One more week down. This one was kind of a long one. But we had another baptism! Our investigator Liandra. She is a fourteen year old whose parents own a bar and she has had her baptism pushed back several times but each time takes it surprisingly well especially because she is a very emotional girl. But she is super awesome and a great member for the branch. so i will try to answer as many questions as i can remember were in emails and if i repeat from other weeks or something don't blame me. i cant remember anything that i sent by the time its the next letter time. My brain is all sorts of confused. Both baptisms Elder Zuniga baptized and I was a witness. Both were in the ocean because its right next to our church. Our church was one room but they are doubling its size as we speak. Its super loud when everyone is in there together but its a good time. We usually have around 50 people at church and the number should be growing each week if we can do our job right.
This week was super interesting. Mom asked about valentines day. and yes they have it here. BUT they pretty much just use it as the first day of carnival. I don't fully understand carnival because everyone says different things and its all in portuguese. but there have been different activities each day since valentines day and the real carnival so the biggest of them all is tomorrow. im not sure if they will let us outside for it for multiple reasons. So far we have seen sooooooooooooo many drunk people. To explain and answer a question Sal is an island and has two main cities i know of. Santa Maria (where i am) and Espargus. It is 20 minutes away by hiace (yas) its a van that's like a taxi but less expensive. We have only went to Espargus three times. once for zone conference that was this week I'll get to that later. and we also go on p days to play football (soccer) with the Espargus elders. So on Sal there is 8 elders. 4 in each city. In Santa Maria its me and Elder Zuniga and Elder Chevalier and Elder Sampson. We divide the area by a street down the middle of the town. Pretty much every single bar, is on our side. and its not a few. There are a ton! So while it's party time which is all day here especially during carnival most the people we see are either children or drunks which makes contacts pretty hard.A whole lot of grogue (Cape Verdian alcohol). We have spent a good amount of time in Liandra's dad's bar and I'll say alcohol smells terrible.
My foot has pretty much healed but this last baptism has another good story. Well after the foot fiasco I forgot to wash my white pants... so i had to wear a pair they had there. It took two elders pushing and shoving and lifting me up and another elder taking pictures to make those pants fit. let me tell you it was not comfy. So I wore a sweater over it too try to make it less noticeable but I had to take it off to witness. The members found it quite entertaining......... I felt bad taking away from the experience but Liandra also thought it was quite hilarious. Don't worry. I only reenacted Nachos' recreational pants scene once.
I hear packages take 2 months to get here I'm not sure about letters though. also I don't know my mailing address but I'm sure you could find it somewhere on FB or LDS.org or a blog of another missionary. I think Elder Zuniga's sister has a blog that I'm on a little if you want to take a look at it. And yes this is the best email its the only one I check.
So zone conference was cool but it was like 5 hours of translating but we also had some nice food in it. Another different thing is there is a ton of hugging here. like a constant thing. you handshake like 5 times in one contact per person and sometimes some hugs too.
Chum is your roommate the Bo that i know? Bodey Yonk or something like that? i know he was one of our friends. Also Chum and Tim you need to wingman each other. get Alex to move up there and all of you go wingman it up.i wont take no for an answer.
So dad asked about transportation. We walk everywhere except to other cities we take hiaces and taxis to airports and depending on the island sometimes you have to take boats but not my island. We stay in Santa Maria pretty much all the time. Its a really nice town because of tourists and what not. I'm really bad at cameras because we are told not to take cameras unless its p day or baptisms. and p day i don't have pockets. its a hard conundrum. but my trainer has some pics that i will send to you sometime.
Sundays are pretty fun. church is at 10 and lunch everyday is from 1-3 because everyone takes large lunches and small dinners so we don't have dinner because its prime working time. sometimes we grab a burger or some ice cream or some other food real quick. burgers are just sausage patties though pretty much... But not on Sundays! After lunch we usually have a member named Igor with us and its like every other day with teaching except he is with us. Oh yeah one thing people do is people light up grills outside of the house on the street and just cook chicken to sell to people walking by. Sometimes we grab some chicken for 100 escudos. Escudos are our money. 1 escudo is pretty much a penny. but we only get 4k a week so 40 bucks to live off of. and this is one of the most pricey towns due to prices being upped for tourism. This island is a tourist hit especially for kite surfing. its super windy. i think the world champ for kite surfing actually lives here in santa maria.
Apparently i don't talk enough. some of the members thought i was so dumb i couldn't even pray in portuguese yet. I was like Posso falar portuguese(I speak Portuguese)! Another one thought i was 30.
Whats up with the no email sissa and alex? all of the older siblings sent me one!
This was my first week being sick here. I am still sick right now it started yesterday. not sure if I'm dehydrated or what but I'm trying to take care of it. It's not fun being sick without Sissa and Mom listening my every command.... just kidding! but its really not fun. but i am blessed enough that we can still get out and work with it. its usually just bad during morning lunch and night which luckily is when we are home.
The music here is hilarious. and just one sentence per song about a thousand times. luckily sometimes they blast some american music and I'm sane for a few minutes. One of the members and me and Zuniga actually had a conversation about it it was pretty funny. he was listening to some of the bands I've listened to. Well that's it for this week. love you guys. write me. its nice to hear about america and you guys.
Love
Elder McMullin
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