Closure

Quiet Moments

Last week we had a good evening returning to the Praia lighthouse with Elder and Sister Anderson, the office couple who keep the mission running.  I caught this photo at sunset.

Last week we also traveled to the northern island nearly every day.  So it was a great day when we traveled for housing inspections together with President and Sister Amo, and President Amo drove!  You can see how relaxed we are in these photos taken from the rooftop apartment in which the Sisters in Assomada live.

During the final stage of the chicken project we had a class on caring for chickens, which we coordinated for the families who were receiving them.   A technician from a local company, UPR Animal, taught the class, and it was well received.
















Here is a link to the movie the church made about the chicken project.  We know most of the people in this short clip.  The humanitarian couple are the Carnell's, who proceeded us here and proposed this project.

https://www.lds.org.uk/stand-in-need

Closure

And this week we completed the chicken project on Santiago, and said goodbye to the last of our sweet galinhas.  We made three trips to the northern island in our car, loaded with 42 chickens each time, all bound for their new homes.  We had miracles, a grower lent us two cages to safely transport more birds in our car.  The count of the birds was so important, we would drive to the far ends of the island for deliveries and there needed to be exactly 21 birds for each family.  On one occasion we unloaded the first carrier and we were one short.  How did we miscount?  And the we unloaded the second carrier for that location and somehow there was an extra bird in it, we were ok.

At the end of the project we went to the home of Dina, the owner of the farm, to give her the last rent payment.  She had gone out of her way on multiple occasions to help us, novices that we were.  We had called ahead to see if we could drop by, so when we arrived we were surprised that Dina's family was having a holiday meal.  We were invited in and she insisted that we join them at the table.  It was a beautiful, beautiful hour as we made small talk in Portuguese, and thanked her for the help she gave to the 18 families who received chickens through the project.  It was such a pleasant thing to sit with her family and enjoy the delicious food.  Humbly, there are missionaries who go home from this mission having never eaten a meal with a local family.  It seems hard to comprehend, coming from the United States where missionaries get meals most evenings with members.  Food and water are simply very dear/expensive here, and many homes do not have running water or kitchens so many families have very little to share with missionaries.  And yet we had the blessing of a meal with a local family.  They even let me take a photo.  We will treasure the memory of this experience for a long time.



On Wednesday, we said goodbye to our friend Elder Teela, from Liberty.  He was pretty excited to go home.  It was nice having him in this mission, as I worked with the missionaries, taking their calls and helping them with medical problems, it was just good to be connected to Elder Teela.  We wish him well.