P-day visit to Panama Canal! 3-18-2013

Yes. I finally went to the canal! We went to the temple in the morning and then my comp and I hitched a ride with another zone that was at the temple, my old zone actually, and away we went. I figured it was a good way to celebrate my 9 month halfway point birthday! haha The canal was just like any locks in Seattle... the only difference was that the ship was HUGE haha It was cool. I felt like a major tourist for the first time. 9 months! I can't believe it and I had my bebe girl (mi hija) at 9 months... how perfect... hahahahaha (Tina note: When a new missionary arrives they are called a baby daughter to the training companion.)

My companion is amazing as always.  She takes the reins when I'm running out of juice. She was so prepared to come on a mish. I love hearing all the stories from my comps of their lives and why they are here. Everyone has such a personal story. I love Hna Navas tons!

You know that Latinos don't leave their parents house like ever.  It's perfectly normal to live with them until you die, even if you're married. In many ways that's awesome unity. But with our culture and tendencies, we have to get out of the house! hahaha my Latino friends always freak when I say that my parents say I can stay in the house if I'm going to school or pay to stay, but really they want me to eventually leave... hahaha cracks me up every time...

I wish we could study all day! 4 hours of study isn't enough! haha I'm finishing  Revelations this week and the New Testament is done! I love the New Test. It means more now than ever before as a mish...

No baptisms planned for this month. I do want to warn people though... one of our investigators is super hesitant in going back for a 4th time because someone said something about wearing nice clothes, skirts and white shirts. She was rubbed the wrong way cause of course she and another guy were the only ones that she noticed in regular clothes.... We have to be super careful about people visiting the church and of our example to others as members of the Church of Jesus Christ.

You have no idea how jealous I am... I want to see a movie! SOOO bad. I think that is the thing I miss most.... and trombone OHHHH I played a trombone Sat! I also would like to end my letter with, I ate a fish's eye ball and I liked it. Tasted like bacon sin sal. hahahahaha!

Love the mish. I can't believe that tomorrow I complete 9 months in the mish! It's crazy! I still feel brand new! loooooooovvvveeeeee ya'll!

Birthday Pics and Fun Stories 3-11-13

The papers on the door are on my house. this was a surprise. it was great! I love them. the family we live with are awesome! haha. I{m pretty sure the drawing of like a nefita looking man is supposed to be me... haha

the other photos are at member's house. I love her. seriously. so much. they feed us on Sundays and surprised me with CAKE! I may have started the cake fight in the picture where I{m holding the cake and it{s in the face of my comp. haha. loved it. this is the day of my birthday. it was a great birthday....

we finally went ice blocking. the APs bought ice and we headed to parque omar in the city. it was great! soooo utah... haha a good multi zone pday. my mom and i and my hija haha.

Misc. Stories

So my hija tells everyone the bad things I did to her like the first day we walked like 45 minutes to get home at 9pm and she got home with blisters on her feet. (this was the plan haha she has to learn how the mish is! no she knows! it's all out of love) also that I told her the duros were alcohol... they are actually like popsicles that they make in little bags. She was walking around for about 3 weeks thinking that the whole world sells liquor. so I asked for one at a little tienda and she was like no! hna no lo diga! what are they going to think of the mish!? when she saw what it was, she was so mad! haha she was like all these days I've been dying of sed in the hot sun and I thought the people were selling alcohol to cool off! also, she says I hit her... but that's a complete lie. I just elbow her in the face once in a while on accident cause her face is right at the right height.... that's not my fault. I love my hija.

So I went to the dr and she said it was a bacteria on my face and a fungus on my legs. yeah! my skin hates my life! haha so I got meds. yum yum yum.

I GOT MY SHOES. and now I have some wonderful blisters on my little pinky toes. they're about as big as my toes are. haha. but the shoes will wear in. or my feet will... whatever one is first. thank you soooo much. last week my old pair finally really died. the hole on the bottom is huge and I was basically walking on rocks... haha. so know it's perfect. I have 2 good walking shoes and lots of fun shoes.

I love you all!

Hna Schumacher

Hello from Panama March 4, 2013

So, I could just copy my words from last week about my comp. She´s completely amazing. Yesterday was the best birthday I have ever had cause por fin we had a day of hard work that showed fruit and we laughed and we walked and we had citas and we worked tons with members and we had investigators in church and it was just great. I want that every single day for Hna Navas. She deserves it! She talks tons in lessons. she commits. she testifies. she listens. she asked questions. she contacts. she studies. she prays. she believes. she loves. she loves this work so much. I´m so happy to be her comp.

I love working with members in our ward; we made a list where the members can sign up to work with us, especially with the elders who have opened the area here.  It has really gotten a lot of members to get active. We´re also talking with members to invite their peeps to clases ingles on Saturdays. It´s really quite easy in this area to get the members excited to do mish work. I feel like a missionary! I love training. I love working.

In response to training her missionary:
When mish train, you´re with your hijo or hija for two changes (12 weeks) but my hija is AMAZING so I´m telling Pres Ward that she´s ready when he needs her. So I´ll either be here for 6 or 12 more weeks.

In response to how her birthday was:
I had a great birthday. And it´s pretty much like the states birthday haha, but it´s in Spanish! haha I loved it. We worked hard and God seriously blessed us SO much yesterday. It´s amazing all the little things he´ll give us just to make us happy for a day.

In response to not using electronic communication:
It´s super weird... I know. but it´s such a cool experience. especially in the world we´re in... I´m like phone less, tv less, game less. all the things that this generation is obsessed with, I get a chance to be completely set apart from and just communicate with people all day instead of a screen. I love it.

In response to what are you eating:

I WISH I could eat healthy! Panameños fry EVERYTHING in oil first and after. and you eat a plate of rice with EVERY meal whether it´s spaghetti or eggs or soup (I wrote soap first cause the words in Spanish get all twisted around...) or potatos, you get rice. and we get fed ALL the time. You´d think we´d get like real fruit juice here, but it´s all from a package, like Koolaid but better. I´m getting fatty! it´s terrible! haha

In response to missing my sister's kitty Lulu:

pobresita, lulu! tell her hello for me and I miss her! I really do... all the gatos here are nasty gross... I miss my clean bugless cats that aren´t ugly...

In response to what are the church buildings like:

The church buildings are pretty much all the same. It really depends though. They´re a lot different than home though, one thing is cause no one here in Panama has carpet. There are different types of buildings though. I know of one that´s just like a warehouse thing. My last one was like a portable building thing, you know that like comes on a truck, but it´s still totally obvious that it´s from the church. haha  

In response to doing laundry:

Today we took some of our study time in the morning to go to the laundry mat and wash clothes. It doesn´t take that long. and when you have a day from 6:30 am to 10:30 pm without stopping, you have time. kinda. maybe. actually, maybe that´s a lie.

so this is random... but this old lady has this sewing machine that is absolutely gorgeous... it´s a Phico Sewing machine co. Deluxe with gold painted emblems and silver metal accents. says enber silk norm. it´s super old and awesome. it´s so interesting cause the poor peoples here have these amazing antique things! and they use these antique things. but seriously this machine is beautiful.

Tomorrow we´re headed to the temple... We´re going with just a couple other elders tomorrow morning at 8. meaning we have to leave at like 5:40 am cause of the retched traffic in Panama City and school has started for everyone so there are even more people.... I love going to the temple... and I´m sorry for all the people who went on mishes and they couldn´t go. We have an awesome beautiful temple in Panama! I love going all the time with my comps.

Visit from Church Apostle January 19, 2013

La foto de la visita del Elder Christofferson. Can you find me?

One day late.... 2-26-13

hey hey. so I hope you weren´t all worried yesterday.... the power was out in all of Panama so we didn´t get to use Internet. but here I am. (Tina comment: of course we would never worry anything was wrong, like a car accident...)

I´m so grateful for an amazing ward. (the only thing we need is a piano player! haha, I played piano for the first time ever in Sacrament meeting. I made soooo many mistakes, but oh well, no one cares... haha, so I´ll try and I´ll practice!

a few random things:

• pday yesterday we went iceblocking in parque omar in the city with the APs and Panama zone and alcalde dias. and I went down the hill on a huge chunk of ice with my first companion and got a good video.
• last pday was soooooo nice and relaxing. we hung out in the interior at a finca. pretty much just sat in a hamaka, explored the river with crocks and ate Panamanian food all day. so nice.
• the week before we were doing service with the elders at one of our investigator´s houses and I cut down a giant lemon tree with a chain saw. that´s right, the guy asked me to do it and not the elders. haha loved it. prolly not a good thing to do in the mish when we´re not even allowed to use machetes haha but when else will I get the chance in my mish to show my might and power. 

New Companion

now... about my companion. She´s super awesome. more strict on rules and things like that than I am, but that´s all cool. I love her. she came ready. she only had 2 weeks in the Missionary Training Center in Guatemala. Now the Latinas only have 2 weeks and the gringos 6! I´m personally glad that I had 9. I enjoyed the MTC and CCM. at least that´s what I remember. but I also remember thinking... what more can I learn here in the CCM after 6 weeks that I can´t learn in the field and better out there with a Latina companion....? so I think it´s a good thing. So, my new companion is de Honduras, the capital. She´s so cute and she wants to learn and wants to work. She has so much energy.

Love to you all,
Hermana Schumacher

Teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ 2-18-13

I'M TRAINING! that´s right! Shhoooooot! I´m so freaking excited! I doubt I´m ready, but I doubt I could be much more ready! I´m sooooo EXCITED!  I´m so pumped. And this area is like a perfect area to be your first. I´m excited for her. The members and the people in this area are fantastic.

We went contacting in another area for a couple hours. I was grateful for my area and my investigators after that day. when you´re away from them for a day, you realize how much you love them! WE met some awesome people in her area though! I wish they were in my area! haha. point of the story is that I love divisions. I was a little afraid of them at first, but now, I look forward to doing it again sometime.

There are seriously people who want to learn more! I just wish the world wasn´t always so busy. it really gets in the way. They have a desire planted in their soul to learn what they already known in their heart, but they are so weighed down by the pressures and lusts of the world! oh how the scriptures preach the truth concerning the darkening world before the Savior comes again. I´m glad to know that I´m on the right side and that I´m here fighting.

A man who got baptized last week went to the temple this week and did baptisms! wow! we were supposed to call him and tell him that bishop said that he couldn´t go until the next time when he gets the priesthood... but we could NOT get a hold of him before the day! so he showed up and... the bishop gave him the priesthood and to work he went in the temple! the bishop wasn´t very happy about it, but we tried as hard as we could. but you should have seen him when we talked to him about the temple afterwards. he was amazed! he LOVED it. and he was telling his wife all about it. That just showed me that it was what the Lord wanted. Our Padre knew that he was ready and knew that he needed to go. He is amazing! The Temple is amazing. The gospel of Jesus Christ is amazing. The Lord is working hard out here with us.

I love Panamanians. I really do.

And I love all my little people at home in the states too!

Peace and Love and Happiness all around!

Hermana Schumacher

Colon and Picture Details 2-11-13

y... fuimos a Portobelo! in Colon! it was great! it was gorgeous. we went with 2 other zones. look up the town. and the black Christ there. so while we were there we got a group of dances to come dance for us! it was awesome! we all paid like 2 bucks. they came out to eh fort on the water and danced. the little crazy boys are hilarious! and they dragged us out to dance with them. one of the little boys has a bra hanging from his belt. don´t know if you can see it in the pic. but like they were locos!!! they dances super close to us and would run up behind us as we walked away! those locos! haha it was hilarious! these boys are like 14 years old! loved it. it was an awesome pday. we were so late.... cause to get to Colon we had to get to Panama to Albrook Mall and then take a bus up there... and back and all that jazz. but let me tell you... Panama is GORGEOUS.

(Previous post pictures) so the story of the Congo dancers and the paintings.... there is this queen with the people and the devil comes and she protects them. look up the Congo in Panama in Colon on YouTube and look up the story. it´s awesome! then you´ll get a taste of what I saw.

I want to write soooo much more... but I´ve already been on her for an hour! how does it go sooo fast! much love sent from panama!

Sasha