Irgandi Food Edition | 2 Locals Speak in Church | Recovering from High Seas

Hi Family and Friends!

This letter could literally be called "the Irgandi Food Edition" for many reasons. I am going to share a ton of pictures (b/c the Internet connection seems to be working at the moment).

Time for some Iguana Soup

Question: What's new? How are things going?
Elder Doxey: This time of year in Irgandi is "Iguana Month", which means anyone with an escopeta (shotgun) goes hunting for Iguanas.

The Kunas literally have an "Iguana Month"...it's kind of a big deal

Typical San Blas Iguana Soup

This makes it sound like people have shotguns here...they don't. I have only seen one that is used by all 250 people here, but it is really important b/c that is often how they get food.

Looks like noodles, but is actually very young netted fish

I have to admit, they do not know how to cook here, or make flavor happen. I guess they try, but everything they hunt and gather seems to end up boiled, with salt, lime, coconut milk and plantains or bananas. I am always amazed how much time Kunas spend hunting and gathering their next meal.

Sea snails ... a great source of protein

Question: How is your cook stove working?
Elder Doxey: Well, today I attempted to deep fry a burrito and ended up burning my hand.

Not sure why I have a picture of my burned hand, but this is what it looks like

Question: How is the Irgandi branch this week?
Elder Doxey:  In our Irgandi branch, this week we had 57 there, maybe a few more. 14 of those were women (which is really good, there were some who had not been in awhile). One thing we would like to do soon is organize a temple trip with this branch.

More sea snails. They love these things!

We are in the early, early stages of thinking about that temple trip so I do not have a lot of details. This time of year is a good time to plan things like this because the waves are so big, and people can't go anywhere far.

Up the trail and to the left is the river we used to have to wade across. Now the mouth is full of sand.

Question: Have you been to Ukupa Island lately?
Elder Doxey: Yes. There were a few days this last week when the sea was not so rough, so we made the 1 hour hike out there. Along the way we noticed some CRAZY things had happened to our trail, because of the huge waves crashing on shore last week. For example, we normally have to cross a waist deep river to get to the next part of the trail.

High winds, stuff flying around, high waters flooding the main square of the Irgandi village

 Well, this week, that 30 foot wide river was completely filled up with sand, so we could just walk across the sand--there was literally no river there right now. In another area of our trail out to Ukupa, we noticed the high seas had washed out this little cement foot bridge that was built...so we had to hike along a slippery slope, or just walk in the water to get around a point that sticks out into the ocean.

Slippery trail to Ukupa with little foot bridge washed out

No biggie, but it shows how rough the sea has been, and how big the waves have been. Speaking of big waves and weather, last week we had part of the Irgandi village flood in some high winds, rain and waves. Of course, the Irgandi chapel was completely fine.

Foot bridge problema

Question: How are the church members doing in Ukupa?
Elder Doxey: They are doing fine. They have a branch president, about 30-40 who regularly attend and are pretty self sufficient. We can't even go out there on Sundays for church because we need to be here in Irgandi.

This is the monkey we ate last week (before it was made into Monkey Soup). These run in packs of 40-ish in the forest.

Question: All those young Kuna families are going to grow up one day, and will have regularly felt the love of the gospel, through you and your companion. Do you think this is the case? Do those in church know you love them?
Elder Doxey: Definitely. I think I see it in some of the kids that are getting older. There is a difference in behavior between those who are new and coming for the first time, and those who are "superactive regulars." The older teenagers who have not been going since they were kids are a bit more wild. The ones that have been consistent are better behaved, and seem to have growing testimonies.

Meal on my scriptures

Question: Any new progress with developing leaders?
Elder Doxey: Yes. This week we had a really good thing happen...two locals spoke in Church, in Dule Gaya! Rafael (the 70+ year old we have been working with) spoke. Frankly, he was very passionate when he spoke and told the group in their language, "We need to be better as a branch. We need to be doing our part" and so forth. That was very good to see.

Then, we had a man named "Basilic" speak, who was visiting from the Bella Vista ward in Panama City. He spoke on why it is important to be reverent in the branch. Specifically, that the branch is a sacred place, and the branch needs to do something about all the little kids running wild during church and disrupting worship...maybe we should formally organize Primary rather than just have one big meeting and call it good.

Question: Are you all recovered from the high seas, and storms?
Elder Doxey: Mostly.  We were able to save a lot of bamboo walls.  The waves last week were very powerful, and ripped out the walls of a few huts in the village.

We'll have to fix this wall that was bashed down by big waves

That was a crazy powerful storm last week!  Look at our SOLID branch building (red roof) in the palm trees.

Gotta run. Love you all.

Elder Doxey