This week was so crazy! Like by far, one of the busiest ones of my mission. Before I get into it, I've got to send some birthdays wishes! HAPPY BIRTHDAY ADAM WYATT, MARK DORFF, and BECKHAM WYATT! I am thinking of you a lot, as my planner is decorated for your birthdays. Also, I will be celebrating my 1 year in Cape Verde birthday on the 25th and celebrating Elder Godfrey's one year mark on the 26th. Then at the end of the week on the 28th, our wonderful Mission President and his wife will go home and we will receive our new Mission President. Lots of things are happening this next week so it sounds like it will be pretty crazy like this last one.
So, what about last week that made it so crazy you might ask? Well first of all, my office work shot way up for the week as I was working to close 2 houses (one of them being a with a very difficult landlord) and then having to start the process of closing another while trying to open a new house. Most of it is done except for the the opening of the new house and the closing of one house. I guess those are next weeks projects.
We also had a miracle baptism. Her name is Jacira and she is our most recent convert. She is Manick's older sister. The reason why I say she was a miracle is because we had talked to her last Saturday (14th) and confirmed with her that she was going to Church the next day but she didn't go Then we didn't see her until Thursday (19th), On that day we spent all 3 hours of our teaching time talking to her. It was interesting because never before have I stayed in someone's house that long to talk with someone but for whatever reason, the Spirit just directed the entire conversation about the Plan of Salvation, the importance of baptism, the purpose of church, the power of Jesus Christ, the importance of agency and a whole bunch of other questions she had and ended up with her making the decision to be baptized. Elder Godfrey and I are happy for her. She even beat us to the Chapel for her baptism and there were so many members of the Church there for her. It was super good.
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| Jacira's baptism |
Also, we had the unique opportunity to be part of a Mãos Que Ajudam (Mormon Helping Hands) activity here in Cape Verde. We left Praia (first time in a while) and went to a mental rehabilitation hospital in the middle of nowhere. We went to the back fields and cleared out some trees and dead plants. It took like 3 hours or so and then after that we went to a ceremony to present our work. It was a lot of fun but everyone was dead tired because of the oversized yard work.
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| Service Group (at least some of us) |
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| Elders Ernst and Taulbee and me |
It took the fact that the kids here in Cape Verde are out of school to realize that everyone at home is also out of school! Not only that, but BYU is going into Summer Term already (which is where I will be in a year). The other day I picked up a piece of paper with a formula on it and I looked at for like 5 minutes completely stumped what it was used for, let alone it's name. After a while, I realized (with the help of my also stumped companion) that it was the quadratic formula, the one used for basic algebra. Maybe I am just a nerd or something but it is kind of disturbing to me that I didn't remember a basic math formula as a Chemical Engineering major. Well, I guess that is life as a missionary. I have some serious studying to do when I get back.
So, the World Cup is crazy here. Thus far, my 2 teams (Germany and the Netherlands) have done pretty good. The Portuguese Elder in my house didn't want to talk to me the night when Portugal lost to Germany. Almost everyone is watching every game which means that a lot of times we are interrupting people's viewing time. I'm just glad that not all our investigators are soccer fans.
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| City Shot of Praia from Bela Vista |
Well, that is life in a nutshell. Glad to hear that everything is going good at home. I keep Claire and all of you in my prayers. :)
Oh, one more thing that made me happy this week. I found out that our upstairs neighbor has all the Coldplay CDs and without fail, he plays one in it's entirety everyday. That's a nice little thing to enjoy once in a while as I polish my shoes.
Love you all and talk to you next week.
Elder Brent Dorff :)
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