Week 3 in Panama

Hermana Hannah and her companion in Chitre. 






And the "awkward family photo" with her "dad" and district leader Elder Slater who is from her aunt and uncle's ward in Maryland.

That`s crazy that Sister Young and Elder Perez haven`t been able to get their visas yet! I bet that is really frustrating. At the same time it`s really good that they`ll have the time to be able to teach in English! I think that if I could teach in English I`d be a much better missionary. Actually I have had some opportunities because of my English. One of the taxi drivers that we encountered this week spoke English! I was able to talk to him in English and set up an appointment and everything in English! My companion was so proud of me afterwards. She said that I didn't forget to do anything. We haven`t had the chance to visit him yet but I`m looking forward to that. I've had many other opportunities to talk with people because I speak English. There`s a lot of people that want help with their English. We`re going to try to teach English every week or every other week. We`re also going to have music classes!

I`m learning how to teach! My companion is a great example of how to teach. The other day she taught a family about praying about specific things by using an object lesson. She asked one of the daughters, "Hand me that," and the daughter said, "This?" and she said, "No, hand me that!"...this continued for a while. Then she talked about how this is like our prayers. That we need to pray for specific things in order to get the answer that we want. We then invited them to pray to know if the Church is true, and to pray specifically using the name of the Church. Really cool.

That`s great that the missionaries have been encouraging you to talk to people! We NEED to work with members here in order to have success. We've decided that we`re going to work through the members...our goal is to only work using referrals. 

I love the idea of dividing hard things into smaller pieces! I think that I can apply that to so many things here. I think it`s important to take things one step at a time. Same goes for my investigators! Everyone should start with what they have and build on it. That reminds me of President Uchtdorf`s talk in conference! I can`t wait to be able to read the Conference Ensign!

I`m glad that Grandpa continues to get better. It is frustrating how long our bodies take to heal. I`m sure that Grandma and Grandpa are enduring this well. Everyone has hard days but I think that they`re good patient people. 

I still have four emails to read and I don`t know if I`ll be able to get through all of them! haha. 

Lots of love, 

Hermana Koehler 

Before her mission, she was looking forward to experiencing the fruit. Looks like mango.