she had it on and that it had already helped a ton. she said having it there has helped her to remember to do the right thing a ton of times. she said it`s been hard, like someone was passing a little sample of wine around and she had to say no, even though after everyone was like freaking out at her and wondering why, but she did it and felt good. and there was like this mandatory school thing, and afterwards there was like a dance thing. and she went, and when everyone started jumping around and doing whatever she said she just didn`t feel good and just felt different. we talked about that and being in good places and she knew and said she didn`t like being there. and after a prayer one time she asked us why she feels like crying sometimes during prayers, and the mom just said "that`s the Holy Ghost!" and that`s what`s been so frustrating with the mom. she knows all the answers and knows what she needs to do, but for some reason we can`t get her to do it. she was telling us a little bit about her life and i guess she has some "sugar daddy" that gives them money. so she goes to panamà every once in awhile, and basically she just has chastity problems and doesn`t want to get baptized so then they lose the money source and she has to leave this guy behind. we`ve only got her to read the BOM once, so that`s hard, but she said she would talk to her boyfriend on saturday, so we`ll have to go this week to find out how it went.

we`ve been trying to talk to sabrina`s boyfriend too, and so tuesday he said he would be there thursday to tell us if he wants to get baptized or not. sure enough he didn`t show up thursday, so we called him and he said for sure he`d be there saturday. so we went saturday, but then sabrina told us he`s still like 2 hours away so he wouldn`t be there. so we`re having a hard time trying to get ahold of him. the sister has been hard too and we`ve never seen her either. i don`t know what happened. so the rest of the family isn`t doing so great but sabrina is still awesome.

we also went to visit a recent convert of a little less than a year cause he hasn`t come to church for a couple weeks, so we stopped by to see how he`s been doing. apparently he`s had a couple problems with drinking, a few members of the branch presidency have gone over and he`s been drunk a few times, so we`re a little worried. he`s old too, and told us he has diabetes and his one knee isn`t great, but he`d like to go to church next week, the only thing is his shirts had stains and so he doesn`t want to go with a dirty shirt. so i offered to try to stain-stick them and he said sure. the one shirt had like rust stains and so nothing came out, but the other shirt came out nice and white so that was good. so we went by on saturday to drop off the shirts, and we met him in the street with a couple of bags from the store. we offered to take them and he gave them too us. he gave me one, and  sure enough in that bag were a few beers. so we walked in and gave him the shirts and asked if we could chat for a bit. we started by kinda being gentle and trying to get him to say what was up, talked about the word of wisdom, but he would never say anything. so i was like "i think i saw something in that bag back there, what do you have?" and he just flipped. he was all telling us how much older he is and how we shouldn`t treat him like a kid and he knows so much more than us, and if we`re gonna come in and accuse him of drinking we have to leave. he said he had no problem with drinking and he just bought the beers for a friend that`s gonna come by and drink them. my comp believed him and said that was fine, but we`re worried about his friend and his influence. he said don`t worry he`ll be fine, so we left. we talked to president the next day and he just laughed and said for sure those were for him. i was thinking of a "the guilty take the truth to be hard" kinda thing, but oh well. he ended up going to church yesterday, and maybe we`ll stop by again and see what`s up.

that`s basically about it though. this week was just full of appointments dropping and lots of contacting. i did finally meet my first panamanian that actually speaks english, and she was cool and said we could come back so that was exciting. this week could be kinda big or nothing will happen, i guess we`ll see. i`m glad to hear the vacation went well and everyone`s doing well. you guys will have to have extra fun on the boat since i can`t have any haha. but anyway have a great week, and we`ll talk to you later!

much love,

elder paskett

June 18, 2012

hey mom!

well sounds like it hasn`t been the best trip ever, but at least you got a little bit of a vacation! i think just chilling in yellowstone for a few days would be great! we`re working way hard down here, and every night i come home and i`m just dead. it`s all i can do to get out of bed in the morning, but things could be worse so i`m not complaining :) and i did hear there was another af kid coming from elder clarke, he said a kid named i think tanner smith is coming, but he wouldn`t know me by jordy so i don`t know who it could be that grandpa met, but that would be sweet! there`s already 3 of us here, i guess there`s also a sister that i don`t know, but elder clarke said he met her, so it sounds like af is just gonna own the mission! and ya know i haven`t seen too many gardens. we went to a member`s house to eat the other day and i noticed the dad outside working on one, but i really don`t know if i`ve seen another. there`s lots of vegetable and fruit stands though, and i assume it`s cheap, and so probably most people just do that.

my shoes are doing ok. i think my first area took a good toll on them, cause almost all of the streets were just rocky. this area is better and most are paved, but they`re still doing good. i`ve noticed i walk really funny though. i walk on the outside of my left foot, but the inside of my right, weird i know, i don`t know how, but now i`ve been trying to be self conscious of walking on the outside of both. they`re both rockports, so i assume they`re supposed to be good, but the little cover thing on the inside of my shoes is coming up. i mean just like the little felt thing that covers the foam part, if that makes any sense. so i`ve started to wear through the foam cause there`s no protection, but other than that the bottoms are holding up fine and they should last me for awhile. the shoes that guy gave me definitely aren`t missionary shoes. they`re a lot dressier and so they`re not very comfortable. i`ve worn them a couple of times now but they`re not great. i think i`ll just push them to sunday use now. i guess that`ll probably give my other shoes at least a little bit more life huh?

but this week was a bit of an interesting week.  monday we went to the beach again, but it was pouring like all day so it wasn`t that fun. we played some ultimate frisbee and soccer though so it was ok. again there was no one on the beach, but these two guys showed up after awhile and wanted to play with us so that was cool. one of the guys busted out some clubs too and so we juggled for a bit. he wasn`t very good, but i wasn`t either since i haven`t done it forever haha, but it was fun. more on juggling in a moment...

so wednesday was pretty relaxed, not too much happened, and thursday as well, but thursday night we had a visit with sabrina and her family and boyfriend, and it was an interesting visit. so we asked a member to come along with us, hermano guerra, and he`s the teacher of the investigator class in church. he`s a way cool guy, and served a mission in costa rica? something like that, maybe 30 years ago, but he always teaches well and had seen sabrina and everyone a few times so we thought it would be good. and it did turn out to be a super good lesson. sabrina was telling us all of her doubts and stuff and how many different opinions she`s gotten about her baptism, and she just wasn`t sure anymore. hermano guerra did an awesome job telling somewhat similar stories from his mission, and we just had a super good talk and it was just awesome. so we just asked her how she was feeling right then, and she just said "yo quiero bautizarme," i want to get baptized, and so we were just pumped. afterwards we were talking me and my comp and that`s never happened to either of us so that was cool, to just have her flat out say it.

so now it`s friday, and that night we had an activity for father`s day. (happy late father`s day dad! :)) they asked us if we would do a little five minute act or something and so we said sure. i had nothing to do but juggling, and my comp borrowed a ukelele from someone and so he decided to play that. it ended up being way cool. we planned out this little routine, had some music, i used some of the glowsticks you sent me, we killed the lights and i juggled for a bit. i took a video of it but i assume it`s too big to send through email, so you may have to wait to see it, but everyone afterward said it was just awesome. they all loved the lights and stuff. after all of the little kids really wanted the glowsticks and balls, so they kinda robbed to glow sticks but i made sure to keep all the balls :) but yeah it was a lot of fun. after the activity though, sabrina called us at like 9 30, and was just starting to flip flop again and still wasn`t sure if she wanted to do it. so we were just like ok tomorrow we have the interview, so let`s talk tomorrow and we`ll figure it out.

so now it`s saturday, and we had divisions so one of the zone leaders could interview her. so we went over and started talking, we had her tell us all of her doubts again, we shared a couple scriptures, tried to reassure her, and then just said alright let`s do the interview and see how it goes. she said she was really nervous but said ok. so they went and had the interview, of course i don`t know what she said, but she came out and said that she`s finally ready and we can do it tomorrow! so we were both just like telling her this is the right thing and she`ll be super blessed and it`ll just be awesome. so i asked her who she wanted to baptize her, and she really didn`t want to choose. i was asking if she wanted maybe hermano guerra to do it, or a member that she`s met, but she just told us she wanted either my comp, me or the zone leader to do it. we tried telling her that one day we`re gonna have to leave and it`ll be good to have a member do it, but she was just like yeah but you have facebook! haha so we just said ok. so anyway, after a little more thinking, she asked me if i would do it! of course i said yes, but i was super nervous! i`ve never baptized anyone so i really didn`t know what to do! so that night i was memorizing the prayer and trying to get everything ready, it was kinda stressful but it was good.

and now it`s sunday morning. we had to do the baptism before church, so we went to the church at like 7 30. it was a good little service. we had our other baptism share her testimony and it was way good, there was one other speaker, and then we just did it. the water was super freezing, not what i was expecting haha, but yeah we just did it and it was awesome! right as she came up out of the water she said "oh i just felt something!" i couldn`t really talk to her, but it was awesome. i was super nervous, but it ended up being great and she shared an awesome testimony afterward and it was just perfect. we confirmed her right after in sacrament meeting and she was just great! we were really so blessed to be able to teach her and see her grow and progress and her hunger to learn everything. the mom was all telling us about the changes she`s seen in especially her, but the whole family as well, ever since we started coming over. i`m hoping that they all make the same decision and then the rest will be baptized on saturday, cause they`re just an awesome family!

so this week turned out really well! it`s fun to see some fruits of our labor, see people`s testimonies grow and just love of the gospel. i`ve got high hopes for this week too so we`ll see how it turns out! thanks for everything and everyone! i hope all is well, have a good rest of your vacation, and we`ll talk next week!

much love,

elder paskett

June 11, 2012

hey mom!

man sounds like it was quite the interesting week huh? i`m happy for adri, she sent me an email the other day and it sounded like she was doing good. at least i`ll have someone to speak spanish to when i get back haha. i don`t know if you can find out about michael wells or spencer nelson for me, i`m hoping that they`ll be able to get out but i haven`t heard anything. the package sounds great. i don`t know if anyone opened it, but when i got it i found a note from someone in the office here that said when they got it it was just destroyed and had tape all over it and  everything, so they just stuck it in another box. it looked like it had everything, i don`t think anything was missing, so i don`t know what happened. and me and my comp decided it would be cool if we could juggle together, but right now i only have 5 balls so that`s perfect. we actually have a ward activity this friday and they asked us if we would do something, so i was gonna juggle and my comp was gonna play the guitar, cause he`s a typical surfing-guitar playing-cali boy haha, so we`ll have to make something kinda cool, we`ll see how it goes. the pictures are a good idea too, right now the only picture i have myself is the one grandma bearnson sent me, but my house is covered with pictures from other missionaries so that`s cool. i do need to read a little more in spanish so that`ll be good. a little side story...

so we had divisions the other day with the zone leaders cause they wanted to get to know our fechas, so i spent the day in the zone leader`s area with one of them while the other was with my comp in my area. it was a bit of an interesting day. so i was with elder martin, and this is his last change, so he`s basically got everything down. his spanish is pretty good, and so it was good to see another style of teaching and whatnot. i was a little worried cause i didn`t want to seem like i was still new and didn`t know anything, but it ended up being good. we set a couple of fechas and met some cool people and had good lessons and it was just pretty good. afterwards though i asked him what he thinks i need to work on and he was just like "alright to be completely honest, i thought you were just gonna suck it up, i thought you were gonna be horrible, but you really surprised me and you taught really well and your spanish is awesome, just don`t get caught in using old examples from other missionaries, don`t be afraid to make up your own." so i didn`t know if i should take that as a compliment or not haha, but i guess it`s good. i`m not sure what i did to make him think i was horrible, but i guess i didnt fail too bad :)

my area has been having a bit of a drought. we didn`t have a baptism yesterday cause the day we had divisions they pushed it back a week, but they`re just really lukewarm right now. it`s super hard cause i know they`ve felt the Spirit and they love church and at least she is reading the book of mormon and loves it, but for some reason they just don`t feel like they`re ready to get baptized. that`s happened a lot lately with 3 of our fechas, that they don`t think they`ve learned enough or know enough to be baptized, and that it`s gonna take a long time for them to study and search before they`ll feel ready. it`s super frustrating, we read scriptures with them all about how you just need to have the desire to change and follow Christ, and be willing to obey His commandments. he doesn`t say anywhere that you need to have a perfect knowledge or study everything. plus when they finally are baptized they`ll have the Holy Ghost which will help them learn more faster, but for some reason they`re having a hard time with all that. i`m not sure what to do anymore. we have lessons with members, invite them to activities, pray for them, read with them, everything, but it`s just not working. it`s hard cause i thought they were golden, i mean she had the incentive to copy every page in the book of mormon, and she took the "piedra misional" last week and said she`s felt like this is changing her life for the better, but just won`t be baptized. so it`s hard and frustrating, but i guess we`ll see how this week goes, i`m hoping for a good one.

so yeah more or less this week was just a little rough. we had good investigators tell us their pastors told them they have to go to their church and can`t meet with us, fechas that are super lukewarm about baptism, a rough week of contacting and finding new people, the lowest amount of people at church yesterday that i`ve ever seen here, it was just hard. we must have done something really bad this week cause there`s been nothing. i had to go to panamà again to get my id thing, and they still had my name spelled wrong, but they said just print it anyway, which isn`t really a big deal, no one will ever compare it to my passport or something, but it says "joedan" instead of "jordan" so who knows? while we were waiting for our bus to come back to david, the kid i was with called president to see if he could go visit some old investigators nearby. he said yes, so we went to this place called chorrera and just walked around and talked to some old investigators of his. one cool thing though, we went to one guy`s house and i guess he`s just been an investigator forever but for whatever reason doesn`t want to change, but we were just talking and he looks at my shoes and asked me what size i am, i said like 8, and he went out back and came back with a new pair of shoes and told me to take them! at first i was like what no way i can`t take these, but he insisted so i did. they`re nice shoes, who knows if they`re stolen or something haha, but hey they`re free so it`s cool! :)

so that`s really about it. really nothing too exciting happened this week. we`re still working hard, and so we`ll see how things turn out this week, it could be really big or really disappointing. i hope everything is going well back at home. i hope you have a good little vacation! cuìdense, y hablaremos la pròxima semana!

much love,

elder paskett

June 4, 2012

hey mom!

it is crazy it`s already june! that last change really did just go by so fast! time isn`t quite as slow as i thought it would be :) i`m creeping up on 7 months here pretty quick, which is a super long time! it`s good though, we`re working hard so it helps the time move faster. i guess i`ll start with info on changes...

so me and my comp ended up staying together. so it`s me and elder livesay for 6 more weeks. which is good, i mean we work pretty well together and have been meeting all kinds of cool people and are pretty good friends, but i like to meet new people and see different ways to teach and whatnot, and i like to move around, but now that we`re comps again it means that i`ll have to be here for at least one more change, cause i`ll have to teach the next guy the area since elder livesay has already been here 2 changes. he actually got called as district leader too, so i guess that`s a little exciting for him at least. what i`m guessing, and i have no idea, but i kinda have a feeling i`ll be training next change, cause president likes to have the younger guys change, so i mean who knows, but that`s just a guess. and if i do change, usually the "dad" stays with the "kid" for 2 changes, and so there would be a chance that i`m here for 2 more changes, which is way too long for me, but that`s still 6 weeks out so it`s too early to tell.

with money, they actually use american money down here. well they have their own money, called "balboas," but it`s only coins. they have pennies, nickles, dimes, quarters, 50 cent pieces and a dollar, but no paper money. so they just use our paper money and our coinage. which makes it easy, there`s no changing or anything. you just go to an atm, just like any atm in the states, and it just gives you cash. the mission gives us 100 bucks the first of every month, and 70 on the 15th, which is usually enough, but like just a while ago when i went to panamà i had to pull out a little extra, cause it was like 40 bucks just to get there and back, and it was close to the end of the month so i didn`t have much. and the pday before i spent a little too much just cause we went sightseeing which costed a little, but usually the money they give us is sufficient.

not much really happened this week. the girl that copied the book of mormon, sabrina, and her mom and sister and boyfriend came to church yesterday, and they said they really liked it. the other week we started the "piedra misional," which is just a rock with the intent of having someone have a missionary moment during the week. so we gave it out sunday, and told them that we want them to share a scripture with someone, or invite someone to church, or something to do some missionary work, and they were all pretty excited about it. so we gave one to the men and the women, and the guy we gave it too didn`t come to church yesterday, so we`ll have to see with that one, but the one with the women said she had a good experience. i don`t know what it is just cause she shared it in relief society, but when she asked who wanted it next, our investigator sabrina wanted it. so after the third hour she comes out with the rock and me and my comp were like so shocked. it`s super cool though, we just keep saying she`s already a member haha, cause she`s just solid! we had a baptismal date for this coming sunday, and it was with the other 3 that came to church yesterday, but right now they`re all on different levels. sabrina knows it`s all true already. the sister daphne is super interested and just loves learning, the boyfriend francis says it all makes sense and he likes it, and the mom says she`s basically just looking for God, but she hasn`t read the book of mormon or anything. so they`re all on different levels spiritually, but we want them to all get baptized the same day. we have a visit with them on tuesday and our baptism we just had is coming too, so it should be a good lesson, and we`ll see what they all say on tuesday.

it`s actually been a little off and on with the rain lately. it never goes more than 2 days without raining, but we haven`t had any super bad storms for awhile. but i`m pretty sure it`s rainy season for 8 months of the year, and then dry for the other 4, so it probably can only get worse from here on out. and i`m not sure if it gets worse in other areas, but at least where i`m at right now it hasn`t been too bad. i finally bought my first umbrella, just a little cheap one, cause it`s not very fun to just be soaked all day. but all in all it hasn`t been too bad.

well sorry this isn`t a very exciting email. not much really happened at all. that`s super cool that adri is coming home though. it`ll be fun to have someone to talk to in spanish, since everyone else is learning like russian! anyway i hope everyone has a great week, thanks for everything, talk to you next week!

much love,

elder paskett