"Fra-gee-lay"

Hello my dear beautiful family,

First, let me apologize for not sending out a mass email on Monday. We had transfers last week and the assistants decided not to let us use the Internet until Thursday, which was kind of a bummer. But don't feel too bad for me because right now I'm writing to you all from the mission home where Hermana Bloomfield (we didn't have transfers--begged president to let us stay together and he buckled :)) and I spent the night so that we could be here for p-day to help Sister Ward decorate for Christmas. Yes, it does pay to be the closest sisters to the mission home. However, I almost didn't sleep last night because I was so excited about having AC, a comforter and a hot shower to look forward to in the morning. Sister Ward also had us do a P90X workout with her this morning and it was intense. I'll be feeling that one in the legs tomorrow! Right now I can hear Sister Ward listening to some MoTab Christmas music while she's sorting out various boxes of decorations she discovered. We helped set up the fake Christmas tree and I can tell you all that I felt a slight pang in my little corazon when I thought about the REAL pinion pine that would be spending Christmas without me this year at home. Ah well...it's just one Christmas!

Last night I got to watch the First Presidency Christmas Devotional, which I'm assuming that many of you didn't see because of the Taylor family Christmas party (though I'm guessing only Mom and Dad were around for that one...). I quite enjoyed that and it's the closest I'll come to a MoTab Christmas concert this year, so I lived it up. I still can't get over the fact that you're all wading around in snow while we're just getting into "springtime" here. Odd.

Teaching-wise, I don't have too much to report. The Aguirre family whom we love so much didn't come to church yesterday which just about broke our hearts, but we're still trying to see what we can do with them. Hermana Bloomfield and I, being former soccer players, played against Camilo and his boys with Monica last week and I was surprised at how much I missed soccer! And it was pretty cool beating a professional soccer player :) (that's right--we won!)
We love them so much. They're just having a hard time letting go of the Catholic traditions...keep praying for them.

We did have an amazing testimony meeting yesterday with our ward. I think about 90% of the congregation was in tears. I try not to miss you all too much here (thankfully the work keeps me plenty busy and I don't have to ever worry about that) but every once in a while you all come flooding to the mind like some giant tidal wave I've been repressing and the tears start to trickle a little. I think that's what happened yesterday when one of our cute families in the ward all got up and bore their testimonies together (that's what people do here). The oldest boy who is about 13 starting talking about how grateful he was for his family to up there all together and he started choking up. That's when the tears hit everyone, I think. Hermana Bloomfield and I were no exception. So anyway...I guess I love you all :). I'm not pining for home or anything, don't worry, but I do miss ya. Thanks for the prayers. Do some fun Christmas stuff and send me some pictures.

Les quiero mucho,

Hna. Brewster

THANKSGIVIIIIIINNNNNNGGGG!!!

My dear family,

WOW. This week was truly the week of miracles here in good ol´ Marcasa. First and foremost, GABRIEL GOT BAPTIZED! It was a really beautiful service this weekend. We combined his baptism with one of the Elders´ because our font is being remodeled and for me, it couldn´t have been more perfect. President and Sister Ward surprised us by showing up and we all had a traditional Panamanian arroz con pollo lunch with brownies made by Hermana Bloomfield and me (the pictures, of which, I believe are being posted on the mission blog as we speak...). Hermana Bloomfield, Elder Savio, Elder Gretsch and I sang ¨Señor, yo te seguiré¨ (Lord, I would follow thee) as a special musical number (and it was pretty special...seeing as we didn´t get to practice all together beforehand...). Gabriel bore a beautiful testimony afterwards and we were so proud of him. This decision has been a long time in the making. And yesterday he was confirmed a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. What a blessing to witness that.

And now for the other miracle of the week: CAMILA AND MONICA´S FAMILY CAME TO CHURCH!!! I wrote to you all last week about how much we loved this little Colombian family and how Camilo is a professional soccer player (we found out he´s the star of the team--see if you can find anything about Sporting San Miguelito on the Internet). They had told us that they would be able to come to church with us on Sunday if Camilo´s team won their big game this Friday. Since the beginning of our missions, there has been nothing Hermana Bloomfield and I have wanted more than to have a family come to sacrament meeting (and eventually get baptized, of course). Well, in district meeting this past week, our district made a ¨vow¨ with the Lord: if we get at least 20 lessons and 140 contacts each week for the rest of the year, He´ll bless us with a family to baptize. I can honestly say that I have never worked harder than I did last week to ensure that we made our goal. As part of our determination to get Camilo and Monica to come to church, we decided to fast and pray for them to be able to win their soccer game so that they could come. Yes, I know it might sound odd fasting and praying for a soccer game, but what we really wanted more than anything was for them to come to church and for their family to be supported through the rest of the year. Camilo actually asked us if we´d pray for his team because if they lost and got kicked out of the playoffs, they would be out of work for the Christmas season. Of course we didn´t want that to happen, so we promised him we´d be praying for him. We thought about asking President for permission to go watch the game but unfortunately it didn´t start until 9:30 on Friday night, so that was out. We did however get the chance to stop by while he was warming up to wish him good luck. It was really hard to sleep that night. I remember as I was going to bed thinking that it really didn´t matter if they won their game or not; we´d done our part and the Lord would provide. We were fasting and praying that they would be able to come to church and that their family would be blessed. If winning a soccer game didn´t do it, there´d be another way.

On Saturday morning we got a phone call from Monica. They lost the soccer game. HOWEVER...our small moment of saddness was quickly ebbed when they told us, ¨Well, we´re going to come to church with you anyway.¨ I can´t tell you how absolutely elated we were when we picked up Camilo, Monica and their sons Mateo and Juan Jose for church yesterday morning. I couldn´t contain the grins when we walked into sacrament meeting and all the members just stared at this beautiful family filing into the pew with us. Immediately after sacrament meeting the members came up to introduce themselves, invite the kids to primary and ask Camilo for soccer tips :). It was a happy moment. They ended up sticking it out through the whole 3-hour block and seemed to really enjoy it. (All except the whole crowded room in Panama with limited fans thing, which no one enjoys.)
We stopped by their house again last night to make sure they hadn´t been too overwhelmed and they assured us that it was a good experience. And they absolutley love us :) (p.s. Angie, you have to accept Monica as my friend on Facebook.)

The even better news is that we have an appointment tonight with Camilo´s teammate Mario and his family. Camilo had been talking to him about our lessons with them and took us over to their apartment last week (that´s right--he´s already giving us REFERENCES). Tonight is the follow up appointment and we are pumped to have another family. We joked that we´re going to end up baptizing a professional soccer team :) I don´t see why not... We just pray that they can continue to grow and progress in their knowledge and study of the gospel. After seeing the blessings of it in our own lives, it´s hard to keep it from others whom we love so much. And we are in love with this family, let me tell you. Pray for them!

So there you have it. Just a little taste of the amazing things we´ve been able to experience this past week, which comes right in time for Thanksgiving. Just so you all know, I could not be more thankful for each one of you. For your prayers, your thoughts, your letters and everything you do. I´ll miss the Thanksgiving table banter this year but next year we´ll just have more material :).

I love you all and HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

love,
Sister Brewster

I'm at 9 MONTHS!! (on the mission)

Helloooooooo!
This was a great week, family. Great week. Did you know that missionary work could be FUN as well as spiritual and informative? Well it can. Our goal for this week was ¨hacer algo diferente¨ in each lesson so we wouldn´t get bored (and neither would the investigators). One thing we decided to do was use the hymns to teach about the Restoration. Since a lot of people ¨don´t have time¨ to listen, we did what I like to call ¨hymn caroling¨ where we´d introduce ourselves and just ask to sing a hymn about our message that we had. We sang Oh esta todo bien (come come ye saints) for a crotchety old catholic lady outside of her house who in the end said she´d be Catholic till the day she died, but when we went next door, her neighboor told us that she heard us singing and wanted us to sing for her because it carried over to her house ¨like magic.¨ Knowing we´re not the best singers in the world, that was a cool experience for me because it taught me that we´re really not the only ones singing and teaching people. We´ve got some unseen support.

This past week was just packed with great things: we went to the Canal at last, we had zone conference with visiting general authority Elder Falavela (don´t know how to spell his name, I admit) and President and Hermana Ward surprised us by showing up Friday night to interview our baptismal candidate, Presbitero. Afterward they treated us to ice cream at Dairy Queen :) (yes, I am spoiled. I won´t even try to deny it.)

I do have some sad news, though. Hna. Calderon is going to be transferred to a different area this Wednesday (we´re already at the end of the transfer. holy cow.) which is a shame because she´s really grown on me. I think when I send pictures and relate the stories to you all some day, you´ll understand. She´s a special little thing and I´ll miss her. But I´m sure my next companion will be awesome.
Things are going great here. We´re finding families and people who really seem to be receptive to the message of the gospel, so keep praying that they progress.
I love you all and thank you for your prayers, letters, thoughts and packages that are always sent my way. Couldn´t be more grateful for my family.

hasta la proxima,
Hna. Brewster

"You are the most beautiful Elder I have ever seen..."

Hey Family!

I´ve got some big news: guess who´s now companions with a GRINGA? Me! We had changes last week and my new comp is Sister Bloomfield who´s most recently from Texas (family moves around a lot--like Pessettos). She´s awesome and I can´t tell you how fun it´s been being with somebody who appreciates sarcasm and certain food cravings :). The funny thing is that she is white blond, absolutely gorgeous and we can´t go anywhere without someonewhistling or often times proposing. The subject line was something someone told her recently. The funny thing is that people think I´M the Latina now and will direct their comments toward me in the lessons even though Hna. Bloomfield´s been out much longer and speaks Spanish better. It´s been fun, itreally has. She´s a great missionary--and we have plans to celebrate Halloween, Thanksgiving and (possibly) Christmas, if we´re still comps by then. SCORE.

We had a baptism this weekend in Marcasa. Did I ever tell you about Presbitero? He´s a special guy. We had contacted him in our apartment building a month ago and we´ve been teaching him for about a month. I can´t really explain about him right now but he and his family definitely hold a special place in our hearts. His whole family showed up dressed in their Sunday best to his baptism (we´re trying to teach them too...just got to find them all at home one day).

We also had to speak yesterday, which for me was about the 9th time or something. It´s gotten to the point where I just get up there and talk. Didn´t think I´d ever be one to do that but I guess you get used to it after a while. Maybe I just have more confidence in my Spanish talks than my English ones. Idunno.
There are some great investigators that we´re teaching rightnow and I have afeeling that November will be a great month. Keep praying for the missionaries.
Thanks for the prayers and all the love. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Love,
Sister Brewster

Gabriel

Dear Mom, Dad, Angie, Caden, Ben, Hilary, Ella, Ethan, Ryan, Natalie, Annie, Logan, Dave, Katie, Sam and Taylor--
(Just to prove I´m thinking of ALL of you)

How´re things back in the homeland? I regret to inform the Campbells, Brewsters and Angie that the Demcak children are now officially the cutest kids in the family, seeing as none of you sent me the Halloween pictures of your kids except for them. I´d love to have you all prove me wrong.

Anywho...I have some good news to tell you all: we have a baptismal date for one of our investigators, a man named Gabriel. I´ll tell you why I´m so excited about this one. Gabriel has been one of the most interesting and yet hardest people I´ve had to teach. About 2 months ago, he ran into Hna. Calderon and me in the street and exclaimed, ``Elders!`` And very excitedly invited us to his house. We came to find out that he had not one, not two, but THREE copies of the Book of Mormon in his house, each of them marked from previous lessons with missionaries. He had even had a baptismal date and everything but at the last minute decided it wasn´t for him. Apparently, back in his day, he was what he calls a ``hippie`` full of free-thinking/crazy ideas about life. This has made it difficult for him to accept the gospel, I think, because we preach about how we need to harness desires and trust in the Lord for everything instead of just living as one pleases. He had told us that he didn´t think he´d ever felt the Spirit before but we explained to him how the spirit manifests itself---the quiet confirmation of truth that someone feels in their heart as opposed to a loud, shouting voice that shakes the soul. A light came into his eyes after we told him that and ever since then he´s been coming to church on his own, studying his scriptures every day. He really WANTS to learn. At times he´s got some crazy notions and questions (which makes Sunday School quite interesting) but he truly has a growing testimony. Yesterday, our Sunday School teacher was talking about Sabbath day observance and asked questions like, îs it better to go to church or go to the beach? To which Gabriel would reply, ``Church, of course! You can´t compare anything to church!`` That made Sister Bloomfield and me pretty proud :). Anyway, I´ve got a lot I could tell you about Gabriel that I´ll save for a later date...for now just pray that he´ll keep his baptismal date for the 21st of November!

We´ve got a lot of young families that we`re finding, too, so thankfully we´re keeping pretty busy. I just love seeing people ``get`` the gospel--sometimes I feel like I don´t have the words to explain why I know these things are true. I just know it. It makes sense. It´s TRUTH. Indisputable.
I hope you all know that I really am grateful for all of you and I pray for you daily. I hope you´re all happy and doing well!

Les quiero mucho,
Hna. Brewster
p.s. Sister Ward is letting us use her CROCKPOT--life is so good right now.
p.p.s. Send recipes.

Bloomfield and Brewster...Now I'M the one with the easy last name

Happy Halloween, Fam!

Just so you know, Hna. Bloomfield and I did celebrate. We made macaroni and cheese (because it´s orange) and then cooked devil´s food cake mix cookies in a frying pan (a trick I learned from Hna. Graham. I´ll show you how it´s done some day. A real art.) Anyway, you all need to send me photos of the nieces and nephews! Katies the only one who´s showed off her kids and right now they´re the cutest...unless the rest of you want to prove me wrong.

This was a pretty slow week but really, when you´ve got a blond companion, every day is rather entertaining. We get a lot of attention. Funny thing is that we´ve had several people ask us if we´re related because we ¨look a lot alike.¨ Hmm. Not sure how that works. Must be the accent. Or the name tags. Who knows. I have pictures of hna. Bloomfield on the disc I sent to mom and Dad, so ask them to share it.
Happy November!

Thank you for the prayers as always and I promise next week will be more interesting. It´s the fiesta patrias this week in Panama (like 4th of july) so I´ll have much to report.

Keep praying for the work.

love you all,
Hna. Brewster

Me encanta ver al templo

Guess who just got back from the temple? ME! And oh what a beautiful session it was! It was funny--I sat in the same chair I sat in 6 months ago when I went with my first zone and it was the strangest feeling of deja vous...I can{t believe everything that´s happened since then and how far I´ve come (or hope I´ve come) as a missionary. I´m definitely a lot more at ease now than I was then. I just love the temple. I love it. You all have to come visit Panama someday and we´ll do a session together here because the Panama temple truly is gorgeous inside and out. After this we´re going to the Canal as a zone, so I´ll finally be able to see what the big deal is all about :) And I promise to take pictures with my new CAMERA that Mom and Dad sent me (thank you!!!). I was afraid it wasn{t going to get here but I asked Elder Savio (the mail secretary) to keep an eye out for it. Plus I think it helped that Angie plastered the box with pictures of Jesus. Good going, Ang ;). Speaking of packages, I have things I want to send to all of you but I{m thinking the best option is to send a family package for Christmas when you{re all there. Anyone opposed?

I am really loving my area. Hna. Calderon{s just 6 weeks away from going home but she{s a trooper and is still going strong. We´ve got a baptism scheduled for next week and hopefully more on the way with some investigators that we´ve found in recent weeks. Things are plugging along! We brought 3 investigators to church with us this Sunday which is pretty impressive for these parts. This was definitely a good week.

Thank you all for your constant prayers and little lines you drop me every once in a blue moon. I love hearing from you all.
Read your scriptures. Say your prayers. Be good. Hermana Brewster loves you :).

love,
HB

Ya estamos en OCTUBRE

Well hello my dear ¨family¨!

Let me explain the quotations: I had a funny little experience this past week when we were teaching one of our investigators named Jessica. She´s a really inquisitive, somewhat skeptical person with a whole bunch of questions about the church. That´s actually what I prefer--someone with genuine interest. Anyway, we were teaching her the plan of salvation and I pulled out the picture of the family that we took the day I went to the temple and I told her all about how happy and grateful I was that I was sealed to you all for eternity. I thought she´d be touched by that but instead her response was to stare incredulously at the picture, narrow her eyes and say, ¨Why do none of them look like you? You´re so much darker than the rest.¨ I guess when she saw all the blond, blue-eyed people, she didn´t believe they were my relatives. I assured her that YES, that was ME in the picture and YES, that was MY family. She didn´t believe me. In fact, she looked at me as if to say, Everything you have just taught me has been invalidated because of this fabricated story you´ve weaved about this so-called family of yours. If it weren´t for the presence of Ben in the picture, I don´t think I would´ve been able to convince her. Guess I won´t be showing the fam picture in any more lessons! That sure backfired.

I hope you all thoroughly enjoyed Conference. I remember when I was a kid, Conference seemed like it lasted FOREVER. Now it flies by. I don´t even feel like we had conference this weekend. It definitely pays to be in the city, though, because I had the privilege of sitting next to Sister Ward during the all of the sessions. It´s broadcast by satellite in all of the chapels and there are three languages in our chapel: Spanish, English and Kuna (the Indian language here). We were in the English room, except for the Sunday morning session when the satellite went out and we had to watch it in Spanish via Internet. I understand it just fine but it feels weird hearing a voiceover in Spanish of all the apostles. I´m pretty sure there were some jokes that were lost in translation. Pres. Monson would suddenly bust up laughing and I had no idea why. The translator had a difficult time.

Anywho, I loved Conference. I love that Pres. Monson right off the bat talked about the importance of missionary work. I think my two favorite talks were President Monson´s talk about gratitude and Pres. Uchtdorf´s talk on simplicity, though truthfully I enjoyed them all. I´m so grateful for the counsel and advice of the Lord´s chosen servants in these days. These men are truly inspired. I hope you all review the talks with your families.

Things in the city are going well. Little Hna. Calderon is awesome and she just cracks me up with some of the things she does. All of my companions have been so different from each other but she is truly special. I´ve got plenty of stories to tell you all someday :).

As Dad pointed out to me, I am already halfway through the mission and so begins the downward climb...doesn´t feel like it, though. Even though it´s the hardest thing I´ve ever done, I really am grateful to be here and I love the people--however crazy, drunk, or weird they may be at times. Panama´s a special place.
Next week you won´t be hearing from me on Monday because we´re going to the TEMPLE on Tuesday! Woo hoo! So expect a letter then (don´t have a heart attack, Mom).

Love you all and happy October!
Hna. Brewster

Chasing Dogs and Going to Costco

Hey Family!

Let me just say right now that you are all awesome. I got several birthday packages this week that reaffirmed your love for me, so I thank you for that :). Really, packages make a missionary´s day, so thank you all for your kindness and generosity. I´ll remember that come Christmas time :).

This week was AWESOME. We had a 3-day leadership conference in Panama with all of the ZL´s, DL´s and hermanas (because president always includes us) where we got to receive some specific training on how to improve our lessons and just be better missionaries over all. (This came straight from the First Presidency, so we know it was inspired.) It was great--we really focused on teaching PEOPLE, not lessons and I know that our lessons this week have been a lot better and more meaningful because of that. I always find that the lessons go better when I´m just myself and I talk normally and openly with people instead of going into missionary/presentation mode. The Spanish comes easier, too.

All right...the subject of the day refers to some fun things that happened this week. I discovered a new way to get lessons with people: offer to chase their dog for them when they run out in the street. The thing about being in the city is that people are a lot harder to talk to and rejection is more frequent. We have to look for any opportunity we can to have people let us into their homes. Well, while we were tracting in an area right here in the city and a lady´s dog ran out of the gate when we walked up to greet her. I told my companion that I was sure we could get a lesson with her if I got her dog. So I took off running down the street after this pup yelling ¨Come here, puppy! C´mon!¨ Then it occured to me that the dog probably didn´t understand. So I started to yell ¨¡Venga aca, perro!¨ Funnily enough, that worked. When her dog was safely secured in the gate, the lady said she´d listen to us. That was fun.

The other thing was that we got to go shopping with President and Hna. Ward last week. They were going to accompany us on one of our lessons but because of scheduling conflicts, somehow we ended up just going grocery shopping with them in a place called Pricesmart (I guess it´s like another Costco...). Don´t ask me how that happened, but I´m not complaining! It was fun. Kind of felt like I was shopping with Mom and Dad in Costco...
Shoot. I´m out of time.

Enjoy Conference! Take good notes. It´s revelation.

love you all,
Hna. Brewster

Tengo 22 anos

Hey family!

Thank you all so much for the kind birthday wishes and letters that you sent my way! I actually haven´t received anything through the mail yet, but I did get several kind letters via email, so thank you all so much for remembering my day of birth :).

The birthday was definitely a memorable one. It fell on a Sunday, so there wasn´t much I could do. But I did wake up early to make chocolate chip pancakes and several friends from the mission called to wish me a Feliz Cumpleaños. A sweet old sister from David named Hna. Flory called me at 6:30 on the dot to be the first to sing Happy Birthday to me. She´s such a sweetheart. I also heard from a lot of other mission buddies and my two companions both gave me a hug and said Happy Birthday, so that was...special :).

I bought myself my favorite brand of ice cream on Saturday to have on Sunday night, so don´t worry. I lived it up well :).
I´m going to have to give you all better details next week--not because I´m short on time or anything, but because I´m old now and the screen hurts my eyes. You understand.

Love you all and thank you so much!!

love,
Hna. Brewster

And the new area is...

¡Alla la vida, familia, las sorpresas suigen!

I´m writing to you all from my new area: PANAMA. I´m right here in the heart of the city, the benefit of which is that we get to come to this fancy mall every week to use computers and shop and do all sorts of touristy things because we´re in the city. The perks are good in that respect. I´ll be sending you pictures of the canal soon, I´m sure.

My new companion is Hermana Calderon from Peru but right now we are in a trio with Hermana Zamora from Honduras. She´s only with us for a week before she leaves to go open up another area with my good buddy Hermana Kennedy. I tell you this mission life is LOCO. One minute I´m clear on the other side of the country and the next thing I know I´m back where I started. But I´m really happy to be here. I´ve worked with Hna. Calderon and Hna. Zamora before and they´re both great. The only thing is that I think I´m going to have some severe back problems in this transfer because little Hna. Calderon is about half my size and I have to consistently bend in half to hear what she´s saying. It´s quite a comic sight.

I do miss my dear old David, though. Since we´re so far away from the rest of the world, we receive the news of our transfers a day before everyone else so that we can get on the 8 hour bus for the city the day before transfers. This means we get the privilege of sleeping in the mission home for one night. Wow...let me just say two words: HOT SHOWER. I almost died from joy and I think I even sang God Be With You Till We Meet Again at the end of it. We also got to go running on the beach on the morning of transfers. President Ward gave us permission to skip our studies for the day and just go out and explore a bit. I love President. It was so strange to be back in the mission home and remember my first night there about 6 months ago. I felt like a new missionary again in some ways. Crazy to think about everything that´s happened in between...

So this weekend we had a baptism. His name is Carlos Wilson (not very Panamanian, I know) and he´s been investigating the church for a long time. His wife is a member, so now their family´s united in the gospel. Even though I wasn´t the missionary that taught him, it was a neat experience to be a part of that. People say the city´s hard but I know there are people here who are ready and willing to listen, so we´re going to find them.

Yesterday I had the unique experience of translating for a Haitian missionary who came to sacrament meeting. Apparently our bishop had invited her but her Spanish was only so-so, so he asked me help her out. That was pretty neat, but hard at the same time to go from Spanish-English, English-Spanish. It was a good brain twister. She was a sweet lady. She moved here from Haiti to preach the word of God, she told me. I respect her for that.

My head´s still spinning a bit from all that´s happened in this week, but such is the mission life. Don´t slow down, don´t stop. Say good-bye and keep going.
I love you all very much and am still very grateful for your prayers and thoughts.
till the next letter!

love,
Hna. Brewster

Tarantulas in the shower and other things

(letter from September 6)
¡Bueeeeeeenos Dias, Familia!

I hope you all are enjoying your Labor Day weekend (I´m assuming that´s still today, unless I miss my guess.) I just want to say quickly: Happy 34th Angie and Happy 36 years of marital bliss to los padres! Big weekend for the fam.

So as far as things here go, yes, as the subject line states, one of the biggest adventures of the past week was encountering a tarantula in the shower a few nights ago. To my credit, I did not scream. I did, however, dart quickly out of the bathroom and to my companion, who was on the phone, I made the internationl ´there´s-a-giant-man-eating-spider-in-our-shower sign. Bless her fearless heart, she goes in there with a shoe, I hear WHACK-WHACK-WHACK and she says, ¨Muerto.¨ That almost put me off showers for life here, but not quite. In fact, I actually cleaned out the shower after that and removed the dead spider by myself. This, to me, was a major turning point in my life. Thus I dedicated an entire paragraph to the experience. I hope you´re all impressed. I won´t be waking you up in the middle of the night to come kill a spider in my room anymore, Dad. I think I´ve finally overcome my fear. Now I know why the Lord sent me to Panama :). It´s a symbolic thing, really. We need to overcome the ¨tarantulas¨of life. Mine just happen to be real tarantulas. (¨For some, speaking in public might be our El Guapo...for us, El Guapo is a big ugly guy who wants to kill us...¨ I had to throw that in there.)

Anywho, back to mission-related stuff...this week was the last of our transfer. I can´t believe I´ve already completed 12 weeks here in good ol´David. I don´t know if they´ll send me to a new area or not, but I did find out that I will have a new companion. Whether that means I stay or go, I´m not sure, but changes are definitely going to happen. I would love to stay, in all honesty. I love the area here and the ward members really do feel like family to me.

Speaking of the ward members, one of the girls in our ward, Vivianna, is leaving for her mission to Ecuador in two weeks and this past weekend they had a ¨Maleta Abierta¨for her--a sort of farewell party where people bring things to fill the suitcase of outgoing missionaries. There are songs, cake and comments from friends and family. It´s fun. Since Vivianna´s been a good friend of ours and helped us go out to teach a lot, we did a special musical number together called ¨Cuando Regrese con Honor¨ (it´s actually a Jance Kapp Perry song that´s been translated in Spanish). The thing I love about singing here in Central America is that it doesn´t matter how well you sing, it only matters how LOUDLY you sing. Every Sunday is a lot of fun for me :). Sometimes I have to listen to cds of MoTab to remind myself how the hymns really go...

The good news is that I finally made a cd of all the pictures I have so far, which I´ll be sending to Mom and Dad and they can then share them with yáll. There aren´t too many but that´s because my camera´s memory´s not so great. I´m looking for a new one.

Anyway...yesterday we had 7 investigators show up out of the blue to church. This always happens on my last Sunday of the transfer. Not sure why. We´ve got plenty of work to do here, so here´s hoping I get another 6 weeks to do it in dear little David. If not, well, there´s work in other areas too. Venga lo que venga, voy a disfrutarlo.

Les quiero mucho,
Hna. Brewster

Doo wah diddy?

(late post from August 30)

Hola mi querida familia,

I´m trying that thing where I write to you all BEFORE I read the other emails so that you all get a fair share of what´s going on in the life of Sister Brewster and it´s not just two paragraphs of apologies for lack of time. !Está bien!

So the subject line for this letter comes from the fact that yesterday while we were eating at one of our member´s house, they showed me a book they have to learn English. There were two songs in the entire book that supposedly helped Spanish speakers learn English more easily: ¨California Dreamin´¨ from the Mamas and the Papas (I was so excited when I saw that) and ¨¨Doo Wah Diddy.¨ I thought that was an interesting selection. Try picturing Panamanians singing ¨Tha she was just a-walkeeng down tha street seengen DOO WAH DEEEDY DEEEDY DUM DEEEDY DOOO...¨ I just had to laugh. No wonder our language is hard for them! Oh, also, I got to teach the young women in our ward how to sing ¨The Climb¨ from Miley Cyrus because they want to sing it for one of the girls who´s leaving for her mission in a few weeks and needed my help with the pronunciation. I had to explain to them that Miley Cyrus speaks ¨bad English¨ (¨gonna¨ instead of ¨going to¨and all that) and then I helped them practice singing it. I felt weird and yet oddly proud of myself in that moment...
This past week was insanely packed with events. We had our first interviews with President Ward and let me just say right now that I LOVE him. I couldn´t be happier with another president! He´s so positive, upbeat and he absolutely adores the Hermanas--he´s got a soft spot for sister missionaries because his daughter served a mission. I honestly feel like between him and his wife, I´ve got parents in the mission (don´t worry Mom and Dad--you have not been replaced).

We had zone conference this week, too, where we get to sit in the freezing chapel for 8 hours and learn from all of the ZL´s and the president. The topic for this week was using the Book of Mormon and how we need to be looking for more opportunities to share it with people. I felt inspired by that and this weekend I gave away a copy of the Book of Mormon to a lady we contacted at a bus stop. We don´t generally hand out the books on the streets here but I felt like I needed to carry one with me that day and this lady that we talked to showed some genuine interest in the church, so I wrote a brief testimony on the inside cover and gave it to her with a promise that we were going to stop by her house later this week. We´ll see what happens.

The most important thing of note is Natasha´s baptism which was this Saturday. Even though all of our plans for the agenda fell through (our speaker got sick and the primary didn´t show up to sing their special number) it was still a special day. We bought a cake for her and lots of people showed up to support her. Pretty neat. She is now officially a member! I just hope she always stays strong.

Well I´ve given up trying to send pictures via internet because people tell me my card can get viruses if I use it here, so just expect some photos in the mail...soon :). Or, you know...surf the Internet. Someone´s probably already blogged all about this on a different missionary´s site. Nothing´s secret anymore.

I love you guys and I hope you´re all doing well. Happy 34th to Angie this week!!! I´ll be thinking of you.

Hasta la próxima,
Hna. Brewster

Panama canal...but can Al can Panama?

(catch up from August 23)
I´ve been thinking of that subject line for this entire week, I want you to know. I was so excited to use it.

Hey Fam!

This week whipped by quickly. A few noteworthy things:
- I had my first Panamanian dentist appointment. That was...quite interesting. My tooth vocab´s a little lacking, but from what I can tell, I have to come back in two weeks to fix something with the something r other and it´ll cost me 20 more dollars. That much was clear. I was singing the ¨You´ll be a dentist¨ song from little shop of horrors in my head while the dentista drilled away at my poor tooth. It was a neat experience and I´m only lacking a photograph of it to make it perfect.

- We had a huge activity Saturday night in the chapel with all of our ward members and a few investigators and were able to get about 30 references out of it. The different auxiliaries put on plays and talent shows and then we had some games with candy prizes. It´s amazing what you can do when you tell people they´re going to have treats and entertainment. Perhaps if we had cake in sacrament meeting, our attendance would rise a bit?

- My computer still won´t read my camera card, so I dunno how I´m going to send you all photos of these things, but I´m working on it. Do not give up hope.
Happy Birthday to Caden and happy back to school week too!
In my next letter you´ll be hearing all about the baptism of Natacha, our 17yearold investigator, the zone conference we´re having and my first interview with president Ward. This week will be a busy one!

Love you all!
Hna. Brewster

Buenas noticeas!

Natacha has a baptismal date!!!

We were teaching her 3 Nephi 11 and before we could even get to the part about baptism, she asks us, ¨How can I be baptized?¨

We were elated. Really, though, I don´t feel like we did a whole lot. She was ready and prepared for us, we were just put in her path. I´m learning more and more what it means to be än instrument in the Lord´s hands¨-- sometimes I feel like I really am just a puppet whose strings are pulled (but I mean that in a good way). Anyway, that´s my good exciting news. Now we´re just praying everything goes well for the 28th of August.

In other news...we had a city wide water outage this weekend and let me tell you, life was GRIM. Thankfully, we had a few drops coming out of our faucet in the house, so we got by all right until Saturday night when it completely left. This was particularly frustrating because we were gross, hot, sweaty and dirty at the end of the day because we´d been tracting in the sun all day long and it hadn´t rained a drop (totally rare here). I wanted to cry. Seriously. Then I thought to myself, ¨Hmm...there´s probably some greater lesson in this...¨and of course there are various gospel applications to choose from. But thankfully, I am very happy to say that we had our water back yesterday morning, so it wasn´t too severe. BUT ENJOY YOUR WATER! Tis a precious, precious thing.

Other than that, I don´t have much to report from this week. I haven´t eaten anything crazy lately, just the same old dishes of rice, chicken and platanos (bananaish things). And the tan is coming along just great :)

This weekend we´ve got a ward activity to encourage references. It´s called ¨Noche de Dulces y Teatro¨which means that we´ll have treats, games and Biblical plays put on by the RS, the Elders Quorum and the young men-women. Should be a kick.

love you all!
hasta la proxima
Hna. Brewster

Con valor marchemos

(a late post - from August 9th)
Hi everyone,

We had a great Sunday yesterday. For the first time in a long time, we had a really positive investigator named Natacha (17) attend sacrament meeting with us and it was great. She sat next to me and I talked to her all about the sacrament, what covenants were, what the talks meant, etc. She was really interested and even was asking about baptism. We´ve got a family night planned with one of our recent converts and Natacha wants to come check that out. She´s a sweet girl and I´m really hoping and praying that she´ll accept the gospel into her life.

While I was reading the Book of Mormon (bueno, mi Libro de Mormón) I found a verse that never stuck out to me much before but now has special significance: Alma 29:10. It expresses my feelings of the mission perfectly. I always liked v. 9 but now I think 10 is my favorite. See if you can figure out why.

I know I promised pictures and more details for this week but my camera card won´t read on my computer and thanks to some technical difficulties, my time is shorter than it would have been to write to you all. I don´t think that´s going to make me very popular with you all, but I´m sorry. I´m doing what I can.

Now´s my turn to get to be the missionary and invite you all to read the Book of Mormon together and to have regular, consistent family nights. I won´t commit you to it but I definitely hope you all do it. It makes such a huge difference and since you´ve all got young kids (minus Mom and Dad--sorry, parents. You´ve done your job. And well done.) now´s the time to make the lasting impression. Can I just tell you all how grateful I am for each of you? What a blessing it´s been to grow up in the gospel with parents who taught us right and kept us on a good path. I really can´t wait to have my own family someday and follow the example set for me by all of you.
As the saying goes, ¨The church is true, the book is blue.¨

Take care of yourselves and have a good week,

love,
Hermana Brewster

If we ever meet again, it will be Zion to meeeee....(legacy)

I ate cow foot this weekend.
I had to tell you all first thing because this was quite a traumatic experience for me and it´s best that I get it off my chest right from the get go. A lady in our ward has been wanting to have us over for ¨pata de vaca¨ for quite some time and seeing as this is our last weekend of this transfer, we decided we couldn´t refuse the offer any longer. I believe I mentioned something about mondongo in my last letter (stomach of a cow) and how horrible that was. Yeah, it´s got nothin´on the cow´s foot. Let me just say that right now. I told my companion that I need a diagram of a cow so that I can point out what I consider acceptable to ingest.
I know I spend a lot of time talking about food in my letters but that´s the culture here: food. Who has it, what are they cooking and how much of it have you eaten? That is the regular topic of conversation. And occasionally we get around to the Gospel :) (that was a joke).
I hope you all enjoyed your Pioneer Day weekend. I got to speak in church again yesterday on the subject of (you guessed it) missionary work, but I related it to the pioneers and the duty we have to leave behind a legacy worthy of emulation for our posterity (i didn´t use those words exactly. the spanish vocab´s still a little limited.). We have a serious problem with inactivity in my area so I challenged the members to be courageous and bear testimony of the things they know to be true, even if they ¨don´t have time¨ to do anything else. I hope someone listened. That´s always my hope.
Well, we´re going to find out tonight if I stay here in David or if once again I´ll be shipped to some different area, but my comp´s been here for 6 months, so I think we know the outcome. But I´ve said that before. We´ll see! A donde me mandes, iré, Señor.
There´s a whole lot of work to do here, so I´m hoping and praying I get to stay and keep going with it. I love this place and I´m grateful to the Lord for the opportunity to serve here.
Glad to hear the surgery went well, Ben! Anyone else have news?
Well I´m off! I´ll write more in August :) (WHOA.)
love you all,
Hna. Brewster

(someday she will send us pics of her actually IN Panama...)

Sopresas!

Hola Familia Mía,
I´m going to try something new here and write to you all BEFORE I read your emails, thus ensuring that all of the interesting/fascinating details I have to compart will be shared :). We´ll see how this goes.
I can´t believe it but we are already in our last week of this transfer. I´m not even going to try to guess at what´s going to happen next transfer as far as where I´ll be and who my companion will be because so far I´ve been thrown some pretty crazy curveballs. That´s one thing I´m learning from the mission--expect the unexpected. For example, we´ve been struggling to get members and converts to church this transfer (let alone investigators) but yesterday we had a rather pleasant surprise. Our assistance climbed dramatically, most of our recent converts showed up AND we had FOUR investigators show up on their own for the full three hour block, including the familia Jimenez (the Australian man with his Mexican wife--remember them?) and the husband of one of our recent converts. Every Sunday the missionaries are supposed to get up at 5 a.m. for what´s called ëscuadrones¨, which is where we go around and pick up investigators or other less active members for church with the help of people in our ward. (We haven´t seen much success with this but we´re hoping it catches on.) Yesterday morning we called one of our converts, Luis, to see if he still wanted us to pick him up for church. We were pretty bummed when he told us he was sick and couldn´t make it. Apparently our invitation to church works like a curse for people because something always happens to them--they get sick, something in their house breaks or there´s some sort of other emergency. Anywho...we ended up making the long walk to church by ourselves like always. After a disappointing morning, you can imagine how happy we were to find 4 investigators in the chapel! Ít´s little things like that that make your day here. That´s what I´m learning more than anything, really. I may not see grand changes within 6 weeks but little by little people are changing their lives for the better. We may even see some baptisms in the next transfer. I just hope I get to stay here! Seriously, I love the people here. (In my next email, remind me to tell you about la familia Leon-Carrera and Hermana Manuela. They´re some special investigators of ours.)
As for me, I promise you I´m a long way off from perfection but I´m learning to have patience with myself--and even have some fun in the process :). (Last p'day we played soccer in the rain for about 2 hours and got SOAKED. It was awesome. Enjoyed every minute of it.) My health´s been pretty good with the minor exception of what seems to be a small case of food poisoning this past weekend. I´m pretty sure the culprit was something called ¨mondongo¨which, I have recently learned, is the stomach of a cow. Eating that is something akin to eating a cooked rubber ducky...with fur. It is every bit as disgusting as it sounds. But when the members sit down in front of you and watch you eat every bite, what can you do? Luckily that bit of fun only lasted for a day...back to normal now! I actually missed plain old rice and chicken after that.
So that´s my report for now. Next week I should have even better things to say.
love you all and keep prayin!
love,
Hna. Brewster

Is anybody theeerrrre? Does anybody caaaaaaarrre?

Hi Family!
Couldn´t resist using a line from 1776 as my subject for this email seeing as it´s the season and all. Also, I hope it serves as a hint to those of you who may be slightly behind in your correspondence...not gonna mention names..you know who you are ,).
Speaking of correspondence, this week I got a flood of mail from fam and friends that dates back to MARCH. WHOA. That explains why I haven´t heard from a few people, I guess. I loved getting the ward newsletter especially. Good to hear what´s going on with everyone back in good ol´ NC 6th. Mom and Dad, please thank Lene for that one! Just to be clear, here´s the address that people should use when they send me letters:

Hermana Allison Brewster
Mision Panama
Carrasquilla, Entrega General A.P. 0834
Panama, Republica de Panama

That should clear up some of the confusion and ensure that I still have friends when I get home :).
So this was a pretty significant week. I had my last interview with President Madrigal before he returns home to Mexico with his wife this week. Even though he was only my president for 3 months, I learned so much from him and he said some really nice things during our interview. He´s a really good man. President and Sister Ward will arrive this week and I´ll meet them for the first time next week at our Zone Conference. It´s going to be weird having
an American President! I´m sure he´ll be great, though, and I´m looking forward to meeting him and his wife.
Last Tuesday was my comp´s birthday and we celebrated by having both lunch and dinner with a few ward members. My contribution was a cake, a birthday card and a Snickers bar (because she´s obsessed with them). It was lots of fun! I´m actually hoping I get to be here for a few more transfers so I´ll get to spend my bday here with these ward members. They really are special. But if this pattern of transfers continues, I´ll have been in 3 different places by that time. Ahhh! I wish I could just get used to one thing.
We´ve officially hit ¨winter time¨¨ in Panama, which means that it´s scorching hot in the morning and from noon onward we´re hit with a veritable flood. Right now it´s coming down pretty hard. I´m thinking the tiny umbrella I purchased won´t be sufficient because last night I was literally wringing out water from my skirt. Crazy weather!
I had a pretty interesting experience this week. there´s a family we´re teaching named la Familia Jimenez-Garcia. The wife is from Mexico and the husband is from Australia and they have a litle 4 year old who´s fluent in both Spanish and English. The parents speak Spanish and English too, but John, the Dad, mostly speaks English. I met them for the first time a few nights ago and I absolutely loved John´s Aussie Spanish :). Unfortunately I can´t imitate it here, but I will one day. Anywho, we dropped by their house to talk to them and possibly see about setting a baptismal date because theyve been investigating the church for a while. John´s read the Book of Mormon several times and I was really impressed with his knowledge of historical facts that back up what happened in the Book of Mormon. He and his wife insisted on taking us to dinner and we spent much of the time talking about his experiences with missionaries, the Book of Mormon and the church--mostly in English. The funny thing was it was now my turn to play the role of interpreter because I had to relay what was being said to my companion who looked a little perplexed by our conversation. We weren´t able to set a date yet but we´ve got an FHE planned with them tonight and I´m hoping that goes well. So far they are our most positive investigators. I´m praying for good things.
On a different note, I´ve run into a few backpackers this week from the U.S. They told me they were traveling around staying in hostels...sounds so familiar to me...hard to believe that was my life a year ago! Funny how things change, eh? Maybe I´ll do thatnext summer again ;)
All right, fam. Have fun at the cabin this week! Love you all and Happy 4th.
love,
Hna. Brewster
P.S. CONGRATS to Lara!

My first week in DAH-BEED

Hey Fam!

Greetings from the very beautiful area that is David, Panama (pronounced ¨Dah-BEED¨). Seriously, I can´t believe how gorgeous it is here! Right now I´m in a touristy place called Boquete and it´s the craziest thing but I feel like I´m back in Germany...everything is green, it´s COLD (very very rare here...feeling weird...) and there are mountains with Europeanish houses. It´s crazy! I´ll snap some photos for you. (My area´s called Lassonde, but we´re here in Boquete for P-day.)
Anyway, I´m loving my new area and my companion´s awesome. She´s trying to learn English from me and I´m trying to work on my accent with her. We have lots of fun going back and forth with different things to say. It feels good to be laughing so much again. I sort of missed that in my last change. Our zone is great--there are tons of gringos including my friend from the MTC, Hna. Ochs! I´m feeling very at home here.

In the way of events back home, let me just wish a happy late father´s day to Dad (I hear you wore the tie to church--did the bishop get mad? ,)), happy birthday to Ethan last week and happy birthday to Logan this week! I´m thinking of you all, don´t worry.

As far as the work goes here, the hardest thing we have to deal with is time management because our area is HUGE and Panamanians really love to talk, so we don´t get as many lessons in as I´d like, but I´m ealing with it. I´m just glad that the people are kind and receptive for the most part. We´ve got one investigator, 20 year old Edilka, who really wants to get baptized but she´s having problems with her family about that because they are pure 7th day adventists. It´s rough. We´re praying for her, though. Keep a good thought.

I said the hardest thing we had to deal with was time management but I should also mention that the world cup has proved to be a bit of an inconvenience as well. The whole world is watching soccer! (Except for me...which is REALLY difficult, by the way...but 1 Cor. 10:13 helps me with that one :) ). I think by the end of July things will have calmed down a bit.

I love my new ward and I´m hoping that I get a chance to be here longer than just 6 weeks because so far I´ve just been moved all over the place. The Hermanas I came with have only had 1 or 2 areas and companions at the most and I´ve had FOUR. I feel like a shoe that doesn´t fit...hopefully I fit here! I wouldn´t mind staying here for a while. We´re far away from the rest of the missionaries, so it´s likely they won´t move me for a while. But then I´ve learned I can never predict anything here, so who knows?

Hope you´re all doing well. Love you!

Hna. Brewster

Another week in Chorrera

Hey Fam,

I dunno if you got those pictures I tried to send to you last week, but if I need to do it again, let me know!

Things here in Chorrera are very different from Arraijan. The members still insist on feeding us mountains of food at each meal and I´m pretty sure they´re going to kill me. I made the mistake of offering some of my fries to my companion (in what I thought was a loving and thoughtless gesture) and her response was to glare at me and tell me that I need to eat all of the food the members gave us because this food was sacred. So every morning I am running laps in our small backyard to work off the sacred food. There´s a finely trodden path in the grass which I run while repeating, ¨I won´t get fat! I won´t get fat!``` It´s funny. I promise.

I don´t have much to report in the way of investigators because this area is mostly less actives or inactives, so we´re doing a lot of reactivating. But the people are good and I feel lucky to serve in this area.

Many of you have asked me if my companion has smiled yet and I am happy to say that yes, in fact, she seems to like me somewhat. It sort of depends on the day. One day she´s telling me that she´ll name her future daughter allison and she´s sharing her latina secrets for washing clothes and other things (which I´ve sworn not to divulge, sorry) and then the next day she´s thoroughly annoyed with me for not understanding something she said or for trying to be exactly obedient. In fact, if you ask hna. Chevez to describe her companion, she´ll say ¨Tall and obedient.¨ I´ll take it, I guess. Oh what an adventure every day is here...still collecting material for that novel I´m going to write :).

Most of all, though, I hope you all know that even though things might get rough and I still feel like I don´t know what´s going on half of the time, one thing never changes and that´s my testimony. I´m grateful to have that rock in my life. The church is true! Nothing will ever change that. what a comfort, eh?

Gotta go write my letter to the president now. It´s his last transfer! Pobrecito.

Love you all very much.

Al

Getting caught up with the Hermana

(All right, all right, I missed posting the past couple of weeks because I have the really good excuse of starting a new job. So sorry this is so delayed!)

We got to talk to the little missionary on Mothers Day which was wonderful. She wasn't able to call until late in the evening as she was at a member's home having dinner (oh the joys of eating). She sounded very good but was struggling just a little bit with her new companion from Nicaragua.

Allison is a "follow the letter of the law" type of gal; if the rule is laid out for her, she will not deviate from it (which is why she is such a great missionary). However, her companion is more of a "some rules are more like suggestions" type of person. Al is learning how to cope with that adjustment. :)

Her new companion is also a bit on the somber side and Allison has been working to get her to crack a smile. In fact, she shared with us a funny little story over the phone how her companion said to her one day, "Hermana Brewster, there are two types of people in this world." Before she could continue, Al quipped, "Those who like Neal Diamond and those who don't?" Needless to say, her comp didn't really get it. But we sure did! We all laughed out loud because it appears she has not lost her sense of humor. Whew!

She sent us a few pics from her last days in the MTC...which seems so long ago now. Also, her release date is scheduled for June 28--which means she's only a little over a year away from coming home. Whoa...

New area, new companion...same me :)

Hola mi querida familia,

I´m writing to you all from my new area as of today, Chorrera. I got the call last night that I was being transferred (actually came as a bit of a surprise) and now I have a companion from Nicaragua, Hna. Chevez. She´s...she´s going to teach me a lot :). My goal for the end of this day is to get her to crack a smile. She was actually Hna. Kennedy´s trainer (my friend from the mtc). I hear she´s a great teacher, so I´m sure I´ll learn a lot. And my Spanish should be pretty much pro at the end of these 6 weeks, so hey, lots to look forward too!

Oh man, this past week, my last week in Arraijan, was pretty neat. Since we completed our goal as a zone for April, we got to go to the temple! Ahh!!! That was one of the most beautiful, awesome experiences of the mission so far. I know I keep teasing you with promises of these pictures I´ve supposedly taken, but I promise you will all eventually get to see for yourselves how pretty this place is. I´ve decided I love the temple more than I even realized. There was a senior couple from Utah serving in there and the sister was so sweet. She´s like 70 years old and she was doing her best to speak Spanish with her cute little old woman smile...I found it pretty inspiring. It makes me want to work all the harder at mastering this language.

If I had more time I´d tell you all about our Jehovah´s Witness friend who gave my companion her hat, our many Evangelical encounters, the service project at Heriberto´s house (the Panamanian Morgan Freeman--pretty sure I´ve mentioned him before) and the awesome last Sunday we had--8 INVESTIGATORS showed up! It was pretty phenomenal. And of course I get moved out of the area...ah well. Such is the life. The souls in Chorrera are just as precious, right?

So I´m still a little shell-shocked trying to adjust to the new area, the new comp and pretty much everything else, but I promise you my spirits are high and I´m looking forward to seeing what the Lord´s got in store for me for the next 6 weeks. But keep the prayers comin´...just in case :).

Happy Birthday to Katie yesterday, Happy blessing of little Taylor Lynne Demcak and Happy Kristina´s wedding this week! Keep sending those photos and I promise one day I will return the favor. (I am a missionary and I cannot lie.)

love you all and looking forward to chatting with you on Mom´s Day!

love,

Al

Buenaaaaaas!

Howdy y`all!
As always, it feels like an entire life´s worth of events have occured since the last email, so I´ll do my best to fill you in. But you´re only really going to get a taste of things. Sorry!
So this week was pretty jam-packed. The best and most excited news is that we had a huge baptismal service as a zone on Saturday and two of our investigators, 11 year old Christian and 9 year old Josalyn (brother and sister), were baptized. I wish you could meet their little family. Your hearts would melt. I think my favorite part was when Josalyn looked right at me before going under the water and she had the biggest grin on her face. She´s a special little girl. I promise someday I´ll send you those pictures I promised and maybe I can give a better account of things on Mother´s Day when I get to call (Whoa...only two weeks away??).
Since our zone met our goal of 14 baptisms, the president is supposedly going to allow us to go do a session at the temple, so I´m pretty excited for that! I just hope it actually happens.
Last week we had exchanges for a day, too, and that was actually quite a thrill :). Hna. Zamora from Honduras was my comp for a day and so that was my first experience being with someone who spoke only Spanish. It actually went really well! Well, okay, it went well until I turned the light off while she was saying her nightly prayers and she screamed, ¨Ahhhhhh!!¨¨ That´s when I learned that Latinas don´t like to pray with the lights off. And there are other cultural differences that are pretty funny too: don´t shower at night time because it makes your bones brittle, don´t sit on a warm sidewalk because your body will get inflamed and soak your clothes for 3 days to ensure maximum cleanliness. I smile at these things :). Culture cracks me up sometimes. Oh, how much more I could say on that subject...but for another day! But that experience really was neat and it actually built my confidence up a lot. I´m grateful for it.
Things here are going well. We only have one more week left of this transfer and then I´m pretty sure my trainer will go to a new area and I´ll be staying here in Arraijan, though I can´t be positive. I´d be all right with that, though, because I feel like I´m really starting to get familiar and comfortable with the area. Everyone says our area is an elders´area because there are so many steep hills and mountains to climb, but I personally love it. Keeps me young--even if I´m extremely gross and sweaty at the end of the day .) (you should see my tan lines--they´re awesome!).
Anywho, I am out of time. I hope everyone enjoys little Taylor´s baby blessing and that you take lots of pictures for me! Love you all!
Hermana Brew (this is what I´m telling people to call me now. Brewster is just entirely too difficult.)

3 months out

Hola Fam,
I hope these emails are being circulated to all of you (Hilary, Ryan and Dave included). Hopefully I´m not boring you with my missionary tales :).
As far as things go investigatorwise, we have met a lot of promising families this week, so it was much better than last week. We´ve also had our fair share of encounters with...unusual...persons. I´m learning to distinguish between a drunk and a sober person, though, so it´s getting better.
One thing we´re really trying to work on the last couple weeks of this change (whoa...already been here a month) is activating and encouraging the members here. I´m really trying to practice speaking Spanish with all of the families so that they know the tall white girl actually does have a personality. Thank goodness for my expressive face or my feelings might never be made known.
Good things are happening, though. I can tell you that much. That Satan, though. I tell you. He´s used two of my favorite things against me: children and dogs. The dogs here are devilish--especially the ones who bark for an hour at 3 am outside our house. And children--holy cow! I can´t tell you how many lessons have been interrupted by a child throwing a ball at my head, screaming in the other room or doing some other very loud and distracting thing. AHHH!!! We were at a lady´s house who had a little girl that was playing with a kitten (and when I say ¨playing¨I mean trying to break its legs). The ironic thing is that my companion was teaching the lady about how children are sinless. The lady raised her eyebrows as she looked at her daughter. I did too.
There are a lot of funny stories to tell you! Remind me in my next letter to talk about the huge cockroach, the crazy drunken lady, the silent praying woman and...well, I´ll just leave you with that right now :). but I´m finding ways to enjoy myself, so no worries about that. My life is a comedy.
SEND ME PICTURES.
love you all,
Al

Que sopa?

Oh my dear family,
Congrats to Angie and Dad on the good news!! :) :) :) I was so happy to get Mom and Dad´s email about that. Sounds like the fam is doing well and being provided for, which I´m very much grateful for (but not surprised by).
How much I love and miss you all! But things are going well, so don´t worry about me. This week was...well, it was one of those ¨This proves you´re a true missionary" weeks, according to Hna. Tracy. We didn´t have a whole lot of luck with our contacts or investigators. I don´t know if it´s because the rain´s starting to come and people are just particularly gloomy, but it seemed like we were being rejected left and right as we waded through muddy streets and had appointments fall through. The saddest thing of all was when Hna. Domitila (I mentioned her in my first email) backed out of her baptism on Saturday. That nearly broke our hearts but we still believe she´ll come around if we just work with her.
But lest you should think that I´m sunk into the pits of despair, I should mention that a number of really good things have happened too. Even though Domitila backed out, we still had another baptism on Saturday, a 14-year-old boy named Donal. I do1t know if I´m mentioned him before or not, but his older brother is a member and they have an amazing little family. The parents, though...not so amazing. Basically they´ve raised themselves..but I don´t want to talk about that right now because it´s a bit of a downer. Back to the baptism: It was a beautiful service! Hna. Tracy and I sang "asombro me da" (I stand all amazed). I figured you´d be impressed by that, Mom and Dad. The nice thing about being in a Latin American country is that I feel like a really good singer here, so there´s no fear :). Anyway, it was a really neat experiene and one that I know I can´t fully convey through an e-mail, but I´ll send you the pictures (as soon as I figure out how to do that). You´re going to love this little family! They are truly amazing.
Also, we set another baptismal date with one of our investigators named Michelle who´s 14 (what is it about the 14 year olds?). We read 3 Nefi 11 with her and at the end I extended the baptismal invitation to her, which she accepted! It´s really a shame that I can´t tell you all the details right now but I promise some day you´ll get the full account. Just know that good things are happening and I´m privileged to be a part of it. (Still need your prayers, though, so keep ´em coming :)).
By the way, I guess I forgot to mention such details as the name of my actual area and what not. My bad! My zone is Arraijan and my area is called Dos Mil. It´s about 20 minutes outside of the city, so we´ve got good, clean water (when the water works, that is...we are often showering with buckets) and our house is not too shabby. OH-we had mission conference last week, too, and guess who I got to see: Hna. Graham and Hna. Kennedy, my dear pals from the MTC!!! Oh what a joyous occasion that was :).
Anyway...as always, my time is abysmally short and I feel like I´ve only given you a peek at the many things that have happened since arriving here in this beautiful, very warm country. (p.s. Panamanian Spanish is its own language. I kid you not. I hear people from Guatemala and Peru that I can understand just fine, but here? Nope. Don´t get it. But I´m learning!)
Things are chuggin´along. I´m laughing at myself daily. Life is good.
Much love to you all!
love,
Hna. Braooohstair (how they say my name)
p.s. if you ever feel the need to send church music or something like that...well, I won´t stop you :)
p.p.s. Ang, one of my friends in our ward, Cristian Conte, added me on FB, I guess. he´s going to put up pictures, so if you could add him, that´d be swell. Gracias, mi querida hermana :)

Catching up

Hey Fam!
Happy Easter plus 1! I hope you all enjoyed it. Mine was really interesting, it being the first one away from home and all. We had a citywide power outage last night while Hna. Tracy and I were walking home and it was pitch black. Pretty exciting. I laughed at our Easter feast: the remaining 6 Hershey´s kisses Katie sent me at the mtc, which we enjoyed by candlelight (due to the lack of power and whatnot). It was hilarious--definitely a memory I won´t soon forget :)
Okay, first off, CONGRATULATIONS Katie and Dave on your gorgeous baby girl! Taylor Lynne looks absolutely adorable and I´m excited to meet her in about 15 or so months. Just tell her who her favorite aunt is so she knows, all right? I´m so happy for you! The fam is definitely growing. I hope I know most of you by the time I get home.
I don´t know about you all, but I absolutely loved Conference this weekend. Luckily for me I got to listen to it in English with the other gringo missionaries. It was funny though--this was the first time I felt like I wasn´t listening to Conference for me. I felt more like I was just going to be a messenger of everything I learned because everything the prophets spoke about (FAMILIES) applied so strongly to the people I´m teaching. And to me too, I suppose. I´m preparing to be a mom myself someday. One of our investigators came with us to the Saturday morning session and she got really teary during Elder Ballard´s talk about mothers and daughters. I think it really touched her.
I had my first interview with President Madrigal this past week! I absolutely love him. He doesn´t speak a lick of English, so the interview was pretty interesting. He asked me what some of my trials had been so far and I just told him I needed to stop worrying about myself and focus on teaching and loving the people. He wholeheartedly agreed and gave me some great advice. We talked a bit about the necessity of trials and overcoming adversity and how that´s what ultimately brings us closer to the Savior. I´ve only been here for 2 weeks but I couldn´t agree more. I´m learning more and more how difficult the mission really is because you have such a great responsibility. I´ve never felt more emotionally exhausted in my life! One minute we´re ecstatic about an investigator who´s keeping commitments and the next thing we know a different one has serious family issues. And there are so many people that we´re teaching right now, so I feel like my emotions are all over the place.
But one thing I´ve learned is that the Lord will occasionally just throw me a bone. I was writing in my journal, sitting by the phone the other night when it rings. My comp was in the shower, so I timidly answered it. And I heard a familiar voice: my dear mtc companion, hna. graham! She was just calling to see how I was doing and said shéd been thinking about me. We chatted for just 2 minutes or so but that made my week like nothing else. I really needed that.
Anyway, the Lord truly throws us those tender mercies. Remember that, fam!
gotta go...almost out of time.
love you

She made it!

Hola familia!

Wow, I´ve already been here for a week in Panama and you haven´t heard anything...you have no idea how many things I have to tell you. I don´t know where to begin. Padres, I sent you a letter my first day but I don´t think you´ll get it for a couple weeks. Mail´s slow here. Before I forget, here´s my address (please pass along):

Hermana Allison Brewster
Misión Panamá
Carrasquilla, Entrega General, A.P. 0834
Panama, Republica de Panama

We´ve been asked to tell our families and friends not to send food because they get angry...don´t know why...but please don´t send food. Also, to make sure they don´t open up packages, cover them with pictures of the virgin Mary or Jesus or else they´ll get opened up. (This advice comes directly from the mission office. I don´t get it either.)
So anyway, please stay in touch!
Now...back to the good stuff...

It´s going to be hard to go into detail right now but I´ll explain a few things as fast as I can. Basically here´s what I can tell you so far: this first week has been absolutely LOCO. And guess what? My trainer, Hermana Tracy, is a GRINGA just like me! (well her mom´s from san jose, but she speaks english and everything.) I was actually really grateful for that on Wednesday when I met her because I was feeling pretty sickly that day (the details of which are included in my letter home to you, but suffice it to say that I might be known as ´´girl who threw up in parking garage.¨´ That´s all i´ll tell you.) Anyway, no one else had a companion who spoke their language, so i don´t know what the grand plan is here but for my first area, i´m really grateful for that. And she´s a sweetheart too. I´ve learned so much from here in just a few days.

As for my Spanish....well, the people here do in fact talk at a machine gun pace. But I´m getting better! I even get some compliments about how well I understand (i fool them all. lots of head nods and grins.). But I´ve had a lot of things happen for my first week that I wasn´t expecting. Our very first lesson we commited our investigator, Domitilla, to baptism. Apparently she´s been asked a few times but didn´t say yes until then. I was pretty floored. Hna Tracy was too. It was a neat experience. i wish i had more time to go into detail!

We´ve taught a lot of lessons with members so far, too, but i think my favorite was when we taught an evangelical family last night and they started chanting ¨hallelujah¨ during the opening prayer...all these new experiences for me...I´ll have to write a really long letter home to give you a better idea :).

Also...guess who was asked to speak in sacrament meeting for her first Sunday? YUP. I couldn´t stop laughing when they asked me because i think went all right. A lot of people said they understood me, so hey...that´s a start.

Remind me in my next letter to tell you about all the individual people I´ve met here. There are some great characters. My favorite is a toothless old man who strongly reminds me of Morgan Freeman...his name is Eddie Berto and every time he sees us walk by he´ll be sitting on his porch and wave his cane at us--like an old Panamanian President Hinckley or something. The people here are so great! and i´m never going to starve because every five minutes someone is handing me a fresh plate of rice or fruit. Those are the staples here.

The food's good, the weather´s hot and the work is going! That´s all I really have time to tell you for now (which is a shame) but thanks again for your support, prayers and love. >please keep em coming!

love,
Hna. Brewster

One week left in the MTC

Oh, mi querida familia!

Muchísimas gracias for ALL of your letters, e-mails, packages and countless prayers. And bien hecho with catching on to dearelder.com! Madre, estoy muy orgullosa. I want so badly to be able to write you all back sheets and sheets but there's a slight back up...it may be a while. Know that I love you all very much, though, and I adore your letters and hearing about your lives.

Padre, I have to apologize for what I'm sure must have been a brief heart attack when you got a phone call from "Maria at the MTC Health Clinic" on Friday (this is why I had them call you and not Mom). Basically, I am fine. That old scar on my eye was irritated because it's been so dry here, so I've just been wearing my glasses for the past week. No te preocupes! I did, however, get to venture out into the real world on Friday since they wanted an eye doctor to check up on me, and that was quite a thrill for both my companion and me. ("Whooooa....houses....a street light....people running in short shorts..." thoughts like so.) That "real world" is just around the corner for us, too! We got our TRAVEL PLANS last Thursday!!! We'll be leaving on the 23rd (next Tuesday) at about 8 or 9 in the morning from the SLC airport. We have a few hours in Georgia before we hit Panama. It's going to be loco! That probably means you'll get to hear from me that morning...but Mom is leaving to Portland that day, huh? Ooh...maybe I'll see her at the airport after all (was that her plan all along? Mother...). Anyway, as far as my stuff goes, there's a service here called postmart that will call you to come pick up a box of my stuff after I leave. It's free, so don't worry about it. But yeah, keep Tuesday morning open and make sure you're awake! I don't know exactly when I'll get to call but it'll be sometime that day...vague enough?

So this is my FINAL WEEK at the MTC. And let me tell you, it's a busy one. This is our teaching week, which means we're running around scheduling appointments to teach other missionaries, teachers and "investigators" at the TEC. Estamos ocupados.

Oh yeah, and here's something fun: guess who gets to do a teaching demo for the new missionaries tomorrow? My companion and me! Our teachers recommended us (for some reason unbeknownst to me. Punishment? Perhaps I laugh too much in class...) Anyway, we get to be the first impression of missionary work for all these young ones coming in tomorrow. I remember on my first day thinking, "Man...I'm glad that's not me up there." And now....well, you see. But it should be an interesting experience :).

On a different note, I have a nickname here: "prayer girl." This is because I was the one who got to give the closing prayer at the MTC fireside on Sunday. There are some great perks with that--you get to sit up on the stands, meet the MTC presidency and the speaker (Brother Heaton--he's in charge of facilities here) and look out at the entire crowd of missionaries. It's a pretty cool experience to hear them all sing "We'll bring the world His truth" and have a front row seat. Anyway, since I gave the prayer, random missionaries have been pointing at me and exclaiming things like, "Hey! It's the prayer girl!" to which I wave my hand and bow. (Not really.) I am a celebrity. What can I say.

Anyway this is a bittersweet week. I won't gush on and on about my district and my teachers again but know that it's going to be a difficult separation. But I know that Panama is soon to be my favorite place and I'm going to love those people immensely. Our teachers always remind us of the sacredness of our call and I want to be sure I don't take that lightly. It's humbling.

Wow...not much time left. And this is my last p-day...I'm trying to think if there's anything else I need to tell you before I go...hmm...keep writing and praying! You should have my address already (though I'm not sure when that takes effect). If there's anything else, I'll include it in a special card for a special mother of mine who's having a special day this weekend...(you know of whom I speak).

Lastly, thank you so much for all of your support--EVERYONE. I know I have the best family, friends and neighbors. I love you all MUCHISIMO.

Gotta go prep!

paz.

con cariño,

Hermana Allison Brewster