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| Zone Conference |
Olá!
This week has been an adventure.
Tuesday we came back from a Zone Meeting and our apartment didnºt have water. It still didnºt have water Wednesday morning, so Sister Spolador and Sister De Pina went to ask the building owner what was going on.
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| Sis. Spolador |
Well... one of the toilets in our apartment is broken, so it is constantly running (when I say running, itºs like when-the-toilet-is-filling-up-with-water-again amounts of water). When I got here, I was told that we need to turn it off every time we go out, and also at night. But it would run when we were home in the mornings, and people kept forgetting to turn it off.
The sisters have only been in this apartment for 2.5 months, but somehow we had managed to use 201 TONS of water because of that toilet. The water company came and shut off the water to the entire apartment building because there was a huge bill that wasnºt being paid. So the building owner paid the bill so his other residents could have water, than he wanted us to pay him our portion of the bill, which was...
...wait for it....
..108000 Escudos! About $1350. In 2.5 months.Oh man, but he was so angry and telling us that we should have been turning off the water every time we used the bathroom. Apparently he didnºt tell the sisters that when they first moved in.
But on the flip side, he finally found the time to have someone fix that toilet! haha. Anyway, we needed to get a receipt from him so the office could pay the bill. But he kept telling us that he had already paid the bill and that we could just pay him our portion. Haha... in Cabo Verde.... just hand over 108 mil to someone? That wasnºt going to fly with us, and especially not with the mission office. Finally, it got to a point where he told us we either needed to pay the bill or we would have to move out, and we were telling him that we would love to pay the bill, we just need a receipt, and if he wouldnºt give us a receipt than we wouldnºt be able to pay the bill, so weºd have to move out. Finally, we were able to get pictures of the receipt he had for the water bill, and it got all straightened out so Pres. Mathews could approve it. The secretaries paid it on Saturday, but apparently it hasnºt shown up in the bank yet. So yeah, we still donºt have water. Hopefully weºll have some by today or tomorrow.  |
| Sis De Pina can actually carry the water on her head in bottles or buckets! |
Every night we have been going to the Elders´ apartment with tons of bottles and tubs and containers so we can have drinking water, water to flush the toilet (manually, like Sister Bacon does, I think), water to clean dishes, water to cook, and even some water so we can take bucket showers. Haha, I have never hated cooking, drinking water, and going to the bathroom as much as I have this week. And today we deep-cleaned our apartment and had a cleaning check by Elder and Sister Smart, the senior couple here, without any running water. But itºs all good... itºs an adventure. :)
Honestly, I have never been so tired so many days in a row, but I have also never been happier. You are constantly tired, but you are also almost constantly feeling some level of peace/happiness/excitement. Itºs wonderful. So this week I have really been seeing the Lord answer my prayers. I think sometimes He just waits for us to ask Him for help, in a prayer, so that He can give us the things we need. We just have to ask first. For example, Thursday I started praying to find the people the Lord has prepared for us to teach. Wow, it has been amazing how many contacts and new investigators we found! We had a teaching appointment fall through, so we decided to try to visit some of our members who have been struggling a bit... Ana and Manuel. When we went there, Manuel was at work, but his two sisters were there. Neither of them are members. So we started talking to them, and we taught the Restoration. They were really excited about it, and the mom of one of our less-active members came and joined us for the lesson, too. It was SO cool. They all let us re-mark for a different day. Then later that day, we went to talk to Carlos and Sónia, and one of their friends was there and sat in for our lesson with them. She seemed really interested in the Church, too. And another night, we were walking home a bit early because we knew that we would need to get water from the Elders, and we passed by this little boy who got really excited, called out to us and stopped us. Turns out, he was the cousin of some people in a ward/branch in Santo Antao, and he lived there for a bit and went to church every Sunday while he was there, and Sister Spolador had served in that ward/branch at the same time. He took us to meet his mom, and she told us to come back any time to teach them. Wow, it is amazing what blessings you will receive if you just ask for help! And theyºre usually not so immediate or obvious for me, which really made me appreciate it. I also really have been praying for help finding members to help us with the work. One day I really made it the focus of my prayers. The day before, I had run into a member in our ward, and that day we ran into her again. So we talked to her, and it turns out she really wants to go on a mission and is just waiting for her passport! And, she is one of only three members in her family, so we might be able to talk to her mom about the Gospel. Her name is Beti, and she wants to go out with us. It was just such a tender mercy!
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| Sister Sharp found this wedding dress in our apartment. |
But like I said, it doesnºt always turn out that way. Sunday was an example of that. There were so few people at church, and about 10 of our investigators who had seemed so excited to go, didnºt show up. Sunday was tricky, though, too, because Sister Garcia has our phone with everyoneºs phone number on it, and Beti went with me to pick up people for church, but she showed up late so we didnºt have much time to go by all their houses. Thatºs another example of all Iºm learning: you do your part, you do your best to help these people, but at the end of the day they have their agency and they choose how to use it. It still breaks my heart, though, because I KNOW how much it could bless their lives and the lives of everyone they love!
Anyway, so thatºs been my week. Man, I just love it here in Sal. Transfers are next week, and everyone and their dog is speculating that Sister De Pina and Sister Garcia will be transferred, and that Sister Sharp will train. We will have to see. :)
Yeah, about dogs... did I ever mention how many dogs there are out here?! Theyºre everywhere! And most of them... donºt look very good. Itºs rare to see one where the ribs arenºt showing. Even the pregnant ones have ribs showing. But they almost never bark at missionaries, which is awesome.
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| P-Day |
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