Service at the Orphanage and Retirement Center.....

At the Orphanage with my new friends!

At the Sister Dominga's Orphanage

Hello Familia! I miss you so much! I can't believe it is almost November! So my birthday here is a holiday apparently the dia los Mortes...the day of the dead, so everyone will be at the cemeterio (cemetery), should be fun. Riley I can just imagine you jumping up and down after your coach congratulated you! And Mason Awesome you are killing it in football...Keep getting big, I found peanut butter today and I am going to be making some protein shakes so I can get some muscle back, we will hit the gym when I get back.  Can't wait till Christmas to skype all of you!
This week we had several awesome events, so we had wonderful success and turnouts in terms of lessons and there were some wonderful service projects that we were able to do as a Branch. So the beginning of the week we taught a family that is from the Congo and the husband Alberto speaks Portuguese well but his wife Claudisse she struggles and is very frustrated, I tell her that she speaks well but her neighbors tell her that they can't understand her and so it is really tough for her right now, I offered her a book that has Portuguese phrases in it that I use and so she is studying that, and is learning a lot, and I also gave her kids some Disney Children's books, thanks mom. I told her that I study them and that she should read them to the kids at night before bed. She was grateful, we also got our member friend Max who speaks french to come and help with a lesson with them and they hit it off and are great friends already! Exciting!
Luis is still planning on getting baptized on November 2nd!

So today for our P-day we went to go and visit an orphanage, it was so awesome!  The Orphanage is run by a lady they call Sister Domingas.  This orphanage was the same one the show American Idol did a special on to try and raise money called "Idol gives Back". They raised a lot of money for this orphanage. This experience was so awesome and way fun. We taught kids math and we taught them how to add and subtract and to speak in English but the kids figured out that I spoke Portuguese and so it was difficult, I told them to only speak English.  Anyway super cute and awesome children, it was such a wonderful experience to visit and orphanage and play with all the children!

At the Sister Dominga's Orphanage

Elders Ferguson, Me Dredge and Banta

Arriving at the Orphanage

Elders with Sister Dominga's mother: Dona Isabella

And Elder Ferguson, Me, Dredge and Banta

At the school inside the Orphanage

The ladies that work at the Orphanage wanted a picture with us!

My best friend from the Orphanage...Papoite

On Saturday we did another service project, we went to a retirement home, it was very dirty and didn't have water or electricity.  We shaved old men's heads bald.  I got assigned to an old man named Adao, he was funny and cute, the ladies who worked there had only 1 pair of scissors, that were not hair cutting scissors and laminas (razor blades) and they did not have cream, only soap and water, anyways so I cut as much as i could with the scissors and then I put water and soap and rubbed it on his head, them with extreme precision I used the blade carefully on his head to shave it down to the nice clean smooth skin, it took a while and I didn't want to cut his head open, it was stressing me out, anyways I was able to do it, such a great moment when he stood up, he was so happy when he was done, I told everyone to look at Adao he is a new man! He was so happy he smiled and said he was going to go and visit people now.  I laughed and enjoyed the simple joy of serving someone.

Carefully Cutting and Shaving Adao!

At the Retirement Center with the Viana Branch and Elder Ferguson

Hair nets and masks required to do the service project at the Retirement Center
Elder Ferguson, Me and Elder Dredge

It was such a wonderful week full of service and love.  I am loving the people of Angola more and more each day and I'm enjoying the wonderful experience here each and every day.

Figue bem chau chau meu amado irmao, I love you all Elder Dunkley