Fun Experiences

So this week has been good.  We found out a few hours before zone conference that it is postponed until this coming friday because President Oliveria had to do something else.  

We had a baptism with Tony planned for Saturday, but there was a lot of rain and the person who was supposed to baptize him couldn't make it back from Sao Filipe so it got postponed until Sunday morning.  He was okay with it but all our investigators that showed up Sat. Night didn't come Sunday morning and didn't come to church.  The only non members there were one that won't get baptized that I actually haven't met.  Her husband won't get married or something, and the other was a catholic girl that has some big position in the catholic church here, kind of like a missionary.  I don't know why she was there but she sat in on part of a lesson with someone else the other day, and we made an appointment with her.  

Our chapel is an actual chapel.  All of them are as far as I know.  They are pretty decent.  Not like chapels in America though.  I will try to send pictures eventually.  There is an electric piano in the chapel that no one knows how to use pretty much.  Church has no accompanist because no one can play and the branch pres doesn't know I play yet.  I played a tad for a member the other day though while we were stuck there because of rain.  When it rains, it rains really hard for a short time and then is gone.  The chapel itself can fit 200 people easy.  I hope that happens some time.

CONGRATS TO KAITLYN BEARD!!!  Someone that knows her tell her congrats for me.  That is so awesome.  One of my good friends from the MTC, Sister Rhodes, who got re-assigned to St George, is from Vancouver Washington.  It is sweet that my friends that are girls are getting to go on missions.  Kaitlyn will get home like a month before me which is strange.  I can't wait until there are sisters here that are younger than me because a lot of them look it even though they aren't.

We do all of our own cooking pretty much.  We usually buy bread in the morning which is pretty good.  Elder Pires who is a Cape Verde Native who is serving with our zone leader, Elder Halblieb (from highland) makes lunch usually.  Something usually vegetable based and completely different every day, but also pretty the same because there aren't a lot of options for food here.

I don't know how conference is going to work.  I will talk about that later after it happens.

All of our speaking and teaching is in Portuguese.  We never study Portuguese.  Pretty much everyone understands it.  Creole is pretty much taking slang and simplified and shortened words for everything.  You don't really conjugate in creole.  You speak more like in English where I walk, you walk, they walk, we walk, etc... uses the same word, "walk" instead of conjugating walk differently depending on what you are talking about.

So, I am missing some stuff, but some fun experiences so far.

1. So the picture I sent home first of Tony at our baptism, right before we took the picture this massive spider significantly bigger than my fist shot down from the ceiling and hid behind the picture of Christ we are next too.  I tried to get a picture but that didn't happen.

2. So I sat on a goat in a car for a while the other day.  We were coming back from Sao Filipe with the food and stuff we can't buy here, and some people got in and brought their goat and shoved the goat into a 2x2x4 foot hole under my seat where it barely fit.  That is normal.  I would forget about it and then every so often it would make a noise and I would remember it was there.

We taught a bunch of people and it was good I guess this week.  No.  For sure was good.  We are teaching this guy named Carlos who is 17 and is more well off than most of the other people here.  we had a 2 hour lesson with him yesterday where the spirit was super strong the whole time trying to help him get a testimony of his own.

Have to go.

Love,

Elder Sampson

Picture attempt 3

Subject: Picture Attempt 3

This is pretty normal around here.  I took this in Sao Filipe outside the Zone Leaders house when we went there for p-day to buy stuff because we can't get much here.

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Attempt a second picture

Subject: Attempt at a 2nd Picture

It looks like the first one sent.  

Here is a picture of Fogo the volcano we live on.  I took this from our apartment.

Love, Elder Sampson

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Attempt a picture

Subject: Attempt at a Picture

This is a picture of our Baptism yesterday.  His name is Tony (Actually, it isn't but I don't know his legal name).  I will try to send this and others but it takes a while.

Love,

Elder Sampson

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Just Kidding

Note from Kristin, Elder Sampson's Mom:

There was actually one other email that came first:  "Power about to be shut down on the island for a few hours.  Will try to write next week.  I hope this makes it in time.

Love Elder Sampson"

Not funny to a mother who has just sent her son to a third world country and gets three sentences per week!  I guess Jared is still trying to let his personality shine through =).

But, I have learned their computer time will be limited.  If you want to send him something via pouch mail, that would be awesome.  His address is

Elder Jared Sampson

Cape Verde Praia Mission

P.O. Box 30150
Salt Lake City,  UT  84130

Remember that pouch mail means no envelopes or pictures -- just the one piece of paper folded into thirds with the letter on the inside.

Thanks for your support and prayers!

Hey everyone!  I´m sorry to anyone that thought I wasn´t writing this week.  ´Twas a joke. I´m not really good at portuguese jokes, so this was the next best thing. 

For those who don´t know, I left the MTC tuesday morning last week at 4:30 in the morning after dropping pretty much everything useful and 1st worldish and taking only the bare nessecitys because of weight restrictions on baggage.  We took the Frontrunner up which was great and I was in the same train as Ryley Hogan who marched Troopers a few years back with Brad.  Small world.  We got up to the aiport and checked in and got on our flight.  I sat next to the head of missionary media who happened to be going to Boston as well.  In Boston, I got to call home after spending like $60 trying to get the pay phones to work.  They didn´t even have a very good connection at all (those I talked to probably noticed that).  The keyboards are different here and I donºt want to run out of time trying to figure out this new thing, so if there is a weird mistake, that is why.  That and the spell check is in portuguese so everything is spelled wrong. 

We were supposed to have a 7 hour layover in boston, but we ended up staying an extra 4 hours because of a fuel fire so all the planes had to go re-fuel somewhere else.  There were about 150 cape verdians on our flight so we talked with them a little and helped some non-english speaking portuguese people get help. 

For those who didn´t know, most of the people here speak creol which is not very similar to portuguese.  I mostly cant understand anything anyone is saying except for the people who know portuguese which is not very many.  It is like a super super bad version of portuguese.  Fun!

Our flight finally left at like early o-clock. like 3 maybe or 4, then we went to rhode island to fuel, then we flew to cape verde.  The flight was okay.  We landed in the Praia airport on the island of santiago and we got our bags (the 12 of us coming out together) and met the APs and President and sister Olivera.  They are awesome.  We dropped off our bags at the APs house then went and ate at the Oliveras.  It was really really good.  We had training at the mission home which was good but we were falling asleep because we missed the nap time they usually give jet-lagged missionaries because our flight got in at like 1 instead of 9.  We then went back to the APs, got some food and stuff, and spent the night there.  While at the mission home too, we got our assignments.  More about that later.  Our flight off Santiago wasn´t until the afternoon the next day, so we just kind of chilled and tried to recover the first part of the morning before our flight.  There were three of us going to the Island I got assigned to, and so we flew out together.

I have been assigned to the the Island of Fogo.  It is the medium sized one in the south-west corner next to brava, the really small island.  I am serving in Cova Figueria which is on the south east side of the island, opposite Sao Filipe which is the largest city on Fogo which is in the South-west corner.  It is about a 45 min ride over some sketchey cobble stone roads to get there.  It is really green right now.  Rainy season which are the only 2 months it ever rains here, is almost over, so everything is green.  This is the wettest it has been in years and years and years.  It is super sweet.  I will try to send pictures.

I spent the rest of the day in Sao Filipe after my flight got in with the zone leaders.  Elder Coleman who came over with me is serving in sao filipe so he just went with his comp, elder wells who is huge, and elder rivera who also came over with me went on splits with one of the zone leaders while I went on splits with the other and taught my first lesson (ish.).  We got up the next morning and played some soccer and got some bread, and so forth and then we suddied until the hiace (yawss) which is like a van they cram people into came and took us to our areas.

My companion is elder Jensen.  He is from payson and is awesome.  He knows the Hales and the Pecks and the Brimleys I think.  He has been out for 5 months.  He was our for a transfer 2 years ago and then had to go home for a year and a half and now he is back.  He is really good. There are only 4 elders here in cova figueira.  It is pretty small.  We have, elder jensen estimated, 800 people in our area.  About half or so are members, but we don´t have many that are super solid.  We had 89 at chuch on sunday which was super huge compared to what we usually have (60 or so) but most in cape verde usually have about 120 come every week.  We have been teaching lots of people and were supposed to have 2 baptisms this week, but one didn´t make it to church, so she won´t be baptized for another week.  The other is super solid and will be baptized this saturday.  His name is Tony. Maybe more about him later it I have time, but probably not.  Next week probably.

It is a pretty small town here so everyone is related, the power and water go out pretty frequently, and there isn´t much you can buy here.  Stuff from the US is like gold.  It is also like the coolest area in the mission which is sweet.  It was windy yesterday and so I wore me sweater because it is probably the only day in the only place that would be cool enough to get away with a sweater.  It was still a tad hot with it on, but at least I used it once. 

Today for p-day, we went to sao filipe because we had to get stuff you can´t buy here which is a lot.  It ran into Sister Roberts who if you don´t know, I went to MVHS 2 years with.  There was actually a pretty bad chance of me ever seeing her but I just so happen to be in the same zone as her.  Because it is too expensive, we never have full mission conferences.  There is a good chance that I could never meet people that I served at the same time with for 20 months because if we aren´t on the same island, we won´t meet.  You pretty much know everyone´s names though.  Word gets around really fast somehow.  We bought food and stuffs in sao filipe but didn´t get everything we needed which is okay because we are going back on thursday for zone conference which I am excited for.  Also, our appartment here is like the only one in the mission that has hot water which is a blessing.  It is hard going without things and not having access to lots of different things, but I will adjust and it will get better.  We actually have some food now since we bought some. We were almost out.  We also don´t have a microwave which everyone should not take for granted.  Actually, don´t take anything for granted.  We have a lot more here than most of the africans so we are pretty well off as well, but those of you in america, be thankful.  all the time. :) 

There aren´t addresses here so we get mail 1-2 times a transfer when someone comes to our island and they can bring it.  I will probably get whatever was sent a while ago when president comes on thursday for Zone conference.  Mail gets to praia pretty quick and then it takes forever from there.  I can send things home pretty easy and fast though because we have addresses in the US.  This is another reason a trainer that is familiar with the area is important.  These african names are hard to remember, most of them, and all the references, you just have to figure out where they live based on the houses you already.

I am about out of time but I will try to write more next week. No time to respond to individuals but I will try to send some pictures really fast.

Love you all.  Send paper letters or short emails or both.  Emails are good.  Paper letters, also good.

Elder Sampson

Cape Verde Pictures Week 1

1. The view out of our appartment in Cova Figueira.  You can see the volcano a bit in the back.  All the beaches here are black but we are pretty far from it so I haven´t seen any up close.

The internet is really slow with pictures so I don´t know what I will be able to send.  I will send one at a time until I am kicked off.

While this loads I will write more.  So everyone here is black.  And if you didn´t understand before, pretty much none of them speak portuguese and so they are super hard to understand.  Its good though.  I will catch on enough to get the just of what they are saying if I am here long enough.  I don´t know how long I will.  Could be 1 transfer, could be 8-9 months.  Probably somewhere in the middle.

We aren´t really aloud to eat at members houses but we ate at the branch presidents house this week becuase they know that they have to prepare our food a certain way.  It was really good. Rice, beans, chicken, a bit of potatoes.  It was good.  We don´t have dinner here.  We get up, eat breakfast, study, then go out for a bit, come home for two hours from like 1-3 and make lunch and then stay out until 9 or 9;30 and maybe have time to make a snack before sleeping.  I´ve been passing out pretty much as soon as we are don´t planning the first few days becuase we missed sleeping the two nights we were traveling, and we walk a lot all over up and down and side to side because we live on the side of a volcano.  All the rocks are black and stuff.

I for sure will only be able to send this one picture because it takes forever.  Sorry I´m not in it. Next week hopefully I will be able to send 2 or 3 because I will just start off sending it while I write the text elsewhere and then send it after the picture sends.

So, the picture failed after 7 mins of loading, so I will try again next week I am out of time.  It was a great picture though.

Love Elder Sampson

I'm not dead

Dear family, 

 

I am now in Cabo Verde and am not dead.  Our flight was delayed until about 1 and so we got to Cabo Verde 4 hours late, and just ate at the mission presidents house which was great.  It is hot and humid and fantastic.

Love,

Elder Sampson