October 29, 2012

familia! i love you guys. this week has been quick but long! i went on divisions with the ZLs last week and that was a good opportunity. i learned to enjoy doing the things that other people dont like doing. the work in puerto is coming along and our hard work is starting to bring forth a few miracles. as of right now we have 6 baptismal dates here in our area. 3 for nov 11 and 3 for nov 18. xayrielis and jayniss lopez are sisters and they are 8 and 15. we found them through their grandma who they live with. their grandma is the hermana who first started calling me james bond and one day when she was feeding us we found out that the 2 girls who always come to church with her and live with her, arent members. we asked if we could start teaching them and they wanted to. xay is 8 but her testimony is crazy strong! yesterday was the branch primary program and she bore her testimony in it about how we need to follow jesus and be baptized and how the elders have been coming over to teach her and she is loving learning about the lessons and also said how grateful she was for the elders and it was cool to me and felt good that an 8 year old girl could have such a strong testimony. she also calls me elder bond or elder cero cero siete and its pretty funny. our other person with a date for the 11th is felix. we have been meeting with him and this last week we had a feeling to go see him and we did and he said he knows the book of mormon is true and that its so much easier than the bible because el ldm es paso a paso and so easy a kid could understand it. he actually asked us what he needed to do to be baptized! so awesome. and the others are the 3 ninos i talked about last week i think. their moms are really feeling the spirit and knowing that they need to come back to church. and they have a commitment to come next sunday because they have had commitments on sundays that are now over as of yesterday. the problem we have had with paola, one of the moms who IS baptized, is that a pastor from another church saw us go over and saw that we have been talking to them and the pastor came and told the ladies that jose smith and el ldm and everything are false and that they need to not let us come back and all this stuff. and so she asked us without all the kids around and everything and we were just able to tell her that all she can do is pray. and she is just confused. they havent been to church in almost 10 years and they have forgotten almost everything but they did tell us that they know its true because they were baptized in our church. we are going over tonight for andrin´s birthday. he is turning 12 today and the other kids names are zuany and johandrey who are cousins and both 8. we are finally starting to see some miracles here in puerto and i know the lord has definitely tried our faith at times and its hard but its awesome to have people who are progresing and coming closer unto the lord! spanish is still hard and people from the city talk so differently that its hard to understand people who are older and grew up in the city, but if they are from here in chiriqui they are usually more educated and speak more clearly. im working on the spanish everyday and trying to remain positive for that. in other news, the mision here in panama is getting 60 new missionaries in the next 3 changes and 40 of those are sister missionaries! so crazy. the office her says that the number of applications sent into headquarters used to be about 700 per week but since the change its been about 7000 a week. they are expecting to open up 25 new missions by 2014. the work is moving forward and nothing can stop it! les amo muchisimo elder adam price wow! una sobrina! thats awesome and felicidades! you guys are going to be good parents. well, maybe! ;) sometimes i feel like i am in this area to get my companion remotivated because he is kind of dead at times! he likes to complain and make excuses for himself other times but thats alright because i dont let little things or little injuries get me down. sports taught me a lot and one thing is that you never stop playing. you never give up and just let the other team have the ball. im not one for losing and so i try to relate that to missionary work. my sports experience does help i think because it taught me to work for things and it doesn't always come easy. also it taught me a little bit of mental toughness that i think is hard to learn and from what ive noticed, missionaries that have more mental toughness usually were big into sports and things! i try to always look at the bright side of things and always see how much potential someone has. i want others to achieve the best for themselves and i think i am supposed to do that with my companion. its hard to believe its November and only 2 more weeks left in this change! hope all is well and goes well for you guys with the baby and with school and work too. tell jenna hi and i love you guys. elder price