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
