Happy Halloween

Dear Family,

Happy Halloween! So today I dressed up as Grant (p-day clothes) and went Trick or Treating at the Sisters house. They gave us homemade mango flavored popsicles. That was good. Then we dropped off one of Elder Hutber´s ties for them to sew. After that Elder Hutber and I went to Santa Maria and walked on the beach. It was cool. We found some random seats set on the beach. Which at first doesn´t seem too strange until you realize that they are seats like you´d see in a waiting room or something. The weather was very pleasant and we got out early enough that the tourists didn´t start invading the beaches until we were ready to leave.

This past week has been full of finding new people to teach. And it looks like my next few weeks are going to be busy busy busy. Which is good.

So... Yea. I really can´t think of anything else to say. Pictures!

Elder Peterson

First Full Week

Dear Family,

the first complete week with Elder Hutber has been good. We ran out of water for a few days so we were stuck taking baths out of a bucket. Termed bucket banhos. or baños in spanish. I suppose. But there were a few days that our sink was full of dirty dishes because we didn´t have water to wash them. And I won´t even go into the state of our toilet.

It rained a little bit this past week. Which was good because it was the second and third time it had rained in Sal this entire year. It wasn´t very heavy rain, but it was moisture which was good. And also on the plus side, it cooled the area down quite a bit. Cloud cover is very nice.

Elder Hutber is doing well, picking up the language and getting familiar with the lessons and whatnot. Training is quite an interesting experience. I see just how unfamiliar he is with a lot of the things we do. Even the more common stuff like shopping and using a gas stove. Then I remember how clueless I was when I got here. That was a long, long time ago.

We had an integration night the other day and we played a game where you pass something in a circle while someone outside the room tells a story. When the person finishes the story, whoever has whatever you passed around has a "punishment." Basically the person telling the story chooses something slightly embarrassing for you to do. Like shout "I´m crazy!" 3 times or something. So i lost but the guy telling the story was nice to me so he just told me to sing the National Anthem. Which for me wasn´t really a punishment. Then I thought about Elder Hutber who´s English... That ended up being kind of funny.

Anyways, things are going good. I´m cooking regularly because my newbie is useless in the kitchen. Basically I cook and he cleans. But I think I´ll start teaching him how to make a few things so he´ll be able to survive on more than toast and rice when I leave.

I attached a picture of Elder Hutber and me in the interent place.

Love,

Elder Peterson

English

Dear Family, Last week I believe I reported my trainee´s name incorrectly. This I blame on hearing on odd name over the phone. His name is Elder Hutber. Not Rutder. my bad. I went to Praia on Monday afternoon like my email stated and I stayed at the mission home that night. The mission home has air conditioning. It was the best sleep I´ve had in a looooong time. Tuesday I had a Training on how to Train. That was good. After that I basically just chilled with some other trainers who had been pulled from their areas for this training. Wednesday morning I woke up normal but about 15 minutes later I had really bad stomache pains, similar to the ones I had a few weeks ago. I suppose it woulde have come from one of the several iffy meals I had Monday and Tuesday. That morning I basically just laid on a mat rocking back and forth trying to feel better. Somehow it worked. Well, that or the pepto bismal I took. That afternoon I received my new missionary. We stayed the night at the mission office and then headed back to Sal Thursday afternoon. During this time with a proper Englishman, I´ve learned several interesting things. For example, in England you would call your pants "trousers" and "pants" are what you would call your underwear. A trash can is called a rubbish bin, a flashlight is called a torch, and toilet paper is called Loo roll. Your mom is your mum and your butt is your bum. But you all knew that. I finally learned why the word "bloody" is a curse word in England. Apparently it means "by our lady" and saying it is actually a curse by the Virgin Mary. So, fairly blasphemous. And if you give the peace sign with your palm facing away from you it means victory. If you give it with your palm facing towards you it means the F-bomb. Apparently back in medieval times the French would cut off an archers first two fingers if they caught him, so he could no longer shoot. So the archers started giving this sign to the French saying "we shoot on! F- you!" Well, they wouldn´t actually say it but that´s what they meant. Anyways, lots of random tidbits learned from the English. And Elder Hutber did say that my British accent wasn´t half bad. He said it was about a 7. I´ve got time to improve that. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday we studied and worked. Time flies. Random fact for the day, the movie "A Bug´s Life" has the same plot as the movie "The Three Amigos" Love, Elder Peterson p.s. Random picture taken while i was in Praia.

Training

Dear Family,

This last transfer I will be training Elder Rutder from England. That´s gonna be crazy. That also means that I need to catch a flight to Praia in half an hour for a meeting. So this will be short.

We had a baptism this Saturday which was good. Pictures attached. She is an investigator that I found with Elder De Oliveira a month ago. Her brother is a member. The gospel pretty much rocks.

Also attached is a picture of a bird that was stuck in our stairwell that I caught. Cool beans.

Hey Neal, did you ever get that letter I sent?

So yea. I´m psyched for this next transfer. But just because I´m gonna be home in 6 weeks doesn´t mean that I´m not still here until then. (mom, dad you got the itinerary right?) So keep writing plz.

Elder Peterson

This Week

Was awesome.

Dear Family,

What Neal remembered from his mission about Conference is in fact still true in the mission field. General Conference is very much anticipated. But some things have changed since Neal´s time. Like the internet for example. But some things don´t change. Like me having to watch it in Portuguese because we didn´t have another computer to watch it in English on. I understood the Portuguese, but it´s not the same.

I´m kind of confused about daylight savings, has it happened yet? because my atomic clock seems to think it has (it´s set to Missouri time because it doesn´t cover Africa). So my alarm didn´t go off when it should have. Fortunately I had already woken up.

So apparently this internet place closes earlier than it used to so I´m getting kicked off. Until next week I suppose. But real quick, we helped a member put up part of a house he´s working on. Made of sheet metal and two-by-fours. I´d attach more photos but I don´t have time.

Elder Peterson

Santa Maria

Dear Family,

This morning my companion(still a temp) and I went to Santa Maria to check it out. Santa Maria is on the south end of Sal. It is a tourist town, mostly because of the beaches. And seeing the photos that I sent you´ll see why. The beaches are really nice. We ended up only staying on the beach for like 5 minutes because I didn´t want to torture myself looking at really clear water and not be able to go in. I also took some pictures of this pirate looking place cuz it looked cool.

I will be with my mini missionary for 2 more weeks, until the transfer.

I´m excited for General Conference and we´re waiting on some scheduling issues to be resolved to know if we will be having baptisms this weekend or the next. Because the week after General Conference is District Conference in Mindelo and the branch leadership will be going. So we don´t know if we´ll have anyone here to do confirmations and whatnot that week. We´ll see.

I hate rice. I´ve been trying to stick to the BRAT diet to clear up my digestional problems, but I can´t handle the rice. And it hasn´t seemed to help anything anyways.

I found a shop here that has a few American odds and ends, so I bought some Kool-Aid, peanut butter, green beans, and a cake mix. When I was back home I wasn´t much of a peanut butter guy, but since being on the mission I love peanut butter. strange how that works.

If you are planning on sending something to me, keep in mind that it generally takes a few weeks to get here so do so soon or simply hold on to it to give to me as a welcome home whatever.

I love my family. (you people)

Elder Peterson

Mini Me

Dear Family,

My companion finished his mission and went home last friday to study. So that means I didn´t have a companion. Or rather, I wouldn´t have had a companion, but I received a short term missionary companion which are commonly called ´Mini´ missionaries. Basically he´s a member from a different island that is my buddy until transfers happen and i get a new companion to finish my mission with. He´s a cool kid, but it´s challenging. I´ve never served with someone that doesn´t know how to teach. So I´m really working on helping him learn and teach and stuff and i´m working really hard not to go out of my mind. Ok, it´s not that bad. But I just really really hope that I don´t have a mini missionary companion my last transfer.

This past week We were planning on wokring hard and taking names. And stuff. Then we learned on Tuesday that we would be leaving Thursday to go to Mindelo for a Zone Conference that would be happening on Friday and we wouldn´t get back till Saturday. So that kind of flushed our plans down the toilett. But the Zone Conference was good. It focused a lot on working with the local leaders to help our investigators. Much needed. The sisters had a baptism on Saturday. And... yea.

So that´s it.

Elder Peterson

Getting in the Groove

Dear Family,

To clear up some doubts raised by certain persons, this island currently has 4 missionaries. 2 Elders and 2 Sisters. we share.

This past week has been interesting. We were able to work with a lot of members again showing that our first week wasn´t a fluke. That´s a relief. I´m working on leading out strong while my companion is dying on me. He goes home on Friday.

Last monday we had a branch FHE on temples. It made me think of something a companion I had used to say, "The gospel makes me trunky." Which when you talk about temples and being with your family forever, it´s hard not to think about your family. Speaking of which, I had an idea. We should do a family temple trip this Christmas. That would rock. Oh, and I´m still waiting to hear if the ward will be doing a Thanksgiving temple trip this year. The possibility of my attending, if they have it, is quite good. As far as my information shows.

I woke up in the middle of the night sick. That´s unpleasant. If you don´t get an email from me next week it means I died. If you do, it means that sicknesses in the mission are mere annoyances. That don´t feel very good. And when you stay home sick there´s not really anything to do so you´re not only not feeling well, but bored out of your mind. Not to mention your companion. The nurse recommends I follow the BRAT diet. Bananas, Rice, Applesauce (which isn´t available here), and Toast. Oh goody.

Anyways, I´m tired but I´m doing all right. It is good to hear from the siblings. It´s good that Bonnie got such a good job which happened to fit her specific training and education. So yay. It´s also good that she wrote about it.

Love,

Elder Peterson

Ok

Dear Family,

Cape Verde is made up of 10 islands. I am on the island that is situated on the most north east called Sal. I am serving in a town right in the middle, next to the airport, called Espargos. FYI.

Sal is awesome. The weather has been amazing thus far. It´s got a fresh breeze that comes through. My house isn´t that big, but for 2 missionaries it works quite well. I am a little saddened at having to go back to cold showers, especially when there is low water pressure. No bueno. That´s Spanish for "not good". My companion is from São Tomé but lived in Cape Verde for several years before going on a mission. His name is Elder De Oliveira. We get along fine. We´re not exactly besties but we don´t have any beef. It works for the work.

Speaking of work, since Sal is almost completely flat, walking around all day isn´t nearly as bad as it used to be. The branch here isn´t as big as my the last one I worked in but it isn´t terribly small. The last weeks frequency was about 88. What I´m going to try working on is finding more leaders to baptize. That´s always something the Church needs. And my mission president wants to get a chapel built here so we need to show the Area that this place needs a chapel. So now I´ve got a goal.

Oh, and fortunately there is more than one computer place. So instead of using the piece of garbage internet place this week, I´m using a more decent one. I´m attaching pictures. One is of this little boy riding a huge bike. I´m not exactly sure how he managed but he did. Then the next day (I didn´t have my camera with me) I saw two girls on one bike. The girl in front was steering while the girl in back pedaled. It was quite the sight. There is also a picture of a salt deposit I saw as my comp and I walked by a beach today. One of the members was showing us a different beach we could use for baptisms instead of the one they normally use. Apparently the normal one has all sorts of dips and rocks and stuff and this other place doesn´t. We´ll see. The other pictures I also took while on this little walk.

Anyways, I´m doing well. Thanks for asking.

Love,

Elder Peterson

SAL

Dear Family,

So this computer is garbage. Just saying. The left shift and control keys don´t work. So if there is something that isn´t capitalized it´s becase i was too lazy to hit the shift key with my right pinky while hitting the other key with my right whatever other finger.

Also don´t expect many photos from this area.

But last weekend we had 2 baptisms and then a District activity. 2 of the 4 branches in Praia put on skits, then we missionaries put on a skit (that I wrote). It was fun and funny. The skit we did was all in Creole which was good because all the members here think it´s hilarious when American missionaries speak creole. It was a hit.

Today I did all the morning transfer driving around before being transferred myself (after missing a flight and running around a lot). So I really didn´t have much of a P-day. In fact, I really don´t have much more time today to write. But thanks for all the letters from you all. Mom, I did get that package with the mouthguard and goodies before I came out. Thanks!

Love,

Elder Peterson

Summer Break

Is over.

Dear Family,

I hear that many of you are already back in school and doing many of that sort of thing. That´s cool. Being in school is something that I sometimes miss. I always liked school.

These days it´s work work work. We did have a baptism this week. His name is Keny. He´s a really cool kid. It was so awesome to see his big smile when it came time to be baptized. There were some people from the other Branches that also got baptized and when Keny saw them get baptized he got really excited for his turn. Then when he came to church the next day he came in a white shirt and tie (the first time for him). And he´s got a friend that will be baptized this next week.

His truth is marching on.

Elder Peterson

the one picture is of the baptism. The other is of the missionaries at Cape Verde´s national championship soccer game last week. It was pretty sweet.

Stankers

Dear Family,

Stankers is the name of the dog that lives by our house. He´s a nasty, dirty, ugly black dog. But we give him our leftovers sometimes.

Two weeks ago I stayed with Elder Fonseca while Elder Josephson went to Mindelo. This past week I stayed with Elder Josephson while Elder Fonseca went to Brava and Fogo. It was interesting to spend a week with each of them and see how different it is. Both of them bring something different to our companionship and in this case I feel like 3 is better than 2. Despite my initial misgivings at hearing that I would be in a triple. I guess it really just depends on who the triple is with. I´m sure if it was with different people (certain Elders in specific) it would be a lot harder. But as it is, it´s going good. It´s going fast too. I can hardly believe that we are starting our 5th week together. Wah

I enjoyed the pictures that Neal sent from Bear Lake, but unfortunately for you, I really haven´t been taking that many pictures recently. Maybe next week I´ll get some good ones to send home.

And because I don´t have a ton to say this week I´ll tell a story. Yesterday we had to pass by the office because we had forgotten to send out an important email during the week that our District Leaders needed today. So we just passed by real quick to shoot off a few emails then headed back out to work. just fyi, the office is in our proselyting area so it´s not as big a deal for us to pass by as it may seem. But as we were leaving we saw some dogs jump around a corner barking. We passed by to see what it was and we saw 3 dogs fighting a cat. This cat was putting up a pretty good fight too, for being outnumbered. We stopped for a second to watch the fight but then one of the dogs caught it in its mouth and started shaking it. Elder Josephson didn´t want the dog to kill it so he picked up a rock and threw it to break them up. Only he ended up hitting the cat right in the head basically killing it. It was a good sized rock. When the cat got hit, it just dropped and started twitching. The dogs backed up a little and just looked at it for a second because they weren´t quite sure what had happened. But then they ran over and one grabbed the cat in its mouth and they ran off. Elder Josephson felt so bad that he had killed the cat that he was trying to help. But that´s my story for the day.

Stay classy,

Elder Peterson

Third Wheel

Dear Family,

This effect our triplet companionship came into play as was intended from the beginning. Elder Josephson went with President Oliveira to do some trainings and meetings in Mindelo while Elder Fonseca and I stayed in our area and worked like real missionaries do. Elder Josephson really liked Mindelo. It was his first time off of this island. With my history in the mission, I´m not worried about traveling. I could stay here the rest of my time easy. But it just depends on what goes down.

As far as the home front, we worked. It was kind of like when you were a kid digging a hole to china in our backyard. You started out all excited and just going at it and all that. After a while you start hitting some rocks but that doesn´t really get you. You just work around them and keep going. But you get to that point where it´s all clay and rocks and you just aren´t making any progress. I just hope that it only seemed like we didn´t make progress but secretly something is going on somewhere that I haven´t noticed. I´m just saying, yesterday we taught one single lesson. And we walked a lot.

That´s ok though. Today is P-day! And there´s not much a good p-day can´t fix. Or a good nights sleep. Or video games. wait.

I heard you all had a great time at Bear Lake. Well, most of you. Grant mentioned some vomiting there at the end, not pleasant. But I´m glad you all had a good time.

The gospel is true. Endure to the end is an eternal principle. That includes missionary work, church callings, and school. So just because things aren´t going the way we thought they should doesn´t mean there isn´t a window opening.

Love,

Elder Peterson

Sploosh

Dear Family,

There´s no better feeling than helping one of the Lord´s children enter onto the path of salvation through baptism. Saturday we had 4. Our zone had 6. As you can see one of the pictures. The 4 from our area are the two in front of me and the two kids on the left. Their older brother is the one smiling on the far left. He´s preparing for a mission right now. My companions are the two Elders on the far right. It was a great weekend. A good way to end a week full of work work work.

One of the other pictures is of soccer this morning and the last one is of the mission president´s son Saul, who finished his mission and is visiting here, in a typical back pathway. After playing soccer my companions and I went with him to the mission home. Turns out today is Sister Oliveira´s birthday so we sang her a primary happy birthday song. She insisted on making us pancakes. We went with Saul and President Oliveira to Sucupira for a little bit and then we went and got haircuts. If I didn´t have to get another haircut here I´d be happy. It wasn´t a bad haircut but... I´ll leave it at that.

Anyways, my life here is just dandy. Our three AP system is going to come into play this next week as Elder Josephson goes with President to Mindelo while Elder Fonseca and I stay here to work in the area. woot!11!

Well, stay classy I suppose.

Elder Peterson

Another One Bites the Dust

Dear Family,

Last week we had transfers. I said farewell to Elder Moreira (he´s going to train in Fogo) and hello to Elder Josephson and Elder Fonseca. I´m going to miss Elder Moreira. He was a really fun companion. It´s a shame that we only had one transfer together. But yea, right now I´m in a trio. I wasn´t sure how well it would work but so far we´re doing fine. It helps that both Elder Josephson and Elder Fonseca are clean. It´s a lot easier when everyone cleans up after themselves and not just one person for everyone. Elder Josephson is from Lehi, Utah and Elder Fonseca is from here on the island of Mindelo. They are both way cool, ready to learn and to do the work that we are here to do. This first week has been pretty crazy simply due to the fact that I haven´t had time to teach them everything and there´s been so much to do. So here´s the weekly breakdown:

Monday-Transfer Day. I started by moving the secretaries out of our house. Last transfer we shared a house with the secretaries. That changed this transfer. I moved them out and I picked up Elder Josephson to ride around with me as I did all the other changes. This was basically AP Taxi day. And since I was the designated driver I got to do all the movement. Not that I don´t enjoy driving, but there is a point when you don´t want to drive back and forth through the city. We ran around until 12 when we stopped by the mission home because President Oliveira had invited us to lunch. That was a tender mercy of the Lord. We showed up, ate a little, talked for a few minutes, then rushed out the door to do more changes. If we hadn´t had that lunch I don´t know if we´d have found time to eat. We kind of pushed our schedule tight by stopping by as it was, with a pre-ready meal. As soon as all the movements were done (around 5-ish) We got ourselves ready to go teach. I went with Elder Ryan (who was a secretary last transfer but got transfered to Mindelo to train) so he could show me all the investigators that we would acquire since the secretaries moved areas. My new companions went with Elder Moreira so he could show them the investigators that I already knew. Good stuff.

Tuesday was a little more calm. We had a lot of office stuff in the morning, but we just taught in the afternoon. Wednesday was the same.

Thursday we had a Trainers´ Training. The Church is starting a new 12 week training program to help integrate new missionaries into the field better. The hope is that after the first 2 transfers (12 weeks) these new missionaries will be ready to train others, or in essence be leaders. That´s definately something this mission needs. I´m training 2 APs not greenies but the training was still helpful. And who knows, maybe I´ll train sometime in the future. The new Elders got in Thursday night.

Friday morning we did the new missionary orientation. Then taught. Saturday we had some baptism interviews, watched a baptism, then went out with the Branch to clean out the membership records, ie find out if people still live in the branch boundaries any more, because there are a ton of members in the branch´s records that aren´t active.

Sunday was a good normal day. Except that our gas for our stove ran out in the middle of lunch. It´s hard to cook without a stove. But I was finally able to catch up in my journal.

Anyways, thanks for your love and support!

Elder Canute

p.s. the picture is of the office staff last transfer. From left to right: Me, Elder Burnett (financial secretary), Elder Moreira (my companion), Elder Ryan (financial secretary), Sister Brooks, and Sister Laimana (general secretaries).

My Routine

Dear Family,

It doesn´t exist. My routine I mean. Last saturday we were going to do missionary type work but we received a call to arms to the office. Our mission president, President Oliveira went to Germany for a Europe Area Mission President training. He received news of misconduct by a missionary so he called us to stay with that missionary until he got back from Germany to make sure that nothing bad could happen before president could talk to this missionary. The problem was that we have 2 missionaries with the same last name. And President wasn´t 100% clear on which one was the one. So we asked. and he said the one here in Praia. So saturday morning we picked this missionary up, dropped his companion off with the Zone Leaders and went back to our house to finish studies. This whole time the missionary we picked up had no idea what was going on. But other missionaries heard what was going down. It´s hard not to with this many missionaries in such close proximity. Then the missionary that had told President Oliveira about the misconduct called us and told us we had the wrong guy. So we then spent most of saturday trying to get a hold of President to see what he wanted us to do. We ended up buying flights and running around the rest of saturday.

Sunday we had a division type deal. I went out and taught in our area with one missionary and Elder Moreira(my comp) taught with that missionary´s comp. But despite 2 groups working in our area that afternoon, that was the worst week as far as number of lessons I´ve had yet in my mission. I think we taught 8 all week. Granted we were not even on our island for 4 days, then we had P-day, then we had Saturday(see above).

Monday we picked up President´s son from the airport. He had just finished his mission in Brazil and was coming home to here. But President Oliveira was still in Germany so Elder Moreira and I picked him up. Then we took him to the beach for our Zone Activity(kind of a half p-day for us). Then in the afternoon we went into the office and Elder Moreira and I worked on Transfer things while President´s son slept in the spare bedroom here. Then at midnight we went to the airport to pick up President and Sister Oliveira.

Tuesday morning we had a meeting with President. In the afternoon we taught. Wednesday we had a meeting with President in the morning where we made transfers. Then we had district meeting. Then we taught. At one of our appointments, an investigator gave us some cake and juice. It didn´t do anything to me, but Elder Moreira got sick as a dog. He woke up several times during the night to throw up. Thursday morning (yesterday) President called us in to the office to make the flight list so the Sister secretaries could buy the flights for transfers. my companion was still way sick so I basically ended up doing everything. In the afternoon I had to take another missionary to the airport and pick another up. And the sisters needed to do flight things as well. Since I was kind of in the thick of everything I ended up helping a lot with that as well. So we didn´t teach yesterday. And we didn´t have power last night. And now that I mention that, we haven´t had power just about every other night for the past month. It´s way obnoxious. But it´s life.

Thanks for the emails and help and stuff.

Elder Peterson

Road trip, in a certain sense of the word

Dear Family,

Last week I sent my email on Saturday. Sunday was kind of crazy. Church was good, but we learned that there would be a fireside for our new mission president at 6:00. So we had from 3 to 6 to contact the majority of our investigators because we would not be in our area until Friday(today). We tried to go on splits to divide and conquer but one of the guys didn´t show. So instead we just went to the investigators we could and taught with a member. It went fairly well. The fireside was good.

Monday we got up at 4 to be at the airport at 4:30 for our flight at 5:30 to Mindelo. That was the 4th of July. Woot! Originally we were supposed to fly in Monday afternoon and have Zone Conference Tuesday the 5th, but July 5th is Cape Verde´s independence day and President Oliveira was invited to some government thing that day. So we flew in early early Monday morning. We had our Zone Conference then Elder Moreira and I did divisions with the Zone Leaders. That night to celebrate the 4th we ate waffles(definitely an American dish) and another American missionary and I sang the National Anthem. Since the missionaries usually have their P-day Monday and we had their zone conference that day, they had their P-day on Tuesday instead. And since Zone Conference was supposed to be on Tuesday, Elder Moreira and I didn´t fly out until Wednesday morning. So we just kind of had P-day with them. We didn´t use internet or anything, but we couldn´t really go out and work or do splits or whatever when none of the other missionaries were actually working. Except at 6 when they started proselyting as normal. Then we went out and worked with them.

Wednesday morning we flew out from Mindelo to Praia where we had a layover of 2 hours before flying to Fogo. We took President and Sister Oliveira around a little bit but in the afternoon we did splits with the missionaries there. Thursday we had Zone Conference in Fogo. It went well and afterwards we had our flight back to Praia. President and Sister Oliveira took Elder Moreira and me out to dinner before we all went back to our respective abodes to retire. It´s been a tiring week. We traveled through a lot of the mission. And I was able to visit some of my old areas. It has been really neat. Especially in Fogo. And President Oliveira is powerful. It´s going to be good working with him. But I feel bad for the way his first couple of weeks here have been going. Just the amount of stuff planned in such a short period of time. He only has a little bit to rest from these past trips because he leaves for a mission president training in Germany tomorrow. Rough.

Anyways, thanks all for everything. The prayers definitely help.

Love,

Elder Peterson

Assistant - noun: a person who assists or gives aid and support; helper.

(As an aside, this is also the 100th post... Woot.)

Dear Family,

On Tuesday I went with President Neves to pick up my new mission president, President Oliveira. According to protocol, the moment the plane touched the ground, President Oliveira became the new president and President Neves became Brother Neves. That was weird. He took his tag off in front of us and everything. We waited at the airport for quite a while as they got luggage and all that jazz. Then we took them to a hotel because the Mission home was being changed. Not necessarily ideal to have the move happen as the new Mission President gets here but whatevs. So the rest of that day we just taught our investigators and were kind of on call for whatever the new president might need.

On Wednesday we started the day really early by taking the former president Neves and his family to the airport at 4:30. No bueno. Elder Moreira and I then had a brief meeting with President Oliveira at around 8:00 before starting the Zone Leader´s Council. I will say right now that I got a spiritual confirmation that morning that President Oliveira is indeed the man called by God to lead this mission. And I´m pretty excited about it. The ZL council went well and after that Elder Moreira and I kind of ran around taking people to the airport and giving rides and such.

Thursday was supposed to be a normal day, but we went into the office to do a few administrative things and ended up staying there all day trying to help President Oliveira get settled in and get everything figured out. There´s a lot of stuff that´s kind of a mess at the moment for a variety of reasons and President Oliveira kind of got dropped right in the middle of it.

Friday (yesterday) we had our Zone Conference here in Praia. It went really well and all the missionaries left with really good thoughts and feelings about President Oliveira and where he wants to take this mission. We were then assigned to plan out the Zone Conferences for Mindelo and Fogo. That took a good bit of time. I went to bed tired and with a headache. I really can´t list all the things that we have been doing this past week but it´s been busy busy busy. And next week we will be out of our area for most of the time due to the Zone Conferences on the other islands. So woot.

Thanks for all of your love and support and prayers and stuff. It really does help.

Elder Peterson

p.s. The one picture is of me and Elder Moreira with our former mission president and his wife and our current mission president and his wife.
The other picture is of my mission "family." My trainer´s trainer (my grandpa), my trainer (dad), my trainers "brother" (my uncle), my "uncles" "son" (my cousin), me, and my 3 "brothers" or the other 3 Elders that my trainer trained. So one big happy family.

Chillin on the Beach

Dear Family,

This past week has been relatively calm despite my initial fears. But I still have worries about this just being the still before the storm. My future Mission President gets here on Tuesday. My current mission President leaves next Wednesday. And then all the meetings and conferences and stuff start. But I´ve enjoyed the opportunity up to now to be able to go out and work in my area just like every other missionary. We´ve done pretty well in finding new people to teach all the while continuing to help our current investigators progress.

Recently I´ve also had the opportunity to share my talents with others. It´s never been a secret in the mission that I like to draw. And after seeing a few examples of the envelope art I´ve sent home (I take pictures of them before I send them) the senior couple here decided to have me draw something for the newsletter. And my mission President had me draw a graphic for one of his last firesides. And I´m not sure if you remember the picture I emailed home about Christmas time that I drew of Cape Verde, but everyone that sees it requests a copy. Here, I´ll attach it again for easierness sake. Speaking of sending pictures, trying to send pictures at the beginning of my mission was a nightmare. But Windows 7 has made it easy as a dream. So, thanks Microsoft for all you do for the missionary community.

Today, being P-day, we did our office activity. I don´t know if I ever mentioned that there are now Sisters in the office, but there are. I sent a picture of the other missionaries that I took in the tunnel we walked through to get to the black sand beach in Tarrafal. The Elder second from the right is my companion. I attached another picture of him sitting in the sand. He´s Brazilian. It was really nice to just sit on the beach and chill. We didn´t have to worry about any office work or anything. We played a little frisbee and then we made a sand castle on the shore and made walls to try and protect it from the waves. It kind of worked. But now I´m all covered in sand and grit which is no fun. We came straight from the beach to here. The Hiace (van) rides to and from Tarrafal were long and I didn´t fit very well with my long legs. And the tunnel to the beach was short and I am not so that also provided for some back acheage.

There´s another picture of me at an FHE doing a line of shoulder leaning starting from tall to small. The Elder in that picture is not my companion.

Thanks for your love and support!

Elder Canute

Like Mommy

Dear Family,

Today I used something I learned from Mom. I woke up and started cleaning. I started with the general stuff and the other Elders cleaned their stuff. Then I started cleaning the kitchen. I started by myself, wiping down cupboards, cleaning out cupboards etc. Then one Elder walked in and I asked if he wanted to help. He said sure so I gave him a job. Another Elder walked by (I live in a house with 4 Elders) and he didn´t look busy so I asked if he was busy. He said no so I put him to work as well. Whenever they finished one thing I got them working on another thing. The last Elder walked in about halfway through but I didn´t have anything for him to do in the kitchen so I had him clean the bathroom so he could feel useful. Of course this whole time I was still cleaning, not simply delegating. But we got that kitchen cleaner than it has been in quite a while, in just a short time. Many hands make short work.

I was going to send pictures, but I forgot to bring my camera to the internet place. Next week.

I don´t know about you guys, but this whole Friday p-day thing is messing with my groove.

This week was actually quite normal for the most part. The only really crazy thing that happened was that a new senior couple showed up that no one was expecting. Well, we were expecting them, but not for a few more days. So we had to pick them up, book a hotel, and buy their flights. That was Saturday. Then on Monday we woke up at 4:30 to take them to the airport. That was crazy. And made me very tired. I don´t expect I will catch up on that sleep during my mission.

Thanks for the emails and letters and stuff.

Elder Canute

Sleep? What's That?

Dear Family,

First of all I´m sure you got my point on my last heading, but just to make sure I wanted to clarify it. I didn´t mean destiny in the sense that I was destined to be AP. More in the sense that sometimes the Lord has things in store for us that we aren´t really hoping or planning for.

As far as the last week (before transfers), it was pretty chill. Elder Smith and I went to Praia for a Zone Leaders´ Council. I got two more packages, 1 from America (through mom) and the other from Cookie. Both were very gratefully received. So I brought those back to Mindelo with me to enjoy. And then I had to bring them back to Praia because I wasn´t able to consume 20 lbs of goodies in a week. (possibly exagerating on the amount, but I can´t be sure. Those boxes were chuck full and heavy) So funny enough, those became a part of my weight problem for the flight back to Praia. Luckily I made it through without having to pay despite being way over the weight limit. Bonus!

So the week before transfers Elder Smith and I made tacos (with the tortillas and taco mix I got in the packages), ate many Ice-pops (otter-pops for you Utah types), and the night of transfers we had root beer floats with rootbeer made from concentrate stuff sent in packages. So, thanks to you my beloved family for making my last week in Mindelo a very happy one. At least as far as food goes.

Monday morning (the day of transfers), I woke up at 5:30 to finish packing and then finished off one more rootbeer float and an Ice-pop(otter-pop) before taking my flight. So breakfast really didn´t happen. As soon as I arrived in Praia I began going around town with my new companion and the old AP doing all sorts of picking up and dropping off missionaries for Transfers. I only had time to drop my bags off in my house. We did new missionary orientation and bussed around the missionaries getting ready to go home. We ate lunch in 10 minutes then passed by our house to relax for a few minutes. We had a little time to do some office work but not much. Then after the returning Elders´ Farewell Dinner with President Neves we had to take them to the houses they would stay at that night. So we were up until 11:30-ish. Rough first day.

Tuesday we woke up at the normal time but had to skip most of our personal preparation because we had to take another Elder to the Airport that morning. We bussed some other people around and then I got the chance to buy some food. Did I mention that our house didn´t have water? My comp and I went to the mission home to take showers. I spent a bit of the morning unpacking but we had to go to the office for some other things. We took the returning missionaries to the airport for their flight home at two and were finally able to take our lunch at 3:15-ish. We ate something simple and I took what time we had to continue unpacking. Then we went back to the office where we stayed until 9 something working on stuff. I haven´t been this tired in a while.

Wednesday was more normal. I was able to finish unpacking and arranging my stuff, we did some office stuff in the morning, but then had our District Meeting like normal. And in the afternoon we taught people, like a missionary should. Thursday was 100% normal. Just teaching and stuff. Today is P-day. Yay!

So what it looks like is my schedule will normalize here for about a week and a half or so before we go into a frantic race to do all the last minute preparations for the new mission president who gets here the 28th. Then as soon as the new Mission President gets here, I lose all normalcy in any sense of the word. We will be travelling all over the mission and helping our new President learn about Cape Verde and the state of the mission, etc.

Oh, and my new companion is a Brazilian. His name is Elder Moreira. He´s a really funny guy. His family is all members but his parents have been inactive for a while. They didn´t want him to serve a mission but here he is. It´s been a good start between us two so far so I have high hopes for our companionship.

So, thanks for all your love, support, and prayers. I need them.

Elder Canute

Happy Belated(?) Memorial Day

Dear Family,

This letter was supposed to be written and sent to you on Monday like usual. Unfortunately, after reading several of your emails the power went out here in Mindelo. So I wasn't able to write back. I wouldn't written on Tuesday but I was in Praia for a Zone Leaders Council. And I almost didn't get to write today because today is Day of the Children here in Cape Verde. Apparently they take this holiday very seriously because everything was closed this morning. And they don't even have school today. I kind of got frustrated when I saw that everything was closed this morning because my email time is something I take very seriously. But we found some time to get this taken care of.

So this past week we had some specialized trainings. We had 4 days on Thursday from 10-4 with a lunch break in between then another 4 on Friday from 9-4. Elder Smith and I gave a training each day. The district leaders each gave one training on one of the days and President Neves and the Assistants gave the other trainings. Those were some long days. After the trainings we had divisions with the other Elders who had come for the trainings. That was a good chance for Elder Smith and I to split up with these other Elders and find more people to teach in our area since that is currently our biggest challenge.

On Monday we cleared off our roof because it was a mess and a half and we're trying to fix the water pump. But we need a crescent wrench and we don't have one. We didn't have power in our house all day. When we went to the internet place it had power but it went out soon after starting. We took a plane that night to Praia for the Zone Leaders Council. There we got the last official word from our current Mission President. The new president comes on June 28th and the Zone Leaders will have a meeting with him the 29th or 30th. We have transfers this coming Monday so I'm not sure where I'll be when the new mission president gets here.

I was going to our District Meeting this morning and I saw this really nasty dog so I took a picture for your viewing pleasure. And I got one last picture with President Neves. Good stuff.

Elder Canute

From the Ground Up

Dear Family,

This past week has consisted of doing a lot of contacts and trying to find people to teach. And that's about it. My companion and I have been preparing our training for a big special meeting next week. The picture is of Aldi. I thought that was fun because there is an Aldi back home.

The other day a Jehovah's Witness asked me for my Bible so I gave it to her. She said that wasn't my Bible. I told her it was. Finally she told me she wanted the ''other'' book. Obviously she wanted the Book of Mormon the whole time but apparently she thought that we considered it our Bible. Which we don't. Because we already have a Bible. But she had me read the last verse in the Book of Mormon to try and prove a point. What she didn't realize is that Jehovah is Jesus Christ. But we didn't want to get into a big dispute and we had a lesson to teach so we just left.

Later, a piece of concrete that I was standing on broke off and I almost fell on my face. But I landed it and played it cool. My comp laughed a lot at me for that though.

And I can't think of any other interesting news. So, until later.

Elder Peterson