Dec 14, 2009

> Hey everyone whats up?
I have to send all of the numbers to the mission home and it took forever for me to figure out how to do it but I know how now so I wont have anymore problems. So this week has been pretty good though, we worked really hard so it flew by. I dont really relate to my companion all that much... he doesnt speak any english and he is a 25 year old nurse. He is also really proper with everything and really clean, but I cant complain cause our house is always clean. He also works hard so its pretty fun, we are having a lot more lessons now and finding lots of new people to teach. We have a couple baptisms coming up not this week but the next too and hopefully we will have a bunch more in January. That rapper (Dí) is progressing better than any other investigator of ours. We talked with him about the word of wisdom and he said he had a huge coffee problem, but ever since we talked about it he hasnt touched it and is still coming to church and everything. He will be baptized at the start of January but he is really cool. We also had an interesting lesson yesterday... it was just out on the street with this lady we have been talking with a little bit. But during the lesson this really old lady came up to us and kneeled down right in front of me and started asking me for money. I told her I didnt have any but she just stayed there anyways asking but she wasnt making any sense at all and she kept calling me "papa" and telling me that she needed money to take a ship to Angola Africa but after that she started saying she needed tobaccoo. Well we just ignored her and kept teaching but after a little while she started cleaning my pants with her hands while saying "Papa, I need 10 escudos (8 cents) to buy tobaccoo for my mouth. I kept saying that I wasnt papa and i didnt have money but she kept saying "no, you are papa and you have money. It was really strange but kinda funny at the same time, the member that was teaching with us was just laughing the whole time and i was just trying to ignore her but it was hard not to laugh. I think this is the only mission in the world where we have distractions like that during our lessons, but we just kept on teaching anyways. There are lots of cooky people here but it makes life interesting and funny. Yesterday there was also a really big bull right next to the main street eating trash and roaming around. All the animals here eat trash, and then I eat the animals so I guess you could say I am literally eating junk food. Things are still going really good here and time is passing by way fast. I am pretty much accustomed to life here and it just feels like this is normal life for me now.

Dec 7, 2009

Hey everyone whats up! Well i am here on my 3rd transfer on the islands, i cant believe how fast time is going, it seems like this transfer didnt even happen it went so fast. So i am in the same area which is cool, i am glad i get to spend a little more time with the people here and have Christmas at the mission home, but at the same time after this transfer i will definitely be ready to get to another island. So i was really used to just having older companions and sending them home cause thats what happened with the last two, but this transfer is the very opposite. My new companion is E. Rodrigues, he is from Brasil and this is only the second transfer of his mission so he is younger. He also doesnt speak a lick of english and he is kinda different... he is 25 and kinda a nerdy little guy, but he seems like a hard worker so it will all be good. we arent very similar at all, but at the same time some other elders arrived in Praia that im way good friends with and my next door neighbors are the same elders too so i have plenty of guys i can talk with. E. Olson is from my district in the mtc and from Logan, and he is now in my district here so it will be fun having him and his companion from brasil is really cool too. My district now has a cabo verdean sister, brasilian sister, e. olson and his brasilian and then me and my brasilian. I am the district leader too so we will see how that goes too, but this transfer will be fun. I am getting we excited for christmas too and even the Cabo Verdeans are starting to get in the christmas spirit. The main place of town up on the Plateua where all the stores are have christmas lights and stuff, but its still nothing like back at home. Nobody has a whole lot of money here so christmas isnt like it is back at home. We will be going to the mission home here though and just eating and playing games and stuff for the day. Not a whole lot has happened this week, just same ole same ole besides the transfers. The wheather is getting better though, we have had cool breezes and some clouds lately and now for the most part the weather is perfect. We also got water in our house all day everyday so that was like the greatest blessing ive had in a long time, its not clean but its water. I have some blank cd´s now though so i think im going to put my pictures on and send them to you guys along with other things. There is a guy that lives right by us that is a less active member but he has a computer and everything so he would be able to do it for me, he even put a bunch of christmas music and more church songs on my ipod so that was cool. So sorry if this e mail is kinda all over the place but ive just been running around all over the place today with transfers and stuff but hopefully things calm down more next week and i have some stories to tell. Well thanks for everything and i will talk to you guys next week! thanks for the e mails too.

Nov 30, 2009

So not a whole lot has happened this last week. We have a couple new investigators that are doing really good... One of them isnt one you would really expect to be interested in the gospel but he is doing awesome! His name is Dí and he is about 22. He is a rapper and is actually really talented, he has a shed next to his house with his own little studio and he showed us some of his songs. He is actually kinda getting pretty popular here and is selling cd´s and everything... but its funny cause he has tattoos everywhere and dresses like a gangster and everything and all his friends are thugs, but he is really interested in our message. We picked him up for church yesterday and while we were waiting for him his mom came and talked to us and said it was the first time in his life that he had ever been to any church in his life, but he got all dressed up nice and he loved the meetings and wants to keep coming back. All our other investigators are doing good too, we have one that was supposed to be baptized this Saturday but they had an emergency in his family so we switched it to the week after. He is 17 and he is definitely ready to be baptized. We talk with his sister all the time too who is 18 and she is right behind him... and now their parents are starting to ask to have lessons with us and are reading the book of mormon together. They are a really close family and I could see the whole family being members one day! We are going to have family home evening with them tomorrow so that should go good.

Word on the street though is that I might be leaving this next transfer (next week). Its all just rumors now but what Ive got out of it is that I might be leaving my area but staying in Praia, which is not what I want to happen! I want to stay in our area a little longer cause I love all the people here, and if I do have to leave I want to go to another island. Nothing is official though so I will find out Saturday. I would miss all the people here though, Ive got people here that just feel like normal friends. We teach a non active member and his girlfriend and he is like my best friend... he cant even speak Port., just Creolo but everytime he talks to me he speaks in the english he learned from movies... things like "Whats up gangster" haha its funny. I will miss everyone here.

So yeah everything is going pretty good... its definitely the hardest thing Ive ever been through being here but its worth it and there are lots of good things happening.

Elder Luke

Nov 23,

> Its good to hear its cold there! I really miss snow and I really miss thanksgiving! I will miss being with you guys and yeah we do absolutely nothing for thanksgiving here besides work. Most of the missionaries here are Cabo Verdeans and Brazilians here too so not even a whole lot of people care about thanksgiving here, with the Elders next door to us one is American but they are getting less and less Americans here and more missionaries from Cabo Verde. Almost all the guys that serve from here end up being called to serve here. In our district I am the only American and I can only think of one other American now in our zone. Lots of people ask me to teach them some english though, its fun and they are way cool. But yeah back to thanksgiving I think I am just going to make a really good dinner that night to celebrate.
>
> So this week has been alright, but we had two days where absolutely nobody was home and we just spent all day trying to find people to teach and only got a couple lessons. It was hard but at the same time we got 5 new investigators. One crazy thing that happened is we have a non active member thats about 30 and all he does is drinks and partys and he is crazy... his name in english means Vision and everytime he talks with us he points at his eyes and then at the sky and says "I have the VISION of being better" haha its funny. (Lots of people here just give themselves their own names like Vision, we teach a guy who calls himself Bruce Lee, and just lots of weird ones like that) But yeah so we went to his house sunday morning to take him to church and we knocked on the door and his mom answered who is pretty crazy herself and said that he went to a party the other night and drank too much and when he got home he just got home and went up on the roof and had been asleep their ever since... stuff like that isnt even uncommon and I have so many stories like that haha people here are so weird. We see the same guys every day that sit on the street from morning to night and drink and talk, every day. Nobody has a life here. And Ryan I forgot to answer your question but everyone drinks here, most of the people on the streets are always drunk and it always smells like alcohol.

Nov 16, 4 months out

Well I am e mailing a little later than normal because all the power is out in half of Praia so we had to walk up to the Plateau which is the downtown area and it took us forever to find a place to e mail. But so everything has been going pretty good this week but nothing too different happened. We were planning on going fishing this week but we didnt get anything for it in time so we are planning on going next week. My good buddy Rico who is a member about a year older than me is going to come with us cause he knows some good areas that we can go so I am really excited! He says you can catch puffer fish where we will be going and they also have lots of other types of fish and you can catch eels and stuff too so it should be different than what Im used to! Just walking around Praia there are always ladys carring fish around to sell so I see eels and giant tuna fish and everything. The other islands have a lot more sharks too and some of them have tons of Great whites I hear. When I serve on São Vicente I will be able to go the the island next to it, Santo Anão for P day too and you have to take a boat to get there and I guess you see dolphins all the time on the ship too so that will be cool. Alright sorry, I was just rambling on about marine life but Im done now. So our work is still going pretty good. We are still working with the people and getting them prepared for baptism. We were supposed to have the baptism of Zézé this week, he is about 20 and he is definitely ready but he had to go to the island of Fogo to visit his family this week so we had to postpone it one more week. We also have Fidelho who is totally ready too but his wife is extremely catcholic and she is a little hesitant about it and of course he doesnt want to go against anything she says so we are just being patcient with them. Their son Paulo is about 20 and we have been talking with him for a long time too. He says he doesnt feel ready even though he is doing everything we need to so we have been working with him a lot too. We plan on having a family home evening with them this week cause they have a big family and it would be really good for them we think. I love family home evenings, they are way fun and help the investigators out a ton. We will be having one at a members house this week and we are bringing Elmer and Zuleika, they are 17 years old and 18 and they have a baptism date too and they are awesome!

So most of the other lessons are going really good too. Its cool because they dont used the memorized discusions anymore, now we have 5 lessons to teach them from Preach my Gospel but we can teach it for how they need it and we can do whatever we need to do for each specific person. We dont have any order to teach in and we can teach with what we feel they need so it makes things go a lot better! For example, with Paulo we have been teaching him a lot to finding a response to know that the Book of Mormon is true and those lessons have been sweet!

Praia isnt the prettiest or cleanest or nicest area in the world... in fact I think its one of the worst but I really hope I stay here at least one more transfer and I wouldnt even mind 2 more which would be until the start of March. I have tons of good friends here now that are investiagors and members so its awesome being able to have help from them. Everyone is really supportive here with me, especially with teaching me Creolo cause they love Creolo a lot more than Portugues.

But so yeah this area is going really good. I always here about the other islands too and they sound really cool though so at the same time it will be cool to go to a different one! In Fogo you can see the ocean no matter where you are and if you serve in a city up top you are above the clouds and from some points can see all the other islands even though they are so far away. Praia is also extremely loud and people are always out doing something and I guess everywhere else its really calm and you can see all the stars cause its just little villages and stuff without city lights. So I am hoping to serve in Fogo next after here but we will just have to see what happens. It would be good to get a break from the city life though.

Nov 9, Letter Home

Everything is going good here! Last Saturday I performed my first baptism which was way cool. It was with the seventeen year old named Jó and I was really excited when he said he wanted me to do it! The night before it we went to go fill up the font but we couldnt get any water out of it and nobody could figure it out so we were just planning on doing it in the ocean which got me even more excited! However at the last minute our President called a water truck to fill it, but it was still really cool! If you get the pictures I send, he is the one in the pic. So besides that there is a huge epidemic going on here with the dengue, the disease from the mosquitos. There are 9000 people that have it here between three islands and its just getting worse every day. A few people have even died from it but they were already unhealthy. But you guys dont need to sit around worrying about me wondering if I will get it cause I can already answer that for you now... I got it. I have had it for about 3 and a half weeks now and it usually takes about a month to get rid of. Its getting better for me now and i am still able to work everyday. I just had an outrageous head ache all the time and my left eye was swollen shut a lot of the time and I never had energy. Its all leaving though and I feel a lot better so no need to worry! Cabo Verde had one day this week though where they tried to get rid of the mosquitos though. They have trash EVERYWHERE, the streets, the dried of rivers, everywhere! So on this day they just lit all of it on fire so lately Ive been walking around and there are just trash fires everywhere! Personally I think that is more dangerous than the actual mosquitos. About half of our investigators have the dengue too but nothing too serious. The work is still going really good here, on Nov. 21 we have 5 baptisms schedualed with some really good people so hopefully they all work out. I think that has to be a record, 5 in one day in just one area! But I am loving the area I am in now and I want to stay here as long as I can! I am really close with a lot of the members and I love having them come teach with us! We have like 5 different young guys that always ask to come teach with us and it helps a lot! All the people here are just really chill and friendly and I love talking with them. The language is still getting better all the time! Im glad to hear everything is going good there though.

Nov 2, Letter Home

This week has also been a little hard cause my companion is really lazy, he is nothing like Elder Sequiera that I had before. We got tons of stuff done with him and he was really fun, but Elder Gonçalvez from brazil doesnt like to work a whole lot. He will be going home this next transfer so its just 5 more weeks that I have to deal with it. I will still make sure that we work just as hard as normal.

Elder Sequeira and I have this area going really good and have 10 people with marked baptism dates which is amazing, it still takes ton of work to keep them going to church and everything though so I hope they all come through and are all baptized. We have a baptism this Saturday, I am excited. His name is Jó and he is 17, he is already really strong in the church and goes to the seminary they have here and stuff. I think it will either be me baptizing him or a member named Edinho that is 20, either way it will be sweet. I guess you guys will know next week. Our other investigators are doing pretty good too, some require more work than others and sometimes we have to push baptism dates back, but I am in a really good area so its going well. The members help us out a lot and I love teaching with them, my favorite is Fredy, his mom cooks lunch for us and he teaches with us a lot, he is 20.

The weather here is cooled off a little bit but its still too hot, I still have to sleep with no blankets and a fan on me everynight. We had tons of rain a few days ago, in our area we just walk up little pathways up on the hill and it was raining so hard that when we came out of a lesson their was a river going down our alleyway about a foot deep so we had to find another way down. We have also been getting sand storms i guess from the Sahara these past couple days. It just kinda looks like smog in the air but orange, I dont really like it. I think the rain season is kinda stopping for the year now though but it should still be somewhat cool during the winter months but its still always too hot for me.

One thing is I think it would be best to switch my address to the
C.P. 420
Praia, Santiago
Cabo Verde
Then write via Portugual on it, you dont have to but I think it is a little more reliable.