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