26 December 2016 Já Foi

Dear family and friends,

Once again, a merry christmas to yall, and have a good new year when that comes around.

My apologies, the public library was closed today, so we had to all share a tablet in the senior coupléś´home who lives close to us. Thanks to such complications, I don´t have much time to write.

(im going to stop capitalizing now, sorry, this is a little awkward keyboard. just bear with me)

so on monday, after our pday, we headed to teach our new investigator, toni. hes from sãõ˜tomé´, and is a really great guy. when we visited him the first time, it ran really well, he enjoyed the message of the restoration. we left the book of mormon with him, and invited him to read and pray. well, when we returned the next day, he had read, prayed, and just like it should be, he learned it was true for himself. he soaked up our next two visits, but hes hesitant to be baptized for the second time in his life, he understands its necessary, but hes waiting for a stonger response (dont worry, were working with him). the spirit has been very powerful in our visits with him. im excited to continue working with him.

we got to go to lisbon once more this week. there was a huge missionary christmas conference, and pratically the entire mission was united together, it was really cool. we travelled the night beforedhand and actually got to stay in the presidents house for the night. mission presidents wife fed us cake upon arrival haha. we got up the next day and enjoyed the conference. there were some talks, a big lunch together, and then a little like skit show thing for each zone. it was really funny, lots of laughs. put 140 missionaries in the same room and theyre bound to have a good time. there was a gift exchange as well. is was a 10€ limit, and i bought a little hungry hungry hippos spin off to give. in turn, i received a umbrella with kittens on it and a very small toy lightsaber haha. ya win some, ya lose some.

we returned home and got back to work. with the holiday season, it has been a bit of a challenge to make appointments with people, they are often travelling or busy, but even so, we managed to find a couple new faces, and all that jazz.

for christmas, we went to church, there was a really good turnout, most of the branch still came. it was a good meeting. afterwards, we headed to a lunch with a member who was baptized only 2 months or so ago. her name is vera, and she was super nice. she invited her mother and grandmother to visit with us as well. so, we didnt just eat, but taught the restoration and the mother agreed to come to church next week.

we then went out and knocked doors and stuff, everybody thought we were crazy haha. we then headed to a dinner with the senior missionary couple here, the roberts, and they fed us for dinner, it was a good time. afterwards, elder jan and i went to the chapel to skype to family. elder jan spoke with his family in swiss german, of course, so for all i know he was trashtalking me the entire time haha (nah). i then had the priveledge to chat with my family, quite a fun time. an hour hasnt flown so fast in the mission i think haha.

but yeah, now we arrive at today. we met up with some other missionaries in a neighboring city. they played soccer for a bit (i didnt participate, dont wanna hurt nobody, but jan had a blast). there were two teams, and the elders playing bet with them saying that if they won the two young men there playing would have to go on splits with them. so, the elders won like 10-3 or something, and we have a 24 hour split planned for this wednesday, should be fun! i played pingpong in the meantime, and afterwards, we all played a bit of ultimate frisbee. it felt good to get running around again and compete a bit. in my last area we just didnt get to do it much.

anyways, a pretty simple week. with the time i have i tried to make it decent. i hope you all enjoy. everyone enjoy the holidays!

Ciao,

Elder Ward

sorry guys, still no photos, lots of computer complications in this area.

19 December 2016 Os Lamanitas

Dear family and friends,

To start of, Feliz Natal and Boas Festas to everybody. In case you´re wondering what I´ll be doig for Christmas, it´ll probably be knocking on doors and trying to teach people from 7am to 9:30pm, with studies, walking, and a single skype call inbetween.

It was a decent week. We found a handful of new faces to start teaching and were able to meet up with a couple familiar faces from weeks in the past to continue teaching and such.

For example, we found a family, Rui, Keila, and their daughter Analaura who enjoyed our visit and lesson about the restoration. They are brazilians, Evangelicals, and firm believers. It was a good visit, We invited them to read pray, and be baptized after they receive their personal response about he BoM, and they all accepted. We only got the chance to meet with them once this last week, but our next visit is planned for tonight, so let´s see what happens.

We found another brazilian couple later, Renato and Leandra. They were awfully nice, let us in right away, and we taught the Restoration. They liked it, but as soon as we started talking about Joseph Smith being a prophet, Renato tensed up a bit. We got to the BoM, and he said "lets make a deal, you guys read a book from me, and we´ll read your book". Well, he gave us a book about his church, and well, I read a bit of it, and whelp I found no appeal. The book he presented to me has a lot of good principles, many of which compare quite well to the teachings in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, but it had no backbone, basically... I wont go into detail, but nothing mentioned in that book was anything new, just more rearranged words and interpretations from the bible. Its a bit interesting looking at it from the perspective of how concrete the Book of Mormon is. Yeah, nobody can factually and scientifically completely prove that the Book of Mormon is true or not, but to solve that problem we simply invite people to just ask God with faith if its true or not, and such problems will be resolved.

We havent gotten the chance to talk with them since our last visit... but we will have to follow up with how they liked the BoM, probably this week.

We´ve been teaching an investigator for a few weeks now, José. He too, is brazilian and really enjoys our visits. He loves discussing doctrine with us (He is an evangelical through and through) and thinks our message is quite something. However, he´s a bit prideful, or in other words, doesnt want to really read and pray about he BoM, he thinks it´s not necessary (dont worry, we´ve explained the necessity many times, he´s just a bit stubborn, that´s all haha).

His brother, Jeferson, showed up to visit a few months from brazil. He is just like his brother, but a bit more hardcore. He knows the bible very well, and he too really enjoys our visits.

Our lessons with them are pretty hard to control. Elder Jan can´t understand their brazilian portuguese very well still, so sometimes I have to solo it. I will say something like "so the priesthood was restored to Joseph" and they say "ok whats the priesthood" I reply "well its the power of god, etc," and then out of nowhere were talking about he historical lineage of Melchezidek. Its complicated, but always a good time with them. We´ve become good friends with them. We read the BoM with them personally one day and they asked a million questions and José even took notes. Theyre just stubborn brazilians though haha.

Really funny story, a pastor from their church actually showed up to their house, and shortly after, we knocked on the door. We all talked together, it was a critical, yet comedic atmosphere. The pastor had to leave for some reason, and afterwards Jeferson said "man that guy doesnt know anything, you guys respond a lot better to our questions."

In another visit, I shared Jeremiah 1:5 with them, which talks about the pre-mortal life basically, and I explained it to Jeferson, and he just went wide-eyed like he´d been slapped and basically, without actually saying it, expressed "dang yall know your stuff, that´s crazy, I didnt know that". I replied, "yeah man, this stuff is taught to 5 year olds in the church were inviting you to. Its the truth." (a summary, it didnt run just like that)

We taught a british guy named Kearan (there are actually quite a bit of british folk who pass the winter here in the southern tip of portugal). He´s black too, and really funny. Clearly, we talk in english with him (luckily Elder Jan knows english quite well, so things run smoothly). I really enjoy the visits we have with him (only 2 so far). I catch myself laughing a lot when we teach him, because first off hes british, i like the accent, and secondly there are just so many little idioms and sayings that I´ve forgot even existed in english, and hearing them again, and hearing british ones too, really "tickles my fancy" hahaha. However, although he will die with his belief in God, he doesnt like the idea of a church or religion. We´ve tried addressing his concerns, trust me, but he said he just isnt ready yet basically. But man he´s a cool "chap" haha.

We have an investigator, Maria, from Cape Verde who is basically already converted and everything, but is just waiting for her baptism. ( a couple very small complications, but she will be baptized in a few weeks for sure) She loves having us over, and she already loves doing missionary work. For example, she already gave us the contact of her son, nephew, sister, and cousin, address, number, and all to us for us to pass to other missionaries in those areas. She already brought her boss to church, Nina, and she already brought her cousin, Luísa to visit with us too. What a lady, really, points for her. It´s very likely that the people who she has brought to us will progress well too.

This week, Elder Jan and I had to drive to Lisbon to knock out my residency paperwork stuff thingy to continue my stay here without sirens. It all went well, it was nice to chill in the car, talk with Elder Jan, and watch the Portuguese countryside pass by for a couple hours there and a couple hours back.

Elder Jan and I had to go to the hospital too (dont freak out) he had an apointment to have a quick exam of his esofogus or whatever. It went well, he´s in the clear. He was knocked out for the exam, and he walked out a bit loopy, it was really funny.

We had a good church meeting this sunday. We had a primary program that ran pretty well. Our little branch only has 9 or 10 primary kids, but they still did a good job. Many of the primary children are what we call "os lamanitas" because there are 4 families in our branch from ecuador, and well, they fit the bill of "Lamanite" haha. Dark, southern americans, and the fathers and children all have long ponytails down their backs. Theyre great people, really. Each family did a little number together to participate in the program, it was nice.

We actually got to eat with one such family one night, they served some darn good food, and welp, being from ecuador, spoke spanish to us. But hey, portuguese comes with a free-spanish-understanding card, so it was a good time truly. Good food too. We shared a message with them. Elder Jan shared it, and talked about Amon going to teach the lamanites. In that very moment, they chuckled, and then the mother said, "hehe, thats us" — it was really funny, take my word for it.

Im enjoying the mission. Its a great time serving here with Elder Jan. It´s just a pleasure really. I´m doing well, and funny enough, it doesnt even feel like christmas to me, not bothering me a bit that it is either. All is well on my end.

The church is true!

Merry Christmas,

Elder Ward

I tried to include it bit more content this week, hope yall enjoy. Sorry, computers here dont allow photo uploads, and the chapel computer isnt working... so I cant send any...

12 Dec 2016 Eu Menti

Dear family and friends,

Well I lied. A couple things have changed.

Last pday, Elder Cottrell and I packed our bags, and did our errands, and worked a bit more in Beja just to finish the day. The next morning we dragged (or drug?, i dunno, english is long gone now) our bags to the bus station, and hopped on a 4 hour ride to Lisbon. It was quite a scenic trip, I enjoyed it, although it was quite long.

So lemme explain transfers real quick. Every 6 weeks missionaries recieve a phone call telling them if they will remain in and area, or go to another... so its kinda like a little christmas for missionaries, the switchup is always a fun time.

With such phonecall, we receive our travel plans. In short, all of the missionaries who are transfered (varies, between 20-40) meet up at a train station in Lisbon. This location is the meet up spot because its a conveniente hub for all travels in our mission. So, one floor of this train station, once every six weeks, is flooded with missionaries, its a party haha.

Tuesday, as I was explaining, I headed there to meet up with my new companion Elder Tester. A bunch of missionaries were there, I saw some old faces, for example Elder Fletcher, a couple buds from the MTC, and so on. After a little bit, I made a phone call to the Elders who were still in Loulé to ask a question about technicalities of the transfer. They actually explained to me that I wouldnt be serving with Elder Tester, but that there had been a change in the transfer.

I have been reassigned to work with Elder Jan (pronounced like "yawn"). He is freaking cool. He´s from Switzerland (we´ve already conversed a bit about Kandersteg), 23 three years old, already served in the Swiss Air Force, and a stud. He´s been in Portugal for 7 weeks now. He speaks portuguese quite well for a missionary with only 7 weeks, (with a heavy german accent too haha) and is learning fast too. He was born in the church, and his mom converted at 20 years of age. His father was 3 years old when his parents (Elder Jan´s grandparents) were baptized. German (Swiss dialect) is his native tongue, he´s not fluent, but knows quite a bit of french, and speaks english pretty well too. However, between us, only portuguese is used.

Elder Jan started his mission in an area that contains two cities, Albufeira and Quarteira (Elder Cottrell served already in these cities, so I´m following his tracks haha), with his original trainer, Elder Tapia. I will be continuing the training of Elder Jan, in this same area. Elder Tester actually went to serve with Elder Tapia in Loulé, the area I was going to go to. However, the four of us all live in Loulé together. Elder Jan and I are blessed to have one of the few mission cars, and Elder Jan is the assigned driver (darn, I really want to drive).

We live in a little apartment that suits the necessities, but thats about it. Funny enough, im a lot further south in the mission now, so from our house we can actually see a sliver of the ocean.

Anyways, quite the crazy tranfer. Im very excited to serve here with Elder Jan. He is a powerful missionary, and although I may be "training" him work and language wise, I learn a fair share from him too. He´s a humble guy, but recognizes that he has a great potential. With such, he has determination I have not yet seen... very determined to be the best missionary he can be. I will try my best to help him reach what he hopes to achieve, and as soon as possible. In he wants to learn the language very quickly, so I actually prepare little portuguese lessons for him each language study that are personalized to what I see he is needing to improve.

Funny enough, him and I met last transfer, when he originally arrived, at a Zone Conference. We saw a couple times after, and I thought he was a pretty cool guy, and whaddyaknow, he´s my companion now! 

He´s rather excited to serve with me too, he has told me that he didnt click super well with his last companion, nobody´s fault, it happens, and is now excited to work hard with me. We´ve been together only a bit less than a week now, but we are already good friends.

In fact, we´ve technically already worked nearly a week together. I arrived in our area and met up with him to get everything started Tuesday night. The next day we started a normal work routine. The cities we work in are a bit quiet, so we have to resort to knocking a lot of doors. However, its proven quite effective, here the people are quite open and receptive, and weve already taught quite a few. Elder Jan, fortunately, knows the area quite well, as well as a few investigators he and his previous companion had been working with. I got to know a few of them, for example, a young couple from Brazil, and another named Maria, from Cabo Verde. Maria is quite close to baptism, in fact she was supposed to be baptized yesterday, but is having some difficulties (its complicated, really) and will wait a few weeks. The brazilian couple, Jonatas and Fernanda are progressing very well. They want to be baptized, but they live a little ways away from the church, which brings a bit of difficulty into the equation. Certainly they will progress this week, and be baptized soon. Other than that, were still getting started, I´ll share more next week for sure, when more is established.

I also forgot to mention in the last email that I was assigned to be the new district leader here. I have a district with 8 missionaries, including myself and Elder Jan. Last week I had to throw together a meeting and stuff, its been interesting. Its quite a task, a bit intimidating too but I enjoy it. I like the challenges that have come up recently. Its not exactly the most comfortable change. lots of things are happening really fast, but its a good thing because more growth happens when we arent in our comfort zone. I actually have not received any training for such a job, in fact Ive kinda been "winging it", just doing what Elder Marques and Elder Fletcher used to do. I will go to a training meeting about all this leadership jazz tomorrow luckily haha.

Anyways, its been a good week. Looking forward for these next weeks to come. Unfortunately we have to use the public library here, so I cant upload photos... I will have to go the chapel and try there. I dont know if I will have time to do so, but lets hope.

Fiquem bem,

Elder Ward

5 Dec 2016 Fwoosh

Dear friends and family,

We had a pretty solid week... well, our last week here in Beja. We got the transfer phonecall really late last night... I´m being transfered to an area called Loulé, a town that is basically on the southernmost edge of Portugal, just a bit inland. Elder Cottrell served there for 3 transfers (4.5 months) and he said he really enjoyed it, although he had a car and actually worked in some neighboring towns. Also, Elder Francis actually served in Loulé as his first area for 3 transfers, aka he was "born" there. Pretty interesting, all the mission history that we get mixed up in... I will be serving with Elder Tester, who has been in the mission in Portugal for 2 transfers (3 months), or that is, he just finished being trained officially — that´s all the info I got, so it should be fun to discover all the new people and places these next weeks. It all starts tomorrow, I have to bus about 4 hours north to Lisbon, meet up with Elder Tester, and then travel back south, probably another 4 hours or so. So, lots of travelling, all done just tomorrow.
Im pretty stoked. Although I really enjoyed serving here in Beja, change can always be a good thing. I will miss Beja, its a beautiful area, and it has a lot of people with potential, but it seems that I´m needed elsewhere. I was also really enjoying the cold weather, rumor has it Beja is one of the coldest areas we have.
Elder Cottrell has been also transfered. He will serve in Torres Vedras, an area way up north, above Lisbon. He will be serving with a New Zealander (yo chase) Elder Lowry. Funny enough, my previous comp, Elder Fletcher also served there... so yeah, quite a spaghetti bowl of who´s been where.

So that´s that! Let´s talk about the week.

We tried to meet up with Ana this week, after a couple appointments that fell through, we managed to meet up with her, but unfortunately we ran short on time. We only had time to share a scripture and split, so unfortunately we didnt get the chance to make a plan with her to help her quit smoking.

We met up with Pedro once more. In our visit, we tried to clarify to him the importance of making a decision to be baptized. As I explained, he already knows the truth, he has been taught for a while, so we didnt want to beat around the bush, but to help him do what matters. Unfortunately, he didnt budge. Maybe we were too pushy, our pushed a button, but he seemed quite hesitant suddenly. He said he cant leave the catholic faith because he was born and raised in it, and he is also thoroughly convinced that quitting smoking will do him more harm than continuing.
"But wait Elder Ward did you try telling him x or y?!" Well, yes, we tried addressing his concerns, explaining how he had felt the spirit already telling him the truth etc. I´m no doctor, but I tried to explain to him how continuing wouldnt help, etc.... we talked in circles a bit, and realized he wants just to stay were he is. So, we though it would be wise to give him a cool down.

I also went on a division one day with Elder Knowlton, from Portland, Oregon. It was a good time, got to know him a bit, and see some new ways to work.

So about 2 weeks ago we met a guy named Viorel. He is Romanian, but speaks spanish too. We were looking for an old investigator´s address when we knocked at his door. He is here with a bunch more romanians who are kinda in an immigrant situation. He too, works in the olive fields. He´s about 50 years old. When we talked with him at the door, he said (basically) "yall believe in God?" "yup, in fac—" "oh good. God saved my live, i believe in him." and just like that it was quite easy to link with him.
So, later we stopped by his place, no invitation, and he let us in. There are about 10 or so people living in that house. They were all very nice, and in fact they gave us food, comparable to a scone, a fried pastry with sugar. 5 or so of them sat down, but some got up and left, or entered, so we focused on Viorel and his friend. They spoke spanish to us, and we spoke portuguese to them, and it all worked out pretty well. We taught them the restoration. They enjoyed it, and accepted El Libro de Mormón (in spanish) very well. In fact, they said things like "wow, i didnt think there was more scripture... i remember in the bible they said there were more books, etc" (John 21:25). We invited them to read, pray, and be baptized. In short, Viorel accepted to be baptized on Christmas day. Its a shame Im getting transfered though... but all in the Lord´s hands and time.

We lost contact with our Polish friend, Artur, for a bit last week. When we got in contact again, we discovered why he didnt make it to church last Sunday. He was injured at work, hit by another worker who was using a quad bike. He had a gash pretty bad on his leg, and stitches on his forehead. He walked with a bad limp, pretty roughed, up, but he´s a tough guy. We managed to meet up with him at his place, with was a large house for people in a similar situation as Viorel, working in the fields, not enough money to get your own place. There were a handful of people there, and many were actually Indians, most of them Muslims. One of them, named Jawad, sat down with us to hear our lesson with Artur. He was quite curious. We reviewed the restoration with artur, and re invited him to act, it went pretty well. He committed to read and pray.
The next day, Artur limped with us to church (what a guy, really folks, give him a hand. There are members who dont come because it rains haha). On the way Vitor, our romanian friend from a couple weeks back who read a bunch of the Book of Mormon, called us to meet up and come to church too. On the way, we also got a call from Jawad, he too, joined up with us at the chapel.
And to top it all off, a guy we met on the street, named Carlos, came to church too after we had only called him.
Woah, right? 4 guys all came to church with us, it was great.
They all enjoyed it. It was a good time, also a bit hectic trying to help them all get to where they needed to go, especially when 2 dont know portuguese, and one doesnt know any other language haha. Jawad, admittedly, felt a bit strange, coming from a muslim background, visiting a christian church. Artur thought it was good. Carlos really liked it, in fact he asked to take home a Gospel Principles book "because it just talks about so much good stuff, i want to read it" he said. We sent him home with a Book of Mormon too haha. Vitor, not knowing portuguese or english, enjoyed it anyways. I sat next to him in the last hour, and just shared some of my favorite scriptures with him, and he read them in a BoM in Romanian. He enjoyed it. He would often continue reading afterwards, into the next chapter, etc. I let him continue. He even took out a pen and made some notes. What a guy. Vitor will return to Romania for Christmas, so we will pass his info to the missionaries there, and hopefully he can continue learning, most importantly in his native tongue.

Yeah, as you can see, a solid week. Im out of time.

Ciao,
Elder Ward

Sorry folks, the computer was really slow today, and I couldnt get the photos to upload...I fought and tried... next week.

11/28/16 Línguas

Dear friends and family,

It´s been a good week. In case you´re wondering, no, I didn´t do anything special for thanksgiving... actually I almost forgot. But that´s that.

It was a week of many languages. We contacted a guy from Switzerland, a a couple Spaniards (I can basically understand spanish it´s really cool) and a Frenchman. 

We taught an investigator from a couple weeks ago, Vitor, who is from Romania. Romanian is a language quite a bit different, but every once in a while a word overlaps with one in Italian that I already know... We have to communicate in very very basic english, because he knows more of that than portuguese. His friend, a Romanian as well, spoke spanish, so we used him a bit to help out too with translation... but not much got across the line. We basically left the Book of Mormon with him in Romanian. In a few days we only had time to stop and say hello, but he had read all the way until 1 Nephi 11, so yeah he likes it. Unfortunately he couldnt make it to church because of work, but we will see what happens in the near future with him.

We also found and taught a Polish man, Artur, a couple times now. He´s been enjoying our visits (only 2 so far, he´s a busy guy). He´s been in Portugal for 8 years now, so he speaks portuguese decently, but actually said he prefers that we talk in english with him, because he learned it better in school. We couldnt get him a BoM in Polish yet, so for now we have printed things in polish for him. He´s awfully curious... in fact he´s already read up on polygamy and the word of wisdom haha, so our visits with him have always been interesting. We´ve invited him to read and pray, obviously, but havent gotten the chance to see results.

And, to top off all the language-ness, Sunday morning when we were walking to church, some other missionaries called us and said "HEY Elder Ward you speak Italian right?!" "well.. yeah kinda its been a whil—" "OKay great can you tell our investigator blah blah blah..." it was pretty funny. It was a bit tought too, I had to really dig to find my italian again and had to block the portuguese from coming out. I heard later that the investigator really enjoyed church that day and is progressing well haha.

We visited a lot of Less Active members this week... and a couple that we visited during the week, even if it was just at the door, came to church this sunday! It was pretty cool, they saw all the old faces they hadnt seen for a while.

This week we also found a man named Pedro. He´s about 45 ish, lives alone, has a son living with his ex wife elsewhere. He´s already been taught many times by the missionaries, but we had a really powerful visit with him, and he came to church with us this sunday. He enjoyed it (like the other times) but his challenges are his extremely Catholic family whom he fears, and a pretty heavy smoking habit... but weve challenge him to stop smoking, we plan on making plans with him in the next visit.

We also taught a woman named Ana, basically in the same situation as Pedro, but living with her mother, who is a less active who we managed to bring back this sunday. Ana, like Pedro, smokes a lot, but knows the truth, and by this, still hasnt been baptized... So yeah, the same dealio there.

Elder Cottrell turned 20 this week, and I didnt even know. Turns out a couple weeks back he lied to me about his birthday... I only found out when a senior missionary couple called us and delivered him a cake. He kept it a secret because he actually didnt want to celebrate it, but to work and focus... pretty solid guy. But when he saw the cake, we took a break, bought some icecream to go with it, ate a bit, and got right back to work. What a sly dog haha.

But yeah, a pretty good week, quite eventful. In other news, its finally getting nice and cool here, although my companion has been freezing for weeks now.

Até próximo,

Elder Ward

Sorry, not a ton of content in the image department today...next time.

(idk if I already sent this one... hope not)

11/21/16 "Não convertas o cão!"

Dear friends and family,

We stopped at a little café one day this week so Elder Cottrell could powder his nose, and I sat on the steps just out front. Just to explain the situation a bit more, these cafés always have at least 3 drunk men watching soccer, 24/7 haha. Anyways, there was a dog chilling on the doorstep of the café. I sat as I waited and said "olá" to the dog, gave him a pat, one of the men rounded the corner to the entrance and said "Ei! Não convertas o cão também!" or, "Oi! Dont convert the dog too!"

I laughed, good stuff. At least he knows why were here!

But yeah, this week was pretty good. Not going to lie, this week was pretty normal. Nothing super out-of-the-ordinary happened. But I´ll try to still share the juicy parts.

Elder Cottrell and I have started a game between us to help motivate ourselves to keep up a good level of work. We individually keep score of how many times we can get rejected in the day. So, to explain, I would walk up to somebody, introduce, converse, explain our message and try to get their contact, etc. If such person declined in any form, it´s a "rejeição", and like so, we keep score. By the end of the day, we end up with 50-70 rejections each, but I will admit, Elder Cottrell has won recently, he seems to get the side of the road with more people.

Now, you might be thinking "oh what a bad idea... you should keep score of people who accept!" Well yeah, that´s always good. But sometimes we get caught up in judging people too quickly, and sometimes we just dont talk to people because we think they just wont accept... but when we switch sides, we want to be rejected, so, with such motivation we end up literally talking to everyone, be them drunk, busy, or running away from us haha.

At one point Elder Cottrell was ahead of me by quite a bit, so to try and even the score I walked into another café like that one a couple weeks back to rack up 7 or so rejections at the same time. But, its a good thing, because we never know when one person might actually be waiting to hear what we have to say. With this method/game, its more likely we wont miss one of these people!

We´ve run into a handful of new people this week, we´re still searching for the Lord´s elect, teaching those who are willing to hear. Unfortunately many of the people weve found have not been showing the real intent that is needed for them to make changes... but we will keep on keeping on. 

No worries, I´m enjoying the work here. It´s always a fresh day and lots of work to be done. Im doing quite well, the language is going very smoothly, work is good, learning a lot from Elder Cottrell about really working hard. Good stuff.

But yeah, we shall see what the next week brings. We´ve got some more travelling ahead of us this week too, Im looking forward to it.

Take care folks, happy thanksgiving,

Elder Ward

​"Nothing happens by chance" — Amen, grafitti artist, amen.

 An alleyway with like a dozen cats, you have to look closely to see the others... notice the eyes haha

Lots of doors here in Portugal have these little knockers, they are supposed to represent the hands of the pope haha. Quite catholic here indeed!

Music by the Shore

14 November 2016 Sou de Rússia

Dear friends and family,

The title is "sou de Rússia" (I´m from Russia) because that´s what I say when people ask me if I´m from the US. I do so to avoid the shmogus bogus that can come up in conversation. I´m here to talk about the gospel, not about politics haha.

No, its not a huge problem here, but every once in a while people want to bring it up. We had a meeting with our branch mission leader, Simão (featured below). He´s really funny, and has an enormous testimony. The first words that came out of his mouth were about the elections, but we had a good meeting anyways. Afterwards he said "hey, but dont worry, your guys´ real president is in Utah" (referring to President Monson, of course.) So, it got me thinking about how I really am focused on another task now, preaching the gospel. Its so nice because I literally dont have to worry about anything else, just myself, my companion, and our area.

Anyways, it was a good week. We worked hard, met some new people, taught some too, the usual.

​​A quick little story. We were walking at night towards the end of our day earlier this week and this guy who was smoking, said "ey Elders!" A thing we here a lot. We were on our way to visit somebody, but we stopped and talked to him. His name was Luís, and turns out he´s a member, he was baptized 20 years ago as a teenager. We chatted with him for a bit, and he gave a list of reasons he stopped coming to church, life, work, problems, family, business, etc etc a big list to describe why he stopped coming to church 20 years ago.

Surprising or not, this happens quite a bit. There are a decent amount of people who are baptized, make those covenants, go to church for a little while, but fail to endure to the end... And usually they dont feel like coming back around. So, I thought about what I could say to him that could make a difference, make him have a desire to return.

I shared with him 1 Nephi 3:7 (I will go, I will do the things the Lord commands...), a classic that everybody knows. I talked about the experiences that Nephi was going through at that time. How his family was journeying in the wilderness, etc. We explained that the circumstances that he was in weren´t exactly easy, and yet the Lord still asked more from him and his family. I shared that with Luís and then explained to him a bit more the attitude that Nephi had. I continued sharing my thoughts, and how the words of this prophet can apply to him when suddenly he interrupted me and said "wait when does church start again?" I stopped, closed the Book of Mormon, and smiled, a bit surprised to be honest. We shared such information and he responded "I oughtta go back, sometimes I miss it."

He then had to go, he had to go back to Lisbon. He lives there, and stays the weekends in Beja once in a while. We took his number, and tried to get him to come this last sunday. Unfortunately no contact with him and no cigar, but what matters is that he felt the need in that moment. In that moment I felt honored to be a tool in the hands of the Lord. Such a simple conversation in the street with a scripture from a prophet changed the heart of Luís for a moment. Maybe his heart has already hardened a bit since, but I really felt like the Lord wanted us to be there at that time to do something so simple for him.

I share this becuase I learned that the Spirit can really touch the hearts of mankind. I was just sharing a scripture and my thoughts and encouragement, but I know that it was the Spirit that made him have the feelings that he did, enought to say that he misses church.

So yeah that was cool.

Thursday we had a divisão with the AP´s. It was pretty fun, I served the day with Elder Cabreira, a brazilian. He´s a cool guy, and we enjoyed the day, talked with a lot of people.  We talked with a romanian man, well we tried, and he just suddenly fled. We shrugged, and continured walking, but then he came back to us with his friend, who was holding a bible. He seemed excited to talk with us, seeing that we were had "Jesus Cristo" smack on our chests. We talked in very rough communication, but they led us to a little neighborhood with a bunch of romanian families. We talked with a those two men for a bit, tried to teach, but it didnt work very well, we just couldnt communicate. A few spoke spanish, so through the portuguese to spanish to romanian to spanish to portuguese we communicated a little. To sum it up, we plan to come back with a bunch of books of mormon in Romanian.

The people I mentioned in previous emails unfortunately have been hard to get a hold of or they havent been keeping up with the invites we give them, so not a ton of progress there. But this week we ran into new people who we have taught, so lets see how they progress. Elder Cottrell, during that divisão found a young man who accepted to be baptized. We still need to meet with him again and teach more, but lets hope he has potential and that we can help him progress.

This week I also really got to defend the name of Christ. We had a couple of encounters with people... let´s say, against religion. For example, one evening, we ended up discussing such topic with 5 college students on their doorstep. They made a lot of arguments, some towards atheism, others towards fraud in the BoM and Joseph Smith, all that good jazz. We kinda talked in circles, I explained a lot of things, trying to help them understand why God is God and just all sorts of stuff. I explained the BoM, how they can read it and ask God if its true. I explained how they can ask God if he flat out exists, etc. I admittedly got a little hooked (it wasnt an argument, they were quite respectful), I just really wanted them to open up a little bit and just listen and act so they can know for themselves. They still proved a bit reluctant. However, in the end, we testified boldly that Christ lives, and that his church was restored to the earth once more by the Prophet Joseph Smith. 

We walked away with the address of one of them. She asked us to stop by later this month. I also felt a bit frustrated afterwards, I tried so hard to explain to them that all those things were true, but they just didnt swallow it... With this hint of frustration I then realized that I actually cared for each one of them personally. I was standing there talking to them because I wanted all of them to experience the joy that the restored gospel brings, and I walked away a bit frustrated, sad, and disappointed because, welp, they turned down good news. But I learned that I do actually care about the people here, I desire their spiritual well-being.

This was just one example, similar situations happened twice more this week haha.

We also got to do a bunch more travelling this week. We drove after the divisão south to Faro (faro is 3 hours by bus, 1.5 by car) for a Zone Conference. It was pretty darn good, like always. We then returned to Beja after a 3 hour bus ride and stayed here one day, then we went back once more to Faro bright and early sunday morning for a District Conference. A recent convert, Nuno (baptized about 3 months ago), gave us a ride. He is an mechanic in a mine an hour outside of Beja, and he had just gotten off a night shift when he gave us a ride at 7am to Faro. So, we asked, and he had been awake for almost 2 days already because of work, but he still wanted to go to the District Conference. He stayed awake the whole meeting, and then drove us home too, and then he went home to finally rest. What a guy.

This week I also learned a lot from Elder Cottrell. Neither of us are very seasoned missionaries, but with him I have learned a ton. At times when I may be frustrated or a bit down, somehow, he is always very calm, positive, and relaxed. He is a very dedicated missionary, and loves the work. He´s setting a very good example for me.

But yeah, I think that about sums it up. I had a bit of time extra today to write, hence the large letter. I hope you all enjoy! I would assume there are more people than just my family reading this, so any of you lonely back-seat spectators can feel free to send me anything — questions, candy, comments, food, I enjoy such things!

 "Never think that you already did everything."

 A mouse ran up to me and started scurrying around my shoes...

 They´re everywhere

 Some dude just standing there in the castle.

7 November 2016 Chuva

Dear friends and family,

Another week has fwooshed by. Quite a bit happened. Let´s get to it.

Like I mentioned before, Beja is an area that sits a bit far from the rest of the mission. So, on wednesday we had a zone meeting, so we actually had to leave about 6pm the night beforehand to catch a 3 hour bus to Faro, a city on the southern edge of portugal. We stayed the night there with a missionary couple, Elder and Sister Roberts from Idaho. They were super super nice. We got there, they made us feel at home, gave us chicken pot pie, and then we crashed. The next morning they drove us to the Zone meeting, and it was a good time. I met a lot of new missionaries and learned some new things. 

We then went to another city, Tavira, to do an exchange with the Elders there. It was a good time. I spent the day with Elder Mitton, our district leader. After only a few minutes with him I suddenly realized he was a spitting image of Zane,  they look exactly alike, and he plays guitar too. It was pretty weird, I felt like I was walking around with Zane. Its pretty funny when we run into doppelgangers haha. So, we stayed the next night in there place, and then finally left to return to our area after being away for almost 3 days (we had to, travel options didnt allow for a shorter stay down south unfortunately).

So yeah, we got back to work here in Beja. Things ran decently. We found some new people to teach and taught a couple people we´ve already taught, and got to explore our area a bit more, going more towards the outskirts of the city to look for people.

We knocked on a door in a more poor area, and a young girl opened up. We were invited in, and long story short, we ended up teaching a massive 3 generational family with like 8 people there. Some werent paying attention (one was smoking, for example) but a handful of them actually listened. We didnt have a lot of time, so we returned the next day and taught the whole restoration. Maria and her grandaughter Elizabete seem to have potential. We will see what happens in the near future!

That other couple we met near the hospital unfortunately live a bit far from here. We planned to see them this week, but it didnt work out. We called them saturday night, and they said they would still come to church, but unfortunately they, as well as other people we confirmed with didnt show up... we´ll get them there next time.

A couple days ago we were given a little challenge to preach like Abinádi, (i forget how in english) not to burn, but to share the gospel even if it looks like no one is listening, in front of a group of people, because it couple make a difference, as it surely did with Alma. 

When we were walking back form a lesson with that big family, we passed by a café. I said, meh, and walked into the café. There were probably 20 people there, mostly men, many of them smoking and drinking. I walked in, got everyone´s attention, and said basically "we´re missionaries, and we´re here to invite you all to follow Christ by way of baptism. Who here accepts or would like to learn more?" A bit more, but thats the gist of it. It was pretty funny. As you can imagine, not much happened, they just kinda said "nah we´ve got our religion" stuff like that. I asked once more, and welp, no one wanted anything, so I bid them good day and left, no hard feelings hahaha. 

So it was a cool little experience, it was really funny too. But I actually learned something... Have you already seen the painting of Abinádi when he was talking to King Noah? His posture is quite notable. His chest forward and out, and his chin high. When I walked into this little café I couldnt help but do the same thing, chest out, chin up. I felt confident, and when I walked out, without any obvoius difference made, I really felt like I had done something good. I felt the spirit for that moment, and it was just a cool experience. I´d like to do it again sometime.

But the take home lesson is this: dont be ashamed, share the gospel! In little ways or big ways, and you will feel like you did something right. its that simlple. And you probably wont be burned by fire, so really youve got nothing to worry about.

Oh, winter finally showed up. Suddenly here it rained, and now its nice and frisky outside, with some sunshine! So, I actually had to use a jacket this week!

So today I actually brought my glasses to a little glasses store thingy in the center of town. (they broke a while back in the MTC I think) I walked in and said "ey can you fix these" and well, in a few minutes, they fixed em´. It was super nice of them, and they did it free of charge. While they were doing it, I chatted with the man who owns the place. He was born across the street (he pointed to the house) and said he had been running his little eye place business for 50 years now. We then chatted about the history of Beja a bit. He said originally it was started by the Arabs, then romans, and now portuguese. So, even way over here, there are roman ruins in the city. Man, those romans got everywhere haha. Then the portuguese hunkered down there, and made a big castle with a wall and turrets surrounding the city (much of which still stands). Its a pretty cool little town for sure.

And now I have glasses! Not a necessity, but a convenience for sure.

But yeah, it was a good week. Elder Cottrell and I are getting along well, still learning a lot about how each works and stuff like that. Let´s see what this week brings!

Chicka Chicka Ciao-wow,

Elder Ward

Photoos!

 The church sits right in the center of town, and from the front door you see the castle!

 ​In just a few minutes it went from light overcast to pouring, and here was our shelter haha

 The man in the shop said that its the tallest castle tower in Europe... I dunno, but perhaps.

 One of the stairwells leading to the top

Beja from the top of the tower.

31 October 2016 Beja é Sião

Dear friends and family,

Well its been a crazy week. I recieved the transfer info last Sunday night, packed my bags on Monday, and then on Tuesday Elder Fletcher and I headed to the train station to switch companions and stuff, until after 4 hours of travel by bus and train, I arrived in my new area, Beja, with my new companion (we travelled most of the way together) Elder Cottrell. The journey was pretty cool, quite scenic. 

So, I guess I'll start of a bit chatting about Elder Cottrell. He's from Atlanta, Georgia, my age, and an interesting fella. Not in a mean way at all, but a good word to describe him is a bit of a dork haha (dont freak out I mean that in a good way). For example, he had a pet pig back at home named Petunia, he sleeps without a pillow, he saw a nun for the first time in his life this week, and his mouth is always open kinda like Napoleon. Despite all that, hes a really great guy and a great missionary for sure. I dont degrade him with any of these descriptions, I just chuckle sometimes, he's an interesting character for sure. Hes been in the mission now for 8 months or so, meaning the both of us are still learning a lot.

Interestingly enough he doesnt have a lot of experience with the language... hold your horses... he does very well, but he doesnt use all the grammar he should... and me, being a bit OCD I have received his permission to correct him haha. Nah, its all chill, he enjoys the help and tips I give him with the language. Hes already improved a lot, but it will be a process. 

With this Im not saying Im perfect, but Ive got a decent grasp on the grammar, at least enough to help him out. Elder Marques was a huge help, being a native speaker, and Elder Fletcher was a master of grammar, so they have helped me learn enough now to help others.

But holy cow the work ethic of Elder Cottrell is phenomenal. He always contacts people before I get the chance, he wakes up before 7am, which I find suicidal, (in our mission its 7am to get up, but return home is 9:30) and he is very insistent that we jog every morning for exercise, despite my sheer hatred of running. He is a lot different than my other companions for sure, but he wants to work and serve, and thats what really counts. (not implying that the others didnt work)

Honestly we've been working so consistently that we havent really gotten a chance to just stop and converse about normal stuff and life and family, normally we're just discussing who to visit next, where to go, how to teach x person, etc. What Ive written about him is actually pretty much all I know about him after this week haha. And a fun little fact, Ive managed to keep my first name hidden from him... hehe... And I dont know his haha

Anyways this whole whitewash thing has been quite the one-two punch. We arrived at our house, luckily everything was clean, and dropped our bags. I looked at one of the desks to find a massive discombobulation of papers, lists, names, sticky notes, directions, and maps about our area... I suddenly felt very intimidated. We spent this week a few hours just filtering the mass of information we can use that the previous Elders left behind. 

Then I suddenly realized I had left my personal journal, which contained my patriarchal blessing as well on the bus in which we arrived... that didnt help with the burden I was starting to feel. So, we decided to head out to the bus station to see what was possible. On our way there, we talked with people in the street, when suddenly a young guy in his twenties asked us "wait you guys are the mormons arent you?" "yeah, we're missionaries etc etc" "ah yeah you guys can have like 6 wives and stuff right?" —great, not this conversation. Then I snapped out of it and I called him out. Turns out his name is Moroni, and hes the Branch president here in Beja. Quite the funny first impression! He's really cool. He's brazilian, an RM, and living here attending school (theres a big university here in Beja, so its kinda like a little college/tourist town) and he's the branch president too. He welcomed us, and we chatted for a bit. 

We then got to the bus station and miraculously the bus with my journal and stuff was still there, so thank freaking goodness, I got my stuff back.

So yeah, that was my first day in Beja.

But since then, the work here has been really really cool. The people here are much different. There are a lot more plain old portuguese, and a lot less africans than my last area. However, all the people here are very nice and open. As a result, we had a lot of success, we managed to teach about 15 people (some didnt accept more) but a handful of them have decent potential. It was pretty cool. This week flew by because we just taught and taught. It was quite satisfying work, and as a result, that feeling of the whitewash pressure really wore off. The people here are just more open, so when they finally end up listening, usually they enjoy the message of the gospel that we bring.

We actually have been so busy that we havent even seen all of the city yet, we kinda dive in, trying to get to the other side, but only cross half of it because we end up teaching people along the way and filling our day. Its a really cool city, probably the size of San Giovanni La Punta (perhaps a bit bigger). Its got a lot more European flavor than my last area, so now I actually feel like Im truly serving a mission in Portugal haha. For example, there's a big castle right smack in the center of the city, and we pass by it usually a couple of times every day. It's pretty classy here, very very old too, Dad would enjoy seeing it.

Oh, my last area was Povoa, which is one of the northernmost areas on our mission. In my last weeks there, winter was starting to finally show up. I almost used a jacket, once. But, this area is in the lower southern half of our mission, so summer is still hanging around here. Its not too bad, just a bit toasty during the day. Our house actually has AC, something really rare in this mission, but we dont use it much. But, rumor has it that when winter eventually arrives here, it hits hard, so Im waiting for that eventual season change, if it ever comes.

Beja is actually an area quite isolated from the rest of the mission, so I wont being seeing other missionaries a lot here... only Zone meetings every month or so, we will do our weekly district meetings by skype. But Im excited, for a zone meeting this week we will actually get to travel to a city down south and stay the night there with other missionaries. I enjoy travelling in the mission.

Saturday night, we got a call from the branch president, asking us both to speak in sacrament meeting... great. We wrote our talks that night, and everything went pretty smooth. The branch here has an average attendance of 25-30 people, and they're all super nice and cool.

We were walking by the hospital and saw a couple probably in there 20's walk out. We talked to them, and ended up teaching them the Plan of Salvation there on a bench. They were super cool, Antonio and Hilda. They have both lost many loved ones in their lives, and by such they found each other and help each other in the challenges they face. They were visiting a sick relative that day. We applied that sense of support they give to one another to the Atonement of Christ, and taught a very good lesson, centralized on what they were going through. The Spirit was present quite strongly. We invited them to be baptized too, they said if all goes well, they will. They committed to come to church next Sunday too. We ran out of time and didnt get a chance to really make plans, but we will take a bus to the little town they live in and teach them again this week. This is just one example, but we had a handful of other good lessons with other people too. 

There's a college here, so actually a lot of the people weve taught are students. Kids my age, its really strange, but theyre all very open and kind.

But yeah, things are certainly going well here. Im really working in a higher gear, enjoying the new frontier and challenge.

Ciao,

Elder Ward

Photos! 

 So here's Clara and Joelson, our investigators back from the last area. They just need to marry, and theyll be baptized fosho

 One last photo with our group there in my last area

 On our way to Beja

 One of the handful of castles we passed

 The sunset from our window when we arrived.

 Elder Cottrell posin'

And the castle that sits in the center of town.

​

Oh, and I think Im going to be a missionary for halloween tonight. (bah dum tiss)