I love it here

I am doing very well.

So the most important news is that Steven had a baptismal interview last Saturday and that he is scheduled to be baptized this coming Saturday. I'm so excited for him because the elders have been working with him for a while. We have been working with him for 7 weeks. We think that he is ready and the district leader who interviewed him thinks that he is ready too. Fingers crossed I'll have a baptism this week!!!

Zee went teaching with us three days last week. He loves our company and says that we're his brothers. He is a lot of fun to be around. The only thing is that he speaks very fast Creole and does not separate his words, so sometimes he can be a little difficult to understand, and I have to ask him to repeat several times. He is very patient with me.

I can speak Creole and pretty much he's the only person I have difficulty understanding. Elder Fonseca is very surprised. I have conversations with the members all the time in Creole now. Look at the difference between Creole and Portuguese.

O que Vocé esta a procurar?

Kuze ke bo sta ta busca

Eu preciso ir á loja (I need to go to the store)

ami mesti ta bai pa loja

Ela disse que vocé esta a ir para Praia

hoje El fla ma bo sta ta bai pa Praia hoje

The weather doesn’t change too much here. Tarrafal can get just a little hot between 1 and 3 in the afternoon. I have never soaked a shirt from sweating. Once its 5 in the evening, the weather is very nice. It’s usually windy. I enjoy the weather very much here. We don’t need to use the fan in the house, and it's almost always comfortable. The only places in Cape Verde that are very hot are Porto Novo on the island of Santo Antão and Praia.

I love it here. I'm sure this is Elder Fonseca´s last transfer. He has been here 4 transfers.

We will never drop Julia. She is a member and has an addiction but has the will to change. We just need a lot of patience with her.

Who hangs out with us the most is Elizeu. He loves being with us and will go teaching with us from 11 in the morning to 9 at night. It's awesome. He has a very easy going personality and always wants to be with us.

Am I cooking a lot? I cook every other day. Ha-ha. They were not kidding when they said that they don’t have any fast food restaurants here. I like to make rice more than anything. It cooks the fastest. This is what I do. I chop onions and place them in the pot with olive oil. I let them simmer a bit. I will then put in the rice and let it brown. Then I put the water and I add the following:

1 caldo block chicken flavor

SaltGarlic and salt mixture...not sure how to describe it

Tuna (Fish is the cheapest here)

Ceyanne Pepper

Black pepperTastes pretty good… Is it healthy?

Yes, we have Relief Society here. It's quite small compared to back home, but we do have it. We have about 45 members attending church per week....

I picked up a baby goat the other day. It didn’t do anything except make a little bit of noise. A little girl got a bit annoyed with me because it was her goat.

She said Poe nha cabrito na chão!
(Put my goat down)

I laughed and let it go.

Mulato, Batcha, Zee, and Elizeu are basically the group. We always have one of them with us though we have Elizeu more than anyone else. They're all doing very well.

We have all thought about the people in Japan and we're praying for them.

Elder Gianluca Cuestas