CANADA!

Well... another week gone. AND... it’s transfers next week!!! CRAZY!! Time is going by way too fast! But that’s ok I guess... I am still with Brodie for at least one more week... but we’ve already decided we are serving at least three together. If only it were up to us... Good news though, we are getting another Canadian next week!!! We are pretty pumped and he’s from Lethbridge. Pretty sure I don’t know him but it’s still pretty awesome. Also, he’s younger than me so I will no longer be the youngest missionary in the field!!!! (I don’t know if there is anyone younger than me here or not but that’s ok). We don’t shop in the market because I don’t know if Praia has one or not. But we eat at a member’s house twice a week, which is pretty good. She usually makes some fish or some sort of Caboverdean dish. I love the food here!!! 

This week was good but at the same time it wasn’t so good... All three of our baptisms fell, two didn’t come to church and one used drugs, so we were a little bummed about that. Then we went to teach this guy on Tuesday whom we have been teaching for quite awhile. He was in church and really the only thing that was keeping him from being baptized was the Law of Chastity. He had a date for the 28 of July and we were going to see how he was doing. When we asked him about the law of chastity, he said: "Well I’m basically already living it." We were stunned and he said he hadn’t been going over to his girlfriends house for about a month and that she was moving to the States at the end of the week. He told us that after he started coming to church and studying with us he just lost that desire to break the commandment. So we asked him if he would be baptized on Saturday and he agreed!!! MIRACLE!!!! Man, this guy is awesome and he sacrificed a lot to get everything ready. He told us that he just decided it wasn’t worth waiting another week so he got baptized. Needless to say, it was a pretty great blessing for us and we had a really good baptism on Saturday.

We’re having some problems with getting people to church though... they moved church to 3:00 and we thought that it was going to be way easier because they would have way more time to prepare before church. WRONG!!! Apparently, with more time they become further behind schedule or they forget. Not cool... so we’ve got to change some things and start getting these people to church. Our whole zone has been struggling with this all transfer and we don’t know how to fix it! One bright spot in our week though was our investigator who is fighting the drug problem. He fell again last week and so we passed him and set up a plan to help him quit. This guy is awesome!! He started going to institute this week, comes to church every Sunday AND is half way through 2 Nephi... in one week!!! Also, he doesn’t just read it, he’s been using the footnotes and everything. He basically gave us a rundown of 1 Nephi during one of our lessons and is loving it! Today marks a week that he hasn’t used drugs and he is preparing to be baptized next week. He’s super pumped and is doing awesome!

Not much else to report... the power situation has been kind of haywire this week and we haven’t had power almost all week. Just little spurts during the night. It rained a little bit last night so it is super humid today. I can’t believe how fast this transfer has gone but I’ve learned so much and I’m excited to continue. Say hello to everyone for me at grandma and grandpa’s anniversary and I love you all!!

Elder Dola

Nhôs Txiga!!

OI!

So this week was pretty darn good. Not the greatest as far as church attendance but things are going pretty good. N was baptized on Saturday and her Catholic family came to the baptism!! We had a really good baptismal service and she is really happy now. Maybe we needed to wait another week just so her family could be there... who knows but either way, she is baptized now and everything is good. Man I love this mission!! Elder Hill and I are definitely in the best mission in the world! We are on a random set of islands in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, the people are awesome and miracles are happening all over the place! Plus, they speak the most random language in the whole world that NOBODY else knows!! I love it here! The church is growing so fast and my testimony is growing along with ever miracle that I witness. 

So, we´ve got a lot of people that are progressing towards baptism and have been really focusing on helping them. The only problem is nobody is coming to church!! Church starts at 3:00!!! So we´ve been thinking about it alot and realized we haven´t really been teaching the Sabbath Day as well as we should have. Slackers!! Sheesh... but we´re gonna fix that right away and then we will start baptizing all these people. There are so many people here just waiting for us. We´ve also been finding a lot of sweet families that are really excited to learn about the gospel. Seriously, sometimes I don´t feel like I am doing anything to find these people. They just seem to be dropped into our laps! So we´ve got to work really hard in order to make sure we help everyone according to their needs. Heavenly Father is trusting us with His children which, when you think about it, is a huge responsability. But we´re working hard and learning as we go.

We´ve been working with this guy who is a straight up thug! He´s so awesome though and just wants to change his life around. He´s set to be baptized this week and as long as he can continue without using drugs (he´s already gone two weeks and has only used once) everything is gonna be great. He´s really in tune with the Spirit and we have had some really powerful lessons with him. He loves church and loves the Book of Mormon. He´s learning really fast and has come a long ways. Just another proof that the gospel is for everyone and the Spirit can work with anybody. 

Well, today we played our weekly soccer game but we´ve been playing basketball afterwards the last couple weeks as well. It´s pretty fun and I actually don´t mind playing soccer anymore. I´m still terrible but it´s kind of fun. Elder Hill and I both bought Derrick Rose jerseys this week and we wore them during soccer and basketball today. It´s really funny to hear people´s thoughts and ideas about Canadians. BUT apparently next transfer we will be getting another Canadian missionary from Lethbridge!!!! SWEET!! Pretty sure I don´t know him but we are super pumped. Not much else to report this week. Enjoy the rest of your holidays!

Love Elder Dola

Me:Sou de Canadá. Awesome Guy:OH Eu Conheço Canadá!!! É Grande!!!

MAN! 

Oh man this week was nuts!!! Lots of ups and downs... but lots of miracles. Sounds like summer is going good for you. If you guys need more heat you can take some from Praia, no shortage of it here. That seems like quite the summer camp, sounds like fun though. So this week was just a roller coaster ride right until the end. 

Well we started out the week with Zone Leaders Council, with Elder Wright and Area Seventy. It is always amazing to hear from the General Authorities and this time was no disappointment. He talked about a lot of things but the biggest thing I got out of it was about covenants. When we make a covenant with the Lord, He is going to keep his promise (D&C 98:1-3). All we have to do is have faith, and do everything we possibly can to make it happen. It was pretty aweome.

So we were supposed to have three baptisms, but two of them didn´t come to church. Classic... so we just had one, and she didn´t feel like she had a strong enough testimony to be baptized. But, after what I had learned in Zone Leader´s Council, I knew that she was going to be baptized on July 7 because we had made a covenant with the Lord. So we did not give up. We passed by every single day. We prayed and studied and did everything we possibly could to help her gain that testimony that she needed to be baptized. Finally, Friday night, we were on divisions with the district leaders in Achada Grande. Brodie was here in our area and they went to pass N, our baptism. Up until that point she still hadn´t received the answer that she was looking for but after talking for a bit, Elder P (one of the district leaders) asked her to pray one more time to know the will of the Lord. So they all kneeled down and prayed. I wish I was there!!! So after she prayed, they stayed kneeling. All of a sudden, she jumped up and said that she needed to be baptized. The only problem was she hadn´t told her mom. So Saturday, after asking nearly every member in Achadinha to pray, we went and talked to her mom. And she was totally cool about it!!! No big deal! BUT, N had decided she still wanted to wait another week. To this moment I still don´t understand why but there was nothing else we could do. She is going to be baptized this week but it was still a little disappointing. We did everything we could and that was it. 

Well, we also found this sweet awesome family who has been prepared to accept the gospel. We had an amazing lesson with them last night and I have never seen a more united, loving family, here on my mission. All they could talk about was how blessed they are for the family they have been given. They aren´t married yet but I know that as soon as we teach the Proclamation, they are going to start preparing to be married. They have already accepted a baptismal date and are super excited to learn and change their family. We also found another family that we have yet to teach a whole lot but we have talked to them twice. After the first visit, as we were leaving, the father told us- "If it is possible, we could be married in your church." How sweet is that!?! We have been extremely blessed and are really starting to get things organized. It took us a little longer than we would have liked but things are going good. 

Anyways, enjoy your summer! Love you all!

Elder Dola

HAPPY CANADA DAY!!!

CANADA!!!

Man who would have thought that I’d be serving with a Canadian on Canada Day? Pretty sweet! So we didn’t really do anything yesterday, we were pretty busy with church and numbers and everything that we didn’t have time. We made a cake today though and tried to paint a Canada flag on it. Didn’t look the greatest but it tasted pretty good. That was about it. Yesterday was elections so the streets were full of people voting. Then last night when they announced the vote, the winning party had a parade down the street blasting music. Elections are a pretty big deal here. Just another reason to throw a party I guess.

So this week was pretty good. We taught a lot of lessons, had some really great experiences and marked some more baptismal dates. The only downfall was our two baptisms fell because they didn’t show up for church last week. Our zone has had a lot of dates fall lately and it’s not good. Something that we need to fix ASAP!! Brodie and I have been working hard to try and figure out what we can do to help and I’ve learned quite a bit as we have been studying. We have been studying a lot about faith and the important role that it has in everything that we do as missionaries; something that we can’t go without. Hopefully things are going to start turning around here soon.

We’ve had some really amazing lessons this week that have really strengthened my testimony and helped our investigators. Our one investigator who is preparing for baptism this week, N, hadn’t received an answer yet. So last Monday, we had a lesson with her and talked about the Atonement. We talked a little about what Christ has done for us and then how the Holy Ghost is who testifies of all this. At the end of the lesson, Brodie invited everyone to kneel down and she was going to offer a prayer asking for an answer. As she prayed, the Spirit just filled the room and at the end she said she was trembling. That was something I had never experienced before and it was amazing to be in that room. She still has some doubts but we are working hard with her and things are going to work out.

Not too much happened other than that. I don’t have a lot of time today; the computer is being stupid. The only other exciting thing that happened is someone got shot just outside the house where we had our FHE on Friday night. It was before we got there and everything was already cleaned up by the time we arrived. Kind of scary but nobody seemed to know the guy. Not cool... but the FHE was really good and we had one of our investigators there.

Well, have a good week and enjoy your summer vacation! Talk to you all next week!