Dear Family,
Thank you so much for your e-mails this week. Im sorry if my letters these last few weeks have been a little bit short and not as outgoing. Everything is fine, I have just been extremely busy and being a zone leader here in Praia and having a companion that doesn't know how to work the computer I spend a lot of my e-mail time making reports for the mission and for the stake and doing other fancy stuff on the computer. Just want you guys to know that I am happy and healthy and that everything is good here. I am just sooo skinny! I have lost sooo much weight! If you guys could maybe find me some nice little simple diet/work-out plan that I can start doing for these next six months so that I can come home with at least a little bit of muscle on my body, that would be great. :)
So I am currently serving as zone leader in the Praia West Zone. Praia West zone is like the center of the mission here in Cape Verde. It is the zone of the three strongest wards here in Cape Verde and it is a zone that includes two islands. My Island, Santiago, and the newly opened island, Maio. Which I will be visiting in February probably. there are 20 missionaries in my zone and 3 districts. Because I am a zone leader here in Praia, we meet regularly with the stake president and other leaders relating goals and plans. Two weeks ago I attended a mission leadership council where we made baptism goals and rescue goals for the next 6 months when President Oliveira is released, and when I go home. It was super wierd making goals and plans for the rest of my mission. My companion and I did a lot of study and prayer and came up with the goals of 250 baptism and 120 rescues by the end of June. The rescue goal is a new goal that our mission now has and rescue basically just means to bring a less active back to church, teach him the lessons again, and help him get worthy to get a calling. Once he recieves a calling, he is considered rescued. Since this is the most succesful zone in the mission, our goals were the highest in the mission.
This is the last week of transfer 12. I have been serving with Elder Gourgel now for 5 weeks. He is angolan but lived in Portugal forever. He is way cool and super funny and we have had a pretty awesome transfer. We are currently serving in Várzea ward 3 which is a super awesome ward. Most of the other wards here in Praia have two or three companionships working in the ward. Our ward just has Elder Gourgel and I and when we asked President Oliveira to put another one in he said that he cant because it is literally growing way too fast as it is right now and another companionship would just be too much.
This transfer I have had some very memorable baptisms with some absolutely amazing people. One was with Bemvinda who is 83 years old but absolutely hilarious and she wakes up early and walkes 30 minutes to church every sunday. She says she will go to church until the day she drops dead. Which sadly will be here in a couple of months. The funny/sad part is that she lives up on a hill that looks out right over the Praia Cemetary and she is always making jokes about how she is just waiting to go die in the cemetary. She sees about 3 funerals a day...
We had two more amazing baptisms this last saturday with two brothers. Sidi and Celestino. Sidi is a teacher and is super smart and he already has a calling as the secretary in the Elders Quorum and His brother Celestino is just one of the nicest guys I have ever met. He works for Coka Cola and when he found out that I love Coke, he got me a sweet coke towel and a calender :)
Everything is going pretty good here, Im just staying suuuper busy and time is flying by. I absolutely just love my mission. Easily the best mission in the world. I have learned some of the most amazing things here that I will carry with me for the rest of my life. Its amazing to be a part of so many miracles and to be able to literally see God's blessing being poured down onto the faithful people here in Cape Verde.
I love you all sooo much! Thank you for all of your love and support, you guys are amazing :) have an amazing week!
Love,
Elder Acord
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