Penonome Branch Week #8 & #9: "Standing Outside With My Mouth Open Wide"

Me hanging out with Hna Hughes

Meeting Hna Vazquez!!!

All the trainer's! She was the only girl who came in this change!

Super cute investigators Zuly and Esther! They made me dinner for my 10 month mark! (oh yeah I hit 10 months this week)

Super weird fruit, but it's legit my fav.

We took this pic about 2 seconds before he pooped on me.

A lil Sunday Selfie

I'm getting real good at holding parrots haha

This is a baby parrot! Look how ugly it is! They are born without feathers, just the stem part! How cool is that?!

Super gross Yucca dessert thing

It was Hna Gloria's birthday and they invited us to come celebrate!

(We invited them to be baptized that night, so we gave them a pretty awesome gift haha)

Zona Chitre

Panamain dish they only eat one day a year on Passover Wed!

Hna Serefina and her sister (she made us the food)

Hullo Fam!

Sorry for no letter last week, we didn't have electricity. Again. Love Panama!

Sooo first things first, the rain started up again! Oh how I've missed the waterfalls that come from the sky here. It caught us by surprised, so we didn't have umbrellas or nada, and we got soaked! It was hilarious and the best welcome surprise for Hna Vazquez haha!

SOoo last week was fun because I got to go to the city with the Hughes.. ready?... In a car!!! It was the best! I haven't sat in a car in freaking forever! The Hughes are the only Senior couple here in Panama. I felt suuuper weird and fun because Hna Hughes was my comp for the day and she had to go run errands and things, so I got to do them with her!

Then we waited for the newbies to be done with training and it was also suuper weird cuz I am the only Hermana who is training this change! So I just hung out with all the Elders which was the first time in the mission I've ever not been with another girl.

Then I met Hna Vazquez!

She is from Cordoba, Argetina and the first thing she said to me was "HIii!" cuz she speaks suuuper good English!! She lived in Orange Grove Cali for 9 years, how cool is that? I totes thought of my dear Bergeson's! She is a super huge help to me with my Spanish, so let's hope I'm Latina by the end of her training! She is suuuper cute and a little shy, but she is so excited to be a missionary and ready to work hard.

I've achieved something awesome. Hna Vazquez tells me I walk too fast! Woohoo! I feel like an official missionary now!!

Funny story!

Hna V's first ever "lesson": We went to visit a contact we had done earlier that week with an older lady, who seemed pretty positive. We walked up and she looked as us and just said, "no". She didn't want anything to do with us and told us we lost our chance to teach her. It was sooo funny and a pretty embarrassing way to show off my amazing missionary skills! ;)

This week!

Hna V's fist ever Cosecha was with an amazing family Benditez. They are super positive! We're especially excited about 2 sisters Gloria and Mercedes, who are super smart! Also we are working hard with an Hna Serefina. She is the one who made me the fish food for Passover haha. She loves us sooo much and I really think she will be baptized soon!

We are walking a lot and working a ton, and I know we are gonna start seeing a lot of blessings from it! I am so excited to be training again!

Love you all!

Hna Hallsted

Penonome Branch #7 “I'm gonna be a mom!... Again.”

10APR2017

Leaving my Favorite Hna Schroeppel!!! We were sooo sad!!

My hideously mosquito bit legs. The little suckers just love me.

The amazing rama Missionaries

Cutest little girls who love us!

welll well well...

Hello fam bam,

Let's go over the week! WE HAD CHANGES!!!! They were such a shock cuz we were not at all expecting annnything! Hna S and I were sooooo sad!!! I love her so much! She left me for Colon! And I.... Ready.... AM TRAINING AGAIN!!!!!! I seriously cannot believe it!! I have been doing the 12 Week training my entire mission. It was really a surprise because #1 I just finished training and #2 There was only one hermana who came in this change!! Well let's just say, I am super excited to meet her tomorrow and do the whole training thing one more time!  I'm soooo nervous! I don't know my ginormous area at all! Im training a Latina... I looooved being with hna S! We were crying when we left each other. I’m so sad! But dont worry, Ill be amazing and happy for my new chichi!

More, we set baptism dates for Hno Domingo and his niece Nicole, who is supppper positive. The only problem is they live wayyy up in the mountain so it takes them an hour to get to church. I know once they finally come to church, they will fall in love and will for sure get baptized!

Hna Jose is getting married!! So we should be able to baptize him soon too!

As for Suleima and Angel, the dad is still saying no. This week he told her she isn't allowed to visit us anymore either, so we are going to let things start cooling down. BUT we found some great miracles from it! Because they've made it such a big deal, the rest of the family has started investigating into the church! We found a couple of people from them that could really progress! I'm excited to see what happens!

Well, I sure love you all a whole lot. I am excited to see what the Lord has planned for me! Pray for my dear new companion (whoever she may be haha)!!

Love you all sooooo much!!

Hermana Hallsted

PS Oh hey, I got a tooooon of letters this week all the way back from August, so to everyone who sent me a letter since then, thanks!! I LOVED reading them!!!

I got 3 wedding invitations as well haha, oh well.

Penonome Branch #6 “Let's just talk a bit about General Conference!!!”

APRIL 03, 2017  

A duck

I don’t know if you can see, but I was brutally attacked. I have 85 mosquito bites, most on this leg alone…

I think this is funny, they just let the horses walk around here

This parrot just jumped on my head, no idea what he was trying to pull

A pre Zoo selfie

A pre ugly face Zoo picture

The Zoo!!!

A Aloe Vera plant with names on it. Course I added mine haha

Jaguar trying to eat me. I named him Hank

Turns out Hank is a girl, so I renamed him Hankina... Us being dumb!

I was just scratching her chin and then she tried to bite me. Not sure what she was trying to pull either. In all fairness I was sticking my hand in her cage.

Alllsooo HUGE shoutout to Bro Pew! I was sooo excited to see him! I took a million pictures haha!

pic of the hnas all going to the Zoo!

Hola!

Okay this week was marvelous, or probs just ended like a dream cuz we got to watch conference! I loooved it so much! It's amazing how much better it is on the mission. My personal favorite part is when they shoutout to the missionaries and all the missionaries with you all cheer.

We made a lot of progress with a couple of our most positive investigators, but still haven't heard much from Suleima or Angel. I want to introduce you to the familia Iturralde Candalaria! Took me a long time to remember their last name. They are such a cute family, but at first we were just meeting with the mom and her daughter and they were nervous about really meeting with us until we met the dad. They were all acting kinda nervous about what he'd think of meeting with mormon missionaries, so we went over this Sunday, marched right in and met the big guy. Really, he is huge. He is a police trainer. First he was really grumpy and all sassy, but we had no fear! Obviously he just fell in love with us (not literally) and now we've got the whole family on board! We are really excited about them! Oh and funny story: we were talking to him and all of the sudden there was an earthquake (sooo cool, right? I was freaking out!) and the dad jumped up and was trying to proctect me and Hna S and get us to run outside haha. We knew he loved us!

Other cool stuff that happened: We went to the zoo today! It was pretty lame haha, but I got to touch a Jaguar! (we're pretty sure you're actually not supposed to put your hands in the cage...). Also we were discovering our area and got lost and this typical Panamanian guy (mightve been drunk too) was like "oh there's the short cut right over here, just follow me". we thought a short cut sounded great. Till we got there. He starts ducking under barbed wire fences and we did something really stupid and followed him haha. I mean, he is really harmless, we think. Then we were legit in the middle of noooowhere! We went boulder jumping with this guy and crossed through a river and it was just so hilarious! We carried sharp rocks just in case he tried to pull anything. He didnt, and turns out its a super sketchy short cut lol. Probs wont be doing that again!

I loved General Conference and I felt so much inspiration and motivation from watching it. I love the messages from the leaders of the Church and I love the Prophet so much! I am especially grateful for the feelings of the Spirit, for those feeling I could never forget or never deny- like Elder Joaquin e Costa said about his personal conversion. Whenever I have doubts, I just have to remember the feelings I feel as I am converted to the Gospel and remember those expierences I am having as I am converted to the Gospel and I know it is true! I love being a missionary and I love being a mormon!

Outta time so I'll talk more about conference next week!

Well love you all sooo mcuh!

love,

Hermana Hallsted