Hey everybody, this morning i finally cut my hair, it was really getting out of control. Anyway, on to more interesting things.
The week was pretty great, we taught more lessons than ever before in my mission (i think, i'm not positive, but it was a lot). Flávia's doing great. We pushed back her baptism to the 10th so that we would have time to teach everything so that she understands it and have it be well prepared and invite people. I've learned a lot about teaching here on the mission, and it really impresses me how much some people are visual learners, and some people are auditory learners. In high school when people complained about that i just thought they were lazy, but after spending like 20 minutes trying to explain the story of Joseph Smith to Flávia in a way she'd remember, and failing, in 5 minutes i drew it out on a flash card and she got it really well. It was the first time that i've drawn out the joseph smith story, it works well. Some people i've run into are just not learners, and no matter how hard i try it just doesn't get in, but i'm of the opinion that that's more of a choice than a weakness, something to do with opening their ears that they can hear and their hearts that they may understand.
Elder Nixon's leg is doing great, but the rest of him has been better. He's got some sort of flu type thing and is really congested and tired and just generally miserable. He's a trooper though and hasn't really let that stop him from working. We've also been practicing magic and impressing kids and adults a like. It's shame i'll be missing the family reunion, these things are way better than the famed colorado upside-down-leg-crossed-handstand.
Eugerindo is also doing well, i dunno if i talked much about him last week. He was first found about two years ago and we ran into him because i contacted his cousin who gave us his address. He came to church and took his little brother and woke up walter (ruben's brother) so he came too, he has been coming to seminary, and is marked for baptism on the same day as Flávia. He´s realizing that he has to make some pretty drastic changes in his life, but he's determined, anyway, i'm excited for him, definitely one of my favorite investigators.
As far as palm sunday, it didn't seem like they did anything too crazy, although i was busy teaching people so i probably wouldn't have noticed if they had. I didn't see any donkeys walking around or anything like that. As of today we're on spring break, so for the next two weeks all our jovens are out of school, which is exciting. I do love jovens.
lets see, what else is going on...not too much, work is going well. On saturday we had a movie night and watched the other side of heaven, i made a metric ton of popcorn (in pan, it's way fast).
Nothing else major has happened, so i'll just tell cool stories from the week, about some of the new investigators we've found. On friday we were on our way home when we ran into a member on her way to Holland to visit her mom during spring break, she was with her friend Nelson. She wasted no time in giving us nelson's address and phone number and setting up an appointment for us. Sadly she couldn't be there (since she's in another country) but he is way cool. He's a composer, which is great because he has a flexible work schedule lots of free time and he's off sundays. He's really curious, and wants to know which church is true. So it was a really nice lesson.
On saturday we were on our way up to the church and i felt like going past mini-preço (a little grocery store they have here) to buy popcorn. Right as we were getting there there was this guy who was giving us the "interested eye" so we talked to him, it turns out that he had found a book of mormon and a pamphlet in the trash and started reading it and liked it a lot, and started talking about it in his anglican church, and then they kicked him out, so since then he's been trying to get in contact with the elders but hasn't really managed it. He has an interesting story to, one of those stories that your not entirely sure if you believe or not, full of war and swords and famous people and such. Sort of like Second Hand Lions. He has a really good handshake though, so i believe him.
On wednesday we taught this lady patrícia, who had been taught a few times by missionaries before. She is one of those people you wonder how they're not members already. She's from brasil, and so we were talking about brazil, and then she's like, "They have a temple in Fortaleza" and we're like, "yeah" but we're thinking, "woah, how does she know that?" As it turns out her sister is a member and is getting married in the temple in june, she (patrícia, not her sister) wants to join the church and everything, but her husband isn't very supportive, and it's hard for her to leave her kids at home to go to church, and she has a son with a mental disability that she doesn't feel comfortable taking to church. She's our stake president's neighbor, and he (president martinz) walked forty minutes at a moments notice to help us teach her. The stake leaders in portugal are basically incredible. Anyway, patrícia goes on vacation this week for spring break, but when she gets back we're going to start teaching her with president martinz, she's excited, and, as it happens her husband has been getting more and more supportive and her son has been getting more and more well behaved, so it seems like now is the right time.
Anyhow, that's about the gist of my week. Today i'm going to try to find white eggs (the eggs here are almost universally brown) so that we can die eggs for easter, something i meant to do last easter but never got around to it. we're also going to play settlers of catan with some of the jovens and learn magic tricks. It's going to be a good day. You guys have a great week and a great easter, oh, and a good april fools day.
abraços,
Elder Ammon
