To all who Donate, thanks for the miracles

We have received many clothing donations in the last month, as I have already blogged. I can't tell you how many hours have been spent organizing the clothes, repacking them, and sending them out to the many islands. They have been greatly appreciated, and we pray they don't stop coming.

Some of the clothing that has been sent has been kept back specifically for the out going missionaries. We anticipate we will have sent our around 110 missionaries from Cape Verde by the end of the year. I wrote of the first departing missionary to receive clothing in an earlier blog. Since then we have send out three more Elders and the miracles keep coming. So far we are four for four in perfect fits in suits. Now by perfect fit I don't mean to say I haven't had to hem the pants or take in the waist a bit, but isn't that what happens when anyone gets a suit? President is getting very good at selecting the suits. On the second Elder, he just open the closet and said, "here try this one." A perfect fit on the very first try. On number three, we had to try on a few but again a perfect fit. On four, President opened the closet again and randomly picked one and again another perfect fit. He has joked that if  his retirement doesn't work out he is going to sell suits at Macy's. He didn't know he had such a gift. It really is exciting to then let the departing missionary gather white shirts, pick out ties, a few pair of used pants and some shoes. They come with full hearts and empty suitcases. The truth is they would be fine if we left the suitcases empty. They always modestly tell us they have what they need. Perhaps they instinctively know they have in their heart all they need to be a good missionary. But it is nice to fill those suitcases.
The miracle that always gets me is how do random suits, coming from random people, from random countries around the world fit - really fit - young men in such need? But some how they do, and they simply transform these young men. Here is a picture of the latest Elder who left last week for Brazil.

Families can be Together forever

Baptisms are going well here in Cape Verde. But most come in singles. Often it is just a young man or young woman that will be baptised or a single mom or a woman without her husband or a husband without his wife. When people feel the truthfulness of the gospel, they want to be baptized right then and don't want to wait for other members of their family. Since we do emphasis the importance of family and much of our doctrine centers on the uniting of families forever, we have been trying to focus more on family conversion. Those are two very happy missionaries standing behind this wonderful family of 10 which was baptized on Saturday.

Our Daughters' love for their Daddy

It is impossible to find many things that we need here so we have resorted to having Jessica mail us things. Danielle had been helpful in finding things and then mailing them to Jessica and she sends them on. I needed a few things so they started yet another box, which looked like it would be exclusively full of my stuff. But dad mentioned that while looking online for something, he saw a limited edition Oreo, candy corn Oreos. That didn't sound great to me but Dad is a die hard Oreo fan. Sadly, Jessica said she couldn't find them but Dad still hoped. The shipment came and to our surprise there was a pack of Candy Corn Oreos! My next surprise came when dad decided to share them. He invited the assistants and Sis. McKnight up to our apartment for a "surprise". Here there are enjoying what actually was a pretty good Oreo.

This is the letter Jessica sent with them.
"Dad, I hope you really appreciate these Oreos! I took Abigail and Eve into SuperTarget, Kroger and Walmart to find these. When they weren't there, Rod checked Tom Thumb and he couldn't find them. Later I checked another SuperTargert and the Kroger Marketplace. Still no luck! I packaged everything up with just the regular Halloween Oreos, but when I told Danielle I had given up, she started looking. She found out they were only sold at Target. She called TEN different Targets before finally finding some. I didn't want to have to wait until she sent them to me so I called the McKinney Target ... no luck. FINALLY I found them at the Plano Target. Rod left work early, so I could send them out today. These better be the most delicious things you have ever tasted!!!"
To us they were because they were so full of love from daughters. Thanks!

Finally Figuring out the Fast Ferry

For those who have been keeping up with the blog, you know our Fast Ferry experiences have been ... well ... always random, sometimes bizarre and borderline criminal. But we are happy to report that we have finally figured out the Fast Ferry.
We knew this much. We were suppose to come in the morning and pay for what we wanted transported on the ferry that afternoon. That we did. Then they would tell us we needed to bring the boxes in the afternoon - when the fast ferry was there - and put them on the Fast Ferry truck. Yet every time we came in the afternoon there was no "fast ferry truck" and we had to get very creative on how we got the boxes on board.
But this time - drum roll - we arrived at just the right moment. We were pulling into the port area and Elder Mathews says, "Whoa, what is happening over there. Is there a fight going on?" I looked to the side of the road to this tiny parking lot and there were people everywhere in what looked like a state of bedlam. I smugly thought that it was a good thing that where we were going it was much more civilized. So we go to the area where the Fast Ferry window is, where we had paid that morning, and again asked around as to where the truck was, hoping this time we might do it the way they say it is to be done instead of resorting to other creative means. That is when the guys says, "You see where all those people are. The truck is in that parking lot." Yeah where it looked like a fight was going on.
We head back down the road in the huge mission van and Elder Mathews attempts to get it into this already overrun parking lot. As we try to maneuver, we are swarmed by people who want to help. Truly. That is how many of them make their living here. They help you unload and charge you. And  they are a very competitive lot, so you are literally swarmed, and we have seen fights break out. Elder Mathews stoically tells me to stay in the van as he parks right in front of the truck and gets out. I wasn't so sure about this plan.
Shock number one. The reason for the bedlam is that people are flocking around the truck trying to get what was shipped to them from Fogo off the truck. People are pointing and screaming to the two guys on the truck pitching boxes down at people.You have to realize they have no addresses here so the boxes usually only have your name on it and if you are lucky enough to have a phone, a phone number. You have to be there to claim it or who knows where it will end up as they are in a hurry to clear the truck to reload it.

Shock number two. We have been searching for weeks for the "fast ferry truck" to put our things on looking for just some random truck but the truck actually says FAST FERRY on it! Who would have thought?

Shock number three. Elder Mathews has now got a sixth sense about who to ask for help. He looks for guys who seem to have some seniority or authority. They seem to wear vest - just reflective vest - which have nothing on them but there must be some unwritten order of things that says guys with vests are important. So Elder Mathews picks the guy with the vest to help us, and he manages to get our shipment on the truck first. That is important as you have to wait until your shipment is all on the truck before you can leave. And - this is very important - if you don't get it on before the truck is full, you don't get it on. They simply drive the truck onto the ship when it is full. Hence that is why we have never been able to find it! We have come after the bedlam and ironically looked for a truck that was already on board the Ferry. Now why they never told us that we only had a window of time to find the truck and load our stuff on it is beyond us but I guess they just thought we knew more than we did. In fact we now wonder if someone did say that to us - only they said it in creole.

So now we know to be in that parking lot when the ferry arrives. And we will be, this week in fact, as of course there is yet another shipment that needs to go to Fogo. :-)

A twist on an old family recipe

For years our family has enjoyed an old recipe that Robert's mom got from a friend. It had no name but we all loved it. It is so simple. Brown the hamburger, heat up the corn tortillas, grate the Colby Jack or cheddar cheese, and cut up the lettuce, tomatoes and onions. Sounds like tacos but you don't stop there. You make a sauce to go on top of it. For every can of tomato soup you use, you add a half a can of milk and lots of chili powder. You make a stack starting with a corn tortilla, some cheese, hamburger and onions, then add another corn tortilla, cheese, hamburger, and onion, until the stack is high enough to match your appetite and then you pour the sauce over it. Yummy. It has been the favorite Sunday meal for years as it is quick and easy. In fact our son, Paul, loves it so much we finally gave it a name. Paul's Favorite or PT's fav.
But...sigh...we are in Africa. No canned soups. No corn tortillas. No cheddar cheese. No Colby Jack. Still we searched until ...

Yes that is a packet of dry tomato soup mix. It was a beginning.  Then ...

No that is not Colby cheese or Cheddar. It is Mozzarella. But it is the only kind of cheese that is familiar to us and taste good to us. We use it sparingly as it is roughly the same price as gold per the ounce.

And no those are not corn tortillas. They are homemade flour ones and very good I might add.

Alas we discovered that with a few substitutions we can make PT's Fav right here in Africa. It tasted a little different, but it was close enough.  We could close our eyes and almost feel like we were home. Bon Appetit!

!!!Rain!!!

When we got here they told us it really only rains in August - maybe a little in September - and that's it. Well it is the last day of September and it has rained hard all day and all over the island. The reason we know that is because we left here at 7:20 AM to deliver the Ashby Foundation clothing to the Tarrafal and Assomada wards and we were going to make a quick stop in Calheta. That meant we would be making a full circle around the island in the big mission van. Well we started out and it was only drizzling here in Praia but by the time we reached Assomada at the tip top of the mountains we had driven through waterfalls, dodged falling rocks and most of it with limited viability because the clouds were so low they were right on top of us. I love this drive but I had a few white knuckle moments this time around. To do what we needed to do in Calheta we needed a key from the missionaries in Assomada but could not connect with them as all cell service was down. That actually turned out to be a blessing because we just went to Tarrafal and then back to Assomada. Elder Mathews kept telling me it wasn't so bad. Ha. When we got back to Assomada we found out the highway to Calheta has been washed out! Here are a few pictures of what we saw right along the side of the road. The bridge one is a little blurry but look beyond it and you will see the water gushing down the mountain.

There is a big drop off on the other side of that curve! What a drive! When we came home we were without power. It is back on but it is still raining!

"I you best friend"

So we were once again faced with getting a shipment onto the Fast Ferry. Unfortunately we weren't able to get there in the morning to pay for a spot on the afternoon Ferry. But being the eternal optimist Elder Mathews is, we headed there about an hour before it was scheduled to leave. We only had 12 little  boxes. How hard could this be? Well the office was closed but Elder Mathews was undaunted. He started asking around to see what options he had. Well a guy was standing there who said he could help us. He grabbed a vest and put it on. Don't know what the vest was for but it made him look official. He hopped in the van with us and told us to drive to where the trucks were lined up to get through the gate and unload. Then he told us to stop. He hops out and starts talking to this guy in a uniform. They jaw back and forth and then he hops back in the car and tells us to follow the guy in uniform. In English he says, "I you best friend!" Well we start to follow the guy but he is taking us around all the parked trucks and right to the gate. We have never been able to take the van through before so we hesitated. Then he says "No it is good! He my cousin." So the uniformed guy stops at the gate and starts talking to the gate keeper. Some more jawing goes on and the guy in our van jumps out and joins in. Then the next thing we know he is climbing back into the van and the gate is opening. He has us pull up next to the big bins you put things in for shipment and helps us unload. Elder Mathews pays for the shipment of the boxes and we get back in the van - and so does the guy. As we are driving out of the gate, Elder Mathews offers him about 200 escudos for his help but he puts his hand up and says, "No way! I you best friend! You have to pay me at least a mil! I got to pay the guy at the gate 500!" Thank goodness a mil is only the equivalent of about $10. Anyway, sensing this might be a blog worthy occasion from the moment he said, "I you best friend," I had the camera out. Here we are with the back of the van right next to the bins and completely unloaded. Our best friend is the guy in orange that you can see through the back van window. Elder Mathew is on the right paying for the shipment.

We have another shipment to make next week. We are now curious if we will ever get something on the Fast Ferry the same way twice.
We did get home to see the Ferry leave. This is a view from our deck.