Aceito!

Hello Family!!

This week was pretty intense! Sounds like it was pretty crazy for you as well. I can’t believe Shane will be in the MTC on Wednesday! He’ll only be staying for 12 days so before you know it he’ll be in Winnipeg. So exciting!! He’s going to love it and is going to see some amazing miracles on his mission. 

So this week we went to Mindelo for zone conference, this upcoming week we have zone conference in Praia as well as mission leadership council (we are no longer allowed to have zone leader’s council because there are sister leaders now...), and next week we are going to Fogo for ANOTHER zone conference. Lots of training's and awesomeness. I’m pretty excited. 

Yesterday was stake conference here in Praia and today marks one year since the stake was organized here. Last year there was just short of 1000 people in attendance, this year we had almost 1800!!! Almost double in one year! It was so cool to see! Elder Matti Jouttenus, an Area Seventy, was there and he gave an amazing talk. The Church is growing so fast here and the members are awesome!! The members from Assomada came so I got to see some of my recent converts and some of the members I worked with for the first time in almost a year. One of my recent converts, N, is now married and getting ready to go to the temple. There was also a family who was extremely inactive when I was there who is now almost fully active. They had started going to church just before I got transferred and now they are doing awesome!! It was so cool to see the fruits of my work from over a year ago and to see so many of the people that I love from my first area. 

So yesterday we had a miracle. We had a guy who was going to get baptized this upcoming week but we realized that he is not actually ready so we didn’t have anyone to be baptized. That would make two weeks in a row which is not good. However, we have this investigator named E who has been going to church for about a month without us knowing. We had taught him once and marked a date for him on May 11. He was super pumped and yesterday we taught him the Restoration and when Elder Hill finished telling the First Vision, he told us that he felt as if the world outside had stopped and he just felt happy and awesome. We invited him to be baptized on May 4 and he answered emphatically, I ACCEPT. This guy is amazing!!! Heavenly Father is so merciful to us and is literally just sending His most prepared children to us. 

Well, enjoy the rest of the week.  I love you all and hope everything goes well!

Hello!

So just for you all to know, here in Cape Verde we have 2 seasons: the hot season and the super hot and sweaty season! We are currently leaving the hot season and entering into the super hot and sweaty season. Gotta love it! We had a pretty good week though, despite being a bit disorganized. We missed a day of teaching on Monday because of Elder Hill´s ankle and then we had to work to find a lot of our investigators again. That always seems to happen when you travel, you always have to come back and find people again. Things are going pretty good though.

C´s cousin D was baptized this weekend so that was definitely the highlight of the week. As usual, nothing really ran according to plan but he was baptized and is pretty happy. Satan always seems to try and put in some last minute attempts to put a stop to things but Heavenly Father is always in control and things always work out in the end. It’s really good to see the support that our recent converts receive from the other members and it helps out a ton. Things would be a lot harder here if we had to do everything alone. 

Not much else has changed though. We are going back to Mindelo again for zone conference so once again we will be out of our area. The zone conference was supposed to be next month but because of flight issues we had to do it this week in order to do it before the end of the transfer. Not your ideal situation but it needs to be done. We’re going to have a good week though and we had some really awesome new investigators show up for church yesterday. 

It’s so crazy to think that Shane is leaving already! I hope he enjoys the MTC, it seems to be a lot different from when I was there. I’m super excited for him though and I know that he is going to help a lot of people in Winnipeg. 

I don’t really have much else to write though. The work is going good and I am loving life in Cape Verde. Have a good week!

Discontra!

Modi Ki Nhos Sta?

Well this week pretty much flew past and we were gone for most of it. We went to Mindelo for the week to do divisions with the missionaries there so we were super busy all week. We had a really good week though and it was cool to spend some time with the other missionaries. I really realized how much I’ve learned and grown since the start of my mission. I was with the younger missionaries all week and I just saw some of the little things that I used to do that I’ve changed or improved as time has gone on. I still don’t know very much but I saw how much I really do have to teach the newer missionaries in the mission. I really hope I get to train before I finish my mission but my chances seem to be going down with every transfer that passes. 

Not a whole lot happened here this week though. Our plane ride home from Mindelo was delayed three hours Friday night so we didn’t get home until 3:00 in the morning Saturday. We were pretty tired but it was good to be back in our area again. We’ve got a lot of work to do this week because unfortunately, being away from your area for so long makes things difficult. We’ve got to find some of our investigators and get things going again but we should be good. President Oliveira has been travelling all month so we’ve got some stuff to get organized for when he gets back. You never seem to have enough time to get everything done but the Lord always provides a way. 

I can’t believe that Shane is leaving so fast! He’s going to love his mission, even if he has so much stuff to pack. I’m not really all that surprised that there was a blizzard. It seems to be normal about this time of year. It’s starting to get hotter here in Praia and the clouds are disappearing. We are getting into the super hot part of the year so that is going to be fun. We’ve still got a couple weeks before the transfer ends and I don’t know if I will stay with Brodie or not. Whatever happens though I know that it will be the Lord’s will. I think that’s about it though. I love you all and hope you have a good week! 

P.S. No you can’t use sunglasses as a missionary. At the moment I can’t really think of anything specific that I need. If you send anything, maybe just treats or something like that. Food is always good but I have everything else I need here. Thank you so much! 

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HELLO!

So sounds like your week off was busy, as normal. It seems rare that a week long vacation goes by with nothing to do but relax. I guess it’s better that way though. General Conference was awesome, as always. We did watch it in Portuguese and NOTHING weird happened!!! It’s a lot harder to pay attention when it’s in Portuguese though, even though I understand everything that they say. That’s another weird thought... I listened to 5 sessions of Conference entirely in Portuguese and I understood everything. It still seems weird to me at times but still pretty awesome. 

This week was new missionary week and we got 11 new missionaries!!! YES! I am not gonna lie, that has probably been the best part about being assistant so far. I wonder how weird I was when I first got here because they were funny! I forget that some things that happen here aren’t normal in other parts of the world, like a cow grazing on the side of the road in the middle of the city, but it was a lot of fun and they are really excited to be here. Our mission is growing fast and we now have 94 missionaries! The work here continues to grow like crazy and it’s really exciting to be working so close with the missionaries. 

So this week we had two baptisms, and one was a complete surprise! M, our investigator who was going to be baptized a few weeks ago but needs to get married first, decided after church last Sunday that she was not going to wait for her boyfriend. He works late all month and after that she decided that he is going to just have to live in his parents house so that she could get baptized. She was the most determined investigator I have ever had and it was really cool to see her get baptized. Our other baptism was V, a friend of C who got baptized last week. We were really blessed this week and there are so many awesome people here right now!! 

That’s about it for now. We’re going to Mindelo tomorrow to do divisions for a week. Dad, as for your MTC activity, I don’t really know. The biggest things that people have to adjust with are kind of hard to do in a youth activity. Some of them were: following a strict schedule, keeping the rules, managing your time, going everywhere with a companion... speaking Portuguese. I don’t know if that’s helpful but that’s all I got. Have a good week!

                                          

Feliz Páscoa

Happy Easter everyone! Easter here quite honestly wasn´t that big of a deal in Praia. There didn´t seem to be any more parties than normal over the weekend and a lot of people didn´t even seem to realize that it was Easter. Even in sacrament meeting we only had one talk on Christ, and it was incredible. The other talks were about primary. We had a really good week and transfers are pretty much over right now, we just have a few more missionaries that need to travel tomorrow morning and then the new missionaries come on Wednesday. I´m pretty excited for that! I am still with Elder Hill for at least another 6 weeks and it is looking possible that we serve together until the end of his mission. That would be kind of weird and yet sweet at the same time. We´re gonna have a good transfer though.

This week we had a baptism, a guy named He´s got an incredible testimony and he´s is already working with his friends, one of which will be baptized this week. The Lord really prepared this guy and once the Spirit told him what to do, he never looked back.

Today was pretty crazy and I am super tired. We had to make trips to the airport at  midnight, 4:30 AM and 7:30 AM. Needless to say, we haven´t slept very much. But I am still super happy and I am really excited for this transfer. Quite a few changes were made in the mission and with all the new missionaries coming in this mission is going to grow even faster. I don´t really have much else to write but we´re looking at another busy week. Next week we are travelling to Mindelo so with baptismal preparations, new missionaries and preparing our area for us to be gone for a week we are going to be pretty busy. I wouldn´t have it any other way though. I love you all and I hope you enjoy your Easter holidays!

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