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