Three Batches of Brownies and a Kilogram of Salt Later...

11/5/18

Hello Family!

It's been another wild week here in Covo, can't believe the transfer is going to over soon! Sister Ashby and I think I may leave the island next transfer, but it's hard to speculate with President because you really just never know.

Also, I can't spell anything anymore, something about learning portuguese just kills your english brain until you start misspelling even simple words like "current" or "wednesday". It also doesn't help that these computers are in portuguese to I can't even use spell check, so now you can suffer with me. Brightside, this kinda thing happens to all Sisters eventually, which means my language skills are improving, it's so weird to just clearly understand something that four months ago would've been complete gibberish.

We had three family nights this week which meant lots of brownies. Funny thing is that brownies are not a food of Cape Verde; people here only know of them because of the Sisters and so they ALWAYS ask we bring them for family nights and talk about how good they are. I guess one set of sisters made them once a couple years ago and now as a sister you better have a good brownie recipe because they just assume all sisters must know how to make brownies. Luckily Sis. Ashby has a good recipe she stole from an Elder on her last island, who got it from a senior couple that served here a while ago… so I'll probably steal that same recipe too. I hope that senior couple knows how their legacy lives on. Also, a quick little side story:  we bought a kilogram of salt thinking it was sugar, but luckily tasted before pouring it in our brownie batter. Unfortunately, lojas here don't really do returns so now we just have enough salt for the next year.

This week I taught a lesson about the Bible. Well, kind of. We have this family who've been taught by sisters for years but they used to be really firm in another religion. They have a really hard time understanding certain gospel principles and feel like they aren't receiving answers. Anyways, one morning while I was eating breakfast it came to me that we really needed to help them see how the Bible and the BOM are one in the same in that they both are scriptures that testify of Christ. So without much of an idea of what we were doing, we taught a lesson on the Bible and asked them how they knew if it was true- if they'd ever prayed about the Bible before, and then asked them to pray about the Bible and Book of Mormon together. And my goodness, it was in that lesson that I truly felt the fullness of the power and authority that’s flows through missionaries. I didn't have to think, I just listened and spoke by the spirit. We left that lesson a little spiritually drained and in a daze, but the truthfulness of our message hung in the air and I really hope they felt even just a part of how Sister Ashby and I felt.

There were a couple times this week when I felt pretty weak with all the hiking, appointments falling through and the lack of people progressing in our area, but when and where I am weak, the Lord has made me strong. So onward christian soldiers!