I really enjoyed the mission president's weekly email. I have been prayerfully and thoughtfully and carefully trying to consider the question that Elder Amado gave us, "Why do you love the Lord?" The other day as I was pondering on this I thought about how he loves us with a perfect love and I really felt that part of why I love Him is because he has loved me so much. I felt like the scripture that the mission president shared in Juan 4:19 really confirmed that feeling for me. I continue trying to answer this question and I think that I might continue finding answers to that question my whole life. I am grateful for inspired leaders that help me learn and grow. 

This week has been really great. I absolutely love it when I have the opportunity to work hard. My companion and I achieved the mission standard of excellence again this week and I feel really good about that. 

This week M., E., M., A., and J. are all going to get baptized. So we are going to prepare two separate baptismal services, one on Wednesday for J., and the other on Saturday for everybody else. I am really excited and I hope and pray that everything will work out. I am really grateful for the opportunity to help so many people. 

The members are supporting us. They have new motivation and desire to serve in the missionary work.

I am really content and excited about the future. 

Hermana C. is feeling better and she feels like maybe she`ll cancel the doctor's appointment that she scheduled for Thursday. 

I felt like I was going to throw up yesterday, but thankfully I didn't. I have had a little bit of a cold but other than that I`ve been good. 

I`m anxious to see what will happen next transfer.

Love always, 

Hermana Koehler

p.s. The shoes that I bought a little over a month and a half ago already almost have a hole in them so I bought three pairs of cheap shoes that look like Toms. They will last me until the end of the mission...I`ll make sure of that. The shoes are pink, blue, and black...but not all at the same time. It was exciting for me because as far as I can remember I have always only had black shoes. We took pictures to celebrate the ocasion..but I`ll send those next week because I dont have enough time right now because I let another missionary use some of my time to figure out a personal emergency. 

I love you! Send my love to everyone.

We were able to complete our goal to meet the mission standard of excellence!  Hermana C. and I are happy and exhausted. I`m nervous that Hermana C. seems to be having problems with stress to the point where her body is angry with her. I want to consistently meet the mission standard of excellence now that we have been able to once but I`m nervous about putting too much pressure on my companion. 

Once again several investigators came to church. I`m not liking that many of our recent converts aren't coming to church but thankfully the members are helping us visit them. 

We have many many investigators that are positive...we have 13 that have baptismal dates and more that have baptismal goals because its not official until they get married. I feel like a crazy person trying to juggle so many people but I know that God is helping us. 

I am happily getting to know the members and the people here more. 

This weekend we organized a ward mission social and it was a complete success.

We are happy and working hard. 

Hermana Koehler

Recently we have been trying really hard to meet the standard goals that the mission president has given us. In our efforts we have been trying to have family home evenings every day. Every week we have been making a schedule for people to sign up to visit with us. It's really hard to work with the members because they`re always so busy. Thankfully the mission leader and the bishop are helping us a lot. There are several people that are willing to help but they just don't have the time. It must be really hard to have to juggle so many things in life. I think that there are a lot of things that we as missionaries have to do but I can't imagine having to deal with work, school, family, a calling, and missionary work. Somehow God makes everything work out. 

Once again many of our investigators came to church. Also it was wonderful to see D. passing the sacrament. I am really happy when the recent converts continue progressing after they`re baptized. It's really sad to see when recent converts become inactive. There are two recent converts that we are visiting that are currently attending a different church. It's really interesting and sad because they know that the church is true and they were baptized but they go to other churches for social pressures. It's really true that every recent  convert needs a friend. Really everyone needs a friend. There are so many people that stop going to church because they don't feel accepted. But then there's the saying...to have a friend be a friend. I think that it's important for ambos [both] to reach out to each other. 

One of our investigators was going to get baptized this coming weekend but we need to postpone it for now. Currently he is working on giving up coffee. It's really crazy how coffee is so hard to give up. It truly is addictive. So we are going to help him reach the goal of being baptized in three weeks.

We have been a bit sick for the past couple of days. I`m pretty sure that we have some kind of flu. We`ve had horrible migraine type headaches and a lot of body pain. Hermana C. received a priesthood blessing yesterday and she seems to be doing a let better. I haven`t gotten a blessing yet but I`m taking Tylenol for the pain and I`m doing fine with that.

I have been studying a lot about the priesthood lately. I have decided to take on a challenge in one of the Liahonas that I read...I think it was by Sister  Beck. She gave the challenge to read a huge list of scriptures,  memorize something, and pray to understand. She gave some pretty great promises along with that challenge. I look forward to doing that. I am also reading the General Conference Ensign. I really enjoy studying and learning more. The hard thing is getting it to stay in my forgetful brain. But I figure that it's more important that it can enter into my heart.

 I really enjoyed the conference that we had this week.

Love,
Hermana Koehler

I'm in Tocumen

Casco Antiguo...I`m not sure if that's how you spell it but that's what it sounds like.
These photos were from last Monday.

Conference in Brizas del Golf..I saw a friend :)

Cake fun...we celebrated two birthdays this week...and Father's Day...so it was a fiesta week.We ate cake for Father's Day. We tried making tres leche cake...but it didn't turn out really well because we didn't have an electric beater...but it tasted sweet so that was good.

Mission President Blog Photos

HERE is the link to the mission president's blog. You will find more pictures of Hannah there (it helps to find her once you know what she's wearing) in yesterday's post but this is the best one. We look forward to hearing from her later today.

Recently I´ve been studying more about the priesthood. One of our less active...well inactive members had a question about the priesthood. He asked how it is that the church is the only one that has the priesthood. He asked something like, "Can't God appear to people of other religions that are worthy and chosen?" So my companion and I have been studying about that trying to help him with the answer. I know that explaining about priesthood keys will really help him. 

This Saturday H. was baptized! She looked super beautiful. Everything went really well. Her family and some other investigators were able to come.

On Sunday, several investigators were able to come. Three investigators that came are all the kids of the family. They're 17, 12, and 5 years old. The five year old didn't want to stay in primary without someone with her so I was in the primary for a bit until we talked to the young women's president and she said that she could go to young women's with her sister. It was really weird to be in primary but I was glad to be able to help O. feel comfortable.

Things continue to progress. 

We have to find a new house. The owners told us this week that they need the house in July. So it looks like my moving experience from back home will come in handy again here in the mission. 

I'm looking forward to a mission conference on Wednesday.

Hermana Koehler

H. is staying with her cousin and her cousin's boyfriend, so they`re her legal guardians right now. For the sake of convenience, I`ll say that they`re her mom and dad. So last week, her dad was hospitalized because he had a kidney stone. He had to get an operation. Thankfully everything went well and he`ll be able to leave the hospital today. So both of her parents were in the hospital this weekend--.her dad for being sick and her mom to take care of her dad. Because of this emergency that happened she wasn't able to get baptized on Saturday. We have been visiting them and comforting them. The kids were really worried about the dad and they had been left home alone. We passed by a few days in the evening to check on them and make sure that they were okay. We sang songs with them and prayed with them. Tonight we have a family home evening with them and the ward bishop. 

We have been able to see the hand of the Lord in our work this week. One of our goals was to be able to find new investigators. We found many new investigators, some of which are amazingly positive. Yesterday we went to an appointment that we had. She wasn't home but there were these two boys outside the house. We could have just left but we decided to sing a song and share a message, I felt like I should give them some pamphlets, so we did and then we went to another appointment. When we left the appointment the boys came running over to us and said that the woman we were trying to find earlier had already gotten to her house and then they said that they already finished the homework that we`d given them. So these two little boys had filled out the question and answer section in the back of the pamphlet. We were in awe. So we asked one of them if their Mom was home and he introduced us to her. We taught her a lesson and gave them a new pamphlet. His Mom told us that right after we had given him the pamphlet they had gone running to the house to get the Bible to look up the references in the back of the pamphlet. So she and her kids are extremely optimistic about learning more about the church. I`d say that they`re golden investigators. 

So we continue to work hard. We made a lot of new goals for this new change, some of which include: get to the house at 9 every day, share something bitter and something sweet about our day every night, have more unity with the other missionaries in the ward, have companion study every day, and invite couples to the couples therapy class that the ward teaches after church on Sunday. So we`re excited for this new transfer. 

We`re going to the temple tomorrow with D. and his family. I`m excited for them to be able to see the temple. They won't be able to enter yet, but I know that they will be able to feel a special spirit there. 

Lots of love, 
Hermana Koehler