Hola Familia,
This was another good week! Time is literally flying by… I’ve been in Panama 8 months now. Wow!
Great news! We found two new people in this community of 250 people (which are mostly less active members).
All together, there are around 800 people from Irgandi that we know of, but most live on other San Blas islands or in the city.
This week was a bit tough. Pretty much the whole week EVERYONE was preparing to drink “chicha fuerte”— their fermented sugar cane or corn drink. It was not a fun sight to see. I don’t want to go into too much detail, but they were the most drunk group of people I’ve ever seen, all in one place! It was so sad to see Church members drinking, and getting drunk.
On the bright side, we had around 20 people in Church—there was one adult, 7 youth and the rest were little kids. Elder Navas is an excellent companion and Branch President here. Language wise, I’m starting to understand more Dule Gaya but its pretty hard.
We’ve had some changes with the rules in the mission. Specifically, the rules with P-day (we need to be teaching Seminary) and music. In my opinion they are great and smart changes.
For P-day today we played fútbol. The Kunas are pretty serious about it, but it was fun. We play on the beach without shoes. It is so funny to see people getting shoved into the ocean. Elder Navas definitely knows how to play. Tons of great times.
Note from Elder Doxey's Mom and Dad: Switching from hearing Dule Gaya all the time, to Spanish, to speaking with us in English here in modern day America seems tricky. It's tough to get info out of him. So, we pepper him with questions and post his answers here on his blog:
Question: Where do you live in relation to the branch building? We live to the right of it in a hut.
Question: What did you learn at Zone Conference? We learned about eating healthy, building faith in Christ through the Book of Mormon.
Question: What do you do--teaching wise--to reach less active members? We teach Seminary, and it is helping to get people to understand more. It’s hard to get people to understand though (because of the language barrier and time). You can’t set a schedule for seminary, you just have to gather a bunch of people because they don’t run on a schedule.
The new Libro do Mormon videos are actually helping a lot with teaching. Aside from that TV in the branch building, there is no TV, no videos, and very little that is written in Dule Gaya. The Kunas want many more of those videos b/c it is about the only way they seem to understand. They understand those a lot better than they understand our Dule Gaya language skills.
Question: When is the best time to teach people? There is no real concept of clocks, deadlines, appointments or time here. People’s availability is literally based on who feels like talking at the moment, what they are working on, oh and the sunrise and sunset.
You just have to catch them when they seem like they are in the mood to “interact.” I say interact because we barely speak Dule Gaya, and the adults don’t speak Spanish. The kids speak decent Spanish because they learn it in school, so at least they understand.
Question: What would you recommend John should do to prep for his mission?
Study the Book of Mormon, and Elder Holland’s talk, “Missionary Work and the Atonement.”
Overall it was a great week. Changes are coming soon, so we’ll see if we stay or get transferred.
Elder Doxey
This was another good week! Time is literally flying by… I’ve been in Panama 8 months now. Wow!
Great news! We found two new people in this community of 250 people (which are mostly less active members).
 |
| Bugs are healthy here...sturdy 'lil fella |
All together, there are around 800 people from Irgandi that we know of, but most live on other San Blas islands or in the city.
This week was a bit tough. Pretty much the whole week EVERYONE was preparing to drink “chicha fuerte”— their fermented sugar cane or corn drink. It was not a fun sight to see. I don’t want to go into too much detail, but they were the most drunk group of people I’ve ever seen, all in one place! It was so sad to see Church members drinking, and getting drunk.
On the bright side, we had around 20 people in Church—there was one adult, 7 youth and the rest were little kids. Elder Navas is an excellent companion and Branch President here. Language wise, I’m starting to understand more Dule Gaya but its pretty hard.
 |
| Tools of the trade...service with the locals |
We’ve had some changes with the rules in the mission. Specifically, the rules with P-day (we need to be teaching Seminary) and music. In my opinion they are great and smart changes.
For P-day today we played fútbol. The Kunas are pretty serious about it, but it was fun. We play on the beach without shoes. It is so funny to see people getting shoved into the ocean. Elder Navas definitely knows how to play. Tons of great times.
 |
| Happy Kuna kids making their sacred dolls...and cilantro? |
Note from Elder Doxey's Mom and Dad: Switching from hearing Dule Gaya all the time, to Spanish, to speaking with us in English here in modern day America seems tricky. It's tough to get info out of him. So, we pepper him with questions and post his answers here on his blog:
Question: Where do you live in relation to the branch building? We live to the right of it in a hut.
Question: What did you learn at Zone Conference? We learned about eating healthy, building faith in Christ through the Book of Mormon.
Question: What do you do--teaching wise--to reach less active members? We teach Seminary, and it is helping to get people to understand more. It’s hard to get people to understand though (because of the language barrier and time). You can’t set a schedule for seminary, you just have to gather a bunch of people because they don’t run on a schedule.
The new Libro do Mormon videos are actually helping a lot with teaching. Aside from that TV in the branch building, there is no TV, no videos, and very little that is written in Dule Gaya. The Kunas want many more of those videos b/c it is about the only way they seem to understand. They understand those a lot better than they understand our Dule Gaya language skills.
 |
| Well built bridge out to Ukupa |
Question: When is the best time to teach people? There is no real concept of clocks, deadlines, appointments or time here. People’s availability is literally based on who feels like talking at the moment, what they are working on, oh and the sunrise and sunset.
You just have to catch them when they seem like they are in the mood to “interact.” I say interact because we barely speak Dule Gaya, and the adults don’t speak Spanish. The kids speak decent Spanish because they learn it in school, so at least they understand.
 |
| Healthy, happy jellyfish off the bridge to Ukupa |
Overall it was a great week. Changes are coming soon, so we’ll see if we stay or get transferred.
Elder Doxey
Comments
Post a Comment