Elder Bremen Acord

                           Elder Acord and other Elders in Cape Verde cooling off with Slushees!

Hey family!!

It looks like people are starting to remember me again! I got 24 e-mails today! A few random ones from people I havent heard of in a while. I'm coming home this month and everyone wants to remind me about it... haha

This last week was good. A little bit slow because a lot of the members were in Praia for a conference. It was still a good week though, and Joao the deaf dude got baptized on Saturday. He is such a boss!! It was an awesome baptism. We did it in the ocean right by the boat dock and the waves were huge!! Like surfing status! It was pretty intense and all the members were terrified and thought that we were going to drown. Cape Verdians are extremely dramatic. Church on Sunday was good, if we had all the members that went to Praia, we would have had 35 people in church, but 7 of our strongest members were gone, so we only had 28 here. Pretty good with everyone gone. I have three more Saturdays to have baptisms before I go, and I things go like they should, we should have a baptism each week!

I gave my last planner to the Sisters to have them make it for me and it turned out pretty awesome, but in the to do list every day, they put something random for me to do and on Thursday I had to teach my companion something new, so I spent the whole entire day talking about HOCKEY! I taught him almost everything I know about hockey. I made him a list of all the teams and I told him about a bunch of awesome players and I told him about the rules and strategies and everything! It was awesome... Anyways, he now knows more about hockey than any other sport. He was almost as upset as me today when we found out that Chicago is out... I am cheering for LA and Elder Young for NY. Also that little adventure down to Hurricane sounds like it should be pretty awesome! Motorcycles wont work? That letter that you wanted to write myself dad sounds like a good idea. One of my do do's in my planner is to write myself a letter and send it home, so I will definitely do that. Beau told me not to be a block stacker...

I love you all and I cant wait to see you!!

Love,

Elder Acord

                  Elder Acord at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Cape Verde, Africa

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

Elder Bremen Acord

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

Elder Bremen Acord

Heyyy family!

9 days until Christmas!! I cannot wait to see you guys! First week with the new zone, area and comp. Varzea is a really strong ward. Definitely the strongest ward I have worked in. Almost everything works how it should. It makes our work as missionaries a LOT easier. In a lot of other areas sometimes it felt like I was just running the ward. Here, the ward handles everything, we just teach. Elder Gourgel is cool. It is different serving with an African and always speaking Portuguese, but it's sweet. We have been in a triple all week with Elder Pumbumua from Mozambique. Its been a very African filled week and its going to be a very African Christmas! haha 

Dad! You are done with hockey and lacross! What are you going to do with all of your spare time now?? hahaha I'm just kidding. Viewmont has been so lucky to have you, they will be lucky if the hockey and lacross program keeps going as smoothly as it has been these last years. Congratulations on the amazing work. 

Mom, Christmas plans for the zone, we had the Santiago Christmas party this last Tuesday, Christmas, my plans are you guys. Who do I want there? Mom, Dad, Addie, Jesse, Sage, and Emma. if anybody else really wants to, thats up to you guys :) for skype, it looks like the earlier that all of you guys can do it, the better, but we will see next Monday. My number is 2389933999 call me anytime ;) Thanks for the money, I decided that I am going to try and spend the least of it on me, and use it to bless the lives of a couple families for Christmas. We will go buy some stuff for the kids and leave it at the door and run :) I LOVE CHRISTMAS. I am going to be a Christmas maniac when I am home. I love you all soooo much! 9 days!!!!! :)

Love,

Elder Acord



 my posterity. From right to left- Me, my son Elder Montes, His son Elder Godfrey and his son Elder Cruz. I have a great grand child!

Sidi and Celestino are the ones in the middle. Sidi is the one with his little daughter in front of him.

Elder Bremen Acord

Heyyy family!

Last week was fun. Zone leaders council was on Wednesday. I wonder how much longer I will be going to zone leader councils for. President has to start training new zone leaders for the new mission president. I hope I have at least one more. I'm pretty sure that I will though. This last week we had interviews with President Oliveira. They went to everyone in the mission's house. That's 8 islands, 58 houses, 120 missionaries. Luckily, since Elder Darling and I were awesome, we probably have one of the cleanest houses in the mission. President and Sister Oliveira came in and said that we live in a Celestial house :) My interview was pretty good though, it was kind of weird though, he basically just complemented me the whole entire time saying how awesome I was and how good Elder Darling and I are doing. Which is a lot better than some of the interviews that I heard he had. Sometimes he is pretty rough haha that why it was strange to hear such nice words the whole time. IT was good though. We had our first baptism of the transfer finally and Kuka was baptized. She is sweet. She gave us a list of 72 people that we need to teach. This week we have a mom and a son that will get baptized, Conceiçao and Fabio. They are super nice :) Okay, well I love you so much Family! I hope you all have a wonderful thanksgiving! Thanks a ton for putting some money in for me. I love you guys!!! 

9 days until Christmas!! I cannot wait to see you guys! First week with the new zone, area and comp. Varzea is a really strong ward. Definitely the strongest ward I have worked in. Almost everything works how it should. It makes our work as missionaries a LOT easier. In a lot of other areas sometimes it felt like I was just running the ward. Here, the ward handles everything, we just teach. Elder Gourgel is cool. It is different serving with an African and always speaking Portuguese, but it's sweet. We have been in a triple all week with Elder Pumbumua from Mozambique. It's been a very African filled week and its going to be a very African Christmas! haha 

Christmas plans for the zone? We had the Santiago Christmas party this last Tuesday, Christmas. I decided that I am going to spend my Christmas money to bless the lives of a couple of local families for Christmas. We will go buy some stuff for the kids and leave it at the door and run :) I LOVE CHRISTMAS! I am going to be a Christmas maniac when I am home. I love you all soooo much! 9 days until I get to see you on Skype!!!!! :)

Love,

Elder Acord

P.S. The picture was last weeks baptisms in Praia.  The two zones combined had 22 that week. This week both zones had 20. Before, Praias average has been 8-10. Things are picking up! 

Elder Bremen Acord

Good Morning my wonderful family! How are all of you?

So last night we got a pretty interesting transfer call. I was texting President about how the attendance was in Sacrament this week and I told him that he better not call us because I really didn't want to leave. He texted back, "sinto muito" which basically means I'm sorry. Then he made us sit there and be super stressed for another hour! He then called and I refused to answer the phone, so Elder Darling answered it and started freaking out and making weird faces and stuff. Then he got off all mad and he said that we are both getting transfered to Praia to serve as the new zone leaders of the new zone in Praia. A new Island got opened up for the first time ever, Maio. And It is now part of our zone, which means that I'm going to be visiting Maio too! Sooo it super sucks that Im leaving Porto Novo, but at least I am staying with Elder Darling and we are going to be visiting Maio. The really hard part though is that our plane doesnt leave until tomorrow night, which means that our family night tonight is going to be super sad... Some people are going to be pretty upset. I had an absolutely amazing time here in Porto Novo. Easily my favorite area. We had another really good baptism on Saturday that was pretty sick. I have met soo many awesome people here and one day we HAVE to come back here and visit these people. It's weird to think now though that Praia could be one of my last areas. I'm excited, it should be a good experience, apparently we are going to be serving in this brand new branch that is kind of struggling, so we will see how that goes. We also have our mission leadership council on Wednesday this week. I won't be traveling nearly as much anymore. It should be a good transfer.

Okay, I love you family! Have a great week! 

Love,

Elder Acord

Elder Bremen Acord

HEY!

Good week here in Porto Novo. We spent a couple of days in Mindelo for Zone Conference. It was good, I feel like we have meetings and councils and conferences every week! We travel so much! haha I got a letter from Dad, too, this week.  On the back you told me to save up all of my travel miles so that we can get a free trip for 7 back here to Santo Antão. 7???  Right now I am just sitting here in this Internet cafe sweating sooo much. I just told Elder Darling, that I just can't wait for the day that I am not sweating... I don't even know what that is like anymore. This morning we spent about $55 on groceries cuz they had a bunch of delicious fruit that I haven't eaten since America. PLUMS and Nectarines! 

I had a good week last week though. We had a good baptism this week named Vany. Also, I told you guys about a lesson we taught last week when we taught the Restoration and they all were crying. Well, we have been teaching them still, and on Sunday one of them got up and bore here testimony and it was incredible! Even though she hasn't even been baptized yet. Everyone in the congregation was super zoned into her and people came up to us and said that they want to come teach her with us now. haha Another thing that was super cool was that yesterday a few babies were blessed in sacrament meeting and the spirit was wayyy strong!  We taught a couple lessons afterwards to some investigators that were there and one of them said her favorite part of church was the baby blessing, cuz she said that she could see the baby when it was being blessed, and it was staring wide eyed super intensely toward the ceiling and she said that she just knew that the baby was full of the love of God at that moment. The very next lesson we taught, she said that her favorite part of church was the baby blessing because during the blessing she saw the baby and she said that there was a clear beam of light going straight down onto the baby. How nuts is that! I had my eyes closed during the blessing, so I didn't see anything, but it was a pretty awesome experience. 

When we were in Mindelo, President Oliveira took Elder Darling and I and the Assistents out to dinner for pizza :)  We talked a lot about the Second Coming and how it is going to totally happen in this generation and all that. It was a sweet conversation.. Never in my life have I met someone so humble and so dedicated to serving the Lord since his conversion. Never have I met someone that is always so full of the spirit and so full of love for the people he is serving. If President Oliveira is like this, I can't even imagine what it would be like to spend some time with an apostle, or the prophet. I almost don't believe that they could top President Oliveira! haha jk, but it's hard to believe. He will definitely be a 70 after this, and maybe even an Apostle. Anyways, it sounds like you all had a good week. Thank you for the e-mails, I love you all and miss you so much! Have a great week!!

Love,

Elder Acord

Elder Bremen Acord

Hey family!!!

It was a pretty good week this week. It flew by. All this traveling and stuff as Zone Leader is making the time seriously fly. We had an awesome zone conference in Mindelo this last week. We gave a pretty awesome training actually, on the most boring topic ever. I was pretty proud of us. The training was on how to use the tree of life, a tool we use to get references from investigators that are just about to get baptized. It's just a paper with a picture of the tree of life and we read 1Nephi 8:10-12 with them and have them share the fruit with their friends and family. It's a training that has been done a million times... but we made it awesome. I dressed up life Nephi and it was just great, the President and his wife just ate it up, they were laughing hysterically the whole time. I don't know if anyone actually really learned anything, but nobody will ever forget that training. Expecially the sisters... wow, I think they actually thought I was Nephi. I got a lot of crap for it from everyone after hahaha it was fun though. I'm definitely a lot less nervous giving trainings and talking in front of people now though. Things are going good though, the area is doing good, we didn't really handle things super smart here though and when we had those 9 baptisms, we didn't spend too much time finding new people and we spent a lot of time doing trainings and meetings with the bishop and other leaders to strengthen the ward, which is going to be awesome in the long run. The ward now has goals and plans for everything, and they didn't have anything before. We got a new bishop and we have been working super well together and things look great for the ward, our area is just a little bit slow all of the sudden cuz we haven't focused enough on finding, and we are traveling a lot. We go to Praia this Wednesday until Saturday, so we will have to do some serious finding for the days that we are actually here. This morning I did just about the stupidest thing ever... we live on the second floor of our appartment, and we were walking home with our groceries and after dragging all of our groceries through the blazing heat over a mountain to our house, we finally got to our door. My com has the keys, so I set my case of 6 liters of milk on the balcony railing... I reached to grab the bags from my comp, so he could open the door.... and ya you can guess what happened... the 6 liters of milk fell 2 stories to the bottom floor of our apartment and they all exploded. I cried. over spilt milk. Everythings is going really goood here though. I will write a letter home this week, I haven't done that in a while. Sorry... I like study every time I have free time now. I am still studing the crap out of D&C. It is sweeet! I also read Thomas S. Monsons Biography and I'm reading the Miracle of Forgiveness right now. Thats pretty much my life though. I hope all is well for all of you back at home. Everyone is starting a new year of school which totally maked everyone seem so much older all the sudden. I miss you guys a lot. Have a good week though. I love you!!!

Love,

Elder Acord

Elder Bremen Acord

I have a really busy week this week, we have 4 baptisms this weekend and we have to start getting this couple ready for a wedding in a month. They are the most awesome couple ever and they are getting married and baptized the next day. Fretson and Crizolita. I don’t remember if I have told you much about them, but when we found them, they were living in this tiny rented room with their 10 month old kid Rafael. Neither of them had a job. We taught them for a little bit and when they accepted marriage, the next day, Crizolita found a job. Fretson still just stayed at home taking care of his kid. Still that one job wasn’t enough and this week their power was cut to their tiny room. Then, after teaching them the Word of Wisdom, Fretson decided to make a sacrifice and stop his habit of drinking coffee. Yesterday, he found a job. They are a miracle family. I am loving sooo much being able to teach them. My area is sweet. Okay, well, I love you guys soooo much and I hope that everything is going well for you guys back at home. Thank you all soooo much for everything you do. Have a great week! 

Love,

Elder Acord

Elder Acord

Baptism last Saturday

Family Home Evening

Hi Family!!! Its a good morning here in Praia! I don't know if I told you guys last week, but we have Zone Leaders Counsel tomorrow, so on Sunday we got on a boat to Mindelo, and this morning at 5:30 we got on a plane here to Praia. I feel like I have been traveling a lot lately... Its cool though. Cape Verde is sweet, in two days I have been on 3 different Islands. This last week was pretty awesome. It was a great first week of the transfer. We got ourselves super set up to have a pretty successful transfer. Elder Smith is pretty cool. He is just one transfer younger than me. He really likes video games and talks about them all the time, which is fine, cuz then I just talk about Emma and Hockey all the time. AAAAnd you guys too of course. This transfer should be super sweet though. After this last week and church,  we have 3 solid progressing families. Possibly a marriage by the end of the transfer, which would be just soooo awesome. I've been here a year now and I feel like I kind of get how the work goes now, and what it takes to get people to baptism. This transfer already I have made a lot of changes in just some aspects of the way that I work. I made some plans last transfer that I wanted to start doing this transfer and now that I'm training Elder Smith as zone leader, its the perfect time to apply some changes in our ward here. We are doing a lot of divisions with members which allows us to teach a lot more lessons every day. We are going to start having weekly trainings for the ward missionaries and we are heavily involving the ward in almost everything that we do. Yesterday for church instead of what missionaries usually do here, which is pass by all the investigators and remind them of church and walk with them there, We had about 10 different members designated to different people and making sure they get to church. We had a SUPER high attendance in church yesterday, it was awesome. This week while we are gone we have people teaching our next couple baptisms. Also, because of the new focus of the mission, we are working a lot more with the inactives and its been sweet having all this new work with the ward. In some ward here in Cape Verde, things are good and well organized. I don't think that any of this kind of work between the ward and missionaries has happened much in Santo Antao and its already paying off a lot. Dad, you asked me if I was able to watch any of that church wide training thing. Not yet, maybe tomorrow during zone leaders counsel. 

Love,

Elder Acord

Elder Bremen Acord

Dear Family,

Wow, a lot of questions this week. My comp doesn't ever get e-mails from home, so I try not to spent too much time on Internet. I will answer all of your questions though. Mom:

1. My Schedule every day isn't a ton different, we wake up and get ready for the day, for me, getting ready includes taking a nice cold shower (which feels amazing in this blazing hot area) then, I usually eat breakfast and write in my journal. Starting at my year mark I'm going to start throwing in some excersises... haha then we start Personal Study at 8, comp study at 9 during which people in our zone call us a lot and ask us questions on random stuff... and we plan for the day and the zone. then language study at 10, I usually just read something in Portuguese, or right now I am learning Spanish and I'm trying to read the Book of Mormon in Spanish. Then at 11 we go out and teach, we usually get to teach 2 lessons before 1 when we have lunch, then we leave at three and teach until 9:30. Then we get home, plan for the next day, call the district leaders, see how the day was for everyone, and how the baptisms are for the next week, then eat something and go to bed.

2. We have the newest, smallest zone right now. 2 districts of 8 missionarys... The zone just covers the 4 areas. 2 were in Porto Novo, 1 in Ribeira Grande and 1 in Ponta do Sol

3. The coolest place I have visited so far on my mission was Serra Maligueta in Assomada. I'm looking forward to go visit Ribeira Grande here though, its a jungle...

4. Each day as a missionary... a couple things, I'm always starving by lunch time and exhausted by night time. haha but other than that, there is usually at least 1 lesson a day that I'm stoked to teach, either with a family or a sweet progressing investigator. In a week, definitely Saturday baptisms and this moment right now. :)

5. My least favorite thing... that is a very vague question.... I don't like all the permenantly drunk people and all the broken families. Sometimes I get bored with the same old routine every day... being a zone leader mixes things up a lot though and the time is flying by right now! I'm half way done with this transfer!

6. What have I learned about myself recently that I didn't really know?? I have learned that I think the leadership skills that I have are best with one on one problems, or dupla problems. I'm working on gaining more self confidence on bigger scale things like zone trainings and stuff...

7. The gospel gives me the brightest hope for a happy future.

8. I"m getting more self confidence on bigger scale things. I gave a pretty cool training at zone meeting last Saturday...

9..... there you go. Advice?

Yaaaaa birthday package!!! okay I will look hard for those. Addie seems like she is going to have a pretty awesome eventful week haha those are some pretty sweet pranks :) Tell her to write me...

Jesse, thank you for your little message! I miss you so much! It sounds like everything is going nicely in your life :) love you.

This last week was good, Zone leaders council was sweet and we had a good baptism on Saturday. I'm happy :) I keep trying to upload photos, but the attachment keeps failing... sorry. Ill keep trying. I love and miss you all sooooo much! have a good week!

Love,

Elder Acord

Elder Bremen Acord

BREMEN has been doing remarkably well. He is keeping himself very busy and seems to have really hit his stride this last transfer. Bremen transferred to a new island called Sao Vicente about 6 weeks ago and spent his first week with a companion that he absolutely loved. They worked like crazy and you could tell that he was really coming into his own. After the first week his Mission President told him that he would be transferring across the city of Mindelo and would be getting a new companion…one who has pretty much checked out of the mission and was planning on doing absolutely nothing for the last year of his mission except argue with his companion. To make things even more challenging, even though his companion had been out twice as long as Bremen, Bremen was going to be the Sr. Companion and he was also supposed to walk his new companion through the 6-week training program that they give to new missionaries who just arrive in the field. In Bremen’s words “he hated me before I even got there.” Seriously, who could hate Bremen for very long?

Bremen worked extra hard with the locals and his companion. Last week’s 2-paragraph e-mail, included this paragraph:

“This week was really good. We had an awesome zone conference with Presidente. We had a lot of awesome lessons and we are working with some sweet investigators. This week Aderito will be baptized. He is 36 and he is awesome! He is definitely going to be a strong leader in the church pretty soon. so ya, that's pretty much whats happening to me right now. Good week. I love you all so much! have a good week I will talk to you in 2 weeks!”

He is just so busy that he doesn’t have much time to even write on P-days other than to say that everything is awesome and send a picture or two (attached is my favorite…ever). He and his companion are getting along very well. In fact, we received the following postcard from his companion last week:

And to think that 6 weeks ago he couldn’t stand Bremen or his situation.

One final very interesting point. When Bremen got this new assignment with Elder Pugmire he was also asked to start a new branch in the city (Branch 5). The first few weeks the branch only had about 40 people a week attending Sunday meetings… then Bremen and his companion got to work. They would leave for church an hour or so early and would walk through the city collecting members who haven’t made it out to church in a while. Soon attendance on Sunday started to climb higher and higher. Now, just a few weeks later, the branch has over 90 members regularly attending Sacrament meetings.

Also, 53 weeks ago (before we had even heard of the country of Cape Verde) the country organized its first LDS Stake. Last Sunday, Bremen was able to participate as the church organized it’s second Stake in the city where he is currently serving. The tiny 5^th Branch that Bremen started became a Ward in the 2^nd Stake of Cape Verde. Bremen and Elder Pugmire were the only missionaries that ever served in that branch as they opened it, grew it, and it turned into a Ward all within about a month. There is a great video about the first stake that the church produced about a year ago. It can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xF-rySmUGo

Bremen’s e-mail from 5/13 –

Yesterday was soooo awesome!!! I miss you guys so much!!! it was soo good to see all of you and you all look reeaaally good! Its gunna be a long 7 months before that happens again... but umm I  already told you pretty much everything that’s going on in my life. Last night I did get a call from Presidente Oliveira. I am getting on a boat this afternoon and going to Santo Antão serving in Porto Novo! I will be serving as zone leader with Elder Haili. He is from Ethiopia and he is super funny! I am so excited! I will let you know on the details of that area next week. I hope you all realized how much I love you and miss you yesterday. Thank you all so much for being such amazing family to me. You are all such great examples to me and make me want to work harder every day. I love you all like crazy. Have a good week!

Love,

Elder Acord

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Bremen also sent an e-mail to a few friends and family members who are all considering missions. Here is his advice:

Soo... I am here on my 10th month in Cape Verde. Without a doubt the most life changing months of my life up to now. I don’t know exactly who is going to be reading this, but I want whoever it may be to know that everything that I am going to say is 100% sincere and I really mean every word. I know there are a few of you back at home that are at that stage deciding on a mission or not, coming up on some pretty big decisions... I can think of a few of you, Keaton, Mason, Dakota, Nate. I have known you all for a really long time, and you have all known me for a really long time. I want you all to know that I love the crap out of you guys and I really, really want the best for all of you, soooo, with that said, this is what I think will be the best for you. Go on a freaking mission! Stop thinking about it, you are just going to convince yourself not to go.

Maybe you are all already planning on, but stop doubting and just do it. I can promise you that it will be THE best thing you could possibly do at this time. I can say that I know my life is going to be awesome in the future, I have soooo much hope for what is ahead, and its because of what I have learned out here. Before coming, I was maybe a little bit like you in the whole since that going on a mission sounded like it would really suck and I didn’t want to go at all... Yes, the truth comes out. ha I am so so so so so grateful that I just did. Yes, there are sooo many things back at home that I miss like crazy! Family, Emma, Hockey, cheeseburgers... k but all of those things will be there for me when I get back.

You seriously have absolutely nothing to lose by going on a mission, and only the whole world to gain. I absolutely LOVE my mission. Its the hardest thing I have ever done. I know without even a shade of doubt that the gospel that I am teaching every day is 100% true. Did I know before my mission? frick no! does it matter if you know before? No! maybe a little bit, but I’m proof that it doesn’t! haha I am soo freaking glad that I came out here and got my testimony. I want nothing more for all of you. I love you guys like crazy. I hope this little message helps. I hope you know that I am sincere. If any of you need anything, please write me:

Elder Bremen Acord

C.P. 420

Praia, Santiago

Cabo Verde

West Africa

I would be more than happy to help with anything, doubts, questions anything. love you guys.

Elder Bremen Acord

Bremen is currently serving in an area called Monte Sossego in the city of Mindelo on the island of Sao Vicente in the country of Cape Verde that is 350 miles off the western coast of Senegal, West Africa. If you are like me, the first word you probably recognized in that sentence is “Africa”…maybe “Senegal”. He has been in his new area about four weeks now. Following is a quote from one of his last e-mails.

Dear family,

How is everyone doing???? Things are going pretty good here. I am now in an area called Monte Sossego. It isn´t very big, but it’s pretty sweet. We opened up a new branch, branch 5 here in Mindelo. Things are looking pretty good, we  have a good branch president and good leadership. Right now there are only about 40-50 people going to church though. It will definitely start growing here pretty soon. I am working with a new comp, Elder Pugmire. Things were a little bit better this week, and we are working hard, so that’s what matters anyways. The language and the culture and the climate are all very different here than on Santiago. No joke, every Island is a completely different mission. The Creole language here is A LOT different, but I’m used to it now. A lot more people here actually speak Portuguese though. Unlike Santiago, I have met very few people here that can’t understand Portuguese. The people here are also very different, everyone is much lighter in color. There is a lot more education here and people are always out doing stuff, like soccer or volleyball or handball or dancing... Mindelo is one of the more recently established cities, so it’s actually pretty nice. I can get almost anything food wise, except for real milk and good meat... I can’t even tell you guys how much I miss really good milk... That is probably the number one food or drink that I miss. The milk here is just nasty... We get to play basketball here on p-days so that is a lot of fun actually. Better than soccer! So ya, things here are pretty good, the next place I want to go is Santo Antao. It is sooooo pretty and green and has waterfalls and stuff. Its sweet. I hope everything is all going good back at home. I love you all soooo much! have a good week!

Elder Acord

For those of you who are like some of the rest of us and know nothing about Cape Verde but would like to know more, please use the links below to learn more!  The Church's video is so touching and soooo great!  If you have no time for anything else, make sure you make time to watch it!!!   It is amazing!!!

Church Facts and Statistics about Cape Verde

Church News about 1^st Stake in Cape Verde,

Great Church Video - Cabo Verde: Land of Light