Friday, April 4, 2014

The week Duke lost, and quite a week!

March 24, 2014

First of all I would like to thank everyone, and anyone that informed me that the Duke Blue Devils had a bit of a slip up this year.  It really was very thoughtful to receive 42 emails from 42 of my closest "friends and family", almost all of them informing me that Duke lost! Thanks, I love you guys... 


It really was a good week tho.  Last Monday we had a family night, and that was super good.  We made a cake, and it turned out like an Elders in Africa cake should turn out, pretty bad haha.  Elder Fernandez was freaking out, and saying that we shouldn't use it because it looked bad.  I told him to calm down, and its how Elders cakes are suppose to look.  I took one of my dads standards of living, (he uses this when he messes up playing the organ on Sundays) "nobody likes that guy that does everything perfectly".  That's why we gotta mess up a little to help people remember that we are only human.  And really we are Elders in Africa, how good is our cake suppose to turn out!? 

Tuesday was a super solid day as well.  Went to Pau Quente with Elder Smith and the other elders from Cabeca, and that was good.  Pau Quente is this bakery that they have here and its super good.  Its from Portugal, and they have a few of them here.  Mostly they are just in Praia, but we have one in Assomada as well!  It means hot bread, and it really is better than any bread you can buy in the states!  

Wednesday was the day that we had our interviews with President.  My interview was good, talked a lot about the zone and what we need to do better.  He always leaves me feeling like I need to be doing more, which is probably how he should leave me feeling. He's incredible.  

After that I did a two day division with Elder Bergquist, and it was probably the best divion I have ever done.  His area is in Tarafall, which is on the North side of the island.  So to get there we got in a Hiace, (Ive written a lot about those) and took the hour ride to Tarafall.  Its a pretty beautiful ride, and there is a spot on the drive where the car turns a corner of the mountain, and you can just see the whole city of Tarafall, and the ocean.  Its unbelievably pretty.  After we got there we had a super good lesson with this family.  There was a mom, 22, 18, and 16 year old kids, and we marked a date for that whole family, and that was pretty sweet.  Then we just talked the whole day about girls and everything.  We like a lot of the same music, and he is from Vegas so we had a lot to talk about.  He is the same age as me, but he graduated high school early, and left on his mission super early.  He was with Elder Gooch and Parades in the MTC, so we talked a lot about those guys. He also trained Elder Crooks, who I was in the MTC with, so we talked about all of those guys, it was a lot of fun.  We also made some pasta that was pretty good.  Well I thought it was good, compared to Pizza Factory Im sure it was aweful, but for here.....pretty good.
  
The next day, Thursday, was one of the best days of my mission.  In the morning we had a sweet lesson, and marked three more dates.  And we had a very eventful afternoon.  First we had a lesson with one of his investigators that had a baptismal date, but has a horrible drinking problem.  When we went to teach him, he answered the door crying.  We asked him what was wrong, and he said that his girlfriend's baby died as she was giving labor the day before.  So he drank the day before, to try to cope with that.  And we just had a sweet lesson with him, and it kind of opened my eyes, like this stuff is real life, and were dealing with serious life problems.  And its funny because we are two 19 year old punks from America, and just us alone, there is no way we could have helped him change his life.  But he's changing.  And toward the end of the lesson, Elder Berggy and I both felt like we needed to give him a blessing.  So Elder Bergquist gave an awesome blessing, and we were all crying by the end.  And he told us that he just felt happy after the blessing, and it was a super cool experience.  

Later that day we had a lesson fall, and we were kind of just standing on the road talking, not positive what to do.  And a truck pulled up, (and here people use the back of trucks like a taxi system because taxi's are expensive) and two guys got out.  They got out, and walked directly to us, and stated speaking to us in flawless English.  So we talked for a little, and they were from Nigeria.  They said that they really needed the word of God, so we went to go teach them.  When we walked into the house there were candles and a casket, and it was super dark. It just didn't feel good, so we asked if we could talk outside.  So we started out lesson outside, and it was 100% in English because they don't speak Portuguese or Creole.  And it was super weird to teach in English, but definitely had the gift of tongues.  But one of them, they were brothers, had his wife die the day before.  And it was her casket.  And we just had a super good lesson about how we will see them again, and everything will be alright.  Super spiritual, and just super good.  
So between those lessons, and a couple other funny events that day, it was definitely one of the best days of my mission.  Another funny thing that happened was there was a drunk guy, that was dancing, so we started dancing, and he copied everything we did.  Super funny, but really kind of irrelevant for this email...  



The next day on the way back, we were driving up the mountain to Assomada in the Hiace.  And right at the top of one of the mountains, we heard a pop, and the tire went out.  Keep in mind they pack people in these things like crazy, and there are like 25 of us in this van.  So every single person gets out, and starts watching this guy change the tire.  It was super interesting for all of them, and I'm not positive that they have ever seen anyone change a tire before.  It took over an hour and a half, but finally we got rolling back to Assomada. 


The next couple days were normal mission days, and nothing compared to those days I had on the division.  Friday was good.  We baptized Edenia on Saturday, and she was confirmed on Sunday.  We had quite a few people at church, and the attendance for the ward was insanely good as well.  Our ward, and area are doing well, but the zone in general is struggling, and we'll do a couple division this week to try to solve some problems.  There was also a funny moment where someone was yelling at us, and saying that we didn't know anything, and this was in a lesson.  Then he started talking about a bunch of bad stuff about us, and we kinda just sat there and listened.  Then he called me racist, and was going off on me.  There was like  20 people in the house, it was a family night, and of course I was the only white one.  Just kind of a weird situation.  But when he said that thing about me, elder Fernandez just asked him very calmly "If he was racist, do you really think he would be here?"  It was super funny, and things like that will definitely make a companionship a little stronger haha.  

It was a super good eventful week! Sorry that this is a little long, we just had a bunch of cuzas happen.  I love all you guys, thanks a bunch for all the emails, even if they are all about Duke choking... 
LOve you guys, have a sweet week! 

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