Week 90, Transfer 15

Hey you!! Sorry last week the power went out in the city so we couldn't do internet again. 

Today has been a bit stressful because transfers were yesterday. Sosa and I are staying together for another 6 weeks, which was a bit of a surprise to be honest because we both go home on the same day and 2 Zone Leaders can't leave at the same time because the next Zone Leaders would be completely out of it. So one of us might be finishing the mission as a ZL. 

I have a lot of pics to send, I just hugged Burch goodbye! He's done!! It was kind of depressing, he's definitely one of the best friends I've ever made. I think we are going to be roommates for college, that's the plan so far at least, haha. This is our last picture together, I was so sad. 

 

Mission council was great, I enjoyed it a lot. We had our Zone meeting and it was dope! This is our whole Zone. 

And like every week... we got soaked again -.-' I hate rain now...

Everything in Assomada is turning super green because of the rain. There's tons of mosquitoes at night, so we bought those mosquito repellent things that you burn so we don't get eaten alive in our sleep. 

Week 86

This week was good at first, but it went downhill fast. It started out with a division with Elder Burch, I went over to his area to work and we had a good talk about our plans after the mission. I've actualy been feeling for a while that I shouldn't be welding after the mission and that I need to go back to college. The entire time Burch was trying to convince me to go to Utah State (he's been trying to convince me for like a year now). I want to be an architect. I just want to do something hands-on that doesn't destroy my body, and so far what God has told me is that I need to study hard for the first time in my life and get a really good education.

Sadly, Ivanildo was not baptized. He was being sent to a rehabilitation center in another city nearby because of past problems with drugs and his parents really wanted him to go for like 3 months. He almost had them convinced that he doesn't have to go but it was already too late for his baptism. We will try to get him baptized this Saturday, though.

Sosa and I... we get along great and all, but not as well as I got along with Mortensen. I'm still getting used to the way he teaches. Oh and it rained on us again -.-'

Week 84, 14th Transfer

Hey!!! Man this past week was sweet! I mean, nothing crazy weird happened but we just had a lot of success. So Mortensen got transferred! I am now serving with my MTC comp. Elder Sosa is here as the 2nd Zone Leader now, I'm excited for this next transfer, we should have a ton of success.
So me and Mortensen took a picture to put in the house of a member family that is super tight with us. Here it is, they said they would keep that picture forever, lol. He's still here, he will leave in 3 days, so he can make my cake, lol. And also Burch is in my zone now! It was nice seeing him today. He is going to die in an area called Pedra Bedejo close to Assomada. What's crazy is that I'll be home 3 months after he is, I think I will know my homecoming information next transfer. It's getting soooo close, it's way weird. After Burch leaves, there won't by anybody left that's older than me. I have no clue how time went by so fast, I feel like I just got here.

I'm also in the middle of a flipping hurricane!! It's raining super hard right now. God is just giving me the opportunity to email right now because the power has been going out all day. 

Week 82

The pictures you sent made me trunky for carpet like you have no idea, lol. One of the first things I'll do when I get home is just lay on the floor for like an hour enjoying carpet.
Anyways, this week was sweet, it felt very long but it was still really good. We had some divisions with the APs before Zone Conference and it was awesome. I didn't work with Burch, I was with his comp Elder Lopes, who is also a boss so it was okay.
Afterwards it was sick talking to Burch about all of the stuff we went through in Ribeira Grande. We talked about our recent converts and all the comps we've served with since then. Also all the songs we used to sing while we were walking in between areas. And about how much we hate girls since we both got Dear Johned around the same time, lol.
The rest of the week was normal, same old work over and over again, but with different people.

A few weeks ago you said that the pictures I sent you sometimes scared you. Well, this morning I was able to climb the famous Assomada Big Tree. It was way fun but super hard getting up there. Only Elder Masubelele and I could climb all the way up. Our whole district went.

It was a sick view from up there, but I couldn't climb with the camera in my pocket or it would have gotten destroyed. Sister Miller took a video, I'll show it to you when I go back home. It wasn't scary, just really hard and it tired me out like crazy. 

So here's my current district. From left to right: 

Elder Masubelele from South Africa

Elder Layton from Peru

Sister Hanzel from Utah (I think)

Sister Cardoso from Cabo Verde

Sister Fernandez from Portugal

Sister Miller from somewhere in the U.S. 

and then Mortensen and myself

Week 81

My week was very interesting and busy. On Tuesday was Council day, we had to wake up at 5AM to catch an hour-long ride to Praia, but I woke up at 2 in the morning because of a HUGE roach crawling on my face. I don't know if I told you, but our house is INFESTED with roaches. I have never seen so many in my life. But yeah, I felt something on my face, woke up and slapped it away and it landed on my pillow. Then I realized it was a roach so I grunted "freaking roaches" and slapped my whole pillow off my bed, but it landed on Mortensen and woke him up, lol. Then we kept trying to kill it and it kept running back and forth between our beds, so I lost a good 45 minutes of sleep there.
But the actual Council itself was awesome, it really opened my eyes to how much planning and stuff goes on behind the scenes. It was awesome seeing people again, especially Elder Young and Romano and Burch. We got back to Assomada around 8:30ish at night so we were exhausted by then. Wednesday was a normal day, except we stayed up late finishing up all our plans and trainings for the next day, which made us lose a few more hours of sleep.
Zone Meeting was sweet! Or at least it was for me, lol. Everyone seemed to like it, and it was nice seeing everybody from the Zone again.
Right after Zone Meeting I left on a division with Elder Sosa to a city called Calheta, he's still soft lol but it was way cool being able to serve with him again.
I didn't get back until Friday, when I came home to see that our apartment had been sprayed with poison for the roaches. There were THOUSANDS of baby roaches all dead throughout the kitchen. I thought that was going to end the roach problem, but I think it just made it worse. Now they moved out of the kitchen and into the rest of the house. So now there's even more roaches in the bathroom, study room, closets, EVERYWHERE. I hate this house, lol.
Yesterday was awesome, the zone all came together and more than doubled the number of investigators in Sacrament Meeting. Two Sundays ago the number was 13 (I know, super low) and yesterday as a zone we had 27 (more than we have had in 3 months) so I'm super excited for Zone Conference in 2 days, we are going to keep pumping up the zone so we can keep improving.
Also, Burch and Elder Lopez (the APs) are coming over tomorrow for a division, so that should be fun.

Random Pics: Elder Mortensen still doesn't smile, haha.

Week 37

Elder Welch is a boss, we get along just fine. And I got your package finally!! Dude frozen twinkies are my favorite thing in the world. I put one in the freezer every morning and when I come home at night I enjoy a little piece of heaven.
So I finally found another SD card reader! Here's a picture of Etalvina (my mission Grandma) she's so sweet. Before transfers, we visited them and told them one of us was leaving and she's all like, "Oh no!" Then she runs into her room and grabs 2 pairs of socks and she gives me one pair and Burch the other. She said "here, take these wherever you go, that way you won't forget about me." It melted my heart man, lol. I'm keeping these socks for the rest of my life.
Speaking of transfers, this is the last pic of Burch I have, he was sad that he was leaving. So I wrote you a letter about this week and so I feel like there's no reason for me to write again on here lol.
Love you tons! Tchao!

Week 35, 8 Months Out!

I appreciate that God helped me out but... He broke my watch lol. It's annoying having to ask Elder Burch for the time every once in a while. Man so me and Burch kept working harder than ever, and we finally hit our goal!!!! After 2 1/2 months, we finally got 40 people at Sacrament Meeting!! I was way happy.
So this week is the last of the transfer. More than likely Elder Burch and I are gonna get split up cuz last transfer all the southern islands changed BIG time and there was only like 3 changes in all the northern islands. So President said that now the northern ones are gonna get changed. I'm not looking forward to it, Burch and I are way tight and we both love our area. Nobody wants to leave.
It's not a for sure thing about transfers, but it might be me leaving or Burch or both, or none of us. E um bocod complicod (it's a bit complicated).
So my SD card reader I bought at the Chinese store for 2 bucks finally stopped working, lol. Bob sagit, I can't send pics :/
Alright well this would be way funnier with pics, but me and Elder Burch cleaned up the kitchen for a good 4 hours this morning. We have been arguing about whose turn it was for doing the dishes for about a week and a half now. (It was totally his turn) so nobody washed them. We left all the old food and plates pile up and it just started to reek sooo flippin bad for the past 4 days. It was sooo gross cleaning it up, it was super moldy and there were worms and maggots everywhere... lesson learned. Never again. We don't have pics of everything, only of this one pot of rice and corn that had been sitting on our counter for a week. Dude rice stinks SOOO bad when it gets old. It's worse than fish. I recorded Elder Burch taking a huge breath of it, unfortunately he didn't puke. Oh and he shaved his initials into one of my legs, lol. I hated being home last week, it was all stinky and full of flies ALL THE TIME.

Dude time flies by sooo fast. Today I hit 8 months! It's crazy. I'm Elder Burch's age when we got together. Now he's a month away from hitting his year mark. I feel like I just got here, lol.
Elder Montes taught me a huge lesson in my mission. He's a great missionary and when he slept over here a couple of nights I asked him if he ever passed a time in his mission when he was trunky. He said "I think I've been trunky since day one" and I was like WHAT???? He explained the difference between trunkyness and homesickness. I've never been homesick, but I have been trunky a lot. He explained it way well so I don't really feel bad for having my mind wander off when I'm home or something lol.

He time's up! I gotta go! I love you tons and take care!!!!

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 28

Life is good, I had a great week. Remember how I said we got smitten last week at church?? Well this week we focused a lot on the work again and had a frequency of 36! And hardly any of them were little kids, they were all less actives and strong members. We had 2 investigators there, Danielson and Izagi. They both are getting baptized on August 9th, I'm super excited for them.

We had Zone Meeting back in Mindelo so I was able to receive a package but it wasn't yours, it was from Mom. It had some Spicy Ketchup, Old Spice, and some razors so I was a wayy happy guy. On the boat ride back from Mindelo I met a Seventy! His last name was Martino or something like that haha. They are having FSY here in Santo Anto this week and he's gonna be there to give a talk and stuff. It was awesome getting to know him and take a picture with him.

This week was way buys, every time we go to meetings in Mindelo we travel for 2 days and spend A LOT of money on the boat and car rides. In 2 weeks we are going back again for Zone Conference so we will be loosing another 2 days of work here -.- It's kinda annoying traveling that much but it gives us a chance to talk to our Mission President and Zone Leaders and other people, that's always nice.

So it's funny how you said in your dream that I owned a hole-in-the-wall store cuz that's how most stores are in Cabo Verde, basically just caves haha.
And man, I'm DONE with energy drinks for a while. I'll send a pic next week of our collection.

Oh I forgot! I walked in the rain for the first time on my mission! It's a saying we have, that every time a missionary walks and works in the rain, their future wife gets prettier. I had to hike up a freankn mountain while it was raining so My wife better have hips like Shakira :p
Most of the year is dry here, but during August and September its rainy season. And when it rains here, man it rains HARD. Yesterday wasn't much, just enough to soak us after a while. But when the real clouds come in, most of the roads will be flooded. That's why everyone builds their houses on mountains and stuff, to get on higher ground and avoid the floods.

I had already sent you this pic, but this is a different angle.

Sisters are tiny, lol. This is my district. From left to right there's Sisters Santos, Walker, Pina, and De Pina. Sister Santos is Brazilian, Walker is American, and the Pinas are both Cabo Verdeans from Ilha de Fogo. Then there's our area 70, me, and Elder Burch.

Week 24, Lots of Pictures!

Haha I would be more excited to eat the tacos. I'm starving right now. Well, my week was flipping sweet! We had a zone meeting back in Sao Vicente so we stayed there overnight since it's impossible to travel back to our area in one day. We lost 2 days of work, but I got to go back to my old area and see Ligia and Bruno and their family again!! I was soo happy to see them, and the best part is, they just got baptized yesterday! Man I was soo excited for them, and they were glad to see me too. It was sad cuz Bruno asked me if I could stay another day so I could be the one to baptize him, I wanted to soooo bad but I couldn't :( I was still super excited for them tho.
The Family Home Evening was awesome, the investigators we invited weren't there, but we were able to bring some less actives and got to know the members here a lot better. I love all these people so much, they're becoming like my best friends.
And speaking of friends, Elder Burch is an awesome comp. He's funny and a really hard worker. I'm glad I get to serve with him for another 6 weeks (transfer night was yesterday). It was his birthday yesterday and I made him a cake. We ate it for breakfast and lunch haha. Bad choice, I was super hungry the rest of the day for not eating anything solid. So this morning we hiked up like the most beautiful place I've ever seen. Its one of the members' banana and mango garden/forest thing where he works. It was super sweet not having to hike with missionary clothes on. My camera doesn't even do it justice either, it doesn't even compare to being here. We also ate a couple of mangos and caught some frogs and stuff.
I like trees. So yeah, I still have to email the numbers for our district to the mission office and other stuff, so I won't have time to write much more. So bye bye, I love you!! Good luck at work and hope you have fun at the quince, do the wobble for me lol. Tchao!

-Elder Zuniga

Week 23

Haha yeah, I know about Mexico. A lot of people in the street talk to me about it. Surprisingly, I stand out here as a Mexican too. Everyone asks me where I'm from cuz they know I'm not from the U.S. they usually guess either Brazilian or Chinese. I don't even look Chinese.
Anyway, sorry I didn't take any pictures this past week, just of my companions. So Elder Sanchez went home!!!! He's sooo dead!!! It's crazy that he's not even a missionary anymore, and then, Elder Burch replaced him! He's the last person on earth I thought I would serve with, haha. Him and I are good buddies and we get along great. Also, he's the first companion I serve with that is shorter than me, so I no longer feel like a midget next to people. And no, thank gosh nobody asked me to marry them this week, but I saw something that made me loose it. I was laughing sooo hard haha.
So Elder Burch and I were hiking up this hill on our way to an investigator's house. We were just talking and we started smelling weed like super strong, so we started saying stuff like "man, someone's smoking up a storm" and stuff like that. We were curious to see who it was. So we passed this old building and we saw this old lady sitting down on some rocks with a pipe in her hand and a HUGE sack of weed on the ground in front of her. I know it's terrible but she looked like the most innocent old lady ever and she was stuffing pipe and getting ready to smoke it haha. It must have been like an entire pound too, it was a huge bag.
We didn't contact her because there's a ridiculously huge amount of high and drunk people walking around like every hour of the day, and if you talk to them they go off for like hours and they will not stop talking. Like, ever. So we do our best to only talk to sober people. I'm super pumped for tonight, we have a Family Home Evening planned out. I'll take pics and show you our investigators next week and all that good stuff.
Alright gtg, take care!! Love you!!

-Elder Zuniga

Elder Zuniga & Elder Burch

Elder Sanchez & Elder Zuniga