Hows everyone doing? Its crazy to think that another week as already gone by. I think about all the next stuff that has been going on this past week and there really isnt that much... everything is going about the same. The work is definitely getting better though, my companion and i work well together and we have fun too. We found some way cool families this week and some new people to teach. One of them was taught for the first time on saturday and he was already in the church with us on sunday. Luis will be baptized next week and then the week after we have a 17 year old girl named daniella who will be baptized. It was pretty cool cause when i first started teaching her with my other companion i didnt really know if she was very interested, but all the sudden she just started to do everything all on her own like going to church every week. She already has a brother who is on a mission and a bunch of friends who are members so it was easy to get her ready. One cool thing is that me and my companion are being working hard and i feel like we are being blessed for it. There are lots of companionships that do tons and tons of contacts without anyone really caring to talk to them. But we are working hard and when our lessons fall we will go start contacts and usually people will let us in right off. Last night our lesson fell and the first door we hit was a 30 year old lady and before i even said me name she told us to come in. Her husban was there and her sister and her friend showed up during the lesson too and it went awesome. She said that she didnt like to follow churches cause they all just taught a bunch of different things that she didnt like and all the churches here just want money, but when we taught her she really liked it. We have like 10 people who have already promissed us to go to church next sunday so im pretty excited.
One cool thing that happened the other day is that while we were walking around we saw two guys in the street and one of them was carrying a shark around that he killed when he went scuba diving out from the beach here. It was only like 3 feet long but he told me that he has killed a lot bigger. When i asked him if he was afraid of them he said "no way" and then pointed to some random drunk guy next to us and said " Im a lot more afraid of that guy, you never know if he is going to through a glass bottle or rock at me!" It was pretty funny cause its true haha these people are crazy and just like to drink... but the drunk people really like us missionaries! They start talking with us and they wont stop.
So we had our zone conference this week and it went well, my companion and i had to give a training for over 2 hours. Im thinking it will be my last as zone leader though cause i have been it for a long time. We have our zone leaders counsel in praia this week too on wednesday so i will get to see praia again.
Monday, November 8, 2010
8/24 Letter Home
Everything is going pretty well out here, not a whole lot has changed. My new companion is a cool guy and prett funny, we are having a pretty good time. This week we had to make a bunch of trips to the airport right at the start which was kinda annoying but thats just how transfers are. We had to take people there that were leaving the island a few times and we also had to go pick up the new american sisters that just barely got here this week. We were still able to get a lot of work done though and this was one of the better weeks i have had in this area. We found a few new people here that are really cool... we are getting rid of our investigators that dont really do anything and we are finding others so its a lot of hard work but its a lot better. A couple of the people we found though are sailors which is kinda hard cause they travel for like 6 months at a time and they never know when they are going to be leaving... we will see what happens though. We also found a new couple that is actually married (which is kinda rare) and they are super nice, im liking forward to teaching them again. As for our other investigators, Luis is still doing the best. He got past that little problem with alcohol and is going to be baptized not this saturday but the next. We are also working with the members a lot more and we are a lot closer with them now. They are all inviting us over to their houses to teach them and talk with them and they are starting to help us a lot more. Like i said our branch is only about 40 people right now but it used to have a ton more, so there are a lot of inactives in the area so our plan is to go find them with the help of the active members and get them back there. Hopefully we will be able to make this branch a lot stronger.
So anyways there is the summary of the work. Mindelo is going pretty well... we are in the rain season now so its been pretty cloudy most of the days this week. We got dumped on on saturday, it was coming down hard! It was a good way to find some new people to teach though, i think that some of the people felt bad for us so they let us in to teach and it worked to our advantage.
So anyways there is the summary of the work. Mindelo is going pretty well... we are in the rain season now so its been pretty cloudy most of the days this week. We got dumped on on saturday, it was coming down hard! It was a good way to find some new people to teach though, i think that some of the people felt bad for us so they let us in to teach and it worked to our advantage.
8/16 Letter home
Hows it going back at home? Things are going pretty smoothly out here. We are just starting a new transfer and i am getting my new companion, we will be going to the airport to pick him up from praia in just a few hours. It is Elder Morreira from Brazil. I was hoping to get an American so that i could have someone to relate to more, but E. Morreira is the next best thing. I knew him in praia and he is a really cool guy and really chill so im sure i will like him. This will be the 5th transfer in a row with a comp that doesnt speak english though! I will be training him as zone leader and then hopefully i will be taken out of zone leader this transfer. I would like to go open up a new island or something still!
So anyways this week was pretty fun. One of the best things that happend was that i found a little store here in our area that has some american products... when i walked in i almost started crying tears of joy. I was able to find real bbq sauce, peanut butter, ranch dressing, real spaghetti sauce, and brown sugar! I know those 5 things dont really seem like that big of a deal to you guys but to me it just completely changed my way of living in the mission!
As for the work this week everything is going about the same. One sad thing is that Luis, that guy that is getting ready for baptism had a little stumbling block. We showed up to our lesson and he was drunk. That is the first time he had had any problem with alcohol recently and it was kinda sad, but we got it out of the way and he is still on his way to being baptized. He is a man of his word and he said he was done doing anything like that from now on. We are still working on finding new people though and having to do lots of contacts. We have taught a few new cool people though. We taught one guy named Mowacir who is the smartest man i have talked with here. He is a professor in portugual during a part of the year and he is also an author and travels to all different parts of the world to do researches. His house is a library and he speaks portuguese really well which is kinda uncommon here! We taught him and at first i thought that we werent going to get anywhere and that he would just bash on what we taught but it was the complete opposite! He really liked it and wants to keep talking with us. WE are going back there tomorrow so we will see what happens. Our branch is still really weak but we had a branch activity the other night that was really fun. We played games and had a though and everything and the turnout was actually pretty good with about 30 people there. Even though its small there are still some way cool people and a lot of them are pretty close and we are gaining the trust of them more too. But being in a small branch we have a lot of responsibility in it. I had to teach gospel principles class last week and this week i am teaching primary, it should be pretty fun.
I heard about that elder that came out here but went home after a few weeks but i never met him. He went straight to fogo so i didnt know him. That is something that happens but not a whole lot, most people are able to deal with it.
Well i cant think of a whole lot else that is new. Today we just woke up and a couple of us went to the beach here in mindelo which is pretty nice and we played football. I think the rest of the day is going to be spent relaxing and getting my companion. Next week i will let you know a little more about him and everything else.
So anyways this week was pretty fun. One of the best things that happend was that i found a little store here in our area that has some american products... when i walked in i almost started crying tears of joy. I was able to find real bbq sauce, peanut butter, ranch dressing, real spaghetti sauce, and brown sugar! I know those 5 things dont really seem like that big of a deal to you guys but to me it just completely changed my way of living in the mission!
As for the work this week everything is going about the same. One sad thing is that Luis, that guy that is getting ready for baptism had a little stumbling block. We showed up to our lesson and he was drunk. That is the first time he had had any problem with alcohol recently and it was kinda sad, but we got it out of the way and he is still on his way to being baptized. He is a man of his word and he said he was done doing anything like that from now on. We are still working on finding new people though and having to do lots of contacts. We have taught a few new cool people though. We taught one guy named Mowacir who is the smartest man i have talked with here. He is a professor in portugual during a part of the year and he is also an author and travels to all different parts of the world to do researches. His house is a library and he speaks portuguese really well which is kinda uncommon here! We taught him and at first i thought that we werent going to get anywhere and that he would just bash on what we taught but it was the complete opposite! He really liked it and wants to keep talking with us. WE are going back there tomorrow so we will see what happens. Our branch is still really weak but we had a branch activity the other night that was really fun. We played games and had a though and everything and the turnout was actually pretty good with about 30 people there. Even though its small there are still some way cool people and a lot of them are pretty close and we are gaining the trust of them more too. But being in a small branch we have a lot of responsibility in it. I had to teach gospel principles class last week and this week i am teaching primary, it should be pretty fun.
I heard about that elder that came out here but went home after a few weeks but i never met him. He went straight to fogo so i didnt know him. That is something that happens but not a whole lot, most people are able to deal with it.
Well i cant think of a whole lot else that is new. Today we just woke up and a couple of us went to the beach here in mindelo which is pretty nice and we played football. I think the rest of the day is going to be spent relaxing and getting my companion. Next week i will let you know a little more about him and everything else.
8/9 letter home
How´s everything going? Things are just about the same out here. I dont know if its because i am getting more and more accustomed each week or what, but it seems like each time i write i have less to tell you guys about. I guess the things that used to seem wild to me dont seem all that strange anymore but im sure that i will have a big wake up call right when i step off the plane and get home! Then i will probably be able to tell all the crazy things that go on out here.
But so anyways like i said, this last tuesday was our zone leaders counsel down in praia. My companion and I and one other companionship (other zone leaders) flew down together and we got there that morning. It was good to see the area that i was raised in out here, but we didnt have any time to go around and say hi to the people i know. The meeting started at 11 that morning and lasted until 9 that night. It was way too long and by the end my eyes were blood shot and i was about to explode! I learned quite a bit though. There have been some world wide changes in all the missions so we had to learn about all of those. Now there are different trainings that we have to give all the missionaries that are supposed to help with all the teaching and everything else we do. We will be teaching them to the other missionaries in zone conferences, but it will take until may to get all 8 trainings done so i will almost be home. We just learned the first 2 this last week. But some of the other things that are different is that president neves will be walking with us once every 3 months and also our zone conferences will happen once every 3 months instead of twice. We will also have zone counsel at the start of every month which means a lot more flying to praia for me. This training help a lot and i have learned a lot, but i am definitely ready to get out of zone leader and i hope that this next transfer will be my last. There are some rumors that some new islands that never had missionaries will be opening up within the next few transfers, so my dream is to just go to one of them and get away from everything besides just taking care of my own area!
We stayed the night in praia that night though in my old house, and as i was walking in that night a miracle home. I heard someone shouting my name from across the street and when i turned around i saw that it was carlos and gilmara, my favorite people there are out here! I was really wanting to see them but since our meeting went so long i didnt thing i would be able to. So it was awesome being able to talk to them and see them after being gone for more than a month. They are still doing awesome and they got married last friday and baptized on saturday!! They are for sure the pride of my mission and carlos will definitely be a big leader in the church here one day when they get a stake and a temple and stuff. I am hoping next time i go down to praia i will have time to see some of the people down there.
But so this area is going about the same, we are getting it a little better each time. We have a stud of a man named Luis in his 40s that we teach and he will be baptized in two weeks. He told us yesterday during church that at first he didnt really care about what we were teaching him but after he started reading the book of mormon it changed everything and now he has a strong testimony. He is a pretty quite guy but he keeps all of his commitments.
But so anyways like i said, this last tuesday was our zone leaders counsel down in praia. My companion and I and one other companionship (other zone leaders) flew down together and we got there that morning. It was good to see the area that i was raised in out here, but we didnt have any time to go around and say hi to the people i know. The meeting started at 11 that morning and lasted until 9 that night. It was way too long and by the end my eyes were blood shot and i was about to explode! I learned quite a bit though. There have been some world wide changes in all the missions so we had to learn about all of those. Now there are different trainings that we have to give all the missionaries that are supposed to help with all the teaching and everything else we do. We will be teaching them to the other missionaries in zone conferences, but it will take until may to get all 8 trainings done so i will almost be home. We just learned the first 2 this last week. But some of the other things that are different is that president neves will be walking with us once every 3 months and also our zone conferences will happen once every 3 months instead of twice. We will also have zone counsel at the start of every month which means a lot more flying to praia for me. This training help a lot and i have learned a lot, but i am definitely ready to get out of zone leader and i hope that this next transfer will be my last. There are some rumors that some new islands that never had missionaries will be opening up within the next few transfers, so my dream is to just go to one of them and get away from everything besides just taking care of my own area!
We stayed the night in praia that night though in my old house, and as i was walking in that night a miracle home. I heard someone shouting my name from across the street and when i turned around i saw that it was carlos and gilmara, my favorite people there are out here! I was really wanting to see them but since our meeting went so long i didnt thing i would be able to. So it was awesome being able to talk to them and see them after being gone for more than a month. They are still doing awesome and they got married last friday and baptized on saturday!! They are for sure the pride of my mission and carlos will definitely be a big leader in the church here one day when they get a stake and a temple and stuff. I am hoping next time i go down to praia i will have time to see some of the people down there.
But so this area is going about the same, we are getting it a little better each time. We have a stud of a man named Luis in his 40s that we teach and he will be baptized in two weeks. He told us yesterday during church that at first he didnt really care about what we were teaching him but after he started reading the book of mormon it changed everything and now he has a strong testimony. He is a pretty quite guy but he keeps all of his commitments.
8/2 Letter home
Its crazy to think that one more week has already gone by, time is flying. It sounds like the family reunion was really fun, it would have been cool to be there! I would kill for some dutch oven cooking and bbq right now. We are still eating at that resteraunt where that lady cooks for us still and at first it was alright but im starting to get sick of eating rice every day again so i think we might be taking a break from it and cook at home again. Did you guys get to ride some horses down there? I am still waiting for the day that you guys write and say that you just bought some horses for us too ride. And if the horses thing doesnt work out i wouldnt find 4 wheelers either, just something to get me up in the mountains every day. This area here in mindelo actually kinda reminds me of kanab with the scenery (besides being surrounded by the ocean). But there is lots of red rock and its just deserty kinda like that and a few mountains and stuff... i was going to take some pictures of it but the day i took my camera out with me it was kinda cloudy so it wouldnt have been all that cool.
So the coolest part about this week was the trip to sal that we had. We headed out there early wednesday morning and stayed out there until thursday morning. Sal is definitely different from the other two islands that i have been on. I dont know if you guys are remembering the movie "I am Legend" but its kinda like that. You see houses and stuff but its just dead quite and nobody is out. Sal is just flat with random houses just scattered across the desert without any streets that really go to them or anything. It actually has the nicest resort out of any of the islands and has the coolest beach in the whole world there with pure white send and clear water where you can see all the way down to the bottom. The only thing is it was cloudy that day too so we didnt bother going out there, i will for sure be going there next time in about a month though. Most people that live there though dont live there permanately, they just go there for work for months at a time so i got to see people from all the different islands. It was a really fun division and i really wouldnt mind serving there one day, but i am still wanting fogo or brava the most. It was really weird flying there, you get to flying altitude for like 5 minutes and then they come back on the intercom and say that you will already start descending. The planes are pretty small too but its cool being able to fly around.
We actually will be flying early tomorrow morning to go back to praia for our zone leaders counsel cause it got switched from next week to this week. It will be cool getting to go to praia again and i am hoping i will have time to see people i know before the counsel starts. I miss all of the people from there! I dont know how excited i am about the zone leaders counsel though, i think it is going to go forever ( like 8 hours) and we will just be sitting there discussing a bunch of different stuff. Its been a cool oportunity to be zone leader but i am so ready to get out and just be a normal missionary, this is my 5th transfer and i know i will be staying at least one more because my companion will be leaving at the end of the transfer in 2 weeks to another area so i will have to stay here to get my new companion.
The work is still progressing but very very slowly and we are having to work hard for it. We still have a couple really cool people that we teach. One is a 44 year old guy that just lives at his house with his sister and mom. He is really quite and stuff but i really like him because if he says he will do something like come to church or be at his house for his appointment, he will really be there. And if he wont be there he will tell us. Thats unlike 99 percent of the people here that say they will do stuff and dont. He has been coming to church these past couple weeks though and reads the book of mormon every day and i believe he will get baptized. We also had a cool experience with a less active this week. All of his family are members of the church (its actually the brother in law of the brother of President Neves). He is 19 and i had never known him before but we ran into him and taught him once and he is a way cool kid. He has been in active for quite a few years though ( he is one of the few here in this country that baptized with 8 years old) so we tried to get him to start reading the scriptures and stuff and we also invited him to play soccer with us next week and stuff cause he plays for a time. The lesson went pretty normal though and i didnt think a whole lot of it afterwards.... and it can kinda actually get really frustrating sometime because most of our lessons are like that and dont seem to really make anything better than it was before we came. It is sometimes kinda discouraging cause you feel like you work really hard but nobody really even cares and that we are just wasting our time here. But so last sunday his mom bore her testimony at church and during it she thanked me and my companion for going over there to teach him because after we left, he got really excited and started acting like a new person. He read the part we left for him in the book of mormon and is starting to do all that stuff again. It was nice to hear that we actually did kinda make a difference and i am excited to go back and teach him again now.
So yeah that was just one cool story i liked but for the most part things are going about the same. Hope everything is going well for you guys though and thanks for everything. Only a couple more weeks until the hunts start!
So the coolest part about this week was the trip to sal that we had. We headed out there early wednesday morning and stayed out there until thursday morning. Sal is definitely different from the other two islands that i have been on. I dont know if you guys are remembering the movie "I am Legend" but its kinda like that. You see houses and stuff but its just dead quite and nobody is out. Sal is just flat with random houses just scattered across the desert without any streets that really go to them or anything. It actually has the nicest resort out of any of the islands and has the coolest beach in the whole world there with pure white send and clear water where you can see all the way down to the bottom. The only thing is it was cloudy that day too so we didnt bother going out there, i will for sure be going there next time in about a month though. Most people that live there though dont live there permanately, they just go there for work for months at a time so i got to see people from all the different islands. It was a really fun division and i really wouldnt mind serving there one day, but i am still wanting fogo or brava the most. It was really weird flying there, you get to flying altitude for like 5 minutes and then they come back on the intercom and say that you will already start descending. The planes are pretty small too but its cool being able to fly around.
We actually will be flying early tomorrow morning to go back to praia for our zone leaders counsel cause it got switched from next week to this week. It will be cool getting to go to praia again and i am hoping i will have time to see people i know before the counsel starts. I miss all of the people from there! I dont know how excited i am about the zone leaders counsel though, i think it is going to go forever ( like 8 hours) and we will just be sitting there discussing a bunch of different stuff. Its been a cool oportunity to be zone leader but i am so ready to get out and just be a normal missionary, this is my 5th transfer and i know i will be staying at least one more because my companion will be leaving at the end of the transfer in 2 weeks to another area so i will have to stay here to get my new companion.
The work is still progressing but very very slowly and we are having to work hard for it. We still have a couple really cool people that we teach. One is a 44 year old guy that just lives at his house with his sister and mom. He is really quite and stuff but i really like him because if he says he will do something like come to church or be at his house for his appointment, he will really be there. And if he wont be there he will tell us. Thats unlike 99 percent of the people here that say they will do stuff and dont. He has been coming to church these past couple weeks though and reads the book of mormon every day and i believe he will get baptized. We also had a cool experience with a less active this week. All of his family are members of the church (its actually the brother in law of the brother of President Neves). He is 19 and i had never known him before but we ran into him and taught him once and he is a way cool kid. He has been in active for quite a few years though ( he is one of the few here in this country that baptized with 8 years old) so we tried to get him to start reading the scriptures and stuff and we also invited him to play soccer with us next week and stuff cause he plays for a time. The lesson went pretty normal though and i didnt think a whole lot of it afterwards.... and it can kinda actually get really frustrating sometime because most of our lessons are like that and dont seem to really make anything better than it was before we came. It is sometimes kinda discouraging cause you feel like you work really hard but nobody really even cares and that we are just wasting our time here. But so last sunday his mom bore her testimony at church and during it she thanked me and my companion for going over there to teach him because after we left, he got really excited and started acting like a new person. He read the part we left for him in the book of mormon and is starting to do all that stuff again. It was nice to hear that we actually did kinda make a difference and i am excited to go back and teach him again now.
So yeah that was just one cool story i liked but for the most part things are going about the same. Hope everything is going well for you guys though and thanks for everything. Only a couple more weeks until the hunts start!
Sorry I am so far behind- July 26
Time is going by super fast!!! It sounds super hot there, i guess its the hottest time of the year right? The temperature here never gets up like it does back at home, i think its usually about 85 here, but it feels just as hot, its just a different type of hot. Here the sun is just always beating down on you and it feels a lot closer and the humidity just makes it ten times worse. I would actually rather work outside back at home than here. However, the rainy season is just right around the corner... which will be good and bad. I really miss the rain and it will be nice to have cloud cover and stuff so thats a good thing. The only problem is that the day after the storm is 10 times hotter than even your normal hot day here. I dont know why that is but it get super hot here right after the storms. We have already had a couple sprinkles and i think that the storms will start happening more in august and they will probably last for about a month or two. Mindelo overall is a little cooler than praia though so its an upgrade. As for our branch it is still really week but there are still a few really cool members that help us out. I dont know if i told you guys this or not but this is actually the home branch of my mission president. He wrote me an e mail today and told me that because of some things that have happened in the past the branch has kinda lost trust in the missioinaries and the work hasnt really gone anywhere. He said that in his 2 years as mission president, he has only seen two different companionships that have made a difference here in this area. But because of those two companionships 4 guys were baptized in this area, two of which just barely left on missions this week and another two that are filling out there papers right now. So i am just gonna try to work hard and hopefully good stuff happens. In sacrament yesterday i gave a talk and also one of the members of the district presidency who just so happens to be my mission presidents brother and it was actually really good. Hopefully things can change around. As for the p days here, there are lots of fun things to do but my companion doesnt want to do anything besides hang out at here house which really sucks! This city is way fun, it is actually like a tourist city and lots of cruise ships will stop here because there is quite a bit to do. There are tons of really cool shops to get souvenirs and stuff but it looks like this transfer i wont really be taking advantage of them. My companion has a long time in this area so its pretty much for sure that he will leave and i will be getting a new companion. The transfers kinda work by logic and its looking like my next companion will be a way cool elder from utah so that would be really fun and we would be able to do a lot of cool stuff on p day. And what month of the new era was that story dad, that would be really cool to share with people here. We get an hour of language study each day and for mine i like to just read the new eras in portuguese cause i can learn new words and stuff. I will have to look for that story, but right now i am reading all the conference talks from last conference. Well thats about all thats going on for now here. The highlight of this next week will be on wednesday when we head over to sal to spend the day there, i will make sure to get a bunch of pictures of it and also of mindelo to send you guys for next time.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
