Dear Family and Friends,

This has truly been a magnificent week! We have been finding a lot of new people lately. I think we found 20 new people this week. A lot of which are couples and families. And of course I’m in Cabo Verde so none of them are married. We found a non member couple that has been coming to church and they really like it. We are going to start talking to them this week. Their house is in Mosteiros Atraz which is a good 35 minute walk. We also have a person that drives around to Sao Filipe (special occasions like zone leaders council and zone conference) and to Cova Figueira (every week for district meeting) named João. We met his family yesterday and they love the missionaries!! João gets a little crazy with the Yas (large van). He shoves like 25 or 26 people in it, its gets really cramped, ha-ha. Anyway, he is a really nice guy and we are going to teach him this week He said he would come to church. He got a Book of Mormon and a Bible from the branch president and told me he is going to study every day. We also found him on the street and he said that he knows this church is true and he is never going to miss church ha-ha!! I love it. We are also working with the Branch President’s brother to help him get married to his wife. We started on the papers today with them!

We saw a miracle this week. It was so awesome. We were going to pass an investigator that we haven’t seen in a while and it was really dark. Then we just hear someone calling our name, ´´Elder, elder! ´´´. We turn and there is a teenager just sitting on the ground. We come over and talk to him for a while and find out his name is Adielson. Then a few minutes later, his friend Pedro walked in. We got to know them a bit. Pedro is a soccer player and they are on the same. Adielson makes ´´rap´´ or in creole ´´hep´´´, he is a ´´hepper`´´. He showed us some of his ´´hep´´, it was all in Creole though so it was difficult to understand haha. Anyway, we taught them a lesson and invited them to baptism and they were very excited! We didn’t give them a date because we wanted to think and talk about it as a companionship, but then he asked ´´So when are we getting baptized?´´ and we gave them a date ha-ha. It was awesome. I know that the Lord prepares people to accept this gospel. We met them on Friday and then that Sunday, Pedro went to church. Adielson couldn’t because he had already had a meeting for school planned in that time. He said he would definitely be there next Sunday.

 Valdir and Eddy were baptized this Saturday!!!! It was so awesome!!!!! We got to walk out to the rocky shore. I want to say it was kind of a cove looking area. It was absolutely beautiful. There were a lot of people swimming that were Edy and Valdir’s friends so they came over and watched. It was sweet. The water was pretty cold but it was just so awesome! Edy loves this church. He just always says he feels happy. Because they got baptized, Edy and Valdir want to have a Family Home Evening at their friend Patrick’s house. So we gathered up Pedro, Adielson and some of our other investigators that were already friends with Edy and Valdir and we has a sweet family night on Saturday.

We made the trek to Feijoal this week. Usually we walk this dirt path for a bit more than an hour, but lately as we have been walking on the road we just call cars that are passing and see if they are headed up there. The best is to find trucks because they are usually headed that direction, you just hop in the back and it’s free. If you take a taxi it cost like 300 escudos or like 3.50 American dollars. We are trying to save our money. We have found a lot of cool people in Feijoal, like the branch president’s brother, who has been coming to church for the past 3 weeks. We also found some part member families that we are going to start working with. It’s hard to check up on our investigators in Feijoal, Mosteiros Atraz and Queimada because they are so far away. We try to centralize in Queimada, that’s where we live. But there are people in the other areas that want to be baptized.

Overall, an awesome week! It’s amazing what the Lord will give us if we just ask. We can only receive so many blessing for being righteous without asking. I don’t know how many times it says in the scriptures that if you want something and you have a true desire for it, it will be give to you. That’s something that I realized this week. The sincerity of your prayers, the intent of your heart and your worthiness will depict what God will give you. It sounds like a scam, but trust me, God answers prayers. This is the best work in the world. I love my mission, I love these people. I will do everything I can to share this incredible message and be worthy instrument in the Lords hands.

Love,

Elder Rice