Alright, so first of all, thanks for the really great emails this week. Pictures, instructions, cool stories, family news, Cosumel, good stuff all around.
I'm planning on replicating as many of the easter traditions as possible. Elder Oram's pretty patient with me wanting to do things like that, so i figure i'll at least be able to dye eggs and do king egg. I'd like to do the egg roll, but i don't know if it's worth walking out to a hill to roll eggs, it would be sweet though. As of now i don't know any easter traditions in portugal, but i'll report on them. I'm thinking my easter p'day will be next week, because i easter caught me unprepared, so yeah.
Elder Oram has gone a little crazy because he only has 6 months left on his misson. This was his last general conference. He's a great example of not getting trunky, but i think he's a little scared his mission is going so fast. As am I, i've already been here for 6 months. Que loucura.
Conference was incredible. We watched the Priesthood Session in Portuguese at the Oeris chapel with the members (and Wanderlay) and all the other sessions at the Esteves house in English on their computer. I also loved Elder Holland's talk, along with all the other talks. There definitely a theme of temple attendence and worthiness, and Jesus Christ as the source of happiness, even as the world is slipping so much. I also really like the ewe on the cliff metaphor for missionary work. A lot of times i feel like the rock climbers that are just going to scare the ewe.
Happily, here in mafra our members are on fire (not literally, i was reading the story of alma and amuleque this morning, which is so much more tragic than i had remembered). They're always willing to teach with us, and several of them are working on inviting their friends. Yesterday morning, we got a call from Erika, who is brasillian and lives out in one of the surrounding towns. She woke up that day and felt inspired to do a family night of sorts and had three families that she wants to invite to hear the missionaries. We're pretty excited, as this is basically the ideal situation. We're going to try to do some work in the area and see if we can't find a few other people to invite.
So, news and such. This week was pretty great, several things happened. First off all, I lost my camera. But wait! This is a great story, with a happy ending: Last P-day i brought my camera to do internet in the morning and then did groceries and then caught a shuttle back to our house. Then we ate lunch with the Torres Vedras elders and went out to play tennis again (this time i got a lot better, but we still lost disapointingly. Elder Peterson and I played against Elder Oram and Elder Dean). Then we went back to the house, got changed, and went to the Esteves house for our missionary coordination meeting thing and so that they could say adeus to Elder Dean. As we were about to get to the house, this car pulled over and honked at us, so we went and talked to him and he said he had found a camera with pictures of missionaries on it on a bus from lisbon to mafra. We said we hadn't lost our cameras, but we would ask around and see if we could find who it belonged to, and we kept his phone number.
So that friday i got Elder Oram to call him, more to see if we could set up an appointment with him than for the camera, but as he described the camera he said it only had 3 pictures, which had later been deleted by his son. But those three pictures were of a black baby, an airplane wing, and some missionaries.
Well, as it happens, my camera had those three pictures on it, along with about 600 others. So when i got that home that night i looked for my camera and couldn't find it. So the next morning i called the guy and told him the brand of the camera (this guy was rather suspicious, but just as well) and he said he'd bring it to me that morning. So that morning he drove up, handed me the camera, and accepted a book of mormon before he drove off.
All this to say, somehow, between doing internet in the morning, and this guy running into us in the afternoon, my camera got on a bus and went to lisbon and back, during which all my pictures got deleted. It's all quite a mystery, but i'm feeling pretty blessed that i got my camera back just a few hours after i realized it was lost.
Anyway, other news, this saturday is the baptism of Maura, which is exciting. She asked me to do the confirmation, which is a little scary, i've never done a blessing in portuguese before, but Elder Oram quoted a general authority saying someing to the effect of the blessing after the gift of the Holy Ghost shouldn't really be that long, because what could be a greater blessing than the companionship of the Holy Ghost.
Also, Wanderlay is staying in Portugal for a little bit longer, so he's going to be baptized here, and said that ElderOram and I can do the Baptism and Confirmation. In my lingering greeny greed\excitement, i suggested to ElderOram that he could do the confirmation, and he agreed to let me do the baptism. So that's pretty exciting also. I'm pretty happy i didn't end up getting transfered. So yeah, this saturday is going to be great, and then we have Easter. I don't think there's a better time to be baptized than on Easter, the symbolism is pretty much perfect.
Lets see, other things. Oh, i finally have a request for stuff to send me. My friends sent me a little pack of Pilot pens, which have been so great. So if i could just get several black pilot pens (you know, those ones Dad always used and that i liked to adopt when they got left on the table) i would be extremely happy.
This week i heard chuck norris jokes from a portuguese teenager. It was a bit surreal.
So that's the news from Mafra. It's been a little while since i've sent pictures, i'll try to get some this week. I'm still happy, healthy, and enjoying serving it up out here. I'm developing a much greater love for the scriptures too. This week i started reading the Book of Mormon cover to cover, i haven't done that since i've become a misisonary (i've been studying by topic and such) so that's exciting. I'm also about half way done with the book of mormon in portuguese, so yeah, great times all around. Well, my hour is up, and i have to add Wanderlay to the baptismal program for this saturday, so adeus, Ficai bem, até próxima semana
Abração,
Élder Ammon
