January 21, 2013

Família,


  So sorry that email is late. The net was super slow yesterday.
  I'm now in the Luanda 2 C area, which is by far the largest area in
the city. We have SO MANY AREAS! AND THEY ARE ALL HUGE!!! But it is
nice because all of our far areas are wealthier, and generally have
cars, which means that people will be able to come to church! The
branch members here are amazing, and we will probably get fed more
often here.
  My companion is Elder Castleton, he has a very large family. He is
also thinking of going into the marine core, as he attended some PTs
before the mission. He actually knew of Elder Kelsey before the
mission as well. Elder Castleton is a lot different though. He
actually reminds me a lot of Owen.
  The area is kind of in disarray, as it's not exactly new, but the
missionaries in L2 re-divided up areas to deal with a branch split
(Benfica). We don't know the majority of our investigators, as the
missionaries who were here first did not fill out the area book...
DANG!
  But I'm excited. It's a chance for me to make a big impact on the
mission, as this area could explode even more than my last one! These
next 2 weeks will probably be weeks of contacting and sifting, so
it'll get hard, but afterwords, we should see some big success. We
actually went tracting a few days ago (second time in my mission),
because the area that we live in (which also makes part of our area)
has adresses! It's a place called Nova Vida (new life), and the
government took special care to set it up well. Our apartment is not
as nice as the last one, but is still way better than what this
mission has seen in the past. We only fault power and water sometimes,
but not often.
  I did actually go to the praça and I did get a painting... but
Elder Castlton and I made a few people mad in the process:
  So this praça is used to seeing oil workers and chinese, so when a
white person comes, they'll charge prices litterally 100x the real
price. I bartered with one man over my painting. He started at 130$. I
brought him down to 40$. Then his friend came and I got him down to
20$. He started to take the painting off of the frame, and then I told
him I didn't want it for 20$. He said ''what! I've already started to
take it off.'' ''well, too bad. just keep it, unless you want 15$ for
it.'' He ended up giving it to me for 15$.
  Later, Elder Castleton was talking with a vendor for a painting one
third of the size of mine, and the guy told him 15$ and started to
take it off the frame without Elder Castleton's argreement. I told him
about my painting and told Elder Castleton not to buy it for more than
10$. Then he got mad and threw the painting on the ground and told us
not to come back. As we drove in some taxis, I asked some Angolans how
much my painting was worth. The answer: 15$. It turns out they were
just mad because they couldn't rip us off! But, they were pretty
upset, and they started saying bad things about the church, so next
time I go, I'll probably just pay 20$ for paintings, we'll see. The
were very stiff this time. Last time we went, they were way nicer and
bartered much easier. We think it was because there weren't very many
vendors this time.
  But it's going to be a good transfer, despite angry vendors. I hope
I stay to see baptisms this time, but even still, I'm mostly just
excited to build a good relationship with branch members. Wish me
luck!
  It sounds like regular life there at home. Keep on keepin' on! I
have some pictures, but the net is a little slow, and I'm not sure if
I trust this café with viruses.

But I miss you guys a lot. I'm speaking Português better than ever,
and I'm a little tired just because of the super hard work in the
past, but I should see some good successes here soon. Keep on
worshiping God it the best way possible. He is the Man!

Amor,

Elder Alex Hobbs