Hello Family!

I'm finally getting an email sent. I'm sure you've all been dying without an update from me...oh wait. You're visiting the little ones so you probably don't care at all. :) But I'll make myself feel good and pretend like you've been waiting (on pins and needles) for my email.

Happy Birthday Paul!! Maybe you can make yourself a birthday cake out of fruit. I'd do it for you, but I'd have to bleach the e-coli out first. :)

The subject of my email is what it would have been if I'd been able to email Saturday. Our twelfth day without running water. Ha-ha. But now it's back, which is too bad because then it would have been exactly two weeks. But water has returned to Praia. Yippee. But on Friday, before the water came back we were completely out! So we got a delivery of water from a guy driving around with a nice rusty box of water and he pumped some water into our barrels. That was good.

We haven't been able to wash clothes...

I'm very sick of bucket baths.

It's a bit hard to flush the toilet without water...

I can't concentrate. This is what happens when my routine gets messed up. But here's the news:
Transfers! I'm not being transferred (duh) but Sister Laimana and I did get a new companion! Woohoo. Sister Beus. She served her first transfer in Sal and now she's in good ol' Praia. Things are still a little bit fuzzy, but I guess we'll be training her on the office stuff. Speaking of training:

Our wonderful trainer has left the island. We had to say good-bye to Elder Barker which was actually super sad. I've got some great pictures of the three of us which I'll try to get sent off on Friday. I don't have them today. Um...yeah. We're now on our own in the office and it's a little bit terrifying. I'm not sure how we're going to do it. We might be bothering Elder Barker a lot. But I bet he misses us too. :)

Okay. Let's see: I can't wait to hear about Jackson's baptism! I hope it was as great as Titinho's. Titinho and another young man and young woman were baptized last Saturday. He's so sweet. It was a great experience. I don't think I could smile any wider than I was. He's super shy and looked a little terrified of bearing his testimony afterwards, but he did a great job.

I'm not feeling particularly verbose today. Is that a word? Because if it is, I'm not feeling it.

We had some amazing trainings this week (except the one about receiving revelation through frequenting igreja since we had to give it). We've had these same trainings before but I think my last one was my first transfer and it seemed a lot less overwhelming this time around. I feel like I know enough (however little) about being a missionary that I can apply what I learned to our teaching techniques. We've already seen a big help.

Perhaps my favorite part of the trainings (don't judge me) was that we got to go out to eat afterwards. Thursday we went to a pizza place which was actually quite good and we got to listen to the Elders getting Krioulu tips from President. Then on Friday I finally got to try my first Chwarma! I think I would compare it to a pita wrap sandwich, but with the addition of french fries inside. Quite delicious.

Let's see. What else? I really don't have a whole lot to say...but here are a couple phrases I've learned in Krioulu:

Bo ta kai na txon e labi-labi. = The Krioulu equivalent of Stop, Drop and Roll. I'll know exactly what to do if anyone ever catches fire.

A mi ta ratxa a bu kabesa. (I really shouldn't teach my nephews this one) = I'm going to tear your head off. I guess this one is for self -defense walking around at night.

Well...I'm sorry I don't have too much to say. But I love you all! I can't wait to hear about Jackson's baptism and hopefully see some pictures!

Fika dretu,
Sister Brooks

PS Oh yeah. One of my pictures is from our visit to the Praia graveyard. It was definitely different from the Provo cemetery that I'm used to visiting on Memorial Day. It's about a fifth of the size with...overlapping plots. And in the back: drawers. We saw one open drawer and all its contents.

Luckily it was one of the older ones.

The saddest part was that all the tombstones/crosses read 'Eterna saudade' for family and friends--basically they'll miss each other forever. What a blessing to know the mercy of the Plan of our Heavenly Father for each of us.