Cool beans

 Gabriel Miranda and his brother, Carlos, have been worrying me because they like to memorize, not to read the music.  I expressed that fear to Gabriel last week at his lesson.  He said, "Hermana, give me a song, make it hard so I could never have heard it before, and I will learn it."  I selected "While of These Emblems", the second tune, that doesn't exist in the Spanish hymnal.  He began to work, and in less than a half hour he had learned about 5 new chords and had learned to play the melody.  Case closed!  He can learn more.  The best part was that he proved it to himself as well.  It was a wonderful night.

 Bishop Zarate showed Rod some of the things in his garden.  Although many mango trees didn't produce much fruit this year, this one has plenty at least on this branch.  This is a different variety.  Maybe we'll get to try it when it's ripe.

 This is black peppercorns before they are ready to harvest.

 Here they are ready to harvest.

 This variety of beans needs to be boiled three times and the water poured off before you can eat them.  Amazing to discover how to eat something like that.  Someone must have been hungry.

This fruit has beans inside.  They are medicinal and must be boiled and the water poured off.  The tree is rare, and our friends are trying to plant one.  It's pretty hard, so I don't think you could sword fight with it like with carrots.

Friday night we finished at 7:00.  I was SOO looking forward to a few hours reading a book.  I got a call from two of our students of Saturday afternoon saying that they were traveling to Panama City.  I decided to call the other two and make sure they would be there.  The first one said there was a Super Saturday for seminary in the morning, so we decided to see if we could schedule the other two here and save a 45 minute trip.  I called the seminary teacher, then the other student.  To make a VERY long story short, I arranged to meet them here, but they were to call me back and tell me what time.  I didn't receive a call, so Saturday morning I called again.  They hadn't connected and the one student had a cold and if we could come to her at her house alone she would receive us, otherwise, no.  The other boy was going to work and call us if he got home in time.  This branch isn't  doing so well.  Saturday, which seems like it might be the best day, is actually the worst.  So, after $5 in phone calls and no time to relax, I accomplished exactly zero.  Hurray for me.

If the truth be told, I hope the Lord was listening and knows I tried.  Missions are a lot about trying and what happens to the missionary as he/she tries to figure out how to love others better.   One of the surprising things is how often scheduling problems work out for the best -- this time, it seemed to be working, but didn't.