Dos Años: "Diezmo Diezmo Diezmo!"

Hey! So internet and electricity has been wak for a few weeks but it's good now.

So, Broadhead is dead and gone and I got Elder Sharp from AZ. Fav comp yet, no doubt, this guy's awesome. Only it's also his last change in the mission as well. So he's my sixth comp in six changes. Hopefully the next one's for at least two so I can stay out here longer. But weve been working super hard. He already speaks Dule pretty well because he was in Irgandi for five changes a few months ago.

Anyways, we're gonna have a bunch of baptisms this change. We have activities at the church for the niños every Saturday and I found out a few of them hadn't been baptised, and they were totally active so I asked them if they wanted to and they got super stoked and ran around the pueblo with my agenda asking all their friends if they wanted to be baptised too. And I got a list of like 20 names of kids like age 9-12 that hadn't and wanted to. So we've been trying to teach them all individually with their families or in little groups but it's been way harder than we thought and we've kinda cut a few of them out due to annoyingness and not coming to church enough. But we still have quite a few that come often and really want to.

We have three other really good investigators that are gonna get baptised in the next few weeks too. Gladys, who's crazy, Josey, and Javier, who's Flaco and Camile's (the little Kuna kids we baptised in Panama Viejo) older brother.

I think its been a month since I last wrote so I'll just tell a few stories from that time.

So like three weeks ago, kinda in the evening, one of the members named Arnie called me over to go visit his little cousin who he said cut his leg. So we went and when they took off the wrapping it was the juiciest cut I've ever seen. Like 3 inches long and I hope not an inch wide, but it looked like it. And they asked me what they should do. I was like freak let's go to the clinic, he needs stitches. They said they didnt have any money but I just said whatever and we carried him to a cayuco then rowed him over to Suidup where the clinic is. Sketchy place, I did not like it there. But they sewed him up and it cost like nothing so everything was fine and we rowed him back over in the dark and barely dodged a storm.

On 4th of July, we had plans to go to Nargana to write and fish and what not but that morning there was no cellphone service so we couldn't call a panga to take us. So instead we borrowed a cayuco and went over to Suidup again to fish. Caught bucco and talked to a few people there about the church. Had to talk to a few people in only Dulegaya which was difficult but we did good. And got rejected by a Catholic for the first time in months! Weird feeling. I said in super bad dule "Anmar be visitarsai bané?" And she said "Suli, an catolica". She had just stopped a dog from eating us so it was fine. We're also good friends with this half Panamanian guy we met fishing and we're gonna go back to visit him soon.

We still don't have the cayuco I asked for but hopefully we get it soon because I really want to start working on the other islands more often.

Oh and the funniest thing happened the other day. Don't know if I should tell you, actually, so I'll write it in spanish. Yo estuvo chopeando leña para un fuego y corté my dedo hasta el hueso y había bucco sangre. Anyways after I cleaned it up and I was looking at it and I showed elder Sharp and said "its making me feel a little..." then I passed out haha. Hit the ground super hard and it kinda sucked but after I woke up and realized what happened we couldnt stop laughing about it. And my finger's like almost healed so don't worry.

Heres my spiritual thought for the week. This is from working in the monte with the branch councilor Desi. He's been taking us often and holy freak its like an ocean voyage to get there. Nearly dead afterwards. But we've been macheteing the rainforest down. Making room for his crops. And after doing it one day, we went walking a little further back to look at his Guineo trees, which are basically bananas. He was so stoked because it usually takes nine months after planting them for the fruit to start growing, but his are just starting and it's barely been six. "Diezmo Diezmo Diezmo!" He kept saying how it was a direct affect of him paying his tithing. And he talked about it nearly the entire hour rowing back. So the lesson of this is two lessons. Tithing really is an amazing blessing and like not even a sacrifice if we count the blessings from it. And two, we should always look for the blessings we have because of the church and relate them directly to that, or to Heavenly Father. Sometimes when I'm fishing and not catching anything I'll pray that I'll just catch one more fish so that I wont be sad, then I'll get one and think nevermind got one... I'll use that prayer on another fish. But that is terrible and wrong.

Happy birthday to whoever's birthday it is.

Love you!

E Green