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