man it really has been awhile since i wrote an email! pushing 3 months about! i don´t even know where to start! it is kinda true, to see everyone might make the shock a little less, but i´ve still got a year so who knows what could happen! i guess i´ll just start with where i am now and then try to get into the san blas report :)
so i ended up coming back to the zone i started in, in colón. it´s not exactly where i wanted to go. my first 2 changes in colón were easily the worst in my mission. i guess partly because i didn´t speak spanish and hated the food and it was hot and just difficult. now i can actually speak and eat and don´t mind the heat and stuff so it should be better, but colón is notorious for being a hard zone and almost never has baptisms, so it´s anyone´s guess. it´s nice to be back in the real world, but it´s a little harder than i thought. i actually got used to sleeping in a hammock, and now it´´s hard to sleep in a bed! i haven´t slept very well these last few nights, it´s weird. i´m trying to find a place to put my hammock up but i´m still searching :) the food is pretty difficult to take in. i´m back to eating lots of rice and chicken, way more food than i´ve eaten in the last 3 months. i´m afraid of getting fat again since we eat so much, but the area is pretty big and we seem to walk a fair amount so i guess we´ll see. but i did lose a lot of weight out and blas and want to keep it off :) my spanish didn´t seem to suffer too badly. i don´t think it´s as good as it was when i was in david, but i think it´ll come back pretty fast. i finally got another latin companion after having gringos for 5 changes. his name is elder perez and he´s from mexico. he´s got 6 months in the mission but seems pretty solid. he´s chill enough and we get along well, so i think it´ll be a good change. we don´t really have any investigators cause the area is kinda dead, but i still think we can have some success. all in all i guess i´m happy being back, although there are a lot of things i´ll miss about blas.
but ok, i´ll see if i can sum up the last 3 months here :) so i spent this time on an island called ustupu in the islands of san blas. it´s a pretty quiet little island with a population of about 3000 people. out of the 3 sets of missionaries on blas, we were the only ones that only had 1 island to visit, meaning that it´s one of the biggest islands. still not very big, but big enough to keep us occupied. we kind of had one of the uglier islands though. there really weren´t any cool beaches, and there was lots of garbage everywhere. there was one cool beach but it was about a 40 minute walk to get there, and the rest was just like rocks. with the garbage, it seems the mentality of the island people are if i just throw the garbage in the ocean it´s not my problem anymore, so everyone just tosses it out, making it pretty nasty. also, i don´t think they believe in digging holes to use the bathroom, so they just build little stalls over the ocean and go right in the ocean. it´s pretty gross. i never actually used one of those, but i can only imagine. we lived in the church and so we were blessed to have a real toilet and running water.
the water we had came from a river up in the mountain. it was usually pretty clean, but i always used this filter the mtc gave us anyway. the thing is is that this river is also where the animals go to drink, and so the animals just do their thing right by the river, making the water all gross. sometimes we had some really really orange water, but we couldn´t really do anything about it. we still had to shower with it and everything. to shower we just had to fill up a 5 gallon bucket, take it to the bathroom, and there take bucket baths, just using something to scoop the water and pour it on us. i didn´t really mind it cause my first 2 changes in the mission i had to take bucket baths so i was used to it. actually i´ve taken more bucket baths than normal baths on my mission so it wasn´t too bad :)
the food on san blas was plenty different. so we really are just outside of civilization, which means there´s basically no stores out there. so we have 1 or 2 days before we leave to go to a supermarket and buy all the food we´ll need for 6 weeks. there´s a place down here that´s just like costco, so we went there to buy everything. more or less we just bought junk food, or things that you don´t have to prepare. we ate things like granola bars, apple sauce, pudding, poptarts, peanuts, things like that. we had pancakes and pasta and a few bigger things like that every once in awhile, but basically we just snacked all the time. it was a little hard cause you never felt full, but you just get used to it.
the food on san blas was plenty different. so we really are just outside of civilization, which means there´s basically no stores out there. so we have 1 or 2 days before we leave to go to a supermarket and buy all the food we´ll need for 6 weeks. there´s a place down here that´s just like costco, so we went there to buy everything. more or less we just bought junk food, or things that you don´t have to prepare. we ate things like granola bars, apple sauce, pudding, poptarts, peanuts, things like that. we had pancakes and pasta and a few bigger things like that every once in awhile, but basically we just snacked all the time. it was a little hard cause you never felt full, but you just get used to it.
there were people that would give us food sometimes, but it was usually weird. like everyone down there eats this stuff called tulemasi, which is just like the milk stuff that´s inside of coconuts, platanos which are kinda like bananas, and then some type of meat, usually fish. it really depends on who makes it,cause sometimes it´s just nasty, but others it´s not so bad. you put some salt lemon juice and hot sauce and it can be ok. that´s usually what people gave us. one time i got to eat turtle, and that was actually really good. it was really fatty but the meat itself was good, i liked it. we had crab a few times and that was good too. we ate these things called "cucarachas del mar," which means cockroaches from the sea, and they taste how they sound. it was horrible. i did eat a whole lot of fish too, and had many different experiences with it. usually what people do is just kill the fish and then fry it, without doing anything, so scales and bones and insides and everything. it was usually kinda gross but not too bad. again it often just depended on the person. i´ve had some of the best fish out there, and also the very worst. i never ate anything that made me barf, but i did dry heave a few times haha. overall the food wasn´t too bad. it made me lose lots of weight so i´m happy :)
i did get pretty sick out there a few times, and that wasn´t very fun. i had some pretty bad diarrhea a a few times, and i think that´s what made me lose the most weight. i don´t know if it was because of the water or food or just being there, but it got bad. one night it was like 10 times in the same night, it was horrible, i thought i was gonna die, but i lived :) i did throw up one time pretty nicely when i was sick, so that was great. i don´t even remember the last time i threw up.
well short of telling you all the stories i think that´s all i´ve got time for. i wish i could tell you it all, but it really was one of the best experiences i´ve ever had. it made me appreciate a lot of things i´ve always taken for granted. honestly i wish i could have stayed for another change, but the Lord needs me in other places :) but even though it was one of the hardest things i´ve done, it´s something i´ll remember forever. but now it´s back to the real mission, and i´m excited for it. i hope i can have tons of success this change. i hope everyone is well, thanks for everything, you guys are the best!
con amor,
elder paskett
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