trabalhamos duro

March 31, 2014

Hey family. glad life is good. darin you forgot to send me your pics of the HUGE party you had on friday at the house-i mean..... uh nevermind. haha

good job marissa in cali. looking at those pics i remember when austin and i went to cali that one year to watch. sooo fun! disneyland. saudades. okay not really. but just being on vaction is what i really miss. 

well lets start off by answering dads questions. i have elder rigby (who is my comp) in the house. he is the youngest in his fam. he is from a tiny town in idaho. has a brother on a mission in hawaii and he is very humble. good guy. oh and he was the first 18 year old in our mission

then we have elder fontain. the tallest missionary in the mission. he is from west jordan utah. he is the biggest fan of Disney that you ever saw. he is really fun to talk with. and he is the actor/director and producer to all of our star wars reproductions. haha quality guy. he came in one transfer after me. 

then we have elder hyde. former ap. he is from bountiful utah. very hard worker. loves business. so we talk business a lot. good guy. 

and then me. our highest paid player. and well to put in modestly, the all-star. and thats our line up for the huambo dream team. (cheer and applause please) hahaha okay disregard this last paragraph. 

this week. we taught lots of lessons. talked to a lot of people. worked really hard every day and none of our investigators came to church. ugggg (cmon everybody big sad sigh on 3!)

ugggg the internet just went out for like 30 min. so annoying. but yeah 

so yep we gotta  keep working praying and studying. go go go. the lord doesnt raise quiters. so yeah it was a tough week. however looking at the bright side. one of our less actives that we are working with came to church on time. usually she comes in the 2nd our (along with the rest of the branch) so that was brightening. 

giovania gave a talk this week on the book of mormon and did wonderful. i was proud. i also spoke. i spoke on repentance. 

oh i forgot to answer one of dads questions. mosquitos. they are definately here. but i just ignore them. i sleep under a net. because we sleep with the window open. i dont take the malaria pills... and havent since... my first transfer. i may be asking for it but.. oh well. 

this weeek we were walking through the bairro ( the really poor area) and this little girl like 2 years old looked up at my and just had this scared look on her face. (probably the first time she had seen a white guy) but i just gave her a huge smile and thumbs up and it took her a second but she gave me the biggest smile back and it just made my day. the little black girls are the cutest. 

well i love you guys. ill send some pics too. ate proxima. 

Elder Tingey

Fun weekend in Lubango (not loo bango but loo bong oo )

March 24^th   

well family thank you for your emails this week. Mom i loved yours. ;)

first off. i am soooo jealous of your mexico trip. its sounds like you

guys had a blast. especially marissa! Hannah i wish i could have been

there to be part of the sand castle building crew. Great leadership

skills you have little sister! and for some reason babes is getting

prettier. every time I see a picture of her im like geez louiz! of

course hannah and marissa are just as beautiful. and darin is

unfortunately attractive and buffer than me. but hey! im working on

it!

well my week was very fun. we were here in huambo for 3 days teaching

lessons and saving souls, you know how we do. we were about to break

last weeks record but president took 3 days out of our week. but it

was worth it!

we woke up at stinking 5 in the morning to catch a bus to lubango. but

this bus ride was soo much better! we had a bigger nicer bus and we

took a different route that was ALL PAVED! sooo nice. so we arrived in

lubango about 3 and then elder money and i took off to go teach a

lesson and then bounce to our leadership training meeting with

president. elder money is a great guy. way fun. our meeting was going

good and presidents like wow i think this is the first meeting we have

had in here with light. bad statement president... bzoooouuumm light

go out. nice. so we had the rest of the meeting in the dark but hey it

worked.

then the next day was saturday and we spent the whole day with

president and sister merrill. we had 10 missionaries living in the

lubango house so that was pretty fun. but we went to a place for lunch

that was pretty good. i had a pizza that actually tasted like usa

pizza! okay not completely but some of the best pizza in angola i

would say. then after that we had a 4 hour zone conference at the

chapel which was really good. at then we went to dinner for sister

merrills birthday. and let me tell you. it was THE coolest restuarant

that i have ever been to in............yep.. in my life.

soooooooooooooooooooo africany.  i had crocidile, and zebra and onyx

and all kinds of meat from african animals! super cool. we are

definately going there on our return trip to angola after the mission.

next day was sunday and we went to church which was good. then after i

did a division with elder dunkley. way cool kid. love the guy. He’s

from texas.. guys... i might want to live in texas. but we will see.

elder clifford and i were talking business and the resturaunt and i

kinda of want to be in arizona as well. but that’s way down the road

after college.

then we got up at 5 this morning and took a bus back here to huambo.

I’m super tired!

sorry not to many spirtual experiences to tell this week. but i love

you all! Aunt Fawn thank you for your email! keep up the good work!

Elder Tingey

ps i forgot to take my camera to the restuarant so i dont have any pics :(

Great Week!!

March 17, 2014

well hello family! 

glad to know you are all doing well. Mom thanks for updating my blog (i got a story for you about that)!

well first off happy saint patricks day! Angola has no idea what that is.... but yah. 

also today is kind of a sad day. my hommie from az finished his mission and went home today. elder tilley! well actually he went to luanda today. he goes home on wednesday. but still. great guy great missionary. huambo will definately be different! now i have to fend for myself against the utards ;) but yeah definately invite him to dinner. 

so elder rigby and i did work this week. we pulled out some record numbers this week for huambo. so that was a good feeling. i wont write our numbers because... well i just get upset when talking about numbers. some missionaries think they are cool because they got X number of lessons. okay well lets look at the quality of those lessons. okay ill shut up about that now. 

so do you remember giovania? recent convert. and i am soooooo proud of her. literally i swell with pride. so we took her to a lesson with us... holy cow i was blown away. less than a month after baptism and she already teaches better than me! you could really feel the spirit when she spoke. the other elders took her to a lesson too and said the same thing! we took her to a few more lessons with us and she was amazing. then she taught the lesson in relief society and in branch council they couldnt stop talking about how great she was! what a champ! i was such a proud missionary. okay now im going to boast a second. because i take huge pride in this stat. but none of my recent converts have gone in active. 

actually marcia, my recent convert called me this week. told me she got officially engadged. ring and everything. i already knew they were going to but still it was way cool. the guy she is marrying is such a stud. like..... just way awesome. so happy for them. they are getting married in september and they threatened me that if i didnt come... well they basically said i HAVE to come. so i hope i can! 

some funny things that happened this week. Ngeve, a less active that we teach who loves us now, well we were at her house and we invited her daughter to sit in on the lesson with us becuase she is not a member... and..... she could use the gospel(i.e. law of chastity) if you catch my drift, in her life. so we taught them the law of chastity. Ngeve paid lots of attention and loved it. her daughter however... didnt really care or pay any attention. so at the end i asked them if they had any questions. they both said no, so i said something like are you sure? and then the daughter asked, actually all i want to know is if your eyes are naturally blue? ................................. dang it. thats not the right question!!!!!!!!!!!! yes they are and my skin is naturally white too thank you very much now can we get back on subject?! elder rigby died laughing. president probably reads my blog and with every one of these instances my time in huambo probably gets shorter and shorter... :/ hey its not my fault.. blame my parents. 

next story. sooo we are walking down the street after talking to a crazy guy and we saw this white woman on the other side of the street walking her dog. okay nothing weird here. there are plenty of white people in huambo (thats actually not a joke) but then she has a little bit of a different look about her.... something familiar... and im like elder rigby.. that lady looks american... será? so i hollerout tudo bem?! and she responds tudo bem. and then i say falas ingles? (do you speak english) and she responds yes im american. Che!!!!!! so we basically run over to the other side of the street. an american an american! haha anyways so we talk to her. she lives here with her family (husband and kids) and they are missionaries for the church of Christ. so thats cool. she is from cali, the bay area. so weird.... but way cool! and then she asked me if i had a blog and i said yes and she said yeah i think ive read it before. so you never know who is reading this...... dun dun dun. 

then the relief society had an activity on saturday. then were "remembering" slash acting out stories of women in the bible. and.... unfortunately for me... they asked me to be Jesus. so... i was Jesus for the activity... little awkward. they had me dress up and everything. im too scared to send pictures home.. i look more like pharoh more than jesus.. but the activity was good. we had 4 investigators come to it so that was sweet. 

then yesterday we had a lesson with this family we contacted during the week. we taught them the plan of salvation. probably one of the best lessons ive ever had with the plan of salvation. the mom just loved it. and she was so happy that we knocked on their door and  taught them the plan of salvation because "something was just missing" (oh those magic words every missionary loves to here) so i hope that they progress... and something really cool happens with them. i be prayin. 

also fernando our investigator who is the humblest man i have ever met in my life. which is so cool because he is huge! if he were younger i would have drafted him in the nba. but anways he is going to be getting married of the 4 of july and then baptized shortly after! so im pumped about that. great week. great experiences. 

thats about the week! 

also yes yes yes to Tingey 1 and Tingey2 fam reunion after the mission. tem que ser. (it has to be) 

also dont have to much fun in mexico without me. write me a letter while you are on the beach. well i love you guys! 

Elder Tingey

bonjour. psh yeah right. Bom dia!

March 11, 2014

soooo this week....

oh guys..... this whole writing you guys every week is taking a toll on me.... kljdddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk.

sorry my head just kid the keyboard. okay i can do this!

well we taught more lessons this week. haha missnary life gets way repetative. okay so transfers.

well elder whitaker left. amazing sometimes you dont realize how much you liked someone until they are gone. i missed him for the first few days. haha that nerd. haha so fun! im glad we will be at byu together. but my new comp elder rigby is great. he is from idaho. some tiny tiny town. 1 mile long. gooding. great guy. super .... docile? haha

it was funny though how many people noticed elder whitaker was gone. some drunk guy came up to me on the street and was like what happened to the little short guy with glasses?! haha hes in luanda bro!

so president came down this week and released elder tilley and put in elder hyde (ex ap) to be branch pres until the end of the month. it was fun having president down here. last night before he left he made the joke about how my comps need to set my alarm so i get up on time. (fyi i do get up on time but for some reason pres has joked with me ever since he got to angola that i sleep all the time.) so this morning i was gonna get him back. so at 630 i texted him. i was like hey president hows life? hahaha you know just striking up a random conversation at 630 in the morning like it nbd. he laughed. i was going to call him at 630 but i was way to tired for that.

we are going to lubango in two weeks again. for zone conference. im excited about that. then the week after that president comes down again.

on saturday we played basketball. elder tilley and i were finally about to be on the same team. (usually its super not fair so we always have to split up, but we had some good competiion this week) we won every single game except for the last which was by 2 points and we were soo tired. like 15 games in total or something. there was one time were there was a point descrepancy (no idea how to spell) but elder tilley and i got fired up about it. in the end we let them have what they wanted and then we just played 150 percent and killed them. haha basketball.... for good or for worse..

well thats about it. we had a few awkward lessons about the law of chastity. we were talking about having good thoughts. and this girl was like yeah im the worst sinner in the world! and i was like no your not. and shes like no serious! for example when i look at you i think ...................... (ill just leave the rest out) but i was stop. stop. stop. stop talking please! my comp just died laughing.

okay i have somethings to ask. mom did you send the calendar yet? also can i ask for some new ties?? these ones are so.... old. same thing everyday.

please please with a cherry on top?

oh and how come no one told me about jase getting his mision call??

well love you fam. peace out. paz fora (haha yeah totally doesnt translate)

Elder Tingey

Transfers!

 March 3, 2014

well mom you asked at a good time. we learned transfers today. Elder whitkaker got transfered to Luanda to be ZL and im getting elder rigby. he is somewhat newish. but itll be good. i hear he is a good worker. thatll be good. 

well this week was .... rather unexcited. hmmm we got attacked by lions... i guess that made the adrenaline pump a little but yeah... you know how africa is... lions everywhere. gotta watch your back!   jk jk

well wow really not much happened! lots of contacting. lots of lessons that people didnt show up to. 

oh we had this less active lady named N´geve. she used to be quite the grouch and didnt want anything to do with us. but elder whitaker and i have visited her at least once a week since i got here. usually we would just read the scriptures to her. but after a while she warmed up and took a liking to us. haha elder whitaker uses his nerdy super super dry not funny jokes on her... and she gets upset at him and we laugh and then she laughs and its just funny. she is quite pleasant to be around now. anyway she called us on saturday and was like Elders i need your help filling out my tithing slip! i forgot my glasses at work and cant see anything it says! come over in an hour. uh okay.... so we hurried and finished making lunch and went over there to help her. and so she had me fill out the slip. and i needed her full name. haha and with so many africans there was a discrepency with how to spell the last name. and her daughter said one thing and then ngeve said another and then the other daughter said another! hahah N´geve got a little stressed and was like "oh no..... my blessing are going to be given to somebody else!" hahahahaha it was the funniest thing ever! old ladies... gotta love em. so much joy in this world because of them! 

well president is coming down this weekend to interview people for branch president. We will see what happens. well this is gonna be short. 

FAM, dont slack on scriptures or prayer. sao essencias! 

marissa i love you a ton. wish i could be there.

darin... you can stop being so cool.

babes.. where did you go? send me more pictures!

Hannah.. i feel that you will be smarter than me when i get home. send me a message girl.

I love you guys so much! 

Elder Tingey

elder whitaker... the nerd going gangster hard!

the twins of jesus. of jesus is literally their name.

the young men at institute.

EEKING OUT A VICTORY!!

February 24, 2014

Well hello family! well first things first GO MOUTAIN VIEW! ahh!! Basketball is my favorite sport! i like the way they dribble up and down the court! i keep it so fresh on the microphone blah blah blah! oh i miss basketball games! yelling, storming the court its all soooo great!

well this week was .... good slash kicked us in the butt! haha. okay so it started off great and then by the end we were struggling to take home the W. thats win if you didnt know.

so first off last monday night we went and taught carla. who was a contact we made. she seemed cool and so anyway we go over there. and we sit with her. and she like elders im sorry. and we like what? well i havent finished the book of mormon yet. but im in mosiah. hahaha um wow yeah that stinks your the first one who hasnt finished it .... not. mosiah!!!!!!!! che! wow i was so impressed. shes like i have some questions and ive written them done but i dont want to ask you them until i finish the book. because sometimes they get answered with further reading. and ill finish it by next monday. haha well okay then! sounds good to me! anyway it was way cool. then she tried to descibe what she felt while she was reading but couldnt. obviously it was the spirit! super cool experience and we are meeting with her again tonight.

so Giovania went through with her baptism! YAHOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! finally! its been since like july since this area has had a baptism. we had a lesson with her this week and i was like so your baptism is marked for the 22 which is this saturday.... ainda pode ser? which translates to is it still going to be? and then she came back with a great response! Deve ser. which mean it must be. so we were pumped and her baptism was great. elder whitaker baptized her and i confirmed her. officially 39 members in our branch now! keep on sicken that sickle!

so we have had quite the rainstorms this week. nothing too unusual but our power went out a lot. but then when everyone else got power back we still didnt have any. great. sooo we are in the process of fixing that problem. also we have a portugese man who lives under us.... who does NOT keep the commandments at all and is pretty grumpy. His wife and kids live in portugal and he lives here..... not a good combo. anyway dealing with our energy problems, ive been talking to him quite a bit. and ive finally made friends with him. haha you know. after about the 5th time he yelled at me.  i even got him to smile yesterday. one day he will become a member. haha sometime in the very distant future but one day!

also we had our branch basketball activity on saturday. well we got to the court and there were lots of people there. we learned that a club team from another province was visiting and wanted to play. so huambo got a team together with the people who regularly play there. and they know how good we are. they wanted us to play on there team. well everyone wanted to play full court. unfortunately we cant. so we told them that and oh man they thought we were nuts! they were so surprised they litterally thought hell had frozen over. they begged and begged and begged for us to play full court just this one time! just one time just one time please! sorry bro not happening. so we offered to be the refs and score and time keepers. they accepted begrudingly. well it was quite the game! huambo was getting dominated! but in the 3rd quarter our progressing investigator jorge had some amazing shots and well longs story short huambo won by a nail biter! sooooo fun! love it! i wanted to play so bad but it was still fun to watch.

well that was the week! i hope you all have a good week. remember "just keep swimmiing"

love

Elder Tingey 

 GIOVANNIA'S BAPTISM AND THE CUTEST GIRL EVER, BIA!

MY ROOM AND STUDY

The CIA is in town!!

February 17, 2014

helloooo family!

thank you for your wonderful letters! it was a good week this week! nothing revolutionary but just a hard but good week.

so on wednesday we had a dinner with sister aurora. shes angolan but she lived in canada for 20 plus years soo.... shes great! haha!  anyway we learned something really funny while we were there!

so there is a place called DEFA and its for all foreigners. they have to register at DEFA where they live. so when i came from luanda to huambo i had to tell DEFA aka the angolan government that i was now in huambo. its so they can keep tabs on you. haha and people complain that the US govt is difficult for foreigners. anyway so us missionaries we walk everywhere and when i say everywhere i mean everywhere! and we have our favorite restaurante in town thats called boca loca. and we go there at least once a week on pday. and the owners of the restaurante are from lebanon. okay so DEFA starts asking questions about us to some of the higher ups in the govt. and they get one of the members of our church and start asking questions about us. THEY THINK THAT WE ARE THE CIA! hahaha they think that our missionary badges are cameras! and then they asked why we eat at boca loca so much? they think we are in cahoots with the owners! hahaha what a crack up. Angola spying on the missionaries. they also are confused why we walk everywhere.... hmmmm because we dont have a car? anyway funny stuff. i got a good laugh.

so we are teaching this girl (30 years old) named natalia. and her sister as well. and last week was a reall struggle trying to meet with them. and so i was thinking that they kinda were not wanting it anymore. because thats what angolans do. they just say yeah yeah yeah i want you guys to keep coming... but they dont really want you to. ironic because when people tell me no or they dont want us to come back i am actually grateful for their courtesy!  anyway so we were finally able to sit with them. while she was out of the room i peaked at her bookmark in the book of mormon... 1 nephi 2. DANG it! so she gets back and i ask her how her reading is going. shes like good! im in 1 nephi 7. im thinking okay better than i thought. and then she says yeah i read it once and know im going through it again to really really understand it.  CHE! nao brinca comigo irma! wow. i was blown away.  so then we watched the restoration video which is awesome as ever! and then at the end it reads moronis promise and shes like ive heard those words before! yeah theyre in the BOM! anyway the lesson finished great. she believes that the book of mormon is true and acceped baptism! so we are working towards that. we are going over there tonight.

BUT WAIT! so we are also teaching giovania and her boyfriend jorge. who everyone says is my black twin because he drips with swagga ;) anyway he was on  a trip and got back this week. and came to church. Natalia also came to church. and after the first class when we were switching, jorge wiped something off natalias face, like without asking or anything. and i saw it and i was like that was really really weird jorge. and then i gave him a look like that was really really weird! haha and he smiles and goes shes my sister. WHAT?!?!??!?!?!!? your kidding. no way. so we just happened to be teaching both of them at the same time and none of us knew it. natalia was from tracting and jorge through giovania! hmmm couinsidense (how ever you spell it)...? I think not. God s got plans for this family. way cool.

Then yesterday after we got done with our lessons we walked out. yeah there were clouds out but it hasnt rained in like two weeks. then CRACK BOOM! i kidd you not it POURED in  less than three seconds! i didnt even have time to pull out my jacket or umbrella! not that it even helped! flash floods in the streets! its was crazy! and actually really fun.

well that was the week. love you guys a ton!

Elder Tingey

Pics of our house

Happy Bday Hannah! AND Star Wars

February 10, 2014

Hannah hannah hannah! double digits! wo wo! Were gonna party like its your birthday! holy cow youre 10! that nuts! i remember before you were born! tahts weird to think about! i remember when mom told us kids that she was going to have a girl. you know how she told us? she said quote " girls rule boys drool!" i know what youre thinking... how rude. hahahahaha  but along you came and you have always been so happy and pretty and cuter than ever! and one smart cookie too! oh i miss you a lot. yeah president said i couldnt get transfered home for your birthday but he said on your next birthday it would be fine. in fact he will send me a few months early. christmas too! what a nice guy right? but happy birthday i love you soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo (repeating for eternity)  much!

but hello family! good emails this week thank you thank you. especially dads. i loved the ones about darins games. oh i get sooo pumped for next season! keep me updated on varstiy!

babes thank you for going horseback riding! i miss that soo much! its probably the greatest thing ever. as the plaque in my room says " if heaven doesnt have horses, i aint goin" true story with me!

dad to answer some of your questions

local music..... there are to kinds. there is the kind that is like super local. like tribal stuff. and that stuff drives me nuts!!!!!! also the have kuduro which is not so tribal but.... i dont like it. its very annoying.  then there is the kid that is more american black. more international and that stuff is good!!!!! also i like a few brazilian artists such as paula fernandes who is my brazilian girlfriend.   wowzers!  and that about it. its funny because when i write other missionaries in brazil or portugal they have no idea about the music there. the only reason we know about it here is because of the taxis! haha its funny because we all know the songs and can sing to them.

apartment... its a house. a mansion. haha two floors. one and a half bath 4 bedrooms one office. a lounge, a kitchen and a dining room. but its like a cabin on the inside. ill send pics next week. actually its 3 stories but the basement is rented out to a portuguese guy.

non church vocab... hmm i think its pretty good. but im always learning new words. so who knows. unfortunately angolans dont speak very well. well they do, just not as good as portugese or brazil.  they say "coiso" a ton. which translates to "thingy" . its a horrible habit they have and i call them out on it all the time.

this week was.... oh man. very very tough. horrible actually. everything and everyone dropped. no one came to church. just a tought week. huambo is tough missionary work wise, but its the best at just general living. but no biggie. just a trail. a refinement. we didnt die so apparently it makes us stronger! 

during the week i was going through my mission pictures and videos and  i realized i freaking love angolans. they are my people! even though they can be soooo dificult to work with and they have no sense of commitment i still love them to death.

this week we were in the barrio ( super super poor neighborhood, mud huts) and all of our appointments fell through. dang funerals mess up everything. because when someone dies literally the whole neighborhood goes to the funeral that has two parts. doesnt matter what commitments they have to work or anything. they all go. very annoying for an american missionary. but its just theyre culture. its actually kind of cool if you take a step back. they are all a big family!

and our little branch here is amazing. even when things are looking horrible (no investigators progressing, inactives that seem impossible to bring back) they have soooooo much faith. and they are just like okay how can we continue. what can we do to help this. such faith. they have true grit.

third thing. God loves his lost sheep. sometimes when a person is baptized and they move or something and basically go inactive we think its a lost cause. but God knows them. and will do all he can to get them back. this week while contacting we ran into a portuguese guy who was baptized in portugal and then moved and lost contact and basically hasnt been to church in forever but he saw us and came up and talked to us about where the church is in huambo. (its very new here) and wanted to come back. God is amazing!

also this week. we were without energy one night and we were talking about starwars. and we got really starwars trunky... and we wanted to watch starwars.... so we did! in a special missionary way. since in was dark we didnt need to turn off the light. and elder fontain played starwars! haha said every line and acted all the parts sound effects light sabers and everything. haha its was great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ill send some pics of the cool light sabers we made. i know we are nerds. but some times you gotta stay sane!

well that was the week. i love you all! have a great week!

Elder tingey

God is Great! (Juice) is Good, And People are Crazy!

February 3, 2014

hey fam. well this week was interesting. difficult yes. but very small and sweet successes.

unfortunately i am a little bit sickish. just a cold though. but its really annoying. so unfortunately as well i dont have that much to write.

well when i taught english classes this week we had a record turn out. that was pretty cool. its actually picking up to be a way that we find and are able to teach people.

this week we started teaching a lady named natalia who is wayyyy cool. she is actually a reference from a current investigator. anyway the first few lessons went really well and we invited her to baptism and she said yes! so i was excited about that. that was on saturday. end of the week sweet is what i call them. then on sunday we had our investigator amilcar finally  show up to church and i was excited about that because ive been doing everything to get him there for like a month. small victories give strength to win the war.

this week i was struggling, just with everything. and one night i was just lying in bed with a million thoughts racing through my head and i was stressed angry and just feeling all kinds of emotions. and then out of no where something just came over me and all my thoughts just vanished basically and a great calmness and love came over me. just peace. God really knows us individually. and he cares about our lives. its interesting how powerful he is to literally watch us at all moments. God is good. actually God is great, (juice) is good, and people are crazy.

well folks. thats about all i have. im sorry. i miss you and love you.

Elder Tingey