Have You Ever Seen the Rain

Well I don't know what this weird line is doin here but whatever. I went for an oldie today, CCR to be exact. It's because I saw the first sign of rai n the other day!!! It's still hot as heck over here, but there are signs of hope as well!

This week was a busy one, but sadly there just weren't that many results to show it. We're going to attack from another angle this next week, and it'll be good. The main problem was, we didn't have an investigator in church! Again! I was super disappointed, because we've been working with a lot of cool people. But I'm choosing to learn from my mistakes and work harder!

I've come to notice that there's a strangeness here in Fogo that I haven't seen in any other place that I've been. I've so far had 3 investigators that decided they don't want to talk to us anymore. One of them said sorry and yes she did want to talk a couple of days later, and we're still talking kinda to the other 2?? It's super weird, I don't really understand it either. But anyways, it's a new challenge, and it's keeping me on my toes. I've come to realize that you can't approach every investigator in the same way, especially here. It's stretching my limits, I like it.

I don't have any more time, but I hope all y'all is good n stuff and have a darn diddly good week and stuff!

Abraco,

Elder Penner  

Island In the Sun

This week I went on a division with the great Elder Schlichte, and somehow or other we got to talking about our love for music. Then he mentioned a band that I hadn't thought of in like forever, Wheezer! So I figured I'd give them a shoutout this week, seeing as the sun is shining harder than ever on the great island of Fogo. There were days this week in which I was drenched in sweat within the first 10 minutes of leaving the house. However, there is hope on the way; a few days ago at 9pm we actually had a light sprinkle of rain! The people here all say that once it rains, it'll cool down enough to be bearable. For now, we just watch and pray, I guess.

In the terms of what we accomplished, I feel like we had a great week. In the terms of what our investigators accomplished, I feel like we had a terrible one. Let's talk about the great stuff first! This week we had 11 new investigators, almost double of what we had last week! Also, we had the first day I've had here with 5 lessons with an investigator. I was pretty stoked about that, but then the next day we only had 1, haha. We still ended up having a great week with talking with investigators. We also talked a lot with the less-active members here, and have seen some good progress.

The problem was that none of our investigators went to church! We were so prepared to at least have a super solid 4 investigators there, but none of them showed up! We were pretty bummed out about that. Also, one of our most progressing investigators, Izildo, told us early this week that he didn't want to talk to us anymore. When we asked why, he just said "I just don't feel like it anymore." We were super bummed out, and we talked more and figured out that he just felt we moved too fast or something. Apparently he was under the impression that we were going to baptize him without him even going to church! But even after all that we talked with him, with his neighbor Zé (our Elder's Quorum President here) he still refused. We were pretty bummed out, but then Zé grabbed Izildo's sister Virginia, and made her sit down and listen a bit about the Book of Mormon. We had tried to talk to her before, but she just laughed and refused to listen any more as soon as we said the words "Joseph Smith." However, Zé was somehow able to convince her to read and pray about the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon! So that was a pretty cool experience, and now we're pretty excited to come back and talk to her about how it was. I hope we have Zé with us again, he's pretty good at not taking no for an answer.

Some of the less-actives that we're working with are pretty cool. We met a woman named Nela, the wife of an active member, Zezito, who's been inactive for a few months. She's super busy with all the sewing that she does (a lot like Marlene from Praia's problems, actually) and just lost the habit of going, choosing instead to catch up on housework. We talked with her a lot about the sacrament and the blessings that it brings. Once we were done, I realized that we hadn't really let her talk so much, so I asked her how she felt. She said that she knew that these things are important, but she hasn't been feeling much support from her family in housework, so she's had to take care of all of it, on top of everything. Zezito promised right then and there that he would now be in charge of all laundry duties. That's a little more hefty here than in America, because that could mean handwashing a lot and waiting for things to dry before putting them away. She went to church yesterday, as promised! Also that Solangela that I mentioned went for the second week in a row! We're seeing a lot of blessings with that.

Funny story: yesterday at church we didn't have Gospel Essentials, so we went to the married couples class and they talked about communicating with your spouse and had all the couples say something sweet to their spouse. It was pretty awkward but also super funny to be there. It made me just a bit excited to have a relationship of my own when I get home. I'm gonna have to teach my future wife some Creolisms, because they're super funny!

That's all I have the time I have to talk for now! We're tearing it up here, as we always do! Keep firm in the faith. Talk to someone about the gospel. Have a great week!

Abraço,

Elder Penner

Viva La Vida

I decided to go for something that everyone knew today, because I've been pondering on the meaning and how it connects to how I've been feeling since I've left the office. It tells the story of someone who "used to rule the world," but now has become one with the people. Don't get me wrong, I did not feel any sense of power as I was in the office. But I felt like I knew of most everything that was happening in the mission. Now that I'm here, I almost feel shunned to a certain extent, haha. I've come to realize that I've gotta work harder on Living The Life (hence Viva La Vida) and get to work!

It's a good thing that teaching is a lot more fun than boring old office work, huh? This week we did a lot of hard work in our area. The results weren't what we were hoping for, but we still did get some good results. I think the most disappointing thing was that we only got 15 lessons this week. The new mission standard is that we're supposed to have at the very least 20 lessons. We're going to have to put some better planning into this next week, but I want to make it happen. I think one problem is that we haven't been looking in all the right places for investigators. It feels like most of our last week has been filled with teaching people of other faiths that don't actually have a desire to act on our message. While it's important to help them to feel the truthfulness of our message, I still think that we could do better at finding those prepared to receive us. Luckily, we got some really cool references these past few days, who we're trying to get into contact with now. I've got some real hope for what's happening.

We only had one investigator in church yesterday. His name is Jacinto, and we just met him this last week. It was cool to see him show up to church. I didn't even teach him, I was actually on a division when we were going to teach him about the Restoration. So when he showed up, I didn't even realize that he was an investigator until Elder Jhangani told me! We also had a less-active named Solangela show up. She's one of those people that you're like, why aren't you going to church when you act like an active member? We found her through knocking doors, and the family invited us in. The first thing we saw was a big common picture of Jesus Christ, the one that's on pass-along cards here! We were like, are you members??? and they said yeah it was funny. I guess they just needed someone to tell them that we missed them. I wonder how many other people just need that one visit, ya know?

I went on 2 divisions this past week. The first was with Elder Santos over in Patim. It's a place that's about 20 minutes from here by car, and it's a pretty small community. There's a branch that's kinda struggling back there, but I saw some really good potential. They also work in a zone called Luzia Nunes. The thing about working out there and living here is that if you don't find a ride, you have to walk. And that's a looong walk. I was sweating pretty bad. The second division was with Elder Farnsworth in São Filipe. It'd been about 8 months or so since our last division, but he's still doing really great for himself. We only had 2 lessons that day, even though we were out for about 10 hours! Even so, we got a lot of good things done, which taught me a lot about planning for one.

It keeps getting hotter, but the promise of rain in a couple of weeks is looking good! Hope you all have a good week! I hear there's some not fun stuff happening in America, and my prayers go out to all that have been harmed in this past week. Remember to share the love that Christ has for all of us!

Abraço,
Elder Penner

American Idiot

Normally, I like to think of Billie Joel Armstrong of Green Day and try to avoid being your typical American Idiot, but today's the 4th of July! You betcha I'm gonna be singing The Star Spangled Banner at the top of my lungs! America! On this one day I give myself just a little bit of trunkiness for my home country. God Bless America.

What a great week! This week we had a big focus on getting new investigators, with a goal given to the entire island of Fogo to get at least 6. Well, our hard work got us all the way to hit that 6! It's not a whole lot, but it's a start, for sure! We also had a whole lot of good help from the members. They are absolutely INCREDIBLE here. I don't think I've ever had so much willing help from the members here. Our Young Men's leader came up to us and said "Hey, make sure I leave with you guys at least 3 times this week!" haha. We got a solid 14 lessons with members, which is just 1 less from the total number of lessons we taught investigators last week.

Another really cool thing happened this week! We got a surprise baptism! Remember that Monica I talked about last week? Well she was marked for the 9th, but last Thursday she learned that she needed to see the doctor in Praia that day. She came up to us on that day, and asked if there was any way we could do it earlier? I was like, why not this Saturday? She got super excited and said yes! So we hurried and got all the members to coordinate everything, and we had a baptism on Saturday! There were so many members there, and as luck would have it, the Young Women had an activity at that time, so they joined us. The room was completely full! I'm so glad, because Monica must have felt a good sense of companionship from the ward. Super great experience, all around.

There's a really neat member here named Abreu. He's the first counselor here in this ward, and I think he was in a spot in the stake beforehand, because everyone here calls him President Abreu. He's like the go-to handyman here in Fogo, and he's got a huge amount of energy at all times. He reminds me a lot of that one cop guy from Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, haha. He ended up baptizing Monica. I just wanted to give him a shoutout, cause he's a boss.

We're teaching this guy named Izildo. He's a super chill guy. His Fogo accent is super thick though, so sometimes I almost can't even understand him. Anyways, we've been working hard with him. We were teaching him and his sister, but his sister had a huge problem with Joseph Smith and him being a prophet and anything. She tried to argue with us, but he started arguing back with her, so she stopped! It was cool to see his desire to learn. He's going well, but he decided to go fishing instead of going to church yesterday. We ran into him and were like, what are you doing? But he still ended up going. He promised to go this week, so we're gonna work for that. I think he could be baptized by the end of the month, though.

Happy Independence Day, my fellow Americans! Light a firework! Eat a burger! I made some really nice ones today, they were pretty close to the real thing. Anyways, have a good one!

Abraço,

Elder Penner

On the island of Fogo

Drop It Like It's Hot

Hi to all from the wonderful island of Fogo! Now I'm in the wonderful area of Congresso Baixo, with Elder Jhangiani, and I gotta tell you... IT'S SO HOT HERE! The afternoons here make me feel a physical weight with the heat. Also, everything here seems like it's at a 45 degree angle, so matter where I go, it's either up or down. After being stuck in an office and having a car for most of the day for 6 months, it's been a bit of an adjustment, to say the least.

Despite the heat and the new leg workout I'm getting, I really really like this area. The Congresso Ward is the strongest ward in Fogo, I hear. The chapel seemed just about full on Sunday, and the members were complaining about how low the frequency was! It's so cool! There are a whole bunch of returned missionaries here, too, which hopefully will mean that we'll be able to teach a lot with them. They ought to remember how important it was to have a member to teach with them. And that's another thing... the members here are like the most chill people I've met in Cape Verde. Every member wants to talk to us, they love the missionaries. I met the famous Gomes at the airport when I got here. Gomes is famous mostly for his tomfoolery and for the fact that he served his mission in Utah. He's the only member I know to have served in the United States. Super cool guy.

Elder Jhangiani is a righteous kid as well, he's got such a strong desire to teach the gospel and to learn the language. He's from Paraguay, so his native language is Spanish. You think it'd be easy to go to Portuguese from Spanish, but you actually just confuse things because they're too similar. He's got a really good heart, though, and he really wants to become a better teacher. I hope that I can help him out with that. I think we're gonna get a lot of good work done together.

This area has a lot of good potential, but this last week it was somewhat difficult to teach people. I came to notice pretty quickly that it's a little more difficult here to get people to sit down with you than it was in Praia, so I realized that I had to up my game. We started focusing more on contacting people everywhere we could, marking as many appointments as possible, completely filling up at least 2 days ahead with appointments for every half hour, and we're also trying to get as many references from members as possible. The turnout isn't a lot right now, but I'm happy with what we have achieved and it's going to augment pretty quickly.

Our most progressive investigator is a girl named Monica. She's a super prepared person. The Elders met her a week before I got here, and as they taught her she asked if she could be baptized. They marked her for the 9th of July right then and there. Since then she's been going so well! The two times I taught her last week, she expressed to us how good she felt when she read the Book of Mormon and how she's felt at church. She went to a youth activity that I didn't even know about on Saturday. So she's pretty much for sure getting baptized on the 9th.

I'm having fun! Good area, great ward, great comp! I'm excited for the rest of this transfer! Hope you all are doing well too!

Abraço,

Elder Penner

Thru the Fire and Flames (Transfer)

No time to talk today, but I went to Fogo! I'm in Congresso Baixo woth Elder Jhangiani now. He's new, and pretty cool, I met him once.

Sunday was probs the best day last week. I saw Marlene give a talk, Adiley got conferred the Sacerdocio (priesthood,) and we had a noite familiar in Adilson and Ineida's house! So I got to see all 3 of my recent converts in praia going so well. I also saw Bispo Ribeiro from my ward back in Sao Vicente, so that was a cool thing too!

I'mm gonna miss Elder Massey, he was a really good comp, we had a lot of fun and got a lot of work done as well. But I'm excited for what the grand island of Fogo has in store for me! I hope I don't die from too much heat here, haha.

Well, hope you all have a wonderful week! Happy Fathers Day!

Abraco,

Elder Penner

Welcome to Paradise

Hey all! What a wonderful week it's been! I chose this classic Green Day song today, even though the actual lyrics make it more of a satire, because we're welcoming two people into kinds of "paradise" today:

First off, our investigator Adiley (formerly known as Adelei until we filled his baptismal record and realized our mistake lol) was baptized this last weekend! Super spiritual experience. From the first couple of lessons that we've had with him, we've known that he's been ready for baptism for probably a long time now. We barely had to do anything ourselves, we just taught him what he needed to be taught and he did the rest on his own. The Bishop's second counselor, Nuno, is already trying to get us to get Adiley's info into the Church system so they can officially give him the Priesthood. Really cool stuff!

1. Adiley's baptism!

Our Ward Mission Leader, Chido (shee-doo) he's super cool, and an artist too

Secondly, we're welcoming my replacement into the office today: Elder Neville! I've known him for a little while, ever since Elder Maake trained him in the area next to mine while I was in Varzea. He was born right as I resurrected into the field. I think that he's going to be a really good secretary, and he's got a lot of good energy, which in any place is a good thing. So I'll get to train him for a week, and then it's off to my next area with all the rest of transfers.

The ward had been pretty weak for the past month or so, but especially this week it's been picking up very well. We had a really fun dinner for the Young Single Adults in our ward on Friday, and we brought Adiley so we got to hang around for a while. It was a super good bonding activity, and Adiley got to meet some more friends in a non-church meeting atmosphere. He really wants to get a good friend group in the church, because he doesn't like what he sees youth do here normally, always partying and getting into gang stuff. We're trying to get him to every activity we possibly can.

1. Our Ward activity we had. It was a YSA dinner thing, we brought Adiley (I'm sitting by him)

Our investigator Mundinho, who's also super cool and best friends with Chido. His family is like a part of the ward now, although they're not getting married until near the end of the year, they say.

Adilson and Ineida are becoming a good part of our ward now! Nuno and his wife Melissa went with us to have a little Noite Familiar at their house last night, and it was super fun. Adilson spent up most of the time ranting (jokingly) about how quiet some people in church are and how he can't hear a thing. The way he was talking about it was super funny, I love the guy. It's really neat to see how his character has changed since I knew him over in Varzea. He's a lot more at peace, and a lot slower to get angry. I think one of my favorite aspects of missionary work is how conversion really changes peoples' character.

On a slightly more humorous aspect, we're still working with Baka, but we just have to face the fact that he's a pretty weird guy. Every time we talk to him he tells us "I read the Book of Mormon every day from 5 to 7 a.m.!" but every time he changes the time that he reads. Every time, he reminds us about how it was HE that contacted US and not the other way around. He also just bursts out into random war stories because he served in some war when he lived in Guinea-Bissau. Our last visit was pretty good, because as we were about to leave he told us "I am the most blessed man in the entire world! Ask me why!" so we asked why and he pulled out 2 copies of the Book of Mormon and said "Last time you visited me, I went to bed with my book here. When I woke up the next day, I found a second book here as well! I'm the most blessed man by our Heavenly Father!" It turns out I had forgotten a copy that I had brought with me that last visit. We laughed pretty hard at that one and agreed with him. As we were walking away he shouted to us, "I'm going to give it to my woman! And if she doesn't accept it, I'll leave her! There's plenty of women out there for me!" We were laughing so hard after that. He's a sincere guy after everything, and he's already been to church a couple of times. We just have to work with him on his drinking problem and he'll be good to baptize as well!

That's all I have time for this week. Super cool stuff! I'm hoping for a great last week here in the office. I'll probably take pictures with a lot of people here, there's some guys that I've become really tight with. But anyways, have a good week all!

Abraço

Elder Penner