as it happens, flag day is not a holiday here in portugal, but there are tons of flags everywhere because of the world cup. This week was good, Teresa's baptism went very smoothly. Her Aunt who hasn't come to church in forever came and is excited to start coming back to church again. It's interesting, because she's the quickest baptism i've had on my mission (from meeting to baptizing) but she's one of the most prepared people for baptism. Marcelo Oliveira performed the baptism, it was great, because she's had about as much contact with the members as she has with us. Every lesson has been accompanied with members, and everyone who helped had a part in the baptism. It's like a textbook example of how things should go in the teaching process, i can't say i've finally learned the secret to missionary work, but if we can keep doing that it'll be excellent.
We also had zone conference, which was good, like always. It was fun to see Elder Nixon and Elder Fernandes who are Zone Leaders in the zone above us. And it was great to learn and get motivated and such. In the time i've been here, the mission has changed a lot. It's shrunk significantly, today it's about half the size it was when i got here, but a lot more people are getting found, taught, and baptized. In Odivelas, which is an area in our zone, the Irmãs (sisters) had baptisms every week for 5 weeks. When i got here that was unimaginable. The area presidency called president Torgan last week and said that we were the Hope of Europe. The coolest part of zone conference was the very end when President Torgan talked about how our purpose is to prepare the way so that there be a temple in portugal, and it made me think about that a lot.
We were surprised to see Ketely (the little girl that came to church last week) at church again. A 10 year old girl that can get herself up and go to church on her own is a bit out of the ordinary. We really want to teach her family, but they're sort of busy during the week. Speaking of families, i don't know how much i talked about Tatiana last week, but after setting the crib up and everything, we finally got to teach her this week. It was a great lesson, she loved it, and even asked if she could be baptized in the church. Today or tomorrow we're going to talk to the father of her baby, Lourenço, who arrived from angola yesterday, but we're really hopeful for them. There are two things that i haven't yet done in my mission: baptize an entire family and baptize a member reference. Considering that that's the way missionary work is supposed to work, i wonder why i haven't been able to do that yet, but we're hoping that Lourenço is as interested as Tatiana so that they can all come to church together and be united. It'd be great.
It sounds like the family reunion was great, just this morning i was thinking about how it'd be fun to play paintball, i'd definitely vote for going back there in three years. It's too bad i missed what sounds like the most epic family reunion in a long time, but i can't imagine missing this week of my mission. I appreciated your encouragement to not get trunky and focus and work hard. It's not as easy as i imagined to stay focused, especially when elder mateer likes to remind me how much time i have left, but i feel like i'm doing pretty good in not letting it interfere with the work. Today we're just relaxing and resting, it's been a while since we've been able to just relax. I'm still coughing from time to time (Elder Mateer, always a pal, suggested i might have tuburculosis) and he got some sort of mild food poisoning from something he ate for breakfast this morning.
On sunday i gave a talk about love, it was ironic because saturday night i had a dream where i had to give a talk but hadn't prepared anything and had no idea what to say. When i woke up i was so relieved it was sunday morning and that it was just a dream; then, just before church, Rui Marques, the second councilor, asked me if i could give a talk. The other two speakers were jovens, one who spoke for 2 minutes, the other who spoke for 5ish, so i was left with 25 minutes to talk. It went pretty well though i think, and luckily sacrament meeting is last, not first.
Elder Mateer has been having a hard time with the World Cup being on and not watching it. It's crazy, i wasn't expecting it to be as big a deal here as it is. Also i was expecting there to be craziness in the streets and stuff, but the streets are basically dead, and every café on every corner of portugal is full of people watching the game. I'm trying to figure out how we can use the world cup to our advantage, with people being home and such, but Elder Mateer says it can't be done. I'm thinking the only thing to do is teach woman and the oddballs that don't like football. The real problem is that for the first couple weeks there are two to four games per day. Anyway, we're managing.
That's the low-down from portugal, thanks for the pictures and everything, have a great summer and help the missionaries. We're still getting fed a lot. This week we have a lunch every day of the week. The members here are truly incredible.
love,
Elder Ammon
