All is well in Fogo!

Well, we got a few emails back from Elder C. this week. A lot of fun information!

Email to Dad/the family

yo fam! hows it in l town?

it's all good here. the language is still so hard and i pretty much know absolutely nothing but i try my best. ha. but it was sweet, we taught an amazing lesson last night to this 17 year old kid, named celsio. he has a baptism date marked for the 9th of january but he has some doubts so we taught about baptism of course. we brought one of his friends, gracide, who is a recent convert. he bore his testimony it was soooo powerful. ah i love teaching these people. i just cant wait til i can actually say all i want and completely communicate with them.

i dont think i told you, it is a mission rule that we teach only in portuguese - unless they don't understand portuguese, then we can teach in creole. so i really gotta get portuguese down first. ha but its all good. im really enjoying it, i dont think i can express that enough. its seriously the best thing in the entire world....i wouldn't wanna serve anywhere else.

but anyways the city i am in is called Pettim, i think thats how you spell it. but there are no street names so....haha but yeah look that up. its a little village about 30 minutes from sao filipe. we have to ride in a van that they fit like 15 people in every time we need to buy something. and we come down to sao filipe on p days to email, and on wednesdays we have district meeting here also.

i dont really eat that much fish because we are told not to eat at the members houses...so its cereal or cookies for breakfast...then me and my companion make lunch, once a week spaghetti and then the other days i make chicken, he makes fish. but i did try it...not so good haha. and then for dinner cereal or roman noodles. its a good life, really healthy. ha and for lunch we eat soooo much food its seriously ridiculous how much they can put down. our house is fairly new so we dont have any problems with bugs yet.

i would attach pictures but i dont have enough time or a way to do it cause i didnt bring my usb plug for my camera.

merry christmas to everyone back at home.

love yall

peace
elder coleman

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Email to Mom

what up ma

my stomach is good. food really isn't a problem. you can eat two ways...
1. eat all of it as fast as you can and the food hits all your taste buds but its gone really fast then chug a whole liter of water or...
2. eat it slowly put it where you want in your mouth it hits only a few taste buds but then everyone is done eating and you still have a plate full so i just go with the shoving it in as fast as i can..its crazy ha

language....haha dont know anything! its so tough but some of our investigators are helping me out but they do it mostly just so they can make fun of my pronunciation haha its fun! but i teach just a little part every lesson and it is all good.

no mosquito net. its not really necessary. but i don't have a pillow. haha i'll be getting one next week i hope.

church was amazing! one of the recent converts, leila taught the lesson. soooo good! it was super cool. and we had 7 of our investigators come so that was way exciting! on saturday we helped one of our investigators who is prolly 17 with his work, cutting down corn stalks for about two hours so he didn't have to do it on sunday and could come to church...he showed up it was awesome! yeah so sundays are the test to see how your week went and 7 is pretty darn good, so it was a good week!

i never knew what it felt like to be the minority. but now i do. haha i am the absolute only white person here. its so funny when they look at me with that weird face then i start speaking creole then they smile and talk back, i don't understand then i smile and it is all good! ha its sweet!!

anywho....i miss yall very much. praying for yall and i love you.

i go on a division with the zone leaders tomorrow for two days, it should be interesting. i'll let you know how it goes! stay sweet....

much love
elder coleman

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Email to Travis and Whitney:

manera...tudo feixe go!

what up, first off, merry christmas is "boa natal" but nice try in spanish hehe. next i will answer your questions...

1. (What is your favorite food so far? Least favorite?) so they make this banana things. so good! they just cut them up in like 5 and then roll them in some sort of brown sugar then cook them. its crunchy on the outside but soft and delicious on the inside. oh so good! i still dont like fish. ha
2. (Do they have any interesting Christmas traditions there?) not that i know of but i know that they party hard! ha christmas and december 31!
3. ("How do you say "Hello, my name is ...") manera, n tchoma e....
4. (Do you have any contact with the other missionaries on Fogo?) we have district meeting every wednesday we have two other elders, one from pennsylvania and one from brasil both speak perfect english. two sisters, one from portugual and the other from tonga (she speaks perfect english as well) and then we have a couple missionaries so i talk to them once a week but also we see my companion from the mtc and his companion when we use internet on p days...his companion elder gomes is tight he also speaks fluent english ha sounds like a lot of them speak english good no eh haha but not my companion! and we are having a party on christmas with all the missionaries in fogo!

well there ya go...i hope all is well there sounds like it. have a fantastic day. love,

elder coleman

First email from FOGO!

yo ma! tudo fiexe

umm all is well here. i love it! its seriously way better then layton utah. haha the people are so nice even though they laugh at me because i'm white, unfortunetly. i know its sad. but anyways all is good, no worries here. my bags are safe. it was a little difficult getting the bags to be 44 pounds to head to fogo, but it all worked out. my companion is native from praia...he speaks very little english but i am teaching him so he can get a good job after the mission. and of course he is helping me learn portuguese. we always teach in portuguese unless it is someone really old so it's really important to speak that before creole. the language is prolly the hardest thing for me. do you remember in st george there was that pool we called the cold pool and you had to build yourself up to jump into it.....yeah thats what the shower is like. thats seriously the worst part of the entire day! haha anyways right now i guess you could call it winter here so it actually gets pretty cold, prolly only like 45 at night but it feels like 7 degrees because during the day its like 85 haha but no its good. i am loving it! its so sweet just to walk and teach people everyday. yesterday was church...a little different than America. ha we leave our house at 9 to be able to walk there in time it starts at 10 plus we swing by some of our investigators houses to wake them up. then church is only 2 hours but everyone just stays and talks for like an hour then we all walk home together and so we got home at like 2 ha it was sweet and while we were walking home a little boy prolly 5 held my hand and was spitting creole to me, didn't understand a single word...i love it! the area i am in is brand new i am only the third missionary to serve there so its really good we have a lot of success. right now we prolly have somewhere around 25 investigators but its a small village away from the big town so everyone knows who we are. its tight. there have already been 5 baptisms and we have 6 set up for the 9th of january hopefully they are all ready. i don't speak the language at all but i just put a smile on, and the days are fantastic but when i try to speak is the funniest because they reply and i have no idea what they say! its so funny haha i just embarrass my self pretty much every time i talk its the best!!!! ha well anyways i prolly should get going. know that all is in good hands here. love y'all

elder coleman

Now in Cape Verde!

Elder Coleman had a long day of traveling yesterday and we just got word that he arrived tired, but safe, in Praia! He's been assigned to his first area and companion. He'll be serving with Elder Fernandes on the island of Fogo. Here we go!