KIds

 
Big news this week...Elder Massey's birthday!  Here he is showing off some of the contents of his package...He was super excited for his Johnny Gaudreau t-shirt and a beloved bottle of Frank's Red Hot Sauce!  "I could hear the heavens open and the angels sing when I found that bottle!" (direct quote)  He was also grateful for a new pair of pants to help replace the 2 torn pairs.  I think we can safely say that his "Birthday Wants List" has changed significantly since going to Africa!

So, after overthinking my song title for this week for WAY too long, I realized the perfect one to go for this week and what I wanna go for. Again, I ask for patience to be with me as I ramble.

This weeks title, brought to you by the incredible MGMT, is used to primarily symbolize the fact that today, June 1st, is 'Dia dos Crianças', or 'Kids Day', here in Cabo Verde, meaning that I share my birthday with the one holiday that celebrates children. I've been called an 'eternal child' because of sharing my birthday with the holiday.

With that aside, I thought a little bit about what it would be like to be an 'eternal child', and what exactly that would mean. In Mosiah 3:19, it talks a little bit about how we need to become as a little child, and to be 'willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.' If this is the case, I wanna be an 'eterno criança', I think that would be pretty darn cool! I'm pretty sure every week I say 'something I'm working on learning is...', and maybe I say that to sound pretentious or smart or silly or whatever, I really don't know, but I'll say it again this week, in that I've really been trying to learn what this kind of humility really means for me. I read an article in the Ensign this week that talked about what the difference between a sin and a weakness is in our lives, in that a sin is when we willing choose to go against that which God tells us to do, and a weakness happens to be when we fall short of reaching that goal. It's never our fault when we have weaknesses, because like it says in Ether chapter 12:27, we're given our weakness to help us grow and get better. Like, we are having a great time on Maio, but sometimes, it gets pretty tough, and it's easy to get down on ourselves for not feeling like we're succeeding, in a lot of ways. Something that's really helping me out is knowing that I'm just working through my weaknesses; that scripture is one I've got sitting next to my bed to always remind me just that! Everyone in their own lives will ALWAYS have their own shortcomings, but that doesn't ever mean they are flaws; each of us is given something we need to work through, and if we recognize it and use it to grow, then we're taking that weakness and saying to it, 'hey, I don't like you the way you are right now, so lets make you into something better! Let's freaking go!'. To quote Forrest Gump, ' that's about all I have to say about that'

 

This week, we had Zone Conference, which meant we got a couple days off the island of Maio, and went to Praia for a day or two. Since there are literally like two different ways to get on/off the island, we had to take the boat Wednesday afternoon, and the plane back Friday morning, and let me tell ya, the boat is DEFINITELY an experience. From Maio to Praia, it takes about 3 hours to make the full trip, and for Elder Martinez and I, we were feeling sea sick by the first hour!

Thinking Elder Martinez is wishing this was over already...

 

 So many people are prone to feeling it, so what they do to deal with it is sleep; so, from where we were riding, on the top floor, at one point, everyone around us had fallen asleep, from the ladies who BROUGHT blankets to lay down on the floor and fall asleep, to the lady next to us who decided she didn't have enough room on the bench, and laid down on the floor, to the couple who fell asleep in the corner of the bench, and even Elder Martinez, who laid down for a bit do try and feel better. It was pretty darn funny, all of it together, and definitely an experience I'm glad I haad, and would not choose to have again :) 

 

Zone Conference in Praia was pretty darn boss; we recieved some awesome guidance from the ZLs, APs, Sister Mathews (who gave an INCREDIBLE training), and President Mathews as well. In one such piece of advice, we were told not to throw up deuces in pictures anymore (my bad) AND found out that the outreaches of my blog extend to President and Sister Mathews' home in Praia, so if you happen to be reading this, President, seja bem-vindo! Hahaha.

 

While in Praia, we had the opportunity to go out with the Zone Leaders that night, I went on a divsion with Elder Biddulph, and HOLY COW was it so nice to talk to people in Praia! Just like, regular people on the street, like you wouldn't think it would be that different, but WOW. I don't know what it is, but the people in Praia just seem to be with it a bit more, like they just seem to GET it; I don't know how to explain it any better than that. Like, there were cars all over the place, and paved roads, and shops all over the place, and it just felt like real civilization again! It was the bigesst culture shock I've felt since getting here! 

 

One other short little funny story from this week, this past Tuesday was Louisa's birthday, so to celebrate for her, we made her a cake, and dropped it off at her house at, like, 3  in the afternoon, and she was all like 'hey, you should come to my party tonight!', which we really did NOT want to go to, so we told her, 'weeeeell, we're really busy, but we'll try!'. Later, we were meeting with our Branch Mission Leader, Joao, jsut about our investigators and stuff, and Louisa calls us up and asks, 'sooo, where are you guys?' and I gave her the 'well, we're in a meeting right now, we're really really busy', and I thought we were all good, but NOPE. After meeting with Joao, he WENT BY Louisa's party, got her, and brought her to the church, where we were, and Louisa gives us the 'why aren't you coming to my party?' business, so we were basically FORECED into going, all because Joao betrayed us to the enemy! At her party, we were so esteemed that I got the first piece of cake. We did NOT want to be there! hahaha

Anyways, that's been my week! Tis has been my FIRST post as a 19 year old, soooo that's a pretty big deal, I'd say. Truly a momentous occasion. 

Have a great week all! 

Elder Massey 

 

Fake Plastic Trees

Something that we are all enticed by is the success that we can see, success that we can gain instantly. Sometimes, that's doing well on a test in school, getting a promotion at a job, or being able to buy something we really, really want. Thom Yorke, the lead singer of Radiohead, sings a little about that kind of success, but in a rather meloncholy way. He almost seems to describe it as being a sad thing to constantly depend on, always finding worldy success. This would lead to suggest that if we want to find happiness, or true succuess in life, we need to find it in places other than those things we can hold in our hands, whether they're fake or not.

Again, I ask for your patience, as it has been rather difficult to come up with a song title for this week, but I really hope this all makes sense.

Naturally, as a missionary, I want to find my success in the numbers I get; I wanna teach a heck ton of lessons, I wanna find new investigators all the time, I wanna have investigators at church, I wanna baptize the whole island of Maio, and use THAT to determine my success. In reality, though, that isn't going to happen ANY time soon, as much as I may want it and work for it. Something I'm working on learning is that isn't what success really is. In all honesty, this week wasn't one where we taught a whole lot; we didn't find a lot of new people, didn't really find much progression with our investigators, or have anyone at church, and the natural man wants to tell me that, because of that, I'm not a successful missionary. I learned a pretty cool lesson this week That I thought shows what we NEED to do to find that success, though.

In 3rd Nephi, in the Book of Mormon, there's a story where Jesus Christ appears to the Nephites, and he walks with them and teaches them and does a whole lot of awesome stuff, but it starts to get dark, and so Christ tells them, (paraphrasing) 'okay, I've gotta head up into heaven, but I'll come back tomorrow at this same place, I promise.' So, after he leaves, what do the Nephites do? Well, they go out, and 'did they send forth unto the people that there were many, yea, an exceedingly great number, did labor exceedingly all that night, that they might be on the morrow in the place where Jesus should show himself unto the multitude.' I really love how it talks about how they gave it their all to get their families, friends, and really anybody, to be at the place where they knew Jesus would be. I thought about how that applies to our work, because it never says exactly how many people they got, just how hard they worked. I figured, that if I had a book written about my mission, I'd want it to be written talking about how hard I worked, not how many people I found or baptized or taught or whatever. I don't want my book to talk about all the Fake Plastic Trees I worried about, but how much I served my Heavenly Father and His Cape Verdean children.

Speaking of Cape Verdeans, they're pretty darn funny sometimes, and even though it's funny, sometimes it's frustrating too. Our branch mission leader, Joao, continues to be a character. We had a Branch Council Meeting on Friday where we wanted to talk about how the branch can help our investigators, and he spent the whole time arguing and complaining about 'why we don't have activities like the Nazarene's do', even though he hardly ever shows up the activites we have anyways! Also, on Sunday, we asked him to pass by an investigator and invite him to church (because people are more readily gunna listen to someone like them rather than two white guys from across the ocean), and Joao shows up at the door of this guy and says, 'Hi, the missionaries sent me here to get you to come to church.' After explaining to Joao that he had a headache and a 'sore arm' (Cape Verde excuses for ya), our investigator did NOT end up coming to church.

As for investigators, I think we really only had one that we taught more than once this week, and it's this older guy named Ne, who pretty well stays at his house all the time, because he suffers from pains pretty well all over his body, and doesn't walk very well. He's told us he's been all over the world, including Canada and the States, all around South America, Europe, Russia, Japan, China, Australia (you name it, he's been there), and with him, he's very very willing to listen and try out what we invite him to do, which is very nice, because so many people just like to hear the 'good word of God'. In teaching him this week, we had a very cool moment where he told us about how he felt while reading the Book of Mormon, which had to be my favorite moment all week. It might not have been a whole lot, but it was just a little way we were able to see how the Holy Ghost can work inside of others when they let it in!

Sooooo basically that's been my week, it wasn't a crazy week or exciting week, but I definitely learned something this week. I love y'all, and hope that you all have an incredible week!

Goodnight, and Good Luck

Elder Massey

Workout - Maio style!

Elder Martinez buffing up in preparation for returning home....soon!

My Body is a Cage

OKAY so I know I've used more Arcade Fire song titles than any other band, but maybe that's just because they've got the best song titles :)

M&M's  - Elders Massey and Martinez off sharing the "good word of God"

I find a lot of fun in pulling out gospel principles from some of my favorite songs, and I'm super excited about this one, so if I rant a little too much or sound super dorky, I ask for your pardon.

Win Butler, in introversion, sings a line quite profoundly true in how we work and in how we live as individuals. He laments:
 'My body is a cage that keeps me from dancing with the one I love, but my mind holds the key'.
What he's really saying to us here is that, we have the possiblity to obtain so much in our lives, but our greatest enemy or the thing that holds us back that most, is ourselves. Kinda ironic isn't it? We all want happiness, success, and so much more in life, but far too often, we struggle to find it because of our own obstinate nature (look at me, using big words!). This was something I found really highlighted in my week, in a LOT of ways.

I'll start with the example of a couple investigators we have. One is a younger guy named Keke, he's like 21-23, something like that, and he's a super nice guy, but also quite obnoxious. A few weeks back, we were teaching him and a few of his friends, and he kept hitting his one friend on the top of his head every time we'd ask questions. All I can say is, if I were the friend, I woulda whacked him pretty hard. With that aside, we were teaching him on Sunday afternoon, and asked him why we didn't see him at church, why he hasn't read in the Book of Mormon, etc., and really, his excuses were pretty lame for the most part. We started to go into teaching him the Word of Wisdom, but we got hung up with him about stuff in the Bible (like the word Sabbath translates to Saturday in Portuguese, so there's a HECK ton of people who get upset about that), and we just had to straight up tell him, 'y'know, Keke, we've given you the opportunity to find answers to aaaaaaaall these things, through the Book of Mormon, and you haven't read it. We've invited you to try out to see if these things are true, and you haven't. There really isn't a whole lot else we can do for you' which, is very sad to say, but also really is true. As missionaries, we don't have the ability to exercise his agency for him, and it's his job to use the key we've given him to unlock the door. In all our lives, we've been given the opportunity to act and to choose, and when we choose to not do something, it's really our own fault.

We met another guy, this week, whose name is Va, and he's a boss guy. He was someone the first elders who came to Maio a year back taught, and did super well with. He said that when he met them, he had a super bad drinking problem, but he doesn't drink anymore, and is cutting back on cigarettes as well. When we met him, he was like 'Elders! I've only smoked two cigarettes today!' and we were like 'uhhh, okay...' but then he told us the whole story and it all made sense. We were able to teach him once this week and also commit him to baptism. While the guy certainly isn't perfect, he's using those things in his life to cahnge the way he lives, so that he can find the happiness our Heavenly Father has promised him. Our next step, however, is gunna be to get him to come to church, because we didn't have any investigators come to church (AGAIN), which was certainly frustrating, but at the same time, we can't make people show up to church. Sorry, ranting. My bad.

The last example I had from this week that went super well with this song title (which was why I was so excited to use it) was with myself. There was one day this week where I really felt that I'd hit a wall in my progress indivdually as a missionary, and it annoyed the heck outta me. We taught this one guy named Kaka and Elder Martinez let me do a majority of the teaching, and when we walked out of the lesson, I hated how I had taught it. I don't mean to say that every time we talk to someone needs to be perfect, but I just hated how I felt like I'd stalled, and really, it wasn't anyone's fault but my own. I've gotten used to teaching things in an easy, non-special way, to the extent where I feel like I just hit play when I sit down for a lesson rather than actually talking with the person. So, with that in mind, I started to really work on what my next step needs to be, to get over being a robot missionary, and actaully being a Representative of Christ. I feel like 'my mind holds the key' to get to that next step, I've just gotta use it!

One other funny story from the past week, less about me mental cages and more about physical ones, as I've started to break through some cages that contain me every day, and by that, I mean my pants. Now, Maio is a realtively flat area, which means I have been gaining weight, even in Africa (I know, that's kinda sad). So, this week, we were walking around, and started to kick around this little soccer ball we found while by this little field. Elder Martinez and I were just kind juggling it back and forth when I kicked my leg a little too high in the air and felt a little more leway come from down under, which I soon came to find was a tear in my favorite pants. I thought it was pretty funny, but at the same time, I'm a little sad because they were my favorite pants.

Anyways, those are my (many) thoughts from the past week! Hope y'all have had a good one too!

Elder Massey

              Typical African woman carrying her load on her head....never ceases to amaze me!

We're Going to be Friends

Just as Jack White sings about experiencing his first day of school and saying, 'We don't notice any time pass', when we have fun in the work, it works exactly the same! It is way more enjoyable to always make friends while we work, because if we do, then the work doesn't seem to be work!

With that, we have two real options in our missionary work: we can either work to get numbers, or we can go out to work with the love of our Savior. In going on a mission, they always tell you that you need to love the people, and before this week, I might not have really understood what that meant, but I think I'm starting to get it.

More than anything, this week we did a lot of just talking to people on the street, getting to know them, and just helping people understand that, while we're still missionaries, we too are just regular people, underneath our sometimes stiff white shirts and rather out-of-place dress. Something Elder Martinez has been helping me understand is that we don't need to just go up to them and abruptly tell them about religion, but how to get on a similar level to the people here, so that we can just better relate to them. One lesson this week, I just talked with one of our investigators, who happens to be 18 as well, about math and physics and just whatever, which was just kinda fun, and different than how I've been approaching the work prior to this, really.

  

                      The sign on the door reads "Strange People Prohibited from Entering...."

                                      Let's try that again....    Guess they are just too strange!!!!  

 

In getting to be friends with people, there's a LOT of room to have more fun with the people here. We've had a couple days where we spent time at Louisa's house, because we've been re-teaching her the 5 lessons that we go over with people, and Elder Martinez has gained a the nickname of 'Chinese' from her, since the people here aren't all that used to seeing Hispanic people, and even though he tried to deny it, she continues to call us 'Massey and Chinese'. 

 

 (likely the explanation as to why they weren't permitted entry in the photo above!!  haha)

In our continuing work with our Branch Mission Leader, Joao, we always seem to get classic moments with him. In walking around with him, we asked him about his plans to get married and such, as he is 33 and single, and he informed us that he wants us to help him in his search, and told us that there is an abundance of single LDS girls 'back in America' that are just waiting to find someone to marry, but they can't because there aren't enough LDS guys (not true), and so he wants us to tell girls back home about him, in hopes that he can find a wife of his own. We tried to explain to him that there aren't exactly girls back home just waiting around to marry a random Cape Verdean who doesn't speak all that much English, and who doesn't have a real career, but he told us that we're wrong and that there are many waiting. So, in a plea of help, if there are ANY within the sound of my voice (*cough* internet blog) that want to marry a 33 year old guy from Maio, let me know! Hahaha

Also, in our work with Chano and Milcialita, we've continued to make friends beyond the bounds of the human race, as we've come to make quite good friends with their pet goat, Steve, who, in his growth, produces a large amount of bodily fluids, and so, we've broadened our work with these two from gospel perspectives to helping them clean up from that which Steve leaves behind! I'm also starting to pick up a third language here, other than Portuguese and Creole, with that being goat-bleating. I hope to come home fluent!

       Looking tough with the baby bottle!  Goat feeding brings out that tough side in everyone!

So, that more or less describes our week; it's been a week of working hard and having a lot of fun along the way!

I love all y'all, and even though my Canadian accent may be diminishing (as according to my beloved family), I hope all is going well in your various parts of the world!

Elder Massey

Normal Person

  Scenes from Maio

Win Butler asks us the question, 'is anything as strange as a normal person?'

The world around is is FILLED to the brim with these normal people, people that want to follow what the world has, and what the world tells them to do. Now, you would think that maybe there's a chance that, being on an island in the middle of the Atlantic ocean would give you the chance of getting away from the world, but in reality, it's just about impossible to get away from. All we really have to ask ourselves is, 'if we're normal too', just as Win Butler asks.

And do we wanna be normal people? HECK no!

For some reason, Maio has turned into normal people CENTRAL this week! First of all, we knew that the 3rd of May party was coming up (that was the one where people were going around dancing in the streets at houses and asking for money and stuff), but we really weren't expecting for all that happened to happen.

For the early part of the week, it was all pretty normal business. Elder Martinez and I dropped Elder Stone off at the very small Maio airport on Tuesday, and after he left, we became the only two elders in the mission (or so we believe) to have an island all to ourselves.It's pretty darn cool when you think about it.

                                                      Saying Goodbye to Elder Stone

 We've continued to work with Louisa this week, keeping her on track, but she had a friend pass away, so it became hard to find her for a few days. We had her at church again yesterday though which was awesome! 

We've also been working with Chano and Milcialita, as always, and eating some dang good food there. One new development at there house is the appearance of a baby goat, named Steve, who was born something like a week or two ago, and they're housing him til he's strong enough or big enough or whatever.

 I thought it was so funny, I've never seen a goat as a house pet before! Missionary-wise, we're continuing to work with them to getting married, and one part of that was talking with them this week about our own families. Elder Martinez and I brought pictures of our families with us and talked about what they meant to us, the examples that our parents have been for us, and how they've helped us become the people we are today. There's been a noticeable difference with Chano and Milcialita these past few weeks as they've really been reading the scriptures and      growing closing together. Maybe Steve helped them too, who knows?

Towards the end of the week, the work started to wash out a bit. On Friday, May 1st was 'Worker's Day' here in Cape Verde, which meant NO ONE was at home, but they were all having picnics on beaches at various points on the island. The night before, however, was some kind of concert that happened to be held RIGHT outisde our house, which was VERY loud, and meant that we didn't fall asleep til about 12 or 1am. Let me tell ya, that 6:30am alarm sure came early...

Then, on Saturday, all those 'normal people' who happened to go partying were still a little stiff from the day before, including a few of our investigators. One night, we ran into one of our investigators, Iata, near the church, so we took him on a brief tour of our new chapel and such, but MAN, Iata was more drunk than I've just about seen anyone EVER. He walked into the church, saw a picture of Christ and his disciples, and got all quiet, did the whole Catholic-cross thingy, and bowed his head and started mumbling, and we told him, 'hey, man, you don't have to do that...' but he just did his thing, and when he was done having his moment, looked up and went, 'okay, I'm all good' and then we turned him around to keep going through the church, when he saw a picture of the Second Coming, and he threw his arms in the air, and went 'MY BROTHER', and proceeded to have another moment. He ALSO kissed another picture in the church. By the end of the tour, I felt straight up sick because of the alcohol on his breath, like holy it was bad. I had to put my Book of Mormon to my nose to cover from smelling it!

Sunday was more or less the same deal, with people partying all over different streets. We decided to pass by Nelson, who had told us earlier in the week he might me going to the army, so we decided to see if he'd gone or not, but when we showed up at his house, his mom sat us down, and told us he's gone straight up rogue. Like, earlier this week, the guy had to be just about the happiest guy on the island, like he was seriously glowing, but apparently the past couple days, he's been stealing phones, selling them, getting into drugs, hiding out in houses, like apparently the guy has cops after him because so many people have gone to the cops about stuff he's taken from them, and this has just been over 2 or 3 days! Elder Martinez and I were thoroughly shocked when we heard what was going on with him. I'll keep ya posted on developments as they follow.

So, moral of the story, is we don't want to be normal people. It's often been said about members of the church that we are a peculiar people, and honestly, I can't think of a more fitting title for how I feel sometimes in Maio. I wouldn't trade being a peculiar person for being a normal person ANY day!

It's amazing how incredible the work of the Lord can be!

Elder Massey

Swallowed in the Sea

 As Chris Martin sings in a dearly beloved Coldplay song, 'You cut me down to size, and opened up my eyes; made me realize what I could not see'. I guess if I've learned anything so far in my three months in Cape Verde, is that often times, things really don't ever go according to plan, no matter how hard we may try. With this, we really have two choices: we can either get frustrated about it, or, we can roll with the bumps in the road, trusting that our Heavenly Father has in store for us that which 'could not see'.

This week, this really was the story that went totally along with how things unfolded with our investigator Louisa, who had been progressing super well, but had her fair share of struggles. We were under the belief, at the beginning of the week, that she would be going to Praia for a few days, and likely wouldn't return for a week or so, which was gunna push us back a bit with her baptism, but on Monday night, she expressed to us that she would not go to Praia until she'd been baptized, and that she was ready to put aside everything so that she could be baptized. It was freaking COOL! So, as we worked with her to progress to baptism on the Saturday, we also talked with her daughters, who are 9 and 11, about being baptized with her. It was all going super super well, and Louisa was like rock solid in everything, including Word of Wisdom, Law of Chastity, all that stuff, so we were like PUMPED for Saturday. I think it was the Thursday we went by her house to go over the baptismal interview questions with her and her daughters, and again it was going super well, like her daughters told us they believed Joseph Smith was a prophet, all this kinda stuff, and then we got to the last question, which was, 'will you follow and be baptized?', and Louisa, right off, said yes, but her daughters were like 'well, I've already been baptized. I was baptized in the Catholic church. How many times was Jesus baptized?', which were all answers that were fed to them by Louisa's ex-man, John, who doesn't want any of them to get baptized, so they declined being baptized, which kinda bummed us out, but it was all still good. Then, when we passed by her house before her baptism to pick her up, John called us up and started telling us all this crap and asking if we were the church of Satan, and fun stuff like that. We pretty quickly realized that this baptism day was not going to go smooth, like we had hoped for. We managed to get out of the house with Louisa, and got everything all sorted out before the service, at which point we thought, 'PHEW, we're all good now', but, being Cape Verde, it can never be as such. The service itself was just not well run, because our branch president is out of town for the weekend, and Elder Stone and I were just getting frustrated because of all the little things we saw going wrong. We got down to the beach after a short service in the chapel, and we were still feeling this same frustrations, but I guess the Lord decided to 'cut us down', because the second we walked into the water with her, all those feelings washed away.

 

 As we stood there and watched her become swallowed in the sea (man, my water puns are ON today), I just felt such a strong relief, it was awesome. It's suuuuuper easy to get caught up in soooo many little things, but when we kinda take that step back and let it all go, it's incredible to see how much our Heavenly Father does to take us where he knows we need to go. Louisa's been such an incredible blessing, and from the time we first met her as a drunk on the street to seeing her be baptized, the change in her was indescribable. It was freaking BOSS, and it's times like that where it's freaking AWESOME to be a missionary.

                                 What happens when young men are left without adult supervision...

                                     they come up with an idea to "eat" their departing district leader!

Other than our work with Louisa, this week has been an awful strange week. Elder Ernst, our District Leader, has died (as in, finished his mission) and left us on Friday, so for 3 full days of the week, we existed in a tri-panionship, which was a lot of fun. Before Elder Ernst left, he did a division with us, so I went and worked with Elder Martinez in his area, and stayed over at their house, while Elder Ernst worked with my comp, Elder Stone. When I was out with Elder Martinez, it was kinda cool to see how much I've learned since my last division with him, back about 9 or so weeks, and we just had a super fun time walking around with our branch mission leader, Joao, who is DEFINITELY slightly crazy.  

One other fun thing that happened this week was a night we had at Chano and Milcialita's, after Elder Ernst had left. We'd found this Creole guide, which had a TON of just totally random Creole words, such as a funny word to obsess over something, a word for being cross-eyed, to fail a grade in school, name ANYTHING and basically they have a weird word in Creole for it. What we did was read off the strangest ones we could find, and Chano or Milcialita would try and describe it for us, and MAN we were all laughing pretty darn good. Half the fun of being in Cape Verde is learning Creole, cuz it's seriously such a funny language.

So, with that, this week marked the END of me being a Greenie, and I have now reached status as a full-functioning, not-totally-incompetent, missionary. However, since the transfer ended, transfers came! For us, Elder Stone received his transfer to go to Tarrafal, on the island of Santiago, while Elder Martinez and I will be staying here, as the ONLY companionship on the island of Maio. We had figured as such would be happening, but it was a relief when we heard from President Mathews and had it confirmed.

                     Goodbye to Elder Stone!  A great trainer!  Wishing him all the best in Tarrafal!

Well, there's my week for ya! I hope my ramblings aren't tooooooo annoying!

Love y'all!

Elder Massey

intervention

                                                                            

                                       



Sometimes, we can feel like the soldier described by Win Butler in the Arcade Fire song, 'Intervention', who groans and says, ' we'll go at it alone', but when you're working on the Lord's side, you NEVER have to go at it alone.

With that said, this week had a direct theme of divine 'intervention' in our work (HAH, that was good, wasn't it?), and it was truly incredible to see.

In the most blatant miracle of the week, we were able to find a solution for our one investigator, Louisa, who was finding it difficult to find a way to completely live the Law of Chastity, as she has been living with a man (who she doesn't want to live with), and has a medical condition that doesn't allow her to work to provide for herself. However, this week, they were able to resolve and make a court date (yes, I was shocked too, I didn't think Maio had a court...) for a legal issue they'd previously had, in which they believe the result will be she will be allowed to keep the house to live with her kids, and that he will likely have to move out. When we heard this, Elder Stone and I basically had our jaws drop because of how incredible a solution it was, and how directly involved our Heavenly Father was in helping her out. On top of this, Louisa has been working to overcome a smoking problem, having already dropped drinking, and because of her faith, has been very successful in doing so. While she still isn't perfect, she has dropped the amount she has smoked significantly, and went three full days without smoking this week, which was amazing. We having been working with her to be baptized on the 25th of April, with her two daughters, but it's looking like she's going to Praia for a few days this week to sort out her medical clearance, and may not come back in time. However, this past week has shown incredible progress on her part, and we were directly able to see how Heavenly Father intervened in her life.

Another example of intervention this week was found in our investigator Nelson, who we had feared we may had lost after an issue arose the week past, but this week, it all turned around. We taught him twice this week, with our first lesson being a very 'do-or-die' situation, but because of his incredible faith, he's getting back in line. He found that his issues were sorting out, which he even told us was a blessing from Heavenly Father, and the week culminated in him showing up to church of his own accord, after trying to get him to come for the better part of these past 11 weeks here in Maio. When he walked through the door to church on Sunday, it was pretty easy to see how much of a straight up miracle it was for him to have come. While he was our only investigator to come to church this week, Elder Stone and I were OFF THE WALL to have him show up. It was pretty darn freakin' awesome.

In one more short example of intervention, we had  to re-visit the basics with Chano and Milcialita this week, which meant reading and praying every single day. We had a very direct lesson with them where we challenged them to do these simple things, and when we returned last night, we had decided to follow up with them about these commitments. The SECOND that I asked them how their commitments were going, they both SHOUTED that they had both read AND prayed every day, having gone from 1 Nephi 11 to chapter 18 in about 2 or 3 days, which is pretty darn awesome. They were ecstatic to tell us how much they'd loved it, and just that they'd actually done it. It was so so awesome, and we were all laughing pretty good because of the outburst they made.

Okay, now that I've bored you enough, here's just some funny happenings from this week:

This week marked the start of an annual Maio tradition, where a party is held on the 3rd of May, and to prepare for it, people (of any age) go around at night, EVERY night, playing drums, horns, and singing, in mobs, to houses to get money to pay for food and such at the party. Apparently it is a huge tradition here, and it was very very funny to watch. Basically, it's mobs going around, in the dark, being very very loud, and demanding money at doors. Cape Verdeans love to party, man!

In another funny moment, we were wandering around on Sunday, heading to a lesson, when one of our investigators stopped us in his car and told us that the other Elder's house, who he lives next to, was flooding water out onto the street from the second floor. We BOOKED it over there and went in to find like 2 inches of water EVERYWHERE in the house, with a tap spitting out water like crazy in the kitchen. After calling the other Elders over, we then made a tactical plan of attack, and spent the next 2 to 3 hours sweeping, mopping, and toweling up water on the floor, before having dried up the whole mess. Needless to say, we were left exhausted, and we had a fun slumber party at our housewith them after. Luckily, not much was damaged, and we all had good fun cleaning it up :)
 The "baptism" of the elders house!

Now, I wanted to save the funniest story for last. During a lesson with Louisa, her son, Fabricio, came in, and asked her mom for the equivalent of about 50 cents to go and buy cookies. She gave him the money, and was on his way, and we thought nothing of it. 15 minutes later, one of Louisa's daughters dragged him into the room with an empty pop bottle, and said something I didn't understand in Creole, but it became very apparent that Fabricio had not bought cookies, but bought GROG, which is essentially moonshine. So, a 5 year old kid went out, and for 50 cents, got SLAMMED, and MAN it was funny. It started out with him just standing and giggling, but very quickly he started to laugh more, and more, and more. It got to the point where he would sit on the bed with his mom, look at us, and just lay back and howl laughing. Then, he would get up, try to leave, and stumble and hit the floor. He tried again, and again to get up, but he keep stumbling over and hitting the floor. MAN it was funny!! I was dying laughing. It was so funny, I've decided to enclose a picture of us with our favorite drunk 5 year old, who is pictured sitting in between us.

So, this week has been quite the eventful week, but I wouldn't have had it any other way!

Love y'all!

Elder Massey