I hate throwing up SO MUCH!!!

So have you ever been on a boat and it rocks so much you feel like your going to die!?! Yeah, BEEN THERE!!! I had to take a boat from Fogo to Praia. I threw up every 10 minutes of the four hour ride!!! Now I am sure you're asking yourself, "How did you still have food in your stomach?" Oh, I didn't!! It was all gone in the first 30 min! The rest of the time was just dry heaving... it left my body so weak!! I couldn't even hold myself up anymore. I just slumped in my seat and let the waves throw me around!! NOT FUN! Don't ever take the fast ferry!!

After I got off my worst nightmare, I crashed at the zone leaders house. I walked in the door, dropped my bag, then boom, out. They then wanted to go eat, so I thought, "Oh, your completely empty. Your body will like food!" Nope! I took one spoon full of rice and my body freaked out! It started to go numb and just be weird. Gratefully, that passed an hour later. Then I spent the night walking around with Elder Dos Santos while he said bye to recent converts (he was leaving as well). The next day they had their Christmas party. I got to see it two times! :) And president called me up to do the same musical number I did in Fogo!

Then I took a plane to Sao Nicalau! This place is sweet! First off, the airport is no more than a glorified tent! :) But the town is cool! The church here has 16 people, no leader, and 2 priesthood holders! We are the missionaries and the ward leadership here! This island was opened up one year ago and that's all! So we will work hard to make it grow! Elder Jensen is super cool! We get along great--probably better than most of my comps. It kinda stinks that he is going home in 3 weeks...I will miss him!

Excited for Christmas this week! Should be a lot of fun! :)

Love,

Elder Naylor

Leavin' on a jet plane! ...or a boat.

So I thought I was going to be transferred, and I will be going to the island of Sao Nicolao. After 8ish long months in Mosterios, I am gone! I am going to miss a lot of the members, and Paula and Guta, but they are in good hands! I will be serving with Elder Jensen. He is ending his mission here in three weeks. so there are only four elders on this island. My whole mission I have been in the areas that are super far away from other elders. I have the nickname of the exiled missionary... and the really weird part about this transfer is that iImight end my mission in this area...WHAT!! When did that happen!?!!  It should be a good one though. I am really excited to get a fresh start and end the mission strong!

Fun fact though. We actually got evacuated this last week (*Todd's mother would be very interested in hearing WHY...), so I don't have a ton to say about missionary work, other than we did have our Christmas party. (Mother, I think I finally have an idea of what it's like to spend hours in the kitchen... :/). That was super good! We were able to relax and really enjoy the spirit of Christmas. Sis. Mathews shared a part of her conversion story and talked about how the little drummer boy did not have much, but he gave to Christ the best he had. And she invited us to give our best. Many of us have very different skills and resources but Christ does not want us to bring someone else's talents, he wants ours. 

That's all I got for this week. Oh, but I did translate for the stake president here when he had a meeting with the area seventy about the volcano! So that was cool! Super excited for the Skype call! Talk to you here in a few! ;)

Love, 

Elder Naylor

Thoughts and prayers for those who have lost all--

This was a good week. We had a lot of good things happen. As always, people are still kind of on edge about this whole volcano thing. But nothing big has happened yet. The city that sits at the bottom has been completely destroyed. But no one has been hurt or injured. These people here need your prayers and your thoughts. Most of them have lost everything! 

In terms of our work, we have had some people make some progress. One is Anna and she really likes our church. She is just hard to teach because she switches the topic so much and will talk a lot. We also found a sweet new investigator, her name is Paula and she is super smart! In our second lesson we were talking about the plan of salvation. We finished talking about our pre earthlife, and she asked "So why don't we remember any of that?" No one has ever asked me that in my mission!! :) It made me super happy to have to explain that! :) 

She should be sweet for the future. The sad thing is that this will be my last week here. I was told last time I would leave and transfers are this Sunday. I will miss a lot of the people here, and wish I could have gotten some more people progressing or baptized, but I honestly feel that I have planted a lot of seeds. Some day someone is going to come through and have this place explode. 

Thats all for this week folks,

Love, 

Elder Naylor 

Thanksgiving!

Being Gargoyles

Ash on our home

Stuff

So to start off the week we did a lot of help with the people from the volcano, but as the week went on they needed us less and less, so we just went back to work. The most help they need is helping people down from cha das calderas, but our president said we can't go up there. Where we are is literately safe. We can see nothing here and smell nothing. 

We have Elder Olsen and Arteaga with us so we have been on divisions all week. The work has been going good! There are some people that have some potential! Will have more updates next week. Sorry! :)

DONT PANIC, AND DONT DO ANYTHING! PLEASE!

Yesterday the volcano opened up. It was not an explosion, but lava is flowing. First off, I AM SAFE. Our mission president and area seventies are aware and are very concerned about our safety. No calls to the mission or first presidency. I just want you to know. They have evacuated the city close to the volcano and have pulled the missionaries out of the next closest. Here in Mostieros we have opened up a place for these people to go. We have been working hand in hand with the Red Cross and police to take care of everything. 

It has been really cool to work on humanitarian stuff here. At the gate into the school they have police guarding it so that normal people don't come in and cause problems. But when we come up they just open right up! We are cool! :) Last night we ran around gathering clothes and blankets for the people who came in. This morning we have been giving out food and just trying to help and be ready for the worst.

Some places on Fogo have had ash fall, and some fumes, but where I am at is virtually safe! 

This next week I can see us doing a lot of stuff with this, so teaching might be a little low. But don't worry about us. We are here to help and serve but we also will stay safe.

Prayers are what these people need. Don't worry about sending any money or things, just keep these people in your heart this Thanksgiving week. Be grateful for everything you have, because people here are losing everything.

I know that God is in control and that he will take care of this. I am happy to be able to be here and help. I won't lie, I  really wanted to do humanitarian stuff on my mission, so my wishes came true! ;) 

That's all for this week.

Love,

Elder Naylor

My Week in Pictures!

To be honest this week was kinda slow. Not a ton has changed in regards to investigators progressing. Guta is still waiting for some unknown doubt... I'm not sure what to do other than to keep passing by and inviting her to do things that are right. Janin has fallen really hard and shows no interest to change... but we have a few people who could make it.

Something I keep running into here is that the people really like the elders and love to talk with us and even sometimes like what we say, but they will not do what we ask. They believe that just hearing the word of God is enough, or that Christ already paid and therefore they need to do nothing. It's really quite sad.

Elder Pauli and I are going to focus a little bit more on the ward and try to strengthen them and hopefully that is what will bring in the baptisms.

Honestly, that's all for this week, but here are a lot of pictures! :)

Hiking

Hiking again

I think my shoes need to be swapped (that is my finger BTW)

Fogo!!

Translation:Strangers can not enter. yes we went in ;)

Family night at Guta's!

Dishes

Love, 

Elder Naylor

3 New Investigators!

Transfers were last night and guess where I am??? The same place! :) That will make 9 months in this area by the end!! Good thing I like this area, right? :) I will have a new comp though! He is from California but is a Tongan!! :) It should be a lot of fun! His name is Elder Pauli.

This last week went really well! We found three people that are golden and ready to listen. One of them is actually Fransisca, from way back when! She came around and really wants to do everything and follow this church! She came to an activity, but then missed church because she was at a funeral. But she is awesome! Another person we met is Eunice. She is the mother of one of our members and she decided to come to church one day. She loved it so much she wants to talk with us and do everything there is!! Super awesome! The other is Eve. Her husband passed away 1 year ago. He was killed while working as a security guard and left Eve with 7 kids and no work. She also is looking for God in her life and wants to follow!

This really came as a blessing because lately I have felt that this area was just closed off to the Lord. They wanted nothing with him. So I had been praying that the people would change and come to God, and they are now!

Guta is dong ok. We have planned for her to be baptized this week. We will confirm that today. She is still helping her daughter with a Catholic thing and doesn't want to be baptized until this is done. The problem is that the pastor went to America and they don't know when he will be back.... so we will see!

I have been using a different cyber lately that is super slow uploading photos. Next week I will send a lot more! I promise! 

Love,
Elder Naylor