The Riches of Cabo Verde

January 10, 2011

Well, I can't believe it's P-day again, but it's been a great day. We cleaned our apartment, ate some sweet potato french fries (courtesy of Sister Pinto) and went shopping! Ha-ha. I experienced the mall of Praia: Sucupira. It's basically an outdoor market with tons of American clothing, products and some Cabo Verde crafts and food. I want to buy everything! I'm trying to remember that I still have over a year to accumulate souvenirs. And most of the stuff wasn't even made in Cape Verde, so I try to remember that too. :)

Well, this week I learned several things:

1. They have Vienna sausages in Cape Verde.

2. Vienna sausages are still gross.

3. This one really gets me. It sort of burst my bubble of happiness: the chapel is just orange (pinkish orange) and off-white. But there are green and yellow plants around it.

4. The word for cockroach is barata. And they're gross. But not as gross as Vienna sausages.

5. It's really funny and really disrupts the lesson when a barata flies into Sister Pinto's hair.

Really great moment of the week. We're walking up the path to Zedina's home and a man comes towards us, riding a horse (a really skinny horse) and he's dressed in jeans, a padded motorcycle jacket and giant motorcycle helmet! He must have been dying of heat! Or he was really worried about falling off his skinny horse. I wanted to take a picture, but I was too busy trying not to laugh.

We had Zone Conference this week! It was awesome and...exhausting. My brain felt like it had taken a couple ACTs and maybe an Anatomy exam...in Portuguese! But it was great. And I got to bear my testimony in front of everyone. And play the piano. But I love our Zone and President and Sister Neves. And Elder and Sister Adams. It was a good day. But my brain really did hurt. And then I ate about half a chicken. Literally. We each had trays of fries and a giant half chicken.

It was Sister Almeida and Sister Pinto's birthday this week! We had a family night with Isa and Zezito, who are going to be married on Friday and baptized a couple weeks afterwards, to celebrate. It was fun, but I was out of my comfort zone. But I have a great game for Dad to play with his BYU ward. It's called Agua na Cara. Yup. Water in the face. Basically one person chooses a color or animal or whatever and then people have to guess. If you guess right, they throw a cup of water in your face....my kind of game, right? And the Sisters say hi.

Isa and Zezito have a little boy who is adorable!!

I saw my first few mice yesterday. They're just little guys. And I still think they're cute.

We taught Mane about missionary work yesterday. Did I tell you about Mane? He was baptized in December and is incredible. We're also teaching two of his cousins. Maria is going to be baptized in two weeks and Nene is ready to be baptized but can't come to church because of work. It's really hard because he's not quite willing to change...but we're working on it

I'll admit I've really been struggling lately, with the language, the work, everything. But when we taught Mane about missionary work, everything sort of went away. It's still going to be hard, but I know why I'm here. I only forget that when I start thinking about myself. I was thinking (for about the 80th time) about President Hinckley's father's words: “Forget yourself and go to work.” How many missionaries, do you think, have been helped by that experience and those six words? If President Hinckley had done nothing else but share that story with the world, I'm sure he helped thousands of missionaries and who knows how many others because of those missionaries!! The Lord really knows what He's doing when He calls our prophets!

Emanuel. Unfortunately he's not progressing because he won't make time for church or our lessons. That was hard because he's really smart and really listened and thought hard about the things we taught him.

Nidia IS progressing, though, and came to church on Sunday! I'm really excited for her. I think church might have been a little hard for her, but I hope she'll keep coming. She's 14 and very smart and I know she'll be a real help to her family if she continues.

We got to clean the chapel on Saturday...for almost five hours. Sister Neves was a little upset that not very many members came to help and said so during Relief Society on Sunday. It was what the Sisters refer to as uma faca sem bolo. A knife without cake. Ha-ha. Oh man. I love Portuguese. And I'll like it more when I can actually speak and understand what's going on. : )

I think that's about it. No, wait. The Riches of Cabo Verde: rocks. There's danger of tripping over two things here. The first, obviously, is the rocks. The second is the dogs. Especially in the heat, there are hundreds of dogs splayed out all over the place. I think they're sleeping...

Here are your words:

abacaxi (ah-bawk-ah-she) - pineapple
ananas - also pineapple
chinelo (shin-el-u) - slipper
berinjela - eggplant (That one's for Grandma Hall)

Well, I love you all! I hope you're well! Miss you all! Keep being good.

Allons-y!
Sister Brooks