Week 107

So we had another baptism this week!!! It was really tough working though, since Carnaval has started here in Cape Verde, and Mindelo is known to be the most iniquitous city in this country, so it gets pretty wild. For the past 3 days it's been super hard finding people to teach since everyone is parting. But the final and worst day of them all will be tomorrow, and then we can get back to working normally. We were going to have another baptism, but he partied all night long and was too tired to go to church the next day -.-'
Also, on Friday I will be at my final Zone Conference, where I will bear my final testimony in front of the zone, it's so weird knowing that it's my turn to go up there when I saw so many of my friends do it before me. Elder Romano is home!! He had a tooth infection and needed surgery, so he actually went home like 3 days ago.
I will be traveling on Sunday to Praia and spending my last few hours there, since I need my final interview with Pres Mathews. I'll probably email, but not for long.

Week 94

This week was really interesting. For starters, I had my 4th and more than likely final Zone Meeting. It was the most spiritual in my opinion, and I felt that the trainings were awesome. Elder Leyton (from Peru) that was living in our house was emergency transferred, so it was sad to see him leave because he was an awesome friend, but he is now in Terrafal, so he's still in my zone.

Erickson was baptized! Alongside Bruno who is also an amazing investigator. I can honestly say that these 2 got baptized because of the Book of Mormon; we taught them how important it was and they prayed about it. After receiving an answer, they were converted. Every time we would pass by to teach them, they would basically teach us of what they studied about.
Bruno is the darker one, he's here from Santiago, and Erickson is the really tall one from Santo Antao.

This coming week is going to be sort of crazy for us, we will be gone from our area for 3 days. Tomorrow we have Mission Leadership Conference and Elder Dyches (from the 70) will be there. I'm super excited for that. The day after we have Zone Conference with him again but with the Assomada and Praia zones together, and then after that we have a division with the AP's which will take all day. I'm really excited for it. 

Week 92

Hi! This week's baptism was sweet! It was honestly the easiest one in my entire mission because he had tons of members supporting him. Sosa and I are working a lot better with all the members, so it's making the work run way smoother.

But I was super sick for like 4 days. It's been raining here too and I guess walking in the rain finally caught up with me. I was in bed with a fever unable to walk for like 24 hours, then spent the next 24 hours recovering, but I'm all good now, no worries. I grew a beard though, haha. When I felt well enough to leave the house I realized I hadn't shaved for like 3 days, and I've never let my beard grow out so it was shocking to see it there. I've never tried growing a beard, but I'm probably gonna try it when I get back home just for fun.

Also, Sosa tried making cinnamon rolls... they didn't come out too good. I don't know how he managed to ruin them like that, but I don't trust him in the kitchen... or in many other places to be honest, lol. 

Week 75

I had some sucky nights this week. First of all, the lights went out on Monday night, and we couldn't open any of the windows because there are swarms of mosquitoes during the night here in Chao Bom. I was literally sweating all night long and couldn't fall asleep to save my life. THEN on Tuesday I made pizza, and I found a very sketchy piece of ham at a Chinese store here, it wasn't refrigerated or anything, but I thought it would be good putting it on the pizza.... WRONG!!! It is the sickest I have been in years, the rest of the day I was very miserable but I managed to work, but when I got back home I started shivering and shaking like crazy, I was freezing but burning up at the same time. I asked my comp for a blessing and I managed to fall asleep, then I woke up at 1:00 in the morning to rush to the toilet. Worst diarrhea I have had in my entire life. I literally did not sleep all night because I was still burning up and had to rush to the restroom every 30 minutes. By the time the sun came up I was completely dehydrated. My entire body was in pain and I still couldn't sleep. It sucked big time.
But... enough of that, I still managed to work for a few hours on Wednesday and then got back to work all day Thursday. Simonica got baptized on Saturday, and she wanted me to do the baptism, I felt super happy to do it. She went through a lot to be baptized, now part of her family hates her for joining another church, but I have never seen her happier now that she's been confirmed as a member.

So this morning we went exploring in some super cool tunnels near Chao Bom. We went in one end and 2 hours later, came out in a city called "Ribera Esprata". It was pitch black in there so we took flashlights. Some parts of the tunnel were super tight and we had to crouch and squeeze to get to the other parts.

We came out onto the beach at the other end, so we stayed for a few minutes. I tried climbing a palm tree but broke gravity instead, lol. 

Week 73

I actually had a really good week. We had another baptism! His name is Isaias. Remember my first baptism, Helder? He was SUPER slow, but Isaias is even slower. I mean, he is borderline special needs, but he was still enough of a boss to give up smoking to get baptized. The guy who baptized him is Ealton or Chuku. When I first got to this area Chuku was inactive, but we have been working with him a lot for the past month. He is now the Sunday School teacher and helps us out so much by giving us references and teaching with us. This was his first baptism so he was super excited. Isaias is the short one, btw. We baptized in the same place as last time.

Today we went to this place near the beach in Tarrafal, it's way pretty. 

I tried kicking Barros into the water...

We also had this activity that the YSA put together this past week, it was a fashion show. So whoever went the best dressed won. There was a winner for the guys and one for the girls and I gave Chuku a tie and let him my suit so he could go and he won. He was way happy about it, even though the competition wasn't hard at all, lol. 

Week 72, Transfer 12

So transfers were yesterday, nothing happened in our district, only Elder Dominguez left and Elder Ayala from El Salvador was sent here. Remember Elder Burch? He got called as the new AP. Nobody in the mission was expecting it, especially him.
We had an awesome last week of transfer. We had a baptism!! We have been working with Sofia for about a month, she is 19 and has 2 kids from different men who both left her. Her life is rough at the moment, but she's becoming a whole different person now. Remember the story about the drunk guy saying he didn't want to live in the Celestial Kingdom because the sun is too hot? Well he is her uncle and he has been doing some crazy changes as well.
He had dreadlocks like Bob Marley, and a pretty big beard. We showed up to teach him one day and he cut off his dreadlocks and has a nice, clean shave. He looks completely different now. We are trying to help him with alcohol, he still drinks very often, but he is starting to change. He showed up to church two weeks in a row now.
So at the baptism I gave my camera to a member to take pictures... he took like 20 of them and they all came out blurry lol.

I'm glad we are finally able to see our work pay off. We have another baptism for this weekend and another for the 27th. 

So here's a picture we took at the last Zone Conference in Assomada. Assomada is like 45 minutes from here. Chao Bom is a part of the Assomada zone. 

The place where we baptize here is really pretty. Here are some blurry, dark pictures. 

Week 58: Baptism & A Huge Tub of Ice Cream

So exciting thing that happened this week, we had our 3rd miracle baptism of the month! His name is Lessio, he's 16 and Keven's younger brother (the one who got baptized 4 weeks ago). Man, this kid did some MAJOR changes in his life. He hated talking to us and wanted nothing to do with the church. He was always hanging out in the streets with his gang of little thugs and even dropped out of school when he was 13. But after Keven was baptized he started wanting to talk to us again, even showed up to church 4 Sundays ago all on his own. He has changed so much, he's keeping the law of chastity, studying the scriptures and praying every day, and hasn't missed a Sunday so far. He just seems way happier.
And thankfully, nothing crazy happened to my son during this baptism, haha. But the water was FREEZING cold, the coldest baptism I've had so far.

I do make sure something happens every day to Elder McMullin, just to keep him happy and his mission interesting. I don't pick on him, I just make his life interesting. He seems like he's a lot more at home now, and the more stuff that happens, the less he things of home. That's something I SUCKED at when I was a greenie. I would think of home ever spare second I had. 

Two days ago we were wrestling in the house with Chevy (Elder Chevalier) and we broke his bed haha. The frame fell apart but we put it back together, we didn't take a picture of it but it looked hilarious. I also volunteered him to give a talk next Sunday, he's excited (not really) but it'll be good practice for him. 

And we bought a huge tub of ice cream! It's totally worth eating just beans and rice at the end of the month for this, haha. It's "Ceu" flavored, which means heaven. The name fits cuz it really tastes heavenly. The white stuff are bits of white chocolate.

Also, have I mentioned that people here just pee and poop everywhere in the middle of the day, especially kids. McMullin isn't a fan of that, so he made a goal to not see any naked people during the day. Naturally, I now always point out when a kid is peeing or something. So far, he hasn't made it past lunchtime without  breaking his goal, haha it's hilarious. 

Week 56

So Valentines sucked, I saw a bunch of couples walking everywhere that night and it made me trunky, lol.
Anyways, I had a pretty good week, another baptism and confirmation! Her name is Leandra, she's only 14 but she's changed in the past month! Funny thing, she was a street contact, and the first time we sat down to talk to her she was being a bit of a snake. She had never heard about the church or anything, and the very first thing she asked was if we were married or in a relationship and stuff like that. Lol I don't know what's worse, getting hit on by ditsy 14 year olds or by 35-year olds. She's completely changed now, anything gospel-related she treats super seriously and she understands everything we teach her. I'm actually super proud of her for how much she has progressed in the past weeks.
And man, it's actually still pretty cold here in the mornings and fresh throughout all the day. Leandra was baptized at 9 a.m. so the water was super cold. My son is doing well, he's been sick for the past few days but that's normal. His stomach is adjusting to the food, it happens. We are doing well together though, the language is hard for him to get, especially when everyone speaks to him in cryole. He will push through.

HILARIOUS reason why my comp was wearing the sweater: Last week we were so busy taking care of his cut foot that we forgot to wash his baptismal pants, so they were still super dirty. We found some other ones that fit him extremely tight haha, we struggled for like 10 minutes getting him in there. 

Week 55, First Son!

My week was great!! It felt super short and way long at the same time. First of all, I took a 2 day vacation to Praia to pick up Elder McMullin! My first son!! Elder Olsen is excited to get a grandson haha. Anyway, McMullin is a boss, we get along great. He's kind of a shy, timid guy, but I'm already working on that haha, I'm getting him to smile and talk a lot more. He is in a culture shock but not too bad, Santa Maria is a comfortable area to serve in, it's nice. Once he gets transferred though it will be a second culture shock for him.
This past Saturday he had his first baptism!!! We baptized Keven, with whom I've been working with for the past month. This kid is a boss, he is 18 years old and during our first lesson with him we actually kicked him out of the room haha. We were teaching a group of teenagers and he kept laughing and just making a bunch of dumb jokes, so we told him to leave. He did a complete 180 and has been changing a lot in the past few weeks.

So interesting thing about my son's baptism, while we were in the water, he accidentally cut his foot open on a sharp rock, it was bleeding like crazy and wouldn't stop. I rushed him to a clinic and they were getting ready to stitch it closed. The medic was off the clock so he didn't have any helpers so he told me "You want to me my helper?". So I got all excited getting all the needles out and the sewing kit thing, but then he looked at the cut and it turns out it didn't need stitches after all (bummer) haha. 

Here are some pictures, I had to take a picture with him haha. He was a good sport about it too. 

#bestdadever

He ended up getting adhesive stitches, so he can't get his foot wet for 5 days. This morning he was like "how do I shower without getting my foot wet???" This is what I came up with, he didn't like it much haha, but it was funny. 

Week 50

Hey you! So once again I have no time to email, the internet is super slow today and we hardly had any time to begin with, only like 20 minutes. But New Years was actually super sick, Elder Gooch and I had a pretty fun night. We had dinner with members, bought some ice cream and Monsters, stayed up watching mission movies, and yes we did have a pretty awesome fireworks show.
Our week was great, we had another baptism, his name is Markos and he's 14 but he looks like he's 19, he's a lot taller than me. Also, I held baby turtles!!!! One of our investigators has 2 as pets, it's super illegal, but I couldn't help playing with them. She took them to the baptism so they walked around in the sand for a bit.

This was me on the roof of our house waiting for the fireworks on New Years Eve

This is Markos next to me and a member (Alex) next to Gooch

This is Titi

And this is Tutu, most awesomest turtles ever!