as always it´s a lot of fun to see what´s been going on at home! as far as the few little questions you asked, the weather is actually changing a little bit right now. it´s "summer" right now, which means that there´s not really any rain, but there´s almost always a good breeze, so that´s enjoyable. when there isn´t wind it´s just a dry slow heat, if that makes any sense, and it´s miserable. but a breeze feels good. i really think i´ve adjusted a lot to the heat. i think before i just loved the cold and never wanted it to be hot, and i still prefer the cold, but i find myself feeling "cold" when it´s really not haha. it´s still too hot for my liking, but i´ve gotten used to it. still nothing of the packages. when i talked with the mail guy on thursday he said he had called that guy he sent the mail with but he wasn´t answering, so i don´t know. i´m a little worried that guy just jacked it all or something. hopefully not, but i guess we´ll see.
as far as things went this week, i would say it was a little better, but still not great. i´ve decided i can´t really push him too hard to be obedient, cause he just kinda gets mad and does honestly rather childish things, but whatever. i think right now the only thing i can do is just be an example, and try very nicely and softly to push him in the right direction. it´s tough, i really don´t like just doing nothing and wasting time, but it´s a job for two, so one can´t really do a lot if the other just doesn´t want to. we have had a few rays of hope that have been good though. we had some good lessons this week and met some cool people, and had a lot of hopes for them to come to church, but none of them did. that´s oftentimes one of the hardest things. just sitting there in the door at the church waiting for a bunch of investigators to come that said they would, and then they don´t. it´s really hard to work so hard and then not really see any fruits. it´s discouraging honestly, and i don´t really know why i keep going. at least during the week there will just be nothing for awhile, and you just get mad and frustrated and tired and hot and no one will talk to you and there´s nothing positive and you really do just want to give up, but then finally you have just one good lesson or meet one cool person and it seems to be enough to push you along. i just try to keep some little bit of hope that someone, anyone will listen to us. sometimes it kinda lets me down, but in the end something good does come. i´ve been thinking a lot lately, and maybe trying to "find myself," if you can say that, and things that just help me go. i was reading the conference liahona, and as i was reading the talk by L Tom Perry he said something cool that i liked. he said something to the effect of now that i´m away from home, home is all i can talk about because it was so enjoyable. and i´ve kinda noticed that´s the same for me. i´m trying to find things that i can share to help the testimony i share be stronger and have more meaning and be more personal, and a lot of the times it has something to do with the plan of salvation or my family or keeping the sabbath day holy as a family and things like that. in the moment i didn´t appreciate it, but now that i´m away from home, it´s all i can talk about basically. at least before it didn´t seem like at times we were the tightest family, and maybe it´s just my opinion now but i always tell everyone that i have a super strong relationship with my family because of these things. i share a lot the little saying of "missionaries leave their families for 2 years so that others can live with theirs forever."
we´ve met a few families like that lately that i really do want that for them. like yesterday for example, after church our zone leaders called us and gave us a reference of someone that had gone to their church but lives in our area. they said he had had a bad experience and that it doesn´t matter what we had to do that day, that we had to go visit him. so of course we went, and it ended up being super cool. we talked for a little, in the home it´s a mom and dad and 3 girls. so the dad, is a member, but the rest of the family no, he has a good testimony and wants them to be members though, and he had gone to church with one of the daughters, and he said his bad experience was that there wasn´t a single person in the whole church that said hi to him even though he was a new face. he mentioned things like how we say we have the truth and how we are the only true church, but they didn´t act like that. he said it was just a very ordinary experience, but because we are different than the rest of all the churches in the world, the meetings and members should be different and special. honestly he was right. the saying is true, that the church is perfect but the members aren´t. now we shouldn´t base the church on the members from one ward, but he said he wouldn´t want to take his wife and kids to a church where they don´t feel special. we tried to help him, and we did have a good talk. as we were wrapping up, he asked us if we could give a blessing to his daughter who has been sick for awhile, and then after her, he asked if he could have one, and then he also wanted to bless the house for various reasons. so there were a lot of blessings being done haha, but it was super cool. he seemed a lot happier as we left and really positive. so i have high hopes for him that we can help his family.
on a side note, last tuesday we went to this cool hill in panamá, and you could see like the whole city. it´s called "cerro ancon" i think, i´ll see if i can´t send a few pictures. today we went to the beach, which is always fine, but after living on the beach for 3 months it doesn´t amaze me as much haha. also, this last week i just had the strongest craving for a rootbeer float, and so i broke down and bought some actual A&W rootbeer and vanilla icecream and had one last night, and it was just amazing haha. the first rootbeer float i´ve had in over a year. i very much enjoyed it :) also, happy birthday to trev this week! hope it´s a good one! and i think that´ll about wrap it up for me. i´m hoping this week will be exciting, so we´ll see how it goes. i hope everyone else has an awesome week as well, and we´ll talk next monday!
much love,
elder paskett
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