Week 32; 20th Birthday!

Man today doesn't even feel like my birthday, I'm like banned out here in the butt crack of Africa with nobody around haha. Check out my birthday present form one of our investigators!!! A tootsie roll!!! It's the first time I see one in about 7 months! American candy!!

So let's see, cuzas (things) that happened this passed week... Remember Danildo?? My recent convert is such a boss that he did divisions with me for an entire day! Hinzaguy did the same with Elder Burch. They are on fire, man, they helped so much, introducing people to us and helping us teach. I have two name tags and on one of them I covered up Zuniga and put Alves, so Danildo was super excited about that. 

I liked these two walls here and the mountain behind me. The path goes through them, so we don't have to walk over it. 

If there is one thing I have learned in my mission, is that Jehovah Witness people suck. Elder Burch and I taped this to our door and we see it every day, lol. 

(What is the secret to have a happy family?)

Well, that's it for today!

Week 26, 6 Months Out!

Ughh... I'm pissed. Something happened to my SD card and ALL my pics are deleted or something -.- Like they are obviously still there cuz the card is almost completely full, but they won't appear anywhere. Ughh... so anyways about last week's baptism:
The part where we are standing is super shallow, but the part where Danildo was standing is pretty deep, it was up to his waist and he's taller than me. Man I'm super bummed out, I had like 300 pics there.
Alright well about this past week, it was great. Elder Burch and I got tons of work done. We made a pact with each other that we were gonna try to be as obedient and diligent as possible so we could be blessed with 40 people in sacrament meeting this past Sunday. It wore me out so much. I mean, I'm already super obedient compared to other missionaries in the mission, but I never realized how much I slack off sometimes lol. Little things like getting out of bed at 6:30 and not just lay there 30 minutes after the alarm goes off, staying focused on our studies and small things like that. Yesterday we had 36 people at church. It was a big improvement, but we didn't hit our goal. Even though we were short 4 people, we were still super happy seeing some people there for the first time and others who haven't been there in months. This one kid named Danielson was there, he's 22 and has a baptism date marked for the 2nd of August. He's progressing a lot and already has the desire to get baptized.
Yesterday we hiked up one of the mountain zones called "Figueral". It's like a good mile of a steady (not too steep) incline. We had a member invite us to eat cachupa like around 7:15 so we stopped by and ate quickly because the cars stop driving down the main road back to our house like at 8PM. We had to sprint down Figueral when it was pitch black so we could make it back to the main road on time. We got there like at 8:15, it was super dark and there wasn't a car in sight... like completely deserted. We knew there was absolutely no way we would make it back home in time (since we live like 4 miles away) so we decided to say a prayer. Like 3 minutes after we said it some guy drove by in his car and gave us a ride. Apparently he was heading out to some party in a city close to ours. It's amazing how our Heavenly Father is always willing to help us out, all we have to do is ask. (Hitchhiking is a common form of transportation for us because there's no buses on this island).
And let's see... this past week this old lady beat me with a stick lol. She's a member but she's super mean and strict. She was telling me to sit down and I didn't want to so she got a stick and hit me with it until I sat down lol. Elder Burch has part of it on camera. We were at some church activity and everyone was running around and having a good time and apparently we were about to start with a prayer but I was the first she picked to sit down so I didn't really know what was going on and then she started hitting me with this 3 foot long stick and it hurt lol.
Well today I feel accomplished for writing so much, thanks for the packages and stuff, I'll be waiting for them. I love you!! Buh bye!

-Elder Zuniga

Week 25, A Baptism!

Sweet!!! Scuba diving is awesome and it's nice hearing you had a good week. I had an amazing week as well, full of miracles. As a starter, I got to baptize in the ocean!!!! It was flipping sweet! His name is Danildo and man did we have to work and pray hard for him, but it strengthened my own testimony soo much. He was actually supposed to be baptized like 2 weeks ago but he was still 17, so on the day of his baptismal interview he didn't show up so we were like, "what's up with that??" So we called his phone and his mom answered very angrily saying "Danildo was already baptized!! He's catholic he's not gonna get baptized again!" and hung up. His mom and older sister just stuffed his head with soo much crap for about a week and wouldn't let us talk to him. Then we visited his mother at work and asked if we could sit down sometime and talk. She was a lot nicer and she agreed to do it. Danildo's birthday had passed by now and he was already 18 but we still sat down with him and his mom and talked about it. We told her we didn't want her son disobeying her and do something against her will and stuff like that. The Spirit must have slapped her in the face cuz only after 5 minutes of talking she said "Danildo is old enough to make his own choices now" then she asked him if he felt this is something he wanted to do. Then he answered "I'm not sure anymore." Those words were like a knife to my heart. We had been working soo hard with him to have it end just like that. So we invited him to pray that night and ask God if baptism was something he should do. He agreed and we sat down with him the next day and asked him how it went. Without hesitation he said "I want to get baptized, I know this is what God want's me to do." I know for a fact that God listens to and answers everyone's prayers. It was amazing how the Holy Ghost works with the hearts of everyone.

And well I guess it's not entirely in the ocean. There's only like a pool made of lava rock but it was still flipping sweet!! This morning we also made some killer cachupa in like the middle of the forest. Man it tasted soo good!! I also had a chance to visit Sao Vicente again for our interviews with our new mission president, President Matthews. And guess who I visited while I was there? Helder!!! He is still going strong and already received the Aaronic priesthood. He passes the sacrament every week now. As soon as he saw me he screamed "Elder Zuniga!! My Brotha!!" and hugged me lol. I love him soo much.