Cambios

Hello family,

So its been a big, long, uphill week and I loved it!

We found out changes on monday night and I am in...Arraijan!  Which is perfect and exactly what I wanted:)   It is a lot like Chorrera- close to the city without being in the city and I am with Hna Erickson who was in the MTC with me and we came on the plane to Panama together and so far it has been a blast!

So on Tuesday I packed up all my stuff, said some goodbyes and got on a little bus to come the 20 minutes from Chorrera to Arraijan.   I was sitting by myself in a bus in panama without a phone going to a place I had never been before and i thought to myself  this is so strange and maybe I should be nervous  but I wasnt.  So I got off at the Xtra grocery store stop and sat at the bus stop and waited for my comp to come get me....and I waited....and waited....and then it started to get dark so I started asking people to use their cell phones but nobody in panama has saldo to call anyone so I waited and then finally after about 2 hours I lugged my huge suitcases to the nearest chino and the very nice chinos let me use their phone.  Turns out there are 2 Xtras and I was waiting at the wrong one...oopps!

Other then that our week went pretty smoothly!  Arraijan has more hills than Chorrera which I didnt think was possible but it totally is.  Also my comp is an awesome marathon runner and all of her other comps couldnt run because of health issues so Im the first and we have gone running every day this week.  On every single one of our runs one of us has fallen and eaten it hard cause we are basically trail running up giant hills!  the good news is I might just fit into my nice pencil skirt for the next zone meeting!

 We actually had a baptism yesterday which was weird because the first time I met her was at her baptism but she is a really cute 14 year old girl.  The members and the leaders are super strong in this ward which is what we need and the work is being hastened, I just hope we can keep up the pace!

awkward moment of the week-  we were gong to contact someone they had already talked to and they let us in and we were just starting the lesson and it was going really well and then all of a sudden the lady just starts throwing up.  what are we supposed to do?  do we wait , do we keep teaching the people who arent barfing?  and then the daughter started telling us how uncomfortable it was that we were there...uh ok but you invited us in so what do we do....so we said a super fast prayer and got out and they didnt invite us back.

We are kind of starting over with investigators so it was a lot of contacting and a lot of first lessons....some positive, some not so positive but I am looking forward to finding the people the Lord has prepared for us here in Burunga, Arraijan!  It is going to be a very fun transfer!

love,  

Hna Smith