Elder Ward in the City of the Seven Hills - Lisbon Portugal Mission: 4 July 2016

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