We Are Coming Home Today!!

Well, we are coming home today...well at least it is today for us, but right now it is tomorrow for you. We will be home in just over 12 hours!

Our plane lands at the Salt Lake Airport at 10:15am. Feel free to come visit us at the airport, but if you can't make it, we will definitely have a gathering and invite you all over.

We love you and miss you and are so excited to see all of you again.

Our Last Weekend in Cabo Verde

Hello--we got our internet restored Monday night--a technician ACTUALLY CAME to help us!  So now you can all write your last email to us!

We are very excited to see you in less than a week!  We are able to finish things up here and still have time for memory-making friendships and activities.

 

The Young Adults have been on Santo Antao island the past four days (Mon-Thurs) painting a school, so we have not had Outreach activities, but tomorrow we will have the quarterly birthday party for those born Jan-Mar.  They want me to make brownies, their favorite treat, and to play the keyboard while one of the young men plays his guitar and wooden flute--we have been practicing and are pretty good sounding together.  He plays guitar very well and sings the traditional CaboVerdian music called "Morna"--it is beautiful, nostalgic, real soul music--he made me a CD of it with professional artists.

 

Our visitor from Germany (really from England but works for the Church in Germany where he and his family have moved)--it was pure delight to meet with him!  And not just because he speaks British English-- we received from him lots of good ideas to leave with the people here.  He was only here for two days, but it was fun.  Our other visitors are from Salt Lake, and have Church business interests in these islands.  They are good friends who have come before, and are here for a week in our city.  Tonight we will all go out to dinner and have a good talk.  You wonder if we really have time to be social with all the work left to do, but actually things are going so smoothly that we do have chunks of time to spend enjoying our friends.

 

The water project for our city has been put on hold until the new couple arrives (who or when is still the question--we are only assured that there will be one).  The government did their part just fine, but the other company we are working with for the project is not ready for contracts yet, so we just have to leave it for a while.  'Tis sad.  

The cement playing field at the school has been poured and looks very nice, great work--we are happy about it.  The prison leaders are giving us an official send-off party on Saturday after our gospel class.  We will surely miss the men and women there that we have become friends with--guards and prisoners alike.  It is a minimum security prison, not like a penitentiary.  We have always felt safe there, and it has been true joy to serve them and see the light of hope come to their eyes when they feel our caring and love and the light of the gospel.  The head doctor at Red Cross is a young man, very sharp, and a good friend to us--we are invited to lunch with him today for his birthday.  The missionaries in both districts here gave us a party on Monday, their P-Day, at our house.  It was supposed to be a potluck lunch, but nobody had time to cook that morning since they had to do all the other P-Day activities first, so everyone brought a treat--cookies, cake, brownies, pop--we watched the movie "Mountain of the Lord".  We attended the weekly district missionary meeting on Wed., it was called our "funeral" which means the last meeting with the group.  We bore our testimonies and we each gave a little talk, then had lunch--all treats again!!  It's just funny, and they are all dear to us, so we have fun with them no matter what.

 

Tomorrow we pack, and give away to the missionaries any food that will not keep for months.  We also want to visit the beach once more and listen to the soothing sound of the waves--we will miss that. 

 

We will see you Wednesday!

 

Love, Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa, Elder and Sister