Elder Connor Dunkley: First days in Luanda..Flooding...Bucket Showers and no electricity!

Our Apartment flooded! Blue container is water for the Bucket showers!

Taxi stuck in the mud after the rain!

More Flooding!

We left on Thursday stopped in Chicago and then 13 hr. layover in London..arrived in Luanda on Saturday 50 hrs. after we left the MTC in Provo! When we landed and got off the plane it started raining cats and dogs outside (literally) then just following that the power went out. We walked outside of customs and met our Mission President and his wife ( President Thompson) who stands in place of President Krietly right now while he is in Mozambique. My first area is the capital Luanda and my companion is Elder Montgomery! We carried our luggage to their car in the pouring rain. Everything got soaked. They drove us to the apartment (so to speak) where I would be living. When we got there the entire floor was flooded. There was massive flooding everywhere. The drains don't work that well, after I got settled in and went through training with the President and the details and guidelines. After that started walking the streets on our way to go and visit an 18 year old boy named Doival. Sat down with him in his home and could not understand a word that he was saying. I was trying to respond to him at some points but he laughed. That's how bad my Portuguese is! After that we went to a lady's house named Sedonia. She was awesome! I got to bear my testimony to her about the plan of salvation it was way cool. Also she had super funny kids. I love the kids here. They are awesome!!! So then we went to visit Pedro who is a paraplegic and can only move his head and arms. I read to him in the Book of Mormon. It was awesome. Read in first Nephi about the ancient prophets that were here on earth. My Portuguese is alright ( sucks) kinda. But I'm getting a lot better, I'm picking up a phrase here and there. Elder Montgomery is a great mentor. I think I would have died it he wasn't here! Took a bucket shower that was nice, and then Elder Montgomery and I went to the Cinica (Hospital because he was sick and thought he had malaria), anyway ended up being there for 6 hrs. got to talk a lot in Portuguese while I waited. I got to ride in a taxi for the first time. They are big blue vans and they cram them full, people are on your lap and everything. It gets wicked hot. Most of the time they don't have A/C in the vans. Here there are trucks full of soldiers that ride around that all have AK 47's and machine guns.

Sunday night we got to watch the priesthood session of Conference in English! That is so awesome that they mentioned President Krietly in General Conference and my mission! And the Prophet quoted my missionary plaque scripture Matt: 28: 19-20 WAY AWESOME!

My first P-day I woke up without power ( hot sleep) then we went with some elders and some Angolans to the soccer complex and played soccer. MUITO BOM! Had a lot of fun.

We were traveling home from the Presidents house in a taxi and the tire popped and had to get out and walk a long way (in a very sketchy area walking with 500 dollars in our bags and our cameras. We were nervous about getting robbed. Anyway it's really crazy here those are just some of the things that have happened.