Monday, November 8, 2010
11/1 letter home & pics
How are you guys? Things are going pretty well out here. I actually just got back from the beach... we headed out to the other side of the island this morning as a district with the Goff couple too and just played some football and stuff. It was pretty nice and we had the whole thing to ourselves besides a few fisherman there, but i sent a few pics of it. Other than that everything is going about the same, not a whole lot happened this week.
This last Tuesday we did have a day that was a little different though. We have a new senior couple here from Ogden that just got here and the wife is our new nurse. They live in Praia but they came up this week to see what health centers they have up here so she can know what to refer us to. So anyways we had to go translate for them for most of the day cause they dont speak portuguese and it was pretty fun. It was kinda fun seeing how the gift of tongues really does work for missionaries... in the first medical center we went to the head nurse was actually from cuba and i had to translate for her and our nurse, but she spoke about 40 percent spanish, 40 creolo and 20 portuguese. The cool part is that it didnt even matter and i was still able to understand everything she said and we got it all taken care of. It was a pretty cool day, it pretty much felt like i just took a day out of the mission and spent a day with my grandparents.
We did lose quite a bit of time working this week though because of that and also interviews with President Neves cause he was up here and yesterday we had to go to a leadership meeting of all of the branches here to get ready for our district conference that will be on the 21 of November. We will be having the President of the Madrid temple coming here along with a general authority from Portugual as our speakers so it should be really cool. But we were still able to get quite a few good lessons in and we will be having a baptism next Saturday. It was the kid that drank coffee so we had to postpone it but he is doing good now and he is ready. He is 18 and he is already saying he wants to go on a mission so he should be a strong member here. We have a new investigator now from a member that brought her friend to church and she used to live in portugual going to school and she actually talked with missionaries there. We have only taught her twice so far but she is really interested and we already have a baptism date for her in december and its cool cause her friend can always teach her with us, we just teach her at the chapel down here. I have had the opportunity to get a little taste of a european mission lately too. We have an area inside our area where we get a lot of tourists that we run into sometimes. On saturday we ran into a few guys from sweden that started speaking with us in english and i decided that its so different talking with people from europe instead of Cabo Verdeans. They make a lot of educated questions while asking about our church which is really cool cause here when we talk with people they just keep shaking their head and saying yes but they dont really say anything else. Other than that we are going to praia tonight for our zone leaders counsel and then back here tomorrow night. Well thats about the update on the work.
10/25 Letter Home
First of all the biggest thing that happened this week was probably the weather. On Friday during the middle of the night a huge rain storm came in and it didnt stop until Saturday late at night... there were floods inside and out of our house. There was about a 3 foot deep river that formed in the street by our house that we have to cross everyday, so to cross it that morning us and everyone else around us all hopped into a city bus, drove across the river, and then got out on the other side. The bad thing is that the water is so dirty from flowing through all the trash and stuff so you have to be careful and not get in it. I will try to send you guys a film of it if the computer lets me. It always got into our house too so we had to spend the morning mopping. Besides all the water the weather was really nice though, it was nice to have it cool for a change, it kinda felt like october weather from back at home but still not cold enough to use a long sleeve shirt. One cool thing i have noticed though is we always have our best days teaching wise and also for finding new people on the days with the worst weather.... i think its the Lords way of blessing us for still going out and working hard even in the cold or something like that.
Another cool thing that happened this week was a missionary couple that came to pay us a visit this weekend. They are from Idaho and serving in Germany but they are the head of this thing called Outreach that is getting pretty big in the european area. Its a group of people between 18 and 30 that are single and its just for them to have activities and stuff twice a week to help them stay in the church and find new people for us missionaries to teach too. Its pretty cool and it seems like its going to help a lot. The casal Goff from Orem are the ones in charge of it here in Mindelo... and by the way speaking of them they want you guys to tell Roger and Ellen Cornell hi for them cause they know them well. They also want to know if you dad deliver mail in their area (garden village or garden park) because they want to talk with you when they get back in march. But so anyways they are working on getting this outreach program going strong here to help out the young adults. I think it will be good and has had a lot of success in europe. The couple from Germany came and had a meeting with the district and branch presidents, the presidency of the outreach, and some of us missionaries to show us how to use it last night for a couple hours. After it my companion and i went out to the town square where everyone goes to hang out sunday night (its probably the nicest place and most tourist place in the country) and we passed out a few invites to some people that age down there. One cool thing about the culture here is everyone is open to talk with everyone so when we invited the people they seemed really excited about it and they said they would go to the activities. Hopefully they go and then we can start teaching some of them.
We were also supposed to have a baptism this last week but there were a few complications. He drank coffee one of the days so we told him we would have to delay it another 2 weeks to get him more ready and he didnt really like that and still wanted to be baptized that week. We told him that the baptism isnt just something you do cause you want to and you have to follow a few standards to be baptized... to make a long story short it took him a long time to understand the importance of baptism and repentance and that its not something that just happens over night. He has gone to church for a year now and knows pretty much everything but he says he doesnt want to wait two more weeks, so we told him it will have to be him to decide and we will be here waiting if he wants us to help him prepare a little more. I think its kinda good that happened though cause if it didnt he would have just kept doing it after his baptism without realizing the importance of it. WE had taught him about it, but there is a difference between someone knowing something in their brain and actually knowing it and planning on following it. Hopefully we can help him out though. I think he is a lot like a lot of the members here that dont really understand the importance of stuff here. But we are here to help them with it. Other than that everything is still going about the same and we are still full of people to teach. Transfers will be in 2 weeks so we will see if i will stay with my comp or get a new one, i think we will stay together though.
Another cool thing that happened this week was a missionary couple that came to pay us a visit this weekend. They are from Idaho and serving in Germany but they are the head of this thing called Outreach that is getting pretty big in the european area. Its a group of people between 18 and 30 that are single and its just for them to have activities and stuff twice a week to help them stay in the church and find new people for us missionaries to teach too. Its pretty cool and it seems like its going to help a lot. The casal Goff from Orem are the ones in charge of it here in Mindelo... and by the way speaking of them they want you guys to tell Roger and Ellen Cornell hi for them cause they know them well. They also want to know if you dad deliver mail in their area (garden village or garden park) because they want to talk with you when they get back in march. But so anyways they are working on getting this outreach program going strong here to help out the young adults. I think it will be good and has had a lot of success in europe. The couple from Germany came and had a meeting with the district and branch presidents, the presidency of the outreach, and some of us missionaries to show us how to use it last night for a couple hours. After it my companion and i went out to the town square where everyone goes to hang out sunday night (its probably the nicest place and most tourist place in the country) and we passed out a few invites to some people that age down there. One cool thing about the culture here is everyone is open to talk with everyone so when we invited the people they seemed really excited about it and they said they would go to the activities. Hopefully they go and then we can start teaching some of them.
We were also supposed to have a baptism this last week but there were a few complications. He drank coffee one of the days so we told him we would have to delay it another 2 weeks to get him more ready and he didnt really like that and still wanted to be baptized that week. We told him that the baptism isnt just something you do cause you want to and you have to follow a few standards to be baptized... to make a long story short it took him a long time to understand the importance of baptism and repentance and that its not something that just happens over night. He has gone to church for a year now and knows pretty much everything but he says he doesnt want to wait two more weeks, so we told him it will have to be him to decide and we will be here waiting if he wants us to help him prepare a little more. I think its kinda good that happened though cause if it didnt he would have just kept doing it after his baptism without realizing the importance of it. WE had taught him about it, but there is a difference between someone knowing something in their brain and actually knowing it and planning on following it. Hopefully we can help him out though. I think he is a lot like a lot of the members here that dont really understand the importance of stuff here. But we are here to help them with it. Other than that everything is still going about the same and we are still full of people to teach. Transfers will be in 2 weeks so we will see if i will stay with my comp or get a new one, i think we will stay together though.
10-18 Letter Home
I guess i will just jump right down into it and let you guys know what happened. So we had a general authority come visit us on Friday which was the highlight of the week. It was Elder and Sister Schutze from Germany and they were really nice and funny. Sister Shutze's english was a little hard to understand but they both had some really good stories. My President called me the night before we would have it and told me i would have to give a 15 minute thought for it, so i was a little bit nervous but it all went well. Schutze actually came up to me after and thanked me for it and everything and said he was inspired and learned a lot from it and that i have a gift for teaching, so it was kinda cool having a general authority tell me that. Maybe he was just saying it cause he has to be nice but i feel a lot better at that type of stuff than before my mission! His main topic was about how we need to be examples for the members and leadership here because the church is still young and still has a long way to go. There have even been some problems going on with our mission President, and even though its nothing really serious its still something that wouldnt be happening if we had a President from america or europe or somewhere. The culture here plays a big part in it. Schutze actually pulled a couple of us aside and talked about it though and just said we need to be patiente with it and try to help it out the best we can and that one day the church will be a lot stronger here and not have these problems. I really liked him though and he helped a lot. He actually was in the area presidency of Russia when Ryan was serving there
10-11 Letter Home
Its crazy to think that one more week has passed, it has been going by really quick! They say that the last half of the mission goes even faster and it looks like thats true. So hopefully the picture i sent to you guys works... thats what the sentapedes look like here. They are about 10 in. long and way thick and they hiss at you! I havent been bit yet but my companion has twice and a few other missionaries have too. We were walking last night with a member down a trail and one slithered up on a member that was with us foot but he just kicked it off! They are vemonous though so it keeps life pretty exciting and you have to go to the hospital if you get bit. Luckily our house is in an area that isnt really trashy so i dont think we have too many there.
Besides that not too much crazy stuff is going on. We had our division to Santo Antao with the elders out there this last week and it was really fun. Porto Novo is the only city that has elders there so far but its really different from here or praia, its a lot more calm, i really like it! The power went out while we were walking that night and it was really cool, it was nice and peaceful and you could see all the stars and everything! I went out and walked with Elder Smith from Ceder City and he is a cool guy, i always learn a lot on the divisions. Thats the plus side of being the zone leader. The down side has having to deal with all the problems in the zone instead of just concentrating on our own area.
As for our area its going really well. We always have a lot of people to teach and we have 2 girls that are getting baptized this week. The only thing that could be better in our area is that we need more familys and guys here that can get the priesthood. This branch is bigger than my last one but it still needs more guys that could help with the leadership and also guys that could go serve missions. Its kinda sad cause a lot of people here dont realize the importance of things especielly the younger people. There are quite a few young guys here in the branch but most of them dont care about doing things like passing the sacrament or even being worthy to do it. Lots of people think that they dont need to worry about living the commandments but then when the consequences come they just complain and wonder why all that stuff is happening with them. I just want to say to them, "I told you so!" But we cant force people to listen to us... we just lay it out for them and they have to decide for themselves if they will follow it or not.
I cant remember if i told you of that investigator of my last area, Patricia, lately but she is doing awesome! She just finished the book of mormon after only like 3 and a half weeks of reading! She has a way strong testimony and is going to be baptized at the start of November along with her kids! She is probably one of the best things that has happened in my mission so far, its stories like that that make it worth being out here! The work is still progressing here!
Thats too bad that you guys didnt see a whole lot of elk on the hunts but thats way cool about the bears! I cant wait for next years elk hunt! Thats good that byu is picking it back up too. Im sitting right next to Elder Rogers right now and he said he just got an e mail from bronco mendehall that has the update on everything going on. He says that the only have one freshman reciever thats doing really anything so they ran the ball more last game... and also that poppinga is running the defense. Hopefully that gets things going better. I like hearing about these football updates cause all i hear about from the people here is about soccer!
Well i cant really think of anything else going on thats new. This next week we will have a general authority coming to talk with us... his name is Shutz or something like that and he is from germany. It will be cool to hear from him.
10-04 Letter Home
Well one thing that I am definitely learning on the mission is pacients... especially today. The light has been out all day so we have just been waiting to use internet, and then once we found a place it wouldnt open my e mails! My p day is now almost over and i am just barely being able to get this off to you guys. Its going to be weird to get back home and have light 24/7 and have everything work how it should, im not going to know what to do! But everything is going good now and Im doing alright.
This week was a good one but way different, i havent even worked since thursday. Friday was our zone leaders counsel in Praia and this weekend was conference that we were able to watch all of, it was awesome! Conference has a whole knew meaning to me now that I am on the mission, i love it! We watched all of all 4 sessions and we were even able to watch priesthood session and relief society session on sunday morning before we watched the others. Us that wanted to watch them in english went over to the Goff´s house which is the missionary couple here in Mindelo. I dont know if i told you guys about them but they are from Pleasant Grove and live in Orem now right by the post office, i think its called like garden village so you probably deliver their mail dad. They were really nice and it was nice being able to watch in english. The chapel just right down the street had it in portuguese and it was for all the members of all 4 branches to go to it. Not all the members took advantage of it though and there was only about the size of one full branch that went to watch... i think a lot of the members just took it as a break from church for a week and didnt go. Its kinda sad but the truth is that these people are definitely not ready to have a stake, let alone a temple here! They have a lot to do before that! Even some of the branch leadership doesnt know exactly whats going on here at all times. An example of this is one day at the end of sacrament meeting, our branch president was closing it and to end he wished everyone a good time at the festival at the beach that the island would have. They have festivals here that are just full of iniquity and everyone just goes and gets drunk, so it wasnt the best thing that our PRESIDENT was telling people to have a good time. Thats about the equivelant of the bishop of our home ward ending sacrament meeting by saying "Thanks for coming to church and we wish all of you a great time at the ozzy osborne concert tonight!" There are lots of little things like that that kinda make the missionary work a little more challanging. We teach our investigators one day about keeping the sabath day holy and the next sunday they see half the members doing crazy thinks that day and then the invest. ask us why they are doing that if its not allowed. I guess the church is still young here though and things will become stronger with time. The people that went to conference though really liked it and i loved the talks. The last talk of the last session was probably one of my favorites... M Russell Ballard was speaking my language on that one with the fly fishing examples! Uchtdorfs talk was way cool too and I learned a lot with all of them!
Praia was a pretty fun trip too. We got there early friday morning so me and my companion had time to go visit some of the people we know. We got to see Gilmara and her kids and they are still doing way good and i got to see some of the other ones we baptized! Its good to see them staying strong still! My companion and i are getting along just fine too. Its funny cause this last week we were talking and he was telling me how where he lives (Portugual) they had to travel to Madrid to go to the temple, but that they were putting in a new metro system from Port. to Madrid that would make the trip quicker and he was excited about it. Imagine how excited he is now that they are getting one right there! We are watching the announcements with a sister from Portugual that was born in the church too and when they announced it she couldnt stop crying! It will help out those strong members here too cause its a lot closer than going to brazil like they had too. My comp is actually a convert to the church of three years and he is already 26, but he is way strong and a way funny kid. He is way chill and easy to get along with and he works hard. My new house is also a mansion compared to what it used to be... its way to big for us though! Its three stories high! Its actually a little too big and i would like one a little smaller but i cant complain. The area is going really good too, we have tons of people to teach and tons of investigators that are getting ready to get baptized. Our branch is a lot stronger too and gets about 100 people in church each week (they say, i still havent had church meeting).
So yeah everything here is going pretty good. My testimony is growing a ton out here and i am learning a lot of stuff that i wouldnt have been able to if i didnt come out here. I actually got sick this week but everything is better now. Congratulations on the deer shane... Its not as big as anything i would have shot but it still sounds respectable. And also a big congratulations to utah state for making byu´s problems even worse... it sounds like they are falling apart. They better get things back together so that they can be solid for next season. Sorry if i forgot to respond back to anyone elses questions or anything, with the internet problems today i was kinda rushed. I guess i will just sum it up by telling everyone thanks for everything! Have a good week and i will talk to ya guys next Monday!
This week was a good one but way different, i havent even worked since thursday. Friday was our zone leaders counsel in Praia and this weekend was conference that we were able to watch all of, it was awesome! Conference has a whole knew meaning to me now that I am on the mission, i love it! We watched all of all 4 sessions and we were even able to watch priesthood session and relief society session on sunday morning before we watched the others. Us that wanted to watch them in english went over to the Goff´s house which is the missionary couple here in Mindelo. I dont know if i told you guys about them but they are from Pleasant Grove and live in Orem now right by the post office, i think its called like garden village so you probably deliver their mail dad. They were really nice and it was nice being able to watch in english. The chapel just right down the street had it in portuguese and it was for all the members of all 4 branches to go to it. Not all the members took advantage of it though and there was only about the size of one full branch that went to watch... i think a lot of the members just took it as a break from church for a week and didnt go. Its kinda sad but the truth is that these people are definitely not ready to have a stake, let alone a temple here! They have a lot to do before that! Even some of the branch leadership doesnt know exactly whats going on here at all times. An example of this is one day at the end of sacrament meeting, our branch president was closing it and to end he wished everyone a good time at the festival at the beach that the island would have. They have festivals here that are just full of iniquity and everyone just goes and gets drunk, so it wasnt the best thing that our PRESIDENT was telling people to have a good time. Thats about the equivelant of the bishop of our home ward ending sacrament meeting by saying "Thanks for coming to church and we wish all of you a great time at the ozzy osborne concert tonight!" There are lots of little things like that that kinda make the missionary work a little more challanging. We teach our investigators one day about keeping the sabath day holy and the next sunday they see half the members doing crazy thinks that day and then the invest. ask us why they are doing that if its not allowed. I guess the church is still young here though and things will become stronger with time. The people that went to conference though really liked it and i loved the talks. The last talk of the last session was probably one of my favorites... M Russell Ballard was speaking my language on that one with the fly fishing examples! Uchtdorfs talk was way cool too and I learned a lot with all of them!
Praia was a pretty fun trip too. We got there early friday morning so me and my companion had time to go visit some of the people we know. We got to see Gilmara and her kids and they are still doing way good and i got to see some of the other ones we baptized! Its good to see them staying strong still! My companion and i are getting along just fine too. Its funny cause this last week we were talking and he was telling me how where he lives (Portugual) they had to travel to Madrid to go to the temple, but that they were putting in a new metro system from Port. to Madrid that would make the trip quicker and he was excited about it. Imagine how excited he is now that they are getting one right there! We are watching the announcements with a sister from Portugual that was born in the church too and when they announced it she couldnt stop crying! It will help out those strong members here too cause its a lot closer than going to brazil like they had too. My comp is actually a convert to the church of three years and he is already 26, but he is way strong and a way funny kid. He is way chill and easy to get along with and he works hard. My new house is also a mansion compared to what it used to be... its way to big for us though! Its three stories high! Its actually a little too big and i would like one a little smaller but i cant complain. The area is going really good too, we have tons of people to teach and tons of investigators that are getting ready to get baptized. Our branch is a lot stronger too and gets about 100 people in church each week (they say, i still havent had church meeting).
So yeah everything here is going pretty good. My testimony is growing a ton out here and i am learning a lot of stuff that i wouldnt have been able to if i didnt come out here. I actually got sick this week but everything is better now. Congratulations on the deer shane... Its not as big as anything i would have shot but it still sounds respectable. And also a big congratulations to utah state for making byu´s problems even worse... it sounds like they are falling apart. They better get things back together so that they can be solid for next season. Sorry if i forgot to respond back to anyone elses questions or anything, with the internet problems today i was kinda rushed. I guess i will just sum it up by telling everyone thanks for everything! Have a good week and i will talk to ya guys next Monday!
9/27 Letter Home
Well this last week was the last week of the transfers and i got switched. It was actually kinda surprising cause i thought i would be staying maybe one more in my last area but president called me up on Saturday and said I would be transferred. Im still here in Mindelo though, it was just a little switch to the other zone on the north side. My new companion is Elder Fernandes from Portugual... he is a way cool guy and speaks english perfectly. The most surprising thing is that i am now zone leader of this zone.... i thought for sure I would be taken out of zone leader once i got changed. This will be my 7th transfer which is a way long time... i must still have something to learn as zone leader or something i guess. The most i have ever heard of someone being zone leader in this mission is 7 and it was my first companion of the mission so its looking like i might beat that, we will have to see though. I am ready to be taken out though and just be normal. Speaking of my first companion, he is in this branch that i will be serving in now so he will be helping us out a ton, he was excited once he found out i would be headed there. This branch and area will definitely be different though, it looks like its a lot stronger. They say that the members help a ton, there are a lot more people in church every week, and the area is going really good. We have a lot of people to teach it sounds like. Even though my last area was a little more difficult i am still going to miss it too, especially a few of our investigators and some of the members. I dont know if I ever told you about Patricia but her and her kids were amazing. She is just 27 and her husban is more like 45 (we never were able to teach him) and she has a 17 year old adopted daughter, a nine year old girl, and 6 year old boy. At the first she told us that she didnt really want to have anything to do with any church just cause they never practice what they teach, but she has completely changed with us. She told us that she doesnt know how we are doing it but we are converting her and that she wants to follow the church. I know how though, its because of the book of mormon. She reads like 20 chapters a week and takes notes of the things she learns. It is responding to all of her doubts! We told her that we would teach about baptism the next visit and she came straight out and said she is against baptism, especially because she doesnt think kids need to be baptized cause they dont have sin. So we left her with Moroni 8 to read which pretty much bashes on young kids being baptized and it completely changed her mind, her testimony grew even more with that! She told us that she heard bad things about the book of mormon before she started talking with us but after reading it that has all changed! We were also preparing the family of To and Paula for baptism. Paula and her daughter are excited but To still has some doubts. He is a stud though and he is progressing a ton and we are getting rid of those doubts. They are super nice and always give us a bunch of fruit that they get sent from fogo. Nothing is better than fruit from Fogo! Im excited for the new area though and i will let you know how everything goes. Im also way excited for general conference! We will be watching it in the couple's house thats here live so that will be cool, we will just have to miss priesthood session cause its so late out here. So how about the hunts... are you guys doing spike only this year? You guys will have to let me know about everything that goes on. Good luck with everything and sorry if i didnt really have time to respond to anyone of you guys... time was a little bit less cause i tried to get some pictures off to you guys. Let me know if they go through and i will send you some more next week. I will also make sure to send off some individual e mails next time too to respond back to everyone! By the way whats up with byu? They better get it going! I am sitting right next to Elder Rogers right now, the one that played there, and he is pretty disappointed hearing about all this! Well have a good week and thanks for all the support and e mails! Ill talk to ya guys next week.
9/20- One Year in Cabo Verde!!!
Well I wont lie i am extremely tired, we had quite the day today. All of our district headed out this morning and took a boat over to Santo Antão to spend the day there. The boat on the way out there was pretty small and the waves were pretty big.... people were throwing up all over the place on the way over and by the end it smelled really bad! My stomach is to strong for that though, dont worry. It was cool though, on the way over we had a group of dolphins that swam up to the side of us for a little bit and there were also a bunch of flying fish. Once we got over there we headed up into the mountains and it was amazing, i almost wanted to cry it was so nice! I felt like i was back in utah... it was really grean everywhere and we were clear up in the clouds, it was definitely really different from being down at sea level where its extremely hot all day long! We hiked up in there though and had a good time, i took a lot of pictures that i will send next time when i have time to download them. Santo Antao is the coolest island that i have been to yet though and right now only has two missionaries at the bottom, but i think it would be awesome to open up an area up higher in the mountains sometime. The people that live up there are literally in the middle of no where, most of them dont have any electricity or anything! They are really nice though and grow tons of fruits up there and gave us some today. I also so some cows which was pretty amazing... the only cows i had ever seen before here were in praia and they eat the trash on the streets but these cows were actually eating green grass up in the meadows! It was a fun p day though and tiring, i actually didnt have time to use internet until tonight because by the time our boat got back in it was time to go out and teach so we just had a little time between lessons and going home. This week we also went out to sal and did our division with the zone leaders there. We got to see the coolest beach i have ever seen there and we also went and taught in an area where every single house is made out of tin and cardboard and are about the size of one bedroom. It was really sad how they live there but they are really humble. I never believed before that people would be able to live in a place like that before the mission. I have a couple pictures though so i will send them to you guys. Other than that it was a decent week but full of challanges! Nobody really wants to really do anything here and we werent able to get anyone in church this week. All the missionaries in this area are having challenges but we will get things changed... Its a fight out here but we´ll win it. We still have a few really cool investigators so thats why im a little bit confused on why they didnt show up... i think the rain might have had part to do with it though. We are getting a lot of rain right now so its nice and cool here a lot of the time, besides when the sun comes out. Then it gets really humid and hot enough to split a rock! Its always hotter the day after a rain storm. But i am hoping that this week will go better. That family of Tó and Paula are still really cool and we have set a date for them to be baptized and they all seemed really excited. I will let you guys know how everyone does this week. I guess its good to have all of these challanges... im learning a lot and my testimony is getting a lot stronger. I guess it will help me out for things after the mission and i will be stronger from it.
9/13 Letter Home
If you happen to get the other pictures of the baptisms, those would be from this week and last week... its daniela and luis. The baptism went all well so that was cool! We also had a pretty good week with our investigators, we still have some that are progressing really well. We are teaching the family of Tó and Paula right now and there kids. Tó is from here but Paula is from Fogo, and that creolo is a lot more like praia so its cool being able to listen to her and talk with her. They are a way cool family and even though we only started teaching them about a week and a half ago they are progressing a ton. Tó has the coolest job in the world, he is a fisherman here! They go out for a couple days each time and usually go off of Santa Luzia which is the only that doesnt have any people. They catch all types of sweet fish and he always has cool stories for me... i tell him one day im gonna come back and go fishing with him after the mission. So he had work yesterday but Paula came to church along with the kids which was really cool. We actually had quite a few people in church this week, about 60 which is about 20 more than usual. We got some investigators there and some less actives too. One of Paula´s kid´s dad is actually living in america now so he goes there quite a bit to visit. It was really funny, i guess he went out there once for about a year and when he came back he was a lot fatter. They are always talking with us about how everyone likes to eat junk food there and i guess its kinda true. The kid is 7 years old and he always likes to talk to me about mcdonalds and how much he misses it... they dont know what that is out here. They do eat a lot healthier here and everyone has to walk everywhere instead of driving, so there are a lot less overweight people. Dont ask me how i put on so much weight cause i dont know! But so yeah thats our week for ya, not too much out of the ordinary. We will be having transfers in 2 weeks and im not sure if i will be staying or leaving and if i leave i have no idea to where, i will just have to wait and see. It doesnt really matter to me what happens, all i know is that i want to serve on Fogo for quite a while! I wouldnt mind staying here another one though cause there are cool people we teach and i want to stay with them and hopefully see them get baptized.
So this next week should be pretty busy. We will have to keep the work going in our area and we are also going to be going to sal on wednesday and thursday to stay with the elders there. Im pretty excited to go back there, its a way weird along.... its flat and really small. It has really cool beaches though so i think during lunch we will go to it and take some pictures. We are also going to santo antao next week as a zone activity which i am way excited for! That is the island we can see from here, and we will have to take a boat ride to get there. Once we get there we will be taking one of those hiaces (those van things) up into the mountains and doing some hiking. Those mountains get really high and green so it will be liking being in utah almost. But the boat wont be getting back until 6 that evening and then we have lessons after that... so im not exactly sure when i will be able to write back, it might just be a day late or something.
So this next week should be pretty busy. We will have to keep the work going in our area and we are also going to be going to sal on wednesday and thursday to stay with the elders there. Im pretty excited to go back there, its a way weird along.... its flat and really small. It has really cool beaches though so i think during lunch we will go to it and take some pictures. We are also going to santo antao next week as a zone activity which i am way excited for! That is the island we can see from here, and we will have to take a boat ride to get there. Once we get there we will be taking one of those hiaces (those van things) up into the mountains and doing some hiking. Those mountains get really high and green so it will be liking being in utah almost. But the boat wont be getting back until 6 that evening and then we have lessons after that... so im not exactly sure when i will be able to write back, it might just be a day late or something.
9/6 letter home
Man thats crazy about all the news that is going on, its crazy to think that fall is actually here! It was nice to get all that football news though and im glad to hear that byu got a win to start out the year. Im looking forward to getting more of these updates and im excited to hear about all the hunting stories too. Sounds like this week was the week of picnics too... i remember going to that park you guys went to everyonce in a while, its pretty nice. I was actually thinking you guys were going to yellowstone this week but i guess that will be the next? Well either way it sounds like everything is going good back at home.
Everything out here is really about the same. We had our first baptism in this area in a while this last saturday and it was actually the best i have ever seen here. It started on time and was well organized which is something that doesnt happen here, ever. Their culture is a little different here and even things of the church never go as planned so it was nice that this all went well. We are going to be having another baptism this week so for the meantime things are going pretty well. It will be Daniella, a 17 year old girl that we teach. At first she didnt seem to interested and she didnt really care to go to church or anything, but this last month she totally switched everything around. She started coming to church every week and completely changed and now she is really excited about her baptism. Cabo Verde had EFY out here like they do back at home, and this was the first one they had ever had. All the youth went down to the island of santiago from all of the different islands and stayed there for a week, and daniella went to it even though she wasnt a member yet. That helped her out even more and got her super excited for the baptism on saturday. We have also been teaching 3 new families, all of which promised to show up in church this sunday ( and if they do it will double our normal attendance) One of the girls of the families at first said she doesnt like anything to do with churches because there are tons of churches here that just say things to get your money and trick people, but once we explained a little bit about our message she kinda changed and that 2nd time we taught her she was telling us she wanted to come to ours. We also had to 20 year old guys that showed up to church yesterday and are doing way good.
I went down to praia for the counsel again this week and this time i had a little extra time to go see people. I got to go see gilmara and her kids and also a few other cool families i knew there, it was way cool! Well i cant really think of anything else that is new. Sorry that this e mail is kinda short but thanks for all the e mails from you guys, i loved reading them. You guys have a good week and ill talk to ya later! Its crazy to think that there are only 10 more months left! Love ya guys
Everything out here is really about the same. We had our first baptism in this area in a while this last saturday and it was actually the best i have ever seen here. It started on time and was well organized which is something that doesnt happen here, ever. Their culture is a little different here and even things of the church never go as planned so it was nice that this all went well. We are going to be having another baptism this week so for the meantime things are going pretty well. It will be Daniella, a 17 year old girl that we teach. At first she didnt seem to interested and she didnt really care to go to church or anything, but this last month she totally switched everything around. She started coming to church every week and completely changed and now she is really excited about her baptism. Cabo Verde had EFY out here like they do back at home, and this was the first one they had ever had. All the youth went down to the island of santiago from all of the different islands and stayed there for a week, and daniella went to it even though she wasnt a member yet. That helped her out even more and got her super excited for the baptism on saturday. We have also been teaching 3 new families, all of which promised to show up in church this sunday ( and if they do it will double our normal attendance) One of the girls of the families at first said she doesnt like anything to do with churches because there are tons of churches here that just say things to get your money and trick people, but once we explained a little bit about our message she kinda changed and that 2nd time we taught her she was telling us she wanted to come to ours. We also had to 20 year old guys that showed up to church yesterday and are doing way good.
I went down to praia for the counsel again this week and this time i had a little extra time to go see people. I got to go see gilmara and her kids and also a few other cool families i knew there, it was way cool! Well i cant really think of anything else that is new. Sorry that this e mail is kinda short but thanks for all the e mails from you guys, i loved reading them. You guys have a good week and ill talk to ya later! Its crazy to think that there are only 10 more months left! Love ya guys
8/30 letter home
Hows everyone doing? Its crazy to think that another week as already gone by. I think about all the next stuff that has been going on this past week and there really isnt that much... everything is going about the same. The work is definitely getting better though, my companion and i work well together and we have fun too. We found some way cool families this week and some new people to teach. One of them was taught for the first time on saturday and he was already in the church with us on sunday. Luis will be baptized next week and then the week after we have a 17 year old girl named daniella who will be baptized. It was pretty cool cause when i first started teaching her with my other companion i didnt really know if she was very interested, but all the sudden she just started to do everything all on her own like going to church every week. She already has a brother who is on a mission and a bunch of friends who are members so it was easy to get her ready. One cool thing is that me and my companion are being working hard and i feel like we are being blessed for it. There are lots of companionships that do tons and tons of contacts without anyone really caring to talk to them. But we are working hard and when our lessons fall we will go start contacts and usually people will let us in right off. Last night our lesson fell and the first door we hit was a 30 year old lady and before i even said me name she told us to come in. Her husban was there and her sister and her friend showed up during the lesson too and it went awesome. She said that she didnt like to follow churches cause they all just taught a bunch of different things that she didnt like and all the churches here just want money, but when we taught her she really liked it. We have like 10 people who have already promissed us to go to church next sunday so im pretty excited.
One cool thing that happened the other day is that while we were walking around we saw two guys in the street and one of them was carrying a shark around that he killed when he went scuba diving out from the beach here. It was only like 3 feet long but he told me that he has killed a lot bigger. When i asked him if he was afraid of them he said "no way" and then pointed to some random drunk guy next to us and said " Im a lot more afraid of that guy, you never know if he is going to through a glass bottle or rock at me!" It was pretty funny cause its true haha these people are crazy and just like to drink... but the drunk people really like us missionaries! They start talking with us and they wont stop.
So we had our zone conference this week and it went well, my companion and i had to give a training for over 2 hours. Im thinking it will be my last as zone leader though cause i have been it for a long time. We have our zone leaders counsel in praia this week too on wednesday so i will get to see praia again.
One cool thing that happened the other day is that while we were walking around we saw two guys in the street and one of them was carrying a shark around that he killed when he went scuba diving out from the beach here. It was only like 3 feet long but he told me that he has killed a lot bigger. When i asked him if he was afraid of them he said "no way" and then pointed to some random drunk guy next to us and said " Im a lot more afraid of that guy, you never know if he is going to through a glass bottle or rock at me!" It was pretty funny cause its true haha these people are crazy and just like to drink... but the drunk people really like us missionaries! They start talking with us and they wont stop.
So we had our zone conference this week and it went well, my companion and i had to give a training for over 2 hours. Im thinking it will be my last as zone leader though cause i have been it for a long time. We have our zone leaders counsel in praia this week too on wednesday so i will get to see praia again.
8/24 Letter Home
Everything is going pretty well out here, not a whole lot has changed. My new companion is a cool guy and prett funny, we are having a pretty good time. This week we had to make a bunch of trips to the airport right at the start which was kinda annoying but thats just how transfers are. We had to take people there that were leaving the island a few times and we also had to go pick up the new american sisters that just barely got here this week. We were still able to get a lot of work done though and this was one of the better weeks i have had in this area. We found a few new people here that are really cool... we are getting rid of our investigators that dont really do anything and we are finding others so its a lot of hard work but its a lot better. A couple of the people we found though are sailors which is kinda hard cause they travel for like 6 months at a time and they never know when they are going to be leaving... we will see what happens though. We also found a new couple that is actually married (which is kinda rare) and they are super nice, im liking forward to teaching them again. As for our other investigators, Luis is still doing the best. He got past that little problem with alcohol and is going to be baptized not this saturday but the next. We are also working with the members a lot more and we are a lot closer with them now. They are all inviting us over to their houses to teach them and talk with them and they are starting to help us a lot more. Like i said our branch is only about 40 people right now but it used to have a ton more, so there are a lot of inactives in the area so our plan is to go find them with the help of the active members and get them back there. Hopefully we will be able to make this branch a lot stronger.
So anyways there is the summary of the work. Mindelo is going pretty well... we are in the rain season now so its been pretty cloudy most of the days this week. We got dumped on on saturday, it was coming down hard! It was a good way to find some new people to teach though, i think that some of the people felt bad for us so they let us in to teach and it worked to our advantage.
So anyways there is the summary of the work. Mindelo is going pretty well... we are in the rain season now so its been pretty cloudy most of the days this week. We got dumped on on saturday, it was coming down hard! It was a good way to find some new people to teach though, i think that some of the people felt bad for us so they let us in to teach and it worked to our advantage.
8/16 Letter home
Hows it going back at home? Things are going pretty smoothly out here. We are just starting a new transfer and i am getting my new companion, we will be going to the airport to pick him up from praia in just a few hours. It is Elder Morreira from Brazil. I was hoping to get an American so that i could have someone to relate to more, but E. Morreira is the next best thing. I knew him in praia and he is a really cool guy and really chill so im sure i will like him. This will be the 5th transfer in a row with a comp that doesnt speak english though! I will be training him as zone leader and then hopefully i will be taken out of zone leader this transfer. I would like to go open up a new island or something still!
So anyways this week was pretty fun. One of the best things that happend was that i found a little store here in our area that has some american products... when i walked in i almost started crying tears of joy. I was able to find real bbq sauce, peanut butter, ranch dressing, real spaghetti sauce, and brown sugar! I know those 5 things dont really seem like that big of a deal to you guys but to me it just completely changed my way of living in the mission!
As for the work this week everything is going about the same. One sad thing is that Luis, that guy that is getting ready for baptism had a little stumbling block. We showed up to our lesson and he was drunk. That is the first time he had had any problem with alcohol recently and it was kinda sad, but we got it out of the way and he is still on his way to being baptized. He is a man of his word and he said he was done doing anything like that from now on. We are still working on finding new people though and having to do lots of contacts. We have taught a few new cool people though. We taught one guy named Mowacir who is the smartest man i have talked with here. He is a professor in portugual during a part of the year and he is also an author and travels to all different parts of the world to do researches. His house is a library and he speaks portuguese really well which is kinda uncommon here! We taught him and at first i thought that we werent going to get anywhere and that he would just bash on what we taught but it was the complete opposite! He really liked it and wants to keep talking with us. WE are going back there tomorrow so we will see what happens. Our branch is still really weak but we had a branch activity the other night that was really fun. We played games and had a though and everything and the turnout was actually pretty good with about 30 people there. Even though its small there are still some way cool people and a lot of them are pretty close and we are gaining the trust of them more too. But being in a small branch we have a lot of responsibility in it. I had to teach gospel principles class last week and this week i am teaching primary, it should be pretty fun.
I heard about that elder that came out here but went home after a few weeks but i never met him. He went straight to fogo so i didnt know him. That is something that happens but not a whole lot, most people are able to deal with it.
Well i cant think of a whole lot else that is new. Today we just woke up and a couple of us went to the beach here in mindelo which is pretty nice and we played football. I think the rest of the day is going to be spent relaxing and getting my companion. Next week i will let you know a little more about him and everything else.
So anyways this week was pretty fun. One of the best things that happend was that i found a little store here in our area that has some american products... when i walked in i almost started crying tears of joy. I was able to find real bbq sauce, peanut butter, ranch dressing, real spaghetti sauce, and brown sugar! I know those 5 things dont really seem like that big of a deal to you guys but to me it just completely changed my way of living in the mission!
As for the work this week everything is going about the same. One sad thing is that Luis, that guy that is getting ready for baptism had a little stumbling block. We showed up to our lesson and he was drunk. That is the first time he had had any problem with alcohol recently and it was kinda sad, but we got it out of the way and he is still on his way to being baptized. He is a man of his word and he said he was done doing anything like that from now on. We are still working on finding new people though and having to do lots of contacts. We have taught a few new cool people though. We taught one guy named Mowacir who is the smartest man i have talked with here. He is a professor in portugual during a part of the year and he is also an author and travels to all different parts of the world to do researches. His house is a library and he speaks portuguese really well which is kinda uncommon here! We taught him and at first i thought that we werent going to get anywhere and that he would just bash on what we taught but it was the complete opposite! He really liked it and wants to keep talking with us. WE are going back there tomorrow so we will see what happens. Our branch is still really weak but we had a branch activity the other night that was really fun. We played games and had a though and everything and the turnout was actually pretty good with about 30 people there. Even though its small there are still some way cool people and a lot of them are pretty close and we are gaining the trust of them more too. But being in a small branch we have a lot of responsibility in it. I had to teach gospel principles class last week and this week i am teaching primary, it should be pretty fun.
I heard about that elder that came out here but went home after a few weeks but i never met him. He went straight to fogo so i didnt know him. That is something that happens but not a whole lot, most people are able to deal with it.
Well i cant think of a whole lot else that is new. Today we just woke up and a couple of us went to the beach here in mindelo which is pretty nice and we played football. I think the rest of the day is going to be spent relaxing and getting my companion. Next week i will let you know a little more about him and everything else.
8/9 letter home
How´s everything going? Things are just about the same out here. I dont know if its because i am getting more and more accustomed each week or what, but it seems like each time i write i have less to tell you guys about. I guess the things that used to seem wild to me dont seem all that strange anymore but im sure that i will have a big wake up call right when i step off the plane and get home! Then i will probably be able to tell all the crazy things that go on out here.
But so anyways like i said, this last tuesday was our zone leaders counsel down in praia. My companion and I and one other companionship (other zone leaders) flew down together and we got there that morning. It was good to see the area that i was raised in out here, but we didnt have any time to go around and say hi to the people i know. The meeting started at 11 that morning and lasted until 9 that night. It was way too long and by the end my eyes were blood shot and i was about to explode! I learned quite a bit though. There have been some world wide changes in all the missions so we had to learn about all of those. Now there are different trainings that we have to give all the missionaries that are supposed to help with all the teaching and everything else we do. We will be teaching them to the other missionaries in zone conferences, but it will take until may to get all 8 trainings done so i will almost be home. We just learned the first 2 this last week. But some of the other things that are different is that president neves will be walking with us once every 3 months and also our zone conferences will happen once every 3 months instead of twice. We will also have zone counsel at the start of every month which means a lot more flying to praia for me. This training help a lot and i have learned a lot, but i am definitely ready to get out of zone leader and i hope that this next transfer will be my last. There are some rumors that some new islands that never had missionaries will be opening up within the next few transfers, so my dream is to just go to one of them and get away from everything besides just taking care of my own area!
We stayed the night in praia that night though in my old house, and as i was walking in that night a miracle home. I heard someone shouting my name from across the street and when i turned around i saw that it was carlos and gilmara, my favorite people there are out here! I was really wanting to see them but since our meeting went so long i didnt thing i would be able to. So it was awesome being able to talk to them and see them after being gone for more than a month. They are still doing awesome and they got married last friday and baptized on saturday!! They are for sure the pride of my mission and carlos will definitely be a big leader in the church here one day when they get a stake and a temple and stuff. I am hoping next time i go down to praia i will have time to see some of the people down there.
But so this area is going about the same, we are getting it a little better each time. We have a stud of a man named Luis in his 40s that we teach and he will be baptized in two weeks. He told us yesterday during church that at first he didnt really care about what we were teaching him but after he started reading the book of mormon it changed everything and now he has a strong testimony. He is a pretty quite guy but he keeps all of his commitments.
But so anyways like i said, this last tuesday was our zone leaders counsel down in praia. My companion and I and one other companionship (other zone leaders) flew down together and we got there that morning. It was good to see the area that i was raised in out here, but we didnt have any time to go around and say hi to the people i know. The meeting started at 11 that morning and lasted until 9 that night. It was way too long and by the end my eyes were blood shot and i was about to explode! I learned quite a bit though. There have been some world wide changes in all the missions so we had to learn about all of those. Now there are different trainings that we have to give all the missionaries that are supposed to help with all the teaching and everything else we do. We will be teaching them to the other missionaries in zone conferences, but it will take until may to get all 8 trainings done so i will almost be home. We just learned the first 2 this last week. But some of the other things that are different is that president neves will be walking with us once every 3 months and also our zone conferences will happen once every 3 months instead of twice. We will also have zone counsel at the start of every month which means a lot more flying to praia for me. This training help a lot and i have learned a lot, but i am definitely ready to get out of zone leader and i hope that this next transfer will be my last. There are some rumors that some new islands that never had missionaries will be opening up within the next few transfers, so my dream is to just go to one of them and get away from everything besides just taking care of my own area!
We stayed the night in praia that night though in my old house, and as i was walking in that night a miracle home. I heard someone shouting my name from across the street and when i turned around i saw that it was carlos and gilmara, my favorite people there are out here! I was really wanting to see them but since our meeting went so long i didnt thing i would be able to. So it was awesome being able to talk to them and see them after being gone for more than a month. They are still doing awesome and they got married last friday and baptized on saturday!! They are for sure the pride of my mission and carlos will definitely be a big leader in the church here one day when they get a stake and a temple and stuff. I am hoping next time i go down to praia i will have time to see some of the people down there.
But so this area is going about the same, we are getting it a little better each time. We have a stud of a man named Luis in his 40s that we teach and he will be baptized in two weeks. He told us yesterday during church that at first he didnt really care about what we were teaching him but after he started reading the book of mormon it changed everything and now he has a strong testimony. He is a pretty quite guy but he keeps all of his commitments.
8/2 Letter home
Its crazy to think that one more week has already gone by, time is flying. It sounds like the family reunion was really fun, it would have been cool to be there! I would kill for some dutch oven cooking and bbq right now. We are still eating at that resteraunt where that lady cooks for us still and at first it was alright but im starting to get sick of eating rice every day again so i think we might be taking a break from it and cook at home again. Did you guys get to ride some horses down there? I am still waiting for the day that you guys write and say that you just bought some horses for us too ride. And if the horses thing doesnt work out i wouldnt find 4 wheelers either, just something to get me up in the mountains every day. This area here in mindelo actually kinda reminds me of kanab with the scenery (besides being surrounded by the ocean). But there is lots of red rock and its just deserty kinda like that and a few mountains and stuff... i was going to take some pictures of it but the day i took my camera out with me it was kinda cloudy so it wouldnt have been all that cool.
So the coolest part about this week was the trip to sal that we had. We headed out there early wednesday morning and stayed out there until thursday morning. Sal is definitely different from the other two islands that i have been on. I dont know if you guys are remembering the movie "I am Legend" but its kinda like that. You see houses and stuff but its just dead quite and nobody is out. Sal is just flat with random houses just scattered across the desert without any streets that really go to them or anything. It actually has the nicest resort out of any of the islands and has the coolest beach in the whole world there with pure white send and clear water where you can see all the way down to the bottom. The only thing is it was cloudy that day too so we didnt bother going out there, i will for sure be going there next time in about a month though. Most people that live there though dont live there permanately, they just go there for work for months at a time so i got to see people from all the different islands. It was a really fun division and i really wouldnt mind serving there one day, but i am still wanting fogo or brava the most. It was really weird flying there, you get to flying altitude for like 5 minutes and then they come back on the intercom and say that you will already start descending. The planes are pretty small too but its cool being able to fly around.
We actually will be flying early tomorrow morning to go back to praia for our zone leaders counsel cause it got switched from next week to this week. It will be cool getting to go to praia again and i am hoping i will have time to see people i know before the counsel starts. I miss all of the people from there! I dont know how excited i am about the zone leaders counsel though, i think it is going to go forever ( like 8 hours) and we will just be sitting there discussing a bunch of different stuff. Its been a cool oportunity to be zone leader but i am so ready to get out and just be a normal missionary, this is my 5th transfer and i know i will be staying at least one more because my companion will be leaving at the end of the transfer in 2 weeks to another area so i will have to stay here to get my new companion.
The work is still progressing but very very slowly and we are having to work hard for it. We still have a couple really cool people that we teach. One is a 44 year old guy that just lives at his house with his sister and mom. He is really quite and stuff but i really like him because if he says he will do something like come to church or be at his house for his appointment, he will really be there. And if he wont be there he will tell us. Thats unlike 99 percent of the people here that say they will do stuff and dont. He has been coming to church these past couple weeks though and reads the book of mormon every day and i believe he will get baptized. We also had a cool experience with a less active this week. All of his family are members of the church (its actually the brother in law of the brother of President Neves). He is 19 and i had never known him before but we ran into him and taught him once and he is a way cool kid. He has been in active for quite a few years though ( he is one of the few here in this country that baptized with 8 years old) so we tried to get him to start reading the scriptures and stuff and we also invited him to play soccer with us next week and stuff cause he plays for a time. The lesson went pretty normal though and i didnt think a whole lot of it afterwards.... and it can kinda actually get really frustrating sometime because most of our lessons are like that and dont seem to really make anything better than it was before we came. It is sometimes kinda discouraging cause you feel like you work really hard but nobody really even cares and that we are just wasting our time here. But so last sunday his mom bore her testimony at church and during it she thanked me and my companion for going over there to teach him because after we left, he got really excited and started acting like a new person. He read the part we left for him in the book of mormon and is starting to do all that stuff again. It was nice to hear that we actually did kinda make a difference and i am excited to go back and teach him again now.
So yeah that was just one cool story i liked but for the most part things are going about the same. Hope everything is going well for you guys though and thanks for everything. Only a couple more weeks until the hunts start!
So the coolest part about this week was the trip to sal that we had. We headed out there early wednesday morning and stayed out there until thursday morning. Sal is definitely different from the other two islands that i have been on. I dont know if you guys are remembering the movie "I am Legend" but its kinda like that. You see houses and stuff but its just dead quite and nobody is out. Sal is just flat with random houses just scattered across the desert without any streets that really go to them or anything. It actually has the nicest resort out of any of the islands and has the coolest beach in the whole world there with pure white send and clear water where you can see all the way down to the bottom. The only thing is it was cloudy that day too so we didnt bother going out there, i will for sure be going there next time in about a month though. Most people that live there though dont live there permanately, they just go there for work for months at a time so i got to see people from all the different islands. It was a really fun division and i really wouldnt mind serving there one day, but i am still wanting fogo or brava the most. It was really weird flying there, you get to flying altitude for like 5 minutes and then they come back on the intercom and say that you will already start descending. The planes are pretty small too but its cool being able to fly around.
We actually will be flying early tomorrow morning to go back to praia for our zone leaders counsel cause it got switched from next week to this week. It will be cool getting to go to praia again and i am hoping i will have time to see people i know before the counsel starts. I miss all of the people from there! I dont know how excited i am about the zone leaders counsel though, i think it is going to go forever ( like 8 hours) and we will just be sitting there discussing a bunch of different stuff. Its been a cool oportunity to be zone leader but i am so ready to get out and just be a normal missionary, this is my 5th transfer and i know i will be staying at least one more because my companion will be leaving at the end of the transfer in 2 weeks to another area so i will have to stay here to get my new companion.
The work is still progressing but very very slowly and we are having to work hard for it. We still have a couple really cool people that we teach. One is a 44 year old guy that just lives at his house with his sister and mom. He is really quite and stuff but i really like him because if he says he will do something like come to church or be at his house for his appointment, he will really be there. And if he wont be there he will tell us. Thats unlike 99 percent of the people here that say they will do stuff and dont. He has been coming to church these past couple weeks though and reads the book of mormon every day and i believe he will get baptized. We also had a cool experience with a less active this week. All of his family are members of the church (its actually the brother in law of the brother of President Neves). He is 19 and i had never known him before but we ran into him and taught him once and he is a way cool kid. He has been in active for quite a few years though ( he is one of the few here in this country that baptized with 8 years old) so we tried to get him to start reading the scriptures and stuff and we also invited him to play soccer with us next week and stuff cause he plays for a time. The lesson went pretty normal though and i didnt think a whole lot of it afterwards.... and it can kinda actually get really frustrating sometime because most of our lessons are like that and dont seem to really make anything better than it was before we came. It is sometimes kinda discouraging cause you feel like you work really hard but nobody really even cares and that we are just wasting our time here. But so last sunday his mom bore her testimony at church and during it she thanked me and my companion for going over there to teach him because after we left, he got really excited and started acting like a new person. He read the part we left for him in the book of mormon and is starting to do all that stuff again. It was nice to hear that we actually did kinda make a difference and i am excited to go back and teach him again now.
So yeah that was just one cool story i liked but for the most part things are going about the same. Hope everything is going well for you guys though and thanks for everything. Only a couple more weeks until the hunts start!
Sorry I am so far behind- July 26
Time is going by super fast!!! It sounds super hot there, i guess its the hottest time of the year right? The temperature here never gets up like it does back at home, i think its usually about 85 here, but it feels just as hot, its just a different type of hot. Here the sun is just always beating down on you and it feels a lot closer and the humidity just makes it ten times worse. I would actually rather work outside back at home than here. However, the rainy season is just right around the corner... which will be good and bad. I really miss the rain and it will be nice to have cloud cover and stuff so thats a good thing. The only problem is that the day after the storm is 10 times hotter than even your normal hot day here. I dont know why that is but it get super hot here right after the storms. We have already had a couple sprinkles and i think that the storms will start happening more in august and they will probably last for about a month or two. Mindelo overall is a little cooler than praia though so its an upgrade. As for our branch it is still really week but there are still a few really cool members that help us out. I dont know if i told you guys this or not but this is actually the home branch of my mission president. He wrote me an e mail today and told me that because of some things that have happened in the past the branch has kinda lost trust in the missioinaries and the work hasnt really gone anywhere. He said that in his 2 years as mission president, he has only seen two different companionships that have made a difference here in this area. But because of those two companionships 4 guys were baptized in this area, two of which just barely left on missions this week and another two that are filling out there papers right now. So i am just gonna try to work hard and hopefully good stuff happens. In sacrament yesterday i gave a talk and also one of the members of the district presidency who just so happens to be my mission presidents brother and it was actually really good. Hopefully things can change around. As for the p days here, there are lots of fun things to do but my companion doesnt want to do anything besides hang out at here house which really sucks! This city is way fun, it is actually like a tourist city and lots of cruise ships will stop here because there is quite a bit to do. There are tons of really cool shops to get souvenirs and stuff but it looks like this transfer i wont really be taking advantage of them. My companion has a long time in this area so its pretty much for sure that he will leave and i will be getting a new companion. The transfers kinda work by logic and its looking like my next companion will be a way cool elder from utah so that would be really fun and we would be able to do a lot of cool stuff on p day. And what month of the new era was that story dad, that would be really cool to share with people here. We get an hour of language study each day and for mine i like to just read the new eras in portuguese cause i can learn new words and stuff. I will have to look for that story, but right now i am reading all the conference talks from last conference. Well thats about all thats going on for now here. The highlight of this next week will be on wednesday when we head over to sal to spend the day there, i will make sure to get a bunch of pictures of it and also of mindelo to send you guys for next time.
Monday, July 19, 2010
July 19, the countdown has begun
How´s everything going back at home? Everything is going pretty good out here and this week has gone by pretty fast. I think time is going to start picking up now that i have one year, everyone says it starts going a lot faster and that im just on the downhill part now! It still seems like its a long time though so i will have to keep working hard to make the time pick up.
Well this week was a little more busy with other things compared to the other weeks where all we do is teaching. One reason is because of our zone conference that we had on Friday. President and everyone flew up here this week for it and it went pretty well. My companion and i gave a training about the book of mormon in conversion of investigators and i think it was my favorite training i have given so far, we did a few different pratices and made it fun and everyone actually participated in it which didnt happen in the other ones. We also had a few activities in the district here like a missionary fireside last night. All of us missionaries sang in it but i dont know why cause none of us even sing good, but it was still pretty fun. The district president here and his counselors are all really cool guys and they gave some good talks. Part of our district here is santo antao (my companions home town) so he had his whole branch here this week and all of his friends and everything. He his seen all of his brothers and sisters and family in the mission besides his mom and dad so far and he runs into other people who knows from there all the time... a little different from living 6000 miles away from everyone. He is a really nice guy but there are some things about him that make me kinda excited for transfers in 4 weeks to get my new companion. He is kinda like a robot in missionary work and doesnt really have a personality, he teaches teaches exactly how things are written in the books word for word. He doesnt like to have any fun either... for p day all he ever wants to do is sit in the house which makes it really boring. I can deal with it for one more month though cause im thinking i will get an american for the next one. There are some other really cool missionaries in the district too which make it fun when i am with them. Elder Balls who i have been with since the mtc is right by me and his companion is elder rogers which is another one of my best friends of the mission. I dont know if you guys ever heard of benjaman rogers but he was 2nd string fullback behind mongnase tonga at byu this last season and he is on a full scolarship to play for when he gets home. He says he started a few games and quite about 30 carries this last year. He is a stud and i think him, e. balls, and i will probably live together in his condo in provo when he gets back from his mission. I was wanting to try to play football down at snow or something but he says a lot of those schools play favorites but bronco mendenhall at byu will take the ones that know how to work hard, so i might go give it a try there. We still got a year though so who knows.
Well this week was a little more busy with other things compared to the other weeks where all we do is teaching. One reason is because of our zone conference that we had on Friday. President and everyone flew up here this week for it and it went pretty well. My companion and i gave a training about the book of mormon in conversion of investigators and i think it was my favorite training i have given so far, we did a few different pratices and made it fun and everyone actually participated in it which didnt happen in the other ones. We also had a few activities in the district here like a missionary fireside last night. All of us missionaries sang in it but i dont know why cause none of us even sing good, but it was still pretty fun. The district president here and his counselors are all really cool guys and they gave some good talks. Part of our district here is santo antao (my companions home town) so he had his whole branch here this week and all of his friends and everything. He his seen all of his brothers and sisters and family in the mission besides his mom and dad so far and he runs into other people who knows from there all the time... a little different from living 6000 miles away from everyone. He is a really nice guy but there are some things about him that make me kinda excited for transfers in 4 weeks to get my new companion. He is kinda like a robot in missionary work and doesnt really have a personality, he teaches teaches exactly how things are written in the books word for word. He doesnt like to have any fun either... for p day all he ever wants to do is sit in the house which makes it really boring. I can deal with it for one more month though cause im thinking i will get an american for the next one. There are some other really cool missionaries in the district too which make it fun when i am with them. Elder Balls who i have been with since the mtc is right by me and his companion is elder rogers which is another one of my best friends of the mission. I dont know if you guys ever heard of benjaman rogers but he was 2nd string fullback behind mongnase tonga at byu this last season and he is on a full scolarship to play for when he gets home. He says he started a few games and quite about 30 carries this last year. He is a stud and i think him, e. balls, and i will probably live together in his condo in provo when he gets back from his mission. I was wanting to try to play football down at snow or something but he says a lot of those schools play favorites but bronco mendenhall at byu will take the ones that know how to work hard, so i might go give it a try there. We still got a year though so who knows.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
3 days shy of 1 YEAR!!!
Hey everyone whats up?
Well i am going to try to answer everyones questions in this e mail, so if i skip a question sorry. But so Mindelo is going pretty good, its definitely different from praia though.... some things are better and some things are worse. As for the worse... i really miss the people from praia! My last branch was awesome, i felt like it was just my home ward cause i was friends with everything and everyone would help us out but here, this branch is really week. There are only about 30 people that came to church yesterday and out of those 30, the only ones who are really welcoming are the ones i already had met throughout the week. We have a few guys my age that come teach with us and also a guy thats probably about 40 will walk with his and his wife is really nice too (she is a recent convert) but besides them and a couple other people in the branch they arent all that open like the people in praia were. We would get more people in a single family home evening in my old branch then we do in church here. Its also kinda hard to find investigators, we have a couple cool ones that seem like they are going to progress but besides them we have nobody. Most of our time is spent knocking doors trying to find new people and most of the people just make excuses to not talk with us. In praia even if people werent that interested they would still at least let you in to talk and they would always say "Im not going to deny the word of god" haha but here its different. But as for the good things, the city of mindelo is a lot nicer then praia. Its a lot cleaner and more organized and it kinda reminds me of a city for tourists. They have quite a few cruise ships that stop in here and the bay is really cool. I think we are going fishing there next week so i am way excited. I am also going to be travelling a ton this transfer!!!! Our 3rd week of the transfer me and my companion are going to be flying to sal to walk with the elders there, my 4th week we are going to be taking a 45 minute boat ride to santo antao to have our zone activity there, my 5th week i am going to be flying to praia and spend 3 days there to do a division with the assistents, and then the 6th week we are going to be flying back to praia to have our zone leaders cousel. I look forward to the day that im not zone leader anymore. The weather is also a little nicer and fresher here in mindelo so i cant complain about that either. Thats about all the next stuff i can think of though, sorry if this e mail is giving you guys a head ache i might have kinda rambled a little bit. I will try to let you guys know a little more next week about whats going on. Oh and by the way you guys can just keep sending stuff to the same address, it will just go to praia and then they will bring it up when president comes up here or i will get it when i go down, i shouldnt ever have to wait more than 2 weeks to get it. Thanks for everything though and you guys have a good week.
Well i am going to try to answer everyones questions in this e mail, so if i skip a question sorry. But so Mindelo is going pretty good, its definitely different from praia though.... some things are better and some things are worse. As for the worse... i really miss the people from praia! My last branch was awesome, i felt like it was just my home ward cause i was friends with everything and everyone would help us out but here, this branch is really week. There are only about 30 people that came to church yesterday and out of those 30, the only ones who are really welcoming are the ones i already had met throughout the week. We have a few guys my age that come teach with us and also a guy thats probably about 40 will walk with his and his wife is really nice too (she is a recent convert) but besides them and a couple other people in the branch they arent all that open like the people in praia were. We would get more people in a single family home evening in my old branch then we do in church here. Its also kinda hard to find investigators, we have a couple cool ones that seem like they are going to progress but besides them we have nobody. Most of our time is spent knocking doors trying to find new people and most of the people just make excuses to not talk with us. In praia even if people werent that interested they would still at least let you in to talk and they would always say "Im not going to deny the word of god" haha but here its different. But as for the good things, the city of mindelo is a lot nicer then praia. Its a lot cleaner and more organized and it kinda reminds me of a city for tourists. They have quite a few cruise ships that stop in here and the bay is really cool. I think we are going fishing there next week so i am way excited. I am also going to be travelling a ton this transfer!!!! Our 3rd week of the transfer me and my companion are going to be flying to sal to walk with the elders there, my 4th week we are going to be taking a 45 minute boat ride to santo antao to have our zone activity there, my 5th week i am going to be flying to praia and spend 3 days there to do a division with the assistents, and then the 6th week we are going to be flying back to praia to have our zone leaders cousel. I look forward to the day that im not zone leader anymore. The weather is also a little nicer and fresher here in mindelo so i cant complain about that either. Thats about all the next stuff i can think of though, sorry if this e mail is giving you guys a head ache i might have kinda rambled a little bit. I will try to let you guys know a little more next week about whats going on. Oh and by the way you guys can just keep sending stuff to the same address, it will just go to praia and then they will bring it up when president comes up here or i will get it when i go down, i shouldnt ever have to wait more than 2 weeks to get it. Thanks for everything though and you guys have a good week.
New Island 07-05-10
Well the subject wasnt lying, I have been transferred to a new island. I am now here on the Island of Sao Vicente in Mindelo, its pretty sweet. Mindelo is the 2nd biggest city of the country behind praia but it is totally different. It is a really nice calm and peaceful city without a whole lot of noise or anything.... the type of area is a million times better than praia. Its a lot more organized here and cleaner without trash all over the place so i am liking it. I had a really early flight though so i was up at 4 o clock and its a huge pain having to pack here because of the weightlimits on the airplanes, but i got it all figured out. The flight was only about 45 minutes. My companion is Elder Nascimento from Santo Antao which is kinda funny because we can see his city from here in mindelo. Santo Antao is just right across the ocean channel here from mindelo so its really easy to see.... it looks like im looking at the rocky mountaints stick straight up out of the ocean cause its really mountainy there. Mindelo surrounds a big bay here so it looks pretty cool, the whole city is looking down at the ocean and it is full of tons of ships and stuff. I think I will like it quite a bit, i am excited to be here. One really cool thing is that being zone leader here we have to go do divisions with the other elders in our zone, and part of our zone is those missionaries in Sal, so every transfer that i am here my companion and i will fly to sal and spent some time there. I here the beaches there in sal are the best there are. We will also be spending our zone activity in santo antao in a couple weeks. We will take the boat over there and then we drive up into the mountains up there and we will be hiking a mountain that i think is about 9000 feet high about the ocean.... i will have lots of cool pictures to send.
Transfers were pretty crazy though... president changed them 3 times. I was actually supposed to go to fogo to be zone leader there but it got switched to this right at the end, but either one is fine with me. I am thinking fogo will be next after here. My last week in praia went really well though, it was one of the best i had there. I am leaving some way cool investigators that will be getting baptized in just a little bit and we found some awesome people right at the end of the transfer. One new kid about my age we were teaching came to church last sunday just all by himself, so we started teaching him during this week and he really liked it. So he came to church again yesterday and it was testimony meeting, and during it he got up and bore his testimony! It was wild... only his 2nd time in church!!!! But so after sacrament ended all the youth came up to him and started introducing themselves and he just left church with them. We come to find out that night that he had been with them the whole day and we met up with him again at our family home evening last night. Its way cool that he already has a bunch of friends in the church, that will help him out a ton. We also have to girls that came for the first time and they bore their testimonys too, it was sweet. In all we had 10 investigators in church which is kinda a big deal here. Our family home evening last night was at carlos and gilmaras house and it was way fun... it was sad saying by to them. We went to the court place here to help them get their papers all finilized for the wedding last week so now they are just waiting. They might have to change their date though because of the papers to a few weeks back, so i am hoping for a miracle. I will be heading to praia in about 5 weeks for the zone leaders counsel so i am hoping the wedding will fall the same weekend so i can see it, but it will probably happen earlier.
Well thats about all the news from here in the islands, when i find out more about my companion and my area i will let you guys know. I am really tired though and running on little sleep so i think im going to have to finish this e mail and go back home to relax. Hope everybody´s 4th of july was good! Mine consisted of church, teaching, and packing will listening to american songs by the mormon tabernacle choir. I cant complain but i will admit that there was a little jealousy when i heard carrie underwood was coming. Well thanks for everything and i will talk to you guys next week.
Transfers were pretty crazy though... president changed them 3 times. I was actually supposed to go to fogo to be zone leader there but it got switched to this right at the end, but either one is fine with me. I am thinking fogo will be next after here. My last week in praia went really well though, it was one of the best i had there. I am leaving some way cool investigators that will be getting baptized in just a little bit and we found some awesome people right at the end of the transfer. One new kid about my age we were teaching came to church last sunday just all by himself, so we started teaching him during this week and he really liked it. So he came to church again yesterday and it was testimony meeting, and during it he got up and bore his testimony! It was wild... only his 2nd time in church!!!! But so after sacrament ended all the youth came up to him and started introducing themselves and he just left church with them. We come to find out that night that he had been with them the whole day and we met up with him again at our family home evening last night. Its way cool that he already has a bunch of friends in the church, that will help him out a ton. We also have to girls that came for the first time and they bore their testimonys too, it was sweet. In all we had 10 investigators in church which is kinda a big deal here. Our family home evening last night was at carlos and gilmaras house and it was way fun... it was sad saying by to them. We went to the court place here to help them get their papers all finilized for the wedding last week so now they are just waiting. They might have to change their date though because of the papers to a few weeks back, so i am hoping for a miracle. I will be heading to praia in about 5 weeks for the zone leaders counsel so i am hoping the wedding will fall the same weekend so i can see it, but it will probably happen earlier.
Well thats about all the news from here in the islands, when i find out more about my companion and my area i will let you guys know. I am really tired though and running on little sleep so i think im going to have to finish this e mail and go back home to relax. Hope everybody´s 4th of july was good! Mine consisted of church, teaching, and packing will listening to american songs by the mormon tabernacle choir. I cant complain but i will admit that there was a little jealousy when i heard carrie underwood was coming. Well thanks for everything and i will talk to you guys next week.
June 28, 2010
Well we are here in the last week of the transfers... pretty crazy how fast it flew by! This transfer has been pretty cool and i´ve enjoyed it, my companion was chill but he works hard too so it was pretty fun. As for where i am going next week.... I kinda know but at the same time, i have said that a lot of other transfers and it hasnt happened so im thinking you guys probably wont even take me seriously if i say it so we will leave it for next week for when i actually get there. Just know that one thing is for sure, im going to be flying off of this island, thats one thing that im 100 percent on.
So this week we had our zone leaders counsel and it went really good. President Neves just kinda threw out some new goals and also some challenges in the mission and we had to discuss some solutations and ways we could help out all of our zones and the mission. We had a good time and got a lot done, im learning a lot by being zone leader. Its kinda crazy how fast this time has and that im already finishing up my 4th transfer as zone leader, there is now not a zone leader that has been zone leader for longer than me, they all have less time besides 2 who became leaders the same time as me. Our mission has lots of young missionaries now so thats why its like that.
We also had a missionary work fireside last night that was really good. The choir from praia sang a bunch of missionary songs and they are really good and a bunch of the people here gave some good talks. We brough carlos and duku too it which was cool.... carlos obviously wont be serving a mission cause he is a family man now but duku has the age to serve one and i think there he might decide to serve. He is already geting a call and everything in the church so he is going to stay really strong, he has a really good testimony too. One huge problem in the church here is that tons of people will stay really strong for just a few month and then just fall away out of no where. There are TONS of non active members here, half the people i talk to in the street say they were baptized and some point. It kinda sucks to see that and it makes me not want to baptize anyone unless i can tell that they are actaully ready. A really cool thing though is being outside of utah its easy to see how fast the church is growing. Its growing a lot here but also we run into lots of people here that have family in boston who became members when they got there. People will always show us pictures of their family back in america from when they got baptized and stuff... its pretty sweet.
So besides that not a whole lot new has happened this week. USA lost to ghana which is making things harder on me since im in an african country. People from mainland africa keep coming up to me and saying " I told you ghana was going to win" They even say that even if i never talked with them before the game. The world cup is still huge here andwe cant walk anywhere without hearing the game going on in all the bars and stuff.
So this week we had our zone leaders counsel and it went really good. President Neves just kinda threw out some new goals and also some challenges in the mission and we had to discuss some solutations and ways we could help out all of our zones and the mission. We had a good time and got a lot done, im learning a lot by being zone leader. Its kinda crazy how fast this time has and that im already finishing up my 4th transfer as zone leader, there is now not a zone leader that has been zone leader for longer than me, they all have less time besides 2 who became leaders the same time as me. Our mission has lots of young missionaries now so thats why its like that.
We also had a missionary work fireside last night that was really good. The choir from praia sang a bunch of missionary songs and they are really good and a bunch of the people here gave some good talks. We brough carlos and duku too it which was cool.... carlos obviously wont be serving a mission cause he is a family man now but duku has the age to serve one and i think there he might decide to serve. He is already geting a call and everything in the church so he is going to stay really strong, he has a really good testimony too. One huge problem in the church here is that tons of people will stay really strong for just a few month and then just fall away out of no where. There are TONS of non active members here, half the people i talk to in the street say they were baptized and some point. It kinda sucks to see that and it makes me not want to baptize anyone unless i can tell that they are actaully ready. A really cool thing though is being outside of utah its easy to see how fast the church is growing. Its growing a lot here but also we run into lots of people here that have family in boston who became members when they got there. People will always show us pictures of their family back in america from when they got baptized and stuff... its pretty sweet.
So besides that not a whole lot new has happened this week. USA lost to ghana which is making things harder on me since im in an african country. People from mainland africa keep coming up to me and saying " I told you ghana was going to win" They even say that even if i never talked with them before the game. The world cup is still huge here andwe cant walk anywhere without hearing the game going on in all the bars and stuff.
Jun 21, 2010
Whats happening everyone?
As for me... I am just been spending my whole p day waiting for power to come back on so i could use internet, to be honest i didnt think i was going to get any e mail time this week. The power in all of praia has been off all day so we havent been up to a whole lot, we just played our weekly soccer game, got my hair cut, and hung out in our hot house without any fans to keep us cool. Thats just how things go here in africa though so you just gotta deal with it. Everything is going pretty good though and this has just been a pretty standard chill week. The world cup is still kinda slowing things down here, but it really hasnt been too bad for us. We have some way cool investigators so even though there might me a game on and they want to watch it, they will turn it off for us. The go crazy about there soccer here though, its nothing like in america... the world cup is the most important thing in the world to some of these people. While i was getting my hair cut the portugual game was on... and must people here like portugual cause they have two players from here and its one of the closer countries. So everytime they marked a goal, all the barbers would just start yelling and jumping up and down.... so it took a while for them to finally get my hair cut.
On Saturday we also had a baptism which was really cool. It was duku that 19 year old i told you about. We wanted to have his new convert friend kevin baptize him, but duku is kinda bigger so kevin´s mom didnt think he would be able to be strong enough to lift him back up so i had to do it, it went well though. We also had our interviews with president neves this week and during it, he asked me how long i had been here in praia and when i told him he told me i could count on leaving the island this transer (that will end in 2 weeks) so now we will just see where im headed too. Im down with anywhere but im thinking i will probably either be going to mindelo up in the north or over to fogo.
We´ve got our zone leaders counsel tomorrow so all the zone leaders are here with us right now and we will be heading over to the mission home tomorrow. the meeting can go kinda long and get kinda boring, but we learn some pretty cool stuff during it and the food at the end makes it pretty worth it. I wouldnt complain if i got taken out of zone leader this transfer cause i already have 4 but i guess i will just have to wait and see. Im still really wanting to train some new guy.
Well thats about all the updates ive got for you guys for now i cant think of a whole lot else. Keep me updated on the college football situation though and whatever else is going on. Oh and by the way i completely forgot that strawberry days was going on, i forgot it was even close to that time of year. Im not gonna lie its kinda depressing to think that next strawberry days i still wont even be home! Im kinda in that point of the mission where i feel like i have been here forever, and i still have forever left to go. Its all good though cause im having a good time and time is still flying.... almost one year now!
As for me... I am just been spending my whole p day waiting for power to come back on so i could use internet, to be honest i didnt think i was going to get any e mail time this week. The power in all of praia has been off all day so we havent been up to a whole lot, we just played our weekly soccer game, got my hair cut, and hung out in our hot house without any fans to keep us cool. Thats just how things go here in africa though so you just gotta deal with it. Everything is going pretty good though and this has just been a pretty standard chill week. The world cup is still kinda slowing things down here, but it really hasnt been too bad for us. We have some way cool investigators so even though there might me a game on and they want to watch it, they will turn it off for us. The go crazy about there soccer here though, its nothing like in america... the world cup is the most important thing in the world to some of these people. While i was getting my hair cut the portugual game was on... and must people here like portugual cause they have two players from here and its one of the closer countries. So everytime they marked a goal, all the barbers would just start yelling and jumping up and down.... so it took a while for them to finally get my hair cut.
On Saturday we also had a baptism which was really cool. It was duku that 19 year old i told you about. We wanted to have his new convert friend kevin baptize him, but duku is kinda bigger so kevin´s mom didnt think he would be able to be strong enough to lift him back up so i had to do it, it went well though. We also had our interviews with president neves this week and during it, he asked me how long i had been here in praia and when i told him he told me i could count on leaving the island this transer (that will end in 2 weeks) so now we will just see where im headed too. Im down with anywhere but im thinking i will probably either be going to mindelo up in the north or over to fogo.
We´ve got our zone leaders counsel tomorrow so all the zone leaders are here with us right now and we will be heading over to the mission home tomorrow. the meeting can go kinda long and get kinda boring, but we learn some pretty cool stuff during it and the food at the end makes it pretty worth it. I wouldnt complain if i got taken out of zone leader this transfer cause i already have 4 but i guess i will just have to wait and see. Im still really wanting to train some new guy.
Well thats about all the updates ive got for you guys for now i cant think of a whole lot else. Keep me updated on the college football situation though and whatever else is going on. Oh and by the way i completely forgot that strawberry days was going on, i forgot it was even close to that time of year. Im not gonna lie its kinda depressing to think that next strawberry days i still wont even be home! Im kinda in that point of the mission where i feel like i have been here forever, and i still have forever left to go. Its all good though cause im having a good time and time is still flying.... almost one year now!
June 14, 2010
Thats crazy that p day is already here again, it seems like just yesterday that i was at this internet place e mailing you guys. So i will do my best to think of some new things going on. One thing is that its looking like my arm is going to have to be amputated...... just kidding, but seriously sometimes its looking that way. I have had a rash on my right forearm for probably about 6 weeks now and everytime we put cream on it, it looks like my rash just feeds off it and gets 8 times bigger. The mission dotor that is based in england came here a couple weeks ago, and he didnt know anything but he sent some pics back to salt lake to the skin dotor there and i think they have some medicine on the way for me. All the praia people say its because its too hot here but i think its more cause they just throw trash in the road and the water here is orange, i think i will be cured when i leave praia to a better place. So some other news is that we have a baptism coming up this saturday with a way cool guy. His name is Duku and he is 19, he´s looking mission ready. In that pic that i sent with me and two guys he is the one on the left, and that one in the middle is the one from that family we baptized, they walk with us a lot so its cool. We also have some baptisms coming up on the 3rd of july and Carlos and Gilmara´s wedding/baptism the 17th of July so i dont think i will be able to see it. It kinda sucks but i will make sure to get pics of it and stuff.... they still dont know that transfers are before so wilson keeps telling me im baptizing him and everything. It will be sad to leave them but we will just have to see what happens. We also had a baptism last saturday, but it was more just from the branch. It was a 9 year old girl who had been going to the other branch with her grandma for 4 years so we just had to hurry and teach her everything so she could get baptized. There was some confusion between the branches who would be holding the baptism so when the girl with all of her family got there to the church it was just us and them without a single member. So they just though it would be the next week so we left but i guess president of the other branch ended up coming over and they did it after so we didnt even get to see it. It was kinda the classic examply of this country that if the missioinaries dont take care of everything, its not going to happen. Its kinda sad but thats just how it is... lets just say the church isnt as stable here as it is back at home.
Some other big news is the world cup of soccer thats going on. I dont know if you guys have seen anything on the tv on it back at home but its a big deal here. Its kinda harder to get lessons because games are on all day everyday but we still have our stud investigators who put us before the games. I hear america tied england, thats kinda a big deal because nobody gives american any respect in football and england is one of the best. We will have to see where they go. Speaking of america i get some weird reactions in the street sometimes for being american... like yesterday for example. I was walking through the street and a guy came up to me and saluted me for about a minute straight. It was funny... i also had a crazy lady that came up to me and my companion and tried to tickle us haha we had to walk fast to get away from here. Well thats about all the updates ive got.
Some other big news is the world cup of soccer thats going on. I dont know if you guys have seen anything on the tv on it back at home but its a big deal here. Its kinda harder to get lessons because games are on all day everyday but we still have our stud investigators who put us before the games. I hear america tied england, thats kinda a big deal because nobody gives american any respect in football and england is one of the best. We will have to see where they go. Speaking of america i get some weird reactions in the street sometimes for being american... like yesterday for example. I was walking through the street and a guy came up to me and saluted me for about a minute straight. It was funny... i also had a crazy lady that came up to me and my companion and tried to tickle us haha we had to walk fast to get away from here. Well thats about all the updates ive got.
May 31 Letter Home
Oí everybody,
Hows it going? Thats crazy to hear that it snowed back at home? Has it been getting cold there still? It has been snowing quite a bit here so it makes the work a little more difficult, but im getting used to it. Oh wait... did i say snow? I meant to say sand, but it comes down like snow some times. Whenever the wind comes up i have to close my eyes and look down at the ground to walk, but it usually doesnt last that long. Other than those sand blizzards it has been really hot and i think it will keep picking up until the rain season. So theres the weather report for you guys.
Thats cool that the larsons stopped by but too bad that they didnt have more time. They are really nice it was cool being with them and it was nice of them to bring that stuff home. Thats cool that they at least told you guys a little bit about it. You guys will have to hear some of that music, thats everything i hear out on the streets all day long while im out teaching. Its pretty cool being able to understand it though, i will be the coolest guy around when i drive my truck around with that blasted up!
This week was just a pretty standard week. My companion is pretty cool and he seems pretty excited to be zone leader which is good cause he is wanting to work pretty hard. We have about the same time in the mission. I am teaching him english, now everytime he prays he tries it in english so its pretty cool. We taught some good lessons last week and carlos and gilmara picked a date for the wedding this last weekend but i wont know what day it is until tomorrow when we have our lesson with them. They were saying they wanted june though. WE are going to be helping them with the paper work and relief society will be helping organize it too. All of our other work is going good and we are getting some names of people to teach from members and investigators
This week is our zone conference but it is going to be combine with both zones on the island. We dont have to give a training cause it will be a little different but i think i have to conduct it so i will let you know how it goes. It will be on thursday but besides that it will just be a normal week.
Hows it going? Thats crazy to hear that it snowed back at home? Has it been getting cold there still? It has been snowing quite a bit here so it makes the work a little more difficult, but im getting used to it. Oh wait... did i say snow? I meant to say sand, but it comes down like snow some times. Whenever the wind comes up i have to close my eyes and look down at the ground to walk, but it usually doesnt last that long. Other than those sand blizzards it has been really hot and i think it will keep picking up until the rain season. So theres the weather report for you guys.
Thats cool that the larsons stopped by but too bad that they didnt have more time. They are really nice it was cool being with them and it was nice of them to bring that stuff home. Thats cool that they at least told you guys a little bit about it. You guys will have to hear some of that music, thats everything i hear out on the streets all day long while im out teaching. Its pretty cool being able to understand it though, i will be the coolest guy around when i drive my truck around with that blasted up!
This week was just a pretty standard week. My companion is pretty cool and he seems pretty excited to be zone leader which is good cause he is wanting to work pretty hard. We have about the same time in the mission. I am teaching him english, now everytime he prays he tries it in english so its pretty cool. We taught some good lessons last week and carlos and gilmara picked a date for the wedding this last weekend but i wont know what day it is until tomorrow when we have our lesson with them. They were saying they wanted june though. WE are going to be helping them with the paper work and relief society will be helping organize it too. All of our other work is going good and we are getting some names of people to teach from members and investigators
This week is our zone conference but it is going to be combine with both zones on the island. We dont have to give a training cause it will be a little different but i think i have to conduct it so i will let you know how it goes. It will be on thursday but besides that it will just be a normal week.
May 24 Letter Home
Well I learned my lesson for saying that I would be leaving! I am still here for another transfer and it looks like i will have some more time in praia! It was kinda depressing to hear that i would be staying but i guess thats just how it goes down. Everyone knows that i have been here forever though and i even heard that the assistents had a meeting with president neves and during it they asked why i was in praia for so long, and president told them that after this transfer i would for sure be leaving this island for good..... but i decided im not even going to get my hopes up this time until i actually find out for sure. I hope this means that my second half of the mission will be in all really cool areas but we will just have to see. It will be cool to see some of the stuff going on in our area this transfer though. We baptized two little girls saturday, and normally we dont baptize so young without their parents but they have been coming to church with us for 6 months so president neves said to just baptize them. Their sister who is 14 will be baptized right after and we are working with the parents too, they want to get baptized but they have marriage problems. The guy is definitely an interesting guy but he is pretty funny. I will be training a new zone leader here who has one more transfer than me. He is from Mindelo which is where my first companion is from and it looks like i will be having another one that doesnt speak any english. My new next door neightbor is from ceder hills or somewhere around there though so at least i will have one american in the house unlike this last transfer. Carlos and Gilmara are also getting really close to marriage and we got a couple other guys about my age that having baptisms coming up. This area is going really well, but i feel like i have already talked with every single person that lives here so its kinda hard. As for the things that happened this week.... we had our zone leaders counsel which was the best one yet. All the zone leaders flew in and we went to the mission office and talked about a lot of things that will help out the mission. Another thing that was also really cool was we had a surprise visit yesterday. One of my teachers from the mtc that served here a few years back came out for a school project with 2 other students from byu and they are here in praia. They came to our branch yesterday and then in the afternoon they walked with us to go out and teach. It was weird because the last time i saw him i could barely talk to him in portuguese at all and this time we were talking in creolo with each other. Well thats about the news from here.
May 17, Letter Home
Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes! It was pretty good but i didnt do a whole lot different. For lunch Elder Balls and Elder Coleman came over and we made fajitas for it and hung out... that was pretty much the closest thing we had to a party for the day. I also bought a giant swiss roll type thing and a coca cola that night cause i couldnt let a birhtday slide without cake and pop. I think those two from earlier are the only ones that knew it was my birthday and also my first companion of the mission found out cause he looked at my facebook. He is the one from Mindelo which is up in the northern islands and he ended his mission after my first transfer. He called me up that night though and wished me a happy birthday and talked to me a little bit which was cool, he is one of my favorite companions i have had so far. Well that is about it for the birthday and this week wasnt anything all that special. I dont hate my companion right now but at the same time, he isnt my favorite and i have kinda excited for the week to end to switch. Last monday he got mad at somebody over a really small thing so he wouldnt talk to anybody for the whole week and he is just barely starting too now, so its kinda annoying having a companion that wont even talk and then you have to be with him 24 hours a day. I am way excited for transfers and excited to find out what will be going down. I have no idea whats going to be happening with me but it will be nice to have a change. I love my area and the people here but i feel like there is only so much i can do. After walking all the same streets everyday 5 times a day for 4 and a half months it comes time for a change. I would say that i have a good 500 friends that i say from the streets just cause we pass them everyday. While we walk we greet the same people the whole time left and right. I will really miss the members and investigators here though, i will make sure to get pictures to send home to you guys of them. And speaking of pictures i sent all my pictures of my mission home on a cd along with a couple other things with Elder and Sister Larson who went home last week. They said they would probably be going to pleasant grove this week and they will call you guys up and give them to you. They are really cool. I cant really think of anything else though, we have 2 little girls we are baptizing this saturday and our zone leaders cousel tomorrow at the mission home and thats about it, besides that just normal work. Thanks for everything and ill talk to ya guys later.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Apr 26- Letter Home
And also about shane boren going to south africa... what month will he be going? Will it be before i get home or after? I know that a lot of the flights that go there come through cabo verde.... there was actually an elder from las vegas that was going hunting in south africa before his mission here and they stopped on the island of sal on the way and his dad thought it was a cool place and said that maybe he would serve his mission here...and this is where he came. It looks like everything else is going pretty well at the house now and that everyone is doing good. I really dont have a whole lot to say about this week because everything is going about the same... still getting better and better each week though. ONe cool thing was that president neves came and taught carlos and gilmara with us the other night. They had some questions about their wedding so they wanted to talk to a leader who could give them some info, and we thought, who better than the highest leader in the church of the country. Well our president couldnt stop talking about them after we left and he kept telling us that we have gold!! He answered all of their questions so now they our just getting things planned and then they will have the wedding. They are also planning on getting baptized the same day as the wedding, and they want us to be the witness of the wedding. The only problem is i dont know if it will happen before i leave cause i am almost positive i will be leaving next transfer. I would love to see it but either way i will be way excited for them cause i have seen a miracle happen with them!! Our president went to zone conference in sao vicente and during it talked about them and the example of them. We are also having family home evening with president and his wife tongiht in their house and a ton of people from the branch and their friends so i will let you know how it goes.
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