This week was interesting. We found a mouse in our house! I say found, i should say saw as it booked it into the kitchen. But everyone can rest easily knowing the mouse is taken care of. Our landlord bought some traps, so now we have the fun task of keeping an eye out for dead mice. Missions are really interesting.
On a more spiritual side, we're really excited about one of our investigators, Mario. I dunno if i talked about him at all last week, but we had a really good lesson with him and then he went to church and he loved it. Bringing investigators to church is scary. You never know what people will say, either to them directly, or in the talks and stuff, if the classes will be good or really boring, if there will be lots of little kids running around, etc, but he liked it a lot. He's also started coming to english class, which we teach, and he's started praying, we've been talking about baptism, and we're thinking he wants to get baptized, although he's a little nervous what his family will think. So yeah, fun times.
I had an epiphony about english class the other day. Honestly, i've never seen anyone learn english from the missionaries. We teach ok, the problem is there are always lots of new people, so we keep having to start over, and that these people live in portugal, so it's difficult for them to apply english (where as for us as missionaries, it's very easy to apply portuguese) So starting last week, I decided English class should just be really really fun and a lot more english practice than theory. So we're sort of molding English class into more of an English party, where we can invite lots of people and investigators get to know members and have a good time with these funny americans.
In other news, we had to push back Quinta's baptism again. It's sort of sad, but she missed church again because of a tooth ache related thing. Tooth ache sounds pretty benign, but i realize they can be pretty absurdly painful. But anyway, we're going to make sure she's good and ready before she gets baptized, there's no point in baptizing people that don't stay in the church, not to mention it's sort of bad form to baptize people who aren't ready.
Lets see, Portugal's starting to cool down a little bit, it had been really really hot the last few weeks, with blistering sun (well it wasn't technically blistering, but it was hot) and such, but it's started to cool down, and i'm starting to get excited for the rediculousness of winter. I'm banking on this house staying a little more warmer in the winter, since it's underground, but we'll see how that goes. Elder Fernandes is worried, since the only time he experienced cold in his life he got really sick.
Time is starting to pick up abit, it's strange. Days are going by pretty fast, but weeks seem like they take forever. It seems like a long time since last p-day, but at the same time it seems like we just got here. It's weird.
We're having a bit of a challenge here working with members. Finding members to come with us is proving to be more dificult here than in mafra or Monte. I've giving a talk on sunday, and i'm hoping to be able to get people excited to help and such. It's interesting because I'm getting fed more here than in any other area. And they have a weird habit of making food for us and just giving it to us to take home. I appreciate it and all, but it basically defeats the purpose of eating with the members. I like applying Ezekiel 34 in Missionary - Member relations. Speaking of that, on saturday we're going to help make lunch for the women in the ward, it's going to be fun, we're in charge of making some deserts.
I believe that's all the noteworthy things i can think of at the moment. It's good to hear Isaac's riding his bike, i would be really sad if Isaac got to be 10 years old without knowing how to ride a bike. I'm pretty sure that's one of the requirements for passing 3rd grade (or 4th grade...i realized the other day i'm not sure what grade isaac is in)
Well that's all the time we have for today. Hopefully you enjoy the photos. I'm running out of space on my card, because i insist on taking absurdly high quality photos, so i'm thinking i might buy a little pen drive and copy them all over and send them home. Since there are lots of pictures i don't have time to send, and lots of picture i don't want to delete.
So, have a great week. I hope everything goes well with Sister Garrett, Have a great week everyone,
Grandes Abraços,
Ammon the Elder
ps, enjoy my mad pancake skills
