Tomorrow

hey, fyi, i'll be at the airport waiting for you. Other than that, we'll talk when i get here.

love,

Ammon

I would ask if all is done

Dear Family,

Thanks for your letters. This week was great. We marked Vladimiro for baptism this next saturday, he's doing great. We went and taught him today, he's excited. It's funny, the first time i talked to him, he spoke broken english i sort of passed him off as one of those guys that talks to the elders but doesn't really go anyway. I'm really glad we stopped him once and went to his house. Other than that, people are doing good. Graziele didn't make it to church this week, she's running into a lot of opposition, nothing big, just lots of little things. Friends show up from out of nowhere saturday night and so she doesn't make it to church. People invite her to come visit their church when we have lessons marked. Things like that. Anyway, today we're going to have a lesson with her and a married couple from the ward. We've been teaching her with Otávio, who is great, but is young, and we're not exactly old, and we're realizing we need to bring more mature influences.

Carregado (another ward) had a baptism here on saturday, and as we were on our way up, Elder Rivera suggested that we go pass by Sidney. Sidney is a good kid, we taught him a couple times, but when we invited him to go to church he said he didn't like it. He just didn't quite get it. Anyway, out of the blue, he said, "sure" and came to the baptism, and loved it. Sunday morning, all by himself, he woke himself up and got to church, and loved it. It's tough to teach him during the week because of school, but he's excited for church and we're going to teach him on the weekend. There's always a moment, or a few moments, when everything clicks, and people start to act.

This week we had Zone Conference, it was good, I, and a bunch of missionaries from my district, bore our 'last testimony'. The whole thing was very sweet, i was remembering a lot of moments on my mission, from the MTC, from other zone conferences, and from being in Benfica. I've had all but 3 of my zone conferences in Benfica. The whole thing is all very strange. It honestly just feels like another week.

Oh, i have to say how Vladimiro got marked for baptism. Usually the baptismal invite is the climax of all the teaching and it's very well prepared and very spiritual. On saturday we had a barbeque and Elder Rivera was introducing Vladimiro to all the members and talking about when they had been baptized (the majority of people there were relatively recently baptized) and the elder Rivera said that Vladimiro was preparing for baptism also. Vladimiro responded, "Yes, i was thinking about next weekend" and so Elder Rivera suggested saturday, and out of nowhere he was set. He is so ready though. He used to drink aobut 10 cups of coffee a day, just before we started to teach him he decided to quit, and quit, and hasn't had a problem since then. I am really greatful that, the last real week of my mission, i'll end with a baptism. Nevertheless, we have a bunch of people who are doing really well, and our plan is to have someone for the week after that also, at General Conference on sunday night. I can't really think of anyway that would be better to spend the last night in the country.

When Elder Teixeira was here, he talked a lot about the way we finish our missions. He made very good point: He asked us to think back on the Lords mission on the earth, and what he did in his last week. Most of the most important things that happened during his life happened in the last week, even the last few days. It was a good thing to think about and be motivated to work hard until the end. It would have been pretty disastrous if Christ had slacked off in his last few days.

Another cool thing we did for the first time this week: We got a bunch of pass along cards and wrote our numbers on them and went from store to store (there are about a million little stores in portugal) and asked if we could leave them on the counter. With only one acception, everyone said yes and was extremely nice about it. Missionaries get this feeling that portuguese people are mean. It's really untrue, they're just not too interested in discussing religion, but they're great people, for the most part. As we were walking along the street today we got a call from some random person, we think he might have gotten one of these cards, we marked for wednesday, so that will be exciting. Alverca is incredible, by the way, we have a meal almost everyday this week, and two days with two meals. I'm so glad i got to stay here.

Well, you guys have a great week, pray for Vladimiro. I'll talk to you next week.

Love,

Elder Ammon Perkes

Days Fly By

Dear Family,

Sorry about last week, i had planned to take half an hour later that day but i didn't get back to alverca until 6:30 and we had lessons to teach. We went and played Ultimate Frisbee in Alameda, in lisbon, which is probably one of the coolest places i've played ultimate frisbee in my life. I wish i had some pictures, but go on google maps and you can check it out.

The last two weeks have flown by and lots has happened. About two weeks ago, as we were walking a lot a car pulled over to talk to us. They told us they were from Angola, and wanted to know where the church was. So most of that family have been investigating the church in angola for several months, but their brother Helder and his wife Solange live here in Alverca. They got married a few weeks ago (we actually saw their wedding when they were taking pictures in the park) They're awesome. They came to church last week (this week they were in the Algarve on their honeymoon) and loved it, and have a very sincere desire to know if it's true or not. President tells us to always pray when choose a date for when people will get baptized, and we also pray about our goals for baptisms we'll have each week. A lot of missionaries talk about how they have no one to baptize, but president always points out that the Lord could easily bring in a whole family from another area that's just ready for baptism. When this angolan family of five popped up out of nowhere, you can imagine that we were excited. They had been to church tons of time, it was perfect. But when we prayed about it i felt very clearly that they weren't ready for baptism that week, and we made plans for Helder and Solange, we went there, and the rest of the family wasn't even there, and they didn't come to church on sunday, but Helder and Solange did. I read a talk about how we should be careful as we pray for answers, that we humbly accept the will of god. It said that a prompting to do something that we would otherwise not want to do is a good sign of authenticity, while feelings to do something we have a great desire to do should be examined cautiously. It was good to know that i'm not just reaffirming my own desires, and that i was able to receive a "no."

We found another guy named Vladimiro. The day before we taught him he got baptized in another church, and when we told him we'd like to visit him he said, "ah, but i'm from a different church"

"No problem!" I replied. Surprisingly that was enough for him and he happily accepted a commitment. This sunday he went to our church right after the other church. He's understandably a little confused. We read the Joseph Smith History with him and told him he should pray, i'm excited for him though, he has a very sincere desire to know what to do.

Francisco continues to come to church but still hasn't been able to stop smoking, although he is making progress. We're teaching lots of people, and it seems like people just keep coming out of the woodwork. I'm working with a new technique for contacting that i wish i had done my whole mission. First of all i only contact men. I made that decision at the beginning of this transfer and it's been great, we're teaching a lot more families and couples and a lot few single women and youth. Secondly i just talk to people who look at us. Your average person just walks by with their eyes fixed on the ground, someone who looks at us is guaranteed to at least be mildly curious about who we are. It's a pretty effective way to find families who are interested.

Our ward, two weeks ago, received a bunch of new pass along cards and the members are pretty excited about them. It's great to hear stories about them giving cards to friends and strangers. This ward is the best, we had lunch with members every day this week. We didn't even do shopping.

I think the best comparison for a mission is not a race, but a twilight paddle against the current on the pearl river, after paddling on the strong river all day long. But i don't think as many people have done that, that's probably why it's not as common.

As far as days vs months, it honestly feels about the same, because the reality hasn't really sunk in, although it hits me from time to time. I'm working really really hard not to count days, ever since a conversation i had about Dad about 2 years ago about not counting down the days but enjoying the moment, i've worked hard to not think about it. I also read a talk this week (i've been reading the ensign alot) about a treasure map for happiness: learn from the past, prepare for the future, and live in the present. So i've been trying to do that for these last couple weeks.

So, that's about what's going on. You guys have a great week, we're doing good out here.

love,

Ammon