One year ago i hopped on a plane and said até logo to everybody. Technically my one year mark is tomorrow, because that's the day i went into the MTC, but the gist is i've been here for a surprisingly long time and it's been going surprisingly fast. So that's weird.
So the good news is that Ayton got baptized on saturday, and I got to perform the baptism. Sadly Wildjoy's mom didn't give the ok, but we're hopeful still. Also, sadly, we tried out this new internet place in the mall, because the one by our house is crowded, but it's twice (and a half) more expensive, and there's no way to send pictures, so I don't think we'll be doing it here anymore.
I miss giant rainstorms, they're actually one of my favorite things about mississippi, neither Portugal nor Utah has anything to compare with that (which is probably just as well, if it did we'd drown in our house) I'm not sure if I mentioned last week that we found a potential house. It's got a nice location and is reasonably cheap, the only problem is that President Torgan told us not to move in, which basically means he's planning to close pontinha eventually (or at least combine it with some other area) So one way or another five weeks from now we'll move out of our house, but where we'll move into we're really not sure. But we won't worry too much, sufficient is the day unto the evil thereof (or something to that effect)
On the missionary work front, we got a talking to from President Torgan yesterday, basically he said we're doing good work, but that we're capable of much more, and he wants us to figure out why. It's interesting living this close to president, but it's good, i've been feeling the same way, so we're going to see what we can do. We had a good start yesterday, we found eight new potential investigators, which was great. We're also going to start teaching Aylton's brother, and Mario's sister has been talking about baptism, so we're excited. Aylton is having a sort of hard time because his family isn't too supportive, i've seen less supportive families (thinking back to maiery) but it's rough, but he's a trooper, and he's lucky to have been baptized with a friend, Mario's a really good example for him. Our ward is doing awesome too, they set up the family home teaching duplas (i'm pretty sure dupla isn't a word in english, it means pair, but you probably already figured that out), and so Mario and Aylton will get visited by members and do visits to other members, so it's pretty good. All in all the leadership of our ward is pretty excited and likes us a lot, which is great.
Oh, BIG NEWS: Starting this monday, p-day is on monday instead of wednesday. So now you can write letters on Sunday, which will probably be nice. So make sure to send any letters off on sunday, because if you send them on teusday I won't get them until next monday.
The other problem with doing internet at the mall is you end up getting trunky when The Verve's “Bittersweet Symphony” comes on the radio.
I'm actually pretty excited that I still have a whole year left. The last year has gone really fast, but from here it seems like I still have lots of time left (i'm sure that feeling will go away soon)
Lets see here, what else is going on. I have a whole half hour left and I don't feel like I have much else to write. I remember serving with Elder Oram he got to a point in his mission where he didn't feel like he had much else to say in emails. Speaking of Elder Oram, it's crazy to think that right now he's in Utah. On thursday while he was waiting for interviews we went up to pontinha and did some last contacts together. It was really cool. He was a really good example of hard work and enduring till the end, I want to do something like that on my last day in Portugal. But I should just work hard on not thinking too much about my last day in portugal right now.
Today i'm also going to buy a new journal, because mine is pretty much all used up and I like the idea of having the two years of my mission in separate journals. Today I think we're going to go eat at Chili's. I had said a couple times that I didn't want to eat at Chili's while in portugal, but I got convinced. It reminds me of 9th grade when, while living in boston, with access to some of the best restaurants in the world, I went to chili's, to eat food based of food from the south. The year after I got lobster in mississippi. Anyway, this letter is sort of uninspired, I blame the mall.
Well, we're getting ready for another activity a week from friday, this time I think we might do a relay of sorts. Some sort of team race with different points set up by members. Last time I ended up doing a lot of the activity, and we're hoping to pass it on to the members a bit more. One day, i'd like to see a weekly family night going on. Portugal doesn't do activities nearly as much as some other places in the world (although from what I hear, nowhere in the world does activities like brasil).
I also got to talk to an elder that was serving in Mafra a couple weeks ago, and it sounds like things are still going ok over there. Francisco and Isabel got married, Isabelinha is working on her mission papers (which is way exciting) and they had a baptism and have a couple other marked. Manuel, who I taught a lot, is marked, hopefully he'll be able to quit smoking. This saturday the other elders of our ward have a baptism, a 40ish year old named Carlos. He's very cool, he speaks english very well and is very intelligent. He drank and smoked a lot, but he's managed to not smoke for almost 2 weeks now, so he'll be baptized on saturday. So all in all, stuff is going, and we're excited.
I hope isaac's recovering from Bronchitis, that's no fun, but falling asleep to Lord of the Rings is one of the necessities of childhood. Have you ever read Where the Red Fern Grows to him? I still remember crying because of that book when it was about his age.
Anyway, everyone have a great week, i'm sorry i'm so bad at getting things sent off, but one day it will happen, even if I end up bringing it with me on the airplane. Abraços all around, boa semana!
-Ammon
