Week One in Angola

Oi! Family and Friends

Well I am finally here in Angola. What a week it has been. We got to Angola and like I said we went to the mission home, got orientation, and sent to our areas. My first area is called Viana. This area is such a special place. My companion is Elder Tolman who has about 8 months left, and he is really chill and has helped me out alot. We have so many investigators. This area is booming in missionary work. We have so much investiagtors that we don´t have the time to pick up anybody new or teach people who want to know more about it. Its a little sad, but choices have to be made so we can have the most success. 

One of the goals of the mission is to have the first stake here in Angola in about a year, becoming the fastest area ever to get a stake. There are so many prepared people here its ridiculous. This coming Saturday we are having a baptism for Cahilo, and he is the man. He is already trying to share the gospel with his friends and is so strong in the gospel. I am really excited for him. And I have been trying to get to know all other investigators, but its hard with the langauge. I can´t understand really anything which is really frustrating, I just feel like an idiot. But thats part of the mission experience, and my trainer says that I so far have been the best trying to pick up stuff, so hopefully in a couple of weeks it will be better. 

Our house that we live in is pretty nice... when it has power and water. Randomly we won´t have power or water at times, so its a little difficult but we have patience with it. All I have so far is taken ice cold showers which aren´t fun haha but oh well. 

Church was really good this last sunday. The Viana branch broke their record of attendence with 86 people. It was crazy, and almost 30 of those were non members, so its so amazing here. When we go out and visit people to teach, were just walking in dirt everywhere. Dirt Dirt Dirt. Its fine, I can live with it haha. I have been learning all the day to day stuff like money and things like that. The money here is kwanzas. And one kwanza equals one penny. So the prices for things are always like 399 kw which is like 4 bucks. And also we get around places using taxis. And there not like the taxis back home where you tell them where you want to go and they take you there. These taxis are like buses where they just travel on routes and you take them and switch. The taxis are like these blue and white vans, and they drive crazy. Driving here is crazy, I never want to drive here ever, would be the worst experience of my life. But I will for sure be taking some of their driving techniques back with me haha. 

All I have eaten for food is just stuff that we make at our house, no African meals yet. But they have this thing called funge. Apparently its their staple and I will get it soon, so when I try that I will let you guys know how that is. 

Pictures wise, I havent gotten a ton so far just because if the Police see you taking pictures they will just take your camera, and there it goes. But I will throughout my time here. My companion told me that there has been a couple of times he tried to put his camera card into the computer and it gave his camera card a virus and destroyed all his pictures, so I don´t if I will be able to send pictures or risk to send pictures, you will have to let me know. 

Now for some random facts. All the kids here either call us Amigo or Chines which means Chinese. Haha they can´t tell the difference between us and Chinese people because there are so many here as well because they pretty much are building everything here. These children are wild here and so cute and adorable, haha its a good thing Mom and Laura aren´t here or they would die haha. 

For P Day today we just went to the Mission Home and played soccer, by taxi it takes an hour to an hour and a half to get there so not to bad. Now I am just sitting in a cyber cafe in this shopping center with another week ahead of me. The whole mail and email is still hazy, even to my companion, so we won´t really know until President gets here. All the advice my companion gave was that I could email friends and such like every other week till something gets figured out. And I need to talk to the Zone Leaders how the whole postal office thing works out. 

Other than that, I am all good here in Angola, it hasn´t been too hot yet, but the hot season starts in 2 weeks and lasts until end of April and apparently it gets pretty toasty so we will see how that goes. I will let you also know how our investigators go as we meet with them more this week. 

Its been a crazy experience so far, and I know it will only keep getting better and crazier as the days, weeks, and months roll by. I love you all, and someday in the future, can´t wait to show this amazing country to you all. This is My World now haha.

Tchau,