I will be staying in the office this next transfer. It is good and bad. Bad because I'm getting a little tired of the whole office experience but good because my proselyting area is really starting to show promise. So hopefully the latter will make up for the whole. Also I will be staying with Elder Shelhamer for the third transfer. That is something that doesn't happen often, to have 2 secretaries serve 3 transfers together in the office. Generally one will come in and be trained for one or two transfers, then he'll train the next guy for one or two transfers so he'll be in the office for 3 or 4 transfers. But he'll only be one or two transfers with each companion. My situation is a little interesting. I came in the middle of a transfer, so I had half a transfer with one companion and will have 3 with the other. But that means that Elder Shelhamer is guaranteed another transfer or two here in the office. My condolences go to him.
Also, we didn't have finalized official transfers until Thursday. That has to be some sort of record or something. Normally regular missionaries don't know about transfers until the Saturday night before, but the office Elders usually know at least one or two weeks in advance so we can buy plane tickets and make area adjustments to their monthly allowance. The Thursday before though... By the way, that's yesterday and transfers are on Monday.
But today is P-day. We went to Assomada for our office activity. I would attach pictures but I'm not in the office, and this computer is terrible. Anyways, Assomada was awesome, notwithstanding a sunburn greatly deserved. We arose early and grabbed a hiace to Assomada at 6:45. Then we headed out. Our first item of business was to hike down this path to a ginormous tree. It is the stuff of legends. Think the Disney World Tree of Life but for real. And of course we commenced to climb it. But only to a certain point. We aren't absolutely daft you know. We understand that the Lord and His angels only protect us missionaries when we aren't being stupid. But we did get some cool pictures. After that, we managed to catch a ride with a large bed truck back to the top. It was a fun ride. I got video. So when I send the thumb drive back, that will be on it. Then we went to the Sucupira in Assomada, but I guess they only have the full Sucupira on certain days, unlike Praia where you have full Sucupira every day. So that was dissapointing.
But, one of the Elders had heard that you could see monkeys in certain parts of Assomada so we started asking around and were given directions. As we followed the directions we would ask people along the way to confirm that yes, there really were monkeys, and yes they were in that direction. We finally got to a mountain that was called something that sounded to me like 'Machu Pichu' (not the famous one). So of course we asked people where the monkeys were and they said they were on the other side of this peak. So we start following this path around the mountain and we find this guy who is above us and we ask him about the monkeys and he says that there are a bunch just up and around the ridge. So we hike up and follow this guy to where the monkeys were. We weren't among the monkeys, but we did see a few. And we did climb to the peak of our dubbed `monkey mountain.'
Man, I really wish I could send some pictures to try and show better what I am trying to explain. Words really can't convey our trek up this mountain side, or the rest of the area around where we were. We hadn't planned on climbing the mountain, so I hadn't brought sunscreen. As such, I am now thouroughly crisp. Good thing I have aloe vera. But really, prevention is so much better than alleviation.
Next transfer we will be going to Cidade Velha, which is the first area settled in Cape Verde. I hear it's terribly historic. I also heard it was really sweet. We'll see.
Also, we are having a baptism tomorrow which will be sweet. If all goes according to plan, we should be having more baptisms here in a little bit. I'll keep you posted.
Thanks to all of you who have sent me updates and emails and such. I received some real mail from friends that just made my day.
Keep sending real mail, even though it takes a long time to get here. It's better to get news by email, but little fun notes by real mail.
Loves
~Elder Peterson
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