Or, alternatively, Blessings In Disguise
9/11/2018
Dear Family, Friends, miscellaneous others,
I’m a little late with the letter home, as you may have noticed. I swear it’s at no fault of my own, things have just been a little crazy here in Covo Figueira this past week! I’m beginning to think I may have blessed the rains here a little too much because it’s been pouring! But nothing we can’t survive. Unfortunately, there was also this huge windstorm that ended up blowing over a cell tower or something because we’ve been without cell service and wifi since, not even at the library. So, hopefully that gets fixed and I’ll be able to send emails as normal soon. (Lia took photos of this handwritten letter to be typed up later and posted for you all, so please excuse any mistakes.) Anyway, the mission is great! Not always easy- sometimes the wifi is blown away by gale force winds- but it’s always worth it. When coming out into the field, it seems like your life becomes a series of trials and tender mercies, but the Lord never gives you trials you cannot bear or that won’t ultimately better you as a person. So upon further reflection, I like to think of those as blessings and blessings in disguise. Here's a list of some of those blessings I’ve seen in my brief time in the field thus far…
Blessings:
-The fruit here is better in every way possible, aside from the fact we have to wash it with bleach first. It’s literally soooo good and naturally sweet and bigger and fresher and better. I’m eating fruit here I didn’t even like at home because for some reason it all tastes like what I imagine the fruit in Lehi’s dream tasted like.
-My companion is 6 feet fall. I thought I was lucky getting Sister Forsyth as a companion who is like 5’7”-5’8”, but with Sister Pendelton it’s like I’m the short one and I’m never the short one! It’s so nice not feeling like an Amazon all the time. It sounds silly, but truly is such a blessing.
-Compal is life. There’s this ultra natural European juice called Compal and it’s the tastiest thing ever and I drink so much of it because it’s just so good! I don’t understand why it’s not in America.
-The mosquitos here don’t really bite me. I mean, mosquitos have never really bitten me, but there’s tons here and they eat all the other Sisters and I’ve only gotten one or two bites. So that’s a literal miracle, especially because I don’t even really wear bug spray, sooo either I’m a mutant or I’m blessed… or both.
-The Gift of Tongues is real. I know I’ve said that before, but man is it real. It’s strange because often the Gift of Tongues is largely associated with learning the language, which is true but mostly I’ve seen it like this: I only understand people during lessons and I manage to speak Portuguese they can understand, which is wild because my Portuguese is pretty awful. Yet somehow they’ll just know what I’m saying even though a good portion of the time I don’t even know what I’m saying. So yeah, my Portuguese sucks, but the Spirit makes up where I lack and the Lord works with even the most imperfect missionaries. That’s the Gift of Tongues.
-It’s so beautiful here! Like, indescribably beautiful. No picture or words could do this place justice. It’s otherworldly how green and just magical Covo Figueira looks.
-A quick cute story: This week while tracting and knocking doors (there’s like three doors in Covo Figueira we haven’t knocked before) we came upon a house we’d never visited, but we were worried about knocking it because in Cape Verde, there’s like a 60-70% chance it’s a nice family and a 30-40% chance it could be a group of dudes partaking of “the devil’s cabbage”, especially if you’ve never met or seen anyone who lives there. (That may not be statistically accurate, but you know what I’m getting at) So we were a little nervous and Sister Pendelton turns to me and asks “What do you think, should we knock?” and after a pause and some chastisement from the Spirit, I responded “Well, our message is for everybody.” and we knocked. It turned out to be this way less-active member who hasn’t been to church in years, but he was so excited to talk with us. We set up an appointment with him and he even wanted to invite a friend. So that was amazing and really testified that even when you’re scared or don’t think they’ll wanna hear the message, just know, just preach! Because our message really is for everyone.
Blessings in Disguise:
-Our toilet doesn’t really flush. You see, we have this giant water storage tub thing in our bathroom that we fill up with the shower hose, and then when we go to the bathroom we have to use a bucket to get some water from the storage tub to then dump in the toilet for it to flush. So that kinda sucks, but at least it’s still a semi-operational toilet. I’ll never take for granted a fully operational toilet ever again!
-Nothing in Cape Verde ever gets dry because it’s just so humid! I could leave my clothes out to dry for a week and it would still be slightly damp, but you adjust to it quickly. Even if it were to be dry, you’d still just sweat through everything to the point that it’d be damp either way. Plus side, the humidity keeps my skin eternally moisturized.
-Continuing with the humidity, my hair is crazy! Just permanent volume and unmanagable curls, even if I put it up. The the people here think it’s beautiful though, so even if it is just kind of a constant mess, it’s a socially acceptable mess.
-The chickens here are broken. They’re just broken. They crow literally all day and night. Don’t they know they’re only supposed to crow in the morning?! I mean, I’m no chicken expert, but that just seems incorrect. Now chicken tastes better… but who's to say if it’s because we hardly ever get meat to eat or if I’m just smug.
-There is an extreme lack of traffic safety here in Cape Verde. I’ve seen exactly one stop sign, and street lights aren’t a thing. People just kinda drive however they want. You really haven’t lived until you’ve ridden through Praia in the back of a short bus driven by the AP’s. But now, I mean, there’s little left to fear in the world.
-There’s so many stray dogs here! The ones in Praia look like zombie dogs but the ones here usually aren’t too bad. Occasionally we’ll meet a really aggressive dog that wants to eat us despite being 15 pounds and the perfect size to be drop kicked. So then we just have to run in fear and re-plan part of the day to avoid said dog. Bright side, I appreciate nice animals so much more! There was also this goat that tried to ram us, but we were saved by this nine year old so only our pride was hurt. But like, the cats here are all really nice.
-The spiders here are also basically stray pets because they are so big! People don’t really care either, so you’ll walk into a house that will have 6 massive spiders on the wall and everybody just acts like it’s part of the decor! I’ve seen hamsters smaller than some of these spiders and no one is even slightly concerned. American spiders seem so small and tame now, I don’t think I’ll ever feel that same fear again now that I’ve seen the possible horrors of what a spider can be.
-As I previously stated, I may have blessed the rain a little too much because it has just been dumping water on us. Pretty sure Covo Figueira is the only place in all of Africa that could possibly rain this much. According to Sister Pendelton, it only just started when I got here so I can only assume it’s my fault. But it’s good, the crops here really need the water, everyone is home and reachable when it’s rainy and the sunny days are that much sweeter.
-So between rainstorms, we got like 20 whole minutes of sun… and I got sunburned. Not a huge surprise, but it’s all good. The burn ended up healing really fast and now I’ve just been tanning. So, while I may still be the whitest girl in the village, I’m slightly less white now. I’ve even got a really bad farmers tan and a tan line from my watch, so that’s legit. I’m thinking if I tan slowly a little bit here, in the cloudiest place in all of Africa, it will ease me into things so I don’t just burn to a crisp in my next area.
Anyway, that’s a pretty good list of the many ways the Lord directs and blesses my life out here on the mission. I’m sure I have many blessings and blessings in disguise awaiting me with every day this experience progresses, but I know even the biggest disguised blessings (trials) could never detract from the importance of this work. The biggest blessing any of us can or could ever receive is the Atonement of Christ. I love being here on the mission because it constantly reminds me that I’m part of something bigger than myself. When I claim/take upon myself His name and stand as a representative of him, we as missionaries are standing alongside apostles and prophets, ancient and modern. We represent him the same as Ammon, Alma, Peter, Stephen, Brigham Young and essentially every missionary who set out to teach his Gospel. This, here, now, is just another piece in the Gathering of Israel. It’s both something ancient and something new, and it’s deep within myself that I can feel the immensity of this calling and a desire to aid in the work as it hastens on. This work that I have the opportunity to take part of is of an eternal status, that of which I don’t think, in this life at least, I could ever fully comprehend. I’m just grateful I can be here and take part in it.
Till next time; A igreja é verdadeira!
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