Cape Verde Week 57

Boa Tarde,

This week has been a long week, as I am still gimping around on a sore ankle. Since everything is uphill or downhill and all the roadways are uneven cobblestone it makes for a very sore ankle after walking. I did have the opportunity to visit a few members this week though.

On Tuesday, Arnaldo asked me to teach seminary for the week. The class meets Tuesday thru Friday at 7:30PM; so most of the week was spent preparing each lesson in seminary. I tried to add some object lessons in to the presentation and get more class participation, it seemed to help. I did end on a high note. We were studying the Book of Samuel and talking about and trends; following the world instead of the Lord and I was able to turn it around and talk about the law of chastity. I managed to get everyone to promise to live the law and make the decision now. I am sure that the subject is rarely mentioned. It is very common here to have children out of wedlock and to have them very early in ones life. It is not usual to have 3-4 children living in a home with no father and each child has a different father. It is definitely a matriarchal society. So I felt compelled to speak out to the youth in hopes of making a difference and start a new tradition. My evening seminary class.

I read my notes to Sister Duarte and she gave me thumbs up, that made me feel good!

Sister Waller continues to work with her music students and a few are progressing, but they have reached the point where practice is very important. That is a problem here in Cape Verde because most take things slowly, no big hurry. Which of course translates into, I will practice tomorrow or the next day. It is hard to get them to understand that growth only comes when we push forward and not procrastinate.

In our visits we find many youth who have only attended school to the 7th grade. Many struggled with reading and comprehension skills. Because of the lack of employment opportunities and advancement opportunities; they see very little need to study and gain more education. Most of the local missionaries have not finished High School and when they return home only see a severe uphill climb. Many can’t imagine the possibilities that an education can open. They have no reference point, no examples to follow. Hopefully the Ashby foundation education assistance will help them to see the future possibilities.

Friday startedv the week long Sao Filipe festival. So the missionaries are in at 7 PM. There is few to visit anyway so we are playing it safe. There is a lot of drinking going on in the city. Saturday we had a baptism for a young 10y/o, Sael. His mother is a member but in active, we had a nice service and the Sisters did a good job in preparing him. Sister Duarte, Tony, Sael, Sister Skinn

Tonight is the final “Temple Preparation Class” for a couple of weeks. We have 3 students who will finish. Nea and Danny will be going to the Temple in Recife in June with their daughter. Danny is a return missionary, who served in Portugal but was unable to get into Spain to be endowed. Ginha is preparing to go to Boston (hopefully) to meet up with her husband there in the temple. So we are excited about the prospects of our 1st class.

Well that is it for this week. We continue appreciate your comments and emails. Love to you all.

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

Cape Verde Week 56

Bom dia,

It all started with a visit to the hospital. President Pires was having abdominal pain last weekend during District Conference. It finally got the best of him and he was admitted to the Hospital here in Sao Filipe. They diagnosed appendicitis and set him up for surgery on Monday. President Tolman and I had the opportunity to visit with him for a few minutes before surgery. He really wasn’t sure what was happening but just wanted the pain to go away. While waiting for the nurse to open the door so we could visit, I stepped off the walk way onto the cobblestone road, unfortunately the stone I stepped on was no firmly fixed and so I rolled my left ankle and landed face first on the road. It hurt but it wasn’t broken. Since then it has been given me some trouble with swelling and just a dull ache. It is hard to go anywhere without walking so that keeps it aggravated. It really bothers me after walking up hill as that puts more stress on the joint. Oh well give it 6 weeks or so!

Monday was Zone Conference and both President Tolman and I were prepared with nice Power Point presentations. Just as we were getting started the power went out and stayed out all morning. Our presentations were not nearly as exciting. We had a nice Zone luncheon at the Tropicale Club after the conference.

Sisters Duarte, Skinn, Elders Fernandez, DaLuz, DeCruz, Kinghorn, Silva, Ellis, DaCruz, Reynolds, Dos Reis. Front: President Sister Tolman, Elder & Sister Waller

On Tuesday we went with the Tolman’s to the volcano park. They had not seen that area and we wanted to make sure it happened before they headed home. The rock colors and views were terrific. We spent some time in the village and their small museum. The young lady there was pleasant and said the volcano was their friend. I suppose it provides new top soil every now and then. We are just glad if it will be after we leave that it provides more topsoil!! Elder Reynolds who is serving in Cova Figueira said " the mountain has been rumbling lately". Yikes!!!We had a wonderful lunch at the small hotel in the crater. It is run by a French man and he knows how to cook, it was a great meal. We sure enjoyed having the Tolman’s around for the weekend! This was Sister Waller's lunch; chicken, I had fish both were just excellent.

With my ankle I stayed close to home most of the week until Thursday. I took Sharon on a hike through the city to see some members. We gave the VT lesson and I told them I was the newest member of the Relief Society. We had good visits, but by the time we got home my ankle was swollen and hurting. Wednesday night we taught English class for the Elders and had about 12 students, it was fun.

The rest of the week has been slow. Sharon did get out with Sister Solange and do their visiting teaching. They will probably be the only ones to have been out again this month. Although they love to visit they just don’t have the vision of VT or HT yet. We saw a number of people at church today, who have been infrequent in attendance. We visited a few and invited them and sure enough they show up. Hopefully it will stick and we can see the numbers increase and changes in the lives of the people. Sister Maria DaLuz let Sharon & Solange in after 3 yrs of saying no to VT’s and then she was at church, a success!! We have now finished the 5th week of our Temple Preparation class with 1 week to go.

Well that is it of this week.

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

Elder Day as David and Elder De Cruz as Solomon, we thought it should be David & Goliath!

Elders and Sisters are ready for lunch.

Carmen at the museum selling us our lava pot. She really felt that the volcano was her friend.Sister Waller & Tolman on the road to the Volcano Park. Everyone got sunburned except Sister Waller, she doesn't burn.

This was only the 2nd time the President had an opportunity to wear his levis while out in the mission field. I think he felt pretty comfortable. I tried to talk him into wearing a tie but not with levi's. Below is Mt Pico. and yes Craig your daughter will probably climb the volcano in the weeks to come! The plant is a caster bean, they use the oil on their hair to straighten it.

Above is the resturant where we had lunch and Kayla from Mosteiros at District Conference. Below is Zea & Nilson Fernandes with their new baby boy Zenilson. She is the Sister to Elder Pires our 1st Zone Leader and he is the brother to Elder Monteiro in Mindelo.

Cape Verde Week 55

Bom dia;

Another week has flown by and it was busy on all accounts. Sharon continues with music lessons and is seeing some progress in her students. The main problem is time to practice and something to practice on.

We received word this week that the water and electricity is going to be shut off for 4-5 days in the coming weeks. They are moving the electricity plant out of town and running new cables. This will shut down the water plant and pumps. So we are stocking up on water and trying not to let the laundry pile up to much.

On Wednesday we went with the Elders and Sisters down to the beach. The black sand was pretty and the waves were huge. It was fun to listen to the ocean and smell the sea breeze. We visited with Sister Skinn and Duarte as the Elders played Frisbee and futebol.
Sister's taking a break on the black sands of Sao Filipe, Fogo

We were able to visit a number of people this week and invite them to the up coming District Conference. There are so many inactive members here; about every 10th person is a member. So were did a lot of invites. I had the opportunity to visit a less active family and noticed a young girl with a large protuberance on her upper arm. On closer inspection it was the head of her humerus. She had fallen on her shoulder and dislocated the shoulder and the head of the humerus bone was sticking out about 6 cm below the shoulder. She was using the arm and apparently no pain. We asked about her seeing a Doctor and was told she was going to Praia for surgery but they weren’t sure when. It was enough to make you sick. It would have been so easy to pop it back in after it had happened but now it has been a whole month and will be even longer. I am hoping to get more info and see if we can help her get it corrected sooner.

Friday the Tolman’s arrived for Zone and District Conference. We started with a busy Saturday with training and adult meeting. Then Sunday arrived and we were off to Cova Figueira for our 1st session of Conference. Then back to Sao Filipe for the 2nd session. Then rush home to prepare for Temple Prep class. It was a long tiring day. Tomorrow we hold Zone Conference, another full day. Top: Elder De Cruz in action, Bottom: the game is on, futebol

Well that is about it for the week, busy as usual. Tchau.

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

Cape Verde Week 54

Bom dia;

It has been a full week, here in Sao Filipe, of activities. We have made a number of visits with the members and given lots of music lessons. The choir has been practicing hard to be ready for District Conference this coming weekend.

Monday started with a good District meeting. We had lessons on the Atonement by Sister Waller, Preach My Gospel Lesson by Sister Skinn, testimonies and faith promoting experiences from the other Elders. Sister Waller was kept busy this week with music lessons, she is now teaching 7 times a week. The lessons generally stretch out to an hour as most of the students need the extra time for practice. We have no keyboards here so they have to come to the Chapel to practice and it is hard for them sometimes.

We have all been excited for this past weekend, because for the first time the General Conference will be received live on Fogo. The members have all seen conference but usually 2-3 months late on a DVD. I was able to get the broadcast live on the internet and have all the Sao Filipe missionaries over for the Solemn Assembly. What a special time and special meeting! Sister & Elder Waller, Elder Day, Sister Skinn, Sister Duarte, Elder Kinghorn, Da Cruz and De Cruz get ready fro Genreal Conference. Elder Day & Sister Skinn are keeping there distance, that is good. Although Sister Waller and I are a little squashed.

We have continued with our Temple Preparation Class and are half way through the first group. I already have a 2nd group ready to start in about 4 weeks. I am also thinking of offering a Fireside one Sunday Evening with the topic being “Preparing Talks”. Most of the members are relatively new and when they give a talk many just read from the Gospel Principle Manual. This does make for long talks but also not very, how would you say, exciting or memorable.

Preparation Day was busy this week making peanut butter cookies. Thank goodness the Elders and Sisters are here to clean out the freezer full of cookies. I would be putting on the pounds if it wasn’t for them. We have definitely found a weak spot with Sister Duarte, she likes chocolate!! Actually, I think, any cookie is her friend.

We received emails and updates from the children, and really enjoyed some of the grandchildren new sayings like; Reese (soon to be 4) banging her head and saying “son of a nutcracker!” Charley (just 2) talking to her Mom—“Daddy loves me, he does!!” And then there is Avry (4) explaining the birds and bees to her Dad---“Daddy I am a girl, and Edyn is a girl, all my friends are girls except Jackson—He has a big ………..foots!” She sure got her Dads attention!!! We hope our children are writing all these things down.

Saturday finally arrived and we were able to view the 2 sessions live and as I said early what a special conference. I was asked to give the Priesthood lesson in Fonte Alexio Branch as the Elders were having to take a new missionary to the airport, so after the evening session it was study time. I decided to talk about the Oath and Covenant of the Priesthood and the responsibility of each of the different offices in the Priesthood. I was a little worried as there would be no English speaking Elders at the meeting, but everything went well. In fact it went so well, I am going to do the lesson in all the units here on Fogo. Above; Sisters preparing a Fiesta for Elder Nilson's farewell party. Below is Elder Nilson , his mother and brother.

Odair from Mindelo working on our Chapel here in Sao Filipe. He is planning on getting married in Juneor July. All we can say is "it is about time!"Elders Kinghorn & Day with Sister Waller watching the construction workon the chapel before the fiesta.Another beautiful flower of Cape Verde, Sao Filipe.

Well that is about it for this week. Hope everyone is well and happy.
Love to all,
E/S Waller, Mom & Dad, Bama & Bampa