Bruno's Baptism

Hey ya´ll,

This past week was crazy. 

Bruno got baptized!!! It was the best day of my entire mission, hands down.  I had no idea that he was ready or that he would be getting baptized, it was a surprise. But he did it! He gave up drugs, alcohol, girlfriends, earrings, and (hallelujah) cigarettes.... he´s awesome. 

Bruno's Baptism



So Santo Antao, Bruno´s baptism was the highlight of a very incredible two day trip. The first day (Wednesday) I was on divisions with Sister Santos and we had a ball in our old area together. Seeing Bruno, Valter, and Su was so fun (Su was baptized yesterday as well). 

The second day (Thursday) I was on divisions with a mini missionary in the Porto Novo North area. A mini missionary is a member turned missionary for one transfer when the mission doesn´t have enough sisters. Her name was Sister Tomas, from the other side of Santo Antao, and she was a blast! I love that girl. Her papers are going in and she will make a great missionary. This was the day Bruno was baptized. So we freaked out together over that, and then... we taught ten lessons. The mission goal in a week is at least 20. It was so much fun, we found amazing new investigators and laughed with old and new friends. We also ate tamberina friskinia to celebrate our crazy fun division which is SO GOOD! It´s like a frozen fruit treat. 

So.... in home news back in Cha de Marinha. God knew I didn´t want to come back, so he blessed us with seven investigators at church yesterday! And the best part was one of them was Kedo´s dad. It was a miracle. We haven´t been able to find him at home the past few weeks but Saturday I just felt like we needed to stop by his house and invite him to church. So we did... and I may or may not have used Kedo to convince him. I told him I had promised his boy in Santo Antao that I would invite his dad to church this Sunday, and so he agreed to come, he stayed for all three hours, and he liked it. I prayed and asked God if we were supposed to baptize him and felt like the answer was yes, and I also feel like Kedo´s dad is one of the reasons I was transferred to this area, because everyone knows that little boy is my favorite nine year old there is. 

So there you have it. I love Cabo Verde and the people here with all my heart and every other vital organ I have. Being a missionary is hard, but seeing Bubul (Bruno) in the baptism font, or Kedo´s dad in the front row of church makes it all worth it. 

Love,

Sister Hanzel



Kedo and friend

Zone Conference

P-Day Adventure

For P-Day we decided to visit Baia das Gatas - a beach on the other side of the island. Once a transfer we can do a district activity and so we made it today. We took the bus to Cidade and waited with all the women who sell bananas, papayas and cilantro for a hiass (how you spell yas) to take us. However the hiass never showed and so the elders convinced a truck driver to give us a `baleia` (term for hitch hike) for mil escudos (roughly $10). Once there we took some pictures on the beach and watched a man snorkel with a small harpoon gun - it´s how he earns a living without a fishing boat. It was so cool!

After chilling on the beach for a little bit, we found an open restaurant for `pequeno almoco` or breakfast. It was hamburger with a fried egg, canned corn, and french fries. Exactly what I wanted at nine in the morning. :)

And then we waited along the main road for a car to take us back. I literally hitch hiked my way across the island today. 

Love,

Sister Hanzel

Seja Bem-Vindo a Sao Vicente!

What a whirlwind of a week, I haven't been this tired since the first weeks of my mission. We were so busy that I lived on nothing but bread products, went without sleep for the first few nights, and didn't get to wash my hair with conditioner until the weekend.  Yet we were still teaching and training like a pro.

Last Monday I was ready to spend the rest of my mission in Santo Antao, and I was perfectly happy with that. I miss Santo Antao. But the call came that I was being transferred and so I said goodbye, bought a passage to Sao Vicente, and after arriving, packed a bad for leadership council in Praia the next morning.

Saying good-bye to Sister Santos

Reunited with my former companion, Sister Cerquiera

 Tuesday morning we were up at 4:30 AM to hit the airport for the leadership council in Praia. That whole event is just kind of a blur of mission statistics and such because I was so new and tired, but it was fun to see all the missionaries in Praia again! We didn't get to visit Palmarejo though because right after council we were back on a plane to Sao Vicente.

Thursday we had Zone Meeting and I gave my first training with Sister Cerquiera. It went well (I think) but next month I'm going to be more prepared for council and therefore more prepared for Zone Meeting. Haha. Helloooooooooo new calling!

Saturday and Sunday we were in Cidade again for Conference. And Sao Vicente is chique so we got to watch it in English. I loved Elder Kearon's talk on the refugee efforts and President Holland's talk as always (and we did indeed get ice cream afterwards).

Watching General Conference

Well... that is my blessed rushed update for the week, I spent a lot of time trying to load pictures for you all, because I know that's the best part. Haha. Basically, I miss the people I was with in Santo Antao, but Sao Vicente is the place to be, and we're about to get work done!

Love to all,

Sister Hanzel


Beautiful Sao Vicente - my new home

Sisters, Inc.

Another week has come and gone, the weather is warming up for some very toasty days!

This week we knocked quite a few doors again. While knocking, I felt like I was a "scream monster" off of Monsters, Inc. The doors in Santo Antao are all so unique, just like the people. And all we have to do is "pick a door" and see who we get to scare... er, I mean, share, the message of the gospel with. 

 

We have a "third wheel" to our door knocking group. His name is Kedo, he's eight years old, and he likes to follow us around during the afternoons, hitting his spare tire along like on the beginning of Pollyanna. Doesn't matter where we are, he seems to know just where to show up. And if our contact lets us in, well he just follows suit, and sits right next to us for the whole lesson. In Assomada I had a dog that liked to follow me around and enter houses, but can I just say that Kedo receives a much warmer welcome than Chupa did. We've tried teaching his family but they're not very interested, maybe one of these days.

Our third companion, Kedo

Kedo at work

My favorite investigator right now is a 17 year old rapaz named Bruno. Sisters have been working with Bruno for months, but every time they get to the Word of Wisdom lesson, they drop him, because he smokes and drinks and didn't know how he would ever quite; but we've discovered something none of the other sisters knew... Bruno likes to draw. He likes graffiti art, and so I've been getting my graffiti on! Every lesson I design some sort of graffiti art for him, it's not professional, but he seems to like it. And he's hecka progressing. He reads the Book of Mormon every day, is developing a habit of prayer (he designed a sign to help him remember), and this weekend, miracle of all miracles, Bruno attended a baptism service..... and came to church! Sisters have been trying to get him to church for months, but he's finally making gospel principles personal and connecting them to his own life. 

Flip charts, graffiti style

 

We are also teaching a family. Yes, a family! Patricia and Nelson have two kids, and they both have family members who are members of the church but have never accepted the gospel themselves. It's been years since they talked with missionaries, but I think now they might be ready. We taught them the first lesson together, and it went well, but at the end we mustered up the courage to ask Nelson if we could kneel in family prayer and if he would offer it. It was his first prayer in who knows how long and the Spirit hit home! Everyone felt it, his kids too. So I'm really excited about them. 

Well! That's all I've got time for this week, but good things are happening here in Santo Antao!

Love you guys!

Sister Hanzel

District Meeting

Storytime with the Lost Boys

Well, week two down here in Santo Antao, as I tried to think of how I could describe working on this island, I thought of the saying my Grandma sent me last week that I really liked, and it describes life right now pretty darn well. 

Life is Amazing and then it’s awful.
And then it’s amazing again. 
And in between the amazing and the awful it is ordinary and mundane and routine.
Breathe in the amazing, hold on through the awful, and relax and exhale during the ordinary.
That’s just loving heart breaking, soul healing, amazing, awful ordinary life.
And it’s breathtakingly beautiful.

I couldn´t have said it better, right now, there´s a lot of amazing, awful, and ordinary going on. 

The awful: I miss Palmarejo. I miss Oshvaldo, our ward mission leader there who would teach with us every night and say the funniest phrases in English. His birthday was last week. I miss sitting outside of Gi´s house on P-days and watching the soccer game below while his grandma whacked those passing by with sticks. I miss talking with Dulce and Telma, they are solid members and act as if they´ve been that way for years. I miss my ward, good things were happening there. I miss Annie and her kids, I found out she´s getting married so her husband can get baptized (YES!!!!). I miss all the college kids in our area who were always a ball of fun, and I miss my comp. and my apartment. And it´s just hard because I get to come back home, but I don´t get to `go back` to Palmarejo. And I just really miss it.

The ordinary: Missionaries do the exact same thing, every day. So I have been doing the exact same thing, every day, for a year. I´ve never really been one for doing the exact same thing, over and over, it´s definitely been a mission struggle. In my last area, proselyting time was the best because it was different, you were going out to learn new stories and talk with recently made friends. But this area this week was a lot of door knocking and street lessons, a lot of teaching the first lesson and so it was a long week.

But, but, but! Don´t worry, there´s also.... the amazing: We definitely had miracles this week. We started teaching this boy who vends really good fried fish pastels, his name is Ricardo, and he´s fixe de mais! He came to church yesterday (miracle), and with faith, hope, charity, love, etc., he´ll get baptized this month. Also, at 6p. every night we´ve started having story time with the neighborhood `lost boys`, it started out with four or five boys but our last story time had over 25 boys in attendance. They love it! There´s not much to do here in Porto Novo and so every night they all just grab their friends and meet outside a recent convert´s house (Valter) to act out Book of Mormon stories. And Valter is a good sport, he always plays the main character, and he´s learning the stories as we teach them as well. 

Our ever-growing group of Book of Mormon story time actors 

Well, that about sums up this week. I´m homesick for nha terra Palmarejo (I miss the Creole there too), but I´m confident this area will start picking up, I can understand people a little better so that´s a start.

Love ya,

Sister Hanzel

The wise man built his house upon the sand

Gooooooood morning! This is the Cabo Verde, Praia mission coming to you live from the island of Santo Antao.

Starting off, the only English in my life is my nightly journal entries, but even those have turned into Portu-glish, entao DESCULPA-ME if I throw in a little Portuguese or Creole. I thought speaking Portuguese only was going to be a lot harder than it is based off of my last all-Portuguese transfer in Assomada, but it's actually just starting to feel second nature. Blessings!

So, Santo Antao. Wow, it's gorgeous here. Tourists line the streets and I can see why, you've got the ocean in front with a fantastic view of Sao Vicente (picture won't do justice), and then you've got the mountains behind (which yes, we will be able to explore one P-DAY). 

Looking toward Sao Vicente from my area

 

 

My area is Porto Novo South, the other sisters are Porto Novo North. Walking our area, I feel like someone just started building cinder blocks on the beach and then houses, because the roads don't have cobblestone and are just white beach sand. The houses look like rows of cute beach houses, and I haven't seen very many cars, but I have seen quite a few fishing boats "parked" out front. Fishing is one of the main sources of income here.

 

The people of Porto Novo are a lighter skin color than the people of Santiago, with hazel or green eyes and a very distinct look. When I first got to Cabo Verde, everyone just looked the same, dark. However I'm better able to tell who is from which island now. Fixe! The creole here is a whole other ball game, I feel like I'm trying to learn a language all over again. Bizote sta dreito? I couldn't even tell you. Haha.

Say Oi to my new companion Sister M. Santos. OH NHA ME!! She's just a tiny bundle of Brazilian energy and we're going to have a blast this transfer. We've got the cupboards stalked with all good things and our ghetto little house has been rearranged (we moved our beds out to the front room and our study desk by a window) and decorated for a happy transfer.  I'm technically finishing her twelve week training but she's already a fantastic missionary and so I'll probably end up learning more from her than she will from me and I'm already picking up that Brazilian accent. There are four sisters in Porto Novo, but we live in separate places. However, we run into them all the time and are part of the same ward. 

My new companion, Sister Santos, from Brazil

 

Getting here last Monday was an adventure, I took a little plane to Mindelo in Sao Vicente, spent the night at the sister's house there, and then got up early to take what looked like a cargo boat to porte here. The only way to get to this island is by boat. 

Well! I hope that gives you a little overview of life out here. It’s super pretty, with a view of the ocean practically everywhere we go. More to come!

Love,

Sister Hanzel

Santo Antao Here I Come

I'm being transferred... to Santo Antao! My new area is Porta Novo and I will be companions with a sister from Brazil named Sister Santos. She's been on her mission for six weeks and so I'm about to become a step-mama and finish her training. Santo Antao has four sisters, I will be serving with sisters from Brazil, Mozambique, and Cabo Verde. Should be a Portuguese filled transfer! 

I'm excited for this next adventure (pretty sure I have to take a plane to Sao Vicente and then a boat to get there, the missionaries of Santo Antao have to come into the island of Sao Vicente for Zone Conferences), but I'm also really going to miss all my friends here! And being with Sister Rasmussen has been a blast. Luckily, Heavenly Father knows what he's doing as have everything is control. 

Last week was, well, it was hard. We won't sugar coat it. Gi's (our recent convert who helped get permission for Nadine's baptism) dad died.  I don't think I ever saw his dad wear more than a towel and a karate kid headband but seeing him in his attire always made our day. We miss him. Gi's parents had been married for 25 years, and he suddenly passed away this past week. He had a headache in the morning, was in the hospital by mid-day, and passed away at 7 PM. 

Cabo Verde has a lot of cultural traditions surrounding death, and because we've been at Gi's house almost everyday this past week, we are now familiar with quite a few of them. When a family member dies you are in mourning for seven days, this means you cannot leave your house, and you wear all black. Gi and his siblings will wear all black for one year, his mom will wear all black for the rest of her life. During that one week friends and family stop by to pay their respects, and then sit out front and play cards or "oril" which is like mancala in America. The night a family member dies you aren't allowed to sleep, starting your period of mourning, and then at the end of seven days you aren't allowed to sleep during the night again, ending your period of mourning. 

Watching Gi loose his dad was a really hard experience, because Gi is probably one of my best friends here in Cabo Verde, and he was on fire for the month following his baptism until this happened. But I'm very grateful that he knew about the Plan of Salvation before this past week because it helped him see this loss with an eternal perspective, and he knows he will see his dad again.

In other news, I hit my one year mark this past week! We had Zone Conference that day and Sister Mathew's gave a great training on teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ as if you were selling a product (the gospel), instead of just teaching a bullet list (faith, repentance, baptism...). We put her training into practice this last week and had one of the most spiritual lessons of my mission because of it with an investigator named Boshe. He came to church this past week and loved it, so hopefully we can mark him for baptism tonight!

I remembered my friend Tayler's mission email for the week she hit one year, she got a takeout pizza... so I decided I would too! Only, takeout pizza is a little different here in Cabo Verde, it's definitely not Little Ceasars! We took it down to Gi's house to share because he had mentioned that he just really missed pizza in America with extra cheese, so we ordered a special for him. The kids on his street had never seen a take out box before but they were stoked to share.



Pizza - to celebrate my one year mark

Other good news is my recent convert, Suely, in Assomada, is having a baby next month. It's a little girl, and she's decided her middle name will be Katherine. I'm pretty pumped about that.

Also, this past week was Carnival and Cinza. We didn't see much action from Carnival (which happened downtown Praia), it was just hard to find lessons on that day; however the day following Carnival is Cinza, and Cinza is a big deal too.

During Cinza, you eat a big lunch of "peixe seco", or dried fish, and sweet potatoes, and this giant leafy.... leaf, and then after lunch you eat cous cous with sugar cane "mel" or honey and sit in the sun. I don't know why they sit in the sun afterwards, but it’s part of the holiday.

Next time I write will be from the island of Santo Antao!

Love,

Sister Hanzel