A White Christmas

White with baptismal clothing that is.  On the first day after Christmas, the Savior gave to us, four baptisms! This is in addition to the three we had last week.  Our recent convert Dulce, who was one of the individuals baptized last week, gave the first talk at the baptism service this week and she rocked it! I was sitting right in front of President Mathews for the service and before it began I told him we were all nervous for her because she was just baptized and didn't like to speak in front of people... but when she finished I heard him turn to his family and other people that were there with him and whisper, "She was baptized just last week!" Dulce and Telma are going to be amazing members of the church.

The work in this ward and area is really booming right now. We've had over ten investigators in church every week this transfer - the mission average is about four.  I love our Bishop and our ward, our recent converts are going to be will looked after.  It would be just fine with me if I stayed in this area with Sister Rasmussen for the rest of my mission. 

Merry Christmas everyone, and a Happy New Year!

Love,

Sister Hanzel

Baptisms this week

Baptisms last week

Praia Zone Christmas Party

Hugo's Baptism and the Best Engagement Ever!

Hugo's Baptism

Hugo was baptized and confirmed a member of the church this past weekend! He really is amazing, here is his story...

I had felt the impression to contact his house with Sister Cerqueira, so we did. We marked a date to come back and visit his brothers but it fell through twice. So we left them for the time being. In the middle of last transfer with Sister Larsen I had the thought to revisit that house, that same day the Mont Vermelho Sisters called because they wanted to show us a reference's house. We met up with them and it turns out it was their house! They had taught Hugo's brothers the first lesson and then found out they lived in our area so they passed them on to us. We again marked a date to return (with the Carnell's) but when we came back it was Hugo who answered the door and sat with us. 

The Sunday before Hugo's baptism Sister Rasmussen and I were updating our area book and we flipped to the former investigator section to add some names. There sitting on top of the former investigator pile was a paper I had pulled out from that section several months earlier because I had the distinct impression to revisit that paper and recontact that person. I had forgotten about it with everything else we did that weekly planning session, but when I reread the paper with Sister Rasmussen, imagine my surprise when the name and description was our Hugo. He had been taught by Sisters in 2014 but they had left him when we stopped progressing, however the bottom of the paper said, "Visit him again, he has great potential." And so the rest is history. Heavenly Father had been preparing him and he was baptized less than a month later by Elder Carnell, which was sweet for all of us.

This week we also had 12 investigators and 7 less actives at church! My best before that was 7 investigators at church, but what was even better was that was that it was our less actives who brought our investigators! Hallelujah! Anyone who is a returned missionary will understand what a miracle that is. Being with Sister Rasmussen is such an exhausting blast. 

Also, Daisy and Valdo finally came to church this week, and last night (with lots and lots of planning and practicing on our part) we were able to get those two lovebirds engaged with the help of the story of Jacob and Rachel in the Bible and a dollar fifty Vegas style ring we had bought in a Chinese store. 

Daisy and Valdo get engaged

Well! I love you all. Have a great week!

Sister Hanzel

Zone Conference and Cidade Velha

Hello!

This past week was a busy one. We had Zone Conference with Elder and Sister Dyches of the European Presidency. They were also Mission Presidents over the Portland, Oregon Mission a few years ago so their insights and ideas for missionary work were amazing.

Piano lessons do pay off on a mission

MTC Sister Re-Unite

They talked about the importance to start testifying immediately when contacting, instead of asking, "What's your name?" or, "Do you have a few minutes?" I knew this before but I really tried applying it this past week and we had some really neat contacts and lessons come out of it. I especially love starting contacts off with, "Did you know God has a plan of happiness for you and your family?" People are always looking for how they can be happier, it has got us in quite a few doors this past week. 

They also taught all of us how to make origami shirts to leave with investigators, members, on random doors, wherever. My creative heart was happy. :) And we went to the paper store immediately after to buy paper for the shirt project.

This morning our district went to Cidade Velha, which, being interpreted, is "Old City" in Portuguese. Original! Haha. It was a slave port long before Cape Verde was on the map. And the people there haven't changed much since that time. There aren't slaves anymore but walking the streets still makes you feel like you are on a Pirates of the Caribbean movie set. Yo Ho, Yo Ho a Sister's life for me!

Love you all!

Sister Hanzel

Sister Larsen and I at Cidade Velha

Cleanliness is next to Godliness

It is so funny to me that I bought stickers and silly bandz and all these fun things to give to kids here, but all they really want is hand sanitizer. And since we usually find them playing with old tires or garbage - turned treasure (they're very creative), I am more than happy to share and usually I don't have a choice. I have a hand sanitizer clipped high on my bag and when the kids see us coming they run yelling and tug on you until you give them some hand sanitizer. They're obsessed! They giggle at each other and smell their hands over and over. It's hilarious, I love it.  As an Exercise and Wellness major, their temporarily clean hands make my heart happy too.

D&C 88:86, "Abide ye in the liberty wherewith ye are made free, entangle not yourselves in sin, but let your hands be clean, until the Lord comes."

I spoke in church this past Sunday for my first time on the mission, and can I just say trying to be engaging in Portuguese is a challenge! Luckily my accent keeps people engaged enough. I spoke on the importance of Seminary and it made me miss all the great times I had when I was in Seminary (shoutout to all the awesome teachers at Westlake!). My punchline was that Seminary wasn't just a class my friends and I took, but Seminary was an extension of church and our testimonies. 

I was in charge of a Family Night lesson this past week with a cute little family (mom and four kids) that live way on the outskirts of our area in Cidadela. All the kids are so bright and intelligent, they have so much potential in the church and life, they've just had a rough past year and have had to move a lot, but now they are here to stay in our ward boundaries and so we've been working with our ward mission leader (a recently returned missionary from Brazil) to help them get to church. The lesson was on the importance of prayer and I started out with a little activity where I had the girls pretend to answer a phone call from me - I rattled off a list of pretend problems in Portuguese (I was so proud of myself!) and then I hung up before they had a chance to respond. I related the phone call to prayer and how God isn't just a repair man or a number to call and place an order, but he's our Father and wants us to have a conversation with him. This little example is nothing new for us life-long members, but these kids loved it and we had a lot of fun. That's one thing I am definitely going to miss when the mission is over, how easy it is to laugh and be crazy with the families here.

Ate mais logo!

Com amor,

Sister Hanzel

Celebrating my birthday

When in Africa...

Feliz segunda-feira!

We had a fun missionary experience this week. We were teaching with a member who recently returned from his mission in Mozambique. It was roughly 7:30 PM and all of our lessons had fallen through for the evening. He told us of a night on his mission where the same thing happened; he and his companion prayed and were lead to a family of six or eight that were eventually baptized. So we put it to the test. We prayed and then turned around and started ringing the buzzers of the apartment building right behind us. The top floor answered and we explained we were missionaries and asked if we could share our message. The voice said yes and so we headed up, and when the voice answered the door, it was a young woman named Lara who we had actually been trying to find all week. She came to church but left before we could get her contact information we didn´t know how we were going to find her again. I´m sure she was just as surprised to see us as we were to see her. But there she was, inviting us in to share the message of the Restoration. And what was even greater was her house was full of friends, who all sat in with us. The power of prayer.

Well, I hope you all have a great week. Love you!

Love,
Sister Hanzel

Attending Women´s Conference at the chapel in Achada Santa Antonio

Making cous couse with the Sisters who live just up the street

The One Where Chickens Sleep in Trees

Hey Ya´ll,

Nothing really crazy happened this week. Thusday and Friday I was on Divisions with one of our Sister Training Leaders Sister Johnson. She´s from Alabama and played college basketball, plus she´s a really good missionary and teacher. We had a lot of fun. While we were walking and talking in the street, I asked her what was her favorite thing about serving in Cabo Verde, she said that Sister Matthews (our Mission President´s wife) had once said that Cabo Verde was like our missionary group´s secret, you can´t really picture life on these islands unless you´ve lived it. I thought that was kind of a fun thought. It´s so true. This week I literally watched chickens climb trees and nest in the top. We also had days this week where lessons were impossible because of soccer games on the radio  - and if there´s not a soccer game on the media, there´s a soccer game going on in the street. I saw the cutest little toddler play goalie this week in the street and yell commands to his team between two cinder blocks, he couldn´t have been older than three.

Sometimes the secret of the Cabo Verde mission is being able to serve with força on little sleep. We were teaching a lesson this week and after giving my part about when Jesus Christ was on the earth and how he established his church, I thought to myself about my Portuguese, `Wow, that went really well today!` until I caught my companion´s quizzical eye and realized I had just taught the same lesson we taught them the day before. Whoops! Sometimes the lessons just blend together, but luckily the couple we were teaching didn´t seem to mind and a little review never hurt anyone!

Yesterday for P-Day we had a Sister´s hike and climbed to the top of Mount Vermelho behind our area. You could see all of Praia from the top, it was quite the view.

Until next week, fica fixe!

Sister Hanzel

Sisters' hike to top of Mt. Vermelho

It´s a Razzle Dazzle Day

Well one thing is for certain, you can´t beat the heat here in Praia, oh mama it is hot! But I love the people here and the area can´t be beat either, so I´ll sweat my insides out preaching the gospel and love it.

I am still getting to know our members and area this week. There´s quite a lot of space to cover. It´s both overwhelming and exciting, there are just so many apartment buildings to knock and people to contact. I love the investigators we already have and we have the ability to find so many more. Now if only we could get them to come to church - it´s air conditioned in the chapel, it´s fine if I throw that in the list of reasons they should come, right?

Dona Maria Pia Lighthouse

This morning we went and visited the oldest lighthouse in Cabo Verde for a district activity. It´s lighthouse Dona Maria Pia, built in 1880, and it reminded me of visiting lighthouses in Oregon. It also reminded me of Elder Boyd K. Packer´s talk about the importance of the lower light of a lighthouse and how with two lights boats can align themselves to safely arrive in the harbor. He said, 

“There is in our hymnbook a very old and seldom-sung hymn that has very special meaning to me.

Brightly beams our Father’s mercy

From his lighthouse evermore,
But to us he gives the keeping
Of the lights along the shore.

Let the lower lights be burning;
Send a gleam across the wave.
Some poor fainting, struggling seaman
You may rescue, you may save.

Dark the night of sin has settled;

Loud the angry billows roar.
Eager eyes are watching, longing,
For the lights along the shore.

Trim your feeble lamp, my brother;
Some poor sailor, tempest-tossed,
Trying now to make the harbor,
In the darkness may be lost.”

We will all make mistakes and feel lost at times in this life, but if we continue forward, never doubting our faith or God´s plan, we can always find that light to `guide us safely home` - that was another talk by President Monson, and I bet studying those two talks together would be a great study block. Before the mission I had no idea how anyone studied the scriptures for more than an hour, but now I wish I had more time!

I also wish I had more email but for this week, that´s all folks!

Have a Razzle Dazzle Day (you can bet I sang that at the top of the lighthouse, along with `Candle on the Water`).

Love,
Sister Hanzel