Learning Creole

Elder Rodriguez is now training another new missionary. His name is Elder Josephson. Elder Olson went to another Island called Santo Antão.

My companion, Elder Fonseca, is very nice and we get along great. He is teaching me a lot about the Creole, which I really need because no one speaks Portuguese here.

Tarrafal is like a rural city - maybe 20,000 people here. It is about 2 hours away from Praia, on the other side of the island. Because it is rural no one speaks Portuguese. At least, they understand when we speak to them because as a rule of the mission, we are not allowed to teach them in Creole.

The whole city is our area, and there are no other missionaries out here but us. The only time we get to see other missionaries is in Assomada for district meetings on Wednesdays. As a result, P day can be somewhat long. Nothing I cannot get used to however.

There are no busses here. We take a Toyota Hiace to Assomada, which is 45 minutes away.

We have some investigators, but we need more. We had a baptism this Saturday, although I only taught the investigator 2 times upon arriving in Tarrafal. He is really nice though.

Tarrafal is a lot quieter than Praia. There are maybe 10 roads in the whole city. We work one area on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday and another area on the other days. To get to that other area, we have to take a pickup and ride in the back. They fill those with up to 12 people at times.

Life is pretty good; just have new adjustments to make. I miss getting to play soccer with the other Elders on Monday mornings. Something that is nice is that the members are pretty cool, and they go teaching with us all the time. We're trying to organize activities with them to maybe start playing soccer on P days.

Temperature doesn’t change much here. It’s always around 80 degrees give or take.

Life is well, and I'm constantly growing and learning from the experiences that I'm having here on my mission. I would not trade it in for anything else.

I know that this is going to bless me for the rest of my life. I know that I'm called to be out here and that I have a purpose. I know that my Heavenly Father loves me and that he loves the people out here in Cape Verde.

Elder Cuestas