April 26, 2010

"Não obstante, o Senhor julga conveniente a castigar seu povo; sim, ele prova sua paciência e sua fé."

Hey everybody, i finally have a computer with a SD slot, so i'm going to send a bunch of pictures to make up for the 3 months draught.

In other news, this week was tough, for various reasons, but we're going to call it a trial of our faith, because it ended very well, and João, the 8 year cousin of a family that got baptized a couple weeks ago got baptized. He's been going to church for a while and wanted to get baptized. It was interesting because it pretty much had nothing to do with us, but it was still fun to have a baptism and we've been teaching the rest of his family and they're doing well. This ward is really great. They're thinking about it spliting into a ward and a branch, so we're trying to find the people that are going to take the places of those that will go to the branch.

We get fed really well here. We have 3-4 meals in member's houses a week and on top of that they give us sacks of food for the days we don't have member meals. It's really nice actually, since getting here i haven't cooked once.

What else is up? Elder Mateer and I are getting along well. We've been reading and thinking a lot about the Sons of Mosiah in the book of Mormon, incidentally his first name is Aaron so that's cool. (other fun facts about elder mateer i don't think i've said yet: he's from scotland and was going to BYU before coming here, he's been in portugal for about a year.)

Hm, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot else that's going on. This week we just worked really really hard, and sort of felt like we were beating our heads against the wall, now we're wanting to figure out how to work better with members so that we don't have to walk so much. Not that i don't like walking, but aside from the fact that we walked around 50 miles this week (that's a moderate estimate, eldermateer said it was more like 100. It felt like 100), it's just not very effective to spend all your time walking around. The culprit was not planning as well as we could have in our ginormous area, and a bigger problem, not having the phone numbers of people and being unable to confirm with people. Last night we visited Macsuel, this really really cool member from brasil. He and his wife are epic, and we talked about people he wanted to teach and bring to church and such. We're going to paint his mom's house in a couple weeks.

We also, on friday, went to visit the Gomes family. They were baptized about 7 months ago, and are incredible. They live way out in the middle of nowhere, but are one of the coolest little families i've ever met. I got a chance to show of some of the crazy magic skills i've been learning, they wrote the name of their card on the back of my hand and then i opened my hand up and it was written on the inside of my hand. Elder Mateer is a good guinae pig for magic, he's pretty sharp, and spots stuff when i do it well, although i got him this morning. Magic is fun.

Let me see, other than magic and missionary work, not too much is going on on this end. We ate lunch at the bishop's house on sunday. He's incredible, as is the ward mission leader, Otacílio, that was called on sunday. We're really excited to work here in alverca, and the wards about to explode. I'm going to try to learn a more effective way to do missionary work here, and we'll see how that goes in the next few weeks.

Thanks for the letters and everything else. My atm card does in fact expire in may, i'm glad the bank was on top of things because i definitely hadn't noticed. Will my pin stay the same or do i need to set up a new one or something? Anyway, we'll figure that out, have a great week.

Love,

Ammon

p.s. - That's a photo from Iliana's baptism, it's sort of an awkward picture, but what can you do?

April 12, 2010

Hey Family, Merry Taxmas!

This weekend was sort of crazy. To start with, we got transfer calls today and i'm leaving caçém, i'm sort of bummed out about leaving here, this is definitely one of my favorite areas (technically all of my areas are among my favorite areas, but this is one of my favorite favorites.) I'm going to Alverca, to serve with Elder Mateer, who has been in the office for the past 6 months, we were in the same ward in benfica, i'm pretty excited to serve with him out there. Alverca is also the area that Elder Oram finished up his mission in, it's possible i'll be there for the rest of my mission, or i could leave, it's a while to stay, but not too long to be unreasonable.

Eugerindo and Flávia did get baptized, although it went sort of poorly, it was, admittedly, not the best planned baptism i've ever had, but it also wasn't the worst, it's just that things ran poorly, and it started way late, but Flávia and Eugerindo didn't mind, and happily very few members showed up, usually i'm not happy when no one shows up for our baptisms, especially when they were notified weeks in advance, but in this case it turned out to be a great blessing, because it would have frustrated a lot of people if they'd been there. In the end though, a couple of our members are sort of mad at us, which is a sad way to leave, but it happens sometimes. Be patient with your missionaries, unless they're just lazy, but when they're trying to do the right thing and things don't work out, it's not necessery to make them feel worse about how things didn't work out, they already feel really. So yeah, the weekend was sort of frustrating, but i'm glad Eugerindo and Flávia got baptized, they have a ton of potential. Eugerindo is going to be a great missionary, as long as he gets well integrated in the ward, flavia is already super well integrated.

In other news, not too much is going on, hopefully in my next area i'll be able to send pictures, i don't really want to send my chip or my pendrive in the mail, it's not too reliable, and several missionaries have lost stuff before.

So, some stories from the week, because aside from the members being upset with us it was a really good week.

On sunday, we had a lesson with Nelson, who is one of my favorite investigators here. His girlfriend, Rosália, is a member and got back this week from Holland. This sunday, he invited his whole family and a few friends to join in on the lesson, so for about and hour we answered questions and taught. It was one of my favorite lessons ever, because even though we were just answering their questions, and a lot of times we just asked them what they thought and felt, we taught basically the entire first lessonand at least two of them, Nelson (who is loving the church right now, and not just because his girlfriend is a member) and Beatrize (who actually lives up north) really liked it and want to learn more. And the rest were interested and said we could come back and teach them next week.

Also on sunday, sunday morning, we weren't sure where Eugerindo would be, because they cut the power to his house, so he's been staying at his tia´s house from time to time, we called and his cell phone was dead, so we were just a little worried. I've found getting to people would be really easy, except for the fact that they have to wake up at 8:30ish on sunday morning to get there, and without parents, this is extremely different for teenage boys. So anyway, we were praying a lot that he would somehow wake up, and we could find him. So on the way up we ran into his tia on her way to work (she was at the baptism on saturday, and liked it a lot and said she's going to start coming to church and bringing her daughter) and said that eugerind should be in his house, so we continued up to his house and when we got there his door was open and he was in the bathroom brushing his teeth. He said that he didn't have his alarm set or anything, and he had gotten to bed sort of late, but he had worken up suddunly that morning and remembered the Elderes would be picking him up. One of those small and simple things that was a huge miracle. It really showed to me the power of prayer and the Lord's hand in this work.

Eugerindo is definitely one of my favorite people i've baptized so far, he's both my best and my worst investigator ever. He's incredibly irresponsible, but he has such a strong desire to do the right thing, and he wants to turn his life around. While we've been teaching him he's recognized what he's been doing in life is wrong and has been changing it. He has such a pure and simple testimony of the gospel, and he gets it. He'll need a lot of help over the next few months, because he's basically going to have to completely change his friends and his life, but Elder Nixon is on the case, so it'll work out.

So, don't send anything to my address in massamá, i'll try to get you my address in Alverca. Oh, This also means i get to do splits in Pontinha, which is sweet, i'm super excited. Anyway, that's about the gist here, até próxima

~Elder Ammon

April 6, 2010

Hey guys, sorry i'm late, yesterday our easter celebrations got a little prolonged and we did not end up writing email. You're lucky Elder Nixon cares a lot about email, for myself i probably wouldn't have just sent a five minute message saying i was late and ran out of time, but we're using our dinner out today to write you guys.

The week was good, it feels like its been a long time since the last time i wrote you, a whole lot has happened. We had interviews with president torgan on tuesday, those are always good. One of the elderes in our zone found a place that does LazerTag, so we asked president and for p-day all the elders in our zone went and played lazer tag (we invited the sister missionaries but they didn't want to) It started off a little rocky because the bus schdules were diferent than we expected but we got lucky and some taxis passed buy and we all ended up there without too many problems. Lazer tag was absurdly fun, definitely one of the more memorable p-days of my mission. We're now wondering if president would be ok with us playing paintball, i'm also wondering if it would be a good idea, but it wouldn't be until next month anyway, so we have a while to think about it. If we did play paintball, i want to get president torgan out there too. He had many many years as a cop and i can only imagine how intense it would be to play paintball with him.

We have also been working this week, Flavia and Eugerindo are both doing well. Both have talked to their parents, and both have gotten the Ok. Flávia's been reading like a champ and is now on ch. 19 of 1st Nephi, and Eugerindo is talking about cutting his hair (he has a giant afro, that he usually braids. We told him he doesn't have to cut it to get baptized, but it'd be cool if he did anyway) I'm going to be doing flávia's baptism, and Elder Nixon will do eugerindo. This week we're going to try to get Eugerindo some beter friends in the church. Although he knows a few people and get's along well with them, especially the moças, it'd be good if he had a best friend who could help him along. Flávia is already better integrated in the ward them some of the members, and even helped in the car wash they did last week to help raise money for EFY. hopefully she'll be able to go to one of those. I've never actually been to efy, but i've heard they're pretty rad. Anyway, we're excited for them.

Back on the unimportant side, last p-day on the way back from trying to buy a bible case for Elder Nixon, we found a store that was selling suits for 40 euros. Anyway, long story short, i bought a sweet italian suit for 50 euros. I still have to get it tailored a bit but it's way awesome. I'll probably avoid buying things for a while to make up for the money i spent this week on suits and lazertag. It's a brown suit with pinstripes. It is so sweet.

On to trunky stuff:

I will be getting back too late to go to college for the fall semester, and i don't really want to go home early or jump into school the day i get home, i think a few months would be nice to normalize, like when you put the fish in a new fish tank and leave him in the bag for a few hours so that the temperature change doesn't kill him. It's the same principle. I am planing on BYU, although for that they have to let me in again, i'm hoping they be down with that, because out of state tuition at the U is 15,000 dollars i don't have, and i'd rather not have to pay if i can avoid it. As far as you guys picking me up, i'm not sure. I really want to do a trip through portugal and other parts of europe, but i think i'd rather come back after, for lots of reasons, the gist of which being that i don't want to be a missionary on vacation. As far as guidlines and stuff, there the office has what they call 'trunky calls' which happen here in a month or two for me, where they'll call me and make all the arrangements for me going home, when they do that they'll ask about stuff like that. I don't know to what point i ought to live mission rules after finishing my time but before being released. Since i don't really know what it'd be like one way or another, talk about it on MyFamily and see what the return missionary cousins and their parents have done and have liked, and you guys can decide what you think is best, but just keep in mind that swimming is an important part of any good vacation. I've seen some people get picked up and it seemed pretty cool, basically i have no idea. If you want you can call or email the mission, they'll be able to fill you in, they know all that.

Well, with trunqueza behind us, and five minutes to type, conference was great. We didn't get to watch all the sessions, we missed saturday and sunday morning sessions because we some things fell through and so we didn't have a place to watch it, but we'll catch them later either online or in the magazine. I was impressed by how much they talked about families and youth, I watched the priesthood session in portuguese with João and Valter, a man and boy that we're teaching (not in anyway related except for the fact that we're teaching both of them). I learned a lot and had very direct answers to the questions I and my investigators are dealing with. I've learned that when taking notes, if i start by putting down a few questions, i learn a lot more, and generally answer those questions than if i just try to take notes on the stuff that they say. When Elder Bednar came he talked about the importance of taking notes more on the impressions of the spirit than on what people say. Anyway, it's a good lesson.

Thanks for your letters and your pictures and your support. I'm always grateful to have such a great family all around. I know that the principles of the gospel have contributed a lot to the happiness of our family and my life in general. Thanks for your prayers and everything.

Have a great week, até próximo.

Elder Ammon