Winter is over... bring on the heat!!!

Hey! 

So first, that´s too bad that you guys got snow this week. I think winter is over here, it´s starting to get hotter every day. I was actually just joking about that with my companion about how it´s probably getting colder at home now that it is warmer here. The weather is really nice right now but everything is turning brown unfortunately. It really doesn´t rain in this country. Elder Bunderson, my companion, said that since he´s been here it has only really rained for two days. He´s been here over a year and he showed me some pictures. Man did it rain! He was in Mindelo and the street was flooding. But the most I´ve seen here is a sprinkle. Just enough to make the dirt wet. 

This week was actually a pretty good week. Monday we didn´t teach anybody... not sure where everyone was. Tuesday was Carnival and Wednesday was a holiday called Cinza. Those two days we had fewer lessons than normal but they still weren´t terrible days. Apparently Carnival isn´t too bad here.  In Brazil, the missionaries aren´t allowed to leave their house. Apparently it gets pretty bad. We´ve been finding a lot of really good people this past week.  We´ve kind of started fresh with finding investigators.  Right now we have some really strong investigators that just need to commit to a date! M, the one I wrote about a couple weeks ago, is doing everything he needs to do. He reads, comes to church, keeps his appointments. He still won´t commit to a date until his family joins him. And we still can´t ever find them! So we´re still working with him and then the other one that we have is N. We´ve been teaching here since my first day here and she is also doing everything. Sometimes she is hard to find but she is ready for baptism. The only thing is her dad doesn't support her decision and says he will disown her if she is baptized. He lives in France as well, which makes it even more difficult. However, after she told us this problem, without hesitation, she told us that she is praying and that she knows that with the help of the Lord, everything will be alright. She´s got so much faith, she really has proven the truthfulness of this gospel. We´ve also had some really cool experiences that have really strengthened my testimony of the Book of Mormon. We had one investigator tell us that when he first started reading, he could read very well because he has poor vision. He kept on trying and now he says that he can see perfectly when he reads. Another investigator, who doesn´t understand us very well sometimes, told us that everytime he reads, his mind is clearer and he can understand a lot better. The third person told us that he doesn´t really like reading. But he told us he would read and we left him a chapter. He told us that he read the entire chapter that night and that he couldn´t stop. He was going to read it again before our visit but he ran out of time. The Book of Mormon is truly a powerful gift given to us from God. All of our investigators who have honestly read the book, are progressing very well. It´s so great to see!

Thursday we went to Praia for another Zone Conference Zone which was really good again. I feel like they are always good. The Assistants and Sister Oliveira all talked about obedience and cleanliness. That is very big here since we´re pretty much in Africa. President Oliveira focused a lot on the Pattern of Excellence for the mission. Ours is different than most. From what I understood from the MTC, the pattern of excellence is the range that your key indicators, or goals, should be for the week. I´m not entirely sure how it works but if your weekly numbers are close to the pattern of excellence, you should be having success. Ours however is basically a list of standards or qualities that we should be trying to have as missionaries. Certain goals that we should be striving for and things we should be focusing on. They all come from examples in the Book of Mormon, such as Ammon and Alma and missionaries like them. We went over it for quite a while and really studied it. There is a lot in there but everything is built to help us become better missionaries. We also talked about how your attitude affects everything that you do in life and that the attitude of missionaries affects their success. It was a really good conference and I really learned a lot.

I´m not sure how power works here but it goes out randomly all the time.  It´s been a lot worse lately though and there have been a couple nights where the power has gone out in the entire city. There are hardly any street lights here to begin with but when there is no power anywhere, you can´t see ANYTHING!!! It´s kind of crazy but you can really see the stars, which is really cool. Something that you don´t get to see very often in a bigger city like Medicine Hat. Right now the moon looks like the smiling mouth of the Cheshire Cat. It´s weird to think how the sky is different in different areas of the world. I really like it though. It´s really neat the different teaching experiences you get here in a country like this. So far we´ve taught in the street, by flashlight, candle light, in the dark. You never know what is going to happen so you´ve got to be prepared. 

Not much else is new though. I´m still doing well and am excited to keep going. 

Walking on Cobblestone roads . . . .

Hey Everyone!

Sorry about not explaining the pictures. I was short on time and I forgot. The bug is a huge centipede that we found in the stairwell of our appartment. As you can see, it was huge!! That´s the only one I´ve ever seen though. Usually we just find cockroaches and flies. Although the cockroaches have been declining lately. Which is good. I have no idea what kind of trees those are. The one that we climbed is the only one there and it is gigantic!! It reminded me of the trees in Avatar. The people here call it Polon, not sure what that means, but thats all I know. 

So this week wasn´t super exciting. We are actually kind of in the process of finding new people so our teaching pool isn´t very big. We have a couple people with baptism dates but they still haven´t come to church and we don´t know what to do with them. We spent a lot of time this week teaching members in order to get references and we actually got quite a few references which was good. The next step is to set up appointments with these people and the members so that we can start teaching them. We´ve really been having a problem with church attendance though. Yesterday we had 4 people come to church and none of them are our progressing investigators with a baptismal date. So we´ve been really focusing on that. We´ve also been having problems getting our investigators to keep our appointments. These past couple days we have been spending a lot of time walking through the streets, trying to find someone to teach. It´s been kind of frustrating and we are considering going to some different areas that we haven´t been yet that are further away. We´ll have to see though.

However, it wasn´t a bad week. And I´m still learning a lot. It is amazing to see the Lord´s hand in everything that we do. I´m beginning to recognize it more and more every day and it truly is a blessing to be able to serve here. This week I was studying in Alma 26, where Ammon is rejoicing in the success they had with the Lamanites. There are two things that I really like about that chapter that I´ve been thinking a lot about lately. The first is how much we rely on the Lord in our lives. Especially now as a missionary, I wouldn´t be able to help any of these people if I didn´t have the Spirit with me. I´m sure we could convince some people through scriptures, but they would never be truly converted. Without the Spirit, I would be wasting my time here. The other thing is how much the Lord trusts us. There is a couple parts in Alma 26 where Ammon talks about becoming "instruments in the hands of the Lord." This is so true. Everything that is done in the mission field, is directed by the Lord. Missionaries are just the tools He uses to accomplish his work. As missionaries, and as members, we need to allow ourselves to be directed by the Lord so that we can help His children come unto Christ. It's something I´ve been really trying to work on since getting here and I have seen the blessings that come of it every day.

I don´t really have much to write this week. Elder Bunderson received a Valentines Day package from his family with those Betty Crocker sugar cookie mixes and icing so we decorated Valentines Day cookies on Tuesday. Every once in awhile the power goes out and last night we ended up planning in candlelight again so we took some pictures. Just little reminders of life here in Cape Verde as a missionary. I´m still having a lot of fun and I´m really looking forward to what is going to happen. I talked to Brodie this week, he was in Praia waiting for his new companion to come from the MTC. He's doing really well and is in Fogo right now, training again. It was weird to think that we were on the same island for a couple days. It´s really cool to think how different it is out here. I´m out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on a tiny island that hardly anyone has ever heard of. Even the sky is different! The moon is upside down and looks like the smiling face of the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland some nights. It´s really cool. Anyways, it´s good to hear that everything is going well at home. Good luck to Shane in Zones. Have a good week!!

Great Week!

Hey everyone! 

It was great to hear from you again, this week has been pretty crazy. It was the last week of the transfer and I´d have to say we ended the transfer on a pretty good note. Calls came last night and... I´m still here in Assomada with Elder Bunderson. For at least one more transfer. This is good though because we have a few people that we have been working with that we need to get baptized. Actually, our whole zone is staying the same except for one pair of Elders that are serving in Tarrafal, which is about an hour away from Assomada. Apparently there weren´t many major changes in the mission at all. This transfer has gone by so fast, it´s crazy to think I´ve already been in this country for six weeks. An elder in our zone goes home today and it seems really weird to see him leave. But I´ve still got a long time to go and a lot of work to do so I´m excited.

So the best part about the week... my first BAPTISM!! So A was baptized on Saturday, I sent a picture of him. It was really good and really cool to get a baptism in my first transfer. A picked me to do the baptism which was kind of cool. So we got him baptized and he´s doing really well. He´s pretty excited and so are we! We had a pretty busy week though, lots of lessons and appointments. We have this one investigator, M, who has been taught for a very long time. Since before I got here actually. He´s been taught pretty much everything and has accepted everything... except baptism. He said he wanted to wait so his whole family could be baptized together. This is great and it´s what we want, except for one problem. His family doesn´t want to talk to us!!! So we´ve been working with him for a long time, trying to help him make a decision. Then we went over a week where we didn´t see him. He didn´t come to church and he was never home for our appointments. We were almost ready to drop him but decided to pass one more time. He was finally there so we talked for about fifteen minutes about repentance. He had some questions from his studying. We explained that repentance involves a change in our life. Where we try to become more like Christ by changing our actions. This really seemed to make him think a lot and so we marked a date, gave him some stuff to study and then left. When we returned, he had done all of his studying. He told us that he realized now that he needs to make a change in his life. He wants to become more committed and come to church more regularily. He also told us that he is ready to be baptized! He came to the baptism on Saturday and to Church yesterday and we are going to help him get ready for baptism this week! We were so close to dropping him but I´m glad we didn´t. I know the Lord helped us in the end and that He knows the needs of our investigators better than we do. We just have to rely on His help and things are going to continue to improve.

Other than that, not a whole lot happened this week. We went to Praia on Thursday morning to have interviews with President Oliveira. That was a really good experience. He truly loves and cares for each one of us missionaries and I can´t imagine how much work it is for him and his wife to run this mission. The amount of travelling alone would be crazy!! He´s got to run zone conferences and interviews and visits and everytime he wants to go somewhere, he has to fly!! He´s an amazing man though and I feel very blessed to have him as my mission president. We talked about studying and how to make it so that we are learning from the Spirit and not just the words we are reading. He showed me a clip from Elder Bednar that talks about making questions and then focusing on those questions as you are studying. He said that if you do this, the Spirit will be able to teach you at a more personal and spiritual level that allows us to learn and grow more. It was really good.

Other than that, we got our one legged investigator to church yesterday. He is on crutches but he has a very hard time walking, even when he is on flat ground. I don´t think he leaves his house very much so he doesn´t have very much balance or strength to walk. He definitely can´t get around like Kiersten´s volleyball coach. But, we got him out of the house, carried him up the hill and got him a taxi. It was 300 CVE to get him to and from church and it involved some work but he really enjoyed it. The only problem is we don´t know what will happen when we leave. So we´ve got to figure something out. ´But I´m doing really well. I´m really excited for this next transfer and I think we´re going to do some great work here in Assomada over the next two weeks. I love you all and look forward to hearing from you every week!

Três Mêses...

Hey everyone!

Well... this week I don’t really have a whole lot to write about. It’s started to get warmer here although some days the wind makes it a little chilly. We teach A, the man I told you about last week, outside every night at eight at his work and man do we freeze some nights! But he’s doing super good! We are reviewing everything because it’s been awhile since he learned it all but he’s progressing really well. He is marked for baptism on the 11 of February so we are passing him every night and he’s doing great!

This week has been another one of those rollercoaster weeks. It started out really good: we were teaching a lot and had three investigators getting ready for baptism on Saturday. However... they all fell through. We have so many investigators that are just one or two steps away from being baptized but something is holding them back! It’s frustrating at times but we are trying to be patient and keep working with them. We are getting closer though. Our biggest obstacle right now is getting them to come to church!! We only had two investigators in church yesterday. Not good!!! They always say ya I’m coming and then they don’t show up! We spend all morning Sunday passing people to bring them to church and nobody can ever come! Everyone uses one of three excuses: I have to clean laundry, I have to go do visits or I went to Praia. It’s ridiculous!

We had one really interesting lesson this week though. We were teaching this lady and I’m pretty sure she didn’t understand a word we said. She didn’t understand ANYTHING!! We were explaining the Restoration and we used an example with some cups she had on her table. The empty cups were the other churches and the cup with a ring and a toy in it represented the Church of Christ with his authority and teachings in it. We went through the Apostasy and everything, explained it really simply and then asked which of the cups represented the Church of Christ. Her answer... God. Apparently she doesn’t understand Portuguese at all, which I guess happens sometimes. But she came to church so we’ve got to figure out a way to teach her so that she can understand us because neither of us speaks Crioulo.

The only other thing that really happened this week was we went on a division for two days with Elder Humphries, one of the Assistants. That was really cool and we learned some pretty cool stuff. This is the last week of the transfer so yes I’m still with the same companion. I’m hoping to stay with him next transfer too, in the same area. We have some work that we feel we need to finish here. We need to help some of these people get baptized, they are so close! Other than that though I’m doing really well. I’m eating well, it’s pretty hard to go hungry and I’m still having a good time. We played soccer this morning for the first time but I haven’t had a chance to play ball. We might look into buying a ball if we are here next transfer because there are courts here. Other than that, things are great. Just trying to work hard and do whatever we can to help these people here. I love you all and look forward to hearing from you every week!

PS I got the letter you sent me finally. I also got one from Grandma and Grandpa Schultz. Thanks!