Katie's Mission Blog: August 29-September 4, 2023-Week 17-Guadalupe

Title: first baptism!!!

Hola a todos!!! (Hello everyone)

Quick note to start --- I am no longer allowed to messenger people, only my family. So if I don't respond to a message, I am not ghosting you haha!

This week was really good!! I really love the mission and all the parts of it! Some cool miracles that happened were the baptism of some of our friends. Some Hermanas before me have been teaching them, Nidia and Madeline Sanjur, since May. Nidia needed to be married to her pareja (partner), who is an inactive member of the church. They got married -- which in itself is a miracle because it is expensive and difficult to get married here in Panama. If only it was like Vegas lol....All jokes aside, it was beautiful to see a family all be united in their faith and to have members of the ward come and support them. I know they will be blessed and strengthened through their decision to be baptized and to have the Holy Ghost with them always.

We also put one of our other friends, Isaac, on date. It is kind of a wild story because my companion before this transfer, Hermana Anderson, met his mom on a bus the day before I got here and she was like "she is a contact of oro (gold)", aka someone just ready to hear the gospel!!! So ALL last transfer we visited her and taught her just to find out that she was baptized in our church in 2017 but cannot for the life of her remember anything lol. What adds to it is she pulls out a Book of Mormon a few weeks ago and it is the original copy she received from the missionaries who baptized her HAHA. So if she would have pulled that out from the get go, we would have known since the church recently changed the format of Spanish BOM and her BOM is an old version. Oh well. But! We started teaching her son, and never have I ever seen a kid more excited about the gospel. He does all his reading assignments, writes out questions, always asks questions, came to church all by himself, and now is getting baptized! There was a hot minute where his mom thought he was also baptized with her, but he wasn't. Needless to say with all the craziness that has happened with this family, God has miracles for us and people that are ready to hear this message!

The last miracles is our friend, Ariel, came to church yesterday. Sadly he is not a mermando??, but we found him by accident. We thought we were going to visit the house of an inactive member, but plot twist, they moved. Ariel also asks tons of questions, but I think that shows that he really understands. We are hoping to continue teaching him! But this just testifies that God has much bigger and better plans for us. We thought we were going to visit one person, but God provided someone else and that person that needed to hear this message.

I love the people here! They are really full of faith and love. They are humble and just love us to be in their homes, and I know it is because we carry a message of love that will change their lives! I know that everything happens for a reason and if people don't progress in the gospel, I find joy in bringing people one step closer to Christ.

Funny moments:

Beer shirt --

One of our friends in our ward, Jair, is awesome and we are really good friends. He is actually going to Olivia Tolley's mission, too! Anyways, he is a recent convert and just loves the gospel. We go to his house to teach his parents (who also another miracle, want to be baptized now!) And he walks out with this shirt (see photo below). He was so funny and so embarrassed but grateful because he originally planned to bring it on his mission lol.

Panamanain lover --

So we are at the house of a member eating dinner with her and randomly she starts talking to me saying "so hermana Christensen, I'm not gonna say who, but someone in the ward is in love with you. They think you are the most beautiful thing they have ever seen and they are so sad because this is your first ward and you'll probably be transferred. But when they saw the photo of you and your family with your hair curled they just couldn't stop gushing, and he is even learning English for you". Welp, now I will not show that photo anymore but would I be lying if that didn't boost my self confidence a little bit?

Iglesia de los Santos --

The other day I was soooo tired and it was 8pm and we had one more lesson and I go up to present myself. Normally I almost always just say "hola y buenas yo soy hermana Christensen y somos las misioneras de la iglesia de jesucristo" but all my Spanish had left my head and all that would come out was "somos las misioneras de los santos". And for the life of me I tried FIVE MORE TIMES with the same result and hermana Hatch was laughing way to much to help me. Finally the kid was like, "yeah I know you're from the church of Jesucristo" and saved me.

That's all folks!!! I feel like I am hitting my stride. Todavía el español me cuesta de vez en cuando (Spanish is still hard for me from time to time), but everything else is good!! If you made it to this point I applauded you. I really write this for journal entry and to make my mom happy.

The sunburn lines are STRONG