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.

I'm a "Lady Preacher Creature": May 19

CRAZY WEEK HOLY SMOKES

Come to think of it I don't think I've had a single day here that hasn't been crazy overwhelming. Lots of really high highs and really low lows.

So let's get right to it and I'll try to cut it down to the juicy stuff.

Turns out Relva only sells pink scented TP which is a really nice compliment to our nasty tap water that occasionally smells like bad breath and poop. WOO.

Also we hired an investigator (Lita) to cook us lunch every week which is AWEsome cause African food is DELISH but she always makes us WAAAYYYY too much and gets offended when we don't eat it all. YIKES! And I drank the juice that she made with unfiltered water and I haven't died yet. YAY! And just as a side note, I haven't gone a single day in Relva without saying "Eu vou morrer!" It's true. Whether I'm hiking down a literal cliff, catching a ride on a hiace (those drivers are insane!), or drinking poison poop water (dooon't worry, we have a sketchy filter in our apartment), I'm protected by God. Everywhere I go. And I know it's because I'm a missionary.

Let's see, what was the craziest lesson I had this week...? OH! Last week we had another crazy lesson with Tchitchi. We sat inside his house and his sister gave me TWO hugs and patted me on the head. Oh my heart. And then we started singing and his other brother, Jose, who also has a mental disability started yelling-chanting as we sung and I couldn't help but chuckle because it was so precious. Then we started the lesson and it was going really well and then all of a sudden walks in a man that looks EXACTLY like Tchitchi! Sooo he has a twin whose name is....drumroll please...Tchitchizinho! Yup. What kind of mother would do that to her twin sons? Speaking of their mom, she walked in and started yelling about how her son is a sinner and yatta yatta, spittle was flying and THANK GOODNESS we had a member with us this time who could interrupt her.

Anywho, Tchitchi and his brother and both going to be baptized! And Tchitchi has gone a full week already without drinking alcohol or coffee and UGH I'm just so proud and excited for him and his brother!

And Chuduko's baptism no mar foi SUPER FIXE! Gosh I love that kid! He's gonna do great things!

Also! We had Zone Conference the other day which means all of the missionaries on Fogo and Brava plus the mission Prez and his wife were all there and I bore my testimony (as is tradition with all first transfers) and afterwards Sister Oliveira totally called me out during her trainamento on how good my Portuguese is which is kinda a big deal. And afterwards my companion said that people kept making comments on how my Portuguese is better than most Cabo Verdeans ahahaha which is all so awesome mainly because it's SOLID PROOF that the Lord is hearing and answering my prayers because I definitely remember failing Spanish TWICE. Yeah. Faith. It works, people.

Anywho, it was an amazing day full of so much goodness and a bit of sadness too because there is SO MUCH that goes into being a good missionary and I don't measure up to anyone here which is frustrating but I gotta keep reminding myself that it's only my first transfer. BUT, I'm looking for all the help I can get so to all of my return missionary friends (or anyone actually), if you have any tips or pointers or some stories or ANYTHING, write me! I need all the help I can get!

I love you all! Seriously though. I love you all.

Tchau!

Sister  Corbette! I LOVE her!!! She's my buddy

Crioulu for "Patience is the work of success" and while I was attempting to make Cabo Verdean gang signs I made some new best friends with the home boys hanging out in the back of the campo.

District fun at zone conference yaaaay

Believe it or not this is super typical. I see people with ginormous bales of hay on their head or gas tanks all the time

My favorite set up in a less active member's home.

Chuduko YES hes SO FIXE AHHHHHH

Mau!! I love this boy and his baby bangs. So cute

My ride over to Mosteiros this morning. This is my weekly experience

...and this was my seat on the ride over. ADVENTURE!

Just a small fragment of our daily trek.

Helllloooooo one and all!: May 12

 First off, Skyping my family was SOOOOO GREAT and I'm feeling a little homesick but it's all good because I've got my delish fresh baked bread and nusco duo to comfort me.

Meu sono foi relizado!!!!! I can literally check "hold a baby goat" off my bucket list because I got to hold THREE! That's right people! Three in one week! That's what dreams are made of. They're so soft and fluffy with gangly legs and they gave me milky kisses on my cheeks and oh goodness I was in heaven!

Alright! Now for the crazy~ish stuff (I actually don't believe there's ever even a semi-normal day here). The other day I said "boa tarde" to a random rapaz and we started talking. My companion and I asked him what his biggest dream in life was and he said "follow Christ" and we were like "oh yeah we can help you with that". At first we thought he said that just because we're sister missionaries (We're like celebs here. Everywhere we walk we hear people yelling, "Sisters! Sisters! Come teach us!" and it's kinda absolutely insane). Anyway, we went to his house and, first off, he has two older siblings with disabilities and they were slapping our arms and trying to hug us and steal our stuff, and then there were chickens were running over our feet, and then we finally sat down in his house (he has the SWEETEST little baby daughter). Then when we started teaching his crazy Adventista (that's a church here) mother came out and was shouting, inches from my face, something about everyone being sinners and a lot about the blood of Jesus and I was just trying really hard not to wipe the spittle off my face and that lasted for about 40 minutes, but we squeezed in a tiny lesson with him and it looks like he's gonna get baptized in a few weeks! He's definitely ready!!!

Well that was all great except it made us late for our baptism with a rapaz named Xote. He doesn't understand any Portuguese and has the attention span of a 7 year old (actually that's pretty much everyone here in Relva) but we brought over activities for him to learn and his whole family is full of really strong members, so that's my Xote! He was beaming! Even though he was basically tossed into the two feet of dirty water that was prepared for him. Yay!

Right now we are absolutely going crazy with how many investigators we have and the less-actives we need to take care of. We have to end our lunch way early sometimes just because we don't have enough time for even half of the people we have. Especially cause so much of that time is taken hiking around the volcano which, I'm not kidding you, that little village is built on a vertical incline. I swear. My comp and I have mused that tha'ts why they've never had sisters in Relva because it's just so hard on you. I just about die every night, BUT, the Lord is with me! And I know that because if He wasn't, I would already be dead by now or be back home in California. I know that with faith in him, tudo é posível!

Random village close to Mosteiros

The little meninos just love us

CABRITOOOOs

Check out her arms! yeah. Everyone here is crazy buff, even the old ladies

Baptismal font!

XOTE!

First, observe the steepness. Now, observe old man with cane. That's Relva for you

Emergency Transfer!!!!!

Alright, so here's the deal. I stayed my first week in Tira Chapeu (which is in Praia), got shipped out to Cova Figueira (which is on the island of Fogo) for a little over a week, and was emergency-transferred to Relva!!! And I've been in Relva for the past few days. Will I ever get to settle? Who knows!~

 

Relva is soooo so so gorgeous! One man called it "O Lugar da Fruta". Claro! They have a bajillion huuuge papaya trees here with papayas as big as your head! Giant mango trees too! And this place is even steeper than Cova Figueira. Mainly because it's the closest village to the volcano (so if it erupts we'll be the first to go! woo!)! It's also even closer to the ocean than CF. So basically picture the island that Link lives on in Wind Waker, except with black sand and a volcano right in your face, and you've got Relva. Also, the Crioulo here is even weirder than CF if that's even possible. All the Rs are rolled and all the Vs turn into Bs. And plus I mean it's a whole other language in general. For example, «Você não quer?» in Portuguese turns into «A bo ca crei?». It's pretty dang difficult but the people here are all SSOO excited to have sisters because we are the first sisters that Relva's ever had! It's insane. WOOO!

 

Alright, crazy stuff:

1. Last week we got locked out so I had to climb up our balcony. So I'm pretty much Indiana Jones now. I'm so fixe.

2. Last week I got super sick and now I know how horrible it is to be sick as a missionary. It's THE WORST.

3. Our house here in Relva is INFESTED with cockroaches so if you're ever wondering, «What's Sister Murri up to right now?» I'm either smashing cockroaches or I'm out teaching. Adventure! Onward Christian soldiers! Turns out you can relate a lot of gospel principles to cockroach infestations. Really. It's quite interesting.

4. Teaching an English class here was an adventure in itself! It was fun until a drunk neighborhood homeboy wandered in with a posse of young kinds trailing behind him hahahaha.

 

Alright, that's all for this week. I love you all! Tcháu!

Cova Figueira Sisters!

Relva! And volcano

Relva

Typical Cape Verde pose. Puppy in one hand, gang sign in the other.

Mosteiros! where we spent our pday

Most.

Most.

Most.

View from my window

The family that owns our house has a little farm! Ugh! I love it. The volcano is covered by clouds

Look at those green eyes. My goodness

Mosteiros is SO PRETTY!