A LITTLE ABOUT "OUR" PEOPLE AND AREA

This week we dug in and started our regular work of "finding."  Like all missionaries, we had our share of rejections.  The Branch has only about 100 members listed, so it's not as overwhelming to try to visit the "Unknowns" as it is in larger Wards, like we had in Florida!  But because this is a foreign-language Branch, it covers the entire Boston Stake, which is huge (but we have no members in downtown Boston.)  Besides the challenge of trying to find people who don't want to be found, the streets here are CRAZY.  Major connecting roads are TINY residential streets.  And the drivers are SCARY.  We are grateful each night when we arrive home unharmed!

I think we mentioned that the people in our Branch are not from Brazil (and certainly not Portugal), but from Cape Verde.  Cape Verde is a group of small islands off the west coast of Africa.  

The islands have no real natural resources or agricultural land, so the people are extremely poor.  Those who make it to the US live in what we would consider unacceptable poverty, but compared to what they left they are, as some say, "in paradise."

One of our members lives in one of the rooms of this house.  I wish we could
show you the inside of some of the homes we visit.  

The most startling thing we have found (which we of course can't take pictures of) is that in at least half of the homes we've been in there are school-aged children home during school hours.  And they don't seem to be ill or being home schooled.  We haven't been able to determine if they just aren't enrolled in school, or if the parents can't get them there, or what... So sad.   In most neighborhoods where our members live, in addition to homes like the one above, and much worse, there are large groups of men standing on the street corners looking like they are not discussing anything like neighborhood improvements.  I get pretty nervous.

On the home front, Craig's granddaughter got a mission call to Madrid, Spain!  Between the two families, we could feasibly have a missionary grandchild out nonstop until the babies who aren't yet born come home!  Congratulations, Madi!  

Hopefully all of you have checked out www.LightTheWorld.org.  Such great ideas and motivations as we celebrate the Greatest Gift ever given!  

(We'll work on more pictures this coming week!)