Trip to Mindelo and Santo Antão, Wedding, and New Baby

The island of São Vicente is about an hour flight from Praia. 93% of the people who live on this island live in the city of Mindelo. This is a beautiful Mindelo sunset.

A fairly new bishop and his lovely family. We have a cool story about them, which we will post later.



Elder Alvarez presenting training to stake audit committee and auditors.



Sister Alvarez participating in the training.

Mindelo very much depends on tourism. They have deep sea fishing, sailing, diving, etc.



Mindelo Stake clerk and Stake President.



The ladies who sell fish at the market are here waiting their turn to buy fresh fish from the fishermen who just got in.

The fish market in Mindelo.

Sister Alvarez had to wait half a block away while Elder Alvarez went to take pictures, because the smell was so strong. :(

Ferry from Mindelo to the nearby island of Santo Antão.

It's about an hour boat ride. The ferry arrives at the port of Porto Novo, where we spent the night. After checking in to the hotel, we took a taxi ride to the other side of the island to do some training in Ribeira Grande.






On the island of Santo Antão, on the road to Ribeira Grande, we passed these small buildings which are used to process goat cheese, a very popular product from this island. You might be able to spot the goats nearby.

On the seaside road from Porto Novo to Ribeira Grande

This is the only airport/airstrip on the island. There used to be a small government plane that would fly here, but one time several years ago, the winds were too strong and it could not land, so it tried to make it back to the nearest island, but the pilot didn't think he had enough fuel to fly around the island and decided to fly over the mountains, a more direct route, but it was foggy, and the plane crashed into the mountain. The plane was never replaced, and the airstrip has been closed ever since. Now the only way to go to the island is by boat.



                         Ribeira Grande.
Wonderful branch president and clerk in Ribeira Grande.








On our drive to Ribeira Grande we passed an area where they cut rocks out of the mountain at the side of the road. These rocks are used to cobble the roads. The oceanside road we took to Ribeira Grande was paved, but the road we took over the mountains to go back was totally, completely made of rocks--- cobblestone; not only the roads, but also the side rails were made of rocks. We can't even imagine how many man hours went into making that tortuous road through mountains that rise quickly from sea level to 5000 ft. The highest peak on this island is Topo do Coroa, which is 6500 feet above sea level.

Road from Ribeira Grande to Porto Novo, over the mountain tops

Estrada da Corda, the cobblestone road between Ribeira Grande and Porto Novo, over the mountains. This road was built by hand in the 60s.





Farming on steep mountains.







Among pine trees, high up in the mountains of Santo Antão.



This is the crater of at least one of the volcanoes that formed this island. It is very fertile. We are told that anything will grow there.

Back in Porto Novo

Looking out the window of our hotel room in Porto Novo. So beautiful!




We were so excited to visit with the lady missionaries in Porto Novo. Sister Jorgenson is from our stake back home, and Sister Kinikini is also from Utah. It was fun to deliver a Christmas package to Sister Jorgenson from her family. Notice their darling Christmas tree between Sister Jorgenson and Sister Alvarez. These two sisters are tops! They are so friendly and cheerful!

A wedding in our branch!

This is Steveen and Katia. This was the very first wedding in our branch. Steveen is our branch clerk, and Katia is our Relief Society president. We have kind of adopted them.

The wedding luncheon at the church.

The beautiful bride.



Elder Alvarez was asked at the last minute to say a few words to the bride and groom. Thank goodness for his many years of experience in the Church. 

A new baby!

João Andrade is the go-to-guy whenever we need repairs in the missionary apartments in Praia. This is his lovely family. Taish is 3 years old and just received a new baby brother into their family (Tiago). She is so excited.

This is Tiago. He is 3 days old.



Taish and Sister Alvarez just met for the first time. She came right over to sit on S. Alvarez lap and chatted and chatted with her, even though she speaks Kriolo and S. Alvarez sort of speaks Portuguese. They became fast friends. When the Alvarez' got up to leave, Taish was so sad she could hardly say good-bye. She said she wanted to go with Sister Alvarez to her house.

Thanksgiving Day

We had an awesome Thanksgiving Dinner at President and Sister Mathews' home. They had been SO busy lately with trainings, travel, transfers, and a mission tour with Elder Kearon, that we couples decided it would be nice to organize the dinner ourselves and not assign anything to Sister Mathews so she could get some much needed rest. Of course, she didn't rest. She simply spent her time doing other things because she is way behind on getting ready for Christmas for the missionaries.

The food was excellent, with all the trimmings, and the turkey turned out ok in spite of the fact that the Alvarez' ran out of gas half way through the baking process and had to run the turkey over to the Mathews' oven to finish baking. We even had yams and stuffing, and rolls. Amazing! Especially when you consider that it's really hard to find some ingredients and spices here.

While the women washed dishes, the men finished decorating the Christmas tree. Great job, by the way!

President and Sister Mathews.

Branch Activity, Floating Bookstore, Special Visitor, Dressed in White, Home Town Folks

BRANCH ACTIVITY. Our first big branch activity was on Tuesday, November 1, the Day of the Dead in Catholic country (Memorial Day back home). The activity started with a couple of hours of visiting the less active and non-members and inviting them to the activity. Then there was a spiritual portion, with a hymn and prayer and a talk by the branch president. 

  
The Young Women and Young Men sang a beautiful song. We love to hear the people here sing. They sing with all their heart, and they have good pitch and lovely voices. They love to sing! They know the hymns by heart and even without a piano or a pitch, most start the hymns on basically the same note. :) The Primary children also sang, but we had to leave to go get the food, so we didn't see them.

Hauling in the food. We fed about 100 people, double the amount of our Sunday attendance. We had yummy chicken legs, white rice with veggies, and mashed potatoes (Sister Alvarez' favorite), with ice cream for dessert. Yummm! The Alvarez went to fetch the food while they finished up the spiritual meeting and watched a church video.

Lovely and loving Primary girls!

Baby Cristiana. Sister Alvarez played babysitter during the activity. This baby sleeps through anything and everything!

Cleanup crew! This is Yasmin, Cristina's daughter, that turned eight not long ago. She is being prepared for baptism.

FLOATING BOOKSTORE. This was a Senior Missionary FHE. It is the largest floating bookstore in the world! This boat is called the Logos Hope. The whole crew, including engineers, etc., are Christian volunteers. They sell books at a low price. A portion of the books are self-help and Christian, but they have all kinds of books. We think they are sponsored by the Baptist Church. 

On the ship, in the bookstore.

Andersons, Lunts, Carnells, Alvarez.

Ice cream for treats after the FHE outing. Enjoying each others' company. Blessed to be joined by Mathews.

CHURCH CALLING. Elder Alvarez preparing to teach Gospel Doctrine.

HOUSING TRAVELS. We went to the town of Pedra Badejo to deliver a new washing machine to Elders Estigarribia (Brazil) and Malula (Congo via Utah).

ZONE CONFERENCE. We had the largest Zone Conference that anyone can remember in Praia. We had all of the missionaries from the Island of Santiago (where Praia is), plus the missionaries from the islands of Sal and Boa Vista. This was because Elder Patrick Kearon, of the Seventy (and our Area President), was doing the mission tour. It was awesome! Elder Kearon gave wonderful, inspired counsel to the missionaries. This picture was before a lot of the missionaries arrived. We had about 90 missionaries there.

We were well fed, both spiritually and physically.

For the evening meal, the senior missionaries were invited to the Mathews' condo to visit with Elder Kearon. He is such an English gentleman, a very humble and loving servant of God. You may remember his last General Conference address about the refugees in Europe.

DRESSED IN WHITE. Elder Alvarez' first baptism as a senior missionary. This is Jessica. She and her sister Melina bring fruit to our place three times a week. Jessica just graduated from high school and is waiting for the construction of her next school to be completed so she can continue studying. As she started coming with her sister after graduating from high school, Elder Alvarez started talking to her about the church, and eventually she chose to listen to the missionaries. It was such a privilege for Elder Alvarez to baptize her yesterday. She is a pure soul.

This is Melina and her family with her sister Jessica and the missionaries who taught her: Elders Cosmo and Hingano.

This is Jessica and Melina one of the times they came by to sell us fruit. They have the most beautiful posture we have ever seen, typical of the women here. Maybe we should start carrying big tubs of fruit on our heads back home to improve our posture :)  

HOME TOWN FOLKS!! This is Elder Gricius, from HIGHLAND, UTAH!!!!

And this is Sister Jorgensen, a new missionary from HIGHLAND, UTAH!!!! Highland is well represented here!