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
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.
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