What do we do in Panama?

First, thank you all for your support and comments as you share our mission with us through this blog. As much as you may enjoy seeing the pictures, we too enjoy your comments. It helps us keep connected with home. So, rest assured that we will keep on posting, and look forward to your responses!

This past week we had a baptism! A wonderful woman, named Rosemery was baptized. She is from Honduras, and was living with a member. Because of the example she saw in this member, (who is in her 70's), Rosemery asked for the missionaries, and she was taught and accepted the gospel. Many of the branch attended, and we had a barbeque at our house afterward. 

Lots of other daily events as well, and let's look at the pictures.

If you have wondered exactly where we are here in Boquete, Panama, take a close look at the map. First, notice the bold face city of Panama in the bend of the country. That is where the mission home and where the mission president lives. Now, take your finger and move all the way to the left where you see the city named David, close to the Costa Rica Border. Above David, if you were to move your finger up to the faded writing, Boquete would be just about there. We are too small to even be written on the map!

This is Rosemery, along with the wonderful Sister Missionaries, Sister Vroom (what a great name for a missionary!) and Sister Herrarte, as well as Sister Lancaster and her grandson, who Rosemery lives with.

Rosemery was baptized by Moises Montezuma, a priest in our branch. It was his first time to do this.

We had quite a houseful of supporters for the baptism. I wonder if having a barbeque helped encourage so many to attend?  It was a lot of fun. Don cooked hot dogs and hamburgers. We had coleslaw, potato salad, and Lynda made Snickerdoodles cookies that were a big hit!

Saturday mornings always include a Two hour seminary class taught by Sister Bram to the 14-17 year olds. These are the kids that go to school too early for the daily seminary class at 5:30 am. This particular lesson included using faith as a shield, so the teacher had several "shields" made of cardboard, and lots of rubber balls. Some of us, like me, were the bad guys, and threw the balls at those with the shields, who were to protect themselves from "temptations". It was great. And, this is in our backyard. Just a small little location.....

If you didn't see this on facebook, this is the remains of a coral snake, a very poisonous snake common here in Panama. It was fighting with the dog in our front yard, so Isodoro, a young man who is here often to help with the house, called me out to help him. We took a machete, and after Isodoro hit the snake a couple of times, I took the machete and cut of the head, buried it so it wouldn't be a danger, and then picked up the snake to show off our prize. Although it looks small, this is an adult, and could have hurt or killed. It is an adventure here in Panama!

Just so everyone doesn't think there is nothing more than our house in the jungle, We have a wonderful shopping center at the bottom of the mountain in David. It has electronics, a grocery store, drug store, and even a Subway sandwich shop! We come down here weekly for something it seems. Below is the Conway Store. Notice it has a symbol that looks alot like Target. It seems to be an upscale version, more like a cross between a Sears and a Penney's.

If you think that prices can be cheap here in Central America, take a look at the price of a box of cereal. I don't eat Lucky Charms, but at 7 dollars a box, someone really better like it! This is a typical price for the imported cereals.


And this is one of my favorites. This is milk, both regular and fat free. It comes in boxed, and sits on non refrigerated shelves. I am not really sure what it is made of, but it's shelve life is two or three months. Lynda has actually come to like it. I have a hard time. It reminds me too much of the milk in Argentina that was in bags. Yeech.

And yes, we actually do missi

onary work as well! Here we are at our little booth at the Tuesday market. We had a banner made that I designed about geneology, and had lots of materials available for free. Lynda and I come here every Tuesday morning from 9-12 and talk to lots of people, many who are ex pats from the US. It is a good way to be a part of the community, and let them know who we are.