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.

April 19- Letter Home

Everything is pretty normal out here, my companion and i are just continuing what we have been doing for the last seven weeks. I kinda figured that i would be staying here this transfer but i would be really surprised if i dont get transfered to another island this next transfer, its almost for sure so i am ready for that. Every island seems so cool so any one would be cool, but i would like to go to open up brava which is the smallest one. I will definitely want to return here when i am a little older too and visit all the islands. The elder that lives in the house next to ours is from sal, which is flat and has the coolest beaches in the world. They have the top wind surfing competition in the world there and the water is turqoise with white sand, and the coolest part is they take boats out from the island and catch huge sharks... thats my dream is to go fishing there one day! But so anyways... the work is still going pretty good and i am starting to feel even more like this is just my home, i have been here long enough that this just feels like part of my life and i have used to the day to day routine. We are still teaching all of our cool investigators and we got some new really cool ones this week with references from the members here. We are teaching a lot of young men here and we have marked a few more for baptism and i think we will mark even more this next week. We have one kid who is 15 and is friends with those other guys we baptized and he alreayd has all the lessons. We are going to go talk with his parents tonight to get permission from them and he should be baptized 2 saturdays from now. He is a stud and is already really strong in the church... he even comes and teaches with us sometimes and helps us out... and he isnt even baptized! That family is still progressing a ton too and tomorrow we are bringing the president of the branch over to their place to teach with us. They want to talk with him to plan their wedding and see when they will be able to do it. We took them to watch conference yesterday (instead of having church, they watched a session of conference) along with another young couple and a couple of the guys we are teaching. They all really liked it and it was cool for them being able to hear the prophet. What was even cooler was me and a few other missionaries went with that couple that was here in a seperate room and we watched the priesthood session in english. That session was awesome, probably the best i have seen and it was cool being able to watch it. Other than that everything is going about the same. And dad you are right, i have packed on quite a few pounds. I have put on about 30 since i left home and i dont know how... cause you are supposed to lose when you go to africa. Its all good though cause we are starting to run every morning along the beach and do exercises there. I am eating healthy now and learning how to cook lots of stuff. Well thats about all i can think of now, everything is still aobut the same.

Apr 12- Letter Home

Hey everybody how are you all doing? This week we had transfers but nothing is changing with me, my companion and I are staying together in the same area which is kinda what i figured. I am happy to stay to keep teaching the people we are teaching cause they are cool, but i am definitely ready to see another island! There arent any missionaries on the island of brava yet which is the smallest one that has people, but its looking like it might be opening up this next transfer so i am kinda hoping to go there. There are also 6 new americans coming in next transfer so maybe i will get to train and stop being zone leader. Who knows... but that would be cool. If i dont go there i want to go to santo antão, where it only has one companionship. Without a doubt that is the coolest looking island and is just full of mountains. But... we will just have to wait 6 more weeks and see, and i will be talking to you guys on the phone before that, its coming fast. This week went alright though, but nothing too crazy. One cool experience was yesterday when we were out in another area where we dont go as much. We went to try and teach a less active teenager, and he wasnt there but this lady who was on the roof of the house told us too come up and talk with her and her husband. We went up there and it turns out they are members from our branch and our really strong, we had never really talked with them though just cause they come and go everyweek without us ever really running into them though. We started talking with them some and turns out they only have a year and a half here in cabo verde and they are originally from the Congo of Africa. They speak french there but we were able to have a full converstaion with them cause they have learned quite a bit of creolo here. Our conversation with them was about 80 percent creolo, 10 percent english, and 10 percent french. Its kinda funny here cause with the outsiders, you just kinda have to find a common language and start talking no matter what it is. It works though and we understood everything. It turns out that they have been members in the congo for quite some time and he was the stake clerk there, but the war got really bad and lots of people were dying so they had to escape. They had to hide out in the jungle as they were escaping and had to be really careful with snakes and wild animals cause they are really dangerous and they had some crazy encounters. But they made there way here and are strong members, it was fun talking with them.... you hear some really interesting stories here. Another highlight of the week was last night at the easter devotional we had. There is a choir group here with members from praia that sings and they are incredible! So we went and got carlos and gilmara and carmara, the youngest girl (wilson is in fogo for a couple weeks) and we went to it. It was really good, President Neves and a few other members spoke here and the music was good. Gilmara says that she wants to sing in it once they are members. That family is still doing amazing and i am hoping i will get to see there wedding and baptism before i leave. We also talk some really cool people this week, we are teaching some guys about my same age right now and its going really good. We also have 3 baptisms coming up in 2 weeks, those young girl of the family we are teaching, and that Jacob that is a soccer player (the 14 year old genius) will be at the start of may. I cant think of a whole lot of new stuff going on in our area though, things are going pretty standard. It is starting to get really hot here again but i guess i am getting pretty accustomed to it cause its not really affecting me that much anymore. I am going to come back home in july wearing a fur coat everyday in utah cause its going to be nothing for me. Well that about sums up everything so i better get going on to my p day now. Im not sure exactly what we are doing today and to tell you the truth i have already seen everything praia has to offer about 100 times now, but we will find something. Sounds like you guys are doing well though and thats cool its warming up.

Mar 29- Letter Home

Things are going really good here but that doesnt mean there arent some difficult things going on! I dont know why but praia just run out of water, seriously nobody has it. Out of all the missionaries here only the assistents house has it and they are almost out. We have to walk around filling up bottles to have water to shower and everything, its a pain. When we went to the soccer field this morning at 6 in the morning to play, there was already a line of about 80 people with jugs to fill up at the well. I hope we get it soon cause its not fun showering with 1 gallon of water poured over my head, but at least we have money to buy the filtered. Other people here have to go get it from wells everyday. Be grateful for an area that always has water! But other than that this week went really good! That family (Carlos and Gilmara) that i have told you about is awesome! They are planning on getting married and baptized right after, we just have to help them find a date to do it. He is a professional soccer player from fogo and has been playing for a long time and his team now plays on sunday, but he is going to get rid of it so he doesnt have to play on sunday and so he can keep the sabath day. That sounds pretty amazing huh? Well the most amazing part of it is that we havent taught about the sabath day yet, he just happened to hear something about it in church so he said he would do it without even knowing why and gilmara will be talking with her boss to not work on sunday too. They are still coming to church every sunday and they are freaking amazing i love them. Even Carmara, the girl thats almost 3, is starting to sing hymns with us everytime we sing and everything, she is a way funny little girl. I will take a picture with them this week and send it next time. they are from fogo and it seems like all the coolest people are from fogo. I dont know if i told you about camoca or not but its that type of powder you add hot milk and some sugar too and its way good, and it makes you strong. Well gilmara is going to fogo this month and that is where you get it from, so she told me she would bring me back a bunch so i can have some and to send to you guys, so i will get some sent off along with other stuff. Other than that the work is going really well. I dont know if i told you this but this area used to be one of the worst in the mission and this last winter president neves was way close to closing it.... now our area is on fire! We are getting all of our lessons with members present and we are marking lots of people for baptism, and its people who are actually ready. If i stay next transfer here we will have quite a few i think. The president is pretty happy with how things are going here, and i have way happy with it too. I was ready to get out of praia and the transfer ends in 2 weeks, but now i dont know, i dont want to leave that family before the marriage and the others too. We will just have to see, if i do leave hopefully i go to brava, the smallest island that is 10 miles across at the longest point and only has a few thousand people. We dont have missionaries there now but i think neves will be opening it up. We also had zone conference and i though that the training my companion and i gave was way good and everyone seemed to like it, we talked about doing contacts. I cant really think of a whole lot else going on though, everything is pretty much just in the mild mild.

Mar 15, Letter Home

Whasts up everyone? Things are going just pretty normal here, Im still in Praia and transfers arent for another 4 weeks so i still at least have a little while here. This week was pretty good work wise but nothing too crazy happened. One thing that was kinda funny was one day our lesson fell through so we were just out doing contacts, and we knocked on the door of this old catholic lady who let us in. We started talking to her and we started the lesson with a prayer that my companion was giving. Right during the middle of the prayer though i start hearing a bunch of noise in the room so i peak my eye open, and i saw a goat being chased by a dog in the room. The dog was barking and the goat was baahhhing and when the old lady saw it, she jumped up and started chasing them both around trying to get them out of the house, while my companion was still praying. I just sat there and watched the whole thing and by the time my companion finished the prayer, all three of them were out of the house. It was one of the more interesting prayers i have been involved in in my life. You never really know exactly what you are going to get here, so that makes life pretty interesting. I also just realized just how small the world really is. There is a kid here that lives in Praia and he was serving in Mozambique until he got sent home not to long ago named Jamante. I was talking to him last p day and he was telling me how he was really good friends with Christian Darias there and that Christian is now zone leader and everything. I found it kinda weird though that i was on an island in the middle of nowhere talking with some kid that knows one of my good friends from africa. It was cool though and speaking of Mozambique, a kid from my first area that always comes and teaches with us and that has been with me since i got here in the mission just got his call to mozambique which was really cool! There are 4 that are going to be leaving there which is kinda strange cause they usually get there calls here, so it looks like we are going to be getting quite a few americans here.
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> The work has been going really well in our area though and has picked up quite a bit. This week we were able to get 9 new investigators which is pretty good and we also got quite a few lessons. As for that Denny kid with the grandma, we havent had much luck with talking to him which is kinda sad. Our families are doing really well though and that one has a goal to be getting married within about a month and hopefully we can get the whole family baptized right after. We played soccer with Carlos (the guy of the family) this morning like always and he is amazing. He played on the fogo international team so he is really talented and everything. We are also going to go visit the resteraunt where Jilmara works (the girl) and get some food. Supposedly they have the biggest hamberger here in Cabo Verde so i am getting pretty excited to go check it out and eat it.
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> Other than that the work is going pretty well but still has its challenges. We have lots of people who will mark appointments with us but when we show up, they are either not there or they just make a dumb excuse and try to mark another day. It first that used to get kinda discouraging, but now i have learned to just use that time to find the people who are more interested in talking with us and that really have a desire to hear what we say. It means more walking and more batting doors, but at least our lessons our a lot more meaningful. An example of those types of people is a family that we used to teach. We would always show up there to teach and lots of the time he would either sit on his computer and work while we taught or just not even bother showing up. They were all talk but they wouldnt do anything we said. We had a few months with them but lately we just stopped marking with them and use that time to talk with other people. Now when we see them in the streets they always say how we need to come back and teach them, but we never mark cause they never even bother keeping the appointment. We pass by if we are in the area and have time but if not we do more important stuff. Lots of people kinda just like to take advantage of us and dont realize it takes work to get to there house, but now we are starting to find the better people. Its still hard though, yesterday we had all afternoon marked and yet only one of the people were actually there. Thats the mission life though.
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> This week shouldnt be anything to great. We got district conference (life stake back home) this weeked and all the members from the whole island will be coming. We are also going up to the other side of the island in tarrafal next p day to hang out on the beach so that should be pretty fun. Other than that its just the regular work.

Mar 8, Letter Home

Its hard to remember everything that happened during the week when i am watching my e mail timer go down and its a lot easier when i get home and have time to think and write, so hopefully they will be a little better. We did have another baptism this week though which was really good, it was that guy from Sao Tome. It really helped that his aunt and cousins that he lives with were already members, he was definitely excited about his baptism and he had no problem with living the commandments. His cousin is the one that baptized him too so it was cool to have his family do it! Other than that the work is going about the same, we are still having some good lessons with our investigators but there are a lot that have things holding them back, especially marriage. We also had a stud who had his baptism date, he is that 16 year old denny and he was going to seminary and everything but with our last lesson with him, he said his nazi catholic grandma said he couldnt go to our church anymore and thats who he lives with. We can still teach him and everything but he said he couldnt go to church meaning no baptism until he is 18. Whats good though is that family we just baptized, he is really good friends with them so he still goes to family home evening and seminary and everything with them, and we are going to try to talk to that grandma of his. The way i see it, plan on hearing about the baptism of him and his grandma. As for being zone leader, the best day of my life will be when president calls me and tells me im not zone leader anymore. There is way too much drama and i dont like to deal with all of it. Its sad to say but this mission is not like a normal mission, There are some missionaries that should be sent home but arent (including my companion) and so the missionaries that want to do good just have to deal with it. Lots more americans are going to be coming in though so that should help some. There are some really good native missionaries that i really like, but there are a couple that it seems like they are just out here cause they get more money or for girls and stuff. We are still working hard though and i love the people we are teaching now.

Mar 1, Letter Home

Today is the first day of the new transfers... I will be staying in this area but Im getting a new companion. His name is Elder Andrade and he is from the island of Fogo, he only has a couple transfers left of his mission. Im hoping we will just be together for this transfer and then we will continue in this area and i will take off to another area, im ready to get out of praia! Our area is doing pretty good though. This last week we got two new familys which is awesome. One is a young couple with 2 kids and another is a family of 6. Its kinda rare to find close familys like these ones are here, but whats so cool about it is that they have a ton of interest to keep talking with us so the next lessons should be good! We also set a baptism date on that 16 year old Denny and he is awesome, he will be baptized at the end of march but he is right where he needs to be, he is going to seminary and everything. Then we will be having another baptism with that guy from Sao Tome this saturday. He is living with his dad, aunt, and his cousins and they are all members so it made it easy to get him baptized... we have family home evening together once a week with them. We are finding some other new cool people so thats going good.
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> We had our zone leaders counsel this week with the president and the assistents. It was alright but it was like all night and we just sat there discussing new goals and how we can better things. The fun part was towards the end we all got in the car and headed out to different locations in praia and just did contacts for an hour and a half. I went with E. Costa from Portugual who is an awesome missionary and we got ton of contacts. We have a goal now to do 20 contacts a day so we are working on getting lots of new people.
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> Well i cant think a whole lot more about whats going on. I have been dead tired this week from that counsel and transfers and everything and having to help everyone get from island to island, so i am pretty tired right now. Im hoping this week will calm down.
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> One more thing, i dont know if i told you guys or not but that girl from cabo verde that lives in provo that i met before e mailed me and gave my her familys number. I did a division in that area this week so i tried calling the number, but it was disconnected. We were in that zone though so we thought we would ask around and see if we could happen to find her families house and we finally did. When we got there it was just her 16 year old sister, but we are going to try going back today and her dad and others should be there. They also have american food there that they sell like peanut butter and stuff, so i will go see what i can find me maybe today during p day. The only other thing that has been happening is more and more encounters with crazy people. we pass these same people everyday that keep trying to sell there baby to us for only 500 escudos which is like 7 bucks. Everytime he is crying they hold him out to us. I think they are just joking but you can never really tell with some of these people. I will get some letters off to all you guys that have more stories this week!

Feb 22- Letter Home-esta semana foi brava!‏

Hey everybody whats up? Well as the subject said, this week was pretty wild but really good at the same time. First thing that went down was carnival on Tuesday. They celebrate that more than any of the holidays here, its kinda like halloween, 4th of july, and new years eve all in one! From about 3 o clock on all the streets were just blocked off and covered with people! Lots of people were dressed up and there were parades and music and everything going on. Everytime one of our appointments fell through it was kinda easy to know where they were, and it was pretty hard to get appointements with our people. We worked extra hard though and still got some good lessons with people that didnt care to celebrate the carnival. The next day after carnival was the complete opposite though, it was Ash Wednesday and im still not exactly sure what that means, but there was hardly a soul in the streets and all the stores were closed down, it was more dead than christmas. Luckily we were still able to get all of our lessons that day too.
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> But thursday is the day that was the craziest! We were in divisions with elders in our zone, so i stayed here and an elder from layton came and stayed with me while my companion went to the other area. The morning went pretty normal but after lunch it picked up. Our first lessons was with a less active here that came and stopped us in the street once and told us to come by. He served a mission in portugual in the 90ºs, but lately just hasnt been going to church even though he still reads the book of mormon and everything everyday, so we are trying to get him to go back. He has the crazies job in the world though... Praia has a secret police group called BAK that is pretty much like the fbi of america. They walk around in normal clothes on the streets alone and just look like a normal citizen, but they always know where each other are and they are completely armed. They go and investigate all the drug networks and then go take them down. During our lesson he pulled out 4 different guns that he always has on him to show us. He has to walk with a .38, a glock, a 9mm and another. When i said i bet he had some crazy stories, he said yeah but lots that he tries to forget...(i think that is code for he has killed people but i didnt ask). He told us that just the day before, a nigerian drug dealer pulled a gun on his friend and shot him, but he had a bullet proof vest though so nothing happened and he shot him back. Pretty crazy and there are only 14 of them in the country, but he told us that now he is looking for a calmer life where he can be active in the church and just wants to teach history or something.
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> So about 2 hours after that lessons we were headed down to the chapel to teach english (we teach english 2 times a week to about 25 people and its sweet) but yeah so we have to walk past this place called sucepira which is like a flee market, its just tons of shacks that sell stuff and its huge, its like there mall and we usually go there every p day cause they have everything there. But yeah so anyways as we were passing, we got to see the secret police in action! This guy tried to still a taxi right in front of us and all the sudden this guy in normal clothes grabs him and pulls a gun on him right on the spot. The robber kept trying to get away and everything, but the guy with the gun was holding on to his shirt just screaming at the robber, i though he was going to shoot for sure. So they are fighting for about 1 minute when all the sudden 2 other guys in normal clothes run up behind him and through him on the ground and hand cuff him. They were all about 25 years old but thats there job, they just go around patroling that stuff and they arrested him. I felt like i was in a scene from cops.
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> So on a lighter note the work is going awesome. We have a couple named Carlos and jilmara that are in their mid 20s with 2 kids and they are progressing a ton! They are coming to church now and english class and are telling us they are fighting out that the gospel is true when at first they were having their doubts. I think they will be getting married and baptized pretty soon. We are also teaching a young guy named denny who told us he prayed about joseph smith and feels that its true and he is already friends with tons of members. Then that guy from sao tome (other islands by africa) will be getting interviewed for baptism this week and he is ready.
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> Well that pretty much sums up the last week. These week all the zone liders in other islands will be flying in here cause we have our zone leaders counsel tomorrow where we talk about everything going on, it should be cool. We will also be having our transfers this next week and i heard some rumors that i might be going to another island, but you cant really believe them till they happen. I think i will just be staying here and getting a new companion.