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.