26 February 2009
February 25, 2009
Carnival came and went with out anything crazy. There was no egg throwing, although we saw a few around on the ground. We did almost caught some balloons, but they ended up missing us and the nice lady that was next to us. Carnival is funny though because it seems like people get dressed up in costumes but then don't do anything special, so you see a bunch of people in costumes shopping and going about their business. We celebrated the first day of lent by buying a shocking amount of groceries for suprisingly small amounts of money and later today we're going to clean our house. President Terry decreed that this p'day everyone in the mission is staying home and cleaning the house, because they've been getting out of hand. We don't do all that many adventures, so our house isn't that out of hand, but it's definitely due for some cleaning.
I forget when my new president starts, but they did say their names would come up soon on church news or the ensign or something like that. My address will probably stay the same until about the end of march, when we'll be moving into the other house. The Elders there are in the process of looking for a house in Torres Vedras, but they can't go up there until the chapel moves, which could still take a little bit of time, so we're hoping we don't all end up living in the same predio, but it could happen. But basically you're probably safe sending stuff to my house for a little while, or to the mission office.
Speaking of the mission office, thanks a whole bunch to everyone who send me stuff. I'm going to work to respond to everything today, but it made me extremely happy and successfully killed the idea of going a tranfer without sugar. Elder Oram had been pushing for it, but it died pretty quick. It was all over when we found an ice cream bar.
Today I we became regulars at the internet place. Now we have a tab. Oh, and it was cool to hear from Max, it's fun to imagine him MTCing it up, i think the italian elders are on the same floor as the portuguese elders, the 3rd floor of the devotional building, so he needs to keep an eye out for portuguese missionaries and teachers, especially Irmã Olsen, since she's probably still over there.
Anyway, i think that's all the news, this week was pretty cool. The weather here has been beautiful and incredible and we've been leaving the jackets at home. There are little lizards running all over the place and our clothes have never been so dry. Filipe and Irmã Maxfield left, and Elders Dean and Peterson came in. They're pretty cool, and it will be interesting to have a district of four elders. It's my, and almost elder Oram's, first time to be in a district without Sister Missionaries, there are lots of Irmãs in Portugal for some reason, but that's pretty cool.
As far as the Investigators, they're doing good. Wanderlay wants to be baptized, but isn't sure if he's going to be going back to Brasil or staying in portugal. He, like what seems like everyone else in portugal, is unemployed and having a hard time. Things are rough economically here, Manuel is currently not marked for baptism, i think maybe Elder Bednar made him feel unprepared for making a covenent, but he still wants to get baptized, we just need to help him feel more prepared, and he too is out of a job, which makes his life rough. It seems like pretty much all the people we teach are out of work, which i suppose isn't that suprising, since the people that have jobs are almost never at home.
This week we met a guy named Daniel. Or rather we met him a couple weeks ago, but we started talking to him a bit this week. So this is the story of Daniel: Daniel comes from the North, near Guarda, i'm not sure why he came down here, but he's been living with his wife and dog, Jessie (the dog). I'm not quite sure in what order this happened, but it basically went like this. When he was pretty young his mother died, i think it was about then that he lost faith in God, and then a few months ago his father died. His boss has refused to pay him, so now he pretty much broke. His wife is leaving him, and he's getting kicked out of his house on friday, and last week he feel out of a four story building. No joke, he was putting his clothes out on the line and he reached out to grab his cat and feel off the balcony, getting pretty torn up in the process by the clothes line, and the ground didn't help. But he is pretty much miraculously alive, for having falling 40 feet and landing about a foot away from a big cement block (the place he landed was grass). So we went to visit him on monday and found out about all this and talked to him for a while. We talked to the branch president and we got his medicine taken care of (he had gone a week without having money for the pain killers) and we're going to get him up to the north where he has friends to help him, since here he has pretty much no one. But yeah, falling out of a building is intense. There's some crazy stuff that happens in the world.
Reading Dad's journal this week has been really surreal. It's the weirdest thing to read my dad's writing when he sounds like a young, naive kid from Hyde Park. Also seeing my dad make typos is really interesting. The weirdest thing though is when he describes something the exact same way as i've experienced it, like his feeling when he got into the MTC, or as he was leaving the MTC, or in the church activity when he did almost the exact same thing my companion and I did (stand behind your companion and be their arms and do funny things). Also, there's about a 7 month gap from his first few months to when he's been there for a year. There's such a huge difference in the writing, i wonder if i'll mature that much in the next 7 months. So yeah, that's been a cool experience.
Lets see, what else happened this week? Not to much, it was a good week, we had our last sunday in the chapel, next week we're in the Casa do Povo, and then we have stake conference, and hopefully the new chapel will be ready soon after that, it's pretty much just waiting for some papers from the Camera Municipal, so we'll see how that goes. But that's all the news from me, i'll try to make sure i'm being safe and wise.
Então, ficem bem todos, agradeço pelos dons e orações, até proxima semana. Abraço
~Elder Ammon
I forget when my new president starts, but they did say their names would come up soon on church news or the ensign or something like that. My address will probably stay the same until about the end of march, when we'll be moving into the other house. The Elders there are in the process of looking for a house in Torres Vedras, but they can't go up there until the chapel moves, which could still take a little bit of time, so we're hoping we don't all end up living in the same predio, but it could happen. But basically you're probably safe sending stuff to my house for a little while, or to the mission office.
Speaking of the mission office, thanks a whole bunch to everyone who send me stuff. I'm going to work to respond to everything today, but it made me extremely happy and successfully killed the idea of going a tranfer without sugar. Elder Oram had been pushing for it, but it died pretty quick. It was all over when we found an ice cream bar.
Today I we became regulars at the internet place. Now we have a tab. Oh, and it was cool to hear from Max, it's fun to imagine him MTCing it up, i think the italian elders are on the same floor as the portuguese elders, the 3rd floor of the devotional building, so he needs to keep an eye out for portuguese missionaries and teachers, especially Irmã Olsen, since she's probably still over there.
Anyway, i think that's all the news, this week was pretty cool. The weather here has been beautiful and incredible and we've been leaving the jackets at home. There are little lizards running all over the place and our clothes have never been so dry. Filipe and Irmã Maxfield left, and Elders Dean and Peterson came in. They're pretty cool, and it will be interesting to have a district of four elders. It's my, and almost elder Oram's, first time to be in a district without Sister Missionaries, there are lots of Irmãs in Portugal for some reason, but that's pretty cool.
As far as the Investigators, they're doing good. Wanderlay wants to be baptized, but isn't sure if he's going to be going back to Brasil or staying in portugal. He, like what seems like everyone else in portugal, is unemployed and having a hard time. Things are rough economically here, Manuel is currently not marked for baptism, i think maybe Elder Bednar made him feel unprepared for making a covenent, but he still wants to get baptized, we just need to help him feel more prepared, and he too is out of a job, which makes his life rough. It seems like pretty much all the people we teach are out of work, which i suppose isn't that suprising, since the people that have jobs are almost never at home.
This week we met a guy named Daniel. Or rather we met him a couple weeks ago, but we started talking to him a bit this week. So this is the story of Daniel: Daniel comes from the North, near Guarda, i'm not sure why he came down here, but he's been living with his wife and dog, Jessie (the dog). I'm not quite sure in what order this happened, but it basically went like this. When he was pretty young his mother died, i think it was about then that he lost faith in God, and then a few months ago his father died. His boss has refused to pay him, so now he pretty much broke. His wife is leaving him, and he's getting kicked out of his house on friday, and last week he feel out of a four story building. No joke, he was putting his clothes out on the line and he reached out to grab his cat and feel off the balcony, getting pretty torn up in the process by the clothes line, and the ground didn't help. But he is pretty much miraculously alive, for having falling 40 feet and landing about a foot away from a big cement block (the place he landed was grass). So we went to visit him on monday and found out about all this and talked to him for a while. We talked to the branch president and we got his medicine taken care of (he had gone a week without having money for the pain killers) and we're going to get him up to the north where he has friends to help him, since here he has pretty much no one. But yeah, falling out of a building is intense. There's some crazy stuff that happens in the world.
Reading Dad's journal this week has been really surreal. It's the weirdest thing to read my dad's writing when he sounds like a young, naive kid from Hyde Park. Also seeing my dad make typos is really interesting. The weirdest thing though is when he describes something the exact same way as i've experienced it, like his feeling when he got into the MTC, or as he was leaving the MTC, or in the church activity when he did almost the exact same thing my companion and I did (stand behind your companion and be their arms and do funny things). Also, there's about a 7 month gap from his first few months to when he's been there for a year. There's such a huge difference in the writing, i wonder if i'll mature that much in the next 7 months. So yeah, that's been a cool experience.
Lets see, what else happened this week? Not to much, it was a good week, we had our last sunday in the chapel, next week we're in the Casa do Povo, and then we have stake conference, and hopefully the new chapel will be ready soon after that, it's pretty much just waiting for some papers from the Camera Municipal, so we'll see how that goes. But that's all the news from me, i'll try to make sure i'm being safe and wise.
Então, ficem bem todos, agradeço pelos dons e orações, até proxima semana. Abraço
~Elder Ammon
18 February 2009
February 18, 2009
I'm still in Mafra, this tranfer was crazy though. If i didn't know how much prayer and thought and inspiration goes into tranfers i'd think president was getting trunky. Speaking of that, we found out today that our new mission president is named Moroni Torgan, he's brasilian and i'm going to guess his parents were members.
My week was good, the weather here has been absolutely beautiful. We've been leaving the jackets and thermals at home and loving walking around in white shirts. It makes us feel much more missionaryish and much less like we're going to a funeral. We had an investigator ask us yesterday why we always wear black, assuming it has something to do with doctrine, but no, we're just american.
Lets see, cool things that happened this week...oh right, Elder Bednar!
Sunday actually was one of the best days of my mission so far. It started by polishing my shoes, i think that was the trick, but after that we went and picked up Wanderlay, our golden brasilian investigator that keeps appointments and reads the Book of Mormon (i love brasilians, i have never met a nicer or more generous people, but they are notoriously bad at keeping committments.) Church was great, and sad, and amazing, because Filipe Esteves is leaving tomorrow for Moçambique (or really for Brasil and after for moçambique) and Irmã Maxfield is going home tomorrow, it's cool to see them beginning and ending their missions on the same day. Rogério blessed the sacrament, and Domingos came! I don't remember how much i said about what happened with Domingos, but basically he had said he wouldn't beable to keep coming and we realized it was out of hands, so all week we'd been praying so that he would be able to come to church, and he came, with three bags of lemons. It was awesome.
So after church we had lunch with the Esteves, and that night we piled into cars to drive out to Oeris to hear Elder Bednar. That was crazy. there were around 800 people, i'm don't think there were any firemarshalls around or we would have had trouble, but all the missionaries were out in the hall so that there would be space for members, so i only heard a bit of it, but it was good. I think we always go to here Apostles expecting them to tell us crazy things we don't know
but really they just remind of us things we already know but do a bad job of remembering, like the love of Jesus Christ, and the importance of obedience, and faith, and cetera. So that was good, and we had three investigators and both our recent converts there.
Monday morning we had a conference with Elder Bednar which was amazing and Elder Oram and I are still trying to sort out all the things we learned, basically we realized we are not teaching as well as we should be, and that it matters a lot less what we say as how well we involve the investigators and help them to act and feel the spirit. So that was really cool, and then we went back and picked up some investigators and headed back to lisbon to hear the single adult fireside, which was also good. So yeah, this weekend was incredible.
Today we're going with the Sisters and a member to see Fatima, this Catholic Mecca of sorts. You should all read about it on Wikipedia, it's a pretty extensive story that i don't have time to try to explain right now. But it should be cool. Last week we toured the Chapel in the Convent here, it was pretty impressive. They sure knew how to build things here, statues too, those were incredible.
So lets see, that was my week more or less, this next week is going to be pretty intense, we have two new elders coming in, a division with the zone leaders, and a ward activity that might involve us riding bikes! I hope all is well over in the united states of american and that nobody does anything to crazy for Mardi Gras. Oh yeah, we have Carnival (portuguese Mardigras) this week too, i hear the kids like to try to hit missionaries with eggs. Woohoo! Até Logo.
com tanto amor,
Elder Ammon
My week was good, the weather here has been absolutely beautiful. We've been leaving the jackets and thermals at home and loving walking around in white shirts. It makes us feel much more missionaryish and much less like we're going to a funeral. We had an investigator ask us yesterday why we always wear black, assuming it has something to do with doctrine, but no, we're just american.
Lets see, cool things that happened this week...oh right, Elder Bednar!
Sunday actually was one of the best days of my mission so far. It started by polishing my shoes, i think that was the trick, but after that we went and picked up Wanderlay, our golden brasilian investigator that keeps appointments and reads the Book of Mormon (i love brasilians, i have never met a nicer or more generous people, but they are notoriously bad at keeping committments.) Church was great, and sad, and amazing, because Filipe Esteves is leaving tomorrow for Moçambique (or really for Brasil and after for moçambique) and Irmã Maxfield is going home tomorrow, it's cool to see them beginning and ending their missions on the same day. Rogério blessed the sacrament, and Domingos came! I don't remember how much i said about what happened with Domingos, but basically he had said he wouldn't beable to keep coming and we realized it was out of hands, so all week we'd been praying so that he would be able to come to church, and he came, with three bags of lemons. It was awesome.
So after church we had lunch with the Esteves, and that night we piled into cars to drive out to Oeris to hear Elder Bednar. That was crazy. there were around 800 people, i'm don't think there were any firemarshalls around or we would have had trouble, but all the missionaries were out in the hall so that there would be space for members, so i only heard a bit of it, but it was good. I think we always go to here Apostles expecting them to tell us crazy things we don't know
but really they just remind of us things we already know but do a bad job of remembering, like the love of Jesus Christ, and the importance of obedience, and faith, and cetera. So that was good, and we had three investigators and both our recent converts there.
Monday morning we had a conference with Elder Bednar which was amazing and Elder Oram and I are still trying to sort out all the things we learned, basically we realized we are not teaching as well as we should be, and that it matters a lot less what we say as how well we involve the investigators and help them to act and feel the spirit. So that was really cool, and then we went back and picked up some investigators and headed back to lisbon to hear the single adult fireside, which was also good. So yeah, this weekend was incredible.
Today we're going with the Sisters and a member to see Fatima, this Catholic Mecca of sorts. You should all read about it on Wikipedia, it's a pretty extensive story that i don't have time to try to explain right now. But it should be cool. Last week we toured the Chapel in the Convent here, it was pretty impressive. They sure knew how to build things here, statues too, those were incredible.
So lets see, that was my week more or less, this next week is going to be pretty intense, we have two new elders coming in, a division with the zone leaders, and a ward activity that might involve us riding bikes! I hope all is well over in the united states of american and that nobody does anything to crazy for Mardi Gras. Oh yeah, we have Carnival (portuguese Mardigras) this week too, i hear the kids like to try to hit missionaries with eggs. Woohoo! Até Logo.
com tanto amor,
Elder Ammon
11 February 2009
February 11, 2009
First of all, thanks to all the people that sent happy birthday wishes. It was enough to make the day sunday a beautiful. I'll try to look for cool things to buy for my birthday, i think today i'm going to buy a foam mattress for my bed because one of my goals for this week is to sleep all the way through the night,something i don't know if i've really done since entering the MTC. Don't freak out, i'm not sleep deprived, i'm just getting bored of waking up and having to go back to sleep. They don't have 3 ring binders here, or 3 hole punchers, so that would be an awesome thing to send in the next package (not a hole puncher, we manage with individual hole punchers when we have to make 3 holes)
Anyway, to be brief, my birthday was great, we took a bus up to Torres Vedras to do some procura up there, and it was good. We didn't have tons of 'success' mesmo but we talked to lots of people and it felt nice to get out of Mafra, which is fairly small and can start to feel a little groundhog's day at times. As far as Birthday Celebrations we ate at a McDonalds (which is unreasonably expensive in portugal, i don't know why anyone would eat there for anything other than sentimental reasons) and at night the Esteves (who are so amazing) set up a suprise birthday party for me. I was sort of expecting it, on account of how amazing they are, and so when Irmã Esteves called to say we needed to get over there quick for some vague but important reason, i had suspicions. But yeah, it was great, they made cake and gave me socks, which was funny because in talking about cake i said pretty much the only thing i ever want is socks.
Today is another beautiful day in portugal, i'm hopeful that somewhere in pennsylvania a small mammal saw it's shadow (or didn't see it, i can never remember how that's supposed to work) so winter will be over and we can enjoy beautiful sunny days and dry clothes, but if not, i really love contacting people in the rain. It's weirdly fun.
The Baptism went well. Our mission president went for it, so that was cool. I'm feeling pretty blessed, since in europe baptisms can be scarce at times, but there's a lot going on in Mafra right now, and we're hopeful that it can keep happening when the chapel moves. It's going to be tricky.
One more thing and i'll work on individual letters. This week Domingos didn't attend church. Domingos was contacted about four months ago by one of the irmãs and she invited him to church and he came and had been coming every week since then, but last week we passed by his house and ran into his wife who is evangelical and not very nice, at least not to missionaries. And then she told domingos that if he kept going to church she would leave him and so he came up sunday dropped off a bag of lemons (he has a little farm) and left. We caught him on his way out and talked to him and Francisco came right then and talked to him and told him he just needs to talk to his wife and keep coming to church, because he really wants to, and he even has a testimony that it's true, but his wife is pretty harsh. So we've been praying for something to happen there, because he's an really great person, and deserves to be able to come to church.
This saturday there's a party for Filipe Esteves, who's leaving for his mission in about a week. We also have Elder Bednar's firesides coming up, which are sure to be amazing, so we're pretty excited.
So that''s the news for portugal, where all the Irmãs are strong, the Élderes good looking, and all the members above average.
~Elder Ammon
05 February 2009
February 4, 2009
In the way of News, probably the most exciting thing we found out this week was that Elder Bednar is coming to Portugal (i think i found that out this week, if i already found it out just take this as evidence of how excited i am) That will be not this sunday but next sunday (there's some way to say that in portuguese, like sunday 8 or something like that) and there will be three firesides, one for missionaries, one for members, and one for single adults, and we can go to all three as long as we go with an investigator or less active that fits that category. So i'm pretty stoked about that. Other fun things, Jorge Lucas was interviewed for baptism and so he's all set to go, he'll be baptized by his former brother in law (there is a long and complicated story about this that maybe i'll explain one day, but it's not really relevent or necessary here) which is great. I think the ideal missionary would never baptize anyone himself, since the members should baptize people. That said, i still hope i baptize someone during my mission...maybe, we'll see. An old evangelical woman yelled at me, that's always a good experience. Her husband goes to church every week and has been for about 3 months now, but doesn't want to get baptized on account of being afraid of his wife. He's one of the nicest people i've known, and having met his wife i can understand his fear. She was not one of the nicest people i've known. So i'm hoping us passing by doesn't result in him getting hit with a stick or something.
A couple weeks ago i had my first real fun translation error, and i forgot to mention it. I was talking to this lady who said she was already very close to Jesus Christ (all though she said it in more of a sarcastic-leave me alone i want to wait for my bus in silence-type of way than a expression of faith) and so i said something along the line of "That's great, and we're not here to take away people's beliefs" but what i said was more like "que bom, e nós não estamos aque para tirar as crianças das pessoas" ["That good, and we are not here to draw children of people"] Elder Oram and I laughed and laughed. It´s fun to imagine what it must be like for the portuguese when we contact them, it would be like if two guys with a really strong french accent came up and started talking to you. Good times.
Lets see, what else is happening in Mafra? We're going to move to a new chapel in a month or so. We have to leave the one we're in by the end of febuary i think, and the we're going to have a temporary place for a month or so, and then we're going to move out to this chapel way out in the boonies, which means it's possible that we'll be opening up a new area, Torres Vedres, which has tons and tons of people and there haven't been missionaries there for years. It's still not definite, and there's a good chance that i will be transfered before that happens (there's still a transfer and a half between now and these things) but it's exciting.
This week we started knocking our way through these predios about a half hour from our house. We've been meeting some cool people out there. It seems like the people in new apartment buildings are generally nice than those in old run down apartment buildings, but that might just be because they're better lit and more comfortable, so regardless of the people, you feel better.
Speaking of feeling better, i think one of the greatest blessing i've recieved while on the mission is the ability to be happy in spite of cold and rain and disappointment. It has been really cold and really rainy this week, but i'm still feeling good. It's very true that you can decide to not let things bother you, and that you can pray to feel happy.
So that's all that's going on here, at least all that i can put in a letter in one hour. I'm doing a pretty good job keeping a journal, but it's sad how much of the stuff that happens to me everyday doesn't get recorded, and i'm sure i'm going to forget lots of the crazy and amazing things that happen to me during these two years. Oh well, é vida.
Com muito amor,
Ammon
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