Off to the Northern Islands

For some time now we have needed to go to the northern islands to install the CO alarms in the apartments and to bring the water filters they will need to last them until March. But the trip turned into much more than that. We arrived late on Thursday night. President had asked us to teach/train at the Mindelo Zone Conference on Friday. I spoke for 30 minutes and Robert for an hour. Then he asked Robert to speak for him at the Saturday evening session of their Stake Conference and to speak at the Sunday morning session as well. He did great at both. They asked me to bear my testimony at the Sunday one - with zero notice - but I did okay. It was fun to be there as this was the first Stake Conference they have had sense they were organized. And it proved to be historic as they called their first Patriarch.

This is the new patriarch and this young woman had just returned from her mission in Brazil the night before. We met her in the airport.

The children here love to have their picture taken so they gathered around in a hurry and begged me to take this. Aren't they cute.

That is a lot to do in 3 days as there are 10 apartments in Mindelo and they are scattered everywhere. And of course some needed repairs which we managed to do in our spare time. HA.

That is two missionaries walking down the road near their apartment. I would have never found it.
The only reason we had any success is because of the taxi driver the missionaries recommended. His name is George and he knew where every apartment was. They jokingly call him the other Zone Leader. He took us to each apartment, waited patiently for us to finish in each and then drove us to the next one. He even knew where the closest hardware stores were.
Here are a few picture of Mindelo.

On Monday we woke up early to catch the ferry to Santa Antao - an island we had never been too. The ferry ride was so fun as this ferry is an open air one and the view of the ocean and the two islands was beautiful

But the real beauty was yet to be seen. We rented a car and drove around the edge of the island to two apartments in two very remote towns, Ponto de Sol and Coculi. Did I say edge. Yes. But first we had to go through the mountain to get to the edge.

                                 

Then on the way back instead of driving along the coast we drove across the island back to  Porto Novo where we had started. The center of the island was amazing. We felt like we were in Colorado. Cool air, green mountains and PINE TREES. That is a sight you do not see anywhere else in Cape Verde. And did I mention we went over, around and on the edge of the mountains?

The next day Robert did some training at their zone conference and we had lunch with the 8 missionaries that make up this tiny zone. It was great. The next day we headed back by ferry to Mindelo. We took two missionaries back with us because of some health issue. The one on the left is serving here from Mozambique.

Once back, we did some more repairs on apartments, the purchasing of a new stove and other things they needed. Then with nothing else to do, and no hotel to go to, we just wondered around Mindelo looking at the sites - and finding an ice cream shop. We finally ended up sitting in the praça where we picked up the free internet to check our email and were able to facetime with Danielle. Randomly she was making 'purple-licious" cupcakes and we were able to see the purple dough on Ava and Ella's faces. I love technology! By late afternoon we were more than ready for George to pick us up and take us to the airport. That night we flew into Praia. It is always good to be home. That would be the big island at the bottom of the group. I loved this globe in Mindelo. I think they think these islands are a bit bigger than they really are.