25 July 2016 Bênçãos

Dear friends and family,

This weeks word is "bênçãos", meaning blessings, because this week was pretty great and weve seen some bênçãos for sure.

But Ill start with what we did last Pday. We hopped some trains all the way to this really touristy place in Lisbon. We visited the Castelo de São Jorge which was a pretty fancy castle on a hill that overlooks all of Lisbon, it was pretty sweet. I didnt read the history signs around, but I think it was originally constructed by the Arabs or something, then the Portuguese found it convenient to use. It was cool.

Like I said it was very touristy, so there were obviously handfuls of people from all over the world, Japanese, French, British, Americans... and drumroll... Some italians! I caught a wiff of some italians having a conversation with a vendor, and I couldnt help but stop and listen. The other missionaries were like "whats he doing" and I just didnt respond, only listened. It was crazy because I still understood what they were saying... It was really strange, like hearing a song you havent heard in a long time, but still are familiar with it. Afterwards, I turned to Elder Marques to explain, but when I tried to talk to him in Portuguese I ended up saying like half of my sentence in italian, had to switch gears haha. But I was super satisfied to hear, and most importantly understand some italian again. I miss that language.

Sometimes I still have to stop myself from saying "ciao" for greetings and "grazie", and a couple other words here and there that just stick.

When we returned, we stopped at this mall-type thing that was attached to a big train station here, and Elder Marques did some shopping, and then we headed back to the platforms to get a train home. For some reason, our train was delayed an hour and a half, and we just sat there roasting. It was great.

We had a zone conference the next day. President Tavares and his wife, my zone and another zone were combined for the day, totalling in some odd 30 missionaries there. It was a good time. I was asked to pray and bear testimony during the meeting, and President Tavares complemented me on my Portuguese, so Im at least learning something here, right? 

I learned a ton there, there was a training type activity and all sorts of stuff. It was also fun to spend some time with other missionaries. Afterwards, we had some down time while we waited our turn for interviews with the President, and an Elder brought his guitar, so whaddyaknow I got to relax for a bit and play a guitar again! It was pretty sweet.

So I mentioned blessings at the beginning, lemme explain. These last few weeks E. Marques and I have been working really hard, roasting and knocking and talking and teaching, the usual. But we unfortunately werent seeing progress. Some of our investigators weve been working with havent been keeping their commitments and going to church, things like that. But this week we were able to find (officially) 4 new investigators, all with pretty good potential.

We found David, and African man in our area book who appeared to be progressing well, but for unknown reasons communication with him stopped for like a year. We found him the other day, re taught him the first lesson, and he said he wants to be baptized. With the missionaries in the past, he was about to, but had to fly out of the country for work and missed his baptism, but he said this week "yeah we need to plan a date, I want to invite all my friends". It was pretty great. Hes super busy with work, but we will work with him to get him baptized soon!

We also found a couple weeks ago a young Angolan named Alex, we only chatted with him in the street. This week, we managed to find him at home and taught him the 1st lesson, and he soaked it all in. He accepted a date for baptism and everything, and he appears to have a lot of potential. Unfortunately, for whatever reason he didnt make it to church yesterday, but we will find him tonight and get the wheel rolling again.

While walking through Via Longa, Elder Marques suddenly stopped and said "we should knock this street here", and so we did. At first, nothing, but then this nice old lady named Lucilia opened her door, and we chatted with her for a little while. She lives alone, and is a Jehovahs Witness, but lately has seen a lack of love, respect, and good experiences in her church, and she appeared very open and touched by our quick little chat with her. She lives alone with a bunch of cats (they were climbing on her as we spoke with her) so we cant teach her unless we bring someone else. We plan on doing so soon, just have to work it out. But it was crazy because E. Marques said he just felt like we should knock that street.

No concrete evidence with Lucilia yet, but from what I saw, she appeared to be ready for what we had to say.

But thats not all! That same street, 2 houses down, we found a Brazilian family, the father being Flavio. We returned a couple days later and taught him (wife was busy, kids are really young). He too, really soaked it up, and accepted to be baptized. We just need to return, teach him more, and follow up to make sure he is progressing on his own. It was really cool.

This week we also met with some members, and received a bunch of references from all of them. Its funny, we always ask "do you know anyone who would be interested...?" and they always say "nah no nah I dont know nobody" and so on, but eventually they give us 1 reference, and then they cant stop, giving us like 8 names by the end of the visit. Happened twice this week.

A couple days ago a member called us, a Brazillian named Nilton, saying he needed our help, and to bring as many missionaries as we could to the chapel at 4pm. We were a bit skeptical, so only E. Marques and I went. There this member went off on a monologue on all sorts of subjects, for example: brazillian sweets, portuguese dictionaries, women, his son, education, a random verse from the bible explaining hardness of hearts, the past, present, and future, and more. It was pretty funny, but we sat an listened. At the end he said "I need you guys to go out there and share this with all the people you possibly can" and we agreed, but really we dont know what his point was. 

This saturday was really fun. We had a ward activity in the morning. I wont go into too much detail, but it was all sorts of games and activities with water balloons and such, it was a good time. It was full of laughter, wet people, and people chasing others with buckets of water. The members had a great time, bonded a lot, but unfortunately nobody brought a non-member friend, so unfortunately not much missionary work was done, but it was till a good time.

Later we had a stake activity, it was a little concert/talent show in this park in another area. It was pretty cool, we proselyted in the streets nearby the hours beforehand inviting people to it, but it was a pretty poor turnout unfortunately, mostly just missionaries there haha, but still a good time.

Yesterday we had church, and also had a dinner with the Bishop and his family. My family and a handful of others will get this, but our bishop here is the Portuguese spitting image of President Fomby in all forms of personality and humor, it was a really funny time, got some references too.

Some side notes:

-Forgot to mention this last week, but I got spat on (oh no!). We were waiting for an elevator in a tall apt building. I looked up the stairwell just to look, and there were some heads up there looking down, and whaddya know some spit landed right next to my tag. A little frustrating, oh well, but actually a bit more funny than frustrating. A couple weeks back a bird pooped on my nametag haha, I guess Ive just got good luck.

-When I want to say "I dunno" I still habitually say "buh", the italian way to express the same thing. When I do this people just look at me weird and then I realize it and say "Eu não sei" haha.

Anyways, I think that wraps it up. Hope you guys enjoy.

The Church is true!

Até logo,

Elder Ward

ps- its really hot

18 July 2016 Flippin' Tourists

Dear Friends and Family,

Word to start today is 

Side note, Ive got little time today to write, so might be a little short...

Okay lets get to it... Last pday, after writing early in the morning, we headed to Sintra, a super-touristy area of Portugal. Lots of old stuff, architecture, buildings, you name it. Lots of typical tourists, straw hats, sunglasses, hawaiian shirts... the usual. But there we saw some pretty cool stuff. We paid 4€ for entrance into this, to be frank, couple-centuries-old-rich-guys-property with like 7 houses and gardens and stuff. It was cool and all, but after having travelled so much in Europe (thanks mom and dad) to so many other centuries-old-wealthy-constructions it was almost like watching a re-run on tv. But hey, it was fun and still a good time. 

Anyways Ive got some bullet notes I wrote down to share. Prepare for poor chronological organization.

--We were knocking doors, and weve knocked a lot our 4-5 weeks here in Póvoa. Turns out, we knocked the same apt building twice, and as we walked away, this old man on his balcony made sure to let us know he never ever wants us to come back. We obliged, and wished him a good afternoon. 

--We had... oh gosh, i guess youd call it a "split" or "division" in english, but in Português its divisão. The zone leaders came to our area after a district meeting, and they switched companions with E. Marques and I. It was fun, I spent the day working with Elder Kaelberer (i think), a good missionary from Utah, likes to ski. Sums him up. It was a really good experience and I learned a ton. I learned that there are many different ways to do missionary work, E. Kaelberer preferred the "bold and straightforward" technique, it was fun to watch. I was also technically the senior companion for the day, so I was responsible for leading the charge, which was different, Ive been accustomed to usually just following Elder Marques. But responsibility fell on me and we had a good day. E. Kaelberer often just remained quiet (on purpose) to provide me the opportunity to really practice, and I learned that I am capable of a lot more than I thought I was, I did a lot of contacts/conversations by myself, it was good. Towards the end of the day, we stopped by our flat to grab some water, and I locked the keys inside. It was really funny, we kinda just sat there like "ugh this just happened" but we got it figured out, the landlord (or lady?) stopped by with another key to let us in.

--One day I was super confused over a grammatical point in Portuguese, I wont go into detail,but 

I spent 40 minutes or so straight with E. Marques discussing it, dont worry, it made sense afterwards haha.

--Every Thursday night we have a little english class, we invite recent converts, investigators, so on to come by. This thursday nobody showed up, so as we were about to leave, this guy named Vito, who we met the day before (he said he was catholic and didnt want anything to do with us) just walked in to the chapel, and we taught him the Restoration. It was a really good lesson, and it was just a little coincidence/miracle that was cool to see. He accepted it well, but towards the end he said he doesnt want to leave catholicism.

It often happens like this with those we teach. They accept what we say, even agree saying things like "yeah, having a prophet today makes sence" or "yeah, there can only be one baptism with authority" but when push comes to shove, they dont want to act...

--E. Marques mentions sometimes the "Bible Bashes" he has, and I got to see a little one between him and a fella on the street. It was kinda lame though, really the guy just got so excited, and just showed us every scripture from the bible he knew saying "see!?" Made me chuckle.

Out of time... Need to catch a train. Im doing well, I am enjoying the work here. Its hard and challenging, but so fulfilling at the same time.

Thanks for the Emails, hope you enjoy.

Tchau,

Elder Ward

 Theres a library in one of the mansions in Sintra, and in it a missionary a couple years back placed a book of Mormon. Now, missionaries, for tradition, sign it when they visit. Dont look for mine, its on the next page, but yeah pretty cool!

11 July 2016

Dear Friends and Family,

Todays word is "gol", meaning simply "goal". Why? Well, because there was a goal. Duh.

     Anyways last Pday we headed to a little park that was in another area and had a good little picnic/get together with some other missionaries from our district. It was a good time. One Sister there managed to bring a Ukulele with her on her mission (unfair) but she had it there and I got to play it. It was fun playing it, and I realized its actually been a little while since the last time I did! I think today marks 2 months since leaving home.
     We sat there and I would play a song that everybody knew and theyd sing along it was cheesy and all that. But it was really funny too, after one song someone said something like "oh I miss this or that thing". That person was quickly accused of being "trunky", a term used to describe a missionary feeling a bit of homesickness. Whenever I see "trunkiness" or hear the word in general I just laugh because maybe Im rude, but I think it can be funny. Imma fresh greenie, I know, but it cracks me up seeing anybody kinda mope over home because, maybe Im lucky, or insensitive, but that stuff just dont bother me! Theres a couple missionaries who will go home soon, including Elder Marques, and it gets to their heads sometimes, but Ive still got 22 months ahead of me, sweet.

     Our ward is super cool. I was sitting in sacrament meeting the other day, looked around, and it didnt occur to me earlier, but basically half of the ward is African, which is pretty awesome. Many of the strongest members are African, and its just really cool and inspiring to see members of the church from so many different places and backgrounds.

     This week E. Marques and I worked a ton. We noticed that the week before didnt yeild much profit, so we tried to do better this week. However, this week as well we didnt see a lot of easily recognizable success.
     We did a lot (a LOT) of walking around this week. We tried to hit a couple neighborhoods that we havent hit before -- neighborhoods further away. Unfortunately, its just tough sometimes to -- scratch that. We find people all the time, we talk with a lot of people, and usually by the end of the day we have 3 or 4 return visits set up. However, the Portuguese are just the types to not have solid schedules at all. Our biggest problem right now, to summarize, is no one is available (or willing to sacrifice some time for us), and no one is helping us out by following through with our visits.
     For example, we visited a lot of less-active members this last week, and others, like some old investigators. We would run into them on the street sometimes too. We had trouble scheduling visits with them, but we were able to get like 5 people to tell us they were coming to church this last Sunday... well, none of em showed up unfortunately. They told us right to our faces "yeah you guys are right, I will be there at church this sunday" basically. I can give names too: Edna, Margda, Lidia, Maximo, Aguinado, Cristiana, and probably a couple more. People are awfully nice, but they cant seem to remember the importance of going to church after we visit them and tell them about the importance of going to church...
      I know it appears like Im ranting, but I kinda am and Im kinda not too. Its a bit lame, but people have their agency, and their honest and busy schedules, so what happens happens.
     It can be discouraging at times, but this week E. Marques and I are going to try harder to not get down (not that we do) when people totally fall through with us. We will sometimes call someone and expext a fall-through, but this week we are going to exercise a bit more faith, and hopefully things will start coming together.

     We had a couple fun rejections this week. (Not sarcastic, I think theyre funny). We walked into this little property with multiple houses looking for a less-active, and this guy came out shooing us away with some lovely vocabulary (yeah I already know the swears haha) saying we didnt have permission to be there, etc, when it was pretty clearly a little "welcome, come in" porch-walkway thing. We just smiled and asked him if he knew were Blank Member lived and he just kept shooing us off. So, we were turning to leave, wishing him a good afternoon, when his wife comes around the corner too doing the same thing as her husband, but with a bit more fire in her eyes. Luckily, the man held her back (yeah she was coming for us haha). As we left, we waved goodbye, and he showed us his favorite finger in return.
     We walked away, I chuckled. Yeah its funny, and a bit serious at the same time. The point is everytime we suffer a moment like that, a moment of rejection, we are experiencing a fraction (a very small fraction) of what Christ experienced for us.

     In other news, Portugal won the Euro Cup last night, which is a pretty big deal. The game started at 8, and we were actually advised from our mission pres. to return home a bit early and just have a weekly planning session to avoid distractions. At 930, we could tell it had gone into overtime because the city was ghostly quiet, and then at 1015 or so Portugual scored (you could tell because the whole town cheered and honked their horns) and then the game ended at like 1030 or so. It was hilarious, the whole town was cheering.
     Picture a guy chilling on his sofa, watching his country play soccer. They win. To celebrate, he gets up, grabs his keys, gets in his car, and drives around the town blaring his horn yelling "CAMPEÕES" until 1130 at night. Yeah, thats exactly what happened.

     Oh, the language is still coming along really well. Im starting to understand more and more everyday. Whenever were walking, its often in silence, but Im always churning in my mind random things in Portuguese. Im always thinking of situations and circumstances and what I would say. So, oftentimes I just look up and break the silence, asking my companion how to say "spider" or something random like that.
     Im always practicing with him too. Im working on using subjunctive forms correctly, so whenever Im about to try something in subjunctive I kinda raise a finger and then afterwards ask if it was right, its kinda funny. Somtimes I just ask him to say a word like 5 times over just so I can get the pronunciation right. Then, I ask him to do it with a Portuguese accent haha.

     Anyways weve got some fun plans for today, were heading to the city center of Lisbon to see some stuff, I think, should be fun. To make time to do this however, we got up at 530 this morning, hence the early email. But should be fun!

     But yeah I think that kinda encompasses our week. We work a ton, we dont see a ton of profit (yet). I still really enjoy being here and working my butt off, its a challenge for sure, but I know its the right thing to do, it just feels right to be here and to spread the gospel.

I guess thats just about everything. Take care everyone.

Ciao,
Elder Ward

 The landscape here definitely reminds me a lot of Sicily, its just missing a massive volcano.

 We have this toaster that isnt automatic, so, I being forgetful, often have burnt toast for a snack.

This reminded me of Italy as well. It literally had 2 inches to spare in there.

4 July 2016 - Happy Bday Murica

Dear friends and family,

(I brought my camera this time!)

     I didnt start out last weeks email with a word, so last weeks word was "dinglehopper" and this weeks word(s) is "Michael Bay"

     Why Michael Bay? Because Im about to Michael Bay this letter, forget chronological and plot management, lets get strait to the action and explosions. (Ok bad joke. Another unorganized letter, but Im just trying to get the content out, aight? And no I havent seen any explosions here yet.)

     I noticed in the last email I didnt really explain how I am doing personally, although you might have been able to guess Im doing pretty well, which I am. Im not exactly jumping out of my seat all the time and bouncing off the walls, but I do really enjoy what Im doing here. Its a lot of work, a lot of time, a lot of energy, but its just such a good experience. And Ive got so much more to go!

     So Elder Marques and I are doing well. We get along just fine, we work hard and he helps me a ton with the language and stuff. We have our laughs and joke around sometimes too, its just a good time.

      Every night we make our plans for the next day. I dont know if I mentioned in the last email, but Elder Marques and I are doing a "whitewash". This is when a companionship is new to an area, and thus has to hit the ground running, but just stumble instead because we dont know much about where we are. We dont know the ward, the area (things like barber and drycleaner are still unknown) but just things like that, makes it a bit tought to get started.

     So what we do is use our lovely area book and ward records to find addresses and people to visit. We then use a map and head over there. We normally try to visit ex-investigators, recent-investigators, recent converts, and less-active members. There are a lot of people to visit basically.

     What normally happens is we jot down like 10 or so people to find and visit in our area throughout the day, and then we head there. Normally, they arent home, not interested, or too busy, so we sometimes jot down a return appointment. Oftentimes, things just fall through unfortunately. We can walk up to almost any person here and get an appointment because they can be so nice, but a lot of the time they just cease to exist when we try to contact/find them again. Eh. But is ok though because sometimes it actually works out!

     Whenever someone isnt home in their apartment (99% of everyone here in our area lives in apartment buildings) we just knock all the doors on our way out. Same rules apply, people are super polite, but oftentimes just not interested. Another thing, our area apparently is one of the most quiet areas in the mission... according to what I hear, which I believe, theres often hardly anyone outside.

     Anyways the language is coming along pretty good. I basically always understand Elder Marques. Ive trained my ears to understand his northern brazilian accent. Accents in English can be strong, but I think accents in Portuguese are like night and flippin day. I cant describe it all that well, but he definitely speaks different. For example, if a word ends in a vowel and then r, he just takes the r, rips it off the word, and chucks it out the window. So, when I ask him how to say an infinitive (which always ends in vowel-r) he gives me a response that would always confuse me. Then Id say, "não, o infinitivo!" and he just says the same thing! It was pretty funny. For example, "andar" - to walk. If I asked him for this, he would say "anda" and I would just shake my head because thats not an infinitive! Anyways Ive learned the differences and his little knacks with his accent, so now, so long as we are speaking on subjects/vocab that Im familiar with, I understand everthing he says. Other brazilians though, its worse, they change their "d"s and "t"s to "ch"s and yeah, sensible. Sometimes I catch E. Marques´s accent rubbing off on me, but I try to speak like the portuguese.

     But the Portuguese accent? Oh man. Ok, write a sentence in portuguese. Good, now remove half of the vowels. Good. Now remove a handfull of random consanants. Good. Now, lastly, speak the sentance through your nose as fast as you can... Thats the best way I can describe it, and yeah its a challenge to understand people here. I can understand portuguese on paper just fine. I already read my scriptures in portuguese quite often, but listening to them is a different ballgame. But, Im getting used to it. No worries, really.

     A fun example, I was confused by a word when I first got here... People would ask me where Im from, and I would use "vivia" which is past imperfect, meaning "I lived", but I was told to use a different word instead, which was really confusing. The verb was morar, which is conveniently close to the verb "morrer" which means "to die". I was confused, thinking they were asking me were I died, etc... Anyways it was one of the first words I learned.

    One more example, pao, and pão. First is pronounced "pow" and the second is different. Its a nasal A sound, so imagine saying "pow", but at the same time saying "uhhhhh", I dunno how to explain it, but its just another example of how pronunciation, and listening is key. (one means wood, the other bread.)

     So we had a meeting planned with Francisco, our ward mission leader, but it fell through because (and I spoke with him on the phone when he explained this) that he actually wanted to cancel because he wanted to watch the soccer game that evening instead.

     Yep, that´s the portuguese for you. Portugal won the game that night, and the whole city honked their horns, shouted out their windows, all that jazz, its hilarious.

     This week, we didnt have much success, to be frank. We have a couple people who have capability of progressing, but because of schedules, they are hindered. A little disappointing, but no matter, we keep working.

    Theres a young, probably 16 year old guy who was baptized a couple months ago, and we work with him sometimes. Hes super funny and energetic. I can describe him really easily: he looks exactly like tarzan. Anyways haha, weve taught him a couple times now, and this week we also had a little FHE with him, another recent convert, Suzette, and a member, and the Sister Mishies. We had a good time, played Uno, had a spiritual thought. It was good.

     This week in sacrament meeting, we had testimony meeting. It was so great. The members here are so firm, its astounding. It was good. Next time Ill probably share mine. Also, later in priesthood, the bishop (once again) couldnt help mentioning the week´s soccer game...

     Its getting awfully hot now. Ive accepted the fact that I will be sweaty and disgusting for the next 3 or 4 months. At night I would sleep without sheets, but I have to use one otherwise I will be eaten alive by the skeeters. Speaking of which, I totally jinxed myself last week. This week, I got probably 20 bites, as well as bedbugs (resolved, mostly). So yeah, of course in my first transfer stuff like that would happen. I have to sleep with a fan blowing over my face, or Ill still get chewed. I would close all the windows, but then Id die, do you see my dilemma? I also forgot to mention that E. Marques snores, like a train. Its bad. So yeah, sleep can be a little tough to get, but Ill live.

     Todays pday, obvoiusly, and being July 4th, we plan on taking the train down to another area and rendezvou-ing (butchered it again didnt I) with other mishies from our district to have a little get together. We plan on roasting hot dogs and just relaxing for a bit (but a bonfire doesnt make sense on a 95º day at noon, does it?) So be it, its always fun to get together with the other missionaries.

     We also had a zone meeting this week, which was a good time, learned a lot, met some other mishies.

     Oh, almost forgot a cool story. We were in Via Longa (I lied, our area is prob half the size of Temec) just knocking doors, and we went to look for a guy we met named Marco Paolo (so close, right?). We found his place, and well, it was a bit run down. It was near poverty, really. It was off a little dirt road between a couple apt buildings. There, we knocked, and found his mother, Maria, who has actually already been baptized, but never went to church for a long time. She was baptized 20 years ago, and showed us a photo. We sat down with here, next to her (rather, how can I say this nicely, sickly?) dogs and cats, just outside her house. We chatted, and she was tough to understand, I mean, cmon, Im two weeks in and shes only got half her teeth...

     Anyways, she has such a warm heart. She expressed how much she loved the church and the Elders that baptized her nearly 20 years ago, and we shared a little message with her. She claims she cant go to church because of her bad knees, but well get here there somehow. She also gave us the contact for her 5 kids, and we will find them too and help them out in the ways we can. It was really cool.

     Oh and LAST thing, the sisters in our area had a baptism, and we went on Saturday to it! It was cool, a teenage boy from africa named Lili, was baptized. It was super cool. It was also really funny becuase the font was somehow too hot (idk how) and we spent an awkward 15 minutes adding cold water with buckets.

Anyways, hope yall enjoy and are well. Thanks for all the emails.

Ciao,

Elder Ward

Elder Marques and I the day we met

A convenient tool when we arrived in our apartment

 (disregard the incorrect date)

​I would attach more but I gotta run to catch a train!!! see ya!

27 June 2016 Chaos

Dear Friends and Family,

Okay. Firstly just to start off with some good ol´ disappointment I gotta let you guys know I forgot my camera at our apartment, so no photos this week. (I am just as mad as you are) But next time I wont forget, stay tuned, there will be some sweet photos!

Also a heads up, the keyboard Im using is Portuguse so the layout is different, and I dont know where the apostrophe is and I guess I dont really care too haha. So if you see random weird letters or misspellings (because it doesnt have english spellcheck on) just dont mind them.

Anyways whoa I have a lot to write and virtually no time at all. Weve been busy. This will probably be poorly organized.

So we left the MTC at like 4 am on a bus, then on a train to the Salt lake Airport. From there, we flew to Cincinnati. While we were having a layover there, some Sister Missionaries from my district started teaching this guy for like an hour it was really cool... Then we flew to Paris. When we arrived there we had to go through security again and then international arrivals/customs. The line was super long and didnt move at all, so we actually missed our flight. It was great.

So, after a time of confusion and panic, we finally got help and called the mission travel office (after I lost 10€ in the payphone) and got rescheduled flights. Well, with this lovely deal we also got a 13 hour layover... It was horrible. The airport there was literally built like a greenhouse, and it was a hot muggy day. So, I nearly died basically (europeans dont do AC btw). So, after a long and torturous 13 hours, we got up and boarded our plane (which was conveniently delayed an extra 45 minutes). We finally landed in Lisbon at about midnight local time, and I had gotten vitrually no sleep in the 37 hours in which we had been travelling (thatºs right we kept track).

We were greeted by the mission president, President Talvares, his wife, and 4 Elders who were like his assistants or something. They drove us to the mission home, a pretty nice place where we promptly crashed. The next day (we were allowed to sleep in till 10am, what a treat right) we then got up, studied, and ate lunch with the President and his wife. We talked, and then had a couple random little meetings/discussions, then we were each individually assigned our companions and our areas.

(Drumroll please)

My companion is... Elder Marques! Hes brazilian, and doesnt speak english!! Woot! So yeah, I basically haven~t spoken english since arriving (my mission presidents dont know english either!) Its great, and will be great practicing my Português a friggin ton with him (already have). I got assigned to the Póvoa mission, and I have no idea where I am in the country its great!

So I rendezvouzed (butchered that one for sure) with him sometime in the afternoon on Thursday, and we took a couple trains for probably an hour or so, and walked probably 1.5 miles with my luggage. Elder Marques is also new to this area, so they call it a "whitewash" when missionaries are completely flushed and replaced in an area. So, our first week has been interesting, because I definitely dont know where to go and who to visit or what to do. Elder Marques also doesnt have a lot of information about the area, so we sometimes get a little hindered by our lack of knowledge.

But anyways, as soon as I put my luggage down in our little apartment (just him and I), we turned around and left for our chapel (which luckily isnt too far, probably 1/4 mile) and taught a lesson to a recent convert with some sister missionaries... so yeah right to it. I actually understood a lot of the lesson, and even spoke a little too! So im not compçletly useless! We then taught a little English class with him and another recent convert who came by later. It was cool, I helped out a little.

But yeah since that day weºve been super busy. A bit about Póvoa, its a ways outside Lisbon (i think), and its a couple neighborhoods about the size of probably Temecula, but with apartment buildings. Itºs not like packed to the teeth, things are a bit spread out. Its really hot, Im constantly sweating. Its a bit of a hilly area too, which doesnt make things fun.

Our day usually goes something like this, get up, eat, excersize, study, and we usually get out and about around noon (im simplifying a lot). Then, to proselyte, we usually pick people to visit, whether it be recent converts, former investigators, members, or less active members. We plan to visit these people, often times they are not home or busy, so then we just ring all the doorbells in that apartment on our way out. About half open it up, and about half of that half even listen to what we have to say, and then a small part of that portion actually (usually very hesitantly) accept a return appointment. The people are awfully polite here though.

So our area kinda has two halves, about with a gap between them of about a mile of just unused land... so lots and lots of walking, in the heat. There are lots and lots of africans here, people from Capo Verde (i hope thats right), Mozambique, and other places. Then, of course, lots of portuguese people too obviously.~

So my companions native tongue is portuguese, so, he does a lot of talking. He knows the "small talk" i guess in port., so sometimes I cant even seem to butt in to speak. Admittedly, I do have a chunk of nervousness about it, but I try. Ive definitely improved from the first day. I learn so much every day.

Okay I need to finish up, sorry about this email.. I wish I had more time and photos to attach, but I just got no time! (and no camera!) So, heres a little bullet list of things I wrote down to remember to share

-Portugal reminds me a ton of italy, and Im not having much trouble adjusting to the whole "Europe" thing, been there, done that.
-Port. names here are super weird, and becuase of that I often forget them
-We taught a guy named Casimiro, a fella who dubbed his cigarette as soon as we came in. He had been taught before in the past, but we taught him again, it was cool. He seemed pretty promising, but heºs going back to africa soon, so we cant keep teaching him. We asked him to pray at the end of the lesson, and he prayed for the Port. soccer team haha (they had a game at the time)
-We had a walk-in lesson with a guy named Daniel (i just contradicted myself with the names thing didnt i) but he was also pretty cool. His toddler son really liked the light-up feature on my watch. We have a return appointment with him.
-When port. has a soccer game, the world stops here. The other night, port. scored at 1030 pm and the whole city cheered and honked there horns and stuff. When it was over, I saw 5, I kid you not, 5 people in 5 different windows of an apartment building stick their heads out of their windows to discuss the game
-they love soccer btw
-We stopped by a soccer field to watch some members of ours play for an activity for a bit, and they had cannons for legs. they can kick hard like holy cow.
-Elder marques can cook really good, what a blessing really
-the bishop in church couldnt help mentioning the soccer game from the night before in his opening announcements for sacrament meeting
-church on sunday was good, about 40-50 members, good strong people
-Lots of people have pet birds, and just set there cages on their balconies, just letting them chirp away
-One of the first miracles Ive experienced here is that I only have 3 mosquito bites!!
-Everyone shakes hands here super weak. Itºs like shçaking a dead fish, dunno why.

Alright, basta, I cant take any longer. Photos and more next week.

Ciao,
Elder Ward