25 April 2011

This week kicked off with a service project. We cleaned up one the of local schools here by cutting the surrounding grass by weed wacker, bagging the clippings and throwing them away. I thought we would rake all of the waste into a pile and burn it like everyone else does, but we disposed of it responsibly. There was a lot of trash, especially in the front of the school where the students come and go. The school is bilingual and many of the students know English, so they were practicing on me. I am wearing a neutral Milan jersey to avoid the Barcelona vs Real Madrid feud here.

We noticed a lot of traditions here during Holy Week like the burning of incense and restricting the consumption of meat to only fish. Everyone we visited was watching bible stories on t.v. Apparently every channel was running them. On Sunday, we went to the Stake Center to watch the Salt Lake transmission of the birth of Jesus and His resurrection. I do not normally appreciate theater type productions, but this one was interesting. Was there one in English? This one appeared to cast mostly Latin actors and it looked like they were actually speaking Spanish as opposed to a voice over.

I had a really funny experience on Tuesday. We were walking to our district meeting when this homeless guy dressed like disco Moses came walking down the street with a staff and everything. He told us that he was like Jobe and had lost everything. We started talking to him about church when he spotted my companions watch and demanded it. When my companion refused it, he started chasing us for a couple blocks only to stop and continue shouting after us. I have met some really interesting people here. Drunk, homeless guys stop all the time and talk to us. The surprising thing is that most of them speak pretty good English. It is too bad they forget it all when they are sober.

The church is working on starting an EFY program here in Panama starting January. As soon as they found out I participated in EFY in the states, I was recruited to be on the advisory board. I have been going around to all of the ward councils in the stake to talk about my experience in the program.

I have been serving as the ward pianist my ward. I am actually playing on a real piano here as opposed to a keyboard in Tocumen. I never did master the pedal though, so I guess it does not really matter.

I hope everyone has a good week.