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
