Our travel day from the MTC was very
very long and very interesting. What was supposed to be a 26 hour travel
day actually turned out to be close to 50 hours. After a very long and
stressful day in Madrid, we were able to make it to Lisbon, on Wednesday
night, where we were rescued by President and Sister Fluckiger, of the
great Portugal Lisbon Mission, and we stayed that night in the mission
home with them. And let me tell ya, those kids going there are freaking
lucky. They are incredible people. We got to spend a night in Portugal,
and on Thursday, we arrived in the Promised Land! We were greeted by
President and Sister Mathews at the airport, who we very quickly threw
ourselves into the arms of. They are seriously killer people man, like
they rock. However, as exciting as reaching Cabo Verde was, it also
meant that our travel group of what was formerly 8, then 6, turned to 5,
as Elder Penner got turned around at the airport to head to his first
area, in Mindelo. So, the remaining 5 of us went with the Assistants to
the President to the mission office, where we all received interviews,
recieved very abbreviated training, and our first assignments.
I have been assigned to the INCREDIBLE island of.. MAIO!
Maio
is one of the newest islands opened in the mission, it's had elders for
about a year now. I happen to be the 10th elder ever to serve here, and
only the second person to be BORN here, which is pretty rad. My trainer
and first companion is Elder Stone, from California, and he's a pretty
rad guy. He's been out almost a year and a half, and really knows the
people here really well. We've been having a lot of fun, and we've been
working together really well. He's a pretty boss guy, and really easy to
get along with. We share this island with 2 other elders, Elder
Martinez and Elder Schofield (the first elder born here). We all share
the apartment we have together, and it's a pretty rad time. We have a
warm shower, we have a washing machine, TWO toilets, and like 3 or 4
rooms, it's pretty sweet.
We are in a branch here, that has
about 40 or so members, but only about 25 or so show up to church on
average. One of our goals here is to get those members really self
sufficient in the work they do, because right now, they aren't. Howver,
the members are really nice. We've had a couple members come around and
teach with us, one named Gilson, and he's a boss, and the other was
João, who's an interesting guy. They're both tons of fun to be around.
The
people here, though, are so much fun. Like, seriously. They're BOSS.
Everyone here will talk with us, and it's absolutely no problem finding
people to teach. Everyone is just super nice, super friendly, and they
really really like to shake hands. The only problem with them is I don't
actually know what just about all of them say basically all the time;
everyone here speaks Creole, so it just tend to smile, say Portuguese
words, and use their hand gestures to figure out what the heck they're
saying. It's super entertaining. Thankfully, my lovely companion
understands Creole, so it's a real blessing to have someone who actually
GETS it.
Guys, seriously, it's so cool here. I stop like at least 8 times a day and go, 'holy heck, I'm here. Wow'.
I fully believe Cabo Verde is the Lord's Promised land, second to Canada.
I love y'all so much!
Tudo feixe amigos!
(That means like all's cool guys)
Love ya!
Elder Massey
No comments:
Post a Comment