Dos Años: "Prayers for island vibes have been answered!!!!!!!!"

Wowowowoow...so we just heard transfers but i'll try to talk about the week before I tell you where I'm going.

Don't remember all the pics I sent but the old house with all the dogs is just one of the many crap houses in Panama Viejo. And it does make me super sad to see all the stray dogs but they're all friends and I'm their friend and they always seem happy.

The beginning of this week the secretaries moved out and Elders Brown and Duarte, from the area next to ours, moved in because they had to leave their house and haven't found a new one yet. I knew Brown in the MTC and he's from Rancho Cucamonga.

We also opened an area! Well we absorbed the secretaries area, but they haven't done squat there for years so it's like we're opening it. So we now have Altos de Golf, Coco del Mar, San Francisco, and a tiny little ghetto on the other side called Boca la Caja. That's the only place we expect to have any luck because the rest of our area is super rich houses, hotels, apartments and restaurants. Its kinda like Panama Viejo but slightly sketchier and built around a big steamy vegetable oil factory, literally made out of tin.

About half way through the week I was thinking I might get changed so I super nervously called Franybeck and Carlos to ask if we could baptise Juliette and Jesus. I had been putting it off for a few days but I finally got the courage to do it and she just said you gotta ask them dude. So we went over the next night and Jesus didnt want to at first because he thought it meant he had to serve a mission haha, but we explained and he was down. Juliette got back from a friend's house like halfway through and walked in and sat down and before we said anything she said, the answer is yes, and I want you to baptise me. So I was super stoked. This just shows that being nervous is stupid.

So, on Saturday we had the Kuna baptism which was super stressful. We got up early to go fill the font and we had left the phone at a members house the night before so we had to go find it. We were running around all the houses of the bishopric to find someone to preside but none of them would. I was so mad. Literally their excuse was that there was an activity at the pool, so they would be at the pool. I was like are you serious, the baptism is like 4 hours after that starts. So I was kinda freaking out and called Elder Brinkman, the senior couple, and our ward mission leader to see if we even needed someone from the bishopric to preside. So he said he'd look it up and call me back. And he said that if none of them were available, a zone leader or district leader could preside with permission from president. So I called him and he answered and said it was fine and was stoked that we're on freaking fire this weekend. So we went to the Kuna house to fill out the papers for everything. That was difficult because they had super decrepit birth certificates and everything was weird. Everyone thought Flaco was 9, including his mom, but turns out he's 10...haha.

So everything was ready so we started calling everyone to see if they could come later and went around to houses and we were expecting it to be packed. But when we went to their house, to bring them there, like all the Kunas bailed. So it was just the mom, Flaco, Camille, and their cousin Nalleli. Got to the church and it was just the Brinkmans, and we waited a while but nobody came so we just started. It was a good baptism but I was super bummed that it was empty. And I told Sister Brinkman that we were expecting more people but she told me we had who we needed, so that made me feel better.

We baptised the Venezuelan ninos the next day after church. And Franybeck is already a mormon mom, I don't know why she won't just get baptised. She made a bunch of cookies and a little CTR cake and cute little programs. This time the room was loaded. I baptised the two of them and it was really fun. So far I haven't baptised anyone that comes above my shoulders, including Isai, so it's been easy.

After church we went home and I colored Easter eggs with Sharpies by myself. Varguez wasnt into it. Then we went and visited an old Ecuadorian woman from the ward at a rest home who we have family home evening with every once in a while. We walked in and said we had a present for her, then I pulled out a little sacrament cup and she was so excited. Wouldn't stop thanking us. If someone told me they had a present for me and brought me that I'd probably be mad. But she told us she was ready to go and she wanted to go ready. We talked to her about Easter and how lots of iglesias are focusing on the death of Christ instead of his resurrection. Half of Panama Viejo was dressed like Jews on Good Friday, somehow they found horses and were riding those around everywhere, and they even crucified a guy. Had him strung up on a cross for hours hahaaha. But I said that he didn't die so that we could die, he did it so that we could live again like him. The guy they crucified did resurrect that morning but still.

Today for P-day we climbed Cerro Ancon again but with more people. So sick this time, it was full of sloths of ñiques, and I found a cat at the top who I picked up and carried with me for the remainder of our time there.

Almost forgot to say where I'm going! I heard my comp pick up the phone and start writing down where other people in our district are going and I was on the floor, could not walk, I was so nervous. Then he started laughing and put it on speaker phone. Loma Nueve! and I'm the new district leader there. I almost started crying. Loma Nueve is like 20 minutes from us, and I don't know how to be a district leader.

But luckily it was a joke! I'm going to freaking Ticantiqui!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Prayers for island vibes have been answered!!!!!!!! I am so unrealy stoked right now. I'll be comps with Elder Taylor 1 who used to live with us.

So I leave for there in a few days, after we go shopping for my food for the next 6 weeks and everything.

I'll probably be able to email again before then, but love you all!!

Elder Green