Just Panama...

Here are a few little things that I thought you'd enjoy. 

This is some construction that was going on
outside our house not long ago. It was so loud!
And it shook the whole house, I honestly thought
it was an earthquake. 

I'm not really sure what he was hitting with that stick...
but this guy put a  side walk around our neighborhood.
We ran out and put our hand prints in it one night when he left. 

Here is a crab I found one morning. It was probably about 5 inches.
It scared me when I first saw it. How did a crab get up to Boquete?

I realized that I have no pictures on here of our dog, Lula.
So here she is on the couch. So cute!

This is Gail. We really think she knows how to do everything. Here she came
over one day  to a get together and
taught us how to make racotta cheese (delicious).
That same day she also fixed my mom's sowing machine. 

Here is a picture at a get together in our living room.
All but one of the sisters (on the far left in stripes) are still here.
And only four are missing from our congregation now in this picture.

This sign cracks me up. But it is so true. The road its on is CRAZY!
Not only is it that steep but its also curvy and narrow and just plain scary. There's one part
I can't believe is really legal...who am I kidding this is Panama I shouldn't be surprised.
 Thankfully though this isn't a road we take often at all except for for
territory every once in a while or to show visitors. 

Lately they've been working on the highway going from David to Boquete.
If you look down the road in this picture you will see the telephone phones...in the middle of the road.
No joke. We have to dodge them as we go down the highway.
Although no one really knows which side of the road and
 which road to drive on. I'm surprised we haven't seen more accidents. 

Here is an example of the craziness. an outhouse...in the middle of the road.
What good is that going to do? The telephone poles are still in
the middle of the road (don't ask cause we don't know why).
While some parts of the road are finished some still look like this and some are
completely done other then the random telephone poles.
 I think they could make a video game out of this...

Alright so there are my random picture I've been meaning to share. I hope you enjoyed them

Convention

The second weekend of September we had our Convention. It was really nice. We had an abbreviated version so it was only two days. But we enjoyed every moment of the program. I don't have many pictures of it, but I'll share what I have. 

This is the assembly hall. Our attendance was about 500 so we only used the front sections.
 That was all of those in Panama who are in English. It was in Panama City
so some had to travel over 10 hours to attend. 

Mom had a part that involved Brandie and Buffy
(both are sisters in our hall). They did really good. 

Here are some of us sisters. From Left to Right it was Alyvia,  Brandie, Luris (see below),
Buffy, Mom, and me. Then the two little girls in the front are Brandie's. 

This is a really bad picture of a family that came from Boquete. They have been studying
for a while now and I posted a video of Carlos' coffee tour on here before. They have two
adorable little boys. All four of them traveled 7 hours for the assembly. 

And here is the youngest of Brandie's girls sharing her song book with Dillan
 (the oldest boy of the family above). I thought (although its a really bad picture)
they looked so cute I had to share it with you all. 

Pioneer School Pics

Alright so that last post had absolutely no pictures...sorry about that I like pictures too. But I'll try not to have any more without now.
I've told you guys time and time again that I'd put more picture of pioneer school on. So here they are. I know they are about 6 months late but I can't go back now.

 I have pictured Pioneer School since I was very little. And through what my mom and grandma have told me I have gotten pretty excited about it. But it was nothing like I expected, it was better! Way Better! It was hands down the best two weeks of my life. its hard to explain why, other then without realizing it you are on a major spiritual high not only during but afterwards as well. I could tell the first meeting afterwards how much that school had affected me spiritually and mentally. Each night we came home and studied for hours and hours, but how much we learned made it all worth it. That in itself showed me the true importance of personal study. And I can tell now if I slack on my personal study my whole life starts going down hill. So it has motivated me to make a daily schedule. But enough of my talking. Let me allow my pictures speak for me.

This is how we sat. In a U formation. But this is only half of it.
I'm over there in  the green on the right side and my  dad is over on the
very end next to the brother in the blue.

This is one of our teachers. They were very lively which made the
class really fun and they taught in a variety of ways like here he was
demonstrating a point. We had lots of little skits.

Here is our other teacher, who is also our CO. They used the white board a lot.
And I have a feeling a lot of those things on the board don't make much
 sense to you guys. Lets just say he really likes to use acronyms. 

Each day a different congregation fed us (actually being that there aren't many English
congregations most got to feed us twice). But here is the Boquete Group serving lunch.
It was delicious. The two sisters on the far right of the photo are our teacher's wives. 

This is one of the days of service. Many from the local congregation came. 

And here are the two sister's I worked with. They are both serving in Costa Rica.
I really enjoyed them. And we had really good experiences.
Actually I think almost everyone in the school had at least one good experience.

This is one of the couples in the school. They are missionaries in Changinola
(where we originally visited for 3 months). It was a real privilege to have them
 in our class. They gave amazing comments and were really fun. 

This is one of the families in the class. All 7 of them got to be in the school together.
The youngest was only 12. It was really nice having all of them in the class.
How often do you get to go to pioneer school with so many kids?

I wish I could tell you more but there's way too much to tell. Many have asked me what my favorite part was. And there was too many great things. But one real privileged was to be able to be in a class full of need greaters. Going through similar situations we are.
I know that all of you who have been to the pioneer school know about how great of privilege it is, and for those of you who haven't, make it your goal. It is the most amazing experience.

A Crazy Meeting

So I figured I'd supply you with random picture and stories I've been meaning to tell everyone about but I never got around to it for some reason or another. So let's start early...back in May of this year (wow I've really been lacking on blog posts!). We had our CO visit. And I typed up a nice long story for you all about a crazy meeting we had. But I never got a hold of pictures for proof. But I think you'll enjoy the story nonetheless. So here it is...

 I had a talk with Alyvia. Of course I was nervous, having a talk in front of the CO is a nerve wracking thing. So I was trying my best to perfect it so it was worthy. But little did I know that wasn't the half of it.

I bit before the meeting it started pouring. I mean pouring. We got 6 inches of rain in only a few hours! But no big deal we're used to it. This is rainy season. So we get inside, drenched, and the meeting goes along fine, except for the fact we can barely hear the brother's on stage even with the microphones turned way up. Here all the houses and buildings have metal roofs so the sound of those buckets of rain are not muffled out as they pour above us. The drop ceilings help a little bit, but with this rain we might as well have been sitting outside. On top of that there was thunder and lightning constantly. Talk about scary, the lighting was so close to us we could feel the static electricity from it and you know how they say to count the seconds between the lightning and the thunder to figure out how close it is, well this thunder was practically occurring during the lightning. Its ridiculous how close the lightning was gotten to us. Our house has been struck multiple times and even my mom has been hit while sitting near a window. But that's beside the point. The thunder did manage to keep up alert since every time it would hit we'd all jump in our seats.

Then right before my part. While Pete was giving the council point for the number 1 part, the light went out. Pitch black. So we sit there, they usually come back on before too long. But they didn't. Now before I go on I'd like to point something out to those of you who haven't visited. In the states if the lights go out during a meeting what would you do? Well I would think the meeting would have to be canceled. But as we learned the first meeting we were here for (almost 3 years ago) that's not how they do things here. It common enough we just try to come prepared cause there's no stopping us. But with out the microphones its even harder to hear. So Alyvia and I get up on the stage and a brother stands right behind us using one of our two backup lights at the hall. It was blinding, but at least I could see my notes. I was working on the council point of sense stress, of course. Have you ever tried to show sense stress while screaming over the rain? Its not fun. By this time I had completely forgotten about the CO being there. Which is probably best since I was nervous enough. But I made it through. And almost everyone said they could hear me, but I think they were just being nice.

The lights didn't come back on until the middle of the CO's talk. We all moved up to the first two rows so we could hear. A brother held the light behind him so we could see his notes and so we could see him. The poor brother's arms I'm sure were ridiculously tired.

But all's well that ends well. It actually ended up being a very fun meeting. One sister from the states said she kept thinking “They're stop the meeting now” since of course you would have to cancel in the states, but we stuck it out.  The Spanish had obviously been through this before. The next night we went to their service meeting and they had a light bulb with an electric cord running from the top going out and plugging into a car battery, so this way the people in the back of the hall could see. All of which was held up by a hanger. I wish I had a picture to show you all. It was hilarious, but genius at the same time. They also set up the light for the speaker on a table so no brother had to stand up there and hold it. Why didn't we think of that?

After this meeting the the brothers in the English started brainstorming on how to prepare for next time we have to deal with this. Let's just say next time I hope I won't have a part.   

Pioneer School Pictures

I found a couple pictures from pioneer school on my computer. I thought you guys might enjoy them. 

Here dad and I are during lunch. 

And this is Luz and I. We were in the same service group and became good friends over those two weeks. 

The Beach

I know we are water bugs. We've been going to the beach too. There are two main ones we visit. Las Olas (the waves) is the closer beach, only about an hour away. But the waves are stronger there. We saw surfers last time (I'll try to get a hold of some of the pictures we took of them). Las Lajas is the other beach. Its so big. You can walk for miles and never see the end of it. Plus its practically empty. We get our own private beach. And the wave are gentler, so Cooper and Kaia can enjoy the swimming. We went this past Friday. Here are some of the pictures.

Here us girls are in the water. The temperature was perfect, we  never wanted to get out. From left to right: Whitney, Kaia, Brandie, Me, Jolene, Alyvia (in front of Jolene), Mom, Cooper, and Jane (holding Coop). 

And here we are right after we got done eating. Working on our tans. We got there around 11 and stayed until around 5 so we got plenty of sun exposure. 

Carla alked the beach practically the whole time. She found some amazing shells, and check out that sand dollar! 

Some played Frisbee.

Here is a crab they found. There were a ton, but every time we got near they'd run in their holes. 

Here Adam and Justin are trying to get pipas down from the near by palm trees. They got quite a few. 

Here Alyvia has one. 

And Jolene. That's Dave by the way. He's Carla's husband, but I don't think we have any pictures of her today. 

And here Brandie and I are tanning. 

 I hope you guys enjoyed the pictures. We really had a great time. We'd love to hear from you all. Miss you, Aribey

The River

I thought you guys might enjoy these. I plan on back-tracking and putting some old posts on from June and July, but I have to get the photos first. But I do have these. 

We have been going to the river a lot lately. It's in a town called Gualaca. On both sides of the river there are rock  ledges you can jump off of. Here are some pictures from our latest venture. 

The water is actually really deep, but there is one rock to get out on. 

Here we are jumping in. It's SO FUN!! Even the two girls (ages 5 and 7) jumped in.  There are higher spots too to jump in at, this is one of the shorter ones. 

Here are some of the Panamanians that were jumping in. There were about 8 of them that  would dive in , in a row one right after another. It was impressive but we were all so nervous for them. 

It was really fun. We are all addicted now. We constantly want to go back.

Pioneer School

I know this is late, but we've been really busy (I know I say that every time). I'm gonna try to catch up starting with June. We went to Pioneer School during the first two weeks. Here's a summery I'll post a few more pictures later. 

Pioneer School was amazing. Even better than I expected. We had 29 in our class- 11 sisters and 18 brothers. It was really nice since it was a school filled with need greater. Everyone in our class had come from somewhere else to help where there was a need, in this case either Panama or Costa Rica. Except for a couple who also were helping where the need was greater by serving in the foreign language field of English. The class took place in David (about 30 minutes down the hill). We thought it was going to be Panama City, but when they decided to double us up with Costa Rica David was a more central location. Which worked out well for us- we got to stay at home and study in the cool air of Boquete. The only disadvantage of having it in David is the heat. We were dying. There's only one hall in Panama (that I know of) that has air conditioning. And we were not in that hall. So that was a bit difficult. But during the class when we were sitting around concentrating we didn't feel as hot.

Our teacher were great they were both funny and kept the class lively. We sat in a U shaped formation with tables so we could all see each other and still not have to have our books in our lap. I will try to get together some pictures of the class to show you all.  

Carlos Coffee Tour

Here is a video of a Bible Student, Carlos, that is coming to the meetings. I will post more picture of the whole family later. But here is a recording of one of his coffee tours. You can definitely tell he believes in his coffee. I hope you enjoy it.

Preaching in Potrerillos

I know this post is a  little over do. But I'm going to make up for that by putting a big, long post for you all.

The last couple weeks we have been going out to an area about 30 minutes away to preach, called Potrerillos. It's an area that has never even been mapped before and although there is a Spanish congregation out there the English have not touched it yet. So we have been mapping and censusing the area.  We have made some long days of it and it has been very fun. And although it is quite a bit warmer than here in Boquete we've dealt with it since we've had such great times and since the territory has been so productive. The group that we went with the first two times consisted of myself, a sister who just moved here from Florida (Gail), a sister who is visiting for four months (Darlene), and a friend of her's who is visiting for a month (Tori). Our group was very adventurous and had such a great time the first day we decided to make a long day out of it and go the next day as well. Although we didn't get great return visits until the third day down there we still had a blast.

Here we go! Day 1- We get to the territory with paper, pencils, and the GPS completely service-minded. But then we ran across a lady who had an abundance of fruit trees in her yard and who decided to be very giving. She gave us these disgusting round palm fruits all ground up in a bag. That looked like tiny coconuts about the size of a golf ball, but tasted more like the golf ball. Here Tori is showing us the bag of "fuzzy cardboard" as Gail called it.

But she made up for it by also supplying us with tomatoes grown fresh. Then we were hooked we looked for any trees to pull fruit off of. Our next discovery? Oranges. Here we are trying to pick them from a tree on the side of a road.

Gail and Tori Collecting Oranges

And Me

Don't worry after we got our orange fix we preached to people on that road. We aren't complete duds.
On our way home Tori's great eyes spotted a cashew tree on the side of the road. Cashews are not grown as you would expect. Each cashew fruit has a single cashew hanging from it.

The fruit looks like this, but it can also be red.

Gail and I picking the ripe fruit

Here Gail is collecting more cashews and Tori is trying the fruit, it wasn't exactly something to write home about. It tased kind of like fruity chalk. But we took them home non-the-less for Gail to make juice from the fruit and to attempt to roast the cashews.

And that ends Day 1. Then we all decided to celebrate the end of a great day with a 40 cent neapolitan flavored icecream. Which for some reason seems to taste so much better than the neapolitan in the States.

Potrerillos Take 2.

The next day we came back prepared with a machete, lunch, a broom stick (I'll explain later), swim suits (just in case), and plenty of water. And away we went to find English speaking people and collect as much fruit as we could find.

First came the bamboo. And the machete came in handy since it was about 40 feet long.

Here Tori is trying to machete the bamboo in half.
Let's just say when she was done the bamboo was still about 40 feet long. 

Then Gail took the machete and because of years of chopping wood for her wood stove
 she was able to cut the bamboo into pieces that could just barely fit in the car.

And here we are being so spiritual.
That is Gail and Darlene leaving a tract with a sweet old lady in the territory. 

After finishing that street we had some lunch. We all brought little bits and shared. Then we decided to head home it was about 1 o'clock or something like that. We were planning on staying longer, but we were all very hot and Tori had a rash from something (were still not sure from what) from the day before. So after a few more houses we headed back for the adventurous ride home. Of course we continued to check for fruit on the side of the road. First we found some noni fruit. They taste  disgusting so people typically make juice out of it. But they are supposedly super-duper good for you. I didn't get any pictures of us picking them but here is one of them that Gail froze.

We had to hurry and take the picture since it smells so bad.

Then we pulled over at a lady's house since we saw these crazy looking things hanging from a tree in her yard. I know we looked like crazy tourists, but she was really nice.


Here is the things we pulled over to ask about. They ended up being just a seed pod nothing exciting and edible.

The lady then offered for us to take some of her cashew fruits home so we got a whole other bag full of them. Needless to say we now have plenty of cashew fruit and nuts.

Finally we found some pipas in a tree by the road that were calling our names. Just in case you were wondering a pipa is a young coconut, they are either green or yellow on the outside and we get them more for their juice than their flesh. Their flesh is very soft and sometimes jello-y.

So here we go trying to pick the pipas. If we didn't look ridiculous to onlookers before, now we really looked nuts.

Pipa Retrieval Plan A- Tori Climbing the Tree

She didn't make it much further off the ground.
Word to the wise- don't try to climb a palm tree in a dress.

Pipa Retrieval Plan B- Gail Shaking the branch

We actually did get a pipa down this way. 

Here we are eating it. Did I forget to mention that we also brought
straws for each of us for this exact purpose? The machete came in handy again too.

But then the branch she was shaking fell off- crushed hopes and spirits. I know we're greedy. But we did not despair long. Instead we kept brainstorming.

Pipa Retrieval Plan C- This is where the broom stick come in. Thanks to the fact that Gail had a handy dandy wrench with her, we were able to connect the broom stick we brought with us and the bamboo we picked earlier together to create a pipa-picking device.

Here it is close up.

.

And here Gail is using it. It was a genius plan and since
Gail is super tall she was able to reach the pipas with is,
but those stinkers held on for dear life. So we didn't get any more pipas. 

But on the way home we made up for that by stopping and getting 6 or 7 mangos off the side of the road.

So there you have it. Our many adventures preaching in Potrerillos. I will try to keep up with more frequent blog posts from now on. I may not be able to over the next couple weeks, since next week is our CO visit and the two weeks after that my dad and I go to pioneer school. (I'm so excited). But this incredibly long post should tide you over until then. Well miss you all! -Aribey





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