"They shall not hunger nor thirst; neither shall the heat nor sun smite them: for he that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall he guide them." ~Isaiah 49:10
It's a bit scary to hear about dad's health stuff, i'll be praying that everything goes well. We've had a sort of unhealthy week here as well. I haven't talked much about this, but i'd had a cough for a long time now, and Elder Mateer was convinced that it was tuberculosis (he was studying to be a doctor, and knows things like this) so he convinced me to talk to the mission doctor, who prescribed some pills that helped a bit, but didn't really get rid of anything. The final diagnosis was a very mild case of whooping cough (yeah, weird). He doesn't think it's tuberculosis because i don't have a fever and i'm not coughing up blood all over the place or anything like that. He just said to watch it and to get a whooping cough vaccine next time i get a tetanus shot, but that it's not really a big deal. Come to think of it i haven't really been coughing much recently. Elder Mateer seems to have eaten something and had been having some problems and feeling generally sick. I also got food poisoning, but that was last week, and that passed pretty quick after i threw up outside an investigators building.
It is absurdly hot in portugal today, i 'm not really sure, but i'm betting pushing on 100 degrees. It's the hottest i've ever seen in portugal, or i might just be out of practice with summer, but it feels really really hot. This week was good, we're still spinning our wheels a little bit, but i'll talk more about that in a bit. Today we heard about transfers and Elder Mateer and I are staying together here in Alverca. It's pretty likely that i'll finish the mission here, the way it's going, but we'll see. Thanks for the pictures, the family reunion looks like it was a lot of fun, with good perkes games. There are tons of people, kids and adults, that i don't recognize. Next family reunion there will probably be about 50 people i have never even met.
So things have gone like this, we've been finding quite a few people, for example, this week we found a little ukranian family, a house with 6 brasilians in it, and a young couple. They're all cool people, but the just haven't been going anywhere. We mark appointments and they're not home, and then we see them in the streets and it's just sort of awkward, just a lot of nice people without a lot of desire to do anything. Last night it was really sad, we saw Tucha, who is a single mom with two kids, who we had taught. We were really excited about her, but then she sort of disappeared. we finally ran into her and we marked for last night, but she wasn't home, and then as we were about to got home we saw her from about 30 feet away, and she saw us. As i was about to wave to her she turned away and disappeared behind the corner. All of this happened in about 2 seconds, but it was sad. This was at about 9:15. We go home at 9:30, and we weren't really sure what to do, it's sort of tricky to knock doors at that time, because people usually aren't super excited to talk to the elderes. Homever, i've stopped wearing my watch to avoid losing it and/or getting a super tan line, and Elder Mateer refused to tell me what time it was, so i thought of one more person to try, Márcio, a young portuguese guy we ran into looking for an ex-investigator a while back. We knocked it door and to our surprise he answered and let us it, we had a nice 10 minute lesson with him about prayer and what we're here for, at the end his girlfriend, who was also really nice came in (she came in to tell márcio to stop criticizing the catholic chuch, but she stayed for the rest) and we said a prayer with them and marked for this weekend. It was cool because usually at that time of night we just dink around until it's time to go home, but this time, we found two great new people.
Anyway, back to the point, we've been finding people, but nothings been going anywhere. So last night as we were talking with our mission leader, otacílio and talking amongst ourselves we felt that we should teach the members. We have a good relationship with the members, they like us, they feed us, we like them, we help them whenever we can, but i've been feeling like the members don't really look at us too much as fun guys who need food, as opposed to authorized teachers of the gospel who are here to teach their friends. So this week we're going to try that, and hopefully as we strengthen their testimonies and as they gain confidence in us, they will we more willing to invite their friends to be taught. We also have a ´Noite do cachorro quente´ on wednesday, which will be a great activity and a great opportunity to invite friends and stuff, so that's exciting.
Other exciting news is that our ward is getting another set of elders that will be working in Vila Franca. I was hoping to get sent up there to work, but president left me here, which is fine. It is good though, because it 's very hard to work up there, because it's far away, it's also a good step towards reopening the branch that they're going to have there soon. So things are good, we're getting acclimated to the summer and carrying water around to not die.
We have to go teach a lesson. Keep sending pictures of the reunion, and As Melhores to dad (that basically means 'all the best' i don't remember the normal way to say that in english). Have a great week.
Abraços,
Elder Ammon
