Yer a Mission, 'arry

Get it? Missionary? Still got it.

Anyways, what an awesome weekend! General Conference and Easter led to some awesome talks! And I could even understand more or less what they were saying! I prayed the most to understand what President Monson has to say, and I feel like I could understand his talk the best. Just a little more confirmation of the power of the Holy Ghost. I don't know about you guys, but I especially loved the talk that one of the 70 gave about Shiblom, and how he only had 15 verses from the whole Book of Mormon to his name, and how awesome of a person he must have been. Made me rearrange my life goals a bit, yo.

Well, seeing as Mindel has nothing on TV but the news and Portuguese Channels, we had to go to the chapel to watch conference. It's supposed to be an awesome opportunity to invite a bunch of people, and I expected that so many people would show up. And we got a big whopping TWO investigators. I mean, we spent all week working our legs off to get to every investigator and stress the extreme importance of hearing from our prophet. All I can say is, we've got a few knives to give this week. I think that's one of the saddest things about Cabo Verde sometimes. People here who tell us that they believe and want to be baptized, but they just don't understand why they need to read the scriptures or go to church. One of our investigators, Steven, didn't go because he wanted to play soccer with his friends. I'm like, what are you going around wanting to be baptized for if you have no desire to keep the covenant you're gonna make with the Lord? And some people you meet on the street just sound like a broken record that's not even listening to you. "I have my religion and you have yours. Everybody has a religion but God is only one! You have your way and I have mine. God is only one!" (rough translation from creole). Every time I hear that I just wanna pour the teachings of the Book of Mormon into their head to understand that we know that there's only one way! How many of our General Authorities and Apostles talked about how there's only one God, one true church, and one marvelous plan that he has for all of us?

However.

One of the two people that happened to make it to Conference was LAURA, she made it to the last session and I did a little happy dance over that because I was scared that she wouldn't make it and we'd have to move her baptismal date, because she's one of our most awesome investigators. She asks like questions that show that she's really interested and developing in her understanding of the church. Also, the other investigator we haven't even met yet! I think his name is Umberto, and he and two others are a family that have been taught a couple of lessons by a couple Sisters in a completely different area here. They found out that the family lives in our area, so they gave the family up, though they told us they were really sad to give them up. They told us that the family is so awesome, they're certain that they'll be baptized. The parents are even married, something that rarely happens here, so that's awesome too! Tutone and Maria, who are going through marriage papers now, went on vacation this past weekend, so they didn't get to attend, but they should be hitting the next step in marriage papers, a two week waiting period. Elder Figueiredo really wants to see it, he's pushing it so hard.

Ah, I almost forgot to talk about Roney this week. He was converted like 7 or 8 months ago, and was called as a ward missionary soon after that. He's pretty much the best resource that we have in this area. He is nearly always free to go out with us during our normal hours of 3 until 9 (we have a couple of hours in the morning, too, but we usually have another member then). He doesn't seem to do anything but hang out with us, but he's always talking about the stuff he's been doing, like a recent development of a girlfriend from 2nd or 3rd ward I think. I'm like, how do you do it? He's insane, and we're so blessed to have him. He's got such a strong testimony of the church, sometimes we have to calm him down a bit when people talk bad of the church. It's funny. The guy is so strong in the faith, and always ready to serve with all his might. He told us he was so upset when he learned he was past the missionary age!

Anyways, gotta go, wrote a long one this week! Hope you all are having a razzle dazzle time! Lol, a car is driving around and blasting an announcement about a party or something. Pretty normal for here. There's always some rave going on somewhere. Just to let you guys know, this place is still pretty insane.

Bizot ficam dret! (bit o' creole for y'all)

Elder Penner