October 26, 2009

One more little email today.

So, we got transfer calls, i'm staying and am going to train one more cabe verdian, who is a friend of elder fernandes. Elder Fernandes is going to the Açores with Elder Valasquez (who is in our district) I'm still district leader but my district is changing to be the secretaries and the Assistants. My new comp is Elder Amos Rodrigues, from Praia, São Tiago, and he sounds pretty cool. So yeah, i think tomorrow the switch over madness happens, so tonight we'll be packing and such.

And yeah, we made jack-o-lanterns

October 26, 2009

This week, elder Fernandes is doing His visas, so i’m taking advantage of the spare time and doing internet now. Elder Fernandes doesn’t really do internet, and since we’ve been trying to take advantage of p’days, internet has been falling by the wayside. Anyway, sorry my last couple has been so short, but today will be good. First of all, as fall as slippers go, it’s most important that they are warm and comfortable. Rediculousness is secondary, bonus points.

The week was good. We found some really cool investigators, and best of all, Mariazinha went to church this week. Mariazinha is doing chemotherapy, which from what I’ve seen is not easy, but she, in an act of huge determination, came to church for the first time two days after chemo. So that made us really happy, and she like it a lot.

Less happily, Wildjoy didn’t make it to church, which is a whole complicated and understandable story, so we’re trying to figure out what to do over there. We really need to work better with his parents and work extra hard to teach him while his parents are there, but it’s been really hard to set it up with them. But we’re still hopeful for him, we’re just got to work a little bit better with them.

We still don’t know what’s going on in transfers. We know pontinha is staying open, but as to who is staying and who is going we have no clue. So hopefully I’ll know soon, but I don’t even know when I’m going to know.

It sounds like everyone over there is sick, we’re still pretty healthy on our end, house notwithstanding. If I do stay here, I have to stay in this house, which isn’t something I’d be happy about, but it’s rained a couple of times, and it’s doing a pretty good job not getting flooded. As far as a winter house, it’s not terrible, mostly because there’s a dryer. We’ve been getting little taste of winter, rain and chilliness, it’s fun to remember how absurdly cold and wet it gets here in the winter. Fun times.

Halloween doesn’t really happen here, but I’m planning on making it happen by buying a pumpkin or two and making jack-o-lanterns. It’s probably the only Halloween I’ll get in Portugal, so I’ve got to live it up. I figure putting a hollowed out pumpkin with a firey face on my porch would give the neighbors the wrong impressing, so we’ll probably keep it on the down low. As far as costumes, I dunno if there’s a whole lot of options for us.

Everyonce in a while we’ll run into a new part of our area that we’ve never been to, and it’s fun to explore around. Living in Portugal makes me dislike tourism. I like to just live places and get to know them. Good times.

So anyway, what else has been going down in our week? Oh! I got a chance to interview a couple people this week, from the Lapa ward. One named Edson who’s brasilian, and the other is a Portuguese woman who describes herself as a hippie. They were both cool. It’s a really humbling thing to interview people and be the judge of whether their worthy to be baptized, happily both of these people were way worthy and their baptisms went really well. All in all it was a good week. I think this whole transfer has been an issue of being made humble. It’s been good, but it has been one of the least successful transfers of my mission, which is interesting, because I know what I’m doing much better than I used to, but I think I got a little caught up in the idea that I knew what I was doing and forgot that I’m pretty much useless on my own. Finding people is a very humbling experience, because you can work for weeks without finding people, and then other times people just show up on your doorstep basically. We’ve been trying to work more with members. It’s a little slower in the beginning, but I know it works better in the end, so I’m hoping it will work. I don’t like that fact that of all the people I’ve baptized, none of them have been friends of members. It’s good that we’’ve been finding people and such, but we really should find more people through members.

Also, fun fact, none of the people I’ve baptized were found knocking doors.

Anyway, we’re entering into the stressful days of now knowing what’s happening. Real life will be so boring, here, 6 months in one area seems like an eternity, and 3 months with the same person can get hard. Imagine when I live several years in the same house with the same person. But it’ll probably be a bit different.

So good times, I really feel like I should have more stuff to write, but it sort of all runs together. I had sort of a midlife crisis this week, but then I got over it and got going. It’s just the little things, like exercise, 30 minutes of exercise every morning gets old. So now I’m working on making exercise new and exciting and innovative, and doing the same thing for missionary work.

Have a fantabulous Halloween. Christmas is coming up frighteningly quickly, it’s so weird, last Christmas I was brand new to the mission. I still feel brand new. But I’m getting to be one of the older missionaries in the mission. Weird.

As far as my prediction on transfers, I think it will be as follows:

I think Elder Fernandes and I will do one more in pontinha, I feel like there’s still more we need to do here. But, I’ve been pretty bad at guessing, so just wait till next week and I’ll fill you in.

Boa semana, boas festas, amo-vos.

Elder Ammon

October 19, 2009

so, at the end of a poorly planned p'day, i'm sort of without time for righting letters. Back in the day in Mafra we just did shopping and internet and cleaned the house, but here in lisbon, Preperation Days are epic, it was good though. We went to the Aquarium and ate lunch with the missionaries and one of the Irmãs' investigators.

The week was good. We dropped a couple people, and found some new people. One of the people i'm most excited about is a brasilian family, Nivaldo and his wife and son. They are way nice (all brasilians are way nice) and the wife said they'd been to lots of churches but had never quite felt right in any of them. They also did something that almost no new investigator has ever done, they called to cancel an apointment. While canceling an apointment might not seem like signs of goldeness, the fact that they remembered, and were considerate enough to warn us is impressive. We're going to go back there today. Brasilians really are crazy nice, it's sort of throws me off.

In other news, Wildjoy is marked for baptism again, for the 31st. We talked to him, he still wants to get baptized, and we read the part in the bible where Christ says that if you have faith as a mustard seed you will be able to move mountains, or in this case, his mom. I think it's matthew 17. Anyway, we're hopeful. We're also hopeful for transfers. _Having found a couple of new investigators, and having people progressing, we're not too excited about leaving, and both of us are hoping to stay, but we really don't know. In anycase, we're know, although probably not until the day after next p-day.

That's about the newses. I'm still healthy (that's over a year without getting sick enough to stay at home. Woo) and still happy. Portugal is getting chilly, this will be my first and only i get here, since the last i was rocking the MTC still.

Bem, that's all the time i've got, next week i'll make sure to get a full hour in, but for now, have a great week. Buy pumpkins early so you don't get the gimpy ones, and don't put off costume making until halloween afternoon, or else you'll have to turn a lion costume into a dog costume and it just won't be the same as last year.

Amo-vos

Ammon

Last week we went to Belém, which is old school Portugal. The picture with the flag is cool because it's 3 of the way portugal-y things. the April 25th bridge, the Cristo Rei, and the other thing, that i can't remember what it's called.

Hey everybody we went to sintra today, so there are going to be lots of photos and not a lot of time to type. This week was good, we taught a bunch and had some really good times. We’re having to drop a bunch of our investigators, which is always sad. There great people, and we like them, but they’re just not ready, and we can’t just keep teaching them if they´re not willing to do anything about it.

In other news, we had interviews with president torgan the other day, those were nice. We’re feeling like we’re stagnating a little bit. People haven’t really been progressing much in the past couple weeks (ergo the dropping) which is always sad. You work for a whole week and at the end there’s not much to show for it. Happily that’s not quite how missionary work, that when you do your best and things don’t go as plans, you’re still a successful missionary, but it’s a lot more gratifying when doing your best coincides with things progressing.

I only gave myself half an hour because we still have to do groceries and it’s almost 5:30, so in other news, we’re hoping to start working more with the members of the church. I’ve always been pretty good about teaching with members (it’s really important. People generally never progress until you go there with normal people.) but as far as getting people to teach from members, I’m not the best. We are teaching one family that are friends of some members here. It just makes sense. It’s pretty much the first time in my mission I’ve taught friends of a member, and it’s so great, because you don’t have to worry about them having friends or feeling uncomfortable or any of that stuff. It just works.

Wow, half an hour is not a lot of time. Sorry this email is so short. I did hear about the Obama peace prize, from an old bitter Portuguese man. Our weather is jumping between hot and cold, but anyway.

Lamest letter ever. You guys have a great week, and remember that a picture is worth a thousand words, and lots of pictures is worth a thousand good emails.

oh, ps. No turist attraction is complete until you climb on something.

Amo-vos muito, obrigado e fiquem óptimos.

Élder Ammon

October 5, 2009

Olá

this email is going to be a little gimpy, but this week was good. Sadly, we spend about half of it in conferences of one sort or another, but those were great. It's hard to find a good balance in the mission between getting training and studying and such, and actually doing things. I liked the story in conference about a little girl that prayed that her brother's sparrow trap wouldn't work, and told her mom she was sure her prayers would be answered, because after she prayed she kicked that trap all to pieces, that's sort of how a mission is sometimes.

Anyway, Portugal continues to be incredible. We're entering fall, which is a new thing for me. Last time round i had a day of fall before we jumped into rainy winter. Today we're going to go take pictures of lisbon, and hopefully it'll be cool, sometimes day's off are the really boring.

Anyway, like i said, gimpy letter, sorry, but you all have an excellent week and look for opportunities to help missionaries on my behalf, remembering that food is not all they need. Oh, which reminds me, i'm almost out of peanut butter, and i figured out what i would like if there happens to be an early christmas present. I was wishing for slippers, really warm, absurdly comfortable, and idealy rediculous looking slippers. So keep an eye out for something of that sort.

Have a great week,

Amo-vos

Elder Ammon