Home Stretch.

Wow things here are passing as if the whole mission was just a dream. I only have 8 weeks left but it feels like just yesterday I was a new greenie trying to get used to mission life... and creole. It's going to be soo sad to leave the mission live and enter back into the real world but the time is coming and now I need to make sure that I am all prepared to be a grown up ha.

This week I had the most marvelous experience and I would like to invite you all to experiment the same thing this week. We had a meeting with all of our missionaries and the theme was about gratitude and how we need to always strive to be more and more grateful. "A person who is ungrateful is someone who doesn't recognize the Lord's hand in their life" if we strive to be grateful we will notice that God is in all aspects of our lives and is always blessing us. We read in D&C 58:7-8 about how the Lord expects us to be grateful in all things and we have the duty to offer up to him our sacrifice of a broken heart and a contrite spirit. So what I did to count my many blessings was on Saturday afternoon I started a fast with the intend of only thanking the Lord for EVERYTHING that I have and he has given to me and I didn't ask Him for anything. During the fast and especially during sacrament meeting I felt a new light come into my life and I realized that God is truly watching over me. When I got home from church I told my companion silmply.. " I love God" and that was exactly what I felt nothing else. It was really good and I'd like to invite all of you this Sunday to try the same thing and see how much God is already doing for you because then you will know how much he will do for you in the future.

Thanks for all of you help. 

With love,

Elder Edwards

ps please dont send anymore mail.. It probably wont get here

Coming Home.

Dear family,

Wow things here are weird and crazy... So I got everything figured out in Santa Maria and then last night I got a call from the president saying that he has to take the zone leaders out of santa maria and put us on the other side of the island because there they are killing the Lords work and once we fix them we can become a district.. So I am now in Espargos.. I have been thinking a lot about this and I think that I am going to start school in January... I wanted to extend because I didn't think I would have enough time to get everything set up in Santa Maria but now I have learned that the Lord is doing His work in His time. He didn't need a lot of time but it was him that pieced everything together and built up his church. Now my work here is coming to an end and I feel like it's time to start school and prepare to one day have a family..

 I hope all is well with you guys. Love you all.

Elder Edwards

***Update: We were planning on having Elder Edwards home before Christmas but they were unable to schedule a flight that would get him off the island in time. So he will be arriving back in the ol' US of A the first week of January. We can hardly wait!

October 13.

GOOO Utes!!! Man it's good to hear about a strong win.. About time.. So things here are going really good. Elder Haile has come here ready to work and to turn this place into a branch. Yesterday in Church we had 10 men there who can all potentially hold the preisthood. As of now we have baptized and reactivated enough people to be a branch we just need to help all of them progress a little bit more and help them to be ready and strong members... Also we will for sure keep baptizing and reactivating! 

The wedding this week went good... The baptism was a different story though.. Their family threw a wedding after party for them and they decided at 1:00 am after the spirit had gone to bed to drink a little bit of wine..Hopefully here in the next couple weeks they'll repent and get there. 

Also this week I wanted to share a story with you all about the book of mormon and the power that it contains. Back in the day when I was a young man I never read the book of mormon and I never wanted to.. I don't know why but that was how I felt and during family reading I usually was half asleep.. When people asked me where I was in my BOM reading I always said "in the middle of Alma" and then everyone always responded "oh yeah alma sure is a long book" I knew nothing about alma I just heard everyone else say that they were in the middle of alma..

  I promise that I have repented for that and I have had a huge change of heart. The Book of Mormon is for our days and if we aren't reading it we are only effecting ourselves. Our mission has started working a lot with in-actives and what I have noticed with just about every case is that none of them were reading the book of mormon.. This usually resulted in them not praying, not going to church and eventually giving up completely..   Please read the book of mormon everyday.. preferably 30 minutes.. This is eternal life. It starts here and I know that if we are all ready we will be stronger in the church, we will be happier people and we will have the strength to endure to the end.. In lehi's vision only those who held firmely to the iron rod made it the tree of life. Lets all hold a little bit firmer and be a little bit stronger each day! 

(to the mission pres)As for Santa Maria things here are truly being blessed. This week during my division with Elder Christensen my faith was strengthened about the importance of inviting. We ended up running into an inactive member named João who has been away from the church for a couple of months now. We sat down with him, got to know him a little bit and realized that the reason he fell away was because of problems with commandments and he was having problems with repentance. He decided he wanted to come back to church and fell that sweet spirit that he used to feel.. We were getting ready to finish when I got the impression to ask him if he had priesthood... He said he had the aaronic and really wanted to receive the melquisedeque but he wasn't ready and didn't feel like he could get there. I invite him as simple and I could, "João, voce irá se preparar para receber o sacerdócio de melquisedeque?" In that moment I felt the spirit testify very strongly about what was said.. He sat there for a minute and that said "vou...... vou.... vou vou vou vou vou vou" It was amazing to see that change happen in his heart in basically the blink of an eye.

Love you all,

Elder Edwards

New Pics!

September 16, 2013

Hey family this week I was thinking about personal revelation and I wanted to share something interesting with you guys that I Iearned.

     Lots of times in our lives we come to the point where we have to make really important decision, for me it was whether or not I should extend my mission and delay school or if I should get back to school as soon as possible, for you guys I know that the decisions are different but for sure you have them and want to make the right decision. As I was studying about prayer and seeking the will of the Lord and how we can know how to always make the right choices I learned some pretty valuable things. 

     First off, more than rarely we get so stuck up on choices that are between right and right. In D&C 58:26-28 I learned that a righteous and obedient servant should not have to be shown and forced into doing every single thing. It is our responsibility to seek for righteousness and do what we feel and know is right. 

      The second part that I really liked and that explains perfectly about spiritual guidance was a short clip by David Bednar called "Patterns of light: Spirit of Revelation" ( I advice you all to look it up on YouTube) It shows three ways that we can receive revelation in our lives and what we need to do to follow those promptings by the spirit. And then last but not least we always have the scriptures. In Nephi 32:3 we learn that the words of Christ will show us all things that we must do. 

       Through these 3 things I learned that it is the right choice for me to stay. I started off first with a desire to do good and to finish my mission off in the way that the Lord would want me to finish my mission. I wasn't sure at first and then like in that clip by David Bednar I was basically in the fog. I couldn't see the end but I had faith and could fell that God was guiding me and then for all of the doubts or fears or questions that I had, the Book of Mormon was there just like a compass to keep me heading towards the right path. 

       I know that God is watching out for all of us and through the simple and little things in our lives the Lord works miracles and brings to pass his work. I pray that you will always remember these things and apply them to yourselves in your day to day lives. Don't be afraid to act and do what feels right. I Love you all and hope all is well!

 Elder Edwards

30 Minutes A Day Challenge.

September 2nd, 2013

Wow this week was full of adventures and full of new experiences. First off on Tuesday and Wednesday we had to do everything for the week because we were going to Praia so we ended up marking 12 lessons just on Tuesday and 9 for Wednesday with 3 baptismal interviews. It was crazy and we were running around like mad men trying to get to all of our lessons. We ended up getting everything set up and then Thursday afternoon we got to Praia and I did a division all day with my best friend ever Elder Christensen. 

Friday morning we had zone leaders council which went really good. The first part we just talked about health and basic info that we needed to pass over to our missionaries and then we played the dreaded ´´scripture game´´. A couple months ago our mission president decided that we all need to know the scriptures better so he asked us all to memorize one scripture for each segment in the missionary lessons. That means in total we should all have at least 42 scriptures memorized. I had them all but a couple weeks ago I decided I wanted to have better scriptures for each one instead of just the basic really short ones. At the council we decided to play the game and when it was my turn I completely killed it. I quoted the best scripture that was full of life and super long.. The mission president stood up and gave me a standing ovation which was not like him because he is really serious. Then we made our goals for this month and reviewed with everyone what they thought and how we were going to make it happen. We also we all challenged to take a book of mormon, write in the front cover what we want to change in our lives or who we want to be and then read the book 30 minutes every day and watch for this change come to pass. It was a really cool idea and I am stoked to get started ( The same challenge works for all of you guys as well).

Then Saturday we woke up at 5 to get to the airport for our flight that was suppose to leave at 7... That sure didn't happen though. The plane got delayed and we ended up flying out of Praia at 1 instead which really messed stuff up. We didn't get back to our house until 3 and we were suppose to have 3 baptisms at 3:30 on the other side of the island.. We ended up just cancelling the baptism we planned with everyone else and we just our baptisms here in Santa Maria in the ocean at 6:30. It was actually a really sweet baptism and I got to go into the ocean to do one of them so I can't complain. 

Then it was my first Sunday here in Santa Maria which turned out legit! Even though we were out of area we still had 10 investigators show up and 2 of them went up and bore there testimonies about how they read the book of mormon and prayed about it all and they know that it's true and are anxious to get baptized... SOOOO sweet to see and to know that God is working to help all of our investigators. We are seriously being soo blessed here and we are seeing miracles all day everyday. Also I realized that the mission President sent me here with a giant task to accomplish. He told us that where we are and what we are doing is not just for any missionary and in itself is a blessing and a privilege. We are suppose to lead and help our zone to be able to have enough worthy priesthood holders to seperate from the mindelo stake and become its own district. Then in our area we are suppose to find and baptize enough people for Santa Maria to become a branch instead of just a group. Man there is a lot of pressure on our heads right now... We don't really sleep anymore because we have soo much to do.. But I am 100% confident that through obedience, diligence and scripture study we are going to be able to accomplish all of these things and the Lord will use us in his hands. 

Elder Edwards

BIG News...

September 4th, 2013

Hey so I called the mission president today and told him that I am extending.... I have been praying and thinking about it a lot these past couple weeks and I know its the right decision

September 8th, 2013

Dear family,

 So it's all official and I am going to be staying until the end of February.. I'm not going to lie at the start was was really unsure of the decision but I kept reading the Book of Mormon 30 minutes a day and all of the doubts or excuses I had went away and now I am sure that it is the right choice and God will bless my efforts. And the mission President didn't ask me to I just felt like it was necessary because the mission is really young right now and there are a lot of greenies that can use my help.

 As for this week things were pretty crazy. First it started with ''the baptism of john''. Joao our investigator is deathly afraid of water and before his baptism his only doubt was so deep the water would in the ocean because he was scared he was going to die. The morning of his baptism we went to work out right next to the beach and saw that the waves were HUGE probably the biggest waves I have ever seen in my life. I just kinda brushed it off and hoped that things would settle down by the time the baptism came. When we got to the beach with our 7 investigators and joao the beach was completely full of surfers and tourists which is really rare for where we went but joao had to get baptized so we went ahead and did it there. The first second and third time we tried the baptism waves came and messed it all up. I told the member that was baptizing him to just say the prayer, let the wave pass and then dunk him. The prayer was said and then the wave came... But this time it came bigger than normal picking up joao and pushing him into the sand. My first thought is ''oh crap joao is dying of fear right'' and I would have thought he was drowning but he was just floating in the water on his back looking confused. I told him to stand up when he says to me ''Am I baptized yet''? Apparently joaoheard the prayer and figured he could just dunk himself in the water once or twice and call it baptism. The member, my comp and I couldn't help but just start freaking out and laughing almost to the point of dying. He said it so seriously and was actually convinced that he was baptized.

And my comp by the way is super cool. He both work together perfectly and are teaching and baptizing like bosses. We call ourselves the dream team and our secret weapon is the book of mormon and acts 22:16. This week we ended up being in a room full of people and taught them all about faith and repentance and baptisms and then we marked 8 of them with baptismal dates. It was super cool. God is blessing us a lot right now!

Well I hope all is well with you guys! Love you all tons.

Elder Edwards

March 24, 2013

Dear President,

 Once again we are starting to see the fruits of our labors. When I first showed up to this area there weren't very many investigators and things were just passing along without a real excitement here. I remeber in the first week of this transfer you basically told me to just focus on families. We made plans to find, teach and baptize families and yesterday I truly saw a miracle! Yesterday we had a family of 7 show up to church and for the first time ever in Cape Verde I saw a family fill an entire row during sacrament meeting.

 So far in this new area we have been finding a lot of families and as of right now we have 3 of them that are progressing towards baptism! It is truly amazing to be a part of this work and to see first hand that the field really is white and ready for the harvest!

 

We need lots of help them please pray for these families!!!

This last monday... wow we had a crazy experience. Two weeks ago our neighbor called us over and said she wanted us to come to her house. We maked with her for last monday and went over there. When we showed up she told us she wasn't ready yet and had her son take us on a tour of her house. After waiting like an hour we finally went back up stairs to see that she had prepared a huge dinner for us! She said she had already eaten so we served ourselves and eat a good amount... then she came to the table telling us that she could see in our eyes that we haven't eaten well in a while and that our moms are for sure very worried about us. She grabbed our plates and filled them up FULL! I battled with all of my might to eat it all and got just about everything. I was ready to explode.. then she brought us out a fruit salad desert and filled up a bowl full.. I left her house the most full I have been probably since the last time I ate at chuck a rama. I am scared to go back there..

 

Well I hope all is well with you guys! I will try to keep writing more each week. 

 Love,

 Elder Edwards

Testimony.

I´d like to share the story of one of our investigator with you. Last week we marked her with a wedding and baptism date and the whole family was excited. Two days latter we returned to talk to them again but her spouse wasn't there. We gave her a family proclamation and then she started to tell us about how she found out about the church.  She use to be a strong member of the Adventist church until one day she felt like it wasn't completely true. She said that everyday after that she prayed to God to find a true church that was right for her and her husband. After a while missionaries showed up in Relva and she felt like she needed to talk to them. She was too shy to stop them in the street so she just continued to pray and pray that they would show up at her house. One day she saw them walking behind her house and they were on the trail to pass by her front door. She waited but they never knocked. After that she was heart broken. The next day her husband was contacted by two Elders in the street and they showed up at her house, finally, and taught the message of the restored gospel.

When I heard this story my testimony that God is preparing people and putting them in our paths everyday grew and I know that we truly can find these people.

Love you all and hope all is well! Elder Edwards