Oi Familia week 40. FOR.TY.

October 14, 2013

Week 40 update.  For.Ty.  Forty.  :)
Tarrafal, Cape Verde

Enjoy!

Oi Familia!!!!!

Good to hear you are still enjoying the all conference talks! I really liked the "Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith" part too. There are so many parts that I liked!! And good to hear that you are listening to Prince of Egypt a lot! Haha ;) It actually hasn't rained since I sent those pictures- except for that night Pimpinha was baptized. I think it is supposed to be rainier than it is right now, but we will just have to wait and see what happens I guess!

This week was a good one! The work is going so well here in Tarrafal!! This area seriously needs to split some time soon! There are so many people who are just waiting for the gospel! But we did just get some exciting news that our ward is about to turn into a ward and a group/branch! Right now the ward is made up of the members here in Tarrafal and also the members from Chão Bom, which is a little city right next to us. But they are going to get their own group or branch in their own building some time in the next couple of weeks! Woohoo!!!

We also had the baptism of Gilson this week!!!!! He is a 16 year old boy who just moved in a few weeks ago with his uncle's family here. That family is one of the strongest member families we have here! So right away they told us that we had to come teach Gilson. And Gilson is so awesome!! He was SO excited to sit with us! The first time we came back after teaching the Book of Mormon, he was so excited to share with us what he liked and what he learned, and we ended up just reading an entire chapter with him right there because he asked if that was ok! He is pretty cool. But then last saturday night, he told us he did not want to get baptized anymore. He said he didn't feel ready, so we talked with him a whole bunch and tried to help him recognize that he really was so ready! Then after a while, he finally said that it was because he "didn't want to do what Pimpinha didon sunday". Huh?? He didn't want to get the Holy Ghost?? He didn't want everyone to raise their hands to welcome him into the ward?? We were so confused! Then we remembered that Pimpinha had wanted to get up and bear her testimony on sunday! She had given this great little talk in front of the whole ward! We told him that it was definitely not a requirement of baptism to give a talk or even just a short testimony in front of everyone! He was SO relieved and then SO excited again to get baptized! Then the baptism went so well on saturday! This time we still had sunlight and it wasn't a crazy stormy day at the ocean! Gilson's uncle baptized him, and they were both just glowing :) 

The church is true!!! I love being a missionary!!! And I love all of you!! :)

Love,

Sister Turley :)

It is SO AMAZING HERE!!!! Oh man. It doesn't feel like real life! It is THE BEST!!!