7.27.2015

Week 24: Walkin' the Days Away

Tcheu dor this week. Aka lots of pain in kriolu haha.

Not really, but kinda.

So here in Sal, its really flat. its a nice change. And Síster Friaça is soooo hilarous! man, we just have a lot of fun here. She is from Virginia, and went to BYU-I before the mish. She just turned 20 and has 2 more transfers than me... aka she has 10 months on the mish.. ish.



So this Saturday, we had 2 baptisms, and a baptism of a less-actives daughter. Melanie and Marcilene are the sweetest ever, they are just adorable! I don´t really haev too much to say this week, we are just working really hard on getting this area going! We have to walk 30 minutes to get to our area, so thats where the pain comes from. But its good. I need to trim down. We walk a ton though. its real fun. Our area is very populated, lots of cars, lots of people. The kriolu is a bit different here, but not too bad. They do speak faster, so it´ll just take some getting used to.




So here they have a branch, and the frequency is about 60 ish, so about half of the ward in Porto Novo. I feel like it has more older more stable members though so thats good. They dont have as many kids or youth as in porto novo. We dont have very many investigators right now, so we´re going to work really hard this week to find some people and talk our way into people´s houses so they can really see how great our message really is!



I love you all, thanks for your support!

Síster Kohlert

Week 23: Off to the Island of Salt

Dear Family and Friends,

Guess what week it is!?! okay ill just tell you... TRANSFERS! So i'm off to Sal (salt in Portuguese). aka the island of tourists and beaches, but i'll be in the city where all the workers live, more like the desert. But its chill. I'll fly out in a few hours. Im sad to leave Santo Antao, but it was a good three transfers there. But change is good. I didnt even cry when I left or said goodbye! Im no longer a Kohlert! what! I haven't cried in so long. 



Anyways. My new companion will be sister friassa (i dont know how to spell it yet...) Shes from the u.s. around virginia/dc i think. And she has 3 more months on the mission than me.
So this week was also full of sickness. I know. What a surprise. So we ended up going back to sao vicente with the sister training leaders after we did divisions because my ears were hurting really bad the whole night and in the morning. So off we went. The doctor wasn't very helpful, but we got some medicine and i'm better now. I dont really know what it was. maybe it was just from my cold, but it was bad. now my cold is almost done. And we finished up the stuff for sister corbett while we were there too.

Nothing else really happened this week. Sorry. Thats super lame. We were introduced to a boy that we thought was a member, but it turned out that he wasnt! And he wants to be baptized! WHat! So now im going to miss that miracle baptism, but I still was there for when the miracle was discovered. So cool. Ill send picutres next week because we only had a little time to email today due to transfers and stuff.

I love you guys!

Till next week,

Sister Kohlert

7.09.2015

Week 22: Those Contacts!

Ta Bom!

So this week was another crazy week of walking. We have been blessed with so many miracles though, you wouldn´t believe all of them (but missionaries kind of take everything as a miracle haha). We recieved a challenge as a zone to baptize someone on Saturday the 27th and the 4th, and they asked us on Thursday night. It was kind of crazy, especially when we didn't have any investigators at church the last 3 weeks, so we were very apprehensive about this. Because we all have recent converts that are already less-active. And I´m not even going to lie. Only three of my baptisms are active. It really is hard to see them change so much, but then just go less active so quickly. It really does put a damper on your excitement for baptism. So we didn´t take the challenge as seriously as we maybe should have. So... our entire district and zone received a faca (knife, aka chastized) for our lack of faith. It was rough. Especailly because we really didn´t find anyone who was prepared. We were all called out the next Tuesday. But we decided to repent and change our way of thinking. That very next day we contacted three people who had already been taught by other missionaries and two of which had already been to church many times in the past. The Lord really does place people in our path. Unfortunely, we were unable to find them again after the first contact, but we will keep trying. So we didn´t have a miracle baptism, but this Saturday, we will be having a baptism (Dani, 23) and he is truely prepared. He has completely changed his life, and studies the scriptures like an experienced member. It´s incredible how people can change.

Okay and one more thing about contacts. Every Sunday we have the hardest time not having our lessons fall though. Everyone is always gone when we mark to talk with them! We marked every half hour on Sunday and none of them were home. WHAT! but we did have a random lesson in the middle of the street! haha it went well, but they weren´t willing to meet with us again due to their religion and time. But on our way home, we ran into a man, who our old district leader had contacted on divisions and his number didn´t work. He has a family and is so open to hearing our message. and I think he might be married! Golden! No one here is married! Then later we talked to another guy in the street that basically told us that he loves the church and he wants us to talk to the rest of his family. So prepared! Truely incredible.

Anyways. Im sure that those sound super lame. I dont really have any weird stories this week, other than I got nipped by a dog for the first time! that was weird. and then we were awakened yesterday by drums for Cabo Verde´s independence day at 5.30 or 6:00 am-ish. SOOO loud. its ridiculous. Oh and I never told you guys that I literally live 100 yards from the water, and like 20 feet from the sand....ya know.....just livin´ in paradise over here.

Love you guys!

Síster Kohlert

Week 21: Well, Some Clever Title that I don't have Time to Think Of

Dear Familiy and Friends,

Okay so... this week. Well I didn´t think that it would get any worse this week, which it didn´t, but it didnt exactly get better. But i´m still doing good! its the little miracles everyday that keep me going. We really have been working so hard to find new investigators, but we just haven´t been harvesting anything... maybe it just needs some more water in this dry dirt. We do have some potencial people! We just have to find them when they aren´t home when we mark to pass by! haha i love being a missionary. I really dont feel like anything happened this week, so sorry this letter will be pretty boring. 

We did have one of our investigators receive a blessing to help him stop drinking so that was really cool. He came to church on sunday too!

This was the first week in 3 weeks that we have had investigators at church! 4 to be specific. one of the we didnt even expect to come nbecause she basically already said that she couldn´t! Miracle of the week! 

I have also been working on making our lessons with our younger investigators more exciting because they definitely look bored sometimes. But we´ve been having so fun!

Pizza Night!!
Oh and a huge barata landed on me one day and i freaked out in  the middle of the street. pretty hilarious yet disgusting at the same time. We did find two more baratas and we also learned about a new method to kill them! you have to take a broom and try to flip them over because they cant move once their on their backs, but they crawl super fast otherwise. Then you put some rubbing alcohol on them and drop a match and burn them to a crisp so that there isn´t any guts on the floor! easy to clean version! haha
 
How we kill Baratas.....alcohol and a match!
So the holiday of são joão was fun. We didn´t have too much of a problem teaching that night! that was another miracle! we thought everyone would be at the parties. They did play their drums outside our house till 6 in the morning though. That was fun. And they had a HUGE market thing! I wish we could have shopped there because they had such cool stuff, but we just walked past on our way to teach. sad day. 
View of  Sao Joao 

Sao Joao Bread

Sao Breads and a Coffee Bean Necklace
Okay so I think thats basically it for this week. sorry that it was kind of boring and unorganized and not very well written. my bad.
Love you guys!

Sister Kohlert