Sprawl I (Flatland)

Elder Crooks and Elder Massey

 Upon arriving in Sal, I felt very much like Win Butler, when he sings about taking 'a drive through the sprawl', one because the city of Santa Maria happens to be quite more developed than what I've been used to so far, and also because of how flat it is here, as the song's subtitle references. In my last area, Elder Martinez told me to not worry about how much weight I gained in Maio, because I would definitely lose it in my next area, but when I found out my newest area happens to be likely the flattest area in the mission, I very quickly realized that the weight gain will likely continue.
 (Ever considered adjusting your eating habits???)

Santa Maria, Sal - clearly a little more modern than Maio!

I'll update y'all if any more pants find a way to rip. 

(He requested that I send some new larger pants...hope he can last a few more weeks until they arrive!)

In the Arcade Fire song, Win Butler sings about how, in driving through the city, he sees that the town is 'built to change', and, as such, we're here as missionaries to change the people of Santa Maria! A lot of the work that we've been doing this past week has been in finding new people to teach, as we already have some solid investigators, but not necessarily a lot, and in our goal to be teaching 3 lessons a day, we need to find more people to teach! A lot of how we spent our week revolved around contacting people, which was actually very enjoyable; it's been about the first time on my mission so far that I've actually ENJOYED talking to people randomly on the street! Maybe that's because the people here speak more Portuguese than Creole and I can actually understand them, but either way, it's becoming something Elder Crooks and I have had a lot of fun doing. We've actually had more than a fair share of people call us over and ask us to come over and talk to them, which was super legit. The only problem has been actually coming into contact with these people again... 

For this week, not a whole lot of incredible significance happened, but lots of little funny things did happen. In our contacts, we've had a few classic ones. One day, we were sitting on the side walk, and this guy came over and sat in front of us, and pulled out this like air filter box or SOMETHING, I have no clue what it was, BUT he proceeded to tell us that it was top secret, in dead seriousness with a smile on his face, and that he's a spy. Kinda weird that his name was something like Elohim... uhhhhhh

Another classic one was this guy we met inside a place where we get shwarma.  Before I continue, I want to mention, that the shwarma we get is just about the closest thing existing to fast food here and it's wonderful. It's hamburger, with french fries, tomatoes, onions, ketchup, AND mayo, ALL inside a tortilla. If that doesn't sound like heaven to you, then I feel very sorry for you (unless you happen to be vegetarian, then I apologize). 

(Here's an idea:  Cut back on the shwarma and maybe you won't be busting out of your pants!...)

 

ANYWAYS, we were waiting for our shwarma, and this guy came up to us, who had had MORE than his fair share of drinks, and he was speaking English to us, and going all weepy on us and stuff, so we gave him a pamphlet with our number on it, and to call us when he wants to talk and such, after which he graciously said a tearful thank you, and resumed dancing to the relentless funaná for a few minutes, before coming back, and telling Elder Arteaga the whole story he gave us all over again, getting even more weepy. It was pretty classic watching him go from dancing like crazy to crying to dancing to crying again. We ran into him again the next day and marked with him to talk, but we never had luck finding him again. It was a funny experience for all of us. 

 

 

(The little guy in front's name is Messias but goes by Messi - which in Portuguese sounds just like Massey so they have developed a strong bond!  He and his brother are "robbing" the missionaries or as they say in Portuguese "cash or body".  Let's hope this never really happens....)

One other classic story from this week was how I resumed my duties as Branch Pianist, even though I'm on a different island. Apparently nobody here knows how to play, so I got to step up and play for our slightly larger crowd of almost 60 members. Since it was not known before hand the limits of my playing abilities, I was told to play the already chosen hymns, which, for the most part, went perfectly fine, until I hit the last hymn, 'Jesus, Minha Luz', or, 'The Lord is My Light'. That one did NOT go well at ALL for me, I caused  so many flubs that the British couple who were seated right in front of me (on their honeymoon) were practically killing themselves laughing. All in all, it was an enjoyable AND embarrassing (perhaps humbling...) experience. Thinking I'll be asking our Branch President to pick hymns out of the simplified book from now on ... 

(Apparently it wasn't completely awful as he has been asked if he can teach some members there how to play....might be looking to Mama for a little help with that job!)

 Anyways, that's just about all I got for this week, hoping all is well wherever this finds you!

Elder Massey, the ever-so-slightly-heavier 

(He now weighs more than his dad....)

 

I Should Live in Salt

 (No pictures this week as Elder Massey 2.0 got transferred to a new island!  He is now serving in the city of Santa Maria on the island of Sal.  His companion is Elder Crooks from Texas.  He was excited to have a short reunion with an MTC buddy -  Elder McMullin -  before he left for Fogo. So grateful for the time he spent on Maio with Elder Stone and Elder Martinez.  They were both excellent companions who taught him so much)



I don't know if this weeks email will be grand or super inspiration or well detailed, so I apologize in advance.

In remorse, Matt Berninger of the National sings of expectations that he can't fill, and how he resorts to almost frustration or anger when others don't understand his state, saying, 'you should have know me better than that'. Sometimes, it's super super easy to get down on ourselves when we aren't able to achieve what we truly want, but it's when we're down on ourselves that we've gotta stand up and fight the hardest! Like I've said many times in my emails, in our work, there's always a certain amount of pressure to get done what the Zone Leaders have set for us, and when we can't achieve it, sometimes, I just wanna turn my shoulder and be like, 'You know we can't do that! That's WAY too hard for us to do! This is Maio, not Praia, we can't get those same numbers!', and some days, it gets in your head and gets you down because you simply can't achieve those kinds of things, but that doesn't mean it should make us feel estranged, or frustrated or some word that's big and descriptive like that. This week, I really learned what it is to psuh forward and just give it, even when you've got nothing left, because somedays in Maio, it felt like that. 

Elder Martinez and I were super blessed this week to find success in ways we never thought it would, but it wasn't without our work. One day, everything seemed to be going right, we were teaching all over the place, talking to people, and were just constantly busy, and then the next two days, found absolutely NOTHING to work with. There were two days where we had 1 lesson combined between those two, which is really tough, when the standard or goal is to get 3 every single day. It was really tough in there for a bit. 

However, we didn't do all of our work for nothing, because on Sunday, we got one of the best blessings we could receive to finish off the last day of the transfer: we got one of our investigators to church, the first time it happened ALL transfer! When we passed by our investigator, Kennedy, 10 minutes before church and he was getting ready to go, we were so pumped, it was SO awesome. He came with us to ALL 3 hours of church, the members acceptted him in, sat with him, talked with him, asked him questions, and became friends with him. It had such an impact on Kennedy, that he even bore his testimony during testimony meeting! There was such a happy feeling at church on Sunday, that all the struggle we went through the days before was all worth it. IT was freaking darn awesome!

Even though Maio was tough, Elder Martinez was a super good example to me. One night while we talked on the roof, he told me, 'y'know, sometimes I feel bad because I feel like I haven't made a dent in Maio, but then I realize, it's Maio that's made the dent in me', and having had served there for the past 4 months, I am so grateful for the opportunities it's given me to learn in grow in SO many ways. 

So, you're probably thinking, 'what? you're not on Maio anymore?' and whether or not you're thinking that, the answer to that question is 'NO! I am no longer on Maio!' I have been transfered to the island of Sal, which literally means 'salt' in Portuguese, due to the high amounts of salt in the islands interior.

However, therein lies the true reason I picked this song title for today; you could say that President thought I should go to Sal, so now, I live in Sal(t). HAH!

Okay, that's about all I've got for this week, I'll get back next week with updates on Sal and the city of Santa Maria, which I'm currently working in, with my new companion, Elder Crooks. 

Love you all back home!

Elder Massey

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