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.
Monday, July 19, 2010
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.
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