San Miguelito Week #4 “Temple Trip and Gramma”

Hello family! 

Im just gonna go in order cuz a tooon of stuff happened this week!

Monday: Pres called me and said that a family I had taught was going through the temple Tues. and that I could go with them!!! I wassoopooooo excited!! and that leads us to...

Tuesday: I WENT TO THE TEMPLE!!!!! with the Sigla of tikantiki, Uvaldo and his wife Gabrielina. Uvaldo was an apostate returned missionary and his wife was also inactive. We reactivated them and with their help, baptized their family and their cousins and more family! He was also the one who helped us open up another Island to the Gospel! It was absolutely incredible and I am so covenants and that I can be sealed with my family for forever!

Wednesday: We had consejos (like council meeting?) and it was nuts! We have a new schedule in our mission that is long and complicated, so I'm not gonna go into detail, but the point is that we are gonna start having soooo much more success!! I was thinking a lot about how cool it is to be in the Church that runs by revelation so that we can improve and receive more blessings!

Thursday: Interviews! It was like two seconds long because I'll be having my last interview in just a few weeks.

Friday: we had a zone meeting to present the new mission plan! We havent had one of those in about a year, so it was fun. 

Saturday: we did a fun service and it was great cuz a lot of investigators showed up

Sunday: We had a light the christmas tree activity and just about everyone there were recent converts and investigators haha. They had so much fun and we did too. Then later we saw the Christmas Devotional, which was obviously just incredible!

Anywayyyys, so many people are progressing right now, and I dont have time to write about them all haha, sorry, but we are making a lot of plans and teaching a lot of Cunas, woohoo! Love you allsoooo much!!!

Also sending a big hug to everyone from Panama!! 

Seems like Gramma is going to pass away before I get home, but I feel so blessed because the last time I saw her, she was still dancing around to when we sang the bean song, haha. I have such great memories being with her and I love her sooo much! I know that the hardest times in life are what make us stronger and better. I hope we can all remember the great example that Gramma always was so that we can be just as happy and good as she was. I am also grateful for Jesus Christ because through what He did, we will all see Gramma again! This week when I got to go through the temple with a convert family and see them be sealed for all eternity, it was amazing to see and even more incredible was the peace and happiness I felt as I thought about my own family. I am so grateful to be sealed with my eternal family as well! Love you all so much! I love you Gramma!

With lots of love,

Hermana Hallsted

San Miguelito Week #3 “Forgot to Write”

After watching the recording of Hannah’s mission call opening...

ahahahahaAHAHAHHHHAHAHAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MY BABY SISTER IS SOOOOOO CUTE!!!!!!!!!!! I am sooooo excited right now, you cant believe it! AHHHHHH! Sitnks im in a computer writing lab cuz I cant celebrate like normal haha! ahhh, she is gonna be such a good missionary!!

Forgot to write and no time but here's my letter to President Current

Hola President!

This week was great! Hermana Garcia and I have been working sooo much! We have found a lot of great people and seen so many miracles! On Friday we had a baptism interview that fell through, and instead of letting that get us down, we felt that would should do Cosechas. We knew that the Lord would always bless us with more people to find, people who have been prepared by Him. In our prayer, we felt strongly to ask for a miracle, to find a mango bajito that can be batptized the next week. About 10 minutes later we passed a man that we felt we needed to talk to. After talking for a bit, he told us that he knew a member from our church, one that had a lot of family. He told us where he lived, and we quickly found the house. There we found a lady and her two kids. The lady told us that all the family were members, every single one had been baptized already. We asked her if her two kids were baptized, and she told us no! We asked if they would like to be baptized and they said yes! The Lord had more blessings in store for us than we could imagine. We only had the faith to for one mango bajito, but the Lord had prepared two. Not only that, but my testimony has been strengthened. I know that Cosechas is and inspired program and I know that the Lord has His hand in this work!  

I love San Miguelito and am so happy to be ending here! My little sister recieved her mission call this week to Independance Missouri, spanish speaking. It makes me soooo happy! I have loved being a missionary and all the things I am learning. I am gonna end these last three weeks strong!

Thanks for everything!

Hermana Hallsted

San Miguelito Week #2 “really kind just like another week”

Hola Family!!

This week was another pretty normal missionary week. I dont have other bedding but I dont have lice anymore. 

We did cosechas (blessing people's houses), found new people, dropped some old people, went hungry, had a zone conference which was legit, and had 2 BAPTISMS!!!! woohoo! And it was great cuz one was Alfredo and the other his brother Ricardo. We didn't even realize Ricardo was ready until Friday. We suddenly realized that he as come to church too and has all the lessons, and really was more ready than his brother. So we baptized him too! We had just been focusing on his brother cuz he has come to church more times. Anyways so he got baptized too.

Yustin, we are still working with her because her mom all of the sudden decided she has to be 16 to be baptized, sooooo we'll see what happens...

We have a super great investigator Josue, whose wife is a member! He is progressing great and we think he can be baptized in a couple of weeks!

Louis and Henry are the brothers of Alfredo and Ricardo. They are going to be baptized the next week.

This week we are working on getting Oneis baptized. He's only challenge is that his dad doesn't want to give him permission, but he's never met me yet, haha, jokes, but we'll see how that goes!

I found out Paco passed away this week. I was pretty sad, but I'm doing okay! I can really feel a lot of peace in my heart and I feel really calm. I am so grateful for the fun memories I have with him and I'm sure going to miss our water fights we would have haha. I am so grateful for the Plan of Salvation and that I get to be with my grandpa again! I love my eternal family!

Anyways, love you all sooooo much!!

Hermana Hallsted

San Miguelito Week #1 “I GOT LICE!!!!”

Dear family!

Well, this week I finally got lice! I was starting to think I wasn't ever gonna get it. When I got to my new area, I had to use the sheets of the last hermana who was there, who, of course, had lice. Whoops! I didn't know lol. Welp, anyways, it's a pretty neat experience, and I’m sure I am now prepared for anything, but really it's not that fun haha. We bought some lice shampoo today, so we'll how it goes!

As for the area, I LOVE SAN MIGUELITO!!! You wouldn't believe these mountains we climb! The hills here are huge, I feel kinda like in my first area again! But it is soooo beautiful and I tried to send pictures, but for some reason it's not working. Also I looooove working here!! I haven't had so much success since san blas! We are planning to baptize every week this change!

We are currently preparing the baptisms of Justin, the smartest girl I have ever met! She fills out all of her pamphlets we give and writes essays on the Atonement. She's like 11 or something. It's great! We found her on my first day, and it was such a miracle find! Her mom is menos activa, so we are going to help the whole family be baptized!

We are also preparing Alfredo. He is Novey, a different indian tribe of Panama, and Im super exicted cuz Ive never taught a novey! He is suuuuper poor. He has 3 hermanos, we will be baptized in these next few weeks as well, but they don't even have shoes to go to church, so I lent them some of my missionary girl shoes, and Alfredo showed up with a giant rip in his pants, without underwear, haha. So Hermana Garcia gave him her cardigan to put around his waist! He was so chill with his hole in his pants, that I'll be honest, It was pretty funny! Haha! He didn't want to use her sweater, but we made him.

Anyways, I am super happy to be here and I am even happier to be with Hna Garcia!! She is suuuuper buena!!! I am so happy to see what happens in these next 5 weeks!!!

Love you all sooooo much!

Hermana Hallsted

Colón Week #6: “Goodbye Colón! Hellllo San Miguelito!”

Chao Shum Hermana Rodriguez!!! I love her soooo much!

C3 4 lyfe (it's Colon's gang sign lol)

Us sadly leaving Colon cuz it was a partay

A lovely delicious Dairy Queen cake that some members gave to Hna Rodriguez for a little farewell party

Our lasssst day together!!!!!!!!

My new Companion Hermana Garcia!!! In San Miguelito

Hola Fam!!

Welp, I had changes. I'm writing to you live now from SanMig! I was suuuuper surprised with these changes though! I definitely did not think I would be leaving the hood! But I am grateful for these changes because when they told us, I was surprisingly really sad. It was hard to have to leave Colon, which really was amazing cuz when I got there I never thought I could learn to love the sass and black people and gangs and all. But because of all the amazing experiences we had, I did learn to love it! I am soooo grateful for the trials that the Lord gives us so that we may grow to  be more loving and Christlike- something I am still working on haha. In my last change I am super motivated and I will sure give my all! After all, you feel better when you push yourself!

My comp is Hermana Xochilt (like Soshilt, super cool right? That's her first name! 2 legit!) Garcia. She is suuuuper great! I have heard a ton of great things about her and I know she works hard. She is from El Salvador and has about a year on the mission. I am really excited to end my mission with her! Mom, her facebook is Gb Xochilt if you wanna find her haha.

Annyyyywayyys, that's about all! Love you soooo mcuh!

Chao Shum!!

Love,

Hermama Hallsted

Colón Week #5 "1000 bautismos!!!"

Zona Colón

Hello Fam!

This week was another good mix of really great and really bad!

The bad first, my companion is really sick! We don't know what's wrong, but it's like she is fine for an hour and all of the sudden has a fever and throwing up. Stinks cuz it is her last week this week!

The good, or really the great, is that we had a gira misional with elder Ochoa, the District President of Centro America, and it was amazing! We also had leaddership meeting or whatever it is in English (it's called consejos in spaish) so I got to hear from him twice!

We talked about faith unto repentance, and how vital it is in the missionary work. I was thinking a lot about that, and figured there is faith to make miracles happen, faith to heal, faith to move mountains, and everyone knows these things. But how often do we talk about faith to repent? And isn't that just another miracle as well? I'll tell you what, when Christ was here he "realizo" (can't remember the word in inglesh) miracles, established his church, and forgave sins. How incredible that He can forgive us of our sins! And if we truly of faith in Jesus Christ, if we really believe in Him, then we understand how He died for us just so we can repent and be clean. What a great blessing it is that we can repent and be made whole!

Now the most AMAZING thing that happened is that in the mission Panama, we put a goal to get 1000 baptisms in 3 months. AND WE DID IT!!! As of today they say we've are 1028 baptisms. And there are suppose to be 7 more baptisms this next week in the days of October! We are suuuuper excited about that, it's the 2nd most baptisms there have ever been in Panama since 1970something! We are now the highest baptizing mission in Centro America!!!! I am sooooo blessed to be in this incredible mission!! I absolutely looove Panama! Mom, I'm sorry, I'm never coming home! (haha just jokes mother dearest)

Anyways, suuuuper pumped to be a missionary right now, ready to rock the month of November (which is filled with Panamanian fiestas that are crazy)! I loveee being a missionary!

Love you all sooooo much!

Love, Hermana Hallsted

Colón Week #4: “heyyyy 16 months is cool”

Doing the Lord's work selfie

taxi ride with the hermanas

My comp finished her 18 month mark this week and me my 16th month mark yesterday!! So we took a patriotic panamanian foto haha

In the bathroom selfie haha

Our special friend Alicia! She is super cute and always wants to sing with us. She lives on the street, poor thing!

a fun little house we found

Tracting hahaha CANAL DE PANAMA

The canal is in my area, suuuper close!!

This is a picture of a delicious sugar cane... Well, this one is actually old now, but sugar cane is delicious to the taste

This is our kitchen. Our house is by far the smallest house I've had in the mission!

Hola familia!

This week I did indeed complete 16 months in the mission. I cannot believe how fast time flies!!! I definitely don't feel like an old missionary. but alas, here I am.

Well, this week was a pretty interesting one, we had our miracle Edwin's baptism, it went super well, a little too well if you ask me. We didn't have to stress or anything, which has never happened before! We didn't have to look for witnesses or call people or run around for anything! It was the greatest baptism! And Edwin is soooo super happy! 

More news: I have to play the piano in church and, I'm just gonna state a classic: I wish I had learned to play hymns

Also we lost basically all our investigators this week, so it's gonna be interesting to see what we're gonna do haha. #missionarylyfe

Also we went to the letters of Colon today and took pictures with all the hermanas (there are only 4 of us). It was super fun!

Also the other Hermanas are the greatest! They are both new in the mission, gringas, and suppper cute haha!

And, that's about all I can think of! Hna Rodriguez is a little stressed out cuz this is her last 2 weeks of the mission. Which means I only have 8!!! Crazy!

Love you alll!!

Hermana Hallsted

HISTORY

The country of Colombia was named after Christopher Colmubus, as were the Costa Rican currency (the colón) and one of Panama's largest cities (Colón).

Since Christopher Columbus came from Spain, it should be obvious that Christopher Columbus wasn't the name he himself used.

In fact, his name in Spanish was quite different: Cristóbal Colón.

Colón (Spanish pronunciation: [koˈlon]) is a Panamanian city and sea port beside the Caribbean Sea, lying near the Atlantic entrance to the Panama Canal. It is the capital of Panama's Colón Province and has traditionally been known as Panama's second city. 

History[edit]

The city was founded by Americans in 1850 as the Atlantic terminal of the Panama Railroad, then under construction to meet the gold rush demand for a fast route to California. For a number of years early in its history, the sizable United States émigré community called the town Aspinwall after Panama Railroad promoter William Henry Aspinwall, while the city's Hispanic community called it Colón in honor of Christopher Columbus. The city was founded on the western end of a treacherously marshy islet known as Manzanillo Island. As part of the construction of the Panama Railroad, the island was connected to the Panamanian mainland by a causeway and part of the island was drained to allow the erection of permanent buildings.

Much of the city was destroyed in the Burning of Colón during the Colombian Civil War of 1885, and again during a massive fire in 1915. The Great Colon Fire of April 13–14, 1940 destroyed one third of the city.^[1]