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.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
