He knows I will follow him, Give all my life to him

This is where I live. NBD.

Hey kids.
I´m going to be honest up front. This weeks letter is a short one.  I have a few good reasons:
1.       I only get so much time on the computer each week. Last weeks epistle took so long to write that I didn´t get to all my emails. I fully intend to read each email this week. (Also, if you are interested, I would love to hear from you alexis.patterson@myldsmail.net)
2.       Not nearly as much happened this week as last week
3.       I got the pictures from my sisters wedding this week and I will look at every. Single. One.

Sorry not sorry. Okay, that wasn’t very missionary like. I’m sorry if you are offended.

This week we sent our Emilia (Yes, it is spelt like that) off to Panama. It was tough. We had her as our next door neighbor for 5 quick days. What fun they were! We laughed, we cried, we laughed some more. We saw a silly side to Emilia that we did not think existed. Oh…. But it does.  She left Thursday, at FOUR in the morning. Oh what fun. Worst part. We didn’t even get to say goodbye.  Maximo told us to wait for him in the grocery store parking lot (I’d like to remind you, this is at 4 am) because a friend of his was driving them to the bus station in San Jose. We waited for about  30 minutes, got anxious, and decided to leave Emilia and run home to call Maximo to make sure we hadn’t missed anything. Of coarse, when we called, he said he had Emilia in the car with him, and that they were leaving and didn’t have time to wait. QUE TRAUMA as my companion always says. We said our good byes over the phone.  It was indeed traumatic. We both have a little hole in our hearts. We both randomly will say to the other, “I miss our Indigina!” and we will feel sad, and try to go on with our day.  We miss our best friend and Nicanor like crazy!
This week we learned a big lesson. DO WHAT THE LORD WANTS. Okay, we try to always do what the Lord wants, but this week was pretty incredible. To be honest, working with the members in this area has been a little tough. We think it’s because the branch is so small (about  50 people each week in church) and EVERYONE is a convert, and I think that this area has had some issues with “bad” missionaries in the past. We began to realize that the members just did not trust us. One day I decided to read a section about members in PMG and it was like a lightbulb went off in my head. This was the answer! This week we worked crazy hard to gain the trust of more members and the branch president. I can’t believe how quickly the work is hastening. We were grasping at straws to get people to help us out, and now we have more referrals than ever before. What a miracle. The Lord is the best. 
And now, Questions from our readers (my mom)

Why didn’t Emilia and Maximo just get married officially? Because Emilia has ZERO documents. Zero. Like I said, she doesn’t even really know how old she is. You can’t be married legally, if you don’t…. really exist legally.

Will Emilia and Maximo ever see one another again? Yes. Maximo is the one taking Emilia down to Panama because she can’t be pregnant, with a two year old, all her bags, in a bus for a day and a half. He will get her settled and then return to Costa Rica. Now that she is officially a member of the church, we have something to work with to get them married (in the temple) in a year.

What is their future plan? She lives in Panama for a year while he works. Hopefully after a year they can be married in the temple and he will probably move to panama with her.

Can you contact the missionaries in Panama to find Emilia and keep her fellowshipped?  Oh ho ho. We are ALLLLLLL OVER DAT. Trust me. We are workin hard to help her out. Our mission president is in contact with the mission president in panama and they are trying to figure something out.

Can she take lessons to learn to read and write? Yes. Maximo taught to to write her name, and she is trying to learn. Its super great.

How will this saga end?? I might not know until the Spirit world, but I what a happy reunion it will be!

Also, if anyone is interested, this week is going to be a doozie. We have a new goal from the President of the mission to have 30 LESSONS THIS WEEK. You might not realize it, but that is soooooo much. The most we have EVER had is 25 in one week and that was incredible. It’s the new mission standard and we are SO NERVOUS. But we have faith! SI SE PUEDE!
Love you all!
Hermana Patterson