Home Again

Hi to Everyone,

Well we arrived home to a wonderful welcome. At the bottom of the escalator were 6 beautiful grandaughters all lined up. They all came running when we got down! What a special moment.

Reese, Charley, Avry, Edyn, Livvy and Calli giving hugs and kisses.

Our flight was long and tiring plus we lost 2 bags. They are slowly being found and hopefully after a week we will have all our stuff. We were welcomed home by all the girls and their families. It has been a special week. I have to admit that I have played golf 3 times and was able to attend the U of U football game last night. At times things have been hectic with 6 little ones running around so I have escaped to the golf course.

We are slowly getting back into the routine; car insurance, bank accounts, Costco card, car serviced and licensed, luggage put away and finding regular clothes to wear. It all takes time and energy. We are loving the soft bed and clean water, food and of course the company!

I am sure it won’t take us long to get acclimatized. We were released and this morning we spoke to the High Council. Our home coming Sacrament meeting will be on the 28th of September. Our Ward meets at 1pm and is locates in Taylorsville 3rd Ward. For directions; you take the I-15 4500 So. exit and head west. Turn right on Redwood Rd. You travel north till you come to a Mac Donald’s, turn right, go 1 block and turn right ( school on the left) the Chapel is down about 2 blocks on the right. Sacrament Meeting is first. We look forward to seeing everyone at Church.

It has been a wonderful experience being in the mission field again and recommend it to all our Senior friends. May the Lord bless and keep you all safe,

Former E/S Waller, but always Bama, Bampa, Mom & Dad, Sharon & Chuck

Cape Verde Week 75

Boa tarde,

Well we are in our final week here in Cape Verde. We were able to fly over to Praia last Saturday and have been staying at the mission home this week. The week is slowly moving by as there is very little for us to do. I have made an attempt to get Sister Neves ready to take over the medical (I think she will do fine). The President has asked for some of my opinions on changes needed in the mission etc.

Sister Neves feels it is necessary to feed us every 4 hrs. I am stuffed!!! They have been wonderful host and we appreciate their hospitality. We went with them on Thursday to Tarrafal, where the President had a few interviews, it was a nice ride and the scenery was totally different than our last visit. It has been raining now for about 3-4 weeks on and off. There is corn everywhere!! Praia was a mud hole for hours the other day due to the rain, and the ocean an ugly brown color as the draining water invades the coast. Assamado and the beach at Tarrafal, just about eveyrhting green is corn fields!

President & Sister Neves and Daneili in Tarrafal. E/S Waller overlooking the beach in Tarrafal.

The rain is one way to clean out the gutters although most seemed clogged with garbage. Sharon made cinnamon rolls yesterday, which was an office hit. We had the missionaries from Fogo come into Praia for transfer last night. They arrived at 1 am and it was close to 2:30 am before we collected the luggage and headed for their different assigned areas. It was 3 am when we finally rolled into bed.

The President and Sister Neves are out of town this weekend visiting Sal. So we have the run of the mission home. We have enjoyed the air-conditioning. It feels so good to dry out a little from the sticky humid feeling.

We had lunch with Elder & Sister Lopez today. They are a great couple who have served their full mission here in Praia. They will end their mission in November. They both speak Portuguese, and have been a great assistance here in Praia. Elder Lopez was born in Mindelo but has lived for years in Connecticut. Sister Lopez is from Brazil and a great cook. They have been heavily involved in the seminary and institute programs.

Elder Cruz from Mindelo heads home this week with us. Great missionary!!
Elder Wyson of Las Vegas, great smile, another of the wonderful missionaries here in Cape Verde.
Our happy Sister Silveira from Portugal. We will miss her and all the other missionaries.

Well that is about it for this week. We have a few missionaries still suffering with the flu but nothing major. We do have another Elder who is suffering with Kidney stones at the moment; maybe it’s in the water?

We leave on Tuesday morning for home, so this will be my last entry for the mission blog. I hope everyone has enjoyed our missionary adventures. I will probably try and keep up the blog, but not nearly as regular. So everyone email us occasionally and keep in touch.

We love and appreciate you all. It has been another wonderful experience to be in the mission field with opportunities daily to bare our testimony of the restoration of the Gospel and of the Savior. What a privilege to serve with such fine young men and women. We are amazed at their testimonies and abilities. God lives and loves us. Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior. What a privilege to share that witness!

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

Cape Verde Week 74

Bom Dia,

I am writing from the Mission Home, yes we made it safe off the island of Fogo. Although it did cost me $120 extra dollars as the inter island airplane charges for extra luggage and weight. We were over just a bit, but I was not about saying anything to Sister Waller!!

Even though I paid extra one of our bags didn’t arrive with us ( it is only a 20 minute flight and there were only 16 people) we had to wait till the next flight to get the final bag! It really is a joke sometimes how they work things around here. We had plenty of room on the plane as there was one seat empty.

When we arrived we had to stay on the plane a few extra minutes as they took off a sick passenger. An ambulance was waiting for a patient, I think he was being transferred to the local hospital. Dani and Neia were waiting in the airport for the young man, so we were able to say hi to them.

Elder’s Thurgood and Erickson met us and helped us get around and settled in at the mission home. President and Sister Neves are off to Germany for a Conference and will not be back till sometime today.

We had a tearful good bye in Sao Filipe with the Sister’s. Sharon always grows close to the missionaries (I do too, but not quite like Missionary Mom). We had lunch on Friday with the Sisters and enjoyed a few hours with them. They, both, are sick or coming down with illness so that made it doubly hard. We had some teary eyed moments with the members, especially Alberto & Zita. They are good people and we love Cabo Verde.

We had a very successful party (fiesta) on Thursday evening. I think we had well over a 100 in attendance and we danced. I danced for 2 hrs and was worn out at the end of the evening. I think they really like the Macarena and limbo!!! Everyone had a good time and I have encouraged the youth to continue with their dance activities.

Well we will spend a week here in Praia before heading home. I hope to be able to get Sister Neves up to speed on the medical end of things. Other than that it might be slightly boring, maybe I can teach Danielli how to do the Macarena. Danielli is the President’s 12 year old daughter.

We send our love to everyone and will be seeing many of you soon.

Love

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

Cape Verde Week 73

Boa tarde,

This has been an extremely busy week; mainly with sick Elders and Sisters. I think we have a viral stomach bug going around, as we have lots of sick missionaries. Also we have a serious medical problem with one Elder, who will be returning home after just 3 weeks in the mission field. He will be leaving this Sunday night and we hope he does well. We have him on antibiotics but are concerned over spreading infection to a recent knee surgery. I don’t think he will be back even if the problem resolves easily.

On Monday we rode with the Zone up to the volcano. There were quite a few who wanted to climb, but there were also those who had already been on top and just wanted to hang out. So we wandered the small village, ate some of the fruit off the vine and trees like; grapes, apples, pomegranate. We then headed up to the hotel to order lunch and play “Uno”. They had fun but it was a long day. We did get back to Sao Filipe till 8:30pm.

It has been raining and so the mountains are now green and starting to produce fruit. Zenita, Sister Skinn and Waller are picking promagranates, not bad. HMMM I wonder if someone knows how to make promagranate jam?

The next day I wasn’t feeling really very well so I let Sharon handle the dance activity and music practice. Then the rest of the week Sharon was under the weather with the flu bug. I stayed busy calling and helping the sick Elders and making arrangements with SLC for the return of our Elder.

We continue to visit with members and share the gospel message. They all love for you to come but are slow to make changes in their lives. I suppose that isn’t any different than other parts of the world. At least here they really do enjoy the visit.

Elder Tuttle demonstrating how wide the larva gully is by Cova Figueira.Sister Skinn showing us how she always knows how to pose for a picture.
Here is our Zone Activity photo, minus Sister Waller & I , we were loaded down with cameras. Fromleft to right: Elders Reynolds, Da Cruz, De Cruz, Sigeuira, Ray, Gunn, Tuttle, Fernadez, Wyson, and Luthi with 2 local members. Sisters Skinn, Samira, and Sister Silveira

We received word that we are flying out next Saturday for Praia. I am to spend the week helping Sister Neves get ready to do the medical stuff in the mission. She is really nervous as I mentioned before, but I hope to give her some confidence in the job. I believe they have a single Sister (nurse) who is coming but they need a Companion for her.

Well that is about the news for this week. Till next week from Praia, tchau.

E/S Waller

Cape Verde Week 72

Boa Tarde,

This has been a slow week that quickly passed us by. I don’t know how it happens but you turn around and the time is gone. We have spent the week with a few visits and lots of dance practice. I have become the line dance king and the youth are lovin it. We held 3 practices this week; kind of like jazzercise if you ask me. By the end of the hour of practice I am just dripping with sweat and in dire need of a shower and lots of fluids. The Christmas tree wall comae down this week, sad. It was a great reminder of our friends and Sister Waller had a hard time saying good bye to the tree. Thanks to all our friends who sent cards, it filled a wall.

We also were kept busy this week with sick Elders. We have an Elder who suffers from kidney stones. He had a number of attacks last January and this week he repeated the process. Pretty much every day he called and was wondering about the symptoms he was suffering. After numerous phone calls to the President and Area Medical, it was decided that he should return home for medical care. These are not easy decisions. It helped that he was only 2 transfers away from going home. So tickets were purchased and off he went. Hopefully the Drs at home can find out the cause of his stone production and give him some relief.

We also had the usual stomach aches and diarrhea problems. I t is a real hard lesson to learn that food does spoil and needs to be prepared properly, or else you get sick. We have a few Elders that have a hard time learning these lessons. Some think that because they have been here for a year or so, that their systems are now acclimatized to the water and food, Nah!!!!!! Oh well I suppose that is why we are here.
Luncheon with the Cova Figueira Elders Luthi & Reynolds and Sisters Skinn and Silveira, we had lasagne, and corn bread. Good, with Sister Waller's special Yoki dessert.

Alberto and Zita are still working on getting to the Temple in September. Alberto had an accident this week as a brick wall fell on his foot and ankle. He has had many trials and Satan is working over time to keep from getting to the Temple, but he has a great attitude and faith. The x-rays were horrible but I couldn’t see and break. So he will be laid up for a week or so letting the bruising go down. We plan on new x-rays this week, hopefully better. I have made a number of visits to his home to check on him. He was placed on ibuprofen for the pain by the Doctor and told to take one 200mg every 8 hrs. a real waste. So I took him some more pills and upped the dose.

We learned today that Neia is moving to Praia to be with her husband. When they returned from the Temple, Dani started a new training in Praia, so she has decided to not be alone for 6 months but go and be with him. She will be missed in the YW program, she is a keeper.

Neia and Sister Waller with some of the items Neia crocheted for her.

We continue to struggle with activation and finding new people to teach. The common response of our questions about teaching the gospel is “oh I am a member”. Well why aren’t you coming to church? At which time the readily admit that they are fubecka’s; which means slackers!!! Most have no desire to return but love to visit. So we keep searching for the ones the spirit is preparing. We marvel at the dedications of the Elders and Sisters; they work hard and love the people. They teach with the spirit. I think in many cases they are planting seeds and sometime in the future the harvest will be great. They do occasionally get depressed and we are here to pump them up (usually with cookies) and soon they are back at work.

We held a choir practice tonight for the up coming branch conference. We decided to sing “We are Sowing” as they have been taught to sing it to the “Come thou Fount of Many Blessings” tune. Since they can’t read music and have no music person they have developed some bad habits, but on the whole they are doing wonderful.

Well that is about it for this week. The new dance of the week is “Boot Scootin Boogie”. They really do like line dancing. I will be making some CD’s with dance music so they can continue their dancing activities.

Tchau we are now down to 23 days. Love to all.

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

Cape Verde Week 71

Boa tarde,

Well we end an eventful week, some ups some downs. We started with downers as Sister Waller was sick the first few days of the week. That always puts a damper on things. Our FHE fell through this week. Many of the people in town have farm plots up in the hills. So when the rain comes they head to the hill to weed and plant their corn, beans and other vegetables. So many people are out of town all week; I suppose they camp out up the hills to save on travel expenses.

We did hold a FHE with Maria Amado and her very extended family. We had 25 people in attendance; 3 boys the rest girls. Most of the girls were from 13-8 yrs old. Sister Silveira gave a very good lesson on Faith using the Story of Jesus Walking on the water. We enjoyed popcorn refreshments and some very nasty tasting drink. It got rather hot in the 8’x 8’ room with all those bodies but we survived.

Hey we actually got rain this week. On Wednesday (P-day) we had a down pour that lasted about 20 minutes. It came down really good and we had a large puddle in front of our apartment. The hills are starting to turn green!! We could sing “The Hills Are Alive” they are turning green.
Elders Ray, Tuttle and Fernandez not use to rain fall in Cape Verde

We visited with Gaita and her family and I gave a lesson on keeping the commandments, and receiving blessings. We then enjoyed hot rolls Sister Waller had made for the meeting. Gaita had given Sister Waller some marmalade when she went VT, but sister Waller told her it would be much better with hot bread, so the rolls on the next visit. It was a nice meeting.

We continue to work with the youth on dancing; some have dropped out and we are down to about 15 regulars at Fonte Alexio Branch and 8 at the Sao Filipe Branch. They definitely have their favor dances; Virginia Reel, Achy Breaky Heart, Macarena and Love Potion #9. They aren’t real keen on the waltz and Cha Cha, we keep working on them. This week it is the Electric Slide!!

The macarena, fun fun fun!
We have hit some road bumps in the mission as far as travel. The Fogo airport is now closed and all contact with the main island is by boat; that runs twice a week (maybe). I was talking with President Neves this evening and he is now unable to get to Mindelo by plane as everyone is going their for the Baia Celebration. When people go they go for a month, so the planes are all booked up. So we definitely will be taking the boat to Praia in 3 weeks. If you could see the boats you would not be to thrilled with that idea either.

We heard tonight that Sister Mack has had to return to Portugal for medical care. We are sorry to lose her. We are now down to just 8 Sister missionaries. We have also had a bad run of illness in the mission with stomach flu problems and Elder Alexander suffered another bout of Kidney stones; we hope to get him through the next couple of months without further problems. Sister Skinn was over yesterday, having a little down day; she said she was visually constipated. HMMM I will need to think about that for awhile. Her spirits seemed to be up today, though. Also Alberto suffered a fall and thinks he broke his ankle. We will find out tomorrow and hope it isn’t real serious as that will delay their planned trip to the temple in Recife.

Now it is the end of the week and I am coming down with a sinus infections! Oh well, we keep trucking on and the time keeps winding down. Thanks for all your support and emails.

Elder Wixom and Brown in Assamada!

Elder Tuttle, Briggs and Brown on a PDay activity.

Love to all,
E/S Waller, Mom & Dad, Bama & Bampa

Cape Verde Week 70

Bom dia meus amigos,

We enjoyed an eventful week that began with our 1st and probably last, Zone Conference. President and Sister Neves arrived safe and sound on Saturday and started interviews with the missionaries. I started trying to orient Sister Neves on them medical issues in the mission. Unfortunately she will not have a medical person here for quite some time. But I assured her that her greatest asset is that she is a MOM!!

Monday, we held Zone Conference and it was indeed different than our previous experiences but all the same enjoyable. President and Sister Neves seemed quite comfortable and the Elders and Sisters seem to enjoy their messages. Not too many rule changes yet!!! Picture of our full zone and then our district: Elders Segueira, Gunn, Fernandez, Tuttle, Wyson, Ray, Da Cruz, De Cruz, Sisters Skinn & Silveira ( Note Elder Reynolds & Luthi home sick)President meeeting the Elders in the Zone

Sister Waller, Silveira, Skinn, Neves & Daneili

Zone Conference Luncheon, always a highly, although it was extremely hot!!

We were missing one set on missionaries at the conference due to illness, so after conference and a few interviews, President and I headed to Cova Figeuira. Elder Luthi was under the weather with stomach problems. So we gave him a blessing and he also got an interview. President and I had a long talk on the way to and from Cova Figeuira.

We continue to hold dance practice, we are now up to 3 a week, and continue to have good groups of youth show up. The new dance this week was the “Macarena”, I am starting to loosen up the hip and back. I am told they want to teach Sister Waller and me the “Funana” dance. I believe it involves hip motion, we shall see!

Putting on the moves!!!

We have continued with visits and teach opportunities around both branches which are always enjoyable. We love the island people and their friendly smiles and easy going attitudes. Life is laid back here, unfortunately sometimes to lay back. Care package from the YW in our ward back home, thanks Sisters it was fun opening and reading the scriptures.

Sharon is getting excited about going home and is worried now that we might miss the plane in Praia. They are closing the airport here in Fogo, to resurface and widen the runway. So we will probably be taking the ship to Praia, a 7-9hr boat ride. This is the same company that has already lost 2 ships this year, should be another adventure. I think though we will have to leave a week early as they are not very good at schedules, just to make sure we can catch the plane.

Well Tchau for another week,

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

Cape Verde Week 69

Bom dia,

Time marches on and we draw another week closer to our release date. This has been a busy week in just doing little things. We were busy getting pictures of the RS activity to put up on the bulletin boards, I am sure they will disappear quickly, and I had a picture prepared for Alberto & Zita of the Recife Temple.

We held FHE with Lilina’s family again and had a good discussion about the plates of brass and faith in God. We plan on turning over the teaching of the lessons and activities to them this coming week. We will see how it goes. Pedro drew some pictures for a concentration game, he did really well, he also drew a picture of Sharon and I, hmmmmmmm; I have blond hair!

We started our 1st dance practice with the youth. After they had so much fun learning `Oh Johnny Oh’, I decided to teach them the “Virginia Reel”. So I go on line find the music and watch a few videos and I am ready to teach. Tuesday was the 1st practice and they were all late, but we ended up with about 16 youth. We had fun and they got the basic idea. We then set up time for Friday to continue with the ‘Virginia Reel and start learning the Cha Cha Cha”. So Sharon and I have been downloading music for that as well and watching videos, although we still can swing it, we can’t swing like the videos. Friday arrived and we had about 30 youth. Wow try keeping them all quiet was a trick, plus we had to re-teach the ‘Virginia Reel”, but they soon caught on and had some good fun. I had downloaded “Turkey in the Straw” to dance by, hand clapping and hoot and holler soon was added by all. We have a problem as some of the youth don’t know their lefts from their rights, but after numerous repeats they caught on. We gave a little demo of the Cha Cha to a very fast beat number, they were amazed I could swing my hips. We then started the process of step by step Cha Cha. Again some caught on and some look totally confused. Oh well they all enjoyed the hour, I think they would do it every day if I offered. Sharon and I have been practicing the ‘Waltz” and have a dance routine set up for them. I might have to make the class a little smaller. We plan on having a Big activity in August, where both Branches are invited to dance. We will demonstrate the Reel and teach the whole group. Should be fun, they need activities here and so this is a start. I was also thinking of teaching them the “Charleston, swing, and some simple square dances, we will see how they do. Yes this too is missionary work, at least for couples!

We are preparing for our 1st zone Conference with President Neves this weekend. We have a lot to discuss and share with him. At the present there is no couple in the pipe line to replace us, which is very sad. So we will have to either close the apartment or move the Elders in and close their apartment.

Last week I had to speak up at Fonte Alexio, spur of the moment type talk and come to find out they posted my name to speak in the other branch this week. They just started posting speakers on the bulletin board for Sacrament talks. I suppose that is okay but they should ask first. I will have to talk with the BP. I will be talking of reading the scriptures. One problem we have here is many non readers. So I will have to come up with ways for them to get into the scriptures. We want to start the literacy program 1st and also see if we can get the scriptures on CD’s so the non readers can at least listen daily. This is a big challenge here, as many don’t attend as they are afraid of being asked to read or participate; just another of the challenges of the mission field. These are pictures of the RS activity, play, dance and food. It made for a great combination and everyone had a great time.

Well that is it for another week. May God bless you. Tchau

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

Cape Verde Week 68

Boa noite,

Well another week has flown by and we are wondering where the time went. We have had a busy week that started with our Sunday night Temple Preparation class. I have worked hard to get the class in Portuguese on the computer in a Power Point Presentation, which helps immensely with the presentation. Plus I have added photos of the different temples. Although my Portuguese is bad with the help of the slides the presentation goes over fairly well. We are preparing Alberto and Zita for the temple in September.

Alberto is a Cuban, who came over to the island to help with the agriculture development. He found Zita and decided to stay. This did not make the Cubans very happy and he has had some difficulties getting established here. He has been a member for over a year now and is functioning in the Branch as the Elder’s Quorum President. He has a University degree and is a solid individual. He speaks excellent Spanish and really rolls his RRRRR’s.

Monday found us at Lilina’s home for FHE. I had prepared cards to play concentration with the children. I used photos of Gospel topics and the life of the Savior. We first started out discussing each card and what the picture represented i.e.; Lazarus, Mary, Jesus being baptized, the crucifixion, resurrection, Joseph 1st vision, restoration of the Gospel, etc. They caught on really well and liked the game. Sharon and I prepared a FHE board to show who is to do what, for them and will present that this week. We commented that we didn’t even have one for our family, oh well; missionaries sometimes go the extra mile.

This week was a little depressing for me, I enter the realm of the aged, I turned 60!!! I was surprised when the Elders and Sisters came with a birthday cake, in the shape of a golf green. It even had a miniature golf ball and flag. It was nice to be remembered and cheered up the day. It is amazing the older I get the further away the senior status gets for me. To get senior rates on the golf course you now have to be 65!!!! Well here they are surprising me. Elder DaCruz and Ray even were able to point out that I am 60. Elder DaCruz is quite happy to have 6 fingers on each hand. He can truly hold up both hands and say, " We have 12 apostles"!Preparation Day found us entertaining the Elders and Sisters with home made donuts and games of UNO and concentration. They enjoyed the time together. Plus they went through alot of donuts!!!

We finished our preparation for the RS activity. The play, dance and meeting all went well. We had some trouble with the handcarts and the icing glue didn’t set up well and the electricity went out so we couldn’t use the hot glue gun. Oh well, they enjoyed eating the cookies. Elder Wyson played the part of Joseph Smith in the RS play. I think he needs a little more hair for the part, oh well mission rules and besides it is comfortable and cool!Sisters working on their hand carts at the RS activity. Cova Figeira Sister singing as part of the program. I din't get a good picture of the bonnets Sister Waller made and will search through the missionaries photos. they came out real cute. Although Sister Ginha got suck with the large bonnet and it looked like a bonnet walking up on the stage. Photos later.

Today we attended the Fonte Alexio branch and the BP was absent again!! His counselor was in a dilemma as he had no program, so we quickly put one together. Dani and Neia returned from the Recife Temple on Saturday, so we had them speak and bare their testimonies, then, I took up the rest of the meeting. It went very well. Dani and Neia were all smiles and tears as they talked about the beautiful Temple and encouraged everyone to prepare to go. Their trip went very well and they enjoyed every minute.

Well that is about it for this week. Except we got our travel plans home. Seems the travel dept. didn’t make any arrangements for us until this past week. Normally it is done 4 months in advance. Well all the good flights were booked, so now we will have a horrendous flight home. Well over 27 hrs. with 3 stops. Plus the possibility exists that we will have to take a 9-10 hr boat ride to Praia. They are closing the airport for a month and it very well could affect our trip. Since the boat only goes once every week to a week and half, we might be leaving here early, only to sit in Praia waiting for our plane.

So Tchau for this week and let’s all pray they finish the airport makeover on time, please!

Love to all,

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