Week 31

So this past week I didn't really email you much so I'll go over that too. It was probably the shortest week in my mission. We stayed in our area on Pday and Tuesday and then left on Wednesday right after lunch so we could get to Sao Vicente Thursday morning for Zone Conference. It was awesome getting all the trainings from President and seeing everyone else again since I've been stranded on this island for a while. So we were supposed to take a boat back to our area Friday morning, but apparently there was this huge party going on in Santo Antao so EVERYONE was traveling over there. Enough people to take up all the tickets for the next few rides. We didn't end up coming back to our area until Saturday night. A pretty cool thing about all this is that I got to chill and do splits with the Zone Leaders and another couple of Elders. So it was the end of transfers, and Elder Montes was told by the Mission President that he was leaving the island to go train on his last transfer. Ever since day one here in this Zone, Elder Montes has been my Zone Leader and a pretty awesome friend. Him and my trainer basically taught me everything I know. This was the last time I was with him, and now he is in San Tiago in the middle of nowhere training a brand new greenie haha. That's pretty awesome.

Our district all thought it was going to change a lot, that a lot of us were gonna get transferred and whatever, and everyone ended up staying together, haha. Our district is awesome, the sisters make good food and cake.

Speaking of transfers, I'm already at 5! It's still a super small number, I know, but compared to when I had only one planner, I've been here a while.

Also, I found this fluffy dog in Mindelo.

So this past Monday we celebrated the birthday of a member, her name is Julia. It wasn't a big thing, just a get-together with a bunch of crackers and stuff. It was way fun though, this branch reminds me of Port Isabel so much. We are all one big happy family. There's more pics of it but they are all on Elder Burch's camera. I'll forward them later. And well, I guess that just about sums it up for this week. We are working a lot on helping less active members become active again, I think that's what we are going to focus on more than baptizing this transfer.

Hey! Remember the lady that beat me with a stick??? She's the old one next to my comp in the last picture haha. She's super funny and everyone loves her, but she isn't afraid of hitting or slapping anyone in the face. One time we were eating at an activity and I was stuffed from eating so much, and she came up to me offering cake and I said no.... big mistake lol. She literally shoved the cake in my mouth haha. The same happened to Elder Burch. She's crazy but everyone loves her. Her name is Eugenia.

Well, that's it for this week, I love you!!! Bye!!!

Busy Week 30

Hey! Man, this week was way busy. I only worked 2 full days in my area. We left on Wednesday to Sao Vincent for zone conference and didnt come back until Saturday night. We got stranded over, with only 1 change of clothes so it wasnt very pretty. Apparently everyone was travelling cuz of parties everywhere, so the tickets were running out like crazy. Transfers were last night, and I didnt get transfered!!!! Me and Elder Burch are super happy we are sticking together another round. Hey i got your package this past week, you're the best!!!!! It felt like christmas morning opening up that box haha. its funny tho cuz I've never seen a basketball game in my life lol but still liked the shirt alot. And man you have a really good taste for ties, I gotta say. Kudos on the packing everything into that box and thanks for everything again!! chocolates were good!

Week 29

Man I have a ton of pics to send you. We had a baptism and since I haven't received the package with the SD card, I went ahead and bought my own. This past week was crazy, we were busy like non stop. And unfortunately, cuz time was so tight and just out of roder, Danielson wasn't baptized :/ I was super bummed out. But Izagi did get dunked.
So his name is actually spelled Hinzaguy but it's a lot easier to write and say iZagi. From Monday to Saturday morning he was in FSY, a huge youth activity here and over 200 youth were there. It literally changed his life. He came back with a very strong testimony of the gospel and even in love haha. He found a girl from Sao Vicente and apparently wants to marry her now haha. (which is super good since Cabo Verdeans have no desire to get married whatsoever) As soon as he got home, we went to look for him since he still needed his baptismal interview and the services were going to start at 10AM. So since our Zone Leaders are in Sao Vicente, the interview was through the phone. We left him alone in the room, and 20 minutes later he called my name and we heard something was up with his voice, so we hurried in and he was crying super hard. I got on the phone to talk to Elder Montes to see what happened and he said that everything was good, that he is ready and was just super emotional. There was something different about this guy. Elder Burch and I both felt it. He got up and hugged us and cried on our shoulders and said thank you for showing me this path and stuff like that. I felt a super strong love for him, like different than I've felt for other people here. I honestly feel like he was my friend even before this life, and that it was part of my mission to come here and find him. He's such a boss and he wants to serve a mission.

These are just a few pics of the baptism site. It was a different pool this time. This one was way deeper, the water was like to my armpits, but we didn't get in this time. We figured we could be witnesses from the outside.

So we actually had to go to FSY during the week and teach him tithing since we weren't gonna have time to teach him when he got back. Man, I felt like a Senior in high school again haha. Elder Burch and I were like rockstars, all the youth that we have already met in Sao Vicente came up to us and said hi and stuff, I didn't realize I had met so many people. And these are a few pics I took with Americo, our ward mission leader. He's like my best friend out here haha. 

You hold your hand like this, then put it on your forehead like this, then you scream "Woooooooh, Lamanites!!!" Haha during soccer, we would always play Nephites against Lamanites and I was a Lamanite (you know, cuz I'm mexican). And it's super funny watching Cabo Verdean's do it. 

Idk who made it up, it was before I got here haha. 

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 27, Smitten by the Lord

Pssh, no. My SD card is still all messed up. And sadly, no we didn't reach 40 people at church :/ We were smitten by the Lord. The Zone Leaders came to do a 2-day division with us. We are super good friends with them so we basically had a party during lunch and at nights when we were back at the house. We slept like 10 hours in those 3 nights with them, and survived off cake and energy drinks. We weren't very obedient with our study hours either. We learned so much from them and they really helped us a lot, but it took a toll on us at the same time.
Even after they left, we both felt like crap and were super tired and sleepy and couldn't feel the spirit as we taught. Yesterday we only had 26 people at church. We had investigators and stuff there, but now members who have never missed church since they were baptized weren't there. Even though part of the division hurt us, we also learned a lot and had some pretty cool experiences. Especially one we had with Elder Montes.
Montes is an awesome friend of mine and is super old on the mission (he's about to die lol). So we were walking toward a house of a reference we got from one of the members. We were a little tired because 3 appointments fell through and we had not had the chance to teach anyone. So we were walking down this alley that was kind of lit up so we could actually see where we were walking. We got about 5 feet away from the house and this super skinny man with dreadlocks comes out of this super sketchy, dark looking alley and starts talking to us in English. He said "there's a woman down there that needs your help! Come talk to her about your message" and stuff like that, so our first thought was "man, maybe we are being guided to someone" but at the same time I felt pretty uneasy, like something was out of place.
The man pointed to the steps of this sketchy alley and told us to go down. Elder Montes said "we aren't going down with you behind us, you go first" So he went and we followed. We walked slowly down the stairs and saw this guy reach the end of the alley and turn right. So we continue down and at the end of it we both kind of stuck our heads around the corner to see what was going on, and we saw this even darker and creepier alley with a small run-down bar on the left and a woman sitting down on a bench talking to the skinny man. I got the weirdest feeling inside me like I shouldn't be there and I turned to Elder Montes and I knew he felt the same way. As soon as the skinny guy took his eyes off us Elder Montes turned to me and said "Go. We have to get out of here." So we both just took off as fast as we could. I don't really know what was going on down there, but I'm super grateful I didn't have to find out.

On a happier, brighter side, Elder Montes came to our house on a diet. He didn't want bread or soda or anything like that. We got him to fall hard lol. This is him after like 12 hours with us lol.

His comp is Elder Neymeir. He's a boss as well. He taught me a lot during the splits. 

Well, that basically sums up this past week. Elder Burch and I are doing fine, we are just completely broke lol. But we'll last a couple of days more until we get money. 

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.