"E aconteceu que eu, Néfi, viajei novamente com meus irmãos pelo deserto, para subirmos a Jerusalém."
Hey family,
I've been getting a lot of deja vu recently, it's weird. I think it's because i've been doing the same things everyweek for the past year and a half. This week was good, one of the best parts was that I did a division in Pontinha, and got to see Mário and Aylton and Mariazinha. They'll all doing great. I got to sleep in pontinha again, i had forgotten how bad that house is. I'm glad i'm not still living there. The dona was happy to see me. She said that when you guys come you can stay upstairs in her house (she has a guest house, where i slept when it flooded around christmas. It's very nice actually). Speaking of that, we need to decide how that's going to be. In about two weeks, the mission office does trunky calls, where they call around to start setting stuff up for going home, so it'd be great if you could decide within the near future how that's going to be.
On the Alverca front, things are going well. We've been trying hard to work with a serve the members. Yesterday we went to Otacílio and Bete's house (that's who's house i was in when i called you guys, Otacílio is the one that talked to you). A week before we got there, President Torgan came to alverca and did this Noah's Ark thing where they talk about noah's ark and make the comparison between it and the gospel and then ask people to think about who they would want to save. In the end, we ended up with a list of over a hundred names that we've been slowly working through. We're starting to see the results of that. Vanessa, who i talked about last week, was on that list. The problem we've run in to is that the great majority of them live outside our area. Of the 20ish people otacílio wrote down, all but one of them live in brasil, and that one we already know. Anyway, while we were waiting for Otacílio to get home,Elder Mateer did all the dishes and swept the kitchen (Elder Mateer is very tidy). Then while Elder Mateer went through all the people with Otacílio, i made pancakes with Otávio for the family. We've been trying to find ways to help and serve the members here, and work with them to find people to teach. It's going sort of slow, but it getting going. Hopefully we'll see something come out of it all.
On thursday night we were walking back to the house and there was this oldish portuguese man walking home. We said goodnight to him as we were walking by, and he said goodnight, and asked how it was going with us. By this point we were a good 5 steps ahead of him, but we said yeah it was, and commented on the weather, which was really nice that day. The whole situation was very awkward, because we were aways ahead of him but sort of talking to him, and torn between whether or not to contact him, anyway, eventually we committed and went and talked to him. We started talking a bit about families and things and explained who we were and why we're here and ended up marking an appointment for saturday. On saturday we went there, we found his house , first floor, on the left, and knocked it, but the lady said that Acácio didn't live there, but he didn't seem like the sort of person to lie about his address, so i tried the first floor on the right. That lady said she had a cousin named Acácio, but that he didn't live there either. We thought a bit, and then we tried the third floor (third sounds a bit like first in portuguese, so i figured i could have misheard him) and sure enough, he was home waiting for us. We had a very good lesson, he's very prepared for the gospel. It was great, because you don't end up teaching that many portuguese people in portugal. Something dad told me before the mission, that i'd probably end up teaching more immigrants and strangers, has turned out to be very true, so the Portuguese people you teach here are really precious.
Yesterday i saw João and Debora, another one of my favorite people that i've taught, who i taught in Caçem. I talked to Elder Nixon on saturday, the week before they had baptized this guy Carlos, who i met my last day there, when we were saying goodbye to Jerryson. it sounds like things are going well out there.
Also on saturday, we taught Milca´s sister. Milca is a recent convert who got baptized a week or two before we got here, and her sister came down from Arruda (which is really far away) to be taught. We taught them with Leolinda and Viola, who are not baptized yet, but are marked for the 29th, and are really excited. That's another cool story.
On tuesday we had interviews with president, and we then made plans for the rest of the month, Leolinda and Viola were already sort of marked for baptism, but it wasn't really set, and it was marked for the 12th of June, but we felt like we should push it back to the 29th. They're waiting on getting married, which was in the works but wasn't really set in stone yet. They also had a few doubts they had to work out, one of which involving not having and praying to images of saints and such. Anyway, on tuesday we got home with a vague idea of what we should do but not really sure of how we were going to do it. That night we called Otacílio (who is the ward mission leader) and he passed us to Bete, who, before we said anything, explained that she had already gone and talked to Leolinda about saints, and was going that night to mark the marriage and the baptism for the 29th. We went there the next day (or rather Elder Mateer went, since i was in Pontinha) and the house is completely different. Honestly, the members of the church here are incredible.
I got the package, and am once again enjoying the use of contacts, which makes my life even better. Sounds like things out there are good. I have distint memories of kayaking and one time getting worn out and having to be towed. I also remember the Strong River and having to push it out going up stream. Ocasionally a mission feels a bit like that, but pushing against the current on force of will, but lots of times it's more of the fly down crazy fun rapids and end up in the water. Right now we're somewhere in between, but i think this week is going to be great. Next week is transfers, but i highly doubt anything will change here.
Anyway, i'm going to go run errands and then play ping pong. Have a great week.
Abraços,
Elder Ammon
