Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Week 49, Being Santas

Hey what's up! Sorry for emailing super late, we were doing service in one of the member's house so now I only have 30 minutes to talk. 
So anyway, Christmas was sick! I'm not gonna lie, we didn't get home till like midnight on Christmas Eve because Gooch and I bought a TON of gifts for everyone we knew and we took forever wrapping them and giving them out. 
This is our room, btw, it has been like this since I got here, the only lights we have are christmas lights, haha. 
And this is us being Santas. Our bags were FULL of things to give away. 
We both spent about $70 each on gifts, and all of the kids we gave things to it was their only Christmas gift they received. These are about half of the gifts we wrapped. 

So we were super tired the next day because we got home at midnight and then stayed up till like 4 watching movies and then woke up at 6 as a normal day. 


Monday, December 22, 2014

Week 48

A FREAKEN MONKEY!!!!!! I've only been here a week and I've already seen 2 monkeys, they are the coolest things ever!!! I will make it my goal to have one on my shoulder for next week.


 So this week was super sick!!! We had a baptism at the beach Sunday before Sacrament. Her name is Jemely, she's a total boss and super funny. I only taught her 3 times so I don't know her too well, but she's awesome. This is us coming out of the water after the baptism.

The water was super cold!!! My comp is Elder Gooch, I'll be killing him, he dies the first week of February. We had a super sick Christmas party at church. Cabo Verdeans sure know how to Christmas!! They don't give everyone gifts, but they meet up twice. Once like a week before and then again the day of the party. The first time they meet up they write everybody's name in paper, then everyone picks someone blindfolded and you only give a gift to that person. It was sooo much fun opening the gifts. I've only been here a week but I got a beach towel! It was pretty awesome. Elder Gooch got a jersey with his name on it. 



Monday, December 15, 2014

Week 47, Eighth Transfer!

I got transferred!!!!! I'm going to Sal in a few hours, I will be serving with Elder Gooch in Santa Maria. I'll be leaving in a few hours so I won't email long since I need to pack. I had a sick week though!!!! 4 baptisms, christmas party, transfers, super busy!!!!
So much stuff happened this week!! First of all the Christmas party in Sao Vicente, and the best part is, most of our district from the MTC were there. Well, except Elder Sosa and Cordova, but it was great seeing everyone else.




Lol all 3 Mexicans from the zone
Also, our branch president got his mission call!!!!! He is going to Brazil in April. 
And probably my favorite moment in this week, SPAM tower is complete!!!! 
4 Transfers in the making, lol. 
We baptized a family from Mocho!!!!! (The area Elder Welch and I discovered). I baptized the dad (Joao) and Elder Reid Baptized Paulina (the mom) and another member baptized the 2 daughters, Janira and Helida. 


And these are just my favorite members in the world haha. Hinzaguy and Sandino. 






Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Week 46

Well this week was pretty chill, the weather is finally changing!! I've been sick for a few days though, but I'm better today. I had a sore throat and was sneezing a lot.
So there's no way I'll get the package you sent before Christmas, but that's ok, I don't mind getting it next year. I think this week was the last time we were able to get packages because nobody else is coming from Praia until next year.
So remember that one donkey I found a few months back?? I met the owner, lol. This was in a walk back from a service project we had.
 
Oh so the service project.... Sorry but the member I gave my camera to take pictures did a horrible job, she only took one, lol. We made new wooden tables and chairs for a little cafeteria. We tore down the old cement chairs which were supper flippin heavy, here's a pic of one of them. 
Also, look at this epic flower, it looks fake. 

Dude!! This is the last week of this transfer, so I'm pretty sure I'm leaving after this Sunday :( I'm sad, all the members here are like brothers to me, and I already have the record for spending the longest time in Ribeira Grande, 6 months and like 2 weeks. 

Monday, December 1, 2014

Week 45

So this week was super sick!!! First of all, check out this pic of me with this baby here. So I showed up to one of our member's house and she's like "ah good, you're here. Here, take my 2 month old child and climb this mountain with him in your arms and give it to my husband's mom to take care of it" lol.
It turns out she slipped with him a few weeks earlier and ever since then she's been scared of climbing up and down with him so she gives it to other people to do it for her.

This week we had 2 baptisms!!! We baptized in Ponta del Sol, which is said to have the prettiest sunsets in the entire mission. The day was super cloudy and rainy, but we still managed to have a super beautiful last 3 minutes of the sunset. 


The people we baptized are actually a couple. Their names are Dany and Carine. Dany is 18 and Carine is 30... I know... it's kinda weird, but it's not too rare here in Cape Verde. The hardest thing for them was keeping the law of chastity, but they are total bosses. Dany left coffee in a heartbeat and Carine still got baptized even though her mom hates Mormons and is super mad at her. 
Araci is doing a lot better now, she is the one who invited Carine to church. It looks like her older brothers calmed her dad down so she's moving back into her parent's house. 
(Araci is the middle one)



I got the watches!




Monday, November 24, 2014

Week 44

We had another week full of tiny miracles. We hit frequency of 50 again in church! It's crazy how much this branch has grown, I remember my first few Sundays only having 25ish people at sacrament. We owe all this growth to the members here. I would honestly put my money on them if we were looking for the hardest working members in the world.
The volcano in Fogo erupted!!! Haha Elder Olsen had to move out of his area cuz he was right under it.

Monday, November 17, 2014

Week 43

What's up!!! You're so lucky to feel cold over there, I still sweat like crazy every day, although it does feel a slightly bit cooler than last week. Man so this week was super sweet!!! The Zone Leaders came over for divisions and slept here for 3 days. When you are isolated in an island 2 hours away from any other elder, a division feels like Christmas morning. Elder Welch (my old comp) is now Zone Leader so he came back along with Elder Ernst. They are both such bosses, I stuck with Ernst all division long and I learned tons from him. He's kind of a legend in this mission, he trained a greenie his second transfer, while he was still a greenie himself. That happens like... almost never haha.
So, another interesting story about this week, we had Stake Conference! But it was on another island, so EVERYONE that has a calling in our branch (about 80% of total frequency) left all weekend long to go to it. And lucky Elder Zuniga and Elder Reid stayed behind to have regular Sunday with investigators and anyone else who doesn't have a calling. I was acting as Branch President Zuniga this past Sunday. It was actually pretty sick, I liked it a lot.
I taught Elder's Quorum, prepared sacrament, blessed it, gave a talk during sacrament... stuff like that. All while taking care of investigators. It honestly wasn't that hard, but I would have loved to travel back to Sao Vincent and see Helder and other people from my old ward.

So anyways, during the divisions we were playing with the special effects on my camera, and we made an EFY counselor!!! It's my huge smile with Elder Welch's eyes, lol.


On the left here is Elder Reid and Elder Ernst is in the middle.

This is me with the Branch President's agenda, which kinda made me Branch President Zuniga lol.

Also, this literally happens every time I let one of my comps cut my hair. I bought some clippers back with Elder Burch for about 5 bucks and a regular haircut at a barber is $2.50 so I've already saved like $7.50. Good job Zuniga haha. I just tell all my comps to buzz it off. 
So I hope you're not expecting Garca to be like a super beautiful place, lol it's kinda super isolated there and it's in the middle of nowhere. Here's us pointing at it: 
We had a member with us and man, if you let a Cabo Verdean use your camera they literally take like a billion pics from every possible angle lol. 




Monday, November 10, 2014

Week 42

I'm alone!!!! I have had no comp all day!! He'll get here in 2 hours, though. Elder Welch got transferred out of here, sadface, but we still had a sick last week. I took the best pic ever, we were helping out one of our less actives carry food for his cows up a mountain. It was harder than it looked, my respects for people who do it twice a day every single day of the year.
I'm not gonna say much at the moment because I'll be emailing later when Elder Reid gets here. I'm super pumped to serve with him, he's already a buddy of mine when I was back in Sao Vincent.
Anyways, laters!

I'm back! It was sooo weird being alone! I didn't know what to do, I just chilled with Hinzaguy most of the time but he had to work, so I stayed home alone until Reid got here, and now he's here! I'm super pumped to serve with him, he's a boss. I got a call at 11PM last night telling me that my comp was leaving at 8AM and I needed to find someone to stay with, so naturally everyone decided to be busy, so I had nobody to be my comp. I was alone from 8AM until 2PM. Weirdest feeling of my mission so far. I was freaking out. 
So this past week was way busy, we did a ton of work with less active members. Something happened that I honestly never believed would happen in my mission. I actually love a little kid, lol. His name is William or "Willy", he is seriously the most adorable kid ever. He's not loud at all and he actually behaves! Only at church tho haha which is good. He's only 6 but he says he wants to serve a mission when he's older, little stud haha. I asked him to sit next to me and take a pic and the first thing he does is throw up a peace sign. He's the one in orange. 

This week we also made History!! We visited a zone called Garca which took us an hour and a half in a car and another 30 of walking to get to. I was the first missionary to ever set foot in that area! Welch was second, lol. I have pics but they're in a different SD card that I forgot, sorry. I'll send some next week. The little zone only has about 20 families total, and 2 of them have been coming to church twice a month for a while, they have a baptism date for the 13th of December, I'm so pumped for them! 
Dude!! Look at this pic Elder Olsen drew me. It is seriously my favorite drawing ever. He knows me so well, haha. It's a bunch of Yoshi, Naruto, and Dragon Ball Z stuff. 

Monday, November 3, 2014

Week 41

Araci got baptized and confirmed!! She is such a boss. I wrote you a letter about her story, it's amazing what this girl went through to get baptized, she literally got kicked out of her house for it.
This week was pretty busy, worked a lot but didn't feel as tired for some reason.

So I forgot it was Halloween until that night when I saw little kids dressed up and I was like "you kids are retarded" then I remembered it was October. 
Hey don't send me any chocolate for Christmas, just a bit of candy, I don't wanna get fatter lol. Oh and some spicy ketchup! I've been out for a while. Anyways, I gtg, you'll be getting a letter in like 2 weeks, take care! Love you lots! Tchao!

Monday, October 27, 2014

Week 40

This week was awesome! Got soo much work done and reached tons of goals we had. This is the Family Home Evening we had last Monday, it was sick!!! We had a bunch of food. Cachupa (in the pot), fish, popcorn, little round banana cake things, some potatoes, and the super good chocolate cake I made. The kid looks funny lol, I think it's the first time he has seen a camera.
Also, it's impossible getting Cabo Verdeans to stop and take a pic. 


Man so Cabo Verdeans get SUPER into soccer. Like when they're playing against each other. They never have fun, they are just super competitive. So this guy, Sandino is a member and he was playing against some other team and they started arguing. Long story short, one of the other guys smashed a rock on his head and knocked him out. He got 12 stitches on his head. This is him 4 days later. 

The sun is shining on this mountain very epic-ally. 
Oh and here's my sexy comp, Elder Welch. 
And then there's me.