Teacher Council Meeting and Auditor Visit

In our little branch in Achada Mato, Elder Alvarez teaches Gospel Doctrine and Sister Alvarez now teaches the youth Sunday School class, where she usually has about 6 to 8 youth in attendance, ranging from 12 to 18 years old. Obviously, Sister Alvarez is now feeling a little more confident with her Portuguese, but still feels overwhelmed. The huge blessing is Come Follow Me, because, as you know, the class members should be doing most of the talking. The outlines are awesome for preparing lessons for discussion rather than simply presenting a lecture.

The Branch President asked Sister Alvarez to instruct the Teacher Council Meeting on ways to get class members to participate more.

Several auditors came from Germany to Cape Verde to audit the mission and other Church offices. We were happy to show them around. This was the second day that Robert was here visiting.

These are the ruins of the First Cathedral in Africa, in Cidade Velha, Cape Verde (construction started in 1556).

Old slave quarters in Cidade Velha, the oldest city in Cape Verde.

Robert's second day in Cape Verde, at the Cathedral ruins.

Our favorite vendor in Cidade Velha. She is from Senegal, and makes and sells local crafts. Her name is something like Mamee. When we introduced Robert to her, she hugged him, gave him a gift, and said he was her nephew. She is always so happy and cheerful.

The three in Cidade Velha.

Casais (couple missionaries), bakers, returned missionary, guard/soccer player

March 13 Elder and Sister Martineau arrived in Praia to process their visa renewal. They are assigned to the Island of Fogo and don't visit other islands, so they were excited to take advantage of the opportunity to spend a couple of days getting to know our island a little bit. This is the top of a Country Club housing development on a hill, with a nice view of the city of Praia. We love the Martineaus. They are awesome, down-to-earth, humble servants of the Lord. And they have helped us so much with the missionary apartments on Fogo.

Sister Martineau, Sister and Elder Alvarez, and the typical unflattering wind :)

Dinner at a new Italian restaurant by the beach for the couples to spend a little bit of time with Martineaus while they were here.

Celso and his wife have a small neighborhood store. A few years ago he got a small oven (only fits one cookie sheet) and started baking bread. Now they have a thriving business, and he wants to buy another oven so he can bake two sheets at a time. Their son is a missionary in our mission, but on another island. Every chance they get, they send him fresh bread :)

We invited Carnells to a restaurant in Cidade Velha as a farewell from us. They are leaving at the end of the month back to Canada. A new Humanitarian/Medical couple is coming to take their place. We have really enjoyed our friendship and association with the Carnells. We will miss them dearly.

Farewell dinner for Carnells at President and Sister Mathews' home.

Carnells and Alvarez' at the mission office. 

The new Humanitarian Services/Medical missionaries, Elder and Sister Biven from Liberty, Missouri, friends of our cousins Paul and Jodi Gale :) Welcome!

Morning scenes of Praia

This is a sweet sister missionary returning from her mission to Brazil. She is from Assomada. We picked her up at the hotel where she spent the night after the long and late flight from Brazil, and took her to the Hiace (public transportation vans that they pack as tight as they can with people, luggage, animals, and anything else you want to take with you) to send her home. She was so happy!

Soccer: One of the guards next door plays on a minor league soccer team. They won the championship and are now major league!!!!!

His name is also Carlos, but he goes by Calú. Elder Alvarez has made friends with all the guards (of course).

Sal and Calheta

Back to Sal, but this time we got our usual hotel. So grateful for a good night's sleep. :)

Lots of tourists in Santa Maria.

A group of African men playing drums. They paint their whole body with this black, black oil. It's to celebrate their Africanism. The tourists love it, until they try to get a picture with one of the men, and he puts his arm around their shoulder and their clothes end up greasy black. LOL

Lovely evening view of the beach in Santa Maria.

We love taking pictures of the missionaries when we see them on the street. This is in Calheta.

Animals have the right of way on the roads and streets.

After the crops dry up, the dry stalks and grass are collected to feed the animals. It's pretty cool, because gradually, all the dry grass and weeds and cornstalks, etc. are cleaned up and the land is ready for the next planting season.

The low valley areas of Santiago Island are the agricultural areas of the country. They are always green, even when the rest of the island is brown and dry. Thank goodness for these farms.

An awesome tunnel outside of Pedra Badejo.

Notice all the layers of mountains. It is so much more beautiful than you can tell from the photo.

Carnaval

We pretty much missed Carnaval because we were busy with an audit, but here are a few before and after pictures. For about a week before Carnaval, people will dress up in costume and go around to homes and businesses asking for Carnaval money. We were visiting our neighbor checking out her new restaurant in Cidade Velha when this fellow came in dressed in costume and pretending to be handicapped, asking for money. Everyone laughs a lot. They say that they have to give them something. This is our neighbor Juan. He also owns a restaurant close to his wife's. He is from Spain.

The hunched over fellow is the one dressed up for Carnaval. This is in the wife's restaurant. Her name is Sandra, and she is so sweet. She is a member of the Church, but unfortunately, one of the many who are no longer active.

This is Sandra's "tia" (aunt), the chef. The restaurant is in an ancient house.

Left to right: Sandra, the waitress, Sister Alvarez.

We thought this was an interesting picture we took on the road. Those are fish with their tails sticking up.

We were in Assomada for the audit (a city up in the mountains about an hour drive from Praia), and we were told that Carnaval wasn't a big deal in that city. The main parade and festivities are in Praia. But they have a big market and people come from many other communities to peddle their wares. This lady was so proud of her vegetables. I asked if I could take a picture of her, and she wanted me to make sure and get her beautiful vegetables in the picture. They really are nice veggies, especially compared to what we usually see here. We bought a kilo of carrots, a kilo of potatoes, and a kilo of that weird sweet potato on the right, that didn't really turn out very good. I guess I don't know how to prepare it right.

Here they are feeding sugar cane into this machine to extract cane juice.

Kids drinking cane juice.

We were early. Later in the afternoon this place would be packed with vendors and buyers. This fellow is selling cane juice and other drinks.

As she enjoys her sucker, she is cutting a slice of couscous for Elder Alvarez.

This is "couscous com mel", corn couscous with cane syrup. Yummy! Tastes a little bit like cornbread.

On the road back to Praia, these are some of the leftovers of the parade in one of the cities we passed through.

On our walk the next morning we found these leftover floats from the Praia parade.