A "Make Your Own Sidewalk" Kinda Country

9/3/2018

Oh my goodness, so much has happened and I have so little time!!!

We flew to Cape Verde and it took like 32 hours, I got motion sick for the first time in my life, and I discovered I have the ability to nap in essentially any public place- including the Lisbon Portugal airport. It was kinda awful and the lack of sleep has made the jet lag a billion times worse, but it was so exciting to get here and all things considered we had a really safe and relatively uneventful journey.

We Spent our first day in Praia, which was crazy! After our travel group split to go to their various areas, Sister Forsyth and I got to spend a couple hours on splits with two of the sisters in Praia. The area we proselyted in was kinda like the ghetto of Praia if you would. Everyone was super nice and humble. I knew Cape Verde was third world country and that's what I was expecting, but for some reason I feel like a lot of people played down how third world it actually is before coming out here, because they'd only been to tourist spots, etc. But even Praia, the capital city, we were around a lot of houses that didn't have running water, maybe not a roof, maybe not a door- some barely had walls. During the four hours we were there, I think I saw thirty stray dogs and something like ten random children just ran up to hug me. They really love Sisters here, especially the kids. The people are also culturally a little blunt, so whenever someone sees me, the first words out of their mouth are usually something along the lines of "she's so white", and you know, they ain't wrong. But they are also incredibly nice so they'll often say that I'm pretty as well, so that's cool.

The first lesson I taught was amazing! I had just barely met this lady, she's speaking creole so I have no idea what she or my comp (companion) is saying and it's always hot here so I'm sweating buckets, but the spirit washed over me so strong and I just knew I was supposed to be here and what to say. By some miracle I was able to say it so she understood and the lesson went amazing. Sister Vierra (she was the sister I was on splits with, she's really cool and funny and kinda acted as my temporary trainer), she was impressed at how much I was interacting my first day and told me to keep up with ambition to speak and participate in the lessons, even though I still can't speak a ton.

Now speaking of not being able to speak. You know that part in the Best Two Years when Elder Calhoun says "this isn't the language they taught me in the MTC!" and then everyone writes home about it because it's so funny and relatable? Well, this is literally not the language they taught me in the MTC! Everyone here speaks creole, which is in some way technically almost like portuguese, BUT IT IS NOT PORTUGUESE! Whoever was like,” yeah if we teach them portuguese they'll just understand creole” was wrong! Oh, they were so wrong. So that's a little intimidating, but I'm working on it. Luckily people understand when I speak portuguese, and the rest of the time I just stare in fear at my trainer.  

Finally, after many many hours of traveling, a day in Praia and some more traveling, I made it to my area: Cova Figueira on the Island of Fogo. It's one of the most rural areas in the mission, which is a little crazy and makes shopping tricky because they don't have bread this far out here, and there's only one restaurant that we never really go to. Sometimes the shop doesn't have meat or eggs or cheese. Luckily, I actually really like rice. It's a lot cooler here than the rest of the islands because we live between the volcano and the ocean. Everyone here are farmers and there's a lot of livestock, and of course like a billion stray dogs with the occasional stray cat. People are very humble and fun, the community here is tight, but it's hard to find new people to teach because everyone is either a member, less active or has been taught by the missionaries before. We are persistent though. The bulk of what we do here is re-activation. Sister Pendelton, my trainer, has been here for a transfer and knows the area really well. She's amazing and somehow speaks creole fluently. This is also her last transfer though, so that's sad.

The people here really need rain for their crops, so everyone has been fasting and praying for rain. So of course my second day here, it started pouring and just completely stroming. It's on and off rained since then, and even my trainer says she's never seen the weather quite this wild. That's been really cool. But it's great for the people, since most of the homes don't have running water, all the freshwater is really great. At the same time, none of the houses are built to withstand too much weather like that. Luckily they are a bit more sturdy because they are used to the rain. Overall, it's been absolutely wild and amazing and gorgeous and I love it here and I love my trainer. I was told I'd be walking a lot on my mission, little did I know that my area would be up and down the side of a volcano on unpaved roads in the rain. It's just like hiking- all the time. I expect to have calves of steel by my next area.

Anyways, it's gorgeous and I have taken tons of pictures, but I for got my converter and and I have literally no time to write today, so you get the pictures my MTC comp sent me that we took our last few days there. I love my MTC District and companions, and it was so hard to say goodbye to them, but I know that we are all going to serve amazing missions. I'm so excited that we all get to share this message with the world!!! I wish I had time to say more and I'm sorry to everyone I didn't respond to this week, but I will try and be better next week!!! I love you all!

-Sister Bradley