August 16, 1010

So, the transfer news is in, and in the end i'm staying in Alverca for my last transfer. I'm going to be serving with Elder Riveira, who's coming up from Campo Pequeno. He's one of the district leaders in our zone, so i've talked to him a lot this transfer. He's a good missionary, and has been doing impressive work in Campo Pequeno. Elder Mateer is going to the Açores (to São Miguel, not the air force base), so he's pretty excited. It's weird. On friday i filled in my planner for my last transfer. Usually things slow down a little bit during the beginning of the transfer, so hopefully the next few weeks won't go as absurdly fast as the last three weeks. It's weird.

This week was good. We (mostly me) made a goal to not knock doors this week, wanting to plan more intelligently and work with the members. It was different, we didn't find very many new people, and didn't teach too many lessons but for the most part the week was a lot more effective, and the lessons we taught were real lessons. We visited the members and made plans with them to teach their friends, we talked to ex-investigators and followed up on the potentials and new people we've been finding over the past few weeks. For this last month and a half i want to work hard to work with the members and teach their friends with them. Today in a couple hours we have a family night (more of a family afternoon really) with Leolinda's daughter, Marisa.

Francisco came to church again, this time without us having to go pick him up. He's still struggling to quit smoking, we're going to teach him again on tuesday and make a plan with him, but there's no real trick to it, he just needs to have faith to stop. But he's doing well.

Yesterday we had one of the most powerful lessons of my mission. We taught Graziele, Tiago, and Araiujo, three brasilians we found a couple weeks ago. We taught them last sunday afternoon but we didn't get much time to talk to them. We had left a book of mormon with Graziele and she had started to read, but said she wasn't understanding it at all. All we did with them yesterday was read together 3 Nephi 11, explaining things occasionally, but mostly just reading. The spirit was really strong, when we finished the chapter she said, "I understood it perfectly, why did i understand it this time?" We talked about how the holy ghost teaches us and helps us understand scripture and things. We were there with Otávio (who is a champ) and he also taught and testified about the restoration. In the end we invited them to prepare for baptism on the fourth. There's still a lot to do between then and now, but it was a great lesson. It's amazing, we left that lesson happier than we've been the whole transfer, not just because they set a date, but because of the spirit we felt there. As we were leaving, Araiujo thanked us, and said that we had taked a great weight off his shoulders. It was a very good end to our day and our transfer, neither of which had gone exactly as planned.

We also taught Jocylane a couple times this week, i talked about her last week i believe, she's doing ok, she's bummed out because her boyfriend broke up with it, and she doesn't quite get it. Today i was reading king benjamin's talk, i was impressed with the way he invited his people to listed and pay attention so that they will understand. I feel like a lot of times in our lessons people don't do that. They listen, but they don't open their hearts, nor their minds. We had that with Jocylane, who it didn't seem like anything got in. Her daughter, however, is back from porto and continues to be sharp as a tack and understands everything and asks very good questions when she doesn't.

We tried to have an activity in the Vila Franca chapel, but in the end it didn't get approved and we got moved back to alverca, but we had a good little Noite do Gelado, a more or less active member brought his girlfriend, Isabel, who seemed liked it and had a nice conversation with Leolinda. There are some superstar recent converts here in Alverca, on saturday the whole ward went to the beach (we didn't feel confident enough to ask president to go, nor did we feel like it would be the best use of our time) and a lot of good integration.

We also ran into Tucha again, you'll remember that she dissapeared about a month ago. She's been working two jobs and hasn't had a whole lot of time these days, but we had a good lesson with her. It seems like right now isn't her time.

In retrospect, i learned a lot this transfer, and i'm glad to be able to stay here until the end. Yipes. I'm doing my best to stay focused, and i feel like i'm doing well to keep working and not get lazy or slack off. It's just sort of a fact now that my mission is nearly over. Even president, in our inverview this week, said that i was nearly at the end. And our interview was almost more reminiscing than anything else. I'm realizing it just depends on the way you let it effect you. You can't just ignore the fact that your almost done, it's not possible. The idea is to look towards the finish line and let that motivate you to give everything. At least that's what i'm thinking. We'll see how that goes.

So that was our week here, it flew by, like always. You guys have a great week. It'll be interesting to see what happens this week. I think things are going to start going now, not because Elder Mateer was holding back, but i feel like we finally figured out what we need to do here, and now we just need to work.

Um Grande Abraço,

Elder Ammon

August 9, 2010

It was cool to see pictures from the atlanta vacation. Isaac looks rather old, This week was good. I learn and re-learn the fact that when we get home on time and plan our days go well, and when we get home late and don't plan, our day goes poorly. This week we made a goal to get home at 9:30 always, so that we have time to plan our day. We're still striving to get things moving here in Alverca. We're still finding a bunch of people, it's just a question of finding the right people. We had a good lesson on Saturday with a man named Francisco, his mom is a member and he used to go to church, but he's never been able to quit smoking, we're trying to help him quit smoking. Throughout my mission, i've had a hard time helping people to quit smoking, but Elder Mateer is pretty good at it, so we're hopeful. We had a good lesson with Rudi, and almost invited him to be baptized, but then his cousins came home and it got sort of hectic. It's possible he'll be going to the algarve for a couple week with his cousins, we're hoping, however, that he stays so that we can teach him. I suppose in the grand scheme of things, it won't necessarily make a huge difference, but i'd like to be around for when he gets baptized. Some other people that we've been teaching are starting to progress, so we're hoping to see things change this week.

All of our youth went to the first EFY in portugal, and now they're back and in EFY withdrawl. I sort of regret never having gone to EFY when i was younger, but i guess things worked out ok. We had another integration night this week, Noite da Salada da Fruta, that went well, it was a bit calmer because a member of the church had died and would have the funeral the next day, so there wasn't as much crazy partying as usual, but it was still good. This week went by really fast, and looking back nothing too momentous happened. We did find a house for Vila Franca, so they are moving out. It'll be nice to have our house back, they're great, but that house isn't made for four missionaries.

We tried something new this week, on thursday, we prayed, and chose a street, and knocked all the doors on that street. It was the first time i've done that in my mission, and i'm probably not going to repeat it, however, in nearly the last door on the street, we met Yara, who was cool. We had a little lesson with her and we're going to go back this week. Last week we spent a lot of time knocking doors, this week we're going to work harder to work with the members. When we got here we were focusing a lot on working with the members and following up on a bunch of names, but as we went we found that most of them lived outside our area and we didn't see much happening there and we sort of gave up on that, but in the end about 10 people were baptized in another area because of one of the references the members gave, so we're going to try to get back to doing that. I think these weeks have been to teach me a lesson i haven't learned until now, that missionary work doesn't revolve around me. I'm realizing that it's not really a question of me being blessed with people to teach and baptize, but people being blessed with learning and recieving the blessings of the gospel in their lives. It doesn't, and shouldn't, make any difference if someone lives in my area or in the açores, i should work just as hard for them to have an opportunity to learn about the gospel. As i've been learning this, it's been changing the way i think about my responsibility and my role as missionary. Hopefully as i re-evaluate my motivation and work, we'll see success in general and in the ward here in alverca. The elderes in Vila franca had a baptism this week, a guy named Manuel. I was able to do his baptismal interview. He was very well prepared. He came to church on sunday with a while shirt and tie, and you'd think he'd been a member for all his life. This week the Vila Franca chapel is opening for the first time in 2 years to have a Noite do Gelado. The plan is to soon open up a satelite group out in vila franca. This ward really is incredible, the Bishop, Macsuel, is on top of things, and has a very sincere love for everyone, and Otacílio as ward mission leader has a vision like President Torgan. Recently they called a new Elders Quorum President, Rui, who is also a great example of service and love. At the end of every meeting he takes a few minutes to follow up with home teaching and assigns people to talk to those that missed church for whatever reason. This sunday the jovens all bore the testimonies from EFY, including Jony, who got baptized a few months ago and was struggling for a while. There were pictures from EFY and i got to see youth from my other areas, including some people that i found and taught.

Next week is transfers, time is going faster than it ought too. At this point i don't really feel trunky, i just feel old. Next week, there won't be a single missionary who's been in the mission longer than my group. I've been in the mission for along time, and my pants, my socks, my shirts, my ties, my tag, and my sweet neck-tan line all show it. There are a bunch of new kids in the mission i don't know. There are 20 greenies coming in next week, and Elder Mateer thinks i'm going to train again. At this point i just want to be where i need to be, and work. It's extremely unlikely that i stay with Elder Mateer (who, by the way, has about 7 months left), but it wouldn't be the first time. I'd love to stay in Alverca one more transfer, but if i leave i'll be ok. I just have this increasing feeling of coming to the end, and i really want to finish off strong. I don't remember if mention this, but when Elder Teixeira came, he interviewed most of the missionaries, including all of the zone leaders. One of the first thing he asked me as where i was in the mission. When i told him i only had 2ish months left, he asked me if i had any plans for going home. I realized that i have basically no idea what i'm going to do with my life. School is going to happen, but other than that, i hadn't really thought about it. Anyway, i can worry about that as time goes. As far as BYU stuff goes, this week i'll take care of the endorsement with President Torgan, we have interviews, and i'll have to bite the bullet and write those essays. At this point i feel much more prepared to give a 20 minute talk with little or no warning than a 100 word essay. The book of Mormon reading is going well, i'm almost done with 2nd Nephi. In portuguese i have to read a little more than 10 pages everyday, and yesterday i didn't get around to it so i had to read 20 pages today. All in all, life continues, we're working hard, being patient, and standing still, with utmost assurence, to see the salvation of God.

Have a great week everyone, place your transfer bets, and don't get too trunky.

~Elder Ammon

August 2, 1010

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

July 26, 2010

It's going to be a sort of shorter email today, because i'm at a member's house and we're going to help clean up the house. Anyway, this week was better, we're still having a tough time, but someone finally came to church. We found Rita a while back in the area book. We've been teaching her for a little while. Anyway, she came on sunday, as it turns out she worked with Bete, and she lived right next to a recent convert, and we asked a member to sit with her and show her the ropes and such, and so by the end she had tons of friends. So that was good.

We had another integration night, this one Noite de Stroganof, which was great, and this time we finally managed to teach some of these people that came to integration night. We taught two teenage kids, Fabio and Rudi, they we going to come to church, but they ended up going out of town for the weekend, so they'll come next week. We found a few other people, last night we taught this girl, Alice, who was pretty cool, she understood everything really well. It didn't work to teach her inside, so we were outside at a little table, but there were tons of mosquitos. It was a little distrating, especially when Otávio (who came with me on a divsion) squished one on his face a blood came out. I'm still all itchy from the mosquitos, but i figure sacrifice is important and such. Next time we'll have to find a better place to teach them.

We've still got a couple lodgers in our house, and we're not sure about when they're leaving, but it's alright. For the most part it's fun, but occasionally it causes problems, and four guys using one bathroom is not ideal. But we're doing good. This week is crazy, we have two big conferences this week with Elder Teixeira, from the area presidency.

It is one again super hot and we're having a hard time sleeping, today we went and played around with a football and some of the jovens, it was fun.

Sort of an uneventful week, it went super fast though, and we're hopeful, things are starting to get moving. Some other cool thing have happened, Jessica and Alberto, two of Mariazinha's grandchildren who i taught a lot in Benfica were baptized this weekend. Jessica i taught a lot, alberto i didn't actually teach that much, but i did give him book of mormon aparently (i barely remember) As it turns out since that day he's read every day and was already halfway through when the missionaries there now talked to him. It's always cool to here about success in my old areas.

Congrats to Michelle on the mission.

That's about the news from this week, you guys have a great week, the weeks are flying by, i can't believe it's already monday again.

Abraços,

Elder Ammon

July 19, 2010

"But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry." 2 Timothy 4:5

Hey guys,

This week was better, in several ways, although for the most part we're still trodding along in the refiners fire. Aside from the difficulties, i've been learning and growing a lot, and having some very good experiences as i've been praying and studying and trying to figure out what we need to do to get things going here. This week they called a new bishop, our old bishop was incredible, i'm really a bit sad to see him go, but he moved to another area, so they called a new bishop, Macsuel. He made the t-shirts for us (i don't remember if i mentioned, we arranged to make t-shirts for our zone.) He's one of my favorite people here in Alverca, he's 26 years old. Our stake president, who is in his early 30's, talked about how he was only 23 when he was called as bishop, and stayed there for 10 years. It's sort of a scary though to get home from the mission, get life going, and then get called as bishop for 10 years.

This week, we made a goal to work harder, specifically to contact 10 people a day, it was great at first, we were talking to lots of people and we were excited, but then everything sort of fizzled out. We did, however, find an incredible family of 5. I've never seen little kids so well behaved. We're really excited for them, and hoping that they'll progress. the mom said she would come to church this week, and we're hoping to get them to come on wednesday to the Stroganof Night. We also found this russian lady, Natasha, who is very sincere and wants to learn more, but we're sort of stuck because she barely speaks portuguese, and we don't speak russian at all, but between movies and other church materials in russian, we're getting there. We talked to the mother of one of our potential investigators that came to hotdog night, and she said that he came home and said that he wanted to join the 'church of the elders'. Her first question was to ask if we were allowed to get married. We assured her we were, and after that she was ok with the idea. We're excited for that little family to. They live across the hall from Otacílio, who continues to be a blessing in the work. This week we're going to have a family night with Marcelo and Luciana and her friend Tita, who is the mother of one of the kids that came to hotdog night. We have some other members that have people for us to teach. there's a lot of potential in this area, it just hasn't quite gotten going yet, but we're working hard, and we're hopeful this work we'll see things get going.

We are, at least, healthy for the most part. My cough has gone away and Elder Mateer is doing a lot better. We are still living with the Vila Franca elders, but elder mateer found them a house with Remax and they'll be moving in sometime this week. Their new house is super nice, but pretty cheap. It's still hot, but no longer untolerably hot, and it's been getting cooler at night. Last night we went to help some people move, what looked like it would be a quick project turned out to be a 3 hour ordeal with us getting home late and thoroughly exhausted. I've found that helping people usually ends up being a lot more complicated than you expect, but it's generally worth it.

Anyway, not too much happened this week outside of that. All things considered, we're happy and excited to keep working. In conferences and such, President Torgan usually talks about how missions are supposed to be difficult, and if the mission is confortable you're doing something wrong. So that's a plus.

Sounds like things are good out there. Have a great week, and don't forget to help the missionaries.

abraços,

Elder Ammon

July 12, 2010

Sounds like it was an eventful week with the surgery and such. It's good to here that everything went well, and that Dad is back at work. i can see how he'd be a good missionary. Here in the mission field, the health issues continue, Elder Mateer got sort of sick today, we are in benfica for zone leaders council and we decided to just stay the night here, since we're going to have a zone meeting tomorrow morning.

Our week was one of those weeks, one of those "humble yourself even to the dust" weeks. But, i figure if humility is necessary for success in missionary work, it's ok. We're having a tough time in Alverca right now, it just seems like nothing goes right. It was interesting, because Elder Seraim (who is the AP right now, but was serving in Alverca before that) talked about how he had several weeks of rough times in Alverca before having a lot of success there. There's something about this area that grinds missionaries into the ground. I had heard about this before i came to Alverca, and i didn't want to come here because of that, but from what i've seen, for those who survive the trials, it's a really blessed area. Anyway, i'll stop complaining about how missions are tough sometimes and tell you how my week went.

There were a few very good moments this week. Wednesday's Hot Dog Night went really well. we had a great turnout (about 20 investigators showed up), and it went really well. We weren't completely prepared for everyone, and we're planning for how we can make it bigger and better for next time. Mostly we're trying to figure out how to teach these people, and not just feed them hotdogs, but it was still good. We're going to talk about this idea in our zone meeting tomorrow, because it's super easy to set up and is really effective, although i think the title actually works better in portuguese than in english.

The teaching the member thing went well, although we've been having a hard time holding our members down long enough to teach them. We had a really good lesson with Douglas and his family, and we're planning to set it up with the other members. Happily, the world cup ended yesterday night, so we won't have to cancel appointments because our investigators (and members) are watching football games.

We had a meeting with a member of the High Council on friday, it's cool because our Zone is the same area as the Stake of Lisbon, so we as zone leaders are going to start working with one of the high council members to have more communication between the missionaries and the stake leadership. It was cool, i don't know if i mentioned last week, i got to do the baptismal interview for Mariazinha's daughter. This week Elder Mateer did the Baptismal Interview for a friend of a member here in benfica who both of us knew while we were here. Benfica is doing really well. They've been baptizing almost weekly for the past month. Mariazinha's grandson is marked for baptism next week, and the elders here are working on getting Jessica (who i taught a lot) ready for the same day. It's always great to see the work going well in my old areas.

Our week wasn't all sickness and hard weather, we found a lot of really cool people. We worked harder this week and tried not to get discouraged and just work. We found 3 guys from nigeria who speak english, as it happens elder Mateer knows the branch president from Sacavém (an area near here) who is also nigerian, so we invited him to help in the lesson, which helped a lot. On saturday we also got to teach a great family, Neo and Mári, and their kids. It's always a blessing to teach families, and the mom (mári) told us that she felt like she wasn't where she ought to be and wanted to know which was the right path to follow and how to get to Jesus Christ. She is super ready for the Gospel, except for the fact that she works on sundays. Everyone here works on sundays, the work schedule in portugal, especially for immigrants, is rough, and makes it tough for them to have time for anything, especially church. At the end of the week a lot of people still didn't show up for church. We're sort of baffled, but we had a really good meeting with president and the other zone leaders today, and we're excited for this week. There's just something that has to click in alverca, and the work will explode. we're hoping to figure out what that is this week.

I don't remember if i said or not, we're now living with two other elders, Elder Silva and Elder Teixeira, who are working in Vila Franca but haven't found a house yet. It's fun, Elder Silva is from Porto and Elder Teixeira is from Cape Verde (the island of Fogo, the same as Elder Fernandes), but it'll be nice when it's just me and Elder Mateer again. Our house is not made for four people.

Anyway, that's about the news from out here. You guys have a good week, help the elders by getting them people to teach.

Abraços,

Elder Ammon

July 5, 2010

"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