26 September 2016 - Elder Ala

Dear friends and family,

Today´s word is EPA! which is a really funny word the portuguese use. Its an expression/interjection type thing, used kinda how we use "man" or "wow". I think its awfully funny.

Anyways this week was pretty cool. I dont have a ton of time unfortunately (kinda almost all the time, sorry) so I´ll get right to it.

Joelson and Clara are super cool. We found them last week, and had the opportunity to teach them this week, 4 times. They loved it, soaked it all up. They have really been prepared by the Lord to hear about the restored gospel. We invited them to be baptized, and they accepted. 

In one of our following visits, we discovered that they arent married...which is a huge bummer, meaning they cant be baptized until they are married... Now things are a bit complicated with them, but they still have a strong desire. They live 30min by foot from the chapel, and they walked to get there because they didnt have money to use the bus. We walked with them to show them the way, because they recently moved here from Brazil. Their daughter´s feet hurt, so Joelson carried her the whole way... they really wanted to go to church. Our ward was very warm and welcoming. Joelson and Clara really enjoyed it. They asked about next week, and I told them about General Conference... and guess what, were taking them to see conference next week haha! Weve already taught them a lot. They say that we can stop by every night around 8 to give them a visit. They gladly have us over and give us food every time. They are very nice people.

Anyways, there is more I could talk about, but Im short on time unfortunately. Lets make a quick list:

-We contacted this man named "Magnatão". Strange name, right? Well, when I asked him to repeat his name when I didnt get it the first time, he pointed to the wall of a building next to us, and there it was, his name written with spray paint. I asked him who wrote that, and he laughed, "me! Duh!" It was pretty funny.

-Elder Fletcher does a lot of funny things, to be brief he could be compared to napoleon dynamite

-"Contipação" you would guess means "constipation" but it acutally means having a stuffy nose. So, when I was a bit sick last week, I was confused because I thought people were asking me if I was constipated.

-"ala" means "ward", so sometimes the members here call me Elder Ala.

Anyways, short and sweet. I got out the most of what I wanted to say. I gotta run.

Ci vediamo,

Elder Ward

19 September 2016 - Shoes

Dear friends and family,

Todays word to start off our fun email is novo meaning new because this week has been full of a lot of new experiences.

Well, it was a pretty interesting week for sure. Last Monday we spent our Pday arranging our transfers. I said goodbye to Elder Marques, and recieved my new companion, Elder Fletcher. We arrived in our area, only had time to buy groceries, and immediately started our work for the evening. It went decently. Elder Fletcher and I have been together for a week now, so weve had a bit of time to get to know each other better. He´s a really nice guy, very polite, but also quite timid. Im used to working with Elder Marques, who is rather bold and daring. I inhereted a lot of things that he used to do, so Elder Fletcher and I are actually quite contrasted in the way we work. I like to walk right up to somebody, shake there hand, ask them how theyre doing, hows their day, and immediately testify that the church of Christ has been restored to the earth. Elder Fletcher takes things a bit slower  and quieter (literally) and usually seems to just try to leave a card with them.

I dunno, I think Im just not used to working with someone in such a different way. Im not complaining, hes a great guy, we just do things differently. We get along just fine, hes actually a pretty funny guy.

So Ive been in this area since the beginning of my mission, about 3 months. I know it well, I know a lot of people in the street by name, streets, building numbers, addresses, cars and where they are always parked, shortcuts, and so on. Its pretty convenient being familiar with everything, but it can also be a hinderance. Elder Marques and I knocked nearly every single door in our area already, so this week, and the weeks to come, Elder Fletcher and I have been patching up the holes were we havent worked, and now we are re-knocking the same places to try and find new people.

Anyways they call it "leading the area". My companion doesnt know anything about this area, so I lead virtually all we do. I plan our days. I navigate. I make a lot of our phonecalls. Along with this, because Elder Fletcher is a bit timid, I lead the lessons and conversations we have with people. Its a great learning experience. Elder Marques, being a native speaker, used to do a lot of the inbetween-the-gaps talking, but know Ive filled that spot, Im learning to really just have lots of normal conversations with people, along with leading lessons. Im not trying to toot my own horn at all, or say anything bad about my companion, Im just realizing that Im actually capable of doing a lot, and I love the new challenges and space to fill.

This week we taught a number of people. Notably, we taught an African woman named Lua, meaning moon. She was pretty cool. She´s got a bit of a lazy personality, so getting her to really do what we invite her to do could be challenging, but we´ll see. I think she has potential, she seemed relatively receptive to what we taught her.

However we had a bit of "meh" days, in which we worked and searched and knocked but didnt get results. Sunday came around, and we had a lovely lunch with an African sister from our ward. I tried this crazy hot sauce/spread she made, and it was crazy good. She was very nice, and gave us some names and numbers of people to visit.

We then started working afterwards but found that we were seeing the same results, nobody interested in hearing us... Eventually, 9pm rolled around (in our mission we work until 9:30pm) and I was just out of ideas. We had been knocking doors for hours at this point. Elder Fletcher, a bit frustrated too, said "man, lets just get one name written down tonight. Lets knock this building". So we did. At the end, a very nice Brazilian couple with a daughter of 7 or so years opened the door. The woman, Clara, said "oh I saw you guys outside and was just talking to my husband about you, how you guys leave your families to do missions and stuff... you´re the mormons right? I remember seeing a lot of you in Brazil..." Anyways, we chatted with them about who we were, why we were there, and what we had for them. She asked out of the blue "wheres your guys´s church? we oughtta go there this sunday". Anyways, we entered and talked for just a bit, (it was late, we had a 30 min walk to return home, and they recently moved here so they didnt even have electricity, they insisted we save a lesson for another time). We plan to visit them this week and teach them. In all my mission (yup, my massive accumulated quantity of experience) Ive never seen people so nice and interested to learn. Im excited to teach them this week! (Ive heard stories like this before that fall through, so Im not getting my hopes up too dangerously high haha)

Anyways, yeah, what a great experience. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like serving in Brazil haha, I hear everyone is like that.

But yeah, it was really a treat, a blessing that the Lord gave us. I will try my best to be the best servant I can be to the Lord, to bring them the opportunity to accept the gospel in the correct manner.

In other news, I got sick again this week. Started on wednesday, and has hung around, but steadily decreased, until now. Some sinus-infection/head-cold/cough type thing, its annoying. I really didnt want to stay in our flat to rest. We left everyday this week to work, and Im glad we did.

Ive had problems with shoes here lately. Europe just doesnt really sell shoes in my size, I only found 1 pair here so far, and they arent the most "missionary-friendly", or that is, they hurt. I used them all last transfer, and destroyed them until I was walking on my socks, making a total of 3 pairs already destroyed in my mission.

I think I finally found a solution though. I took my 3 pairs to a "capateria" or shoemaker, and he was able to repair 2 pairs (pictures below. He couldnt repair 1 pair because they were destroyed too much and too big). He shined, polished, and literally made them like new. It was really cool, he just has a little itty bitty shop on a street corner with his tools and supplies, and he just fixes tons of shoes for a living! So, he told me when I dropped them off that each pair would be 20€. I thought "welp, its better than a €60-80 new pair that´ll die in 6 weeks". It was a good bargain. In 3 days, they repaired with new soles, like new, and he gave me a 5€ discount just because he thought we were nice guys, totalling for €35 for basically 2 pairs of hand-repaired brand-new shoes haha. Anyways, for now, Ive got no problems with shoes! Oh, and when I got there, he offered to let me switch my shoes immedieately. I did, and he shined the shoes I had on previously haha.

Weve already talked to him about the church once before, hes not interested. We mentioned it once more and he said "no, Im faithful to God, to the catholic church, and to my soccer team I support". Needless to say, he´s pretty funny and stubborn at the same time. Knowing that he knows a lot of people in town, I asked for references too, but got none unfortunately. He said that he´ll let us know if he finds somebody who wants to talk to us. Gotta take advantage of every opportunity!

Elder Marques always did the cooking when we served together, and he did it good. Now, the mantle rests a bit more on me! Elder Fletcher can cook, but lately Ive been preparing more meals. Its going pretty good, Im learning haha.

In all things, the Lord provides a way! Thats one thing I definitely thought about this week! I really enjoy what Im doing here, even though at times there are patterns or disappointments. Its so great to just try my best and see what the Lord provides for us. (The Church is true guys)

Take care everyone,

Elder Ward

12 September 2016 Four

Dear Friends and Family,

Todays word is "fresca" meaning fresh, because Im now starting a fresh transfer (same area) with a new companion, Elder Fletcher (Ill talk more about him later).

Its been a very quick and very long week at the same time. Earlier in the week we had a zone conference, and afterwards, Elder Welch, an assistent to the Mission President did a division with us, making us a trio for the day. He really set a good example that day, and brought some fresh energy. That day we probably talked with a hundred people and taught 3 lessons. It was pretty sweet. It got me pumped to just go out every day and talk with everyone, because before that E. Marques and I were a bit, not discouraged, but we were finding the work in our area a bit stale. It helped a lot.

During that time, and the day after we met with and taught a bunch of people. Nuno, received the first two lessons in two days, accepted baptism and everything, but called us the next day saying that his beliefs and ours just didnt agree. He appreciated our time and efforts, and wished us well, but said he wanted us to use our efforts elsewhere. A bit lame, but its alright. (Do I dare say, easy come, easy go?) Just to get a bit more "bad news" out of the way, Eulalia, the woman I mentioned in the last email, unfortunately has fallen through. We tried calling her, and she said she just didnt want more, when she would like she will ask... so yeah. But we keep going! Really, its a good thing because we have more time to find the truly elect.

We taught an african woman named Okinka, a younger african teenager named Vania, and her aunt Zenaida (all of these at different times). These people all loved the restoration when we taught it, its just now its tough to find them at home to teach them again. People really dont look busy here, but it seems they are. Hopefully we can find some of them this week and help them progress!

This week we also passed two days working with two young men from our ward. One is Isaque (Isaac) who was baptized 5 or so months ago. He´s pretty cool, he enjoys passing time with the missionaries. We went proselyting with him twice now. Its really helpful having a third male body, it lets us enter any house to teach! However, Isaque unfortunately is "tempted" so to speak by the Jehovah´s Witnesses, who are pretty common in our little area. He is intrigued by their "deep knowledge" and bible. Its hard to help him when he is so drawn to the "wisdom of men".

Lili is a young african teenager two who was baptized only about 2 months ago, I attended his baptism. He is really cool, he helped us out for a day and even helped as we taught. Hes got a very strong testimony, and its so strong because its so focused in the book of mormon (pro tip). Yeah, it was useful and fun doing a day of proselyting with him. We will probably try to integrate him and Isaque more in the future.

In other news, its my first day of my 3rd transfer. I am no longer being officially "trained", but Im sure I will still learn a lot. Today we went to the mission office, and I left Elder Marques there with his bags, and returned to my area with my new companion. 

To be honest, I didnt think it would be hard to do the whole switch-companions thing, but it was actually pretty tough. I am very grateful I had Elder Marques as my first companion. He was so helpful, patient, funny, and most importantly he set a very good example of obedience and hard work for me to follow, even until the last day of his mission. Speaking of his last day, while returning home we climbed a big hill to get a view of the sunset, it was nice and had a great view, will bring pictures of it later.

But yeah, I got back to my new area with Elder Fletcher. He is an American, and hes got a bit in common with me. His father is Air Force, so he too moved around a lot in his live. He lived, most notably, in Japan, Germany, and Holland. Hes got a bit more than a year in his mission. Ive only been with him for a few hours, I still need to get to know him, but he seems pretty cool. Hes seems a bit quiet and shy (maybe Im used to the opposite, Elder Marques was not), but Im sure well get along well.

But yeah, we got to our house, and we dropped his luggage, and I realized he would be thirsty, so I went to the kitchen to get him a cup, but we only have 2, so I washed Elder Marques´s cup for him to use. Thats when it kinda hit me, I realized "man, Im not going to work with Elder Marques anymore"... I made some good memories with him in this area, so this area will always remind me of him. Ill miss him for sure. He was a great companion. But hey, the only constant in life is change, and it happens constantly in the mission haha.

Anywayyys, I think that sums it up. Luckily didnt have too much time pressure today, so I got some more content out. Hope yall enjoy.

Ciao,

Elder Ward

Oh, the title of the letter is Four because I just hit my 4 month mark in the mission! Twenty more to give it my all. Vamos lá!

For Pday the week before we went with our district to this really cool aquarium in Lisbon. It was very impressive. It had one massive tank, and all the other exhibits rotated around it. Sharks, mantas, tuna, just everything. 

 Heres the outside of it, it sat on the water in a bay, its pretty massive.

 ​They had other exhibits with penguins, otters, even birds.

 Heres the last photo I took with Elder Marques today

 And heres a darn quick photo I took of Elder Fletcher, my new companion just now (missionary work is very tiring haha)

5 September 2016 Sorry

Dear friends and family,

The word of the week is "desculpa" because I was so darn short on time last week to that I didnt write an email.

These last couple weeks have been full of work and heat. We walk and knock and talk all day. A number of interesting things have happened recently, its been a good time.

Weve been working very "thuroughly" in our area. Weve been here for 11 weeks now, and we can almost say that weve knocked every door. We are starting to see a lot of familiar faces, people weve already talked to, patterns of the same people in the same places at the same times... Its a small town haha.

One day we were walking and a woman of 50 or so years approached us from behind and asked us straight up about our church. She said "oh you guys are the mormons right?" There we talked with her for about a half hour, explaining things and such. We tried to schedule a time to meet with her and have a lesson, but she was reluctant and wouldnt accept. She said she doesnt want to commit time like that, schedule complicated etc (common excuses). But she did express some interest though, so we left her with a Restoration pamphlet, our contact, and chapel address and time. She said shed pass there one day, but we´ll see. To end our chat with her, we offered a prayer together. At the end, she had a tear on her face... I think she was touched by the things we did and explained. Hopefully she will remember that conversation and experience, and maybe show up a church one day.

The work has been getting repetitive and difficult lately, not going to lie. Its september and still piping hot, and a lot of the people we have taught are just disappearing. We keep going though, we are constantly doing something to find someone new.

One night at about 8, all of our plans had fallen through, we hadnt taught anyone or had any good success that day. We stopped, and thought for a bit as to what we could do. we had already knocked every building in the vicinity, and it was late, so virtually no one was in the street to talk to.

We offered a prayer asking for help and guidance... After which I just said, (because literally nothing was coming to my mind) "meh, lets go over there to that park. Maybe someone will be there to talk to."

We went, and found only one person there, a woman of about 50 or so years walking her dog. She had her earphones in and was walking kinda hastily, so I didnt really want to try. Usually in circumstances like that, they just keep walking. Luckily, Elder Marques talked with her. She was very nice. Her name is Eulalia. We wrote down her address, set a time, and we returned later that week and taught the first lesson to her and her husband. They soaked it up pretty well. They have catholic blood, like a lot of portugal, but they enjoyed the message and accepted the BoM very well. She came to church the next day, and seemed to enjoy it.

But thats not all. Last week in a district meeting, Elder Marques shared the experience that we had finding her, and said that I said "lets go to that park. There will be someone walking there dog there". The crazy part is how specific that was... and I dont remember saying that. I was out of ideas, so I just blurted that idea. I double checked with E. Marques later, and he said that that was exactly what I said, that there would be someone walking there dog... pretty cool.

Unfortunately we havent been able to manage another visit with her and her husband... thats the challenge here.

Another cool thingy, we were knocking doors and a woman of 40 or so years opened. We explained who we were, the basic doorway greeting and chat. She immediately said she didnt want anything to do with a new church... I butted in and explained that our purpose isnt to force religion on people or something like that, but to provide people with an appropriate opportunity to learn and discover for themselves of the truth of the Restored Gospel...

She then said that we could work out a time. A week or so later we taught her the first lesson, and she also enjoyed it. We´re gonna get her a BoM in Russian (her first language, shes from Moldavia, but speaks portuguese well, her name is Natasha.) Anyways, I thought that was cool too.

One door we knocked, a lady opened up, gasped, and just slammed it. Elder Marques then said as we walked away "Eu não sabia que eu era tão feio" (I didnt know im so ugly) It was pretty funny.

Another day Elder Marques fell asleep in the middle of Companion Study. Hes ending his mission this next week, and hes awfully tired hahah. Hes served a long and tiring mission for sure. We were praying, and I ended and looked at him waiting for an "amen" but he was out cold for like 5 minutes afterwards. I just chuckled. We still work hard though. Good stuff.

Ive got more to share, but Its gotta wait for next week. So heres a couple cool experiences. Enjoy!

Ciao,

Elder Ward

I saved a tub of icecream for just one night... Was a good night haha

 We went bowling, and there was a feature to chat with other lanes with this little tablet on each lane. Being missionaries, this was worth a shot. (they didnt reply haha)

 And a super serious and cheesy "im bored" selfie

 and this was funny