Email from 11/29/10

BLUE MAN GROUP WITHOUT ME! Rude. And first of all we have invited youbefore and then after we saw the movie you said that we you had neverbeen invited. That’s funny about the clerk wearing the t-shirt. If youhaven´t sent off that other package can you send me another oil vial.The glass tube in my last one broke and apparently the missionaries inthe office said they don´t have any there. Hey I was gonna ask you ifanyone had gotten a mission call yet. Wiggy for him. That means hegets to learn French and philipineese or whatever it is called. Sothanksgiving was pretty fun. We went to the Adam´s home and there wasabout 20 missionaries there and they bought a turkey (a reallyexpensive turkey it was like 60 bucks) and we had mashed potatoes (idkif they scraped off the film on the water or not) and corn andstuffing and rolls and bananas which I must say I´ve never had atthanksgiving. And then people brought deserts like brownies and oneelder made donuts that were really good and it was fun. And delicious.And the 2 hour nap after was lovely. Oh so here´s something you´ll beproud to hear. I deep cleaned our house today. Like really deepcleaned. I couldn´t do anything about the paint peeling off the wallbut my bathroom and kitchen is very very clean. I told e. Jones thatwe're not aloud to go in there anymore. Unless you take a shower firstthen you can go in the kitchen. Also I don´t think this house has everbeen cleaned until now. Well what else has happened this week. Oh Igave a talk in church as well this week. about perseverar até o fim.It was fun. And easy since that’s what I do every day just it was tomore people at once that time. And without questions that I expectedanswers for. Well I’ve been talking with my comp about transfers andwe both reasoned out that I´ll probably stay here one more transferbut that’s not for sure and in case that happens I think we´ll becalling you from a phone call place here. If not than you´ll probablyhave to call our cell phone but like I said idk yet. Well I still needto read your second email so I guess I´ll get to that nowlovee.weiss

Email from 11/15/10

Hi i couldn´t come up with a clever response this week. Or work assomebody else wrote. Were trying to help our area progress but I thinkI already told you it´s one of the oldest areas in the mission andeveryone here has talked to the missionaries it seems like. However wedid find a guy named Julio this week and he talked with the eldersbefore and now its our turn with him. He was pretty smart and talkedabout how repentance shouldn´t be something that you have to confessto a priest but something between you and God and the person youwronged. But he only has time to talk with us at the end of the weekso it´s going to be tough to teach him. And no false things beingpreached over the pulpit but he has talked about that in eldersquorum.
Hey so I feel like I´m back inBethleham because our lovely muslim neighbors have a goat tied up onthe floor of there apartment. Yeah I don´t know what its about I justhope they don´t sacrifice it in the house.

Email from 11/11/10

DAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I wish I was there. kinda. Not really cause thenthere would be coldness and I don´t know if I´ll be able to handlethat when I get home. And so you went to the bar to watch the game didyou? Hmmm do I need to call the missionaries in your area and havethem give you people a good old talk about a palavra de sabédoria? Ithink so. Any who did you have an incident in the bar like you did atthe game last time or is everyone there used to getting drunk so theycan control themselves a little better? I don´t know if I´ll wait forChristmas to open my package because Christmas is the 1st week of nexttransfer and there’s a high chance that I´m leaving this island so Idon´t have to want to worry about the weight limit with the package.So I guess I won´t have to act surprised. However if I do stay here wewill be having a Christmas party with this island but not with theothers. I´ll probably get transferred though since I´ve been in thesame branch for my whole time here but who knows what president willdo. We are having a thanksgiving lunch with the senior couple on thisisland this week though. And no we haven´t really found anyone new toteach. So phone calls will probably be me sending you our phone numberand you calling me but it depends if I stay with my comp here or ifI´m somewhere else. We might just use on of the international callingplaces here and end up having to spend a buttload to talk. And yes wehave a washing machine in our apt but we didn´t have running wateruntil last week so it was washboard style. So I´m glad you ended earlyso that Mal could send me a message and nobody else. So unloved. Andhere I was taking money out of my personal account early to go buylittle things for my family today. Who knows if that will happen now.Well this week has just been a lot of knocking doors and nobodyanswering or people marking for a week later so we usually don´t passbecause that means they don´t have interest. We are teaching a oneeyed lady named Maiza. We taught her about the restoration and stuffand she said she prayed and got a response but she still believes thatevery church has the authority to do baptism and stuff so it’s kindalike she wasn´t even paying attention in the last like 5 lessons we´vetaught then. Well anywho if you need ideas for things to send inpackage #2 I’d love a white t-shirt and a jazz jersey. That would besweet. Everyone here wears jerseys but no one has the jazz. Everyonehas the clippers and nobody likes the clippers so I need to combatthat. Oh also I was reading in Jesus the Christ the other day and Ifound out that woman is actually a term of endearment! Ha. I win. Ittalks about how Christ refers to Mary as woman and some people thinkits unrespectful but Talmage explains it as the woman who birthed youis "the woman of women" to you and what better title could you giveher. Boom Roasted. Just kidding love you woman/mother which ever youwould like. Well have a good week everyone and don´t get too much sunin Vegas cause I´d hate for you to have to deal with the hot sun :D. lovee.weiss

Email from 11/8/10

Of course I´d have time for reading emails. So yes I stayed in thesame area and got another american named elder Jones. He´s from ogdenand he looks like tyler heinz a little bit if you remeber what helooks like. He´s been out for more than a year and he´s excited towork in this area which is nice because my last comp whom I love todeath, wouldn´t stop complaining about how he wanted to leave. AnywaysI think this transfer will be good. Oh and yes we have 2 fans but itwas still hot. Now CV seems to be cooling off which is very nice. Iactually use a sheet when I sleep now! but that also might be a trickmy mind plays on my body to make it think that its actually colderthan it really is. I also sent a letter to grandma today so you´llhave to tell me if she gets it. It also has a few photos in it butyou´ll eventually get those from when I send my card home. And I gotthem printed at a photo place. It´s a lot more expensive here thoughthan it is in the states. Roughly its 50 cents a photo. My shoulder isdoing fine. I noticed that when I lift my elbow out at a 90 degreeangle and bring it back down that on the way down it isn´t thesmoothest motion. But then I also relized that my other arm does thatso I guess its normal. Probably just muscles I never use. Wendy´s notold enough to get married. Yay for the brewsters! and why has bishopwaited so long on treatment. That´s silly that ethan got called to thesame mission. Maybe you should take my sister and your sister andheather or something like that. glad I dont have to get dragged therefor once. and I´m glad your so... enthusiastic about your cupcakes.will you send me some. Speaking of sending me some have you sent mypackage yet? If not can I make a quick little christmas list? A newpair of pants some ties and those floss reach things would be nice :D.You know the floss things that we bought at Ron´s office? yeah those.And any other crazy thing that you think I would enjoy. and maybe acoloring book :D. Anywoodle, well my time is almost out and the day isfar spent and some of us have to put our shoulder to the wheel andpush along and go buy some groceries. Well until next week. I love youall and hope you stay safe and eat right and exercise and fetch thewater and all that jazz.e.weiss

October Emails

Email from Oct. 4

Anyway, so we only got 2 watch 2 sessions of conference really. We have a senior couple serving here in Praia and they had there laptop so we could watch it in English but the internet here is terrible and so that of the English sessions we tried to watch only 2 worked. The priesthood session was in the morning on Sunday (in Portuguese) and the rest would have been live if we got to watch all of them. So e. brown is from alpine and this week we didn´t get to do too much cause he was sick for 2 days, it was transfer week and we had conference sat and sun so yeah. But I have started calling our apt Hell because its sooooooooo dang hot. We don´t even sleep in our bedroom because it’s too hot. We go take those camping mattresses out to the main room and sleep there because it’s a lil bit cooler. Well funny story. So me elder brown our district leader and his greeny comp are standing at the bus stop to get to the church that conference will be broadcasted in and we´re just standing there talking and elder. Brown see´s this guy reach into a truck and take a small bag out of it and walk away with it under his shirt. He comes back and we are all watching him and he starts backing away and we look away and he walks up and takes another bag and walks away with it and were like ummm is that yours and he just keeps walking so we go tell the Asian people who own the truck/store that some guy just took bags out of there car and they go looking for him. Well they found him and some *stuff* happened and they got the items back. And his shirt. And a mob chased him and then we drove away on the bus. So don´t steal in Cape Verde. Well anyways my times almost up but today has been pretty good so far and we played soccer this morning and cape verdians aren´t the greatest at soccer so us American missionaries played well. And I jammed my toe but it was still good.

Email from Oct. 11

ola! Rainy season is already over and it’s always windy so I guess you could say we always have dust storms. No I didn´t find my missing card but it didn´t have too many pictures on it so that’s good. I think I dropped it on the way from the internet place to home or someone stole it. Either or. I´m not sick. I take my vitamins when I remember. The food situation is quite fun this week. We actually made a plan before shopping this week. So tomorrow is toasted Tuesday and were having sub sandwiches, Wednesday is weight watchers wed. And were having like pasta, thurs is greasy quinta-feira and were having hamburgers and fries. Friday is saucy sexta-feira and were having salsa burgers, and Saturday is segundas sabado where we eat at some restaurant that’s really good. And Sunday is soggy Sunday which is just leftovers. A whitewashed area is where both missionaries in that area leave and 2 new ones come in and that is what happened it my last area. A yasse is a jam packed van that only costs 30 cents to ride and a taxi is a taxi with just you and your comp for 2 bucks. No they don’t have Halloween here and the ap´s are assistants to the pres while secretaries to financial stuff. My new apartment is ridiculously hot and guess what. When I got there they disconnected our water tank so I am still without water. Transfers are Mondays unless you get a companion from another island or the states then its later. Well I´m almost out of time and were about to go shopping and we played soccer this morning.
tchou
love you all

e.weiss

Email from Oct. 18

I’m pretty sure I already explained that a yasse is just a van with as many people you can get jammed into it and a bus is a bus and a taxi is a taxi.
So yes apparently they do have Halloween but it’s just basicly a gigantic party that is probably going to destroy our work for the day. And apparently everyone just
like frows there hair and its like witches day or something idk.
Well today is my comps birthday so were gonna spend some time sight seeing
And taking pictures and stuff so that will be fun.
So this week has been ok. Our area is dying and the branch is doing
nothing to help so we're kinda at a loss of what to do. Just our normal
thing I guess.
So here´s a (insert adjective) story. We have an
investigator named Paula and she was supposed to get baptized the
first week of this transfer but she missed church 1 week so we told
her we´d have to push it back. Well because of that one week it´s been
almost a month because of general conference and the branch not
Announcing her baptism in church. Guess it shows how important it is
to go to church huh? Well anyways other than that we don´t have much
going on. we really only have 3 investigators and we might be taking
that down to 2 if one of them doesn´t start acting. But what was fun
is we did a mini division the other day so I could show the elder´s
another prospective house that they could live in cause they are still
having water problems so I got to go teach my convert carlita and one
of my old investigators so that was fun. Well not much else to report
this week so ill just end by saying I love you all and have a good
week.

e.weiss

Email from Oct 24

yes we knock doors, people are usually home and everyone pretends that
there interested and then you try and mark a day and they just say
another day. In approaches we say that were demon gargoyles from the
7th moon of Jupiter come to steal your children and force you into a
life of chasing squirrels in the mountains unless you yield to the
enticing of the spirit and read the Livro de Mórmon and dance around
like fairies singing "I´m a little teapot short and stout, here is the
elders and here is my rasta friends". No one slams doors but they do
give weird looks when they see us playing leap frog down the street.
Ok not really... they join in. Everyone’s excuse is they don´t have
time or some other day. I hope they have fun saying that at judgment
day as well. We go home for lunch. There is a really big dog in our
area that was barking at us for a while but he is a Christian (he was
wearing a cross) so were trying to build on common beliefs. yes I’m
writing in my journal but I don´t bring my journal when we come and
email. I don´t have time to write because every computer in this
country sucks and it takes 40 min to type 2 paragraphs. they also
charge by bandwidth so its not really an hour when we pay for an hour.
Anywho we had a baptism this week and I confirmed so
that was cool and for day to day activities there really isn´t much to
write. Our area is dying because its one of the oldest areas and so we
do a lot of walking and very little teaching. With the way our numbers
have been lately this area might get white washed as well. Well my
time is almost out so ill just say I love you all and be strong.

e.weiss

oh and our person who was baptized is named Paula. well if you want to
get specific its Ana Paula Olivier Moniz de carvalho but anyways love
you.

Email from Nov. 1

So my weeks been fine. We end up walking a lot because basically everyone in our area has rejected us already so its tough to have lessons that don´t fall. So transfers are
next week to answer your question and ill probably end up staying here
with a new comp. Elder Brown has already been in this area 4 transfers
and that’s irregular enough and 5 is very rare. So unless they wash our
area ill most likely stay here.
Our current church is just like a bottom floor of an apt building. Its still got rooms
and everything but it would kinda be like a smaller version of our
church but the gym would be part of the apt building. I don’t know its
hard to explain. and maybe that other church in my first area will be
finished by the time I leave the mission. supposed to be done in march
but we passed by it today and it hadn´t progressed. I know of baptisms
in the ocean but not too many. no dedications just baptism. well they
didn´t do anything here for Halloween that I can tell. I thought there
was supposed to be a party but there were not any signs of one. Well
have a good week. I´m really tired and can´t think of much more to
write so I love you all and be good.

e.weiss

Email from 9/27/10

Ola! and 6ths month's down and by next email time 2 conferences! I´m glad the primary program went well and everything like that.
I hold onto all of you and that's what gives me the strength to continue on. So e. foerster is a little better but its already transfers and I´m not 5 min south of my old area in villanova with e. brown. He´s been in my district from the start and now were comps. He´s from Utah as well but I can´t remember what part.
Anyways, I don´t know what more to write. I know you want me to write the day to day stuff as well but I haven´t gotten that ability yet and i´m trying to think write now but last week we really didn´t do much. Our area got white washed from me and e. foerster so hopefully that area will get better. It´s really a dead area though because people are not willing to act on well anything really. They´d rather just sit around and do nothing than get up and do something that will make them happy. And this area is kinda the same way but I don´t think its as bad. Well my times almost out so I got to end my email. I love you all and pray for you everyday.
tchou!
e.weiss

Email 9/6/10

what? you mean i´m not black? oh yeah I forget sometimes. Anyways I guess labor day is really about having babies since you were talking about them so much. I don´t think any of the missionaries follow the utes. I think my comp is a byu fan and a lot of the missionaries here went to byu before the mission so probably not. That´s sad about Brewsters. I hope Ryan does ok with that while being gone. And I think you forget that nobody but America cares about American football. Yay that you have at least a temp job. Are you looking for work at other places as well? That´s fun about elder Gomes. Did you invite him to dinner or is he not technically in our area? Missionaries always like it when they don´t have to cook for themselves. Unless you receive food from a crazy investigator and you literally fear for your life as your eating the food that she randomly brought in to the room. Never think i´ve been so scared to eat in my life. but that was a long time ago. Beginning of second transfer i think. Speaking of transfers did you know that tyler is almost coming home. Seems like he´s been gone forever. Anyways no I haven't got your other package yet. And yes (like i´ve said several times before) you can buy an ipod and I can plug it into my ihome. any ipod. that works. and do you still have my list for the music i requested? And the other things I thought of that you can put on there like Joseph and the technicolored dream coat and music man? hope so. Other missionaries have ipods as well. Some have mp3s and speakers, some people have headphones, some people need to mooche off other people and such and such. and people just buy clothes here. Theres hundreds of Chinese stores that all have the exact same things (literally theres no difference) or they can go to the sucapira which is essentially a gigantic garage sale that goes on every day in the same place. A lot of people work there actually. Well anyways we had a zone activity today and we went and hiked some mountains between assomada and tarafal and were ridiculously tired and a little sunburn. and I didn´t charge my camera before so we don´t have many pictures but that's ok cause it was really foggy and not much to take pictures of when you can´t see much. Well I think that´s all for this week so tchou! love you all. Don´t drink the unfiltered water.

e.weiss