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

Week 22, A Beautiful Island

I have no clue why they transferred me out here but I love it. Really the only think I don't like is not being able to play soccer -.- but whateves. Oh and there's so many dirty women that try hitting on missionaries. A few days ago one of our investigators asked me to marry her! She's like 30 years old and has 3 kids. She's like "if I stopped drinking and made myself look beautiful, would you take me with you to the states and marry me?" I always used to say "I already have a girlfriend" and I was about to say that but then I realized that I don't anymore, so I was like crap! haha Me and my comp just ran away haha.
Oh and I didn't even tell yo about my comp did I? His name is Elder Sanchez, even tho he's not Mexican at all haha. We get along pretty well and he goes home in like 4 days!! Crazy huh?
Man, I'm loving my area so much. It's sooo beautiful! But it's way hard on your legs. We hike up mountains a lot when we visit other smaller zones in our area. People are so humble, a lot of them just grow and harvest their everyday food in their small gardens.

Sundays here are rough. It's sad when only 32 people show up to sacrament meetings. It reminds me of the good old days back in Port Isabel. I also gave a class in Elders Quorum. There's so many people here that have the most ridiculous excuses of why they don't want to get baptized. There's this one guy that goes to church, keeps the commandments, but ONLY wants to get baptized after he dies. Like, baptism for the dead in the temple. I was like WTF mate?? Thanks to whatever Elder taught him that lol.
Hey speaking of Old Spice, they don't sell that in this country!! And I ran out, so it would be pretty cool if you sent me some whenever you can. Along with ketchup, I love ketchup.
Well I hope you're doing great, I miss you tons and thanks for everything!!! Buh bye, love you!!

-Elder Zuniga

Week 21, Emergency Transfer to Santo Antao!

Lol gosh dang your emails are always my favorite to see on P-Days! The gif worked here and I just cracked up about the basketball one in the middle of a tiny internet shop packed with a ton of people.
And man I had the craziest week! I got emergency transferred to the middle of nowhere! It's a super beautiful island called "Santo Antao" (Saint Anthony). I got a call Tuesday morning around 12ish telling me I was going on an emergency transfer, so I went home and packed and got a call at 2:55 that my boat was leaving at 3! I was in such a hurry but I somehow managed to get there on time. I was super sad to leave all my investigators :( but still very excited to work here, not a lot of missionaries get a chance to serve on this island. To get to my area (Ribera Grande) you drive down this road that looks like a desert for about an hour; it just keeps going and going for eternity. Not really, just an hour, but yeah, a very long time. This area is sooo beautiful, these pics can't really compare to real life, especially since I suck at taking pics.

There's mountains all around my area; these pics were taken from our window in our house. The branch here is actually pretty dang small. This Sunday the attendance was only 36, but without a doubt it will start growing.

This area is gorgeous, it's called "Figueral." It's basically a trail up the side of a mountain, it kills your legs soo bad tho haha. It's a good workout.
Well I g2g or else I won't have time to email mom lol. And send more spicy ketchup! I finished it all, lol.
Thanks for everything you do, you're the best!! Love you!! Bye

-Elder Zuniga