Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Mindelo

Mindelo is the most developed, appealing city in Cape Verde. It really is different from Praia or Assomada. In Praia, there are all kinds of people from Cape Verdinians to Portuguese to people from Senegal or Ghana. In Mindelo, it’s just people from Cape Verde.

They speak an entirely different Creole which is said to be the most beautiful one of the country. I personally like Praia Creole better. The upside to all this is that the majority of the people in Mindelo is more educated and can understand and read scriptures better. You can speak Portuguese faster and use more complex words, and they’ll understand. The downside is that they know they’re in the best of the Country. People from Mindelo have generally negative views on people from Praia, and they do not like the city at all. They’re more prideful, and they see themselves as more modern, thus forgetting God quicker. Nevertheless, it’s nothing like Europe, and we still find humble people to teach and prepare to accept the Gospel. It’s just not as easy as Fogo.

Santo Antao is very much like Tarrafal - quiet, poor and humble people. I got to meet many of the members there, and it was pretty awesome. It’s the second hottest area of the mission behind Sao Filipe.

This week has been equally busy as the last one as we have lots of work and furthermore, we’re preparing this woman named Aldina for baptism in two weeks. Aldina recently lost a daughter and has had her life very affected by this. She was closed to everyone at first, but started opening up and praying to Heavenly Father. In the most recent times that we have taught her, you can see her entire countenance changing. Now she’s lively, chuckles from time to time and is excited about attending church and being baptized. She’s probably some 40 years old. We’re preparing her 25 year old daughter to be baptized, as well.

Elder Cuestas




Tuesday, May 22, 2012

There Is A Special Joy In Teaching Families

So my companion, Elder Fernandes is incredible! I cannot emphasize how amazing of a time we’re having. He’s super clean and extremely patient. Elder Fernandes is from Achada Grande, Praia, and he lives with his mom and his two older brothers. He’s very young on the mission, and he’ll reach his year mark in September. Together we’re so focused on the work, and we’re both putting our heads together to see what we can do to turn this zone around. He’s so incredibly easy to get along with. Sometimes we chat the whole way from appointment to appointment, while other times we just walk in silence. Everything is so well balance, which it creates all the room to focus on the investigators, and the work along with our personal, spiritual growth.  

Last week was Crazy… On Monday, P day, we went to play soccer with all the elders in Mindelo. Elder Josephson is the zone leader in the Mindelo South Zone, and I get to see him every Monday now.  We’re really good friends. We had a great time playing soccer, and I hope that I can get a little more control of the ball as time goes on…ha-ha. I play terribly!! but so does everyone else. We just laugh the whole time.

Then we left our house at 10:00p to catch our 11:00p flight to Praia with Elder Josephson and Elder Cruz dos Santos from Brazil. We stayed at Elder Hills house, who is now the zone leader of Praia. We had a great training that was focused on how to teach whole families and that we need to look for them now more than individuals. We learned about how to train our missionaries to do so, as well. The spirit was very strong. Indeed, we all learned a lot and spent the evening talking about it and waiting for our 6AM flight the next morning. Over those three days, Fernandes, Cruz dos Santos, Josephson, and I developed a really strong bond, and we talked about everything after the training. We’re excited to work together in Mindelo. The day of our flight back, we had to wake up at 4am to be at the airport at 5am. We were so exhausted when we got back, and we still had to work all that day, but all is good!

The rest of last week we prepared this 17 year old guy for baptism named Elio. He was extremely organized, and he completed his appointments every time and read the book of Mormon every day. His baptism was super spiritual, and he wants to serve a mission. He was able to stand up to his friends that made fun of him for wanting to follow Jesus Christ. It was truly a great joy to meet with him every day and see how eager he wanted to be baptized. He lives with his grandmother as his mom lives in France. He’s waiting to receive papers to go there to live with her. In the meantime, he just has a humble job as a carpenter.

As I mentioned before, we’re focusing now on teaching entire families, as opposed to individuals, and we have a few that are especially promising. Right now, we’re teaching Claudino. He’s a less active that is starting to reactivate, and he has a wife who is not a member of the church. We were able to sit down with them on Saturday and teach them the plan of happiness and how it involves families. The wife named Rizeth looked very interested in the counsel that the gospel can provide for her little girl.

The other family is a man named Valdevino and his wife Margarida. Valdevino is another inactive member who lives with Margarida, but is not married. We watched the film of Joseph Smith, and they promised that they’ll go to Church next week. Margarida is very interested as well and is already doing family prayer with her daughter and Valdevino every day. We gave them a copy of the Family Proclamation, and she read it all in one day. There is a special joy that comes from teaching whole families, as opposed to just individuals. It’s especially what the church here in Mindelo needs.

We’ll be going to Santo Antao today, which is another island. We’ll be doing divisions there with the elders to see what we can do to better help them out. They say Santo Antao is really pretty and is the hottest island in the country, hotter than Fogo. We will see about that.

Elder Cuestas

Monday, May 7, 2012

Got Transferred To Mindelo!

About three days ago, I entered the office in the morning to start working, and President pulled me in for a conversation. After a prayer, he said to me that I was a great missionary and that I worked miracles in Fogo. He said that he could not believe that I never lost my work ethic all those 6 transfers that I was in Fogo. He said that because of this, he thought best that I be an example to the rest of the mission and come to be his assistant. He said that after seeing this transfer go by, he felt that this is not the place for me. He said that it’s not about me being an example; it’s about me going back to the field to work more miracles. He said that I don’t belong here in the office working with numbers, but that I belong in the field with the missionaries and focusing on the work 24/7. He said that I have the natural drive of a leader and that he cannot change that in me.

Therefore, I am leaving the office! That’s right. I'm going to be a Zone Leader Again! And I'll do so in the city of Mindelo, serving with Elder Fernandes.

I screamed inside my heart with joy when I saw this on the transfer board. I'm going to Mindelo!!

I know that Mindelo is known for being the hardest two zones in the mission for baptizing and finding people to teach. President is sending me there because he's hoping that I can go and change things and help increase the faith of the missionaries there. And I get to go serve with elder Fernandes. He's incredible! He's from Cape Verde, from Praia and has been serving his whole mission in Fogo. He got transferred to Mindelo when I got transferred to Assistant.

I’m excited for constantly being in one area and getting to know the members of my team and working with them and watching them grow in their areas. This is what I was made for. I really hope things go well out in Mindelo.

Today is Monday, P day, and it turns out that I’m the last one to fly out of Praia. As this is the last day as an AP, I have been super busy with transfers and getting everyone else to where they need to go and what not along with getting ready for my departure. I’ll arrive just at the crack of dusk into Mindelo. I'm exhausted, and I even have black circles under my eyes ha-ha, but I feel great!

So last week was absolutely incredible. The week started off by going to Fogo and, yes, seeing Elder Abularach and Elder Reeser again. There is another Elder there that got to Fogo the last transfer that I was there, and his name is Elder Hill. After we went to the Zone conference and gave our training, I went on a division with Elder Hill to see how his teaching was. We visited a ton of my recent converts in Sao Filipe and taught them and saw how they were doing. I was so happy to see everyone again. It was such a joy to be in Fogo walking the streets of Sao Filipe again. I felt that I was in paradise. No vacation can compare to the joy of walking my favorite area, where I served faithfully for 9 months. Most of the recent converts are doing well, with a few that just needed some strength. I love Fogo!

Last but not least, just wanted to say that President Oliveira is such a remarkable man, and I truly admire him! Every time that he interviews me, I feel the Spirit very strong, and I feel that he’s looking for the missionaries’ best interest, and I know that he loves us all!

Elder Cuestas