Beginning preparations to move on

 This frog was outside at a student's house when we left.  The cushion that I'm restraining him with is the one we carry everywhere.  It has been such a blessing.  My legs are finally not feeling numb any more.  I just need to be careful.  People laugh when I climb in the back seat and recline and Rod is my chauffeur in the front, but it is a blessing to be healthy.  (I tease that I'm looking for better paying employment and get laughs, but I'm happy to be the chauffeur for Janell.)

 Jaan loves music.  He comes with surprises for me, having taught himself another hymn.  I asked him if his mom or grandmother sang with him.  His eyes were sad and he said no.  I assured him that his future wife would.  I hope I'm right.  It's sad not to have family to share with.

 Carlos is a returned missionary who is barely active now. (He was active for many years, but was slipping away)  Rod has worked on English with him while I taught his niece piano.  We have hopes that he might consider becoming active again and attending the temple. 

Marjorie is Rod's very own student.  Her cousin is one of our two most advanced, so Rod doesn't work with her. She practices a lot and is progressing.  (Rod:  She was memorizing, not reading the notes and this week I said we were moving in a bit, she needed to learn them and she made great progress -- she really is patient with my Spanglish -- we both chatter away and some information does get passed on.)  When she started I wouldn't have thought she had a chance.  That goes to show you how much I know.  They have their lessons together at 8-9 on Friday nights.  It is a long day for us, beginning at 8 a.m., but it is worth it as it saves us a travel day. 

We've decided to try to move to a different area in September.  That will essentially make half our mission.  Every time we tell anyone that we are moving to Alcalde Diaz they say "It is so dangerous there".  We haven't talked to a priesthood leader there yet.  Our district president here said he would start that process.  He is excited about what we've accomplished here and I think it might help the next place have a desire to help us get settled well if they get the news from him.  Alcalde Diaz is about half an hour from the temple, so we'd be closer to the city by far.

We are taking photos of all our piano students at the piano.  We need to make sure the memories are in place.  I can't imagine my mind can hold it all.

Here is a star student.  The family had gotten upset with the primary letting their little one escape and was inactive.  The ward mission leader showed us their house and we started piano with Abdiel (actually all three have the first name of Abdiel).  He learns several hymns a week and last time was transposing a hymn -- on his own -- and not using the keyboard to transpose!  Pretty impressive talent.  He is also enjoying seminary.  Kevin the middle boy is getting 'lessons' from me (Rod) in preparation for baptism as he is 8 and wants to be baptized (I use preach my gospel).  The missionaries would be interested if he were 9 -- I almost suggested he wait, but that would have caused a reprimand from my senior companion.  He is the one that had trouble reading and I corrected his double r sound where it shouldn't be and the soft c (before e and i).  Interesting that the weak can be of use.  However, I'm not sure how much he gets from the 'lessons'.  We at least have a good time and we are reviewing the new picture book, so he will have some idea of the gospel stories.)


We talked to Emma yesterday.  She attended a session of conference with us here so we took her a conference report Liahona.  She doesn't read much.  I don't know how to help her more.  She is close to the Savior, she just needs the ordinances, the other line of revelation that Elder Oaks talks about.  She is experiencing some challenges, which is what one would expect, I suppose.

Rod has coined a new word for us.  We have neighbors and friends who talk so rapidly we don't have a chance to understand.  He says they are speaking "machinegun dialect".  The Spanish word is ametralladora.  It does feel almost like an attack.

Last week when Rod was feeling lonely an out of place at church he asked me if I couldn't join him and support the Relief Society instead of the primary.  I told the Branch President and his wife (who is the primary president).  She said she was going to call the new convert they asked to be her helper.  Today when I arrived, neither of them was there and neither came.  I looked around at about 12 children, 4 who never come, and just thought, "We'll have to cancel, I can't do it".  Then the girls who used to do primary came.  We have become good friends with them and I begged them to come help.  They were sweet to agree.  We had no books, but Milly found an Old Testament manual for adults, and from this she taught for over an hour.  She gave stories, examples, involved all the children, teased, laughed, and was generally wonderful.  She is a born teacher.  What a huge blessing! Her sister took our book bag and dominoes and held a nursery for the two very young.  We gave them a ride home as payment.  I forgot to mention that it was 7 people who came, the two young adults and 5 of their nieces and nephews, so our little car was stuffed with 9.  I marvel at the miracle of faith that some people exhibit.  The gospel is true.

Don't Leave Home Without It

 Rod: Well, this does look bad, but by this stage, they don't itch much.  This is the second time we got into this type of  'Bichos'.  About 3 months ago at one of our stops (or in between) we picked these guys up.  We haven't seen them, so perhaps they are the nosee'ms we were warned about.  This time we are convinced they aren't here at home -- before we fumigated, etc.  We seem to be able to get rid of them by one or two showers and complete change of clothing.  We'll see.  I don't appreciate them much, so I refer to the Bichos by their relationship (male) to their parents.  We'll try to figure out where we pick them up.  The natives suggest they are caused by ants, so they may not react the same way to them.

 We sprayed our socks with this (guaranteed through washings and everything, but Rod still got more under his socks.  Darn!

 The youth were enchanted that a counselor in the branch presidency is learning to play.  It really has been fun.  I think he will reach his goal.  We've been having lessons 4  times per week or so.

 Ximena and I prepared a dinner with potato slices, fish fillets, sliced carrots, and a homemade salsa.  We wrapped it in banana leaves and put it in the pressure cooker for a few minutes.  It turned out delicious with a cabbage and avocado salad and rice.  We're convinced the whole process was for presentation, not for flavor, but it was fun to do.

 Rod enjoying the dinner. We're outside and the atmosphere is fine.

This baby was afraid of me.  He kept his whole mango while he cried and had it all over everything.  They are slippery, so I don't know how he managed not to drop it.

We've decided to try being the seminary/institute taxi.  We can manage that and can't manage fully any other taxi service.  Saturday was our first run.  Mostly it worked, although we decided we're going to text message in advance next time to avoid unnecessary trips.  It will require changing our washing schedule.  This week on Friday night there was water at 10:00 p.m. when we got home so we washed then.  I also defrosted the fridge as neither is a full time job and we got to bed about 12:00 (not missionary schedule).  I'll have to see if I can figure out a better way.

We get to see the PEF in action here.  It is wonderful to see real people receiving education and in turn having hope.  I love the leadership of prophets.  Together we can do more than we could if we worked alone.


Have a great week.

Life is good

 Jose (center) is a recent convert.  His mother, recently widowed accepted our offer of a ride to church.  They were ready and waiting at 8:30.  I admire her a lot.  Her life is hard.

 Jose is just starting and Eric was eager to help him.  Eric's sister taught him his first hymn.  Now he gets his own teaching time.  He's played in church twice and is eager to do it again if anyone cancels.

 This "flower" looks like it's just painted on the grass.  We got the photo a little close, but you can see others on the ground.  I always think the Lord must have had a fun time creating the variety He came up with.

 Sister Carpintiero, a native of a tribe I can never remember, speaks two languages but can't read.  She was in the hospital recently and I offered to bring her Liahonas which were no good to her.  She just laid there for over a week.  We bought a primer book for children, and we've had 3 lessons.  Here we're reading "Cookies", one of my favorites. 

 Brother Trejos (who said he thought this would be "facilito") is making progress.  He can do the chords more easily than the melody.  We found his own method to help him with the timing.  He has a strong testimony and wants to build the branch.

A 14 year old made this as a school project.  I marvel at it every time I see it.  It is 3-D and the bridge and house are cut sooo carefully.  It's outside and fading, but it is beautiful.  His mom said it is the only art project he did.

I'm doing this early Sunday morning as something to divert my attention from the TWENTY huge bites that cover my body.  I couldn't sleep much last night as they bother me a lot.  I know I can't scratch, but it is pretty awful.  All right, the poor me session is over and we can remember that LIFE IS GOOD.

We got to play ping pong with the non-member husband and son (member) of our relief society president student in Chitre.  It was great fun.  Adults forget to have fun, sometimes, I think.  I want to do more of it.  That sounds like my work isn't fun, and it is, but this was different and satisfying.

Bugs

This video captures the sounds of how 'Froggie goes a courtin' ' in Panama.  We are holding piano class outside on the patio at Mariza's mother's home, as we do at many houses and where the breeze is better.   Froggie is captured joining in on the fun.  Just so you know, only his voice is captured.  There isn't one on the flower that you can't see.  Rod is just showing you the flower as well.

 More complaining of bugs!  Actually Rod is surprised that there are not more.  These fly in and dive bomb while I'm teaching outside.  Juan had a fun time teasing me with them.  I'm not sure why I didn't just hold one and then the fun would be gone.

 We just put them on the piano to show you.  There were actually about 50 of them on the floor beside us.  One that was maybe 4 or 5 times bigger came in.  Even Juan thought it was worth his time to bat it out of the way with our book.

 Rod said he thought it might have been funny to eat one, (if I had had something crunchy, I might have pulled it off).  Sister Quezada says they worry about the bugs bombing into an eye in which case they really burn.  Glasses are wonderful sometimes.

 When we arrived here at the Flores home there was no power on a rainy Thursday.  We got out our children's books and read together.  Can you recognize all of them?  We have them in English and Spanish thanks to Apryl's help, some translated commercially, and my friend Irma in Corvallis.  We love sharing them.  We eventually got power and then they read between turns.

Edilsa, a piano student in Las Tablas,  carries a Strawberry Shortcake bag.  I though some of you might have memories and enjoy this.  She wasn't thrilled to have her picture taken.

We took Jose's (a 12 year old recent convert) mom and family to church with us today.  They have 4 children, 12,8,5, 2, I think.  Her husband was killed in a motorcycle accident about 3 months ago.  She is trying to figure out how to make it in a cold world.  The government doesn't offer welfare here for someone in her position.  I'm trying to figure out what is appropriate help given the messages in the last conference.  She also is struggling with spiritual issues and is open to studying together.  I surely hope I can listen to help her.

We visited a non-member family last week.  The mom had had an accident at work and her husband said she was in bed crying.  We went back with the elders a few days later and offered her a priesthood blessing.  Elder del Angel, from Mexico, insisted that Rod anoint and have the experience.  I appreciated this.  (He probably didn't know that we have been giving quite a few blessings, but junior companions need the practice)  We went back two days later and she said she was able to walk around and hadn't taken any pills that day.  Rod emphasized to her that blessings work because of your faith.
 I am trying to learn how often and when to offer blessings.  Even though I know there is purpose in pain sometimes, I also know the Lord wants to bless us.

We've been two days without water now.  I usually wash on Saturday morning, but I waited.  I hope it comes tomorrow as we don't have many more socks. (Translation:  She has a bunch and I'm out)  We actually have water in a tank outside that I can use if I need to, so we're not desperate.  (I could get tired of showering out of a bucket, however, we only have had to do that about once a week.)