Elder Bremen Acord

 Monday, January 20, 2014 9:48 AM

Hey Family,

So last night I got into my house, we started doing our planning, and getting ready for this week. I was so confident that I wasn't going to get transfered that I wasn't even thinking about transfers. President Oliveira can't make up his mind though and now I am back in Lem Ferreira where I was serving last transfer... haha but now I am serving with Elder Gooch and training him to be a zone leader. I am suuuper excited! Elder Gooch is sweet and it has been our dream to serve together. This transfer is going to be awesome.

This last week was good though. Elder Gourgel and I worked like crazy and made some goals for the area and totally set up this next transfer. I always feel good leaving an area strong for the next person to get there. Varzea is going to have a killer transfer. Elder Darling and Elder Smith were serving in Lem Ferreira before. Now Elder Darling is not a zone leader and he is up in Boa Vista, and Elder Smith is the zone leader in Sal. pretty cool. I think I am going to die here in Praia. Just four more transfers, I see it. 

Thank you so much for the money, I will use it frugaly. I am going to get myself healthy to come home :) Thanks. Also dad, that article thing about the violin was actually super interesting. Whas this Strativarius guy like a complete genious or something? cooked up bugs and stuff... thats weird. Also... yes. I have been kind of bad at writting in my journal. I will try to make it more interesting and write more. Also HAPPY ANIVERSARY! nhôs é bedjo! That picture you sent me mom makes you both look super young. Congrats :) Anyways, I think that is it for the week. Thank you mom and dad for everything. I love you sooooo much! I owe so much to you guys and I will show you when I get home. Have a good week!

Love,

Elder Acord

Monday, January 27th

Goood Afternoon!

So I will start will some interesting news. Mom, you asked me what I am going to do for the couple weeks that President Oliveira is gone. You also said that we are going to post pone the Bear Lake games until the 24th so I can be there. Welll.... President Oliveira shortened my whole MTC district's mission so that we can go home with him. He doesn't want the new mission president to have to worry about us for his first two weeks here. So my new release date is June 27th. It was the first feeling I have had about the reality of me actually going home. It was weird. I automatically started to miss Cape Verde. I absolutely love this place. Dad, you wrote me that little paragraph about the small things that happen all around me that I am now so used to that used to freak me out. Then I looked up and saw that I was in this crapy internet café with everyone yelling in crioulo around me. I looked out the window and saw the lady across the street selling bananas. I saw a hiace drive by and scream at some people asking them to get in and go to Assomada with him. So many weird things that I am now so accustomed to. Yesterday one of my investigators got in a car accident and died. Her name is Samira. She is suuuuper nice. All of Lem Ferreira was screaming and crying and moaning all day and all night. It was pretty sad. Dad, if you want to see where I am and where I live, try doing what you did in Assomada and send me a screen shot of Lem Ferreira and I will tell you where I am at. 

The mission has changed a little bit, but not a lot. All the missionaries are all still suuupper young. Some of the Elders that were being trained are now training. I am still in the same appartment as last time. The one I was robbed in. :) Its a nice appartment though.

This week was a hard week of work. I just got in this area completely dead. Pretty much nothing to work with. I wrote Pres and told him to make up his mind because I was just here and he just told me that he needed me back because the zone is dying again. It totally is. There is a lot of work to do here. I'm pretty excited though. Elder Gooch is awesome. It is hard to compare with Elder Darling because he is just the nicest person in the world. But Elder Gooch is pretty much exactly like me. We have very similar personalities and this last week has been one of the most fun on my mission because of that. He is going to be a great zone leader. Probably an assistant. I am excited for this transfer and I hope we get at least one more together.

Tell Sage congrats on her 4.0. That is very impressive. She is kind of amazing. It is going to be super weird to see Jesse that tall. And I'm not going to lie, I looked up Addies videos on Youtube and wow. Her voice is a lot more mature now. She sounds pretty good. The video itself is just kind of weird. Like the camera angles and stuff. Tell Kyle to wait just a little bit longer to get married. I would LOVE to be there for that.  

Anyways... I cant really think of any stories. Things are good though. It's just weird that I am now down to five months left. The rest of my mission is going to be pretty awesome. Thanks for the e-mails your guys. I love you and miss you so much! Have a good week!

Love,

Elder Acord

Monday, February 03, 2014 9:50 AM

Whats up team?!

How was everyones week? Mom, you say it's hard for you to write me and not say stuff about me going home. It's the same for me. It's not like I am always super trunky and thinking about home, but when I get on e-mail to write me family. I could say that I become a little bit more trunky and I think about home a little bit more. haha thats okay though. Its just for an hour. 

Dad, that story is super depressing! This 2 years has seemed like an eternity for me and I have been having a blast here. I can't imagine 5 years locked up like that. That must have been super inspiring to the team though. That's sweet that they had another undefeated season. Is this the year that they are going to take it??? That has to happen soon. I heard the super bowl sucked. How are things looking for the Stanley Cup? 

This last week was pretty good, but pretty stressful at the same time. The zone is just completely dead right now. It's sad because just like 2 months ago this zone was absolutely on fire and not even that much has changed here. It will get better though. This last week we visited a couple of the new missionaries houses to do studys with them and it went super well. We also had our zone leaders council on Thursday which was awesome. It was a pretty good one. President talked about how right now we are on the 3rd generation of this mission since he has been here. And he explained how in the Book of Mormon, the people start to fall in the 3rd and 4th generations because the ones before didn't teach them right. It's super true too, when I first got here, there were about 50 missionaries and the mission was baptizing about 30 a week. Now there are 130 missionaries and we are baptizing 40 a week. A lot of the new missionaries don't understand what kind of mission this is. Most missionaries are pretty happy getting 1 or 2 baptisms in a transfer. We are going to break that mind set. My zone is pretty new, we had a good meeting with the district leaders and then we had a zone meeting and It was super awesome! I gave a training on most of Mathew 4. Talking about why his apostles ditched their work imediately to follow Christ when he invited them. I think its Mat 4:16 I don't have my bible on me, but it talks about how Christ entered in the land and the people saw a great light and how the people were in darkness and despair but they saw the light. My training was basically that. How we as missionaries can have that kind of an influence in the areas where we are serving. And how people can see us as that great light and they can feel inspired to follow us when we invite them to. I talked about what Christ did to prepare to have that kind of a light with him and how he first studied and prepared for 30 years. Then he got baptized, then he fasted and prayed for 40 days, and then he was ready for his ministry. It was a pretty good training. I'm kind of getting good at trainings and meetings and stuff. Zone Conference is tomorrow and that will be fun. Also we have an amazing family getting baptized this week. The dad is totally going to be the next bishop in this ward. He is sooooo smart and he was the pastor of another church before. Him, his wife and two of his kids are getting baptized. It will be awesome! Patrik, Betty and their kids Patricia and Yuani. 

Anyways, Family, I love you all soooo much and I miss you sooooo much! Have an amazing week!

Love,

Elder Acord