Me, Mariazinha, Elder Rodrigues, and Vitória (one of mariazinha's granddaughters)
First, answers. Yes please. I don’t know exactly how it works to get new shoes, but I believe you send them a picture and they’ll get new shoes, although I don’t know if they send them all the way to Portugal, you guys might have to take care of that half. Try calling them and see. Yesterday it started raining, and having a big hole in my soul just isn’t going to fly this winter. I keep remembering specific items during the week and forgetting them when p-day comes. Peanut butter is always a must, I try to add stuff as I go along. The office is best for packages, and since we go there at least 3 or four times a week it’ll be fine great. Oh, contact solution. I need more contact solution.
So, this week was good. On Saturday Mariazinha got baptized, and I got to baptize her, which was great. We were going to have the bishop do it, but then she asked that I do it, which worked out well because the bishop broke his arm in a intense bicycling accident. (there are two words in Portuguese, partir, and perder. One means to break, the other to lose. When I talked to bishop I wasn´t sure, but I thought he said he had lost his arm. It was a relief to see his arm in a sling) The Baptism was really good, honestly the best baptismal program I’ve ever seen. Her sister, daughter, granddaughter and friend, all of whom aren’t members of the church, came and loved it. Also her neice, who is a member of the church (which we found out about a week ago) came and gave a really really good talk about how she has been praying for two years that her family would join the church and had been trying to work it out to have mariazinha come to their house to meet the missionaries. Jessica and her friend (or cousin, I’m not quite sure if they’re related or not) loved it and now want to start coming to church. We’ve been teaching Jessica for a while (she’s mariazinha’s granddaughter) but she didn’t ever want to church, but now she does, so we’re excited.
Another cool experience: I was running around before the baptism trying to get people there on time and I didn’t actually get to the church until 2o’clock, when it was supposed to start, and when I got there the water was cold. Mariazinha’s doing chemotherapy, and she’s old, and getting baptized in November in cold water was not something I wanted to do to her. So, I messed around with the valves on our water heaters, and managed to get the hot water running. I prayed, basically begging for a miracle, that somehow or another the water wouldn’t be painful for her. Then I drained out some of the water from the baptismal font I threw some water on the stove to boil, drained the font a bit and tried to not look too worried. So all this was no w while the baptismal program was going, Mario was giving a talk about baptism. Happily, he talked quite a bit and so the water had time to boil, and nobody even realized. So, finally we go to the baptismal font. I got in first, and was worried, because that water was not even remotely warm. It was better, but still way cool. When she got in I thought she was in pain. She said a prayer (which is a very good thing to do when you are half way into the waters of baptism, and I’m surprised no one else has ever done that before) and then came down. We had to do the baptism twice, because she didn’t get all the way under the first time (the water was still sort of low from draining) and by the end I was afraid she was going to get pneumonia or something, as she got out Amélia (who is an older lady we brought with us to teach and became a good friend of Mariazinha) ask her if she was cold, and she said, “No, the water felt warm.” So that was a great blessing, and I don’t think anyone else at that baptism really understood how big a blessing it was, since no one else was standing in cold water. It was one of the best experiences of my mission (so far) and taught me a little bit about the relationship between faith, works, and miracles (faith is working really, really hard, trusting that God will take care of the rest)
Other investigators are also doing well. We’re teaching a family, Bimba, Graciete, and their three sons. They’re from Cape Verde, and we’re very excited for them. Elder Capische when he came encouraged us to wake up three minutes early and think about finding and baptizing a family, and so every morning I wake up and think about them. It turns out they’re from the same town as Elder Rodrigues, and know a lot of the same people. We taught a great lesson with José, who is also from over there, and the father really liked it. The mom has lots of doubts because she’s talked to a lot of other churches, but that’s alright, people should have questions. Let’s see, that’s about the gist of what’s going on. I’m really enjoying my mission right now, more than at any other point. Here in Portugal they’re getting Christmassy already, here in the mall they’re got a giant Christmas tree, but I’m more excited about seeing the biggest Christmas tree in Europe which they put up in downtown Lisbon. I’m also having a hard time believing a year has gone by, but the weather is the same, rainy and windy and a little depressing. I’m excited about Christmas though, I’m hoping to be here in pontinha (although it’s unlikely) but I’m sure wherever I am it will be great. I’m hoping I can keep improving for the next year and enjoying it more and more, because the difference in me from one year ago to now is huge (even from 6 weeks ago to now is big) and I’m really enjoying the mission right now, a lot more than I was one year ago. So hopefully that’ll keep improving.
So anyway, have a great week everyone, Happy birthday to Amy (which I’m pretty sure happens this week, but if not, happy birthday anyway!). Until next week
Love,
Ammon
