Week 43

What's up!!! You're so lucky to feel cold over there, I still sweat like crazy every day, although it does feel a slightly bit cooler than last week. Man so this week was super sweet!!! The Zone Leaders came over for divisions and slept here for 3 days. When you are isolated in an island 2 hours away from any other elder, a division feels like Christmas morning. Elder Welch (my old comp) is now Zone Leader so he came back along with Elder Ernst. They are both such bosses, I stuck with Ernst all division long and I learned tons from him. He's kind of a legend in this mission, he trained a greenie his second transfer, while he was still a greenie himself. That happens like... almost never haha.
So, another interesting story about this week, we had Stake Conference! But it was on another island, so EVERYONE that has a calling in our branch (about 80% of total frequency) left all weekend long to go to it. And lucky Elder Zuniga and Elder Reid stayed behind to have regular Sunday with investigators and anyone else who doesn't have a calling. I was acting as Branch President Zuniga this past Sunday. It was actually pretty sick, I liked it a lot.
I taught Elder's Quorum, prepared sacrament, blessed it, gave a talk during sacrament... stuff like that. All while taking care of investigators. It honestly wasn't that hard, but I would have loved to travel back to Sao Vincent and see Helder and other people from my old ward.

So anyways, during the divisions we were playing with the special effects on my camera, and we made an EFY counselor!!! It's my huge smile with Elder Welch's eyes, lol.

On the left here is Elder Reid and Elder Ernst is in the middle.

This is me with the Branch President's agenda, which kinda made me Branch President Zuniga lol.

Also, this literally happens every time I let one of my comps cut my hair. I bought some clippers back with Elder Burch for about 5 bucks and a regular haircut at a barber is $2.50 so I've already saved like $7.50. Good job Zuniga haha. I just tell all my comps to buzz it off. 

So I hope you're not expecting Garca to be like a super beautiful place, lol it's kinda super isolated there and it's in the middle of nowhere. Here's us pointing at it: 

We had a member with us and man, if you let a Cabo Verdean use your camera they literally take like a billion pics from every possible angle lol. 

Week 42

I'm alone!!!! I have had no comp all day!! He'll get here in 2 hours, though. Elder Welch got transferred out of here, sadface, but we still had a sick last week. I took the best pic ever, we were helping out one of our less actives carry food for his cows up a mountain. It was harder than it looked, my respects for people who do it twice a day every single day of the year.
I'm not gonna say much at the moment because I'll be emailing later when Elder Reid gets here. I'm super pumped to serve with him, he's already a buddy of mine when I was back in Sao Vincent.
Anyways, laters!

I'm back! It was sooo weird being alone! I didn't know what to do, I just chilled with Hinzaguy most of the time but he had to work, so I stayed home alone until Reid got here, and now he's here! I'm super pumped to serve with him, he's a boss. I got a call at 11PM last night telling me that my comp was leaving at 8AM and I needed to find someone to stay with, so naturally everyone decided to be busy, so I had nobody to be my comp. I was alone from 8AM until 2PM. Weirdest feeling of my mission so far. I was freaking out. 

So this past week was way busy, we did a ton of work with less active members. Something happened that I honestly never believed would happen in my mission. I actually love a little kid, lol. His name is William or "Willy", he is seriously the most adorable kid ever. He's not loud at all and he actually behaves! Only at church tho haha which is good. He's only 6 but he says he wants to serve a mission when he's older, little stud haha. I asked him to sit next to me and take a pic and the first thing he does is throw up a peace sign. He's the one in orange. 

This week we also made History!! We visited a zone called Garca which took us an hour and a half in a car and another 30 of walking to get to. I was the first missionary to ever set foot in that area! Welch was second, lol. I have pics but they're in a different SD card that I forgot, sorry. I'll send some next week. The little zone only has about 20 families total, and 2 of them have been coming to church twice a month for a while, they have a baptism date for the 13th of December, I'm so pumped for them! 

Dude!! Look at this pic Elder Olsen drew me. It is seriously my favorite drawing ever. He knows me so well, haha. It's a bunch of Yoshi, Naruto, and Dragon Ball Z stuff. 

Week 41

Araci got baptized and confirmed!! She is such a boss. I wrote you a letter about her story, it's amazing what this girl went through to get baptized, she literally got kicked out of her house for it.
This week was pretty busy, worked a lot but didn't feel as tired for some reason.

So I forgot it was Halloween until that night when I saw little kids dressed up and I was like "you kids are retarded" then I remembered it was October. 

Hey don't send me any chocolate for Christmas, just a bit of candy, I don't wanna get fatter lol. Oh and some spicy ketchup! I've been out for a while. Anyways, I gtg, you'll be getting a letter in like 2 weeks, take care! Love you lots! Tchao!

Week 40

This week was awesome! Got soo much work done and reached tons of goals we had. This is the Family Home Evening we had last Monday, it was sick!!! We had a bunch of food. Cachupa (in the pot), fish, popcorn, little round banana cake things, some potatoes, and the super good chocolate cake I made. The kid looks funny lol, I think it's the first time he has seen a camera.

Also, it's impossible getting Cabo Verdeans to stop and take a pic. 

Man so Cabo Verdeans get SUPER into soccer. Like when they're playing against each other. They never have fun, they are just super competitive. So this guy, Sandino is a member and he was playing against some other team and they started arguing. Long story short, one of the other guys smashed a rock on his head and knocked him out. He got 12 stitches on his head. This is him 4 days later. 

The sun is shining on this mountain very epic-ally. 

Oh and here's my sexy comp, Elder Welch. 

And then there's me. 

Week 39

This was an interesting week, way better than the last. First of all, the Thompsons, who are the humanitarian missionary couple for Cape Verde, visited us and asked us to take them to some schools in the area so they could find a school that needs help with money and stuff. We visited a tiny school in Figueral which had about 75 students in only 3 really small classrooms with not much in them, just old chairs and tables. It was awesome talking to the little kids, especially this one kid with the Dragon Ball Z bag!! I just had to take a picture with it, the kid was like wtf?

So I had a crappy week last week but this one was tons better, we got so much work done and were working a lot with this one girl who is super special. We talked to her only 3 times and she's already asking when she can serve a mission lol. We actually found her randomly at the house of one of our investigators, she was just hanging out when we knocked on the door. we taught her super fast for like 10 minutes since they were both heading out. At the start of our next visit she pulled out a poem she wrote saying how she's been searching for God for a long time and never found Him until she heard a knock at the door. We invited her to pray and stuff and she said that night after praying she felt the biggest peace and happiness she has ever felt. She's getting baptized the 1st of November.

Week 38

The most exciting animal thing in Santo Antao is that it is infested with centipedes, which are venomous so you can't grab them. So what is this Meet The Mormons I hear about??
So this week was kind of rough, to be honest, I don't really have any pics or stories. Like almost all of our lessons got cancelled during the week. I don't have anything to say about it to be honest... except that Jalapeno Ranch is amazing!!!!!!!! You should send me all the Whataburger condiments lol.
Anyways, I'll be online for a while longer, so reply if you get a chance!

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!