OH VIIIIDA CREEEEDO!: June 16

Quote of the week from my comp: I just wanna find a man that can lead my family to Zion and kick down the doors like a freaking boss

Amém to that.

Moving on. I had an interview with President Oliveira this week and oh man. That man is truely inspired. And I´ll just mention one of the many things we talked about. So I asked him what the difference was between repentance and repentance through the Atonement of Jesus Christ and he said that the difference is between training your mind and training your spirit.

An alcoholic can go to Alcoholics Anonymous, and even though hes training his mind not to return to alcohol, hes always going to have that desire to go back. Through the Atonement we train our spirit, and then there is no desire to return to that sin. And if we strive to have Christlike attributes, our mind will become as a servant to our soul. So cool. Gosh I love the gospel.

Heres a story. so we were walking around the other day when a random lady called us over so we went over and she said, «Sisters, im a slacker. I was the second person to be baptized in Cabo Verde but after my husband died, i stopped going to church. I used to have a strong testimony, I need your help.» Woah! Talk about a dream missionary experience. So we chatted with her and she showed us her practically vintange baptizmal photos and she let us hold her puppies and it was great.

Another cool story! Ran into an old woman, Ana, who lives with her little grandson and we sat down and chatted with her (she seemed really lonely). We noticed she already had a Book of Mormon in her house and then she mentioned that shes a member but hasnt been back to chruch in five years. Then she told us her story. Turns out her husband killed both of her children, chapped off half of one of her hands, took a chunk from her arm and head and now he lives in a crazy home. So sad. We didnt know what to say so we just sang a few hymns and left her with a prayer and a plan to return the next day and the yesterday she came to church! Yes!

And these arent crazy stories. These kinda things are like daily occurances here in the Cabo Verde Mission. If I had more time I would write them all down!

This weeks been pretty slow though because of the World Cup. Every night theres a huge festa going on in the streets and none of our investigators have been home and everybodys drunk and we stopped by a members house to ask the missionaries what to do one night and 5 minutes later we hear sirens and turns out that somebody was killed right outside the members house so we went home.Yeahhhh works been real slow this week.

YO PEOPLE! If you ever think, «Sister Murris probably got tons of people writing her so I dont need to» you are definitely WRONG. I dont care who you are! It would make my day if you wrote me a little something!

They were playing soccer on stilts with that little tennis ball hahaha

yaaaaaay my area.

cãozinho con olhos BEM CLAROS!

That stuff is literally playdough aaaand it's so gross. haha. And that chicken tasted like fish. That ain't right.

My puppy Jonathan! We hang out in this alley a lot.

Jonathan's going blind :(

OSVALDO (in the pink) ooooohhhhhhhhhhh man I love him SO MUCH! We are trying so hard to get him to serve a mission. Nicest guy in Praia.

Africans and me and other things: June 2

aaaaahhhhhh Tchitchi Tchitchi Tchiiiiitchiiiiiii I LOVE this guy! Sister W and I were talking the other day with an Elder that was in Relva right before us and he said that the first time he saw Tchitchi he had blood all over his face, was without a shirt, was drinking really heavily and ran when the cops showed up. And now he's here! AGH missionary work. This is what it's all about.

Don't mind the look of pain on my face. «We are all equal» ..have no idea what that has to do with a cool skeleton coming out of a cup

They were laughing and giggling the whole way up the mountain. The kids here have the weirdest idea of what fun is.

A random campo + volcano (it looks 100x's bigger in person, I swear)

I'm a tall lady

Our capela

Another child stole my camera

If somebody dies in the act of getting baptized, do they go straight to heaven?

My planner. All the missionaries in Cape Verde decorate their planners

               Ascension to mental death is what I like to call this climb

It's so steep that cars can't drive up or down it without greaaaat difficulty.

The mangoes here are TO DIE FORRRRRR

What the...what the heck is this stuff?

Relva has ginormous trees which is super rare in Cabo Verde

Maria Socorro. Don't mess with her

If somebody owns a store and they say that they're working, it means that they're playing games all day long.

Walk from Lava Rosto (it means "Wash Your Face". kinda) back to Relva, there in the distance

He used to have the saddest eyes of anyone I had ever met and now look at him! HE GLOWS NOW. HE GLOWS.

Adventures with my volcano people- May 26

The weeks are going by SO FAST now. Holy smokes! I'm already on my 2nd transfer in the field!!!

Well this week was INSANE. No surprise there though hahahaha. And you know what they say, you either laugh or you cry or if it's bad enough you do both at the same time and lemme tell ya... there was a lot of that going on this week. I don't think I've ever laugh-cried more in my entire life.

Okay, so! Yesterday Fogo turned into a STAKE!!!! YYEEESSSSS that is a HUGE deal here cause that means we will actually have wards and bishops and more organization and lots of awesomeness that we didn't have before! And we've been working really hard on training the members here (not sure if I've mentioned this before but our prez has only been a member for three months. and he has no idea who moses is) so yeah. Super exciting stuff!

So long story kinda short, yesterday was the big conference out in São Filipe, we didn't have enough hiaces so us and about 25 people were left behind. We eventually got a ride on the back of a truck with a cage on the back and after an hour and thirty minutes of the most uncomfortable ride of my entire life, we arrive. And we jump out of the truck, covered in dirt, get to where the conference is and make it just in time to hear the last verse of "God Be With You Till We Meet Again" and the closing prayer. Yup.

Then we hopped back into the back of the truck and on the way home some poor little girl vomited all over the place so for about half the ride home my feet were sliding around in vomit. ADVENTURE!!!! YEAH! hahahahaha. And we had an amazing Sunday full of teaching after that.

ALSO Just as a side note, I was talking to an elder from Brazil who served in Relva before me and he told me that because I've started here where the Crioulo is really thick and where the climb goes straight up the mountain, the rest of the mission is gonna seem like a pieice of cake hahah. And he also told me that my Portuguese is otímo. YES! It's hard to tell when no one around you actually speaks it.

And lets see, what are some other things about my week?

~two drunks wrestling like 5 year olds

~a ridiculously awkward Cabo Verdean wedding (in which some random rapaz full on smooched my shoulder. falta de respeito!)

~a mentally handicapped man leaned in to kiss me and I barely dodged it in time

~I've eaten Morea (eel) three times total this week. é sabi (crioulo for "it's good!")

and PS, In my last update I made a mistake with the crioulo. the actual translation is "patience is key to success" and I'm starting to catch the similarities. A lot of words are the same, and some are just slightly changed like "chave" in portuguese is "tchabi" in crioulo. and all of the V's in portuguese turn into B's in crioulo.

fica fixe

 evvverrybody has a little outside patio and it was raining that day but usually youll have little chickens and dirty kittens and half naked children running around it

                                  random last minute meeting in Cova Figueira. horrible shot sorry

love this fam. even though their sons can be total fubekas haha

​we were late to a meeting cause a chunk of the mountain fell. hehe. he.