This week was great, and as it happens it's cooled down a bit, last night we had to shut the window because it got cold and windy.
We started the week off with two conferences with Elder Teixeira, one on tuesday with all the zone leaders, and one on wednesday with half the mission. We learned a lot, i filled up about 20 pages in my little study journal. One of the biggest things we learned, was the importance of working; although we obviously knew, i think both I and Elder Mateer realized that we needed to work a lot harder, and be more obedient to mission rules and such. Also, he told a story about how when he was a mission president in brasil, when he got there the missionaries only taught 6 or 7 lessons a week, he invited them to work to get 21 lessons. Although he didn't directly suggest it,Elder Mateer and I left the conference determined to teach 21 lessons. Until that point we had only taught 1, so wednesday night we realized we needed to teach 5 lessons a day, which isn't too absurd (although it's a lot more than the 10ish lessons we've been teaching the past few weeks). We prayed and decided some places to go, Elder Mateer had this idea to leave a pamphlet in a bunch of mailboxes and then come back a bit later to ask people what they thought about it, we did that in the morning, and then spent the rest of the afternoon looking for people. At around 6 o'clock we had taught 2 lessons and found a couple people, elder Mateer felt like we should go back to that street and talk to some people. The first door we knocked opened, and we talked to this girl, Graziele, who's about our age. She called her sister, Fernanda, over, and then two of her friends Araujo and Alayana got home. Interestingly, we had talked to Alayana just the day before, and were planning on teaching her later, but we didn't have her address yet, it turns out they live in the same house. We had a quick lessons with them, and marked to come back on saturday to help them move. Then we kept following our plans, but nobody was home, and then Elder Mateer suggested we go to Leda, and investigator from a while ago, we went and talked to her, and she was home, and we had a really good lesson with her, and then left. At that point it was about 8:40 and we still needed to find one more person. Elder Mateer saw a light on up in the 9th floor of a building, and so we tried to talk to her, she was busy, but we talked to the neighbors, and at about 9:00 we found two guys, Magno and another Araujo, who were very nice and let us in a talk to them. We finished off the day with 5 lessons, which was great. At the end of the week, we did not quite get 21 lessons, we fell short by a couple, but we found lots of other people as we worked, and in the end it was one of the most successful weeks since we got her.
Just one more story, We decided to go work on this one street that i think looks vaguely like New York (not with giant buildings, just a bunch of small houses stuck together) as we walked down the street these two little girls shouted "São os nossos Amigos!" They were the daughters of Carlos, who we taught a couple weeks ago, but haven't managed to get a hold of since. They quickly invited us in to meet their mom, who is separated from the dad. It's sort of sketchy to have two ten-year-old girls present you to their mom, but the mom was super nice. They were in the middle of dinner so we just talked to them for a while and said a prayer with them, we're going to go back on saturday.
It's been really impressive to see the difference as we worked just a little bit harder and tried to be more obedient. We're also trying to plan better, especially to know what to do if a lesson falls through. As we've been following our plans, i've seen the Lord filling in the rest, and putting people in our path to teach.
At the moment, we have two people that are progressing. We had a great lesson with Rita on saturday. She wasn't going to be able to come to church, and in the end we didn't have a lot of time to talk to her, but she talked about how she wasn't sure what to do, because she really likes the church and what we've been teaching, but she doesn't know if she can leave the Catholic Church. Her mom is a die-hard catholic, and Rita's afraid of how her mom will react. But she (Rita) really wants to know what path she should follow.
We're also excited for Rudi, he was out of town this week, but he got home yesterday, and when we called him he asked if we could come by tonight. His mom talked to Otacílio (they're neighbors) and told him that Rudi's really excited about church and everything. Tonight we're going to invite Rudi to be baptized. Pray for Rita and Rudi, that they can have the courage to change their lives.
Sister Teixeira was also very cool, she invited us to read the Book of Mormon in the time it took to translate it (about 60 days). As it happens, i had exactly 60 days left, so i decided to do that one more time. So far it's been great, i've been reading 10 pages a day. I'm having a hard time studying everything i've been wanting to, i need to organize things a little better, but i will.
Oh, another really great experience. On tuesday, after the Zone Leader Council, we stayed in benfica for a while because we had a meeting with a member of the High Council in Lisbon. While we were waiting, i got to go visit Mariazinha and Jessica and Céu (jessica's mom) and Alberto (jessica's cousin). Jessica and Alberto got baptized on Saturday, and it was unreal to sit there with all of them, all of them having been baptized and confirmed. As we were talking, there was a knock on the door, and Elder Fernandes arrived. It was the first time he's been able to go by there since he left for the açores back in october. That family is incredible. This week Jessica and Alberto are going to the first EFY in portugal, along with Aylton, and a bunch of other youth from around portugal. I couldn't have imagined this when i knocked the door almost a year ago.
So, that was my week. We're working hard to keep the fire going and not forget about what we learned and felt at the conference. We're excited to see what will happen with all these new people that we met this week. Elder Teixeira also told the story of his son, who is finishing his mission today in New York, they're going to pick him up. Time is flying by, but we're enjoying it. We have transfers here in a couple weeks, it's unlikely that we'll stay together another transfer, but i said that with my first comp, so we'll see what happens. You guys have a great week,
abraços,
Elder Ammon
"Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed." D&C 123:17
