Secret Trip.

Hello my family,
  This last week lots of things have happened. Last week after using email I heard a secret that came from headquarters that I had 2 plane tickets that were going to take me out of Fogo over to Praia and then up to Mindelo. The strange thing was when I got on the plane and did the math my first flight was set to leave at 4:50 to Praia. The second set to go at 5:35. It's a 35 minute flight.. that doesn't leave a lot of time for a lay-over. I was kind of nervous about how it was all going to work out. The first flight took off late and we landed in Praia at about 5:40. There aren't any other planes out in the hanger. I figured I missed it. I ask the service lady, she tells me to run out and check back in real quick and we are running, (me and the sister I was with It definitely looked like a date). We go through security to discover that we are back on the exact same plane haha. And by security I mean they looked at my ID and then I walked through the metal detecter that is clearly unplugged for everyone to see. I got to Midelo, São Vicente to discover that I am now serving in the second best area. Second to and only Relva.
  I am now officially settled in and am serving with Elder Vicente. A guy from Fogo who I met while I was there and he is serving here until he gets his visa to go to Brazil. He's a boss and we are going to baptize like crazy!
Love you all.
Elder Edwards

A Name Tag Lost At Sea.

This was supposed to post prior to the next one, sorry. This one was the week prior. Here's the update for our Elder.

Hello my familia. 

  Things here are..  The same. Today is the first day of the transfer and I'm staying in Relva one more with Elder Nhafé. I am excited to keep on working here in Relva. 

As far as my nametag.... Ya that was a fun day.. Its was about 3 months ago that I lost my original. We usually always do our baptisms in Cova Figueira because they have a fonte or we will go to Mosteiros becuase they have a nice calm spot to do it in the ocean with low waves and sand... To go to either of those places we have to pay with our own mission money to get a car to take everyone there. Life here is expensive.. If we baptize a lot we end up out of money. Being wise and creative as me and my companion were we decided to save money and do it our own way. We met with everyone in the afternoon and just walk straight down from our house to the ocean. The waves are large and lots of them are white on top... Sand is nowhere to be found.. Just baseball to soccer ball sized rocks..  It was decided that my companion would be the one to perform the baptism.. he's the junior comp and it's his first time doing it in the ocean.. I am in my baptismal cloths because I have to be the witness. I'm standing off to the side of my companion where it is more shallow. This spot and day was for experienced baptists only. He tries a couple times to say the prayer and dunk him in but he is having trouble timing it with the waves. He tries it about 3 times but everytime he finishes the prayer a big wave comes and they can't stay up on the slippery rocks. Finally try number four.. I give a faca to my comp and tell him that he has to say the prayer a little faster... He doesnt listen.. A huge wave comes!!! it throws my companion to the side and lifts up our baptism onto me! He is a weak swimmer... He grabs me screaming and tries to use me to stay a float! next thing I know I'm out in the ocean and I can't touch the bottom.. I see three big waves out the distance.. I was in hawaii I know what has to be done, I'm forced to take full action and dive head first through he waves. It's awesome of coarse. I love the ocean. Finally things settle back down and I make it back to shore. We do the baptism real quick and get out of the water! As I'm leaving I look down and realize that my nametag is MIA..  In the end it turned out to make for a good story... My new nametag should be here soon..

   I hope you like my story! Make sure you save this email I never actually wrote that in my journal... Love you all! 

  Elder Edwards

January 14, 2013

The New Relief Society Teacher.

Okay I thought about my week more during the week so I would have something to write about. This week after feeling like we were lacking good solid investigators we ended up having 10 show up to church on sunday and are now getting ready to fill up all the baptismal tanks on the islands! The church of elder (Igreja de élder) as they call it here truly is growing really fast! The mission average for baptisms last year was 25 a month...The mission average now is usually 125 to 140 a month! I think a lot of the difference is our new mission president. He was a CEO for some big company in America and as a child his family was all military... What that means for me is that he is running this mission as a fortune 500 company would be run with an extra drop of super shined shoes, extra ironed shirts and pressed pants as would be done in the Brasilian Army. As for my week... I have been unofficially called as the new relief society teacher... It's was a little bit of a challege as first because I showed up to church and then after 20 minutes of nothing happening in RS they handed me a copy of the teachings of Lorenzo Snow book I had never seen before in my life and told me I was called to serve! In the end though It turned out to be a good class. Yesterday at church I basically did the same thing, the only difference was I found out saturday afternoon. 

    Love ya,

 Elder Edwards.
January 28,2013

One Year Down, One To Go!

We got the wonderful opportunity to speak to Elder Edwards on Christmas. It was such a blessing. He is doing great and loving the work. His only complaint was the high price of food in the tiny market where he is living. Matt says he eats more rice and beans than he would like. If anyone was thinking of sending a package any time soon I'm sure some American food would be appreciated ;) Also, if anyone wants to send anything you can drop it by my house (Heather) and I can mail it with our packages. E.E hasn't been gone a full year yet but thinks that the Mission Pres. will send him home a transfer early so he is able to make it home for Christmas 2013 and to start school back up in January 2014. So, from here on out the posts will be labeled Year Two to reference back to. Love you Matty!

Bom Dia,

  This week I had a chance to tan and to even get a little red on the neck. The work here is starting up again. We had a lot of investigators and we baptized them and then during the holiday season we didn't find a lot of people because everybody was partying and doin' worldly things. I hope all is well and that you guys aren't freezing!!!

 

To Mission Pres,

 This week I truly saw the fruits of my labor. On Sunday, after the branch had been struggling to find worthy and willing men to fill the leadership positions I had a great opportunity to watch one of my recent converts named Ady, who may be the most converted convert I have, be called to serve as our new ward mission leader. We have also have started to teach all of Ady's family and to add to the joy of his new calling his mom, for her first time ever came to visit The Church of Jesus Christ. Ady went up to the stand and with all the sincerity of his heart bore his testimony about his love for his mother and his love for the gospel and how today he got to see them both together. I don't think that there was one person in the room who didn't have at least one tear in their eye. 
Then to add one more thing to the joy of it they called the father of our beloved family that just got baptized and married to be the 2nd councilor of the branch. With the fullness of my heart, today and I hope for all eternity, I know that Christ lives and that his gospel blesses families.

Busy Boy.

Elder Edwards has been working his butt of lately (10 baptisms this week!) so he hasn't had time to email everyone who emails him. Don't feel bad if you haven't heard from him in a while. Each week he is required to email his Mission President so Matt has decided to just copy and paste those emails for us to keep up on his work. Here is this weeks update:

Buenos tardes. I have been working on my spanish lately. I plan to speak it fluently before I make it home. I was planning on calling you guys about the same time as last year, maybe an hour earlier. This year I realized how awesome Thanksgiving is and how when you dont know what day it was until it passes its kind of a sad holiday. We didnt have our phone that day so the next day when we got it back we had recieved a bunch of Happy thanksgivings texts. Looks like everyone else knew what day it was. 

   This week is going to be CRAZY!!! This whole transfer we have been working with all of our people and planning their baptisms for the last week of the Transfer. Also our wedding, due to a poorly organized government, was delayed until tomorrow. As of right now we have 10 baptism that are all pretty solid for the end of this week. One baptism is kinda stressful trying to do everything, 2 is really stressful and exhausting, 3 is a killer. 10 is going to be a nightmare. Pray for us please... we are going to need it!

    Why do you have to get a cancer screenning? that sounds kinda scary.. It was good to hear that Katie got her letter I was hoping she was gonna like it. Thanks for saving my emails. You shouldve told me that. I wouldve been in more effort. I will email janet right now. Also I got the bank info finally i will send that back soon. 

        This week I took your challenge and I have been working to improve my morning and night time prayers. I have started praying for each investigator by name and taking each of their problems one at a time. I have really seen that the Holy Ghost will direct our prayers and also he will inlighted us about problems or doubts they have that we dont know about. This has been a valuable lesson to learn and I will definitely continue to improve on this. (to mission pres)

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

Long Overdue Updates.

See additional post below. Sorry for the infrequent updates. Elder Edwards has been so busy that emails are shorter and less frequent. He is doing great and we couldn't be more proud of him. Can't believe it's already been 9 months!!!

 "Hello meus pais. This week was another good one. I took that one day plane flight to Praia because the President wanted me to attend a specialized leadership training. It was way good and made me feel like some sort of business man flying around like that. My companion bleeds blacks! My new companion is a fellow highland high rammer and we have been representing for the SLC and getting work done! This week Elder Ensign showed up and he is in my district. He is in the city right next to mine (Cova figuera) and he seemed to be in culture shock at district meeting. He is strugglying with the language but he has a huge testimony so he´ll be fine. And the area that we´re in nobody speaks portuguese. It is crazy to hear about all the new missionaries and changes in the mission work. I´m glad that I am going to be here to help them lead all out. Its not too good to hear the utes are sucking it up. Hope all is well with you. With love, Elder Edwards Oct. 28th"