Cape Verde Week 31

Boa Noite,

I am so sore!!! I said I would not trust another Elder saying “it is only a short hike Elder Waller, you can do it”, but I did and now I am paying the price again. Elder Thurgood, my one time friend, assured me that this hike was much easier than the first hike and would only take 2 hrs to complete. He failed to mention the 2hr time was the timing of a mountain goat. He also failed to mention that the final challenge to get to home base was the hardest part of the journey. So after completing all but the last portion of the hike, I was faced with a 1000 ft shear drop. My knees were already complaining, and would continue to complain the whole way. One elder said, “Try walking backwards, it is much easier”, yes and a head injury would be all I need at this time. I finally used Elder Morales as a crutch and hobbled the final way down. Now 2 days later my legs still feel like rubber. The interesting thing is I am not the only one, all the Elders and Sisters are complaining of sore legs. So it is a definite!! No more hiking on Santo Antao!!

I was a beautiful day and the mountains were gorgeous, but the price is too high for further adventures. While struggling down the mountain, the locals were hiking around, a group of women we coming down the mountain with bundles of sticks on their heads. So when the locals were looking I had to shape up a little, but after awhile who cared!

Sister Vaterlaus running with the lunch- Dietician
Our destination, along way down!!!
The week has also been busy with preparations for District and Zone Conference this weekend. We held meetings on Saturday and then Conference today. We had good attendance at all the meetings. I was able to speak in the RS meeting Saturday night, with no prior warning and also the Priesthood leadership meeting. Today was suppose to be a change in District leadership but things didn’t work out the way the President planned, so back to the drawing board.
Elder Alexander didn't you know the world is your bathroom!!!
I had the opportunity to work with the Elders this week in giving a lesson and Sharon also had a chance to go with the Sister to do some visiting. They are doing well and the baptisms are coming slow but every week some enters the water of baptism. Vista to Paul and on the upper trail,things were easy.

We love the green!!
This next week we have planned a Mini Mission experience for the seminary students. It has been quickly put together, so hope all goes well.

Well that is about it for this week. I’ll continue to hobble around realizing that I am getting older. But at the same time, I made it down the hill!!

Tchau

E/S Waller, Mom & Dad, Bama & Bampa

The final resting spot for many hikers!!

Cape Verde Week 30

Bom dia meus irmãos e irmãs,

It has been a fruitful week here in Cape Verde. We have been blessed with good health and even had a little rain. We started off with a good Sabbath. The meetings were well attended and the messages were well prepared. We enjoyed a nice dinner that evening with the Porto Novo Elders, Wood and Thurgood. They had come over for District Meeting to be held on Monday. I had talked to the President about allowing the Porto Novo Elders to come over once during a transfer to meet with all the rest of the Zone, and he felt it was a good idea. It is hard to have a District Meeting when there are only the two of you, and you just had companion study! The New Missionaries and their companions; Sisters Silveira & Bikhazi, Elders Neumann & Dance, Elders Morales & Ballantyne

District Meetings on Monday were good and we enjoyed eating with the Elders and Sisters at the Sports Café afterwards. At District Mtg. Sister Bikhazi passed out invitation to her birthday party on “P-day”. We all had our assignments on what to bring. I suppose that is the best way to have everyone remember your birthday, throw yourself a party!! The Elders and Sisters enjoy just about anytime they can get together.

I hope she is surprised when she comes into her birthday party, that she planned; Elders Alexander & TuttleOh a Party for ME!!! For Me really???Sisters Vaterlaus, Bikhazi, Alencar, Silveira, & Waller having fun.The dirty water drink served at the surprise, not so surprised birthday party. A pure mixture of multiple flavors?

I was able to meet with James (President Tavares) this week and set up some goals for the Humanitarian aid projects in the future. We have a number of projects in the works; new born infant kits, eyeglasses, work at a Seniors Center, and a pre-school project. To help distribute the newborn baby kits we have enlisted the Missionaries to watch for and seek out new mothers; then with a member take the kit over as a gift with a message about the importance of families. We hope it increases our new contacts. Last week in District meeting I challenged the one district to increase their efforts in finding new contacts. All the missionaries have many people to teach but many are not going anywhere, for example; not attending church, praying or reading the scriptures. The challenge was to increase the teaching pool with new contacts that might actually move forward towards baptism. They did really well and had 41new contacts. Now to some that doesn’t sound like a lot of contacts, but consider that they are already teach around 6-7 discussions a day, where can they fit in new contacts? Better planning and the spirit is the key. We will track the new contact effort over the next few months to see if baptism’s increase.

I held a meeting with President DeCosta about setting up a mini missionary experience for the seminary youth, and we have a tentative date and program for a day long activity. Sharon had the opportunity to walk with Sister Bikhazi and Silveira on Friday afternoon. It was good for her to get out; plus she had the opportunity to assist in teaching a young lady.

Today has been spent on preparation for the District Conference next week. I have a part to play in the Priesthood training meeting, so I have been working on a power point presentation. Our theme is taken from D&C 18:10 about the worth of souls. I am developing a parallel between King Lamoni, his servants and Ammon; with our responsibility to do visiting and home teaching. Where King Lamoni would be symbolic of the Savior, Ammon the prophet, the servants the leaders of the wards and branches and the sheep are representative of the members in general. Hopefully they will understand the simile.

We continue to do well and really do enjoy hearing from you all every now and then. It is amazing how time is flying by and the little ones growing so quickly. We had the opportunity to web cam with Erika this week and Reese and Charley sang “You are My Sunshine” for us, wow it was great!! Livvy also sang a song for us this week as well, we are so blessed! Avry showed us some pictures that she colored, really good for a 3 y/o. May the Lord bless you all.

E/S Waller, Mom & Dad, Bama & Bampa

Cape Verde Week 29

Bom Dia meu irmãos e irmas,

We have had a relatively quiet week her in Mindelo. The weather hasn’t been to hot, never cold. The wind blew some but not to hard, but the dust still was flying every day on our little corner. We had a good District Meeting Monday with the Elders and Sisters. We try hard to listen and understand in Portuguese and it is slowly coming. We have to keep reminding everyone to speak slowly, not so rapidamente!!

Sharon is having to change times for piano lessons as the youth are back in school. Some go in the morning other in the afternoon, so some adjustments will have to be made in the lesson schedule.

We have been talk to a young man who sits at a cross roads working on shoes. His name is Carlos and he speaks English mais or menos but to the extent that we can understand each other. So we started the 1st discussion this week with him. He is from Liberia. I asked him why he came to Cape Verde, and he said too much civil war. He comes from a family of 8 children. He wants to return some day but has to save his money. Things are still a little unsettled in Liberia. We are set to give the 2nd discussion this coming week, though I think he has difficulty reading English. We will have to work on that and find out.

We had 3 baptisms this week in Mindelo. We attended the service for an older, probably mid 40, gentleman. His name is Jose Espirito Santo Erva. That would translate into Jose Holy Ghost Erva. Rather usual name!! The other service was for 2 young people.

Well that is about it for the week; A little slow, but still small things to do each day. We have been working hard to say Bom Dia, Boa Tarde to people we pass on the street. At first we had looks of surprise then later come’s a weak reply. Now everyone has got the idea and some send a greeting before we get close, especially the older men and women. It is called breaking down barriers, and it takes time. The same goes for things in the church. We still are in a 1st generation church her in Cape Verde, and some lessons will take time to take hold. Like starting meetings on time; like wear a white shirt and tie when representing the priesthood and conducting a baptismal service, but we endure and push where pushing is needed and the other things will come with time and experience, we hope.

We had the Elders from Porto Novo over for dinner Sunday. They rarely get to come, except for Zone Conference and what with just two of them District meetings are, well how do you say, routine. So I asked the President if they could come over one Monday each Transfer and have Meetings with the 2 districts here, he agreed. So it was a chance to feed them and let them mingle with the other Elders and Sisters. While preparing dinner the microwave went fzzzzz!!!! I think it bit the dust!! So we will be off shopping tomorrow for a replacement.

Well Tchau for this week. Love to all

E/S Waller, Mom& Dad, Bama & Bampa

Cape Verde Week 28

Bom dia meus familia e amigos,

I t has been an action packed week what with transfers and visitors coming and going. We had the opportunity o meeting with John Mulligan of the Area Humanitarian department. We were kind of unofficially put in charge of some projects, which maybe will move them along a little faster. We are looking forward to moving on the Nursing school project and a Senior center project, as well as starting the paper work on a children’s play ground area.

We have 3 new missionaries in the Zone; Elder Morales, Elder Neumann, and Sister Silveira. We are looking forward to getting to know them better. We had to say good bye to Elder Masterson, and Wood. They are great missionaries and will be a great asset to any area. On preparation day, Elder Alexander & Ray dropped by to down load some pictures on to a disk, while they were waiting Elder Alexander talked Sister Waller into a game of Skop Bo. I think Sister Waller won!
I opened some cookies and all of a sudden we had another set of Elders show up wanting to eat and play. They had just come from playing basketball and they all needed a shower!
I have been working for the last month, on setting up General Conference session at the new chapel. The CES and Physical facility representatives both have church laptops and the chapel is set up for wireless internet. I have been trying to get Area approval for my laptop to work but need a password. They have never had direct conference transmission here, they have always waited for tapes or DVD’s. I kept tell them they need to listen to the Prophet live, but they are slow to learn. Anyway it came down to Saturday and they were going to hook up the internet in Portuguese only, I said no you will have both English and Portuguese. It took a little while to get it clear I wanted English as well. Finally we got audio in English. Plus no one had announced conference so of course no one was there, except the missionaries. So I have some work to do get them to change their ways. We are showing the Sunday sessions today live! We will see how many show up.

This is lunch with the Sisters to welcome Sister Silveira. She is a good one and we will enjoy working with her.
We were deeply impressed with both sessions on Saturday. They were dynamic talks. We were quite concerned over Elder Wirthlin and his physical weakness, but what a powerful message. We look forward to this afternoons broadcast.

I had an interesting experience on Wednesday. The Elders had started teaching a Muslim who was very interested in changing his life. Because of his past and the threats against his life we (President Tolman and I) counseled the Elders to slow down and let things cool off. Well he saw the Elders on the street and asked why they had not been around, he was quite upset and so they made an appointment for that evening at the church. They then called me to assist. George was very concerned that he needed to change his life and he had made the choice to follow Jesus. I explained to him the church policy of not proselyting members of the Muslim faith because of concerns for their safety. He said his situation was better and there was no real danger unless he returned to Senegal. Besides he carried a pistol!! What, sure enough tucked into his belt under his shirt was a gun. That made me feel really uncomfortable, and I decided I had to watch what I said closely. He also informed me that he had been an orphan and was raised by the Emans in his village. He was trained by Hezzbolah for terrorism. Well anyway, we will have to see how far this is going to go. But knowing we have to be careful.
Saturday afternoon seesion was crowded into the living room, it got quite hot.

Well everyone have a nice week end and hope you enjoyed conference as much as we did here in Mindelo.

Love to all,

E/S Waller, Mom & Dad, Bama & Bampa