You Go Hermanas!!!!!  Only Sasha would attempt to complete with the Elders doing push-ups, in a dress no less.

Singing in the Rain 4-23-13

New website for the mish http://misionpanama.snappages.com/home.htm

Mother Note: After another Monday of no email.... we now realize that usually means they have gone to the Temple. No vans rolling down hills!)

I´m alive. About yesterday, we worked instead of having p-day. so today we´re just taking a little time to use internet. we ended up citas yesterday and we were like... oh well, comp pday working! haha it was good. we also went to the gym for almost 2 hours. it was fun and hard work. but it paid off today cause in training with the Assts and president today, they made our group do 20 push ups. we showed off and did them. usually as hermanas use the excuse that we can´t do them cause we have skirts on! haha

The rains have come!!!!! everyday in the afternoon it POURS. I LOVE the rain. I missed it soooo much! so we got soaked in the city last week. it was amazing... all the people looked at us like we were locas! It´s true! haha

So we went to the ward choir last week... I was suffering, la verdad... haha but it all turned out fun and dandy. I changed the key and wrote out one of the hymns for the piano player so that the members can sing it cause they can´t sing high enough. It was fun to use some of the knowledge I´ve about forgotten about music.

Love to you all,

Hermana Schumacher

Sasha Feeling the Spirit 4-16-13

The gospel isn't for perfect people, it's for the people with messed up lives and with a past. Jesus never just hung out with the cool members of the church, the perfect members, he was with the worse, the adulterers, the earthly contagious sick people, the robbers. you have to share your testimony or else it won't ever grow! a testimony is a gift from the Spirit, don't you ever think that it's something that you have to give. Rather it is something you have been given. soooo share it, if you don't, the spirit won't give you more of it. The work and glory of the Lord is to bring to past the Eternal Life of man... he's not going to give you a testimony and not expect you to use it to bring to pass his work! haha, sorry if I'm being direct... but I'm just in that kind of mood. study the heck out of the scriptures. search for the book Our Search for Happiness by Elder Ballard. it's super simple and so great. I'm learning tons. Read the scriptures every day. Go to church every week. and pray every night and morning. I learned a ton about the tabernacle this week. the incense that they burn in the second room which represents the terrestrial kingdom were burnt at night and in the morning. this represents our prayers to God in the night and in the morning. hazlo! also in the second room they take the sacrament and the menorah represents the Holy Ghost that burns 24 7. I love it. this second room in the tabernacle reminds us to live in the world but not of it. it teaches us to live by the Spirit. so... 3 things... Pray. Read the Scriptures. Go to Church. Hey, I´m just teaching the primary topics. And I thought that mish work was hard.... pshhh...

Peace out home skillets!

Sasha Stories 4-8-13

How was conference. I want a report from EVERYONE. (1) 1 thing they liked and (2) 1 thing that slapped them in the face. I'll give you mine.

1. the story of the prophet setting the area on fire! ha! who would have thought....

2. obedience is better than sacrifice. (I sacrifice time, friends, etc to be here, but if I'm not obedient, what comes of it? nothing. nothing whatsoever.)

So this morning we had a very sad experience.  One of the women we live with found their duck dead in the back yard. yesterday I heard while I was studying a lot of strange noises coming from Patín. I told them last night, but they didn't check. we went out to do something... there he was dead. I don't know if an animal got him or what. he just had blood coming from his mouth. maybe it was a snake. poor poor Patín. This deformed flippered friend was well loved. now we wait to see him one day in the Heavens.

My comp learned a few things this week like following the spirit promptly. one night this week I felt like taking a bus instead of walking home. she had a strong impression to contact 2 jovenes (youth) at the parada. she got out her folletos (calendar) and starting putting los datos on the back. she was finishing up the last bit when the 2 jovenes got into a taxi and sped away. oh how she beat herself up so hard. but that's how the Lord works. he tests us, we fail, we learn, we change, and we do it the next time he challenges us.

Conference was amazing. I started with 14 questions. over half of them were answered or referred to in the first session! haha I love the way that the Lord works. As I was listening I thought of the ability to reject and say that these men are not witnesses, not apostles, that he is not a prophet. All I could think was how I could never deny these men's testimonies. I could never deny that Pres Monson is a prophet of God as Moses, Enos, Nephi, and Abraham were.

We had some great days this week. We visited practically EVERYONE on Thursday and Friday to invite all in persona to the conference. I love saying that we have the chance to listen to apostles and a prophet hoy en dia! It's so great and we are so blest. We had a good week and worked hard and walked lots and talked to a ton of people. Week after week flies by. I love this work.

Hna Schumacher

So I was hang out at our landlord's salon and she told me to sit down. she proceeded to die my hair! haha so I now have highlights. I like it. but now I look like a fula. haha 

ummm... so I had NO idea where cashews came from! the fruta is good too. we make juice all the time. so we cooked up some fresh cashews! it was awesome. maybe I'll sneak some home with me to cook up with you guys! haha it was so much fun. This is where I cut down the huge lemon tree. and this week he's going to teach me how to sharpen a machete.

They tasted soooo good. 

Tall Buildings, Beaches, Easter and DO YOUR HT AND VT! 4-1-13

Well, today was aaaaaammmmmmmazzzzing. I actually felt like I was in a tropical place with beaches! that´s right, we went to the beach. Coronado. we were in a condo with these members that one of the elders knows from the states. we played ult Frisbee and played with jelly fish and climbed on the roof of a 25 floor condo. it was soooo scary cool haha. oh the things we do with 19-23 year old boys haha. so I hung my feet off the end and took lots of pics of the beach and Panama! fun stuff. photos from the roof!!!!! 25 floors up! crazy elders! that's  an elder on the ledge there. I was waiting for him to just lean over and fall off! seriously.... the lord protects us, but not when we do dumb things....

We made baleadas for my friend's birthday. They're tortilla from Honduras

Easter... pascua. well... I didn´t even know it was Easter until I started picking out the hymns for church and I was like wait.... isn´t pascua Easter? seriously .. Latinos don´t know what Easter is in the states... it´s absolutely nothing here. this week was the semana santa (Saints Week) so it was a lot of partying of course! haha. asi es. on Friday it was interesting to experience the processions and stuff through the streets. there was a huge group of people walking with torches and crosses and people dressed up as Mary an they had a Mary statue and a coffin with Jesus. and they were all praying and stuff. it was pretty interesting. and we were sitting on the bench of the bus stop waiting for them to pass by. they are surrounded us and I stood so that they who had been walking a ton could sit down and they were all whispering .. the Mormons moved so that we could sit. haha... like it was a surprise. It was a cool experience. so that was the holy week... but Easter was nothing.. it actually made me a little home sick.

(What no bunnies, chocolate, peeps, eggs, jelly beans, hunts and other corporate money grabs? Cynical mother comment.)

It's so hard to help menos activos (less active members), cause it´s the help from the local members that is going to get them to church. But everyone is just so different. We have to search for the exact thing that they are waiting for.... hard work. Rewarding work, but to all the members out there... DO YOUR HOME AND VISITING TEACHING, please! I´m pleading with you!

Love to you all,
Hermana Schumacher

Canals and a Trombone 3-25-13

So we were at this feria (market) in the church and there was this kid with a trombone case strapped to his back. At that point, I was freaking out.... like my comp was like... your face is ecstatic! So I was like I wanna play it! I talked with a lady from church and she was like, I don't know how it is... but she proceeded to walk over to the kid and said that I wanted to play it! haha so I was like ya, but not here. So we went inside the church and I took it out and it felt so strange. It was like I miss it, but I don't want to hear how bad I sound. It was... I can't explain it haha, but I put it to my lips and..... nothing.... haha I couldn't play anything!!! so I took the mouth piece out and started to buzz a bit, after that I could play a bit. I hit a high c or something way up there... and it took me a try or too but I hit a pedal f. I messed around, but really it didn't sound great.... the kid was surprised I could play that well after 9 months of not touching a horn. It was fun. I miss playing... a lot. It was my 9 month birth month regalo (treat).

So Spanish wise.... I can say most everything, but I definitely have a higher respect and understanding for people who come into the US and learn English as a second language. I thought I understood before... but not really. it's like starting at 0. it's impossible to sound intelligent! haha it sucks and rips up my pride into a thousand pieces, which is a great thing really. I love this experience as a whole and hate it in the moments of trial.

Finally got to go to the canal.