June 24, 2009

Olá todos. So, I'm leaving Mafra! This is how the day yesterday went down. Generally President Terry does transfers about a week in advance, starts calling around noon on tuesday and the whole process is over my about 5. Yesterday, aparently he was making changes until the very last minute. It must have been a hard transfer as 6ish zone leaders went home so there were lots of leaders being called, and more leaders to fill the positions the the old leaders were filling. So we heard from Torres Vedras that they were called at about 5 o'clock, then we waited some more. I was sort of freaking out because we didn't have any appointments in the afternoon and my phone was defiantly refusing to ring. By about 9 o'clock, i figured i must be staying. We went to a birthday party for the Esteves daughter and i was thinking about how it would be to stay. At first i didn't know if i could handle it, but as i kept thinking i decided it wouldn't be to bad, and was starting to like the idea when i got a call from Elder Tracy, my companion in the MTC, who was wondering if i knew where i was going. I said no, he told me there was a new elder that was getting sent to Mafra. So at that point i figured i was leaving. Afterwards i called the Zone Leaders, they hadn't heard until about 9 o'clock and were in an appointment so they hadn't called, but finally they told me. (at first Elder Marriot told me i was staying and then hung up the phone. But then he called back and gave the news). Elder Linquist (who came to portugal at the same time is me) is training a greeny and became the District leader in Mafra. Elder Peterson is leaving to be Zone leader in Almada, and I'm going to Monte de Caparica to greeny break (be the second companion of) Elder Cornwell, who is starting up his second transfer. Elder Carter is staying here and working with an Elder Jones. I heard from Elder Marriot that my new area is really awesome, so that's exciting. It's in the Almada zone, so Elder Peterson is going to be my Zone Leader, which is cool. Elder Christenson is the other zone leader, he was my zone leader a couple transfers ago, i like him a lot.

Anyway, that's transfer news, i'm sure you're not nearly as interested by all that as i am, but the gist is, i'm finally leaving mafra. It's sort of sad, i have a lot of people to say goodbye to. President Esteves gave me this book to write in which is a book of the missionaries that served in Mafra with pictures and letters and stuff. It's pretty cool.

So, other news the package came, and it is great. I already made ramen once, and am saving the rest for a rainy day or something. It was also cool to hear about the family news, especially Max's mission. English fasts are fun, but you have to be careful. Me and Elder Oram went a week without speaking any english and ended up getting a little stressed out and aggravated with eachother, so we scaled it back to no english outside the house. I can definitely simpathize, when i was on the plane coming in there was an announcement in portuguese. I was a little concerned when i had absolutely no idea what they had said, but that only happens occasionally these days.

I just called out there and it turns out there are two baptisms on saturday, so that's cool. So yeah, i'm pretty excited to have a new area, but it's going to be hard to leave mafra, but i'm sure it'll be great. My talk in the Zone Meeting went fine, i liked it. My talk in sacrament meeting (which i found about later that day and so adapted my other talk) went well, but i ended up making it a little too epic and had to cut it short when it ran over. It's an interesting topic, and i've been thinking a lot about it as i've been teaching and such, inviting people to change, seeing people change, remember the change that happens in people. I wanted to make the talk for church more about our ability to change others and how we can, and can't, do that, but i didn't plan it well so didn't have time to talk much about that.

The weather in portugal has been pretty normal, hot during the day, cool at night, which i appreciate a lot. You'll be happy to know i'm using sunscreen and so haven't gotten sunburned, but i am developing the absurd missionary tan (basically a farmers tan with the added bonus of a really high really well defined collar line). But it sounds like the weather there in the states is imploding. We have an emergency plan in the mission that involves a 'Leave Now' message in case of natural disastors, politically dangerous situations and such. We joke about getting Leave Now messages because of how epic it would be. If you end up having to flee the united states i suggest portugal as a refuge. The mediterranean climate is quite nice.

Recent converts in mafra are doing pretty great they are generally active with the exception of Rogério who has had a hard time because of being sick, but we had a lesson with him the other week and i think he's going to start going again, sickness or no. Maiery continues to be on fire, and her mom is praying to find new work so that she (the mom) can start going to church. Mafra does a pretty good job fellowshipping and taking care of new members, and the missionaries keep working with them. We had a lesson with Ana Paula and the kids yesterday, it was good. In the portugal mission, you can't be baptized without going to church 5 times, and in mafra we've tryed to make sure people get there at three weeks in a row leading up to the baptism. Even with that, things happen. We had one person be baptized and then sort of disappear afterwards. It's still a bit of a mystery, but for the most part retention and reactivation in Mafra are going really well. Aside from the baptisms we've had, with other members that have been coming more that branch had pretty much doubled in my time here. Getting them callings and member lessons is tricky, because people are generally absurdly busy here, and finding the balence between giving new members opportunities to serve and not burning them out, but president estevers and Edgar (the elderes quorum president) are working on organizing home teachers and getting all that going.

Anyway, all this to say. Mafra is amazing. I'm so blessed to have served here for so long, and I am excited to see the changes that happen in the coming year. We set a new date for Silvio yesterday, and we're going to work on keeping it this time. By we I do, of course, mean Elder Carter and Elder Jones. It's going to be hard to turn over Mafra to someone else, but i'm sure they'll do great. Have a great week, watch out for killer weather, animal flus, and such apocolyptic threats. Thank you for the support and prayers and letters. Elder Carter likes to remind me that i don't have a year and a half left anymore and that i should keep saying that i do, but it really is passing absurdly fast, and i'll be home before i know it (the esteves say that time passes slower for the family on the other end, so i hope you don't know it before i get home.)

Have a great week

Abraços por todos

~Elder Ammon

Note: I've posted Ammon's new address on his facebook page.

June 10, 2009

I have flees!!  The Torres Vedras Elderes found this couch somewhere (they wouldn't tell us where) and it seems to have given them flees.  They slept in our house last week, i ended up using the same blanket, and then i woke up with little bites all over me and spots of blood on my clothes.  They seem to be going away a bit now, but it was sort of rediculous.   This is,  i believe, the second time i've gotten flees, the first time wasn't bad at all because i was sleeping with thermals, so i was well protected.   So yeah, all part of the portugal experience.

Time goes by way too fast here in Mafra.  I'm trying hard not to think about it, but i'll probably get transfered in two weeks.  I can't really imagine being anywhere else on the mission, and i'm not quite sure if i want to leave, but it'll be really good for me.  It's time to pass on the area to someone that doesn't feel like they've knocked all the doors.  I've started leaving all finding decisions up to Elder Carter, and he does pretty good.  The other day, we were struggling because we didn't have any appointments and talking to people on the street all day can really wear you down, so I told Elder Carter to find us a street and we'd knock it.  He took us to a street that i had never knocked before, and we ended up talking to this woman, Fatima, for about a half an hour.  It turns out she used to know the Sister Missionaries a long time ago, and we set up a return appointment for friday.    Then that night we found 3 new investigators.  I think contacting people is interesting, because it doesn't seem to be all that productive, it's almost like the effort is all that matters, and then new people pop up from all over the place.

It's good to know the package is sent.  We're almost at the point again where it's risky to send it to my address here, but it should get here fairly quick.

Anyway, life goes well in Mafra.  Church on sunday was excellent.  Afterwards we ate lunch at Maria de Graça's.  I don't know if you remember the other two times i've eaten there, but both times i ended up eating pretty much more than i thought i was capable of eating.  I need to eat a little slower at the beginning so that when they tell me ''come mais, não tenhas vengonha!'' I will be physcically capable without vomitting or something.

Sílvio (the guy that's marked for baptism) is doing well.  He found work in Lisbon that's pretty steady and will allow him to go to church every sunday, so hurdle one is taken care of.  It seems like the work situation is getting a little better in portugal, maybe this GLOBAL CRISIS!!! is abating just a bit.  Anyway, he still has to find a way to not live with an unmarried woman, which could be a little complicated, but i think it'll work out.

We'll still working on getting more people to progress.  Once again we have several people that are almost progressing but aren't quite moving along.  But i think Manuel is going to start progressing a lot if he manages to stop smoking, and it turns out Maiery's family is good friends with his wife.  It seems like everyone we teach know one another, so i'm hopeful we can start teaching the whole family.  We made them soup last week, because Manuel doesn't know how to cook, so it seems like Teresa gets home from work and gets a little overwhelmed with having to cook for the family, and it turns out Elder Carter can cook pretty well.  His dad is a professional caterer (which is a really awkward word, by the way) and so he has a bunch of good recipies.  I wish i could cook better, or really, i wish i could cook more things.  I'm getting sort of bored of pasta and cream sauce, as good as it is.

Last week i almost played settlers of Catan in a castle.  I say almost because the game was homemade by Elder Peterson, and it ended up being to windy to play, but it was still almost very cool.  We ended up playing futebol in the park (not real soccer, since i'm not allowed, but just passing it around and juggling, and then some of the other elderes played.  Two of them got slightly injured, a good reminder of when President Terry told me not to play.)

I've been thinking a lot about change lately, like the past two days.  I have to give a talk on the capacity to change next week for a zone meeting.  I think it's important we, as missionaries, have faith and hope that people really can change, not just in small ways, but in significant ways (saul-ic proportions) because otherways our work is sort of impossible.  It's hard to see that, because it seems like a lot of people are never going to change, and i guess lots of people aren't, but i'd like to know how to change people, or convince people to change, because when people want to change they generally have a great capacity to change, and when they don't there's not a whole lot you can do.  I guess i could focus on finding the people that want to change instead of changing the people that don't, but i'd like to do both if that's possible.

Today is a holiday in mafra, so pretty much everything is closed (happily Intermarché is open, where we do internet and groceries) so we borrowed the Other Side of Heaven (one of the 5 or so movies that we're allowed to watch, alongside The Best Two Years and The Work and the Glory movies) so we're going to watch that, it'll be fun

That's about the news from Mafra.  Thanks for your pictures, your prayers, your packages, and your ...aPoio.  Have a great week, and enjoy the summer, since that should start for most of you sometime very soon, if it hasn't already.

Abraços all around.

~Elder Ammon

June 3, 2009

I continue to regret not having scriptures when i write letters, but the logistics of bringing my scriptures to shopping (i.e. Bring my pros-bag) keep me from doing it.   But, last week i was reading in the missionary Handbook and was reading about the ordinances of blessings for the sick, and it goes to a scripture in D&C that was great, that i'm going to slaughter in paraphase.  Basically it starts out saying that to those that don't have the faith to be healed administer with herbs and such and make them confortable and do what you can.  And to those that have the faith to be healed, give them a blessing, and unless they are supposed to die they will live.  And it has a line that says something like “And if they die, they shall die unto the Lord, and if they live, they shall live unto the Lord.”  And then it talked about the lame who by their faith will leap.  Anyway, it was a really nice scripture, one of those quiet conquests of the sting of death.

Anyways, this week was good.  I'm glad werewolf lives on.  We played Mafia at Francisco's house for Family night. Maiery brought two of her cousins and one of the kids she knows from school, and it worked out really well.  For some reason when playing Mafia i can't remember how to say 'to kill' (matar, i say mater instead, which doesn't mean anything) it's kind of funny.  I though about trying to explain werewolf, but as difficult as it is to explain in english, i don't know if i could explain it in portuguese without dedicating a language study to Werewulf Vocabulary.  Anyway, blah blah.

Time is passing absurdly fast.  I still haven't got the package you sent, so hopefully it comes soon.  I don't really mind not getting mail, but when i know there's mail coming it's frustrating checking for mail and then having it empty.

Cemeteries are interesting, I also have never seen the plot you guys have, it would be way weird, but it would be cool to see all our ancestors and stuff.  Someday.

In case this seams like a stream of random thoughts, i'm going backwards through your letters and responding to things.  When mom said 'Natural Humility' I read 'natural humidity' which made a lot of sense, since it became really warm and humid this week in Portugal.  I had forgotten what hot summers were like, it seems like a really really like time since last summer.  I think that's the weirdest thing about the mission, time passes really quickly, but I seems like it's been forever.

But yes, this transfer has definitely been a time of growing.  It's funny.  I tend to set really sort of prideful goals, and then get over them and just work, and then I accomplish them.  My first week in the mission me and elder oram decided that we wanted to break the record for new investigators in one week, and then after about 4 weeks of not finding many investigators we gave up on that and decided to find investigators for the right reasons, and then we ran into 17.  At some point I thought it would be really cool to say I was older than my greeny breaker (greeny breaker is the person after your trainer) but then sometime during my fourth transfer I realized there was still lots I would like to learn, but then it worked out this way anyway.  When I got into the country I was pretty proud of my language skills and set a goal to speak with a real portuguese accent, or basically to speak better portuguese than any other missionary.  But sometime last transfer I realized I would be pretty happy if I could just express my thoughts and feelings in a way people would understand.  Well see if I end up achieving that goal anyway, but at this point i'm happy when people understand what i'm saying.  It's really a testement of the message that 19 year olds americans who barely speak portuguese are able to make any headway in the missionary work.

Time is also speeding up.  The first week of the transfer passed pretty slowly, but the second week went way fast, and now we're already halfway into the third week.  Surprisingly, the work keeps going, even with me and Elder Carter at the helm.  We found a really nice family on sunday. The fathers nice, but the kids are awesome.  Elisa is 15, understands english pretty well and speaks french to boot.  She had a big poster of the Twilight movie, and thought it was really cool when I told her that those were written by a member of our church.  Lucas is 9, we watched The Restoration movie with him and his father yesterday (elisa was studying for a test), and he said he felt this strong presence as we watched the movie.  He also prayed (for the first time in his life!) and did really well.  I love little kid prayers, little kids pray better than pretty much anyone else.

Yesterday we had district meeting with the Zone leaders, who asked me and Elder Carter to give a training.  We taught about the importance of asking questions if you want to understand the needs of the people we teach, and the importance of bringing members who, being not 20ish american boys, are much more likely to be able to understand how investigators feel.

Elder Carter is doing well.  I need to do a better job involving him in lessons and planning and such.  It's easy to try to do everything myself, but it's really really hard to do everything myself.  He's still pretty new in learning the language and such, and he didn't get too many opportunities to teach in his last area, but I think he's getting there pretty fast.  I hope so, since I have to turn Mafra over to him in 3.5 weeks, so it would be nice if he knew a lot about it.

Yesterday we went out to Malveira.  Do you guys look at maps to get an idea of where i'm talking about when I say these random cities?  Anyway, we went to Malveira, it was fun.  I've never worked out there, so it was cool to be in a completely new area.  We ran into these guys, Carlos and Mauro.  Carlos is basically agnostic, but he said he felt really good talking to us and that he'd call us sometime to set something up.  I think he actually might call us.  People always say they'll call us and never do, but I have hope for this kid.  But, just in case, I wrote down his phone number.  We ended up wandering around malveira with him for most of the time there trying to find this house of a member, and when we finally go thtere they weren't home, but it was good.

Anyway, i'm out of time, so have a great week, thanks for the prayers, support, and hopefully the package.

Abraço!

Ammon