Onward, Ever Onward!

So, this week involved a lot of meetings, traveling, and a bit of disappointment.

 

First off, Francsica was not baptized this week. She says that she still needs more time. So we will keep working with her and hopefully she will be baptized here in the near future!! She knows the Church is true, she just doesn't want to make the covenant yet.

 

Next! We had interviews with the new mission president!! He is super awesome! His name is Elder Mathews. He will bring something new to the mission! He is a little different than Pres. Olivera, but I feel will still be just as good! So those went well, but my comp got sick. As we were coming back from our meetings, we had to get in this big work truck and ride to a place where we could take a taxi home. (I have become good at hitchhiking on this mission ;)) He was throwing up off the back for a time. Poor comp :)

 

Then, we had a meeting on the other side of the island the next day, so we kind of lost two full days of work... During the rest of the week we re-established contact with all of our investigators and it went well, until Sunday when no one came to church. No one right now has the desire to do the things they know they should. No matter how many times you tell them they need to, no matter how many scriptures you show that say to do this or you won't have salvation, if they don't want to, they don't.

 

We are working hard, and we set up some good transfer goals as a district. I am excited to get those up and running!!

 

That's all from Africa this week fellas! :)

 

Love,

Elder Naylor

PS: Family, hey sorry, I meant to send pics, but I forgot my camera today, so I will get on that next week!

Fourth of July!

After many weeks of very slow progress in this area, this week went a little bit better! Let's just say a lot of time was used waiting around for people to show up to meetings, and not having the meeting, and planning other meetings, and waiting for those... lots of meetings.

 

Did things get better at those meetings? I hope so. Our leadership here is making progress but still could use a little help.

 

BUT!! This week, we are going to have a baptism!!! If it all works out ok. Her name is Francisca, and we have been working with her since I got to this area! She finally has accepted to be baptized! I am so happy for her! She will be a great addition to the ward. She is a philosophy teacher here and she really understands how things should be! Plus she studies well! She will be very valuable to our ward! :) 

We also did a lot of walking this week and a lot of getting rejected! I am determined to find what the Lord wants us to do. He would not put me here just to waste time. I will find it!! :) Other than that, nothing super special happened.

 

The fourth was fun! We woke up and my comp (from Australia) was soooo excited for some reason, more excited then I was! :) He said, what do you do on the fourth? And I said "parade, fireworks, BBQ, and family," but I said those things would never happen here! Then we left our house and what happens? A wedding goes by with the bride and groom on top of a car waving and a trail of cars honking. The parade! Later that day we were walking and someone shot off fireworks. And then, that night we walked passed this lady cooking chicken on a grill, BBQ! Super funny, we laughed so hard!

 

The new mission president has come in, and I get to have an interview with him tomorrow!! I'm really looking forward to that! :) Also, Elder Young and I are here together for one more transfer!! :) I really like him! He acts kinda like the polys do! He has this dream in his life to own a pirate ship and to sail around and live on a beach in a little shack ;) I love this guy! Well I wish I could make these emails more exciting, but I am out of ideas! :)

 

Love you all!

Elder Naylor

 

Winning the fight! (And hitting his ONE YEAR mark!)

We are winning this fight!!!

 

It's true though! :) It's been a battle, but the frequency (of finding people?) is going up every week, and we found a ton of great potential investigators and less actives (members), and this next week we should have a lot of good stuff happen!

 

In terms of investigators, it's still kind of slow but-- Edgar came to church yesterday! He is making great steps, he just seems to have a doubt we can't figure out yet. Francisca set her baptism date for the end of July, so she has made a great step! We have another investigator named Adilson, who has been really closed to us, but in the last week he has really showed an interest and is starting to open up!

 

Other than that, this week we have been hit so many times with issues w/ the Bible. The BIBLE!!! People worship the Bible more than God! It's so bad here!!! They are so worried about little inconsequential details that they are losing their salvation over it!!!! 

 

Not to get to worked up but, we have found out how to avoid this. Don't fight!! Whatever you do, don't fight! You lose every time!! So we share our message, and ask them to pray, and give it all to the Spirit. If they fight the Spirit, it's a lot harder than us against them. It has been working pretty well! :) 

We are also training our ward leadership how to work! I feel like I am running this ward more than the Bishop is... let's just say I am learning how to run a ward pretty well! :) The Lord might have plan for that.... hope not but!

 

This week was still as rough as ever, but I feel we have turned the corner and can now see the light!

 

Everyone, I know that God loves us, and that Christ lives and this gospel is the only true gospel in the world. If you don't believe me, pray, because the Lord will show you. I know that in our weakest moments the Lord lifts us up. He proved it this week. I had a night where I sat down in pure frustration and just prayed. I prayed so hard that the Lord would give us something. Nothing came instantly, but things are starting to happen! I love you all wish you the best!

Family, if you could send me more pictures of my friends, that would be great! Either pull them off facebook, or out of the files we already have, I would like that! I am happy and growing and am loving my mission!!!! :) See ya in 1 ;)

 

Love, Elder Naylor

Feeling for missionaries in other missions...

Hey All! I really don't have much to say this week, other than I am sorry for elders (and sisters) that don't ever teach!!!! I am now feeling your pain.

 

We had a day where we visited 17 of our investigators, and they all were not home or had some lame excuse of why we could not talk with them. We found ourselves, a few times, just asking why is this not working? What does the Lord want us to do?

 

The only positive thing about this week is that through all of this hard work, I am learning a lot about God! I have had my faith stretched to great lengths. But its growing! We are learning how to really teach with power, and my prayers have gotten a lot better.

 

The main problem is, the people here just forget, or are lazy, and won't do anything. We had one investigator who was great! He was doing everything (reading, praying) and working towards a baptism date. Sunday he didn't show up, when all week he said he would. Then when we saw him later that day. We tried talking to him, but he completely ignored us...

 

So we are hoping for a better week this week, and we have some plans that should be good!

 

Love y'all,

Elder Naylor

3 Baptism Dates!

Hey everybody! This week was really, really slow. I don't have much to say, other than in my DL meeting in Praia, we learned a ton of stuff, and a lot of it was about setting goals and following up on them. We put all these things into practice and it made our week better, and we now have a really good vision of what we want to get done in our area!

Mom, I will get to see my current mission president before he leaves. He is doing interviews this week here on Fogo. That will be nice!! He is a great man and has influenced my life. I won't be surprised if he is called to be a Seventy(priesthood leadership) some day, not even a little. I already know the new mission president. He was serving here with his wife as couple missionary companionship when I got in, and he will be just as good!! No doubt in my mind! 

We did set 3 baptism dates! Two of them are in one family and they are golden!! Usually the doubt of being baptized the right away after having been baptized in a different religion is a huge problem here. But this time when he asked about it, I just said, "The scripture that says, 'one Lord, one faith, one baptism'," means one TRUE baptism (proper authority, proper manner, proper age). He responded w/ "Oh...ok!"  When we taught about the Book of Mormon, he said, "I have heard of this book, and read it a few times, but I don't have my own." We put one in his hands. It took him a few seconds to realize that it was for him to keep, but when he did, a huge smile came across his face!! 

Sunday was a major hard day... We had all these people planning to come to church. We were going to pick them up and walk to church in the morning, and we had members ready to help too, but nothing worked... No one came. The ones we visited later had excuses like "I was lazy," or "I didn't want to (when doing completely nothing!)." I was very disappointed. We did have a great meeting with our "soon to be" bishop and we made a bunch of plans for the next two weeks so that a ton of great things are going to happen!!! 

That's all for this week. The work is slow and a little frustrating, but we are starting to see some things fall into place! Oh, and freak thing! I saw a friend from high school here this week!!! When I was coming back from my meeting, she was in the airport! Super cool! Love you all!

Elder Naylor 

Friend from High School

Ice Cream

How we do Birthdays

No Summer Vacay on the mission... :)

Well, this week was hard... To start we had a hard time with water and power.. and you know that picture I sent washing clothes in the bucket? Yeah, that was a joke, but I had to do a load like that this week... My hands were the biggest raisins ever. Also, the work was kind of kicking our butts... Basically what has happened is we have lost all of our investigators, or they all have really bad excuses, or they are less active and are happy to break the commandments so long as they go to America... It feels like there is no winning here, but my comp and I are determined to fix that this week! 

Last Saturday my comp and I gave a training at zone meeting! It was super good and I felt it was helpful! :) Also, we go to Praia this week for a DL meeting! It kind of hurts us because we don't get back to our area until Wednesday, but it will be cool and a lot of fun! 

The only real thing that happened this week is that we are working with a member who is trying to come back but is kind of lazy and drunk a lot... His name is Bruno and I have come to love this guy so much!! This week he walked up to us and he was so drunk, the flashlight he had in his hands was so cool to him, he kept staring into the light... but during this he said, "I don't have god in my life" and then we talked as best we could with him in the road and said we would pass by later. Also, a week earlier he said to me "I have never had an elder care about me so much" and it was right then when I said I would rescue this guy!! So on Sunday we were going to church and he was sitting outside of his uncle's house and he was just in shorts and a t shirt. He was making all these excuses and I even offered to switch clothes with him (he was saying he wasn't dressed right and we were in our suits) and after like 20 min of talking and excuses he said he would come to the last hour. So we trusted him and left. And he showed up!!!!! I was so happy! We are making slow little steps but I am so happy for him!! 

That's all folks!! ;) fica fixe

Elder Naylor 

Organizing Cape Verde's 3rd Stake!

Hey Everyone! This has been a good week! Kind of crazy, because all week we were inviting every possible person to the stake meeting!! We did a lot of divisions and handed out a ton of invites to this thing. Then on Saturday and Sunday, we were not able to get any of our work done in our area, but we got to be at the stake conference!! It was super cool to see all the changes and the people of Cape Verde coming together to be Zion. Elder Dykes (the visiting general authority) gave some awesome talks and our awesome mission president also blew the roof off the building! It's super sad to lose him here in 4 weeks... :( 

But we had some good things happen in our area! First, we also did divisions with the assistants and with our zone leaders, and I learned a ton of what I need to do better and I have seen and felt a difference!! :)

I have 2 stories for this week. First off, there is a kid here who has come to church for a full year straight and hasn't been baptized because his parents won't let him. So we have been wanting to talk to the mom, but she is impossible to find!!! One day we tried setting a time to sit down with her, and she would not agree to anything... but then she started talking about this family thing that they are doing in Cape Verde (not sure about details, but they are stressing the importance of family). So we got talking about families! :) Guess who has been carrying proclamations (Proclamation on the Family/April 1995) all transfer and never used one until now!! This guy! :) I gave it to her and she warmed up to us and set a time to sit down with us! So we are hoping that goes somewhere.

Second, not as cool...but we had this lady show up to stake conference who is super Adventist!! The first time we sat down with her we had a huge discussion about Saturday being the Sabbath, women prophets, what you can or can't eat, and all sorts of things! But she came to the organization of the stake and she really liked it! We are hoping that that helped clear some things in her mind!

Oh, and transfers happened ;) Elder Stone got moved to the other area of Mosteiros, and I got Elder Young! He was in Mindelo with me. He is cool, so we should have an awesome transfer! He is also Australian! :) I am with an ozzy! ;)

That's kind of all that happened this week!

Wish y'all the best!

Love,

Elder Naylor