December 28, 2009

Merry Christmas!

It’s sort of shocking how fast the christmas magic leaves town, this lights and such are still all up, but it’s quickly gone back to normal Portugal. Not that I don’t like normal Portugal, but it’s sure no Christmas Portugal. It was great talking to everybody, although I must admit it was slightly weird, everything sounds the same except for Isaac, who sounds different. Those pictures are extremely silly, and it looks like Isaac got a great Christmas haul, and those little ball things look cool. This week we were shopping in the Chinese store for presents, and I saw this rat transformer that I got for Christmas or my birthday or something about 10 years ago. I don’t know if you guys still remember vividly my rat transformer, but I do. It was crazy epic déjà vu (I don’t know how to spell that). Today we’re going to the mall to do some Christmas shopping, I’ll try to send a picture of what I get. I don’t think there will be any DSi’s, but it should be fun. Oh, and my planner only goes 6 weeks in advance. Four and a half months is really close. That’s going to go scarily fast. I think it’s best if I don’t think four months into the future.

I did spell johnny’s name right (or jonny’s name right, depending on who you ask. I wrote Jonathan, and I’m pretty sure the name doesn’t matter) and I’m pretty sure I wrote the address right, to avoid confusion I’m just going to send it to caitlin’s house and she can divvy the presents up. It’s absurd how long it’s taking to send this, I wrote the letters that are in this package about 6 months ago.

The rainstorm was rough, and it’s sad I don’t have any pictures. The dona isn’t taking any more chances, now whenever it rains R. comes down and shuts the giant valve that keeps any water from coming in or out, so it shouldn’t be a problem anymore, unless the rain catches us by surprise.

We had a really good week, Christmas magic was everywhere, and we got a new person in church, M. S. won’t be getting baptized this week, be pushed in back to the 10th of January, but he’s doing really well. We found a bunch of new people last week, so we’re pretty excited for all of them. I really like finding new people to teach, it’s easy to get in a rut of teaching all the same people that aren’t going anywhere, but it seems like when you drop people that aren’t progressing, new people very quickly show up to take their place. There’s probably some sort of life application in this mission truth, but I dunno what it is.

Christmas night we ate with the dona’s family, which was a lot of fun. Dona gave us gloves and socks for Christmas (I love socks).

We’re both a little sick right now, probably as a result of cold and too much candy, but it will pass.

Anyway, that’s about to news for today. Everyone have a happy news years. I still remember 2000 when we were watching October Sky and it started snowing. That was cool. This new years I’ll be going to be in bed by 11, but I’ll try to wake up at 7 to celebrate new years with all you mountaineers.

Thanks for the support and the pictures and the presents, any of the three is always appreciated. Feliz natal e um bom ano.

Abraços,

Elder Ammon

December 21, 2009

T’was the night before pday and all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse

The elders were nestled all snug in their beds

While visions of baptisms danced in their heads

The jackets were hung by the heater with care

In hopes that the wetness wouldn’t be there

And I in my thermals, and Elder B. in his cap

Had long settled down for a just winters nap

When out in the kitchen there arose such a clatter

That I leaped from my bed to see what was the matter

Away to the door I flew like a flash

But before I could get there, I heard my foot splash

And what to my wondering eyes should appear

But a miniature flood, 8 inches of rain-

As you may have guessed by my attempted poetry, we had another flood today. This one was a much different experience from last time. At about 4a.m. the dona called because she was worried. It had been raining a lot and she had just woken up, and there was quite a bit of water in the road, so she was wondering if there was water in our house. And there was. I only had to take a couple steps from my bed and it was already quite wet. Our door had been shut, but the rest of the house already had several inches, and we could hear the little sewer whole gurgling away, as the water rose quickly. But between dona and us, we took care of it. By the time the fireman came (well prepared for the then inch high water, in fireman suits, helmets, and visors) it was already leaving. The dona let us go upstairs and sleep in the house they’ve been getting ready for their family. We didn’t sleep too well, because our feet were still really really cold. But it was nice. Meanwhile, the dona and R. cleaned up everything, which was incredibly nice of them, and by the time we woke up at about 8 o’clock, they had finished. I made a little video, but it ended up way to big to send.

So that was pretty exciting.

In other news, things are good, Today it is beautiful and sunny and warm. We had a good week but I’ll probably talk more about it on Friday. Christmas is coming absurdly fast, we haven’t even had time to plan what we’re going to do, President moved p-day to Christmas, today we’re just going to write and do a few groceries, so we can leave our area or do whatever on christmas. There’s a lot of stuff we’ve like to do and not a ton of time. Elder B. is planning on calling at 3 o´clock our time. That works out to be about 9 o’clock your time (you’re 6 hours earlier). His parents are calling his cell phone, so I’ll call you guys at the same time.

In response to a few questions, yes, bacalhau com natas is a pretty normal dish at any time of the year, but it’s especially common around Christmas. I believe I’ve eaten it twice in the last week or so, and I’ll probably end up eating it a bit more. But it’s good. Cod fish with cream, good times.

Elder B. and I are still getting along really well. We’ve been singing Christmas songs at every opportunity. It’s also a very effective way of finding people to teach. We’ve been knocking doors and offering to sing songs. You would be surprised how many people say no, but it’s good for nice people who don’t have time, plus it’s lots of fun.

Speaking of lots of fun, I got a very cool letter on Thursday, from Michelle B. (johnny’s mom) telling me how when the missionaries came to the door she thought of me and let them in. She got baptized back in November. It was definitely the best Christmas present I’ve gotten so far.

That reminds me, the same day, I got back a package I had tried to send to my friends (that’s right, if you guys are still reading this, there are, in fact, presents on the way) It seems it got all the way to Mississippi and the got sent back, somewhere in between the present for Johnny being stolen (I believe that’s the second time Johnny’s present has been lost in the mail. Sorry). I’m going to get a new one, send it again, but I need a different address to send it to. I was wondering if you guys could find out where Johnny, Caitlin, and Roberta will be, respectively, in the next few weeks, and either email that to me, or tell me on the phone.

S., who you may remember, is set for getting baptized here in a bit. We had dropped but he found a pamphlet in the trash and got into contact with us again.

We’re really excited about this week, it’s going to be a really good week. We have Christmas conference on Wednesday, Christmas eve on Thursday, p-day/Christmas on Friday. I wish the Christmas season was longer, and that we had started singing hims and such earlier. It’s a really good time for missionary work, as long as you don’t get homesick. Not feeling too homesick this time around, it’s just sort of strange. Still doesn’t quite feel like Christmas, or it does, just not like normal Christmas. But that’s alright, mission Christmas is great.

Everyone have a great week, and a Feliz Natal

Elder Ammon

December 14, 2009

So, as it happens I might not be going to the giant Christmas tree today, president t. asked us all to stay in our areas and use preparation day to prepare so that we can focus on the work this week. In theory that’s what we’re supposed to do every week, but it’s good to focus on it. We’re going to clean out our house, I’ve been neglecting it a little, since I was expecting to get transferred, and with the winter the mold is starting to take over, so we’re going to fight it back. Hopefully next week I’ll be able to get some photos out to you guys.

The week was different. I didn’t realize how different it is to work with cape Verdean companions. Being back with an American is different, it’s a lot of fun, but it’s a little harder to stay focused. We have to work on not speaking English in the street and talking about movies and video games and teen girl squad. Elder B. is cool, he’s from Idaho and we get along really well, he was a music major before the mission, and we’ve been singing a lot of songs in lessons. Christmas is a really great time for missionary work, people are at home, people are happy, and thinking about Jesus Christ. Plus, there’s such a great spirit of Christmas. People in general are just happier (I learned last year that this wears of almost immediately after Christmas. Come December 26, people will be back to their scroogey ways). We’re hoping to be able to do some sort of service for people. We learned last year it can be tricky to offer service in Portugal, but we’ll do our best.

We’re excited about this little family we met. We taught one person in the family last week, but this week we got to know the rest of the family. They’re pretty cool. Interestingly, we knocked their door about 4 months ago with elder f., but they said they weren’t interested, we went back a couple weeks ago because we were trying to find this kid we contacted in the street. We didn’t find him, but some kids directed us to the house and his family. His family wasn’t really interested, but he came out and talked to us, and we set up a lesson. The first time the family didn’t really listen, but when we came back the second time they were all there, we sang Christmas songs and they loved it and then in the end the ten year old daughter, (who’s way cool) said the prayer. Since then we’ve gone back twice. The grandparents don’t speak Portuguese, but with my broken creole I learned from elder F. I managed to explain how to pray and the grandmother said the closing prayer. Tonight we’re going back with M. (who speaks creole much better than I do). I have a lot of hope for this family, they have plenty of time and are always willing to listen to us. Those are two of the most important things, now as long as they’re actually interested and willing to change, we’ll we golden. It’s cool to see the way we get led to people. I think a lot of time people think that the missionaries have some sort of very specific feeling and go to someone’s door and baptize them that week. That happens too, but more often the principles of finding people are similar to the principles of finding anything: You generally find them when you’re looking for something else. For whatever reason, knocking doors is extremely ineffective, but looking for specific people generally leads to success, even when they’re not the people you were looking for. It’s interesting.

In other news, m’s mom is progressing, which is exciting. She’s started reading the Book of Mormon with him and is wanting to talk to us more. She’s works quite a lot, which is challenging, but we’re happy. M. is so great. We also had a new guy come to church this week, P., he’s cool. He also works a lot, but he likes church. We also had a Christmas party on Saturday. That was cool, we had lots of people show up. We invited our Dona and she came along with R. Those two are way cool.

So, it was a pretty normal week, I’m hoping this week will be a little more extraordinary, so we’re going to work hard and pray a lot and try to get some of these people progressing. I still don’t know how Christmas is going to be, where I’ll call from, or when I’ll call, but I’ll figure that all out this week, and tell you guys next Monday. I can’t believe it’s already been a year. President T. told me this would probably be my last transfer in pontinha. He told me that last transfer too, but I think he means it this time. So I’m trying to find some more motivation. I sort of sprinted to the finish last transfer, and when it turned out there were six more weeks, it caught me a bit unprepared, so I have to regroup and get going. But I’m happy I’m here, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else for Christmas this year.

Anyway, you all have a great week, feed the missionaries and help them teach. Personally I’m a lot more grateful for when members teach with us than when they give us food, but food is good too.

Amo vocês, abraços, boas festas, até logo

Elder Ammon

December 7, 2009

Boas Festas!

So, last week i was sort of frustrated, but now i'm over it and excited again. We're about to go to the zoo again, so i'm happy, since last time we didn't get a chance to see everything, i'm not going to write all that much before, but i'll try to get some time afterwards to say more. I still don't know what's happening here, but anythings possible, i could stay, i could leave, or pontinha could close, etc. Basically the only thing that won't happen is stay here but move to a different house, but even that's sort of possible. Anyway, the mission is losing 15 missionaries and we're only getting one sister missionary, so a bunch of areas are closing, we'll see how it goes. Anyway, this week was good (this keyboard is not good, so if a few letters are missing, you can assume it's because of the keyboard, not because i'm forgetting enlish). We found some cool new investigators, and S., this investigator that we dropped 6 weeks ago, called us and wanted to meet up. It turned out that he had run into a joseph smith pamphel from the 70's in the garbage, and wanted to give it to us. It's a cool little 'relic' ,as he called it (he speaks english... roughly, but understandably) and it turned out to be useful in teaching a lesson later that day.

This week was fast sunday. Fast sundays are my favorite sundays, not so much because of the fasting (athough that's good) but because everyone bears their testimony. Everbody thinks missionaries live for the baptism, but i've always found a lot more fulfilling the times after baptism. And recent converts bearing testimonies are some of the best times you get in the mission. So it was cool.

It's cool to hear about the baptisms there in biloxi. I'd like to baptize members' friends, but i haven't been able to do that. One of the things Elder Capische talked about was the importance of being independent of members, basically if members don't bring friends to church, bring people to church yourself and help them make friends with members. In that way it works out the same way.

Portugal is getting very christmassy, they've put lights all over the place, and today we're planning on going down into lisbon to take a picture infront of the biggest christmas tree is europe. So that should be interesting. Right next to me, there's a nun buying a cellphone, it's seems strange for some reason.

I'll do my best to buy cool christmas presents for myself, i have a couple things in mind, but basically the only thing i can use right now are socks. Oh, the package came already, and it's great. Eating peanut butter while wearing slippers is really really good. I don't know how i've gone twenty years without slippers.

Anyway, that's about all the time i have. We're going to go rock the Zoo one more time, just incase i get sent far away or something. I'll try to get pictures and transfer updates out before the end of the day, so have a great day, and place your bets.

My guess, is pontinha is closing, and i'm going to Mossimá (not quite sure how to spell that). I don't want pontinha to close, but that's my guess. We'll see how it goes.

Até já,

Ammon

So the zoo was sweet. I'll send some pics and such, but here's the deal with transfers. I'm staying! My guess was way way off, but i'm happy. I'm excited to be here for christmas and such. It does sort of change my plans, i had been planning to leave, now i need to do groceries, but that's cool.

Elder R. is leaving, he's going to Vasco da Gama which is just on the other side of the river. I'm going to be serving with Elder B., who i know sort of, he was in the MTC with me for three weeks, he seems nice. My district is staying about the same, except there are going to be three executive secretaries, so Elder C. (who was in the MTC with me also) is coming in. Anyway, you'll probably only interested in the fact that i'm staying, so i'll leave it there.

So yeah, i'm excited to go one more here, i'm going to try to make it really good, i learned a lot this transfer, so hopefully i'll be able to apply it. So, that's the news, i'm going to send a bunch of pictures now. Have a great week, stay safe, and write lots.

Abraços,

Elder Ammon

November 30, 2009

It’s December Eve!

Well, this week was a little rougher than last week, but it was still good. I think what is true of life is true of missions, we don’t learn a whole lot from being happy and having everything come easy, learning is tough. Maria dos Anjos did not get baptized, despite us trying really really hard. I honestly have never worked so hard for someone in my mission. It was really frustrating actually, because I did everything I possible could and things just didn’t work out. The whole thing reminded me of mom talking to gretchin back in the day. Maria dos Anjos has a tendency to focus on the problems in her life, which makes it difficult. But today I had a really good study about all the times the Lord tells people to go back and try again. It happens a lot actually. So anyway, I’m learning to be patient and not define my success by outward results.

As far as outward results though, we’re teaching Quinta for serious again. She was the first person we met in Pontinha, and I’ve been having the feeling she’ll be the last person I baptize here. It just has a nice symmetry to it.

This week was rainy and cold, but today was a really nice day and we went and played volleyball, which was fun. Sounds like thanksgiving in California was nice. For thanksgiving we bought a barbeque chicked and made rice and potatoes, and it turned out really good, it was a lot better than last thanksgiving meal.

Anyhow, I’m rambling let me tell you some of the awesome things that happened this week:

Oh, so we hit a little obstacle with Jorge. When we went back for the second lesson he told us he was sorry but he couldn’t meet with us because the next day his house was getting destroyed. He lives on this street that they’re tearing down houses to make room for a highway or something like that, and we showed up that day and a little café near his house was destroyed, up the street they were in the process of destroying a house (which was really cool to watch.) So that was sort of disappointing. We’re hoping things settle down with him a little bit and we can teach him some more.

Woah, I just realized that this keyboard is exactly the same as the keyboard I had on my computer, except it’s written in Portuguese.

We’ve had some really nice lessons with Dona. She really likes the doctrine of the church and loves to learn about this, but it’s going to be hard for her to change in her life. But it’s really fun to teach her, our landlords are really cool people. I really need to take a picture with them one of these days (hopefully today)

Speaking of one of these days, next week is transfers, so next p-day we’ll probably find out where I’m spending Christmas. It’s pretty up in the air, I could easily stay or go. I would like to spend Christmas here, but i’ll accept what comes. I hit a year in Portugal this week, It has gone by really fast, and time keeps speeding up, but I’m working hard not to keep track of home much time is left.

It’s good that my last two letters were really enlightening; this one is feeling sort of uninspired. It’s interesting the way our life goes in cycles. I’m still enough of a math major to think about our personal progress over time as a function:

f(x) = x + sin x (throw that in a graphing calculator or ask somebody that remembers math)

We have highs and lows but in theory we gradually get better (you might throw a constant in front of sine if your ups and downs are a little dramatic). It seems like we should be able to just keep going up, grace for grace if you will, but it seems like more often it’s more wavey. So you might say I’m over there at 5.5π. I probably shouldn’t make metaphors with math, it really limits the number of people who will know what I’m talking about. Basically the point is, this week was rough, but that just means I’m progressing, and the next few weeks will be better. This week I’m working with the attitude that it’s my last, ironically I woke up with “party like it’s 1999” stuck in my head. Blast, well it would seem that the internet on this computer has collapsed on itself, so I’m going to save this on the handy dandy pen drive I’ve been meaning to send you guys forever and go send it later.

Have a great week everyone. Thanks for your support and love and presents. I exhort you to not procrastinate the day of your Christmas shopping until the end.

Abraços,

Elder Ammon

November 23, 2009

Bom dia!

First of all: happy birthday to Katie, and one more happy birthday to Amy (for reals this time). Sorry I forgot when your birthday is. And Happy Thanksgiving to everybody. Thanksgiving is a great holiday, last thanksgiving I ate rice left-overs with this weird tomato paste sauce. That was my very first day in Portugal, I didn’t even remember that it was thanksgiving.

This thanksgiving, I think we’re going to buy a chicken. I’ve been meaning to do it forever, but we’re going to do it for thanksgiving (that’s a grilled chicken, not a live one) Today’s a little too far away to make it make sense, and I think afterwards will be to far. Thanksgiving is a nice holiday, it doesn’t have much of the fluff that stores put on Christmas and Halloween. There’s only so much money that can be made off of turkey. I’m working hard to not get trunky this holiday season, so I’ll leave family holidays there and talk about mission stuff.

So this week was great. We taught our dona on Monday night, and it was really nice. It’s good practice for when I’m a normal person again and want to talk to people about the church. It’s hard. It’s fine talking to random people on the street, but when you talk to people your closer to, it gets scary, especially when those people are your landlords. What if she gets offended and turns our electricity off? But, as always, it went really well, they were curious and interested to know what all these crazy Americans have been teaching people all this time. We taught about our lives and what happens after death. A friend of hers died a little while ago, and she had a bunch of questions, and one of the things she said was, “If I knew this I wouldn’t be afraid of death at all!” So it was fun. We’re going to teach them again on Thursday. At some point I started liking our dona a lot. It still bugs me a bit when she blames us for flooding or says I didn’t speak Portuguese when I got here, but really genuinely like them. There such cool people. And, they’re going to make a mug with our picture on it. Is that not the coolest thing ever? I decided I need to buy her a Christmas present, I don’t know if I’m going to be here or not for Christmas, but I’m hoping so.

Other cool things, yesterday we had a lesson with Jorge. Jorge is this guy that lives close to some other investigators, and we’ve tried to set lessons up with him so many times. He’s not been there lots of times, and we’ve missed it lots of times, so yesterday I decided I wasn’t going to miss it again. I didn’t really know what to teach, so after the prayer I just asked him, “Do you have any questions or any doubts?” He said, yeah, “How can I know which church is true?” As we started to answer he interrupted and said, “or is other words, how can I know which church I should follow” It turned out to be a really really good lesson. It was even cooler because he asked with almost the exact wording in the Joseph Smith pamphlet thing. Anyway, fun times. Something I’ve learned, is that missionaries are really really bad at recognizing “the elect” which is ironic because we think we’re pretty good at it. Generally it’s the people you don’t expect, the underdogs, if you will, that turn out to be the best, and the people that start out Golden turn out to be all talk. I can’t say that’s always true, but it’s been very consistently true for me.

This weekend we’re having another baptism, Maria dos Anjos. We’re pretty excited. We need to do a better job of working with the members so that she has friends in the church and such. That’s one of the things we’re going to work on this week.

I rode my bike a lot when I was isaac’s age. I remember distintly riding around at our broad street house. I would generally follow the same basic path, and there was this one dog that would always chase me. I also remember one time a big grasshopper landed on the wheel. I would try to ride with out hands, and I managed more or less, this one time I tried to stand up and ride without hands, and I fell and hurt myself. I actually have vivid memories of several times I fell and hurt myself, in lots of places. After we moved to Jackson st I didn’t ride nearly as much, because it was busy, and such, plus we had a trampoline, but in Jackson I rode my bike quite a lot (I think I got a new bike when we went to Jackson, so I could ride my bike to school, like ryder taft, and later Wells and Chaz…good times). And yeah, my first bike didn’t have brakes, and so I would just stop with my feet, and one time it had rained and we were going to the wards house and I just flew through the intersection. I remember there being lots of cars coming and it being really dangerous, but that’s likely to be my memory exaggerating a bit. Not like that time dad drove through the crossing right before a train passed, dodging the train my mere inches. That definitely happened.

I said it last week, but I’m really enjoying my mission right now. I don’t really even know why, we’re not really having that much more success than we used to, I think I’m just managing to do my best, and so at the end of the day I can go to sleep happy, and then wake up again excited to do better. Also I started doing exercises again, they had sort of become pointless, and I managed to do all of them without leaving my bed, that might also have something to do with it. It’s a sad irony of life that the more you enjoy something the faster it goes by, while the things that are no fun take forever. It’d be nice if it went the other way around, but I’m thankful that I’m in Portugal, in pontinha this thanksgiving. It probably won’t be one of my most memorable thanksgiving, but in general my life right now is the best it has ever been. The mission is good times. So happy thanksgiving to everybody, watch out for crazy shoppers (I’ll keep my eyes open to see if they celebrate black Friday in Portugal) and don’t fill up on oyster crackers before thanksgiving dinner.

Abraços, e boas festas

Elder Ammon

November 16, 2009

Me, Mariazinha, Elder Rodrigues, and Vitória (one of mariazinha's granddaughters)

First, answers. Yes please. I don’t know exactly how it works to get new shoes, but I believe you send them a picture and they’ll get new shoes, although I don’t know if they send them all the way to Portugal, you guys might have to take care of that half. Try calling them and see. Yesterday it started raining, and having a big hole in my soul just isn’t going to fly this winter. I keep remembering specific items during the week and forgetting them when p-day comes. Peanut butter is always a must, I try to add stuff as I go along. The office is best for packages, and since we go there at least 3 or four times a week it’ll be fine great. Oh, contact solution. I need more contact solution.

So, this week was good. On Saturday Mariazinha got baptized, and I got to baptize her, which was great. We were going to have the bishop do it, but then she asked that I do it, which worked out well because the bishop broke his arm in a intense bicycling accident. (there are two words in Portuguese, partir, and perder. One means to break, the other to lose. When I talked to bishop I wasn´t sure, but I thought he said he had lost his arm. It was a relief to see his arm in a sling) The Baptism was really good, honestly the best baptismal program I’ve ever seen. Her sister, daughter, granddaughter and friend, all of whom aren’t members of the church, came and loved it. Also her neice, who is a member of the church (which we found out about a week ago) came and gave a really really good talk about how she has been praying for two years that her family would join the church and had been trying to work it out to have mariazinha come to their house to meet the missionaries. Jessica and her friend (or cousin, I’m not quite sure if they’re related or not) loved it and now want to start coming to church. We’ve been teaching Jessica for a while (she’s mariazinha’s granddaughter) but she didn’t ever want to church, but now she does, so we’re excited.

Another cool experience: I was running around before the baptism trying to get people there on time and I didn’t actually get to the church until 2o’clock, when it was supposed to start, and when I got there the water was cold. Mariazinha’s doing chemotherapy, and she’s old, and getting baptized in November in cold water was not something I wanted to do to her. So, I messed around with the valves on our water heaters, and managed to get the hot water running. I prayed, basically begging for a miracle, that somehow or another the water wouldn’t be painful for her. Then I drained out some of the water from the baptismal font I threw some water on the stove to boil, drained the font a bit and tried to not look too worried. So all this was no w while the baptismal program was going, Mario was giving a talk about baptism. Happily, he talked quite a bit and so the water had time to boil, and nobody even realized. So, finally we go to the baptismal font. I got in first, and was worried, because that water was not even remotely warm. It was better, but still way cool. When she got in I thought she was in pain. She said a prayer (which is a very good thing to do when you are half way into the waters of baptism, and I’m surprised no one else has ever done that before) and then came down. We had to do the baptism twice, because she didn’t get all the way under the first time (the water was still sort of low from draining) and by the end I was afraid she was going to get pneumonia or something, as she got out Amélia (who is an older lady we brought with us to teach and became a good friend of Mariazinha) ask her if she was cold, and she said, “No, the water felt warm.” So that was a great blessing, and I don’t think anyone else at that baptism really understood how big a blessing it was, since no one else was standing in cold water. It was one of the best experiences of my mission (so far) and taught me a little bit about the relationship between faith, works, and miracles (faith is working really, really hard, trusting that God will take care of the rest)

Other investigators are also doing well. We’re teaching a family, Bimba, Graciete, and their three sons. They’re from Cape Verde, and we’re very excited for them. Elder Capische when he came encouraged us to wake up three minutes early and think about finding and baptizing a family, and so every morning I wake up and think about them. It turns out they’re from the same town as Elder Rodrigues, and know a lot of the same people. We taught a great lesson with José, who is also from over there, and the father really liked it. The mom has lots of doubts because she’s talked to a lot of other churches, but that’s alright, people should have questions. Let’s see, that’s about the gist of what’s going on. I’m really enjoying my mission right now, more than at any other point. Here in Portugal they’re getting Christmassy already, here in the mall they’re got a giant Christmas tree, but I’m more excited about seeing the biggest Christmas tree in Europe which they put up in downtown Lisbon. I’m also having a hard time believing a year has gone by, but the weather is the same, rainy and windy and a little depressing. I’m excited about Christmas though, I’m hoping to be here in pontinha (although it’s unlikely) but I’m sure wherever I am it will be great. I’m hoping I can keep improving for the next year and enjoying it more and more, because the difference in me from one year ago to now is huge (even from 6 weeks ago to now is big) and I’m really enjoying the mission right now, a lot more than I was one year ago. So hopefully that’ll keep improving.

So anyway, have a great week everyone, Happy birthday to Amy (which I’m pretty sure happens this week, but if not, happy birthday anyway!). Until next week

Love,

Ammon

November 9 2009

It smelled like fish. Fun fact about Ammon: He has now kissed more sealions than he has girls.

there's no way i'm going to be able to capture the epicness of last p-day and this week and read all your letters, but i'll do my best.

So last p'day i didn't get around to finishing up. because of the overwhelming epicness of it all. First to try to respond to some questions. In the christmas package, i keep remembering things i need but keep forgetting them when it's time to right emails. A few things that are always importate:

Maple Extract (for making syrup)

I can't think of anything else right now, i'll try to add stuff as we go on.

So yeah, last p-day i went to the zoo. Lisbon has a nice little zoo, i don't think it's as fancy as some zoos (i've been to 3 or so) but it's a whole lot less depressing than the jackson zoo. First we looked at the tigers, which were cool (and apropriately boring) then we went and saw some rhinocerous, and there was a backflipping squirrel, and some buffulo, and some bison, and other cool stuff. After that we went and saw the sea lion feeding, which was pretty cool. I got to pet a sea lion, and saw them do some coolish tricks. It was cool.

After that we went to the reptile house, and that was cool, mostly for sentimentality. We saw box turtles, and snapping turtles, and alligators and snakes, and all kinds of things i used to find in our backyard. Then we went over to the dolphin show. I had heard that the zoo would change my life, and it came through pretty well.

So the dolphin show was good, they start out with the sea lions doing more tricks, and then afterwards the dolphins come out and jump and stuff. It's a lot cooler than i'm desribing it. They have one thing they do where the dolphins swim behind the trainers, pushing on their feet to make them fly through the water (see picture), it's now on my list of things to do before i die.

So all in all, it was a pretty epic dolphin show. There's also part where the sea lions come through and kiss each person in the audience, and the zoo guys take a picture and you can pay 5 euros after to buy it.

So that was all very cool.

After the show, we were on our way out, and they let you if you want come up and pet the dolphins. So i got to pet a dolphin! And the dolphins kiss you and flip over and let you rub their stomach and it's all very cool and makes me think that i need to get out of mathematics and try to fulfill the childhood goal of being a marine biologist. So yeah, we also talked to the trainers a lot and found out interesting things about them. We gave the head dolhpin guy a pamflet and got his phone number (he lives in my area, i really need to teach the dolphin guy). So that was very very cool.

Then, as we're getting ready to leave, they ask if we want to come in the back and see the stuff behind the scenes. So obviously we did. Back there we saw all the sea lion tanks, and we got to put the sea lions to bed, and we got to pet them and kiss them and even got a hug from one. It was unbelievably cool. Without a doubt, the best p-day ever, and one of the best days of my life (probably on the top 5).

And, on our way back, we ran into someone from New Orleans and talked to them forever. She was cool. also. So yeah, really really good day.

As far as the week goes, it was good. Zone Conference was awesome, Elder Capishce talked a lot about faith and what we, as missionaries, need to do, and what we have to leave to the agency of others.

Our investigators are good, Mariazinha is all ready to go to get baptized on saturday. And we had a new investigators, Maria dos Anjos in church on sunday. We're working hard to try to find new investigators, especially families. I'm also trying hard to work well with the members and find people through them. One thing also that Elde Capishce said is that we should work with the members, but we should be self sufficient, and we can't wait for the members to find people. I realized that it's really more important to teach with the members of the church than to find with them, because the whole reason finding with the members is so good is because the people you find are friends of members. If the members make friends with the people you teach, it works out the same way.

Blast, i had more to say, but i forgot and i'm out of time. So, until next week, have a great november. Happy birthday, mom, i'm going to try really really hard to get stuff send off today, so we'll see how that goes.

Have a great week, thanks for all the letters, pictures, and everything.

Amo-vos

Elder Ammon

November 2, 2009

Today i'm going to the zoo! But at the moment i don't have any new pictures, so i'm hoping to get a half hour of internet at the end of the day with pictures and such.

As far as news goes, wildjoy didn't get baptized on saturday, but we marked mariazinha for baptism. She'll be baptized on the 14th, in two weeks. Elder Rodrigues and I made a goal of baptizing 10 people this transfer. President torgan basically told me that this will be pontinha's last transfer open (you never know what will happen, but he said it's likely it will close, which means it's extremely likely, since he generally doesn't talk about things like that before hand. So i'm looking at this as one last chance to do everything i should have already done in pontinha and then some more. I had a really good personal study the other day studying jacob 5 (when i was little i always looked towards that chapter with dread, because it took forever to read) And i wrote verse 71 and 72 on the front of my planner, because it applies really well to this transfer. I wrote it in portuguese, so it doesn't help much to put it here) but it's good. So i'm trying to work with 'afinco' this transfer (i guess you translate that as 'might' but i think it translates better as umph.)

Elder Rodrigues (which, by the way is roughly said "Hodreegs" not rodriguez. Not spanish.) is pretty cool. He's a lot different from elder Fernandes. As it turns out all cape verdians are not the same. He's a lot more quiet and reserved, very humble. He was baptized two years ago, and is 23ish now. I'm excited to work with him, and hopefully this time around i can learn creole. He doesn't really speak english either, but he wants to learn so i'm going to try to help him more than i helped Elder Fernandes (which is fernands, not fernandez), i was sort of lazy about last transfer.

Other news...Elder Kapische, the area president of europe, is coming to zone conference on friday, so that's exciting. I met him once before when Elder Bednar came. Christmas is also coming up quick, they're starting to put christmas stuff up, since they don't have thanksgiving here. I still could use some measuring cups and measuring spoons. There was something else i was wishing for the other day, but now i don't remember.

Anywya, i'm going to go to the zoo now, and hopefully i'll get a chance to send pictures and such from that. In anycase, have a fantastic week. I love you guys, and as christmas comes i'll probably start missing people again, but i love serving a mission, and, having cleaned our house today, living in portugal is pretty incredile.

Boa semana, abraços por todos.

Até já

Elder Ammon

October 26, 2009

One more little email today.

So, we got transfer calls, i'm staying and am going to train one more cabe verdian, who is a friend of elder fernandes. Elder Fernandes is going to the Açores with Elder Valasquez (who is in our district) I'm still district leader but my district is changing to be the secretaries and the Assistants. My new comp is Elder Amos Rodrigues, from Praia, São Tiago, and he sounds pretty cool. So yeah, i think tomorrow the switch over madness happens, so tonight we'll be packing and such.

And yeah, we made jack-o-lanterns

October 26, 2009

This week, elder Fernandes is doing His visas, so i’m taking advantage of the spare time and doing internet now. Elder Fernandes doesn’t really do internet, and since we’ve been trying to take advantage of p’days, internet has been falling by the wayside. Anyway, sorry my last couple has been so short, but today will be good. First of all, as fall as slippers go, it’s most important that they are warm and comfortable. Rediculousness is secondary, bonus points.

The week was good. We found some really cool investigators, and best of all, Mariazinha went to church this week. Mariazinha is doing chemotherapy, which from what I’ve seen is not easy, but she, in an act of huge determination, came to church for the first time two days after chemo. So that made us really happy, and she like it a lot.

Less happily, Wildjoy didn’t make it to church, which is a whole complicated and understandable story, so we’re trying to figure out what to do over there. We really need to work better with his parents and work extra hard to teach him while his parents are there, but it’s been really hard to set it up with them. But we’re still hopeful for him, we’re just got to work a little bit better with them.

We still don’t know what’s going on in transfers. We know pontinha is staying open, but as to who is staying and who is going we have no clue. So hopefully I’ll know soon, but I don’t even know when I’m going to know.

It sounds like everyone over there is sick, we’re still pretty healthy on our end, house notwithstanding. If I do stay here, I have to stay in this house, which isn’t something I’d be happy about, but it’s rained a couple of times, and it’s doing a pretty good job not getting flooded. As far as a winter house, it’s not terrible, mostly because there’s a dryer. We’ve been getting little taste of winter, rain and chilliness, it’s fun to remember how absurdly cold and wet it gets here in the winter. Fun times.

Halloween doesn’t really happen here, but I’m planning on making it happen by buying a pumpkin or two and making jack-o-lanterns. It’s probably the only Halloween I’ll get in Portugal, so I’ve got to live it up. I figure putting a hollowed out pumpkin with a firey face on my porch would give the neighbors the wrong impressing, so we’ll probably keep it on the down low. As far as costumes, I dunno if there’s a whole lot of options for us.

Everyonce in a while we’ll run into a new part of our area that we’ve never been to, and it’s fun to explore around. Living in Portugal makes me dislike tourism. I like to just live places and get to know them. Good times.

So anyway, what else has been going down in our week? Oh! I got a chance to interview a couple people this week, from the Lapa ward. One named Edson who’s brasilian, and the other is a Portuguese woman who describes herself as a hippie. They were both cool. It’s a really humbling thing to interview people and be the judge of whether their worthy to be baptized, happily both of these people were way worthy and their baptisms went really well. All in all it was a good week. I think this whole transfer has been an issue of being made humble. It’s been good, but it has been one of the least successful transfers of my mission, which is interesting, because I know what I’m doing much better than I used to, but I think I got a little caught up in the idea that I knew what I was doing and forgot that I’m pretty much useless on my own. Finding people is a very humbling experience, because you can work for weeks without finding people, and then other times people just show up on your doorstep basically. We’ve been trying to work more with members. It’s a little slower in the beginning, but I know it works better in the end, so I’m hoping it will work. I don’t like that fact that of all the people I’ve baptized, none of them have been friends of members. It’s good that we’’ve been finding people and such, but we really should find more people through members.

Also, fun fact, none of the people I’ve baptized were found knocking doors.

Anyway, we’re entering into the stressful days of now knowing what’s happening. Real life will be so boring, here, 6 months in one area seems like an eternity, and 3 months with the same person can get hard. Imagine when I live several years in the same house with the same person. But it’ll probably be a bit different.

So good times, I really feel like I should have more stuff to write, but it sort of all runs together. I had sort of a midlife crisis this week, but then I got over it and got going. It’s just the little things, like exercise, 30 minutes of exercise every morning gets old. So now I’m working on making exercise new and exciting and innovative, and doing the same thing for missionary work.

Have a fantabulous Halloween. Christmas is coming up frighteningly quickly, it’s so weird, last Christmas I was brand new to the mission. I still feel brand new. But I’m getting to be one of the older missionaries in the mission. Weird.

As far as my prediction on transfers, I think it will be as follows:

I think Elder Fernandes and I will do one more in pontinha, I feel like there’s still more we need to do here. But, I’ve been pretty bad at guessing, so just wait till next week and I’ll fill you in.

Boa semana, boas festas, amo-vos.

Elder Ammon

October 19, 2009

so, at the end of a poorly planned p'day, i'm sort of without time for righting letters. Back in the day in Mafra we just did shopping and internet and cleaned the house, but here in lisbon, Preperation Days are epic, it was good though. We went to the Aquarium and ate lunch with the missionaries and one of the Irmãs' investigators.

The week was good. We dropped a couple people, and found some new people. One of the people i'm most excited about is a brasilian family, Nivaldo and his wife and son. They are way nice (all brasilians are way nice) and the wife said they'd been to lots of churches but had never quite felt right in any of them. They also did something that almost no new investigator has ever done, they called to cancel an apointment. While canceling an apointment might not seem like signs of goldeness, the fact that they remembered, and were considerate enough to warn us is impressive. We're going to go back there today. Brasilians really are crazy nice, it's sort of throws me off.

In other news, Wildjoy is marked for baptism again, for the 31st. We talked to him, he still wants to get baptized, and we read the part in the bible where Christ says that if you have faith as a mustard seed you will be able to move mountains, or in this case, his mom. I think it's matthew 17. Anyway, we're hopeful. We're also hopeful for transfers. _Having found a couple of new investigators, and having people progressing, we're not too excited about leaving, and both of us are hoping to stay, but we really don't know. In anycase, we're know, although probably not until the day after next p-day.

That's about the newses. I'm still healthy (that's over a year without getting sick enough to stay at home. Woo) and still happy. Portugal is getting chilly, this will be my first and only i get here, since the last i was rocking the MTC still.

Bem, that's all the time i've got, next week i'll make sure to get a full hour in, but for now, have a great week. Buy pumpkins early so you don't get the gimpy ones, and don't put off costume making until halloween afternoon, or else you'll have to turn a lion costume into a dog costume and it just won't be the same as last year.

Amo-vos

Ammon

Last week we went to Belém, which is old school Portugal. The picture with the flag is cool because it's 3 of the way portugal-y things. the April 25th bridge, the Cristo Rei, and the other thing, that i can't remember what it's called.

Hey everybody we went to sintra today, so there are going to be lots of photos and not a lot of time to type. This week was good, we taught a bunch and had some really good times. We’re having to drop a bunch of our investigators, which is always sad. There great people, and we like them, but they’re just not ready, and we can’t just keep teaching them if they´re not willing to do anything about it.

In other news, we had interviews with president torgan the other day, those were nice. We’re feeling like we’re stagnating a little bit. People haven’t really been progressing much in the past couple weeks (ergo the dropping) which is always sad. You work for a whole week and at the end there’s not much to show for it. Happily that’s not quite how missionary work, that when you do your best and things don’t go as plans, you’re still a successful missionary, but it’s a lot more gratifying when doing your best coincides with things progressing.

I only gave myself half an hour because we still have to do groceries and it’s almost 5:30, so in other news, we’re hoping to start working more with the members of the church. I’ve always been pretty good about teaching with members (it’s really important. People generally never progress until you go there with normal people.) but as far as getting people to teach from members, I’m not the best. We are teaching one family that are friends of some members here. It just makes sense. It’s pretty much the first time in my mission I’ve taught friends of a member, and it’s so great, because you don’t have to worry about them having friends or feeling uncomfortable or any of that stuff. It just works.

Wow, half an hour is not a lot of time. Sorry this email is so short. I did hear about the Obama peace prize, from an old bitter Portuguese man. Our weather is jumping between hot and cold, but anyway.

Lamest letter ever. You guys have a great week, and remember that a picture is worth a thousand words, and lots of pictures is worth a thousand good emails.

oh, ps. No turist attraction is complete until you climb on something.

Amo-vos muito, obrigado e fiquem óptimos.

Élder Ammon

October 5, 2009

Olá

this email is going to be a little gimpy, but this week was good. Sadly, we spend about half of it in conferences of one sort or another, but those were great. It's hard to find a good balance in the mission between getting training and studying and such, and actually doing things. I liked the story in conference about a little girl that prayed that her brother's sparrow trap wouldn't work, and told her mom she was sure her prayers would be answered, because after she prayed she kicked that trap all to pieces, that's sort of how a mission is sometimes.

Anyway, Portugal continues to be incredible. We're entering fall, which is a new thing for me. Last time round i had a day of fall before we jumped into rainy winter. Today we're going to go take pictures of lisbon, and hopefully it'll be cool, sometimes day's off are the really boring.

Anyway, like i said, gimpy letter, sorry, but you all have an excellent week and look for opportunities to help missionaries on my behalf, remembering that food is not all they need. Oh, which reminds me, i'm almost out of peanut butter, and i figured out what i would like if there happens to be an early christmas present. I was wishing for slippers, really warm, absurdly comfortable, and idealy rediculous looking slippers. So keep an eye out for something of that sort.

Have a great week,

Amo-vos

Elder Ammon

September 28, 2009

This morning i went for the coup de grace [I think that’s how you say that] with our mouse problem. [woah, every once in a while I remember things that I had forgotten about completely. Just now, I got a Winged Migration flashback. That’s actually the second time today I’ve had weird deja vou] Today I cleaned the house and moved stuff around so that everything that is edible is out of reach, and scattered rat killing pellets around. So far the mice haven’t shown much interest in the poison, but I’ve hoping the lack of food and death in every corner will convince them that it’s time to move into a new house. It’s sort of sad, because everytime I do something in this house, it makes me a little bit more attached to it. Luckily last night there was a worm in our bathroom, so I haven’t yet lost my motivation. Motivation or not, 4 weeks from now we’re committed to leave, so it won’t make a huge difference, but I’d like to turn the house over to Dona mouse free. She worried about mice about as much as mom does.

P-day on Mondays is nice in some ways, but I hear a lot of cool Portuguese things are closed on Monday. We’ll see how that goes as time progresses.

This week is sort of intense. Today is P-day, tomorrow is Zone Conference, and the weekend is General Conference. I’m pretty excited about general conference. I’m not sure how we watch it, because it depends on if we go there with people we teach or just show up, but basically it’s like this. There’s a 7 hour difference from here to utah, so Saturday night at 6 o’clock, the Saturday morning session starts. If we want to watch the afternoon session live, we have to stay up till midnight, so we probably won’t. Sunday morning, is priesthood session, and then the Saturday evening rebroadcasts in the afternoon, than the Sunday sessions. The moral of all this is almost all of Sunday is watching conference, and we’ll probably catch the last bit on Monday. I’m hoping to watch it in English, because I get a lot more out of it, I have a hard time paying attention in Portuguese, because you can still sort of hear them speaking English. Anyway, I’m excited.

On the work front, things are going well. We were sort of bummed yesterday because no one came to church, (well, lots of people came to church, but no one we’re teaching) We did, however, have a great lesson with Jessica and her grandma, Mariazinha. They’re really nice and both are genuinely interested. Jessica has this wiliness to her (I’m not sure if wily is the right word, she’s just very sharp, and has a certain brightness in her eyes) and Maria is one of those nicest old ladies. She always invited us in, and, unlike a lot of the nice old ladies, she understands what we teach and is searching for something more in her life. We’re really excited because next lesson we’re going to talk about what happens when we die, since both jessica and her grandma have lots of questions about that.

Paula, Mario’s sister, is working her way slowly towards church. She has a certain hesitance to go to church, because she says she doesn’t like it, even though she’s never been. I’m not sure what people imagine our church is like, I imagine they base it on their experiences in other churches, but I don’t think Paula has really gone to church other than catholic church when she was little. Anyway, Mario’s being a great example for his family and friends, which is important. Aylton’s having a hard time because of his friends and family, so he needs some good support. Wildjoy seems to have lost a bit of hope with convincing his mom, but we’re still trying to work with him.

Most of last week was spent finding new people to teach, which can be slow goings, but we found some good people, including a Brazilian family that is a referral from a member here. They are the first Brazilians I’ve taught here in pontinha, since it seems there aren’t too many Brazilians here. I think Brazilians must be the nicest people in the world, it’s always just a little surprising. There’s no way to mess up a door approach with Brazilians, you just say “Hi, can we come in?” and they’ll invite you in, and ask you if you want food or Gauraná (a Brazilian soda that is pretty good). So that was fun. Other than that, we found lots of people with good potential, so we’ll be trying to get in touch with them this week.

I had and interesting conversation with an Elder in our ward, Elder Velasquez. He’s coming up to the end of his mission (he has another 3 or 4 months) and is working in the office. I was talking about how I was getting sort of stressed out with everything I had to do, and he told me that stress is connected to doubt, both in ourselves and in God. I realized that for the last couple of weeks I’ve been relying a lot on myself. I realized that I don’t have to worry so much, that I should do what I can, but then trust that God will do the rest, and rely on that. So this week, I’m going to be working on doing that, it will be less stressful, and it will probably be a lot more successful. Lets see, that’s more or less the news from over here. Our kitchen is way clean. I was thinking about putting flour around and then taking pictures of the mouse footprints, but then there’d be flour everywhere, and that sort of defeats the purpose.

This weekend was elections in Portugal, the socialists lost their majority, elections in Portugal are cool (because they seem to only take a few hours to determine the winner), and not nearly as newscrazy. You’ll all be happy to know that the news reporter in front of a giant screen is a world standard.

Have a great week, and enjoy conference. Watch out for Swine flu, bird flu, and other varieties. Thanks for the letters, support, and prayers.

Amo-vos,

Ammon

September 23, 2009

One year ago i hopped on a plane and said até logo to everybody. Technically my one year mark is tomorrow, because that's the day i went into the MTC, but the gist is i've been here for a surprisingly long time and it's been going surprisingly fast. So that's weird.

So the good news is that Ayton got baptized on saturday, and I got to perform the baptism. Sadly Wildjoy's mom didn't give the ok, but we're hopeful still. Also, sadly, we tried out this new internet place in the mall, because the one by our house is crowded, but it's twice (and a half) more expensive, and there's no way to send pictures, so I don't think we'll be doing it here anymore.

I miss giant rainstorms, they're actually one of my favorite things about mississippi, neither Portugal nor Utah has anything to compare with that (which is probably just as well, if it did we'd drown in our house) I'm not sure if I mentioned last week that we found a potential house. It's got a nice location and is reasonably cheap, the only problem is that President Torgan told us not to move in, which basically means he's planning to close pontinha eventually (or at least combine it with some other area) So one way or another five weeks from now we'll move out of our house, but where we'll move into we're really not sure. But we won't worry too much, sufficient is the day unto the evil thereof (or something to that effect)

On the missionary work front, we got a talking to from President Torgan yesterday, basically he said we're doing good work, but that we're capable of much more, and he wants us to figure out why. It's interesting living this close to president, but it's good, i've been feeling the same way, so we're going to see what we can do. We had a good start yesterday, we found eight new potential investigators, which was great. We're also going to start teaching Aylton's brother, and Mario's sister has been talking about baptism, so we're excited. Aylton is having a sort of hard time because his family isn't too supportive, i've seen less supportive families (thinking back to maiery) but it's rough, but he's a trooper, and he's lucky to have been baptized with a friend, Mario's a really good example for him. Our ward is doing awesome too, they set up the family home teaching duplas (i'm pretty sure dupla isn't a word in english, it means pair, but you probably already figured that out), and so Mario and Aylton will get visited by members and do visits to other members, so it's pretty good. All in all the leadership of our ward is pretty excited and likes us a lot, which is great.

Oh, BIG NEWS: Starting this monday, p-day is on monday instead of wednesday. So now you can write letters on Sunday, which will probably be nice. So make sure to send any letters off on sunday, because if you send them on teusday I won't get them until next monday.

The other problem with doing internet at the mall is you end up getting trunky when The Verve's “Bittersweet Symphony” comes on the radio.

I'm actually pretty excited that I still have a whole year left. The last year has gone really fast, but from here it seems like I still have lots of time left (i'm sure that feeling will go away soon)

Lets see here, what else is going on. I have a whole half hour left and I don't feel like I have much else to write. I remember serving with Elder Oram he got to a point in his mission where he didn't feel like he had much else to say in emails. Speaking of Elder Oram, it's crazy to think that right now he's in Utah. On thursday while he was waiting for interviews we went up to pontinha and did some last contacts together. It was really cool. He was a really good example of hard work and enduring till the end, I want to do something like that on my last day in Portugal. But I should just work hard on not thinking too much about my last day in portugal right now.

Today i'm also going to buy a new journal, because mine is pretty much all used up and I like the idea of having the two years of my mission in separate journals. Today I think we're going to go eat at Chili's. I had said a couple times that I didn't want to eat at Chili's while in portugal, but I got convinced. It reminds me of 9th grade when, while living in boston, with access to some of the best restaurants in the world, I went to chili's, to eat food based of food from the south. The year after I got lobster in mississippi. Anyway, this letter is sort of uninspired, I blame the mall.

Well, we're getting ready for another activity a week from friday, this time I think we might do a relay of sorts. Some sort of team race with different points set up by members. Last time I ended up doing a lot of the activity, and we're hoping to pass it on to the members a bit more. One day, i'd like to see a weekly family night going on. Portugal doesn't do activities nearly as much as some other places in the world (although from what I hear, nowhere in the world does activities like brasil).

I also got to talk to an elder that was serving in Mafra a couple weeks ago, and it sounds like things are still going ok over there. Francisco and Isabel got married, Isabelinha is working on her mission papers (which is way exciting) and they had a baptism and have a couple other marked. Manuel, who I taught a lot, is marked, hopefully he'll be able to quit smoking. This saturday the other elders of our ward have a baptism, a 40ish year old named Carlos. He's very cool, he speaks english very well and is very intelligent. He drank and smoked a lot, but he's managed to not smoke for almost 2 weeks now, so he'll be baptized on saturday. So all in all, stuff is going, and we're excited.

I hope isaac's recovering from Bronchitis, that's no fun, but falling asleep to Lord of the Rings is one of the necessities of childhood. Have you ever read Where the Red Fern Grows to him? I still remember crying because of that book when it was about his age.

Anyway, everyone have a great week, i'm sorry i'm so bad at getting things sent off, but one day it will happen, even if I end up bringing it with me on the airplane. Abraços all around, boa semana!

-Ammon

September 16, 2009

Hey everybody, I'm writing once again from pontinha. My decision to find a new house last week was a little hasty, first because it's almost impossible to find housing, and second because our contract requires that we give our dona a months notice. But we did talk to her and one way or another we'll be moving out around the end of october. I spent several hours this week trying to find a house and didn't come up with anything, but i'm still hopeful. We need to find out from president torgan if it's worth looking, since it's possibly for the area to be combined or closed or moved or something, and it's no good to find a house and then have to move out.

Anyway, the week was good. Mario did get baptized, as planned, and as it turns out two of his friends are marked for this saturday. Unfortunately, the mom of one of them is catholic doesn't want her son to get baptized, which is frustrating. She's a nice person though, it's our fault for always teaching him at his friends house, so his mom had never even met us. But we're still hopeful, we talked to the mom and asked her to pray about it and hopefully we'll going to go back there tonight. One happier parental news, Mario's mom seems to be accepting the whole baptism thing a lot better. She's planning on going to the baptism Aylton and Wildjoy (mario's friends that we've been teaching) on saturday, and hopefully she'll go to church to. She's really nice, and doesn't really like the church she's going to, because they do some stuff that she doesn't agree with, so we're excited for the day when Mario can baptize his mom.

Our dona is sort of sad to see us go, and sort of frustrated because it means she has to deal with some things. She's pinning the flood on us, saying we're using too much toilet paper and it clogged the drain (i don't quite understand why that would cause a flood, but it sounds like the flood stopping system is really convoluted. She said the reason the pump wasn't going was because there wasn't enough water. I knew what she meant, but i almost laughed, it didn't flood enough, that was the problem!), and because she has to talk to the mission office to try to get them to pay for a bunch of things that were ruined in a previous flood. I'm sort of upset by our dona, especially because every time she talks to us she acts like i don't speak portuguese, and will repeat things in english sometime (which is also funny. She has a great portuguese accent). Elder Fernandes is a much better example of loving everyone and patience. Good mission experience though, it will make a great story.

The scripture treasure hunt went like this, i don't exactly remember the scriptures now, but it was basically like this:

They start in this room and we talk a little bit about the Liahona (they happen to have a model Liahona/Compass in the office) and explained how the scriptures are our compasses in life. We then explained the whole thing, established some rules (which they promptly forgot) and gave each team a set of scriptures. First they had to look up in John 5 where it says search the scriptures. And then they had to go find some scriptures. In them, they found a sticky note with a new scripture reference and so on. For example: they read Alma 7 which leads them to the Baptismal font, where they find john 4 which takes them to the sink, when the read luke 22 (i think) which confused a lot of people because the cup was not in the kitchen, then they read alma 32 and had to find a plant, and then read luke 24 and had to find a open tomb (that one was tricky because it was a painting) and then they read alma 38 which led them back to the liahona, where they found chocolate. Each team had a different course, but they all had the same items. It would be even better if they all had different items and a different course and different scriptures, but then it gets sort of tricky to keep finding good scripture clues, but if you worked you could pull it off.

So anyway, we heard transfer news yesterday. Elder Fernandes and I are staying together, which is fun. It's the first time in 3 transfers that i haven't switched companions. My district changed a bit though. Instead of having the Executive secretaries, i have the Zone leaders and the Irmãs, both of which are in lapa. So now i have to trek across lisbon every monday for district meeting, and my district isn't part of my ward. It's sort of confusing, i trust president torgan has a good reason for doing it, but i'm not quite sure what it is. But that's ok, because it makes my district a lot more fun, because the secretaries hardly ever get to work (although they also have a baptism this saturday) so doing divisions with them was always sort of weird.

In other news, Elder Oram is going home this friday, which is weirding me out. When i got here he was just hitting a year in the country. He's going down in a blaze of glory though, and hopefuly is going to work with me and Elder Fernandes on thursday while everyone else is dinking around in Lisbon buying stuff and such. I was lucky to have such a good trainer.

Lets see here. Happy birthday to Caitlin, if you guys are still reading this. I'm really hoping to get some stuff sent out today. I wrote some letters about a month ago and i haven't gotten around to getting them sent.

I'm about out of time, but i'll just close out by saying one more time how awesome Mario is. He got up and bore his testimony at the baptism, and is helping us teach all the time. He's going to the Nation (!) young single adult conference this weekend, so hopefully he'll get to know some of the other young single adults from Mafra and Monte da Caparica. He would like to serve a mission someday, and is just all around one of the most solid people i've ever seen baptized. It's good stuff.

Anyway, i'm out of time, so have a great week. We're hoping for sunny weather for the next six weeks, but we're pretty sure we know how to stop the flooding now (they're a big valve that we can shut. In theory we shouldn't have to mess with it, but in practice, it will keep water from coming in if it rains a whole lot again.) School has started up again, so suddenly a lot of the people we have been teaching are now busy during the day, so this week we're hoping to find lots of new investigators. People in portugal have really absurdly busy schedules.

So, boa semana, hopefully all is well with everybody, and hopefully english isn't too broken. There were several times during this letter when i didn't quite know how to say things. I'm worried that after another year here i'm going to make no sense at all, but we'll see how that goes.

Com Amor,

Ammon, The Unsinkable