June 25, 2012

Hey mom I am on. And I just thought I should let you know that I have been transferred to Lubango.

The name of the girl that (we) baptized is Quina and she has no close family. Her mom actually made her stop taking the lessons a while ago, but than just barely aloud her to sit with the missionaries again. But five of her cousins are members so that is good. Nobody here goes by their last name, but the Mother of the family is Mena. But I obviously wont be teaching them because I got transferred.


The banks are on the side of the road, but nobody really goes in them because on the outside of the bank there is an ATM. Stores normally don’t (take US debit cards) but I just pay everything with cash, and most of the ATMs will take my card I think so I can just pull money out that way and than pay for things like that.

So I am not sure if my ingenious plan (for pictures) will work because I am in Lubango now, so I will probably have to hold off sending pictures for a while. There might be a way I can send pictures through the computers here, but I am not sure yet, and I would not count on it. But you could probably look up on Google Earth and see it. I have seen a few Google earth images and it is pretty much what it looks like. You could even look up a store called Keros. (I used to live a little bit away from that store, but that was my area.)

Lubango is great though! At night it actually gets a little bit chilly. The first night I was here we were teaching a lesson outside and it started to get a little bit cold and than I smelt a fire. It really reminded me about Labor Day Campout. Lubango is definitely a lot more calm than Luanda. In Luanda there is just so many people everywhere and a lot of traffic. Here there are a lot less people and it is more country like. I would kind of compare Luanda to Gilbert or maybe Phoenix and than Lubango to Thatcher. Also normally when people come here to Lubango they have to take a 20 hour bus ride that leaves at Midnight, but I do not know why but President bought me and the other Elder (Kelsey)  who came with me plane tickets to come down here, so we took an hour flight instead, so that was really nice.

My companions name is Elder Davis. He is a really good missionary who likes to work hard and is really loving his mission. He is from Utah and loves sports and hopes to go play for the BYU lacrosse team when he gets home. So that is pretty cool, and I think he has been out for a little bit more than a year. Things are going well here though, I am trying to find my way around and everything and get to know people, but it is coming around.

So in my personal study this week I was reading in the Bible Matthew and I was reading where Jesus talks about how the law used to be "love your friends and hate your enemy" than he says that that law is changed and that we should Love our friends and our enemies. So I was just thinking ok yeah I need to do that, but than afterward Christ begins to explain the "why" behind it and how it is easy to love your friend, but it is hard to love your enemy, so you receive no reward because loving your friend is easy. So after Christ explained the why behind it, I had a greater desire to do what He taught. So I was thinking that I need to teach the "why" to my investigators and that way they will have a great desire to what we are teaching them. Also as I was writing this I realized that if life is easy there is no reward. We have to do things that we do not want to do and things that are hard, if we want any reward in the life to come. Just a little spiritual thought I had that I thought I should share!


Thanks Mom for your support! I love you so much!!! There is an Elder I am living with and he said he does not write his family very often . . . I was just thinking wow! I am not sure if I could go longer than a week without writing my family! But thanks so much for all your prayers and support! I love you!!! Elder Tilley

Last Zone Conference in Luanda. Food at the Mission Home is AWESOME!!! I think I'll start with COOKIES!