Monday, September 23, 2013

Achada Grande, the gangster scary part of the mission

Okay first off, Mom don't be scared after anything I tell you.  I'm fine, and I'm going to be fine haha.  Just a freaking crazy country.  I'll write down the highlights from my first five days here, and then give you more detail on the.  
1. We only had working power in our house 3 of the 5 days.  
2. A baby rabbit nibbled on my ankle during a teaching lesson last Saturday.  
3. .01 percent of the flies  in the world live in Utah, the other 99.9 percent live in my area of Cape Verde
4.  As of right now I have 23 mosquito bites on my arms and legs, the repellent doesn't work haha
5.  We have had running water 1 of the 5 days I've been here.  
6.  I was robbed or jumped of Cash or Bodied my third day here haha

1 We are opening up a new area, and Elder Gooch and I moved into a brand new apartment.  Its a pretty nice place, but there was absolutely nothing in there.  As of right now, the 2 rooms we use are the kitchen, when we eat in there, which is rarely.  The bathroom, which we are never in there either because we have only had running water one day.  and our bedroom-study room- everything room haha.  Our beds are on the floor, and we live out of our suitcases because we have zero closets, close racks or anything at all.  And we have no mirror, so I have no idea how I look everyday haha.    
2 We were in a lesson teaching, and its like my third lesson here.  and There were flies all over me, and I was trying to not swat them everywhere.  And my ankle started to hurt, and I just felt this weird pecking at it.  So I looked down, and I kid you not, there was a little baby rabbit just nibbling away at my ankle!! Like a live bunny, just biting my ankle haha.  
3 There are more flies here than you could EVER imagine, everything is covered in dirt.  
4 The mosquito repellent does absolutely nothing, 23 bites as of right now, there's really nothing you can do about them.  
5 We have no running water, like ever.  We've had it one day, and it was glorious.  And we have a filter, but we can't figure out how to fix it, so we just buy water bottles from a place outside our building.  
6 The juicy story.  So it was my third here, my first legit day going with Elder Gooch to our area.  And we have to walk about a mile and a half, across this big sketchy field to get to our area, and it just kinda looks scary.  But we were walking at like 3 in the afternoon, and we were about halfway across the field, and there is this little hill.  And we are at the bottom, and these two guys come down and are walking kinda towards us, both black of course.  In fact, other than the missionaries, i haven't seen a white person here yet..  Anyway, we were talking, and I smiled and said some of the little Portuguese I knew, Boa Tarde, good afternoon.  And then all of a sudden, the first one grabbed Elder Gooch and put a knife to his stomach and started saying mohner! Which means phone in some language haha.  But he took our phone, and the 2 mil, like a little more than twenty american dollars from elder gooch.  And the other one grabbed me, and I just put my hands up, they could have everything I had to offer haha.  I had 2 mil too, so they ended up taking a little over 45 dollars American money, roughly.  And they took my planner, and our keys, but they gave those back because they did them no good.  Keep in mind this is my third day here, so I was a little freaked out.  K I was really freaking out.  But it'll be good.  And really dont worry, I'm going to be just fine here!  And I haven't even told you the best part.  The main guy that robbed us was wearing a North Carolina Michael Jordan jersey! Just another reason to freaking Hate North Carolina hahah.  But really, don't worry, Ill be good, I just thought you would enjoy this story, but don't worry!  And that was the first day that I didn't carry my wallet and Camera, so that was definitely a blessing from God.  

My comp is Elder Jared Gooch from Draper Utah.  He is on his 5th transfer, and he is a freaking champion.  He is so cool, I freaking love him.  We get along pretty well, and he is amazing at Portuguese.  He plays soccer and stuff, but you can probably look him up on Facebook or something.  Hes a stud tho, he keeps me sane.  

I'll tell you a little bit about Cabo Verde.  Take the absolute nicest parts of Costa Rica, then noche it down ten levels, and you have Cape Verde.  To be fair, I am serving in the absolute most Ghetto area of the mission.  Every other missionary was apologizing because my first area is the most ghetto and the most scary.  But I figure it will just be nice when I get transferred, if I get transferred at some point in time.  But we walk about a mile and a half to our area, the ghetto part of Praia.  We have to walk across this big field, that's where we got robbed, or cash or bodied. Anyway about Praia, oh the area I'm serving in is calle Achada Grande, super ghetto.  The mission president thought about getting rid of the area, but instead he sent us there haha.  It ll all work out. I know it will, God sent me here for a reason.  But it was amazingly nice today, I got to take a shower in the other Elders apartment, and they have a mirror and everything, and it's super weird because I hadn't seen myself in the mirror for like 5 days.  But getting to shower was amazing!!!  
The food is pretty good, but I'm insanely spoiled right now because we live on the outskirts of Praia, and there is a lot to eat in Praia.  And I still have my six pounds of American Candy I'm running off! Well its down to like 2 pounds, but still.  I'm so glad I have that, its amazing.  I've eaten at the two nicest restaurants in Praia, so like I said I am amazing spoiled with food up until this point.  Which is nice because I get robbed haha.  But well eat a lot of rice, and onions and peppers in it.  And we kinda drink a lot of soda, and that's easily one of the best parts of my days. ~
Like I said, I'm serving in Achada Grande, the gangster scary part of the mission.  Its a long walk, and we kinda don't love that place, but well end up loving them and baptizing the heck out of them!  
 The language is definitely coming, but its a process.  I understand a ton of what people say in Portuguese, but you have no idea how many people speak Creel.  Its unreal.  Everyone we talk to, we have to ask them to speak Portuguese, because they just start going off in creel.  And its annoying, but i'll end up learning creel after I get Portuguese down.  The reason we can't teach in creel is because the country hasn't decided on a specific dialect of creel, and we don't have Book of Mormon in Creel.  And if they can't read the BOM, they really can't do too much, so we have to speak Portuguese.  but at least where I'm serving, the majority of the people speak Creel unless you ask them to speak Portuguese.  But we have language study and stuff, and Portuguese is coming along.  When Elder Gooch and I are just hanging out, we always speak English.  
It is insanely humid, but part of that is because its the rainy season, and such.  But my clothes are already dirty.  I never wear any of my nice ties or anything, I'll go put them in the A.P s house when I get a chance because I don't want them to get ruined.  But we iron all our clothes and such everyday, but right when we step outside we are drenched in sweat and our shirts become wrinkled.  We iron a lot more to show Heavenly Father that we are willing to take the time to iron everything and try to look nice, not matter how much of a difference it ends up making.  
Church was good yesterday.  I was honestly so tired, but I'm always tired out here.  But I bore my testimony in sacrament meeting and that went well, kinda.  I speak really slow, and I'M not very good and Portuguese yet, but it will come.  
For P day, we can't play soccer or anything because we lost that privilege a couple weeks ago because some missionaries were being stupid.  And we can't go to the beach or anything because that's against the rules.  So today we did some shopping, went to a freaking nice restaurant, and now are emailing, that's about all we'll do.  We have a laundry machine in our house, but we haven't been able to use it yet because we don't have water or electricity haha.  Its definitely a different lifestyle.  It'll take some getting used to.  I miss American Showers already.  I won't lie, I miss America at times, but this is where I'll be for the next two years, so I will learn to love it.

Love all you guys! Please email and send pics and stuff, its amazing nice to get something! Love ya
Love Elder Jarvis      

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