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