Time is short today. To start of my term as zone leader right, we spent p-day in a zone leaders council where we got trained on how to do things. Email is struggling today, so i dunno how well this is going to work, but it seems like it's doing ok now.

Anyway, this week was intense. It feels like a long time since i was in pontinha. Elder Nixon is cool, he's young. He came to portugal at the same time as Elder Fernandes, so he's about 7 months in and already zone leader. It's good though. He's humbled by the responsibility and is excited to work in this area. I'm really excited to work in this area, i feel like i've arrived in the promised land. I feel like this area has so much potential, i'm excited. There were four elders here last week, but the pulled all four out and sent us two. We're taking care of Caçem and Massamá, both of which are huge. We marked someone for baptism yesterday, and 10 year old kid. He's awesome, his mom is also an investigator, but is waiting on getting married to get baptized, but she loves the church and she cried when we marked daniel because she was so happy. We're trying to work with the dad, who is a little less excited about church, he's way nice, and he has no problem with it, but he doesn't seem to have much desire to come to church and stuff like that. But we're still hopeful, when ever we teach he listens even though he sits on the couch watching tv, and whenever we say prayers he turns the tv off. So we're hoepful for him.

Tonight we're going to teach this girl, Iliana, she's 16, and way solid. She's been to church a few times all ready, and has made great friends with the young women in this ward. We're going to talk with her and her mom about baptism also. Her mom, when she was in cape verde, went to church all the time and loved it, but she stopped when she came to portugal. She's from São Vincente actually. It'd be cool if she knew logan, i'll have to find out how long ago she was there. Other than that this week has been sort of all over the place, finding our way around the area,getting passes, and trying to pick up where the other elders left off. We need to plan better, we honestly don't have enough time to do everything we would like to. There are so many people to teach. We're trying to work it out with the members to do splits and work in both cities, so hopefully we'll get that going. Anyway, i'm excited for this area, i think it's going to be great.

The ward here is cool. It's the biggest and most funtional ward i've had so far. There are young men and young women and primary and a bishop and two councelors and a relief society and two councelors and a ward misison leader and everything. It's great. At the same time, i miss the feeling of little branches, but it'll be a cool change. We're having a missionary work sunday this week, and both Elder Nixon and I are going to give talks.

Elder Nixon, by the way, is from Kaysville, and his parents are from hyde park, so i'm sure some one knows them. Shiree Parker and Scott Nixon, you probably went to the same highschool with them. So that's cool. He lived in brasil for four years, so he speaks portuguese pretty well.

Oh, being zone leader is absurd. I have no idea what i'm doing, but that's ok, i'm getting a hang of it. District leader is mostly just a question of getting numbers on sundays and doing district meeting from time to time, zone leader actually requires some sort of leadership, so i'm hoping i can learn how to do this and help my zone do better. We (the zone) have been a bit stagnent for the last few weeks, which is strange because we have some of the most well organized wards in the country, so hopefully we'll work something out.

Well, i'm pretty much out of time, I don't have my address yet, but i'll be sure to get that for you next week. Anyway, have a great week, next week it will be febuary, how crazy is that. Serving with Elder Nixon is making me realize how old i am in the mission. It's a little frightening, but i still have a ton of time. Oh, our house is way nice, i'll talk more about it next week, but we have a dog named pontufa and the doors are small so i keep hitting my head. It's a great house though, i'm really happy to be here. Anyway, until next week!

Abraços,

Elder Ammon

Hey family, it’s nice to hear from you all. This week was good, although sort of frustrating at the end. Both Manuel and José missed churched, manuel because he had to go to the hospital with his son (in terms of health and progress, both are doing fine). José we’re sort of confused. We haven’t been able to talk to him since Friday. We think he might have had to go to the Algarve for work, but it’s always a little scary when people you teaching disappear and don’t answer their phone. We’re hoping, in terms of health and progress, than everything’s ok.

We had an American in church yesterday. You may remember that American family I’ve talked about a few times (we met the mom and son 12 weeks ago, and the day about 6 weeks later). Paul came to church yesterday and liked it. He’s a very cool guy, and it’s fun to talk to Americans. He liked church, and will probably come back. He doesn’t speak Portuguese very well, so he doesn’t understand everything (although sometimes that’s ok. Please be considerate of the missionaries and new people they’ve brought church when you feel inclined to comment on a lesson. Members say the darnest things) He’s been looking for a church here in Portugal, and since it just happens ours comes with a handful of Americans, it’s sort of a bummer I won’t be able to teach him, but I’m sure the elders will do a good job here.

In other sorts of news, this week passed by really quick, and I left my planner at home so I’m having a hard time remembering everything that happened.

Oh, we had a cool experience the other day. I’ve been trying forever to get Mario’s mom to Mariazinha’s house for a lesson (because the two are friends, and went to the same church), but it’s never worked out. On Friday I was feeling like we should visit mariazinha and teach her, because it’s been a while since we’ve taught just her a lesson (we always end up teaching her family too). So we grabbed Mario and went over to Bairro Padre Cruz (where mariazinha lives). We knocked on the door, and Jessica (the granddaughter) answered, then who should we see on the couch but Ana Maria (mario’s mom). We had a great lesson with her. She was on her way home from church when she felt like visiting mariazinha, about 10 minutes later, we got there. The Mission is great.

I’ve started (and forgotten, and stopped, and started again) to start off all my journal entries by talking about how I saw the hand of the Lord in my day. It’s a good habit, and makes my journal entries much better. Sometimes it’s more difficult, but you begin to realize how much goes on to make things work that I have no control over. For example, yesterday Paul said that he had woken up early for some reason, and almost just went back to bed, but decided that he should go to church instead. Just that is fairly miraculous. I pray every Saturday night that people will wake up and stay awake so that they will be able to make it to church. As it happens, on Saturday, we committed to pick two people up at the same time, as we were trying to figure out how we were going to do that, Aylton walked passed, and we talked to him. It turned out that he and Mario were planning on waking up early and walking to church because neither had a ride to church (I love when people walk to church, it makes me confident for their future). So in the end we split up with Mario and Aylton and went by both. It worked out very well. It was also cool because, once again, all the people who joined the church since I got here were in church. A couple have been struggling a bit, but I’m confident they’ll pull through.

This week we’ve been quite a few potentials, but it seems like there wasn’t enough time. On top of that we had in the backs of our minds pontinha possibly closing, so we were trying hard to have everything ready. But in general the week was pretty chill. I like the end of the transfer a lot more than the beginning, although the last week is always sort of suspenseful, wondering if who’ll stay or who’ll go, if you’ll get to train again, or be zone leader or what.

Yesterday we did splits with the members to to home teaching visits. I went with Bishop Demitrov. I really like our bishop, he’s from Bulgaria, but has been here in Portugal for 16 years. He went from Bulgaria to Portugal on bikes with a friend of his, to escape soviet Russia. He has some pretty epic stories, but he doesn’t talk about them all that much. He’s just a really humble and diligent leader, and had a family of 5. I’ve really liked the members of the church here in pontinha, I mean they’re great wherever, but there are some really cool people here. I’m going to miss this ward next transfer.

I would like to take this opportunity to say:

Sérgio, deves ir para Igreja!

Also, while I’m at it,

Maiery, não sei se ainda estás a ler no meo blog, mas precisas ir para igreja. Eu vou mandar uma carta daqui a pouco, mas é mesmo importante.

That actually goes for everyone. Go to church, it’s great. At least our church is. I can’t make any promises for any other churches, I’ve pretty much never been to any other church on Sundays. Before I leave Portugal I want to go to some of the brasilian churches here, but it’s always weird to show up in other people’s churches as a missionary. I’ve started looking at church in a different way. I’ve started taking a little moleskine notebook (I’m such a tool, but I just love moleskins. There’s so good), and taking notes, not on what people are saying, just sort of pondering the week and people I’m teaching and how I can improve. It’s great, it makes even the most boring class a learning experience, because you can ask, “Why is this boring? What do I need to do in my teaching to avoid my lessons going like this class?” So that’s been fun. I’ve been getting a lot out of personal study of scriptures and such. I used to think reading the scriptures for ten minutes in bed before going to sleep was great, and it is. But you just can’t get that much out of it that way. Definitely one of the great blessings of a mission is learning to study. This morning I had a great study on 1 ne. 17 and 18 and comparing boat making to how I can do missionary work this next transfer.

Today’s a pretty chill day. Later we’re going to go and say goodbye to everybody. I remember when I was in mafra we got the transfer call at 10:00p.m. that I was leaving. That was suspenseful, I was starting to think it wouldn’t come.

Anyway, my hour’s up, so you guys have a great week, and stay safe

Abraços,

Ammon

Ok, I’m just kidding. I’m going to serve in Caçem and be zone leader, which is way exciting. I’ll be serving with Elder Nixon, who is young, but from what I hear is a really good missionary. I’m especially excited because my zone includes Mafra, so it’s possible I’ll be able to swing over there for a division or something, at least for a p-day. As it happens it’s right when I was hoping to end up. I’m pretty excited, we got the call at 11:30 this morning. Elder Bell is staying, pontinha’s staying open, which is great. So, I’ll get you my address and all that stuff next week. Once again I’ll be whitewashing. They’re pulling out four missionaries from this ward, and sending two in. It’s going to be an adventure.

This time my hour really is up,

Boa semana,

Ammon

Hey family! Sounds like it’s cold, at least in Mississippi. You’ll be happy to know that our house stays pretty warm. While basement apartments are damp and musty and moldy and fill up with water when it rains a lot, they’re ideal for cold winters. Our house stays at a toasty 60ish degrees at night. So, no pipes frozen, no dead plants, life is good. Our dona put in a little mat so that we can use the sink without standing in the puddle that comes in when it rains, and happily less water has been getting in. So yeah, good times. It seems like it’s been a long time since last p-day, this week was Action Packed.

So after emails I did end up buying some stuff, a very warm scarf for cheap, and argyle sweater, a cool t-shirt, and some other random stuff (some ties, etc) Other than that last p-day was pretty calm, this one too. We have a new rule that we can only leave our area on the first p-day of the month, so today we’re just going to hang around a bit, clean the house, do groceries and such. Exciting things. … Wow, this letter is terrible, let me get to the good stuff:

José, who I believe I talked about yesterday, is marked for baptism. We marked him initially for Saturday the 23rd, but then it looks like pontinha might close (again) so we’re thinking about moving it up a little bit if that’s alright with him, to this sunday, we’re going to go over there and talk and pray about it with him. I dunno if I talked too much about José last time, he’s really really great. That’s right, we found him a week ago Saturday, so I think I mentioned him. Anyway, he continues to be cool. He just gets it, so well, and he’s so humble. He explains things like faith and prayer and obedience in ways most people, even most missionaries, don’t get, and then he excuses himself for knowing so little about this sort of thing. Basically, he’s the mythical ‘elect’ we talk so much about. That said, we’re working with him to quit smoking, he wasn’t sure if he was going to manage it, but we (he and we) are hopeful, and it’s going to be cool. He came to church and loved it, got to know everybody and it was great. Benfica is a really good ward. They’re so good at talking to new people. It seems like that’d be an easy thing, but so many people just don’t get it. So if you’re sitting in church (or in school, or anywhere) and see someone new that looks slightly lost, go talk to them and make them feel comfortable. It’s really really important.

We’re also excited about Manuel Calisto. He came to church for the second time on Sunday. The first time he liked it, but got in late and left quick after it was over, so it was a little strange. This time he liked it a lot, and got there almost on time so got the full experience. Usually people are sort of shocked when they find out our church is 3 hours long, but it’s good times. Anyway, Calisto liked church a lot and we’ve been talking about baptism with him. Tonight we’re going to Mariazinha’s house to have a lesson there with him (they live in the same neighborhood) and we’re planning to mark him also for this Sunday. Both of them (josé and calisto) are great people, with families and everything. José family lives in brasil, but is coming on the 30th to live here in Portugal. I think his daughter is going to stay there at least for now, so yeah, this week could be really great.

As I said, it looks likely that pontinha will close. It’s like this: we’re losing two pairs of missionaries this transfer, two elders and two sisters, so two areas have to close. There are only 3 or 4 areas in the mission that still have two sets of elders in them, and pontinha’s one of them. So we’ll see what happens.

We had interviews this week with president. I always like interviews. President torgan can be sort of intimidating in zone conferences and stuff, but interviews are always great. He told me, unequivocally, that I’m leaving pontinha. That’s a shock, since generally he doesn’t say things like that, but yeah. He didn’t know whether pontinha would be open or not, but in any case, I won’t be here. So that’s sort of exciting, I have no clue where I’ll be heading a week from now, but I’m sure it will be great. Elder Kearl (one of the assistants) said his money was on the açores. That would be cool, but we’ll see what happens.

Give some parabens to Anthony for his mission call. I was thinking this week about how many people are out on a mission these days, between Madison and Jackson and Biloxi, we have people all over the place. He’s going to think my accent is really ridiculous (as will Jordan when we get around to speaking Portuguese) Brazilians speak Portuguese a lot different from portuguese people. It’s sort of like the difference from London to the states, and it also depends a lot on the location. People parts of brasil sound like there from Wisconsin (don’chya know). So that will be fun. The other day I had a dream I was home. Those are scary. We were in our Jackson house and kate and logan were there, and I remember saying to him we should speak Portuguese, but then I woke up.

It was cool to here Elder Oram’s doing well. I am equally bad at sending letters (I’m hoping my friends will get there package thingy this week. I started writing those letters when I got to pontinha 6 months ago), I’ll have to throw a note into him in at the end.

Other than that, things are pretty great. We dropped Sergio (again) this week. It was sad, but I’m hopeful he’ll find the church again in a few months. His life really needs deeper purpose and peace. Hopefully everythings good back in the states.

It’s weird to think about dead missionaries (i.e. missionaries that finished their two years and went home and back to normal life) I’m working hard not to be trunky, it’s really sort of terrifying how fast time is passing. Have a great week everybody. I’m healthy, happily. Elder Bell has got a little cough, but it’ll pass. Mario got ordained and Elder this week, which was cool. Really the most worthwhile thing about being a missionary is seeing converts being independent of the missionaries. I’m really blessed to meet so many cool people here. Next week I’ll try to reminisce about pontinha, this week I’m working to not be transfer trunky (ask your local Return missionary to explain what that is if you don’t know). Anyway. Boa semana,

Abraços,

Ammon

And to elder oram:

Pai! Faz muito tempo que não te falo. É bom ouvir de ti. Faz 4 transferências que eu estou aqui em pontinha. É bom, ensinamos muito esta semana. Há duas semanas encontramos 16 novos pesquisadores. Foi fixe, mas não foram 17. Bons tempos. Elder Rodrigues ainda esta na missão, ele esta no distrito com meu Segundo filho, mais um Rodrigues. Eu acredito que ele acabe a missão no fim desta, mas eu não sei. Bem, o meu tempo acabou, então fique bem. Não te esqueças. Os teus pontos fortes são as tuas fraquezas, e as tuas fraquezas são os teus pontos fortos. Best advice Ever.

Abraços,

Elder Perkes

Going Private

I've decided to make Ammon's blog private. I know it is a bit of a hassle and makes it harder to read, but I've decided that it is the best thing to still keep posting his letters. If you would like to get permission to read it, please email me, his sister, at katewangsgard@gmail.com. I plan to make the change in a couple weeks to give people time to respond. Thanks.

January 4, 2010

Happy New Year!

It’s 2010! that’s a little shocking, but i’m slowly accepting that. Today we’re at Dolce Vita, the biggest mall in Europe. It’s not quite as cool as i was hoping, but everything’s around 50% off, so i’m hoping to waste some money, i.e. buy some christmas presents . As you can see in the pictures, we did, in fact, see the biggest tree in europe, although we didn’t get to stay there for very long. I would have liked to have had more time to take some good pictures, but since it didn’t make sense to go there until it was night, by the time we got there we already had to leave to get back to our area to work.

It sounds like you guys had good times in New England for New Years, Soren looks way cute, as always. Ironically, church here was almost cancelled here too, because a member here died, and they brought the coffin to the chapel. We ended up cutting out the middle hour and having a very nice testimony meeting. We had two new people in church this week, I. and L. They’re both brasilian, and live right next to our house. I. has known the missionaries for a long time, but it was the first time she’s come to church in a while, at least since i got here. We met some really cool people this week too. On Saturday we met J., who is also Brasilian, and lives here in pontinha. He was great, it was one of the best first lessons i’ve ever had; he cried, elder b. cried (i didn’t cry, but i’m not much of a cryer). He already had an appointment yesterday but he really wants to come to church and is excited about coming this week. We also met a young couple, N. and S., who live nearby. They’re nice and way cool, and we have an appointment with them tonight, so we’ll see how that goes tonight.

Our new years was pretty wack. Probably one of the more memorable but least enjoyable newyears i’ll have. Presidente said we could stay up if we wanted to, but we were sick and stuffed up and tired so we went to bed at 11, but between being sick and people making lots of noise outside (lots of noise, everyone bangs pans, and honks horns and sends really really wussy fireworks off) we didn’t fall asleep until 12:30. So yeah, it was sort of dissapointing, now i wish i had stayed up and at least had fun, but whatevs. Next portuguese newyears.

In other news, we’ve been teaching this little family and they’re really nice. The fed us lunch on new years day, and we’ve taught them a few times. They’re friends with a member in benfica. They were supposed to be coming to church this Sunday, but it was raining really hard and there was a miscomunication, and they ended up not coming, but they’re coming next week, so that’s exciting. It’s been raining quite a bit this week, but happily no flooding, and we’ve seen a couple really cool rainbows. This morning i saw one of the brightest rainbows i’ve ever seen, it was raining really hard but the sun was shining bright. I like to look for rainbows...

I’m feeling better now, although me and elder b. are still a little stuffed up. We never had to stay home, but morning exercises have sort of falled by the way side; starting tomorrow i’m going to try to get that going again.

I send the present off to my friends, it’s headed for caitlin’s house, so hopefully it’ll get there without any troubles. I’m hoping to send you guys (my family) a little package thing too, but i hope to do a lot of things that sometime don’t pan out.

Yesterday we had a cool experience. We were sitting on a bench waiting for our bus and i felt like i should call this american family that i met a long time ago (you may remember me talking about them some time ago). As it turned out they were running low on food, the dad has been without work since they’ve got here. We aren’t allowed to give money, but we rounded up a sack of what we had left over in the house. We didn’t have much, but he didn’t ask much. After, we ended up talking to the dad for a long time (in person, not on the phone) and it turns out he had a guy he wants us to teach. It’s always fun to help people, especially when they’re americans.

A couple days ago we on our way into lisbon, and we heard the metro coming, so we started walking to the platform, but i realized we were walking the wrong direction, and so I ran the other way, flew down the steps three at a time, Elder B. close behind, and got into the train just as the doors were closing. Then i turned around to see Elder B. still on the platform, and the metro pulled away. So i got off at the next stop and waiting for him to come, i was only there alone for 5ish minutes, but it was weird. Normal people probably won’t understand why it’s weird to be alone for 5 minutes, but as a missionary, you spend about two years in the constant presence of your comp. To be alone is weird. It’s quiet. Anyway, the next train came and we got back, but it was interesting.

Well, i’m about out of time here, and out of cool mission stories. It was a good week, all in all. I didn’t have time to reflect about 2009, neither here nor in my journal. But 2009 was an interesting year. One whole year in portugal as a missionary. I definitely learned a lot, changed a lot, did a lot. Missions are good. So, have a great year, good luck and you all go back to school and work and all that. Don’t forget the next most wonderful time of the year, coming up in a little bit, the Ammon’s Birthday Season. If you're wondering what to send the missionary that has everything, the answer is letters, pictures, and peanut butter.

Abraço

Elder Ammon