"Hey everyone! This week has been pretty good. We got to have some good lessons with investigators and find some new people as well. Last week I said our investigator Fransisco will be getting baptized soon. That's still true however, he missed church this week so it will probably take another another 2 weeks. O well.. Hes progressing well. Hes even been going to all of the seminary classes. This week has been a week full of trying different types of meat. This week I ate fox, 2 baby baby crocodiles, and a sea turtle. On last weeks post I mentioned that we were going to go crocodile hunting. Going with the people hunting here is actually pretty good for missionaries. It gets dark early and we can be back home in time before its too late. We buy the ammunition and take out less actives to do the actual hunting. When we catch stuff we divide the meat and give to different people in the village. Since these people still live a hunter and gatherer lifestyle it means a lot when we bring them food. A kind of service. Plus, we get to try the meat. So on Tuesday we left with this less active guy named Claudiano and went down the big river in one of those extremely skinny wooden boats looking for crocodile. It was kind of sketchy. 4 people on an extremely skinny boat. Just sitting down the sides of the boat were tight. The Kuna people are for the most part pretty small. Im a foot taller than many of them. I thought we were going to tip into the water. We kept going through these secret water passages that only he knew. Hidden by the really tall grass. Some of the passages were so tight we had to completely duck our heads to avoid branches. It was crazy. We saw all sorts of snakes, birds, and I saw a few baby crocodiles. As we were rowing by one of the banks Claudiano saw the fox and shot it. After getting it he told us he didnt really like that type of meat and just gave the whole thing to us. After that we just called it a night. We promised him and the kid he brought that we would prepare the meat and cook up the food. Bringing them a portion the following day. My comp didn't want to skin or prepare the meat so I just did it. Its not easy. We just boiled all the meat to preserve it then sauteed everything the next day. We have no fridge here and we didn't really know what else to do. The next day at dinner time we cooked up all the meat and gave a good portion to people we are currently teaching and the guys that went out with us. The meat was really tough. I'm not sure how to describe the taste. The biggest difference between the fox and normal meat was the smell of the raw meat. It was pretty good though. A few days later this other guy asked us if we will be willing to go deep into the jungle with him. He wanted to go find food for his family but didn't have anyone to go with him. I honestly think its a really awesome service activity. If he catches something we would help him bring it back to his house. He would also definitely share with us. We taught all of our lessons in the morning and left at about two. We walked 3 and a half hours into the middle of the jungle trying to clear stuff along the way. We saw all kinds of animal tracks. Some of which belonged to crocodile, tapir, rabbit, deer, fox..all sorts of animals. I also saw all kinds of crazy bugs and birds. In addition we saw a ton of those massive beautiful blue butterflies. After going all the way into the jungle and coming back we were super tired and dint have much luck. He had caught a bunch of small fish and 2 baby crocodiles. He just gave us the crocodiles because he felt bad we didn't get much. He wouldn't take them. I felt bad because we went there for them to get food but he didn't want us to get nothing. My comp didnt want it either. He ate a large crocodile a few days before I came to Ukupa and wanted me to try them. You only eat the tail meat for the most part. I just battered and fried up the two tails after skinning them. The meat was really good. Like a mix between chicken and fish. I really liked it. Lastly, 2 days ago we walk out of the house and start walking to the house of the woman that cooks lunch for us. This one family had caught a sea turtle and called us over to see it. We asked them what it tastes like and offered them spices for cooking it. They were happy about the spices because the food here is usually pretty bland. They usually just boil things and add a little salt. We added spices to the meat and they cooked it up. They also made sure to give us a decent portion to try eating. Usually its EXTREMELY illegal to hunt sea turtles. However, San Blas is an Indian reservation. The government cant restrict them hunting them. I honestly loved that meat. It was nothing reptilian at all. It had the texture of beef but extremely tender. The sea turtle and crocodile were two of the best things I've eaten while in San Blas. Oh...almost forgot. I had mentioned we were working on cleaning up the area book. The book we use that contains the information of investigators and converts from previous missionaries. Well we cleaned it all up and fixed the baptismal papers that had been filled out a long time ago wrong and never fixed or sent into the church. We managed to contact the missionaries and the actual investigators and converts to sort out the issues. I'm pleased to say that in addition to the two baptismal records of Joan and Javier, we sent in the information of 4 other people that had never actually been in the church records. That were baptized but never had the paperwork sent in due to inconsistencies in the information. So we technically invited 6 new people into the church this past transfer. All the other papers were partially filled out and the baptism never really took place. So we tried passing on the contacts and discarded the partially filled out baptismal papers. Now those people have moved to different islands or the city. Since my comp is also the branch president we have been working on finding callings for people. That is going well. Were getting things rolling here and cleaning up the church files here that have had some problems. My comp taught me how to solve a rubix cube a few weeks ago. I forgot to mention that. I'm not that quick but can do it in 3 or 4 minutes. Well..I think that's about it..I hope all of you have a good week! Love you guys!!"
Elder Hawes
"I'm attaching a picture of the fox we got"
"Here are two pictures. One is a picture of the small crocodiles and the other is of me with the sea turtle."
Tapir tracks
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