New Stake!

This week.. well. Let's be real, they're all the same. It just seems more stressful lately. I hate stress..

We had Zone Conference this week and that was awesome! President always gives the best trainings. .. and we got mail! :) The sisters from Sal and Santo Antao came again. It's always a crazy party in our house when they come. So many people and all of their things! And it's happenning again this week! Because.......

MINDELO IS BECOMING A STAKE!! YEAHHHHHHH!!! The opening of the 2nd stake in Cabo Verde!!! 2 Area 70's will be here!! I'm so excited!!! And Friday of this week will be a Culture Night with dancing and singing! I'm so excited. :)

Our investigators are frustrating with their schedules. It seems like the people that we are preparing for baptism are never home or always have something come up Sunday morning. Then we get facas about our numbers. Beh. Stress.

On the brighter side, we do manage to have a miracle amount of people to show up for church every week. This week we had 5 again. 2 of which were the elderly mothers of Cesar and Daniel. A member and his friend we are teaching. Daniel is an addict. It's also hard to meet with him. I'm not sure if the mothers are all there... And I know they were baptized Catholic so... who knows.

The Broderick's (the Humanitarian aid missionary couple) are leaving today for America. We helped them clean out their house. I gained FOGO KAMOKA! Yesssss! Delicious!


Other than that, nothing new. Oh. I saw my weight on the Broderick's scale today. THAT is new. But we're not going to talk about it.
Until next week!
Sister Buhler

Ps.My scarf is getting put to good use grandma! Dirt went into my eye and scratched my cornea and it hurt the whole night! So I wrapped it up during daily planning.

This Week!

Well, my week has been a doosey. I can firmly say that I think the Lord is trying to teach me patience. Hahah.

One of our most progressing investigators is Arlindo (He's 22yrs old)... Except he has never gone to church or prayed about the Prophet Joseph. PROBLEM. So since we've been teaching him for 2 months and he keeps all of his other commitments with us, we decided to pull out the big guns and take Ex-President Antunes with us to his house.

Well, we got to the bottom of the problem alright. And President Antunes also offended Arlindo's mother. Oi vey. He was recounting his conversion story about how he taught in the Catholic church and how he learned that the Catholic church was commiting huge sins by baptizing the way they were and he came to understand the truth about the priesthood and baptizing children.. and she heard it and started some VERY audible clothes-folding. Arlindo said he would go to church next week and Pres A offered to stop by on the way to church.. Then Pres A asked the mom's name and she just went OFF! (in what I later learned to be profanities) And she said he wasn't allowed to get baptized in our church. He could go to church, but NOT get baptized while he is under her roof. ...and she now hates us very much.

When we left President Antunes told us we were wasting our time with him. And I'm pretty sure he is no longer going to pass by next week.

I baked cookies and we passed by her house last night and left them with her daughter for her, so I hope the peace offering goes over well. Sister Routson has me paranoid that his mother has a peanut allergy because I made her peanut butter oatmeal cookies. BAH.

Who knows. This area is difficult. bah. Obra missionaria... me mata. hahah. I love serving the Lord. Just waiting for the trails to pass. :P

I gave a talk yesterday in church. About Repenting with Sincerity. I feel like it went over well. Now, if I can only get down public speaking in English... hahaha.

Anyways, we have zone conference this week. Should be good I guess.

Sincerely,
Sister Buhler

Silver Lining

This week we had interviews with President. And HOLY. Mine ws a good one. It really gave me alot of direction for the Lord's work here, and some personal direction for my life. I'd go into details, but it's just too much.

Well, to be honest... The work had been really hard this past week. There has been some silver lining to the situations, but I feel like I've been living off the silver lining for so long! So yeah...I wish our members had time for us, and that everyone in Cape Verde weren't Fubekas... and Yep. haha.

Our silver lining of yesterday was that we had 5 investigators go to church. (This means like 7 people who promised to come, didn't) 5 investigators at church is AWESOME. One was a couple we're helping prepare for marriage, another is the son of an inactive we reactivated!, and the other two.. Well, Danielson was drunk. He REEKED of alcohol. And Anilton(I'm not sure of his name), came up to us in the street, and we initially thought him to be a bit crazy, so we told him if he went to church on Sunday we would mark a visit with him there.. I was shocked he came!

But on the brighter side, Danielson doesn't know about the Word of Wisdom yet and Anilton hopefully isn't crazy.. (If you saw his hair you'd know what I mean!)

Anyways, that's all.
Love, Sister Buhler

Kootchee?

So wasn't conference awesome?! I think I would have enjoyed it a little better if I hadn't been worried about my investigators coming to conference... I've just been quite the stress ball this weekend. Even in my dreams I'm stressed out! Hahah. Oh life. Anyways,.. Things are going well here. I found alot of help this weekend from Conference. :)

The pictures attached are what people call Kootchee-ing. This little boy is helping his old lady neighbor grind up corn for her goats... So Sister Routson and I helped him. :)

Anyways,... This week is kindof a blur. I don't rememeber anything before conference. Am I going senile?

Arlindo and Shines are hard to find these days. They never are at home. Always running around with friends.. I guess that's what we get for teaching hoodlums. hahaha.

Sister Routson is getting over her cold.. That's good. :)

Also, whenever you break out on your face, people here FREAK OUT and they are like, "WOW, THOSE MOSQUITOS GOT YOU GOOD!" ..and then they point to your face. And then they don't believe you when you say it isn't a mosquito. Oh Cape Verde..

-Sister Buhler

Tamborina

(So sorry for all those who are following Sam's blog, I have slacked the entire month of April. School and work started. I promise it won't happen again. -Vanessa)

So this picture is a bag FILLED with Tamborina. I don't kow what it is in english.. or if I even spelled it right but we got gifted it last night by a family we are teaching.

Monica is a less active that we helped reactivate. I don't know if you can see it, but she made Routson and I flower keychains! (it is sitting beside me in this picture) They're so awesome! She's awesome! :)

Anyways, Life in Fernando Po... It's swell. We were supposed to have a baptism this week, but she didn't come to church today so.. probably next week. It'll probably be better to have it in a week anyways.

So this week we've been trying to focus in on Arlindo and Shines, Alma's friends. Shines agreed on Tuesday to start keeping the Law of Chastity. And well, We found out Thursday that 1.Shines is keeping the Law of Chastity and 2.Shines had been called to the tropa(military). And we were like NOOOOO!! The military?! They'll ruin his progress. The day we found out was the day he was supposed to go, but since he's a slacker for life, didn't go. After that he was going to go some day after that... Well, Saturday night on our way home, WE SAW HIM IN THE STREET! And we were like, Are you not going until Monday? "No, they don't want me anymore." And he was speaking creole and wasn't opening his mouth too good so I didn't understand, but he either said that he didn't score high enough on the exams or they were full... Hahah. Either way he's staying. And keeping the Law of Chastity. :)

Arlindo. Has been keeping all of our commitments except go to church and pray about Joseph Smith. He gave up coffee (that he LOVES) within a week. He started keeping the Law of Chastity the day we taught it (he had 2 girlfriends). So, we decided it was time to pull out the big guns.... The Restoration movie. We arranged for the boys to be able to watch it in a member family's house on Friday and MAN! The spirit! It was so strong. And after the film Arlindo was like, "I'm going to pray TONIGHT. It's important." And then he agreed to go to the activity saturday! (but he didn't end up going, bc he was on the other half of the island and didn't make it back in time)

And... I dunno things are going well. I can't complain. Routson and I are staying together for another transfer. WOOP! And it'll be a party. :)

Hope everyone had a good easter!
Sister Buhler