Goodbye Sal!

Yep, apparently Iºm being transferred to Santo Antao... an area called Porto Novo. My new companion will be Sister Pina. She is Caboverdiana, and apparently really nice, and obedient too. Iºm a bit nervous, but Iºm so excited! But Iºll miss these people!

So Sister Garcia is going home because her mom has cancer and they prayed about it and everyone felt like she should be there with them. Weºve known  for a few weeks, but she gave me permission to tell you guys today. She leaves today for Praia, then flies home tomorrow. So our area will be closed down to Sisters for a bit... probably just until the actual transfers in three weeks. I have to be at the airport in 15 min, so weºll see how much I can write about my week... then hopefully Iºll be able to write when i get to Santo Antao with what is left of my internet time.

Iºll be flying to Mindelo, then Iºll take a boat to Santo Antao. Apparently everyone LOVES Santo Antao and wants to serve there, but itºs also the hottest island. But Iºm excited. :)

So this week, Sister Garcia has been sick... she might have a parasite again. So we spent quite a bit of time indoors. Santos hasnºt been drinking, and we were so excited for him, but then he came to church yesterday and he was so drunk. It was so sad! Itºs so sad to see someone keep choosing things that are so harmful and that donºt allow God to bless and help them!

Also, our Special Training with Elder Morreira of the 70 was so awesome. He is so funny... he reminded all of us of Gru from Despicable Me with his little mannerisms and his Portuguese accent. I will send pictures from Santo Antao if I can. I learned a lot though. Oh, and Pres. Mathews now wants us to do 10 contacts each day, along with getting and contacting 10 references each week. Iºm really excited to be able to start doing that... with Sister Garcia being sick, we didnºt go out much, especially toward the end of the week. But he wants us to look for families, too, who are already married. Iºm so excited to try and to exercise my faith to find those families. Itºs going to be great.

Elder Morreira talked about a lot of stuff, mostly about our need to repent and change and to continually do so if we want the people we work with to do the same. It was so good, and he talked about really studying PMG and the scriptures instead of just reading it. He also talked about Abraham and when the Lord asked him to sacrifice his son, and asked us what Abraham had to overcome/give up for that trial. Then he told us about how that trial was really Abraham overcoming Abraham, not Isaac, and talked about how we all need to overcome our natural man and completely give ourselves to the Lord.

Anyway, it wasreally good. Iºll hopefully be able to email you all personally soon. Love you!

Love,

Sister Zimbelman

Note from Karen - I've attached a few pictures I found on line of Santo Antao.

Little Miracles Every Day

Well, hello again!

Let’s see… this week was great, as always. A member of the quorum of the 70 is doing a mission tour this week, and our zone will get to meet with him for some special training on Friday. And apparently I will be playing the piano for it! I’m a little nervous, but I’m sure it will be fine, and definitely worth it. I don’t like playing in front of people, but if it means we get to hear from a member of the 70, I’ll do it. :)

Well, this week has been full of miracles, as every week seems to be in the work of the Lord. I was having a really hard time on Sundays… every Sunday I felt so exhausted and dreaded going out to teach, even though I love teaching these people. I think it was made worse, too, because I LOVED Sundays before my mission, and now they were just the days before P-day and I felt SO ready for a bit of a rest… or a different type of work, as P-days always are. I didn’t want to dislike Sundays, so I felt bad about feeling that way, too, so I was basically just miserable Sunday afternoons until we actually left the house to teach. So, I asked for a blessing, because I wanted to love Sundays and not feel so stinkin’ exhausted and unmotivated to go out teaching. That blessing was such a tender mercy. It actually addressed a lot of other stuff, and I think it will help me a lot in the future, too. But one thing he told me was that the Lord will help me to keep going, to have the motivation and energy to do what He needs me to do.

Knowing that if I wasn’t careful I would have a bad attitude about teaching Sunday afternoon, I prayed for help and I just told Heavenly Father how much I really just wanted to love Sundays like I used to before the mission, when it really was a day of rest for me. Obviously it wouldn’t be the same, but I wanted to love it the same way I loved it before.

Let me tell you, even with small things, God really does answer prayers. He helped me control my thoughts so I didn’t think about P-day being tomorrow, or how tired I was, and He just helped me focus on the moment, on teaching and loving these people and following the Spirit. It was something so small, and a challenge that I could have lived with for the next 15 months, and that made it even more amazing to me, because it was an attitude change that probably didn’t affect the work very much (since I only felt that way for the two hours of lunch before we went out), but it was important to me. God really does care for us, even in the small things. He really is our Father, and He really loves us and will bless us with so many things… sometimes He is just waiting for us to ask for those blessings. When we ask Him, we are showing our faith in Him and we are showing humility and trust in Him. Then He can bless us with what we need… but a lot of times He can’t do it until we ask.

Also, this week is probably going to be one of the hardest in my mission. We have a lot of people that we visit, but they just aren’t progressing… especially with going to church. And some will only go if we pass by and pick them up for church… so they go more for us than for the Lord or because they have a testimony, which isn’t good. I’m hoping we could get some members to help our investigators, too, but that will probably have to wait a week because our focus this week will be to decide who to drop and who to keep visiting. And we’re going to try to get more references from members to help us find the people that are ready to accept the Gospel. It’s going to be hard, but both Sister Garcia and I feel like that’s what we need to do to help Sal progress and to find the people the Lord has prepared for us to teach.

This week we have really focused on helping out less actives here… partly because our investigators just aren’t really progressing. But there have been some serious miracles as a result.

Do you remember Arlindo? We visited him again this week, and instead of saying he has faith that someday he will be active again, he said that he will go to church! He told us he prays a lot for help getting to church, but something would always come up. They way he said it, we could tell that he was thinking that Satan is stronger than he is. But we had a great lesson with him about how if we trust in the Lord, Satan will have no power over us, and how we all have our agency and that God will ALWAYS provide a way for us to do the things He asks us to do. It was really good, and he came to church on his own, dressed in a white shirt and tie, and stayed for all three hours. It was incredible!

I don’t think I told you about Santos last week. He is a returned missionary who served in Cabo Verde in 1995-1997 or so, but he hasn’t been to church in YEARS. We had heard of him (an RM who now was less active, had dreads, and drank sometimes), and my first Sunday here we had tried to find him, but we couldn’t find him. Then, last week, we were having a pretty rough day. I was having that allergy-enduced asthma that I would get in the fall in America, so I was super tired and just feeling off, and Sister Garcia was really struggling too. We were on our way to our last lesson of the day, and we stopped to talk to Andrea (Bia’s less active daughter), and we had this guy come up to us. He was a little drunk, but he had a Bob Marley hat hiding his dreads, and he told us he was an x-missionary and then walked away. Sister Garcia got super excited and we stopped him and ended up talking to him for an hour or more.  He told us that he saw a lot of missionaries pass by him on the street, but that we had something different, which is why he showed himself to us. Anyway, we’ve been teaching him. He still has such a strong testimony of the church… he could be such a strong leader in the church once he gets active again! But he has been working to stop drinking and smoking, and he came to church with us on Sunday. It was so amazing. He wants us to help him become active. Wow.

Anyway, that’s about it for this week. I love you all! I have really been learning how much God loves each of us, and how much He will help us and bless us if we will just trust in Him and continually try to be better. But He has so many blessings in store for each of us. It’s just so incredible. And a lot of times all we have to do is ask.

Love you all!

Love,

Sister Zimbelman

Apparently Cockroaches Fly...

Well, this week has been great. I’m not really positive why, but it’s been so good.

At District Meeting this week we made some goals and talked about where we want to be as a district by the end of this transfer. It was really good and we talked about a lot of concerns that we had. We really were struggling with being united, and it was mostly with being united between the Elders and the Sisters. So we talked about that, and about what we could do to be more united. A lot of it came down to obedience, actually, so now we’re all working on being more obedient/more exactly obedient. It’s been really good.

We have also started to do some zone activities. For example, we just got back from playing kickball (with a soccer ball) on some sand dunes just outside of Santa Maria. It was super fun! Hard, but so fun. And, oh… the feel of sand on bare feet… it was heavenly, until the sun came out and the sand got burning hot in about .2 seconds, haha.

It was so fun to just play in the sand, and we tried to see who could jump the furthest down the sand dune. It was so fun, and I feel like we became a lot closer as a zone in this past week and especially in this one activity than all the time we spent last transfer. I think this increase in unity and trust will help us help Sal, too.

Our district leader challenged us to pick a Christlike attribute to strive to develop and we would report on it, or something like that, next district meeting. So, this week I have been working on strengthening my hope. It’s been really good to study it, and I have really learned that hope comes from faith and trusting in the Lord and in His plan. It is about looking forward with faith and gratitude, and being optimistic in spite of challenges. I think the Lord was really encouraging people to have hope when He tells them to “be of good cheer”/“lift up your heads”. It is always paired with faith and charity, but I feel like hope kind of gets glossed over. But when we have hope, we are looking at things with an eternal perspective. We are focusing on the Savior, and remembering that God has a plan for us, and that all our challenges are part of His plan for us. He loves us, and our challenges are what we need to grow and to become our best selves. I have been praying for help having hope, especially because things are still really hard for my companion and it would be really easy for us both to go teaching without the Spirit, just feeling/acting exhausted and stressed. But with hope, you have to have patience. You trust in the Lord, and you don’t worry about how everything is going to work out… you just go forward, trusting that it WILL work out.

Oh yeah, and wow, it’s been crazy. We have really been working on using the BOM more and bringing peoples’ concerns back to the BOM (if the BOM is true, the Church is true, etc.), and there have been so many opportunities to teach people that this week. Or to re-emphasize the importance of going to the BOM to answer any questions, or to teach how the BOM is such a key to gaining a testimony of this church and to coming closer to Christ. I have just loved it. And we’ve started doing teaching more 50/50, where I teach or start discussions half the time, as if I weren’t in training. It’s been hard, but really fun. Especially because we kept having opportunities to teach the BOM. It has been so great. Wow, I just love the BOM, and it is just so important!

Well, that’s really what has been happening this week. Oh yeah, and we have started teaching an Adventist named Ravy.  He is great. He has a lot of questions and ideas about God, and it is really challenging to teach him because he asks so many questions and has these strong notions about who/what is God, but it is so interesting, too. We have just kept pointing him to the BOM, and have told him that that is his prova… his evidence. Everything depends on whether the BOM is really the word of God. But it has been interesting too, because I’ve been studying the Bible really well, and finding stories and seeing how the two support each other and help us understand God and the Doctrine of Christ more clearly together. I love it.

Oh, and Bia and Francisco are doing well. Our main challenge is to make sure they really understand how vital it is that they read the BOM every day… even if they only have time to read a few verses. Man, I just love them. They are so amazing, and Bia really wants to get a testimony… she hasn’t really put much time into reading the BOM, though, because when she isn’t at work, she is home, but her house is crazy busy with lots of little kids, so she is exhausted by the end of the day. I hope we can really teach her how important this is.

Well, we didn’t end up training as many members as I had hoped this week. And we only trained a few to help our investigators/less actives. Hopefully this week we will have more success with that. It’s been tricky though, because Sister Garcia is sick again… and super weak this time. I don’t think she has a parasite this time, but I guess we’ll probably get it checked out if she doesn’t get better soon. Haha, the house is very organized because of the time we’ve had to spend inside as she tries to recover. Apparently that’s what I do when I have excessive time on my hands and need a break from studying. Well, that’s about it. But please, keep Sister Garcia in your prayers, especially. She is really being faced with a lot of challenges right now.

Love you guys! I am doing great. Wow, it is amazing how much it helps to be focusing on having hope. I think it was President Packer that said hope is an anchor to the soul. That is so true. Hope is a small, strong trait that can keep us anchored to the rock of our salvation, Jesus Christ. Satan can’t toss us way off course and into reefs if we are anchored to Christ through hope. Man, it has been such a blessing to study it and to refine/strengthen/refocus my hope.

I just love being a missionary. I love being out here serving these people. I love learning so much about myself and about the Savior and about His plan for me. I love learning to trust in Him and to keep a smile on my face and in my heart because of His plan for me.

I love you all! Things can be so hard, but they are always opportunities to come closer to the Savior. That’s what I’ve really been learning/gaining a stronger testimony of. ALL these things work together for our good. It is just amazing.

Oh, one last story. I saw my first Caboverdian cockroach in our house this week. I’ve seen them before, but just on the outside wall of Dirce’s house when she was moving from it, and once in the street at night. And I learned that cockroaches fly, but they aren’t as hard to kill as I thought they were. They just fly, so you can’t dump them off the balcony unless they’re already dead. Also, just a word of advice… make sure you are holding onto the actual part of the dust pan when you through them off, and not just the plastic piece at the end, because if you try to chuck dead cockroaches off the dust pan a little too enthusiastically, the dust pan will go with the cockroach, haha. But it was broken anyway. :)

Love you all! Have a FANTASTIC week!

I can feel your prayers with me every day. 

Love,

 Sister Zimbelman

No longer a greenie!

… according to Sister Sharp.

Hi Everyone!

First set of transfers and none of the sisters here in Espargos got transferred, and only one of the elders did… but he is going home, so we knew he would leave. It was quite a shock to all of us, I think, except transfers were all a little surreal to me so I don’t know how much it really shocked me to have everything stay the same. A lot of missionaries were thinking every companionship would get switched up, and this will be the longest Sister Garcia has ever been in one area.

Well, I am doing well here! It has been HOT here, and more humid than it usually is… it even sprinkled one day! (Sal doesn’t get rain… ever…) We got water again on Tuesday, so I think we went without running water for almost exactly one week. But YAY! It’s back! Our toilet isn’t actually fixed though, so we have to make sure to shut off the water to it every time after we use it. Sister Garcia didn’t end up coming back until Saturday afternoon because her tooth needed more work, but she is back now. And she apparently had a little baby parasite, which they cleared up while she was in Mindelo, so now she can eat!

On Tuesday night, the sisters from Boa Vista flew in for Zone Conference on Wednesday. There are just two sisters on Boa Vista: Sister Turner and Sister Goss. They went with me to my area, which was nice because we could teach more than one or two lessons, which is all we have taught in my area every other day when I’ve been in a trio with the other sisters. Wow, they are awesome missionaries, and it was so fun to teach with them! They are super funny. Oh, and Sister Goss knows Katie from High School, but she didn’t know she was married, or even engaged, haha… she couldn’t stop looking at the picture I had of Christian and Katie. They were so fun to have as companions for two days.

Zone Conference was just awesome! Wow, I learned so much and I felt like I had a lot of questions answered about how to keep improving as a missionary. We had it in the church, but the church didn’t have the A/C it usually has, because someone needed to pay the electricity bill. Haha, Cabo Verde is a bit funny with paying their bills, it seems. But I just loved Zone Conference.

I have been really grateful to have all these opportunities to teach with different people, because I have really seen what some people do really well, what I want to incorporate in my teaching, how to teach more simply, etc. In Zone Conference, we talked a lot about teaching the Restoration more simply, with more emphasis on the First Vision and especially on the Book of Mormon. It was super good, and I’m excited to be focusing that lesson on the Book of Mormon. Sister Mathews taught us about revelation and how to receive revelation, and wow, I learned so much about it. She said when their kids were little, they gave them all a pencil and a journal to keep by their beds, and every time they prayed, they were supposed to wait a bit and write down any impressions they received. She said that it is amazing how well the Lord will respond to someone who has a pencil and paper waiting, ready to write down any answers they get. This really struck me, and I want to be better at writing down any impressions I receive, and giving myself more opportunities to record revelation as I pray, study the scriptures, etc. You guys should try it, too! :)

After Zone Conference, Sister Mathews pulled all the sisters aside and we had a little how-are-all-the-sisters-doing-meeting. She feels like a second mom to me. They both truly feel like a second set of parents. She shared her famous-quote-of-the-week with us, which is: you never know how strong you are until being strong is all you have. That really stuck with me. I’ve learned a lot about how strong I am, but really, I’ve learned how strong I am when I trust in the Lord. Because I am nothing without Him, but with Him… I can do amazing things.

Thursday or Friday, we taught a less active member in the other sisters’ area. Among other things, he said he is afraid to go back to church just in case he becomes less active again. I was thinking about that, along with this quote that Sister Mathews shared with us, after we came back from teaching that night. It is so easy to be afraid to do something good just in case it ends up leading to more hurt in the future. But with the Lord, we don’t need to be afraid. He will never give us something that we aren’t strong enough to handle with His help. If we just do the things that He has told us to do, we have the promise of His help, of His strength and guidance and support. Sometimes we may feel alone, or like we have to face some things without someone to help us, but the Lord is always there. And besides, there are so many angels on both sides of the veil, ready and willing to help. Because of the Gospel, because of the Atonement and because of eternal families, we are never alone. We may not realize it until looking back, but just like the Pioneers, we literally have angels walking with us, helping us and protecting us. How beautiful and amazing.

Well, I just love being companions with Sister Garcia. She is so bold, and I am learning more and more how to be an effective companion with her. She is just awesome. I feel SO blessed to be learning from someone who works so hard to serve these people.

Bia and Francisco are just amazing. We were able to mark a baptismal date with them, which was especially incredible because Bia really understands how serious baptism is. But we have marked it as a goal to work toward, and they’re willing to work for it. She wants to get an answer about this church, and she has told us that if she is baptized, she will follow this church for the rest of her life, which is why the baptism thing was so amazing. They are so prepared. It just amazes me every time we teach them… I feel like I witness a miracle every time we sit down with them! :)

Well, family, that’s about it for this week. Apparently Sister Bacon got bit by a dog, and while we probably have as many dogs around here, don’t worry… ours just lie in the shade with their ribs poking out and bite wounds on their ears, which causes Sister Garcia to ask, do you think that one’s dead? Haha.

Love you all! Until next week!

Love,

Sister Zimbelman

Water

Zone Conference

Olá!

This week has been an adventure.

Sister Garcia left on Tuesday to get her tooth figured out... it sounds more like a nasty cavity inside one of her teeth than an actual root canal. They are finishing it today, and hopefully she will be able to fly home tomorrow. So basically, I was companions with Sister Spolador until she was able to get a flight to São Nicolau Saturday morning. Now I am basically in a trio with Sister Sharp and Sister De Pina. Oh, but wait, thereºs more! haha.

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.

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!

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.

P-Day

  Anyway, I love you guys! Have an awesome week!

Everything Exciting Happens on Wednesday

Ola amigos!

Well, every week about a billion things happen, haha. Itºs always interesting to try to decide what is most important to tell you guys. Well, true to the pattern in the MTC, everything exciting starts happening on Wednesday :) Tuesday night Sister Garcia couldnºt sleep because she had a tooth bothering her. So, on Wednesday we went to the dentist and they told her she needs a root canal. She is flying to Mindelo tomorrow to get that taken care of, but it has been interesting. She is still throwing up, but she thinks itºs because she was sick for that week and so her stomach shrunk and now she just has to eat less than sheºs used to... but I guess we will see. So sheºs basically been miserable this week, but she is tough and doesnºt show it or let it stop the work. I hope we can get it all figured out! :)

 

Well, life is good. So, so good. I am really learning more and more every day about what I told you guys last week: having patience, especially with myself, and making sure I donºt take my mission too seriously but have fun while Iºm doing it, too. Man, I just love it here.

 

This Saturday we had two extra sisters with us: Sister Yerman (just for a few hours) and Sister Spolador (she is still with us). Sister Yerman flies home tomorrow, and Sister Spolador is on her way to São Nicolau, but there arenºt any flights or boats going there that have space... she might be with us for a week. We will have to see. She and another Sister got transferred there a bit early because the sisters going home this transfer leave this week, not at the end of the transfer.

While Sister Yerman was here, Sister Garcia and I did divisions with them. I was with Sister Yerman. It was so fun, and it helped me remember that I can take the lead and it gave me more experience with another companion. Then, yesterday we did splits again: me with Sister Spolador, who is from Brazil, and Sister Garcia with a member. I had a lot of fun that time, too. She is really funny, and it has been really good to have her with us and for me to do splits with her and kind of practice my Portuguese a bit more.

Okay, on to the exciting stuff: investigators! haha :) Dirce is just awesome. Technically, sheºs not an investigator anymore, but we are supposed to reteach all the lessons after people are baptized, instead of the wards or branches being in charge of that. One of the counselors of the district presidency is in our branch, and he has been asking to go out with us every time we teach Dirce... and he isnºt married. So basically he seems to have a big crush on her, and heºs super impressed with her testimony and all that she understands about the church, and she just seems completely oblivious.

We teach English class to Andreaºs mom and step dad, Bia and Francisco, a few days a week. And wow, Bia is just a miracle. She decided that she wanted to go to church, so when we invited her on Saturday she was totally up for it. Then she went to church, and when we talked to her last night as we were teaching English, she told us that she felt this peace and tranquility there that she doesnºt feel at home. And she told us she could feel the Holy Ghost (we had talked to her about that and prayer before) and that she knows that when the Holy Ghost touches her heart it is testifying of truth (which we hadnºt specifically said before... it was so cool!), and she wanted to get up and bear her testimony when everyone else was, but she got too nervous. But basically, she knows this church is true. We gave her a pamphlet about the restoration and the next time we teach them we are going to follow up on it, but they seemed excited to read it. Man, itºs so crazy. She was so cold toward us, and now she seems so interested and excited to learn more about the church. And she was so sweet and kept telling us how amazing we are for sharing the word of God and stuff. It was so sweet. Man, itºs just so amazing here. You never know who might be prepared to hear the gospel... or at least, to have more seeds of faith planted.

 

Oh yeah, and Iºve been teaching a member piano lessons every Monday since my second week here. Yeah, forgot to mention that, haha. I am the ward pianist for basically every meeting, and one of the members asked me to teach him piano. Itºs pretty much a guessing game, figuring out how to translate music jargon or explain things like beat or time signatures in Portuguese, but I have a ton of fun doing it, and he is so excited to learn. So Iºm expanding my Portuguese and Creole in lots of ways other than typical lessons, and figuring out how to teach things like piano and English. :)

Also, wow. There are so many menos ativos here! And I have yet to meet one who doesnºt want to go back to church. This week we were finally able to talk to Arlindo, who was one of the first members in Sal... or maybe THE first member here. He was super active in the church, married, had kids, and then his family basically fell apart and it broke his heart. And he kept telling us that he has faith that some day he will return... just not this Sunday. That is Satanºs most effective tool with these people, I think: delays. It is so sad to see someone who could have so many blessings, so much healing and peace, turn away from that because they have convinced themselves that they need to heal a bit or recover some more before they go back. Really, the way to find that healing is through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, and they can feel the power of the Atonement when they go to church and when they partake of the sacrament. It is so sad.

 

And then, on the opposite end, Andrea, Bia and Francisco came to church... yay! Andrea was so happy to be back, and Bia and Francisco loved it too. Iºm kind of repeating myself. But I guess Iºm going back to that example because being in this work, you see miracles and just plain amazing things right at the same time as you see people refuse to allow the Lord to bless them, so you feel this incredible joy and excitement at the same time your heart is breaking for someone, and you just want  to take them aside and shake them until they see what blessings they could have if they would just simply go to church, or pray, or read their scriptures.But wow, I just love this work so much.

Yesterday, we were also able to be the Lordºs instruments at precisely the time one of our members needed us. Every time that happens, it just doesnºt cease to amaze me! We just decided to talk to her, see how she was doing, and she told us that she was feeling stressed and that she felt like God had forgotten her. So we shared some scriptures with her, and told her that when she reads scriptures, it is an opportunity for God to talk to her. I think we were able to give her the support, love and strength that she needed, and the reminder that God hasnºt forgotten her, that He wonºt ever forget her... just like she would never forget her daughter. The Spirit was there, in just a really sweet and tender way. I am always amazed when He directs us when we donºt even expect it. He truly loves each of His children and is aware of each of us, always.

Olympic size track - they love to run

Today Sister Sharp, Sister Garcia and I are in Santa Maria (Sister De Pina and Sister Spolador didnºt want to come, so they stayed home together). We got permission from Pres. Mathews to ride bikes around, and it has been so fun! I am really learning how to be more easygoing while also being an exactly obedient missionary... I guess I am learning to let go of the things that I canºt control, and to stop worrying about my imperfections that I still have after I do my best. It is so much more fun and so much easier to be the Lordºs instrument that way!

Well, family, I love you so much. I am really figuring out how to love every moment and how to just be in the moment, because I am pretty sure that my mission is going to pass like a dream, just like Nephi, or maybe Jacob, said. I just love it here. I just love these people, and it has been nice to do splits with other sisters, because it has taught me a lot of how I can teach with Sister Garcia to make us even more effective and united. I love you all, and I love hearing from you every week! Sorry I donºt respond more... itºs always a time crunch, but I promise I read them and I WILL eventually respond. :) Love you all!

Love,

Sister Zimbelman

Apparently I will be coming back to Cape Verde to find a husband

Ola!

study area

Wow, I can't believe it is P-day again! It feels like I had one just last week...and I have been on a mission for two months today. Crazy!!!I am doing so well. A ton has happened this week, but I am starting to think that is the nature of a mission. :)

Well, we did splits this week. Yeah, did I ever mention that there are four of us sisters in Espargos? It is me, Sister Garcia, Sister Sharp (mom probably read her blog before I came here) and Sister De Pina (she is Caboverdian). We all live together. Sister Sharp is the Sister Training Leader. She and I went to her area, and Sister Garcia and Sister de Pina went to my normal area. It was such a good experience, and I really learned a lot about Sister Garcia's strengths and weaknesses, and what I was doing that was making it harder for myself. We worked just fine together during the day, but I didn't really like walking between appointments or being home, which would have made more sense if it had been the opposite way. But I found out this week that I was imagining a lot of tension between us that just wasn't there, but I thought it was there because I needed to understand Sister Garcia better. I have discovered that in trying to resist my natural introvert tendencies even when we were walking between appointments, I was also trying to make Sister Garcia talk when she doesn't like to talk as we walk. I didn't even know that.

Let me explain a bit better. The day after we did splits, I had a really great experience with Sister Sharp and we talked a lot as we walked, and it was a lot of fun. She told me that Sister Garcia just doesn't like to talk as she walks, and I asked Sister Garcia about it later and she confirmed that. So the next day, I just decided to act like everything was fine, and to just kind of go with the flow and stop trying to force myself to be different than I am, especially while I'm also trying to adjust to the culture, the language, and just the feel of missionary life in Cabo Verde. I think I had been trying so hard to do better than my best, without even realizing it. But I have been studying patience, because I have realized that I really need to idevelop more patience with myself, and I have been praying for help in developing that gift. And that study helped me realize that I was trying to push myself to do better than my best and not giving myself any of the understanding/"cutting myself any slack" that I give others. And I decided, through prayer, just to be myself, although still acting on every prompting I receive, being willing to change into who the Lord wants me to be. I think I was taking missionary service way too seriously! I was forgetting to also have fun and to be okay with not being perfect. That is probably the hardest thing about a mission: as you come closer to the Lord and work with Him more and feel Him with you more than you ever have before, you are also blessed to understand your weaknesses better than you ever have before and to see them more clearly than you ever have before. I think I was trying to fix it all at once, so I was driving myself crazy and making everything harder than it has to be.

Haha, it has been amazing what blessings and help and grace I have received in my life as I have decided to be okay with taking baby steps. I understand that better and better every day, and I understand better and better every day how HARD it is to be okay with only taking baby steps when you can see even a portion of how much is ahead of you. But I have really learned that patience comes as we rely on the Lord, trust that He really called us EXACTLY as we are to do what He wants us to do, and as we stop worrying about how much we need to change or do and just take it a little bit at a time. And when we are patient, we are exercising faith and the Lord promises us His grace.

Haha, so about the subject line: one of our appointments fell through Saturday night, so we decided to contact some less actives in the area: the first branch president in Sal and his family. We wanted to talk to his wife, but she was busy, so we ended up talking to two guys outside her hair salon, and it turns out, they are her sons! We got to know them a bit, and one of the sons (his name is Sydney) invited us inside to talk to him more. He told us why they had stopped going to church, and he said he was preparing for a mission and he went to church every week, alone, for a year until his mom threatened to kick him out of the house if he continued to go. He was only a teenager, so he promised his mom that he would never go to any other church and he stopped going. It was a really sad story, and he still has such a strong testimony that the church is true and he told us to come over any time. Anyway, sometime during our conversation, he asked Sis. Garcia if she had a boyfriend and then he asked me. I told him no, that that will all happen after the mission. He was talking in really fast Portuguese/Creole, and it had been a long day so I was even struggling to follow Sister Garcia's really fast Portuguese. But apparently, Sister Garcia then told him that I was going to come back here and find a Caboverdian to marry. He then asked me if it was my plan to come back here and find a Caboverdian to marry, and I nodded yes! Then about 2 seconds later I realized what he had asked me, but it was too late... they had already moved onto a different subject. Haha :) so now he thinks I will be coming back after my mission to marry a Caboverdian.

we sleep in the main room

I have been trying hard to be exactly obedient this week, to really test the promise that "exact obedience brings miracles". And wow, we have seen miracles! One of them was finding Sydney. We also got a reference from a member, to teach a couple who had been taught by missionaries a year a go, but for some reason stopped going to church, and now they wanted to get married and then get baptized! That NEVER happens out here: NO ONE wants to get married! We committed them to get baptized on August 16 (so they would get married on the 15th), and they told us that was the exact same date that the missionaries committed them to get baptized last year. HUGE tender mercy! The Lord really is in the small details of our lives!

Another HUGE miracle: we have been talking to a less active girl named Andrea. She wants to go to church, but she has asthma, so she is sick a lot because of that, and her mom forbids her from going to church. Her mom was pretty scary: one time we were talking to Andrea and to her step-dad, and the mom poked her head in. The Spirit left so fast, and we could tell Andrea was in trouble. Anyway, when we talked to Andrea on Friday, her mom poked her head in, then she ended up greeting us and was nice to us, which was cRAZY: such a diffferent vibe than we had ever gotten from her before. Then she ended up coming in and sitting down, and we had a great talk with her and got to know her a bit. And now we will be teaching English to them, because the mom wants to learn English and wants us to teach her!

We taught them the alphabet yesterday, and she was so eager to learn and I think she really saw how friendly we are. We ended with a prayer and asked if we could start and end with a prayer every time we teach them, and she said absolutely. Then she told us that we could share the word of God each time too, if we want to. We agreed, thanked them, and left. As we were walking away we were both just in shock, both interactions with her. It has been such a night and day difference from all of our other interactions with her!!! Wow, it was just amazing. The Lord truly does bless us, even when we are simply trying our best to be exactly obedient.

Dirse's baptism went so well. She has such a strong testimony already! After I decided to just let go a bit, to stop stressing about whether I was doing all I should be and to just trust that the Lord just asks me for my best and to really be okay with that idea, life was so much easier. I have really been able to be myself again, to just go with the flow, laugh things off, try my best and be who the Lord needs me to be. I'm telling you all this right now because I think Dirse's baptism is the perfect example of that.

She got there plenty early, but a little girl named Mary was getting baptized as well (we taught her the basics of the lesson, but her parents have been members for at least a few years) and she arrived typical Caboverdian style: 15 minutes late. We had called to make sure our branch president would be there so we could open the padlocked font, and he said he would be but also told us where we could get keys/who had keys. But, when we went to open the font, the key didn't work, and our branch president wasn't there. After lots of jiggling and keys and multiple people trying keys, someone somehow got the right key, or the branch president arrived, or something and we got it open, and... there was 2 feet of water in the font! Literally, it only came up to the knees of the adults! So, Mary was baptized okay, but Dirse got baptized on her knees, and it was a close call. Haha, it was so crazy and hectic and missionaries were getting frustrated, but I was able to just laugh about it. We had some good talks with those who are in charge of making sure the font has water and that we can open it afterward, but I just had a sense of peace even with all the craziness. I was so glad.

I love you all! This really sums up what I have learned this week:

Mosiah 24:10-15
10 And it came to pass that so great were their afflictions that they began to cry mightily to God.  11 And Amulon commanded them that they should stop their cries; and he put guards over them to watch them, that whosoever should be found calling upon God should be put to death.
 12 And Alma and his people did not raise their voices to the Lord their God, but did pour out their hearts to him; and he did know the thoughts of their hearts.
 13 And it came to pass that the voice of the Lord came to them in their afflictions, saying: Lift up your heads and be of good comfort, for I know of the covenant which ye have made unto me; and I will covenant with my people and deliver them out of bondage.
 14 And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions.
 15 And now it came to pass that the burdens which were laid upon Alma and his brethren were made light; yea, the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord.
Love,
Sister Zimbelman