63 in Church and Holding | 10 ft Waves | Monkey Soup

Hi Family!

Question: Did you get our letter this week? Do you read them?
Elder Doxey: I skim them. I take a picture of them and read it later.

Irgandi Branch Building

Question: Do you mind if we share your blog with people who want to teach kids about what mission life might be like?
Elder Doxey: As long as you tell them that most areas, and most missions are not like Irgandi. There is nothing like this, for sure. Some animal lovers might see what people here in Irgandi to do capture and eat animals, and might not like it. The reality is that people here are just surviving on what they hunt and gather…fish, shell fish, mollusks, wild boars, toucans, monkeys, coconuts, octopus, etc. Pretty much anything that moves.

Question: Have they been eating any more wild boars?
Elder Doxey: No, but this week I ate monkey, so that was different.

Mantled Howler Monkey (Google Images)

Question: How did that go? I imagine it was a bit stringy/sinew-ey. You probably did not have a monkey steak, right? Was it a white faced monkey, or a black faced monkey? What kind of monkey was it?
Elder Doxey: I just eat it however they prepare it, in a soup. Monkey soup. It was a 3 foot tall, black faced monkey. Really big. Wichuli anae. I was not with them when they shot it, Elder Gutke and I just happened to be passing by their hut and they had it all laid out there in a huge pan, ready to butcher and prepare for dinner.

Everyone was saying, “Mono! Mono!” When anything is caught that all can enjoy, word spreads around these 46 huts like wild fire…like in 10 minutes. They told us to come back later for some soup—they were going to cook it tonight with some bananas, salt and lemon. By the time we were in for the night, we remembered we had not gone back there, so we got in our missionary clothes again and went over and had monkey soup, monkey fat and all. They don’t even take the hair off; they just eat around all that. People eat crazy stuff here.

The next day, we noticed the family who prepared the monkey soup was playing with a baby monkey. As we were visiting with them and holding the baby monkey, Elder Gutke and I looked at each other first and then at the baby monkey said to each other, “We at this monkey’s mom last night!  Sorry we at your mom little guy.” We felt really bad, but I guess that is how people stay alive here. Elder Gutke got the good piece, mine was pretty stringy.

[Note: We did a bit of research based on the monkey’s size, coloring, location and perceived weight. It is likely that what they ate was a Mantled Howler Monkey, which is very common in the jungle near San Blas—about 3 feet tall and can be up to 22 pounds, and in the “least concern” of endangered status.]

Question: What else have they been eating lately, and has any of it made you sick?
Elder Doxey: Nothing has made us sick. Almost everything is boiled, always. One of the local favorites at this time of the year are what I call “Sea Snails” … they scrape them off the rocky areas, boil them up with some salt and eat.

Question: Have you been able to get out to the branch on Ukupa Island at all?
Elder Doxey: No. This is actually a dangerous time to be near the water. The waves are MASSIVE, like 10 feet tall. They are crashing super close to the Irgandi huts, and we have had six huts destroyed by waves. When one of those big waves hits a hut, you just have to go over there and say, “Well, you guys are done here. Let's go. We’ll rebuild later.”

There are 20 of the 46 huts that have been completely flooded. My Swiss Army knife is critical to have at the moment. I use that, and my small flashlight everyday, all the time. Lately the Swiss Army knife has been really important because we have had to take down flooded huts as fast as we can, cutting the lashings, gathering the bamboo walls for re-use later.

Ukupa Branch Building

One CRAZY experience was with this huge, huge wave that crashed on shore, and was knocking down one of the main walls—just hitting it over and over—slowly destroying it. If we did not act quickly, the waves would have destroyed it and we would have lost all that bamboo to the sea. So, with my Swiss Army knife we just started cutting down all the lashings as fast as we could to save the wall, gather the bamboo so we could re-lash it together later.

Everyone else was using machetes to cut it down, but my knife is really nice and sharp so it went faster. Machetes are literally the main tool for EVERYTHING here. They dig holes with it, butcher animals, cut tin roof with it, EVERYTHING. We have it good. Other islands that are nearer deeper water are really getting flooded.

Question: Is the branch building getting flooded at all?
Elder Doxey: No, not at all. That is probably the sturdiest structure in the village, and placed in a location that would be hard to flood. It is about 1-2 feet off the ground and has a cement floor, so that is huge. The people that built it knew how to build.

Question: How is the work going in Irgandi?
Elder Doxey: It’s going OK. Last Sunday we had 63 in church, and the weel before that 67.  So, we’re holding 60+ week over week. This is good because it used to be in the 20s. We continue to work on the conversion process. This week we had a better mix of people: 10 women, 6 men, 15 youth, and the rest were kids.

The most amazing thing happened this week. There was an 80-year old Kuna man that came. He was just super, super old. He had to walk with a cane, he had a catheter in, and seemed like he was barely there mentally, but he was there. Super impressive. Then, a short time into the meeting we hear his cane fall over, and see him fall out of his chair, and on to the floor. We wondered if he was dead. He was having a full-blown seizure! Elder Gutke and I stopped the meeting, and everyone was just frozen. Two faithful men when over and helped him up and took him out. Faithful man.

Question: How have things changed now that you are the branch president?
Elder Doxey: They have not changed at all. It’s no different…you might think of Elder Gutke and I both being branch president, because there is no other leadership here. It’s like I’ve been co-branch president with 4 companions here. We team teach Seminary, and basically do everything because nobody is ready just yet to lead.

 The work is going well. The mission is great!

 Much love,

 Elder Doxey