Nôs É Campeão!

I´ve decided I´m really not missing anything at home because everything seems to be the same. It is weird that everyone is coming home though. My mission is going by way too fast and now as an assistant time seems to be going by even faster. I´ve still got time though and we´re always busy so that is good.

So I´m e-mailing really late today because we spend the ENTIRE DAY cleaning our house! It was a disaster!!! Up until last week there have been two other missionaries living in our house who never clean. Because we are never home we don´t have a ton of time to keep things clean and it slowly just started piling up. They are now gone though and we have been cleaning every single morning since Wednesday and today we finally finished!! It feels so much better now!! So that has been our life these last few days... not all that exciting to tell you the truth.

BUT we had a baptism this week and it was a huge blessing from Heavenly Father. We set a goal to baptize every week of the transfer and unfortunately our baptism for this week fell through on Wednesday. She is progressing really well and really wants to be baptized but her boyfriend sleeps at her house occasionally and we felt that it is better to help them get married and wait to baptize them together. Unfortunately this left us without anyone to meet our goal until we went to visit the bishop one night. While there, we found out that his wife´s nine year old son had never been baptized!! He really wanted to though so after a quick conversation with the boy´s father we got everything ready and we had a really nice baptism service on Saturday. It had to be done by the missionaries because he has already passed eight years of age and it was a huge blessing for us this week.

Things are starting to settle down in the mission again and the little problems are being fixed. We had a really good week as far as baptism last week and this week is looking to be even better. We have one guy preparing to be baptized this week named C and he is amazing! He received a strong answer from the Spirit and is determined to be baptized this week. Even though he stayed up until 5 in the morning on Sunday, he woke up and came to church! These people are incredible and Heavenly Father just continues to send them to us. 

To answer your question, Elder Hill and I kind of speak a mix to each other; Portuguese, English and Crioulo. I may or may not, (most likely will), have troubles with English when I come home because almost everything I hear is in Portuguese or Crioulo. So don´t judge me!! I love it here though and I really don´t want my mission to end. It´s the last week of the transfer though so we´ve got a ton of work to do. Have a good week and I love you all!

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March 18

Well... this week was pretty awesome! Elder Kearon got here on Monday night and Tuesday morning we started the tour. Tuesday we went to Fogo, Wednesday we were back here in Praia and Thursday and Friday we were in Mindelo. It was a lot of travelling and we are pretty tired but it was definitely worth it. 

Every zone conference was completely different and yet had the same focus. He asked a bunch of questions based on the topic and our answers directed the trainings. The Spirit was super strong and I learned so much!  

We finally got back to our area Saturday morning at 1:00 AM, just in time for our baptism later that evening. Her name is AH and she was a huge blessing from the Lord. I think we maybe taught her 3 times but she knows everything and was prepared well before we ever found her. With the help from the members and the protection from the Lord, she was ready to go even though we weren’t in our area all week. It was a blessing that we really needed and it is just one more reminder to me that the Lord doesn´t really need us to do this work. 

That´s about all that happened this week though. The headings are definitely Crioulo so that would explain why you can’t translate them. Elder Hill and I are practicing our Crioulo so that when we go home we can speak to each other all the time. Love you all and have a good week!

N´teni txeu kuza pá fazi!!

Oi, Bom dia!

Well not too much happened since I last wrote. Zone Leader’s Council was amazing as usual and things are really starting to change again here in the mission. I am seeing the mission from an entirely different point of view now and it is really exciting. We’ve still got a lot of work to do but we are definitely moving in the right direction. We are receiving 11 new missionaries at the beginning of April and it is looking like this will be a trend for the next couple transfers. That is probably one of the coolest parts about being an assistant, receiving the new missionaries. I’ve only done it once so far but it is really exciting to see them coming into the field. I still remember walking off the plane but that was so long ago. 

This week we will be going on the mission tour with Elder Patrick Kearon from the 70. We will be having zone conferences in Fogo, Praia and Mindelo and then a zone leader’s council in Mindelo as well. Lots of travelling and I have never been to Mindelo so I’m pretty excited. He gets here tonight and we start tomorrow so this week is going to fly by so fast. 

It’s been a bit difficult to be in our areas because we have been running around with so much stuff to do but we have two office missionaries now so we will have a lot more time out in the field. President wants us to first strengthen our area again and then be able to travel around and do divisions when necessary with the other leaders in the mission. We’ve got some work to do but it’s going to be good to really be able to serve the missionaries. 

We did have two baptisms this last week though, a mom and her son. It was really a miracle because of the lack of time we had to really work with them but Heavenly Father blessed us and we had a really nice baptism service. The mother is really going through a rough time in her life and she had some doubts that were kind of holding her back for a bit but the Spirit was really working with her and she is a lot happier now. I know that she is going to find the support and help that she needs from the members of the church so things are going to be good for her. 

Other than that, not much is happening. This week is going to be super busy but really fun at the same time. We get back just in time for our baptism on Saturday so we’re going to need a lot of help from the Lord and the members. I’m loving my new area though and I know that everything is in the hands of the Lord. Have a good week 

March 7, 2013

March 4, 2013

HEY!

Sorry for the lateness but I haven’t had any time this week to write. Don’t worry, I’m still alive! Life in Cape Verde has been a little crazy this past couple days and we haven’t had much time to do anything. We had some emergency transfers on Monday to solve a few problems that we were having here in Praia and now we are preparing for the mission tour next week with Elder Kearon, member of the First Quorum of the Seventy. We’ve had a lot to do but I’m learning a lot. 

These last two days we had an emergency Zone Leader’s Council. We haven’t quite started the year off like we should have and we have some work to do to bring it back up. If we don’t start now, it’s going to be extremely hard to meet our goal.  The last two days were amazing and I learned so many things that I need to work on. President invited some younger missionaries to the council because we have to start preparing the future leaders of this mission. We are receiving 10 new missionaries in a month and by August we are supposed to have received 70. This place is going to explode! But not if we don’t solve these issues and get things going again.

We had a baptism last week and she is pretty amazing. Her name is L and she is only 12 years old. However, she bore her testimony twice this week and both times she started crying. The Spirit has really prepared her and now we are going to start working with her mom. 

I’m still getting to know my new responsibilities but we basically just help President in everything. We work with him for transfers, organize zone conferences and zone leader’s councils and have some work in the office. I’m, still getting used to everything but I’ve learned a lot. 

I’ll have to write more next week (if I have time, Elder Kearon gets here on Monday). Hope everything is doing well and I love you all!

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