Hey everyone!
So it´s great to hear about everything that is going on at home. I´ll try to answer all of your questions but if I miss one I´m sorry. The computers are kind of slow here and it´s hard to go back and forth so I may forget some. It´s been super windy here this past couple days. Without the wind it would be super nice but with it it is cold!!! I wish I had a sweater and I never thought I would need one of those! Don't bother sending one though because by the time it gets here I won´t need it anymore. I´ll survive. Hmm, well we try to rely on references from members but we do a lot of contacting when appointments fall through. We are here in the city so we can´t really talk to people here in the streets because half of them don´t live in our area. We spend a lot of time knocking on doors and trying to follow up with our current investigators. Sometimes this makes the days go long but things area starting to pick up. The conditions aren´t the greatest but they are better than I originally thought; a lot of unfinished houses everywhere and every building is made out of cinder blocks and cement. Only the highways are paved, the rest are all cobblestone. Probably not the best walking surface for my knees but it´s not too bad. Wild dogs are everywhere as well as chickens and goats. Most of the dogs don´t really pay any attention to you but some of them will bark. Usually if you just pick up a rock they will run away.
The people here are really humble for the most part. A lot of them don´t have a lot but I think most of them have the simple necesseties to survive. Lots of people in the streets are selling fruit and fish and bread and whatever else they can. We haven´t really looked at many of the shops. We get our fruit at the market and everything else at the grocery store. We have had a water problem this week though. We haven´t had running water all week and the last couple of days we ran out of our extra water. We had to buy a bunch today to clean everything up but it´s kind of annoying. Hopefully they fix that soon. I´ve been told this rarely ever happens.
This week was a lot better though. Tuesday we went to Praia for a Zone Conference. Praia is about an hour away and so we had to take a Hiace. It´s basically like a Hutterite van and they pack it full of people and the drivers are crazy. As soon as they see a group of elders, about 3 of them will swarm us and try to get us in their Hiace. It´s nuts!! Then when they drive, they just swerve and honk. They only stop if absolutely necessary. Zone Conference was really good though. It was all in Portuguese and I understood almost all of it! They focused a lot on working with the members as well as using our resources more effectively. Then we talked about sacrifice and faith in the Lord in order to have success. After lunch, we watched the movie 17 Miracles. I don´t know if you guys have seen it or not but it is really good. It talkes about the handcart companies and some of the miracles that happened to the Willie and Marting Companies. If you haven´t seen it you should.
Other than that we´ve been working really hard to progress with our investigators and find new ones as well. M, he´s the Nigerian I talked about last time, is slowly progressing. There is something that is holding him back though and we think we might have found it. We are going to talk about Plan of Salvation and our purpose here in life. He´s really cool though and he was a boxer. We´ve committed some more people to baptism though and now just need to get them to church and keeping their commitments. Sunday morning was really good. The speakers finally spoke in Portuguese so I understood them AND after church, the Branch President introduced us to this couple. We went to talk to them and the first thing they asked was, "What do we need to do in order to join the church?" Crazy hey??!! We explained a little bit that we need to teach them first and help them get ready for baptism but they are scheduled to be baptized on Feb. 4. The Lord really does know where these ready people are and He provides ways for us to find them. We are pretty excited.
Other than that, not much else is new. I don´t envy you guys and the cold weather you are having. And I think we got rid of most of the cockroaches. We have only seen the occasional one this past week. They are nasty though. I am here at such a cool time. The church is growing so fast and within the next couple months they are going to start a stake here in Praia!! I think Mindelo is close too but it´s so cool to be a part of all this! I haven´t received the letter yet but that doesn´t mean it´s not here. It could be in Praia at the mission home and they just haven´t brought it to me. I´ll let you know when I get it though. Anyways I´ve gotta go! Love you all and I love hearing from home.
