11/28/11

So I'm guessing that we are staying in boston the night A) to not arive in utah at 3 am and B) because Delta probably didn't have a flight to Utah that day and the church gets cheaper tickets with Delta. And I think we stop in Minneapolis for refueling but who knows. just delta and God. So I've had 4 areas (this being my fourth) and our house is an appt but it's still big enough to be a house. Just the fact that our landlord lives above us makes it an appt. And yes we have stayed in the same area. Anywho sounds like midnight madness was both at midnight and madness. Probably just like walking down the street in praia though. Just no street venders trying to sell you fish at random moments. And yes I was actually going to right you about the money thing. I took out some money to pay for some things i've been needing for a while. Then we've been moving lots of houses and paying for expensive stuff so I had to use my mission money on that so when it came time to buy food the secretaries still hadn't (and still haven't) rembursed me for all the other stuff so I had to pull out personal money to pay for food. Now I have no mission money, no personal money and the secretaries fail at doing their job so we have no food for this week. We SHOULD get money tomorrow but who knows. Maybe I'll start my fast of 40 days this week (actually it probably would have been better to start it last week). so here's what happened this week that lead to us being broke. Well actually we started being broke the week before but like i said lazy secretaries. So since it was transfer monday last week we had to pick up people from the airport. We had 4 sisters come in on tuesday and one of the companionships is opening a new area here so they needed to buy things for their house. They didn't have enough money for that so we had to lend money. Then we had to pay for a truck to take them about 2hrs to the other side of the island where their area is. That cost us about 70$ We also had to do that last week to take what we already had for them to that house and go to a house who's area was being shut down so more money. We had to buy a washing machine for the elders in brava because theirs broke (luckly we had a check from president for that). Then on thursday we had 2 more elders arrive so we had to send a taxi to pick them up from the airport (and we still have not payed the taxi driver whom we owe 40$ish.) And then on friday we had to go on the other side of the island to do baptismal interviews and that was more money. So yeah that is what happened. We also had another baptism this week even though we didn't initially know who was going to be baptized this week so that was good. He is also going to america in a few weeks which is cool but not so cool for us because we need more melkezidec preisthood holders so we can have a stake here in fogo. Last time we had a meeting about it we were missing about 60 on the island in order to have a stake. So we either got to baptize some more or reactivate inactives. Some of the sisters were even sent here just for that purpose. Their mission ends in a few weeks and president sent them here to work with less actives so hopefully that helps us out. Well I'm tired and broke and need to write president still so have a good we everyone.
love
e.weiss

11/21/11

11/21/11
Well transfers came and passed. Nothing exciting. I´m staying here with Elder Cuestas the other 2 elders that live in our house are staying. another companionship is staying and we get 2 new elders. Not too exciting. And no we probably will not be having thanksgiving dinner. Our island is without a senior couple which means Christmas will probably be really boring as well. oh well maybe we will have a dance party in my gigantic house. And I can´t say I´ve seen any live turkeys here. Oh so if you didn´t figure out by the email I forwarded to you I got my travel itinerarymabob. So looks like I´m going to Boston then spending the night then I´m going to Minneapolis and then salt lake. so technically I won´t be home until the 28th of march. Does that make you angry mom that not only do I have an extra day in my mission because of leap year but it will also be 4 more days until I get home. So does that mean the first Sunday I get home is general conference? or will it be the week after? You better tell bishop not to schedule my home coming talk on the same day as elder Vance. Oh and those flight plans also apply to elder Vance because his family moved to Utah (a long time ago) so you´ll get to meet my spirit brother. We share the same liquidy substance that makes up spirits. Like getting the chili ready for a bake sale. Anywho sounds like your having fun with your new calling while I´m still in the exact same calling I have been for the past 6 months. Yay. So this week we had quiet a lot of success. Lately the focus of the mission is finding Melchizedek priesthood holders and we found 5 this week. We were told by a general authority that we need about 60 more Melchizedek priesthood holders in Fogo to become a stake so were really working on baptizing people of that age or reactivating people that already have the priesthood. And no I haven´t gotten my package yet but people are coming from praia on Thursday so maybe they will have it. And as for the baptism goal 14 weeks running. And no Mike hasn´t written me from ghana but he wrote me before. I´m sure he is busy. Anywho our week wasn´t that exciting. We stayed almost the whole week in our area. I actually got to kill my Pai E. Moreira. He spent his last teaching day with us because he had to fly out the next day. He´ll be in Brazil 11 pm my time. And we had a baptism this week. She´s a friend of our baptism last week. Then we had a member teach apostasy over the pulpit on Sunday so that was fun. and yeah that was our week. Oh and Mike is getting dresses for all the women so I might have to get suits for all the men when I´m in praia. I already have my own. I´ll have to send a photo of it. Well love you all and hope you have a good week!
love
e.weiss

Email from 11/14/11

HELLO!
Sorry did I scare you? hope so. uh I mean not. So as to having a lovely day... sure why not. I had to close a house down in another area and I messed up on the one and only check we had so now we have to do an electronic transfer and we also had to open a house about an hour and a half away from our house by car (doesn´t sound far but remember an hour and a half by car means on the other side of the island) and get back here in time to do all the stuff we need to. So that´s how my day is going. And how big were you thinking that boat is like a row boat? It´s actually really big. And we were going to another island not on p-day because we needed some vacation time. Just some time to get away from the kids. And I´m trying to translate this phrase "So out of sorts". And his family is from Dallas Texas. ok fine I guess I´ll remind you that his parents are Colombian. And we didn´t call president. We actually told him about it at dinner. President got rid of the stupid idea to call in every night to say that you´re home. He has to trust us when we say it so why not just trust that we are home? It´s actually REALLY nice and causes less problems. And I think I might be all cleaned out by the time I get home. And if you really want to wait until next October to clean the house I guess you can invite cuestas... We might have a really dirty house by then but go for it. And the restaurant we ate at was part of the hotel and I had really expensive spaghetti that I could have made at home for a fourth of the price. And guess you get to be in young women's again. HA! Just kidding I´m sure it will be a wonderful uplift experience full of..... And don´t ask me what to do about your counselors that´s between you and God. You pray look through names until you feel something on certain people then pray again. Just like using shampoo. Pray lather repeat. Já stá. Anywho I´ll try and upload photos today and I need to send some contract stuff to the mission office so I´ll summarize my week quickly. We had a General authority visit us this week. Elder Gerald Causé of the 1st quorum of the 70. So Tuesday night E. Cuestas translated a fireside for him. Wed we had zone conference with him, Thurs me and cuestas flew to praia to have a meeting with him on Saturday (and after the meeting a bought a sweet suit) and sat we flew back and had a baptism. And Sunday was the only full day we had in our area. Yay for summaries.
Love you
e.weiss

Email from 11/7/11

Halloween. I almost forgot it happened this year. Wow you know what. Until the very end when you asked if I got the package (no by the way) there wasn't a single question in there. WOW. How did you do that? Anywho I already knew about Penny as of last week and I'm thinking that the first dog is not going to be changed but the second dog will be. And then there will be 2 little demo...er dogs running around at the same time trying to kill everyone. YAY. Anywho since I didn't see any questions I can tell you about our...fun(?) exciting(?) normal(?) week. So Tuesday we had a little situation with the Elders living in our house. 2 of the Elders that were not companions, whom had already lived next to each other once before, had been spending a lot of time together. So much time that it was interrupting there studies and the work. So much that when the Senior couple that was here ended their mission president moved one of the companionship's to that house, to try and separate them so something would get done. Well they decided that they still were going to hang out together and we had to call president about it. That day our six elder house, turned into a 2 elder house. 2 of the elders got sent back to praia to go have interviews with president and one of them almost got sent home (let's just say not his first offense) and the 2 elders companions became companions (or in other words companionship AB and CD became companionship BD while AC got sent to Praia)[wow who said that you weren't going to use math in the real world]. So me and elder cuestas had that gigantic house to ourselves. Then we found out that the senior couple from sao vicent was going to come stay in fogo for a week for humanitarian aid and stuff like that. So the other Elders had to move back into our house after moving all there stuff up there just barely. So the house is back to the 4 of us. Also, more fun stuff from the week, we had planned to go to Brava on wed. So wed. night we go to the dock. The boat is late (normal) but we finally get on and get going. The boat is rocking (like normal) which doesn't bother either of us. After about an hour journey on the boat we hear the motor stop and we are just floating in the water and still rocking pretty bad. We wait there for about 10 min until the captain comes out and tells us that there is another boat in the Brava dock with a blown engine and it's impossible to move. Therefor it is impossible for us to dock and we have to turn around and go back to Fogo. So we did. And we traveled through a really bad storm and the boat was rocking and people were getting really sick and we heard plates from the kitchen crash on the ground and elder cuestas started getting dizzy and almost passed out and I gave him a blessing in the middle of all that noise and everything. I also was already a little sick before we got on the boat so the boats movements and crashing and bouncing into the waves wasn't exactly helping. But we made it back to the dock without problems, our taxi driver was willing to pick us up even though it was like 11ish at night. And we finally got back to the house at about 12:15ish. We got in got undressed and prayed and I layed down and I was not feeling good at all so I had E. Cuestas give me a blessing and then everything was fine. It was a really helpful blessing and not just for my health. THEN! (no we are still not finished with our fun week) Thursday we wake up and we have absolutely nothing planned for that day because we were supposed to be in brava. So what did we do? Clean the house. From 10:00 am until 9:30 Pm we cleaned that house because our landlord wanted to inspect the house and sister Oliveira wanted us to prepare the house for her (the landlord). Let's just say that house was prepared. Our landlord was thrilled. Sister Oliveira was thrilled and we were thrilled with our perfectly clean house. Then on Friday we took a car to Cova Figueira (another area) to do more baptism interviews and then came back. Made lunch and the landlord came by to do her inspection. Then at night I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to organize all the other baptism interviews while Elder Cuestas was helping people with their papers for going to the temple. Then on Saturday we had to have our baptisms in the morning because of district conference so we had 2 of our people show up and the other went to the outskirts that day and wouldn't make it on time. So we had the baptism of the two and then right after we had the baptism of the third because he showed up right as the service ended and Pres. Oliveira told us we should still do his baptism. Then we had lunch and I took a 3 hour power nap and taught one of our investigators who will get baptized next week. Then Sunday morning we had district conference which was good but at the same time hard to pay attention because the only place big enough to hold the entire district of Fogo was an indoor soccer stadium. So it was really difficult for the people in the back to pay attention. And that night and the previous our house had once again turned into a 6 elder house because the elders from brava were there as well. Then to end our hectic week. At 7 president asked us to bring some forms to him at his hotel and obviously we did. We went there and talked about our zone with him and his wife and then out of nowhere they invited us to have dinner with them at their hotel. They took us to the restaurant in the hotel and we sat down and had dinner with president his wife and the 2nd counselor in the mission presidency. It was the strangest thing but at the same time so relaxing and helpful. We didn't even feel like we were in cape verde. And we just got to talk and joke with president and his wife. Oh and that meal was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO expensive I can't believe he payed for us. But it was a good end to our lovely week. He also told us that we are the best zone leaders that this mission has ever seen which was nice. And that was my crazy week. Hope you like it all and have one a little less crazy.

love

e.weiss